Camy Hits the Beach

That title sounds like a movie from the 60s, doesn't it? Haha. Camy Tang's guest blogging today, and after reading about her adventures on the sand, you can enter to win a copy of her newest release, Only Uni, by leaving a comment.

Here's Camy:

This was an easy-peasy guest blog to write because Julie likes two of my favorite things—chocolate and the beach!

Growing up in Hawaii, we went to the beach fairly often. As a child, I burned within seconds of stepping onto the sand, so I had to endure that nasty coconut oil sunscreen (anyone remember that?) that smelled “okay” but felt like Mom was slathering snot on my body.

My mom is from Oahu’s North Shore, so we most often went to beaches in Haleiwa. When I was a child, they weren’t as crowded or as dirty as they are now, and even then, my parents preferred the quieter beaches further north up the coastline, near Waimea.

Those beaches usually only had a few local Hawaiian families rather than droves of tourists, and there was clean, bright sand to play in. My dad would go out snorkeling and leave my brother and me playing in the shallows. We both had had swimming lessons since we were two years old, and in those days, no one thought about the safety of leaving two kids playing on a beach, surrounded by a few other families, even though those people were strangers. We never got kidnapped, anyway.

The difference I noticed between Hawaii beaches and California beaches is the temperature. While Hawaii beaches are like sand-colored omelet pans sitting over a high heat burner, California beaches were more like sand-colored omelet pans sitting over a medium heat burner. Much easier on the feet, anyway, and even downright cold in winter.

Chocolate kisses in your pocket melt within 50 yards of a Hawaii beach (as I know from—ahem—personal experience) but you can actually eat a chocolate bar on a California beach without needing to drink it out of a cup. Before reading Julie’s book, I had never even put chocolate and the beach together because of my previous experience with Hawaii beaches (versus the lovely stretches near where she lives in southern California).

But why not? Two of my favorite things! Maybe next time I go back to Hawaii, I’ll eat a rapidly melting Fudgesicle on the beach in honor of Julie.

Camy Tang is the loud Asian chick who writes loud Asian chick lit. She used to be a biologist, but now she is a staff worker for her church youth group and leads a worship team for Sunday service. She also runs the Story Sensei fiction critique service. On her blog, she gives away Christian novels every Monday and Thursday, and she ponders frivolous things like dumb dogs (namely, hers), coffee-geek husbands (no resemblance to her own...), the writing journey, Asiana, and anything else that comes to mind. Visit her website at http://www.camytang.com/ for a huge website contest going on right now, giving away five boxes of books and 25 copies of her latest release, ONLY UNI.