The many lessons I have learned while camping
in Japan:
1.
Cats are heartless creatures
who will steal your last chicken drumstick while giving you a look of pure disdain,
or even cat-burgle your potato salad purely because it can.
2.
Just as a watched kettle never
boils so an almost blown over tent will not tumble into the sea no matter how
hard my friend Josie stares at it.
3.
No matter how idiot proof
Roland makes the instructions, I will still put a tent together to look like an
abandoned witch hovel that bergies would be too ashamed to sleep in until he
comes to fix it.
4.
Metal pegs and a plastic hammer
do not work as well as one might think.
5.
Whenever we are in a crowd or
an onsen I will embarrassingly speak Japanese to my Korean friend, every friggin
time.
6.
When David says he will get
some fire wood he means he is about to deforest half of Japan.
7.
Camping in Japan is ridiculously
fun.
I think it was when we felt the second
vibrating tremor under our feet as we hammered in our first peg, that Roland,
Lauren and I realized that we had chosen to erect our tent on an old meteor crash
site. However, Roland was not going to let a little granite and diamond stop
him and his plastic hammer and so after a few muscle spasms and manly grunts he
Germaned his way into the ground.
The Nagasaki based campsite was beautiful,
with a grassy Frisbee field and an ocean filled with sharp rocks, jellyfish,
sea urchins and some weird muscles that one of our party members thought we
would eat if he cooked it. He was wrong. David and Minyoung were the second
couple to arrive along with their adorable baby who gave me nothing but suspicious
looks the entire weekend. Well that is not strictly true as he did flash me a
big smile when he saw that I was heading home. Damn kids and their ability to
tell who is scheming to kidnap them.
The second couple thought they would take
the scenic route past our campsite to the other side of Nagasaki prefecture,
because who doesn’t like an extra hour of driving before putting your tent up
in the dark. Luckily Josie and Mark made it in time for our first meal of eat
whatever comes off the grill, immediately. I think we ended up having chicken
for starters and garlic bread for dessert.
The next day dawned with a cup of stolen
coffee and a trip to the nearby onsen to wash some of the smoke out of our hair
and some of the bacon and egg grease from our hands. I know I say this all the
time but man I love to onsen! There is just something weirdly fun about being
naked outside, in a gorgeous stone hot-spring while talking to your girlfriends
about how boys can`t close a cupboard or find an object just slightly left of
their field of vision.
As the other campers went back to chill,
Roland, Lauren and I headed to the nearby Huis-ten-bosch theme park. Not only
does this perfect replica of a city found in the Netherlands appeal to my Dutch
sensibilities of eating chocolate and cheese, at this time of year it plays
host to the gardening world cup and a Van Gogh exhibit showing off fifty of his
works.
While I enjoyed looking at the amazing
little blocks of art that was the sculpted gardens, getting to see the actual paint
strokes of the artist I admire most in the world was one of those moments that
just gives my soul a good shake. I was biting back the tears as I stared into
that man`s eyes as he saw them and felt him wring every drop of emotion out of
me with a few well placed patches of colour. I bought a little overpriced fridge
magnet at the gift shop depicting one of his self-portraits so that every now
and then when I grab a block of cheese or put back the milk I get to have that
little chill of Goosebumps up my arms as I remember how it felt to see so much genius
a few inches from my face.
My intellectual introspection was very
short lived however as not five minutes after viewing this amazing exhibition I
found myself barefoot in an exact replica of the Royal palace of Amsterdam. You
see, Lauren had worn some pretty high heels to the park, not knowing that the
place is huge and so after many a kilometer her feet finally said no! She was
also wearing tights and so would have looked like even more of a crazy person
if she had no shoes on so after much protesting on her part I handed her my
slip on shoes and walked the fancy pants palace grounds, street urchin style.
Our last night once again saw the grills
lit and the meat marinating as all of us attempted a game called Geek challenge,
sponsored by the lovely Ducky that is currently living it up back in SA. Now I
don`t want to say that Josie and Mark cheated to beat team Froland but they
did, a lot! Our imminent defeat even made Roland brave enough to cry, `Noooooo
woman` when I hastily shouted out the wrong answer relating to the X-men.
Other than losing our ETC ticket for 10
minutes as we hit the toll booth while searching up a storm, the trip back was
all Belgian ice-cream and magic dumplings filled with curry and a soft boiled
egg. It really was a fantastic weekend and I am already looking for the next
campsite to be lucky enough to get a little visit from a few foreigners and one
suspicious little kid.
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