Then it was back home for cake…

The last night at camp it rained, a lot! It was a good job I didn't need to get up in the night to pee, some clever improvisation would have been going on. Of course after the rainy night we woke to a beautiful day, now why couldn't we have had this weather the day before? 

And yes, that is snow on those mountains, we even saw snow up close in the various places we stopped at over the weekend, that tells me that we need warmer sleeping bags!

After breakfast we broke camp quite quickly and headed off home…

It was a loooong drive but we managed to miss any major traffic jams thanks to google maps. We stopped off at the supermarket and I picked up cake, if was my 7 year blogaversary after all! I was quite surprised to see a novelty cake here, which is odd, you would have thought the Japanese would go nuts for them!

So, that was that, Golden Week wrapped up for another year, our next camping date will be July! No need for winter sleeping bags then!

Toy's Kingdom…

The second full day at camp we decided to check out Toy's Kingdom. I think the park is actually better suited to younger children, there were lots of rides and Anpanman type of things going on. I should also say that I was feeling like death warmed up, so that may have clouded my judgement somewhat!

There were a few good activities for Ebi-kun, this was a wooded area with zip lines and giant swings plus rope ways and wobbly bridges. You get 30 minutes in there, which just happened to be the right amount of time!

Next up was the mini rollorcoaster, it loops around 3 times and I really don't think it was worth the 40 minutes wait time to get on…the boy may disagree!

Then we did the ferris wheel, Ebi-kun proclaimed that it was a baby one, after going on the London eye, I think most ferris wheels will now be babies. Did I mention how cold it was?

And I failed to get a photo of the best bit - a 3D maze. You have to pay an extra ¥500 each to go on but it was fun, it even got miss grumpy-pants here smiling for a while. Not suitable for those who are not very athletic! Lots of clambering and climbing, going up and down and finding trap doors. We all agreed that it was the best thing at the park. It does get super busy and we did have to wait quite a while to get in.

When we left the maze the heavens opened, at the point I really had had enough so we headed off for some lunch then the boys hit the onsen (thermal spring bath) normally I go in but I was feeling really rough at this stage.

Then it was back to camp for a slightly soggy BBQ and a really early night!

Cooking Camp Breakfast

One thing I do at camp which I never do at home is cook a full English breakfast. Yes, it's insane, at home I have all the equipment set up for an easy life but at camp I do it all on this little Trangia stove…

With the set you get 2 saucepans, a frying pan and we have a kettle too and it all fits inside each other. The stove runs on meths and it really light. I first started using one when I was in the scouts and we did a lot of hiking and mountaineering, I have to say, I love the little thing!

Now, to cook a full English, there is a lot of skill required…

First prepare everything so it's ready to go as soon as you light the stove. We usually have sausage, bacon, baked beans and scrambled egg. The baked beans are in the largest pan, the eggs are beaten and the sausage and bacon are ready. You also need to get your plates and cutlery ready before you start cooking, there is no temp control on the stove so you start there is no stopping!

1. Light the stove, cook the sausages first - they take the longest to cook and retain their heat the longest. When they are done, put them in the small pan and place the big pan with the baked beans in it over the top, to keep the sausages warm. 

2. Bacon, sometimes I add the bacon add the bacon to the sausages, depends on the space. When the bacon is done put them in the pan with the sausages and put the beans on the stove. Put the frying pan over the sausage pan as a lid and pour in the eggs.

3. Cooked the beans, when they are done, take them off the heat and put the frying pan back on the stove to cook the eggs. 

4. Whilst the eggs are cooking dish out everything else. Finally add the eggs to the plate. Put the kettle on the stove.

5. Sit down and enjoy your breakfast!

Camping Shenanigans…

We headed to the mountains in Gunma, near Karuizawa for this Golden Weeks camp and one of our bilingual playgroup families came with us. Sunday the weather was nice so we went to Oni-oshi-dashi which is a volcanic stone magma park.

The park was formed in 1783 when Mount Asama erupted, Oni in Japanese in devil and when the eruption happened the locals thought it was the devil throwing out the rocks from the mountain. Hard to believe these days…

It is a weird type of landscape, with large of strange shaped clumps of rock all around…

Two cheeky little devils…

After lunch Ebi-kun went fishing with N-kun, between them they caught 11 fish, it was the first time Ebi-kun had been and he was so excited that he had caught the biggest - not sure why N-kun is looking so glum (possible fed up of Ebi-kun and his big fish story!)

The people at the fishing place prepared the fish then N-kuns dad BBQ'd them. You know how much I love fish (not!) and I can honestly say that it absolutely stank! Ebi-kun loved it though and being aware of how food ends up on his plate is really important.

Dinner was more BBQ, admittedly after all that fish there wasn't much space for anything else, except…

 Giant marshmallows!

We also managed to squeeze in some educational stuff. He wanted to know how torches work - the type you would use if you were suddenly transported back to the middle ages, not the electric variety. A long stick, toilet roll and cooking oil did the trick! 

After all that we had a very tired little fella! It was REALLY bloody cold up there at night, so we ended up zipping the two adult sleeping bags together, and all getting in, Ebi-kun was in his sleeping bag in a bag! And we had extra blankets but it was still cold! Decent sleeping bags are going on my wish list for next year!