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!

Golden Week Camp PT 2 - German beer farm

When we go camping we usually take a day trip or two to a local event or attraction. My husband - a lover of beer discovered that there was a German Beer Farm not too far from where we were staying, so guess where we went?

 The place did look like a German market place and they had several beers and different food for sale.

It was a strange kind of 'farm' we had a go on the pedal boats - it is now clear why 7 years olds are not allowed to drive cars! We also tried our hand at archery and watched the sheep dog demonstration.

It was fairly busy but not depressingly so, we had some German sausages and potatoes for lunch, non of us were hungry enough to warrant going to the restaurant.

Ebi-kun also had fun on the big slide, you pay for 20 minutes of slip sliding fun. We realised that there were loads of other 'farms' dotted around, the Da Vinci farm sounded interesting, we will have to head back this way to find out about the others!

Golden Week Camp PT 1

We headed up to Gunma for this years Golden Week camp, it is a campsite we have been to before but we were there in the autumn last time. It is a nice site, well designed, clean toilets! There is no onsen or shower but they give you discount tickets for a local onsen. 

The only time we eat a full English breakfast is when we are at camp, I have a trangia stove which I LOVE (I used to have one back my scouting days, it is such a versatile little stove) and I have the whole full breakfast down to perfect now!

This Ebi-kun having his hobbit style seconds out in the morning sun. We were blessed with beautiful weather although it was COLD at night and we really need to get something warmer than the light weight sleeping bags that we have got at the moment.

The campsite has a good playground for the kids and on the last day (why do they always wait until the last day?) he made friends with some kids two tents down and they went to play there together.

Ebi-kun will probably say that learning to use a knife was the highlight of the trip, he is quite sensible for a kid but still a child so he is only allowed to use it with supervision for now, until we are happy that he really knows how to handle it properly.

The main drawback for this site is that the nearest supermarket is well, a glorified convenience store and the nearest big supermarket is about 40 minutes drive away. So even if you just want to hang out at the campsite all day, you still need to take a long drive out to get supplies. We combined it with a trip to the onsen. We got there when it opened but it was already busy - other campers with the same idea! Usually at an onsen there is a row of seats and showers for washing before you soak in the bath, because it was busy, all the indoor showers were busy so I was forced to use the ones in the garden area Brrrrr. 

Sunsets, beers and BBQ's, that's what it is all about! 

and of course roasted marshmallows or smores! can't wait until the next camp!

Musical Roads...

I have no idea if these are one of those 'only in Japan' things or not, if you know of a musical road outside of Japan, please let me know, I found it fascinating.

So, let me back-track a bit...we went camping in Gunma over the long weekend and on our way to the campsite we are driving along and suddenly this music starts playing, but it wasn't from a loud speaker it was coming from the road!

We encountered another one when we were out the following day, there are signs up saying that the musical road will start playing soon and it is made by grooves in the road - if you watch the video you can just about make them out, I don't really know how it works but it was pretty cool. We thought it would be funny to have the Darth Vader music or if you are near the sea the Jaws shark attack music, in fact you could have a lot of fun with these.

The video is very short and you will need to turn the sound up high....

I'll post about the rest of our camp soon, just trying to get back into the swing of things and work through the mountains of laundry and emails!

If you know of any other musical roads, please let me know!

*update - more info over here*

When Ebi-kun met Darwin...

We like to break camp early and head out before the traffic gets bad and then stop off somewhere on the way home. This time we decided to stop at the Gunma Prefecture Natural History Museum. We have been before a couple of years ago so Ebi-kun doesn't really remember it.

The museum is well done, the have a reconstruction of a dino dig and you stand on glass above it so you can see up close what it is like. There are quite a lot of things that you are allowed to touch and numerous computer quizzes dotted around the place. The Darwin room is cool, he is an animated puppet and talks about his work whilst sat in his office, scares the beejeebers out of people when he first starts talking. The only downside is that the museum has no food available, so if you plan to go either take something with you or eat before you get there.

It was really hot and there was NO one in the park but Ebi-kun wanted to have a go on the big slide, I found a picture of him on it last time too...

He then wanted to roll down the hill but gave up and decided running was better, what is it with kids being able to run around even if it is roasting hot?

Then we jumped back in the car only to get stuck in traffic due to an accident so we got back a bit later than planned. A fun weekend but it always takes me all week to catch up!

It is Ebi-kun's last day of school today, tomorrow summer holidays start proper! I need to make sure he has plenty to keep him busy when I am working, I feel some big juicy projects coming on!