"Camping" at Tanukiko
Hey, y'all! Well I'm finally back from Kyoto and it was amazingly cool! I'm exhausted, though. It rained for the better part of our stay there, so that was kind of a drag, but more on that later. Before I start my incredibly long post on Kyoto, I should probably post something else that I've been meaning to put up for a LONG time now. Sorry, guys. Give me a few days and you'll get way too many pictures of Kyoto.
So a few weeks ago, right before finals, I got an invite from my host family to go to Tanukiko (Lake Tanuki) over in Shizuoka Prefecture for some "camping." Now, I'm not going to go into this in detail. I try to stay very neutral in my blog because you never know who will accidentally stumble onto the Internet, right? So I'm going to skim over the entire trip and just post the pictures with commentary, because a lot of them were really cool. I've already ranted to several people about this trip, and I'm not going to go into it again now. If you really want the backstory of this, email me or something and I'll tell you all about it.
Anyways, they picked me up at about 10:30 Saturday morning and we drove for about an hour to get to the next prefecture over. I should probably introduce my host family at this point.
That's Minami-chan (the girl), Tamara-san (the mother) and Jun-chan (the little boy). The father, Makoto-san is kind of elusive and works a lot. I've only seen him a few times, and I didn't have my camera with me.
They're nice people. Sometimes, I'm a little thrown by Japanese customs and lifestyles, but I try to put up a wall between myself and my American perspective to keep it from getting to me. For example, I've been to a few different houses of Japanese families, and none of them use soap when washing the dishes. And half the time, it's not even warm water. Basically, to wash dishes (and this includes silverware and chopsticks), you rinse the dirty ones in cold water, swipe at them with a wet cloth, and leave them to dry. As someone who's borderline OCD half the time, this really makes my skin crawl. But I try not to think about it when eating. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to enjoy anything. It's my mantra, actually. Whenever I eat over there, I just go, Don't think, Don't think, don'tthinkdon'thinkdon'tthink....It usually works.
But I'm going off tangent. I was saying that my host family has been really nice to me, and I'm always touched by how far they go out of the way to accommodate me. I can only imagine how much money and effort they're putting into activities for my sake without me even knowing it.
We stayed at Tanukiko for one night, leaving mid-afternoon on Sunday. I didn't get to walk around much or really explore the area as much as I wanted, but I was able to take a few pictures in the brief time that I had to myself. Here are a few, for example.
That's Mount Fuji, just in case that wasn't clear. The lodge we stayed at had a great view of the summit. Mist and fog blocked most of the base until Sunday afternoon.
One of the first places I saw was a visitor/nature center at the entrance. It was pretty much the universal concept of a welcoming area, with cute activities for the kids to entertain themselves with as the parents waited. But the thing that amused me was on the back wall. A giant sign in red had a warning about bears being on the loose in the woods. Great. I kept that in the back of my mind when I was out by myself in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a camera and a 100 yen coin in my pocket. It only occurred to me later that it was winter and that they were probably hibernating at the time. Also, there were a bunch of stuffed animals scattered throughout the place. The raccoon-looking thing on the wall is actually a "Tanuki," the Japanese variety. They're what the lake is named for. I didn't see any, though.
Back to the hiking around. When I was off by myself, I took a LOT of pictures of the surrounding area. I probably have fifty of Mount Fuji alone from various angles. The backwoods were really pretty and absolutely no one was around. This was mid to late March, so everything was just starting to bloom and turn into Spring. I did find one deserted house out in the middle of nowhere, overlooking a ridge. Kind of creepy. There were signs around, but I couldn't read the kanji, so it could've been a warning about ghosts, for all I know. It looked like an old inn or something that had fallen into decay. I took a few shots and got out of there. By that point, I was far away enough that no one would be able to hear me scream. There were also about a dozen signs warning of bees and yellow jackets. If the scenery wasn't so gorgeous, I probably wouldn't have gone so deep into the woods and ignored the warnings.
Nice, huh? It's a real shame that I couldn't see more of it. The lake itself was across from the lodge and stretched back for quite a ways. When the weather was clear, you had a great view of the mountain over the water. A lot of people were out fishing, boating, and walking around the edges. The ducks were very well fed, I can assure you.
Okay, I said I wouldn't go into any detail about the weekend, but I have to talk about my idiot moment. This was a serious screw-up, even for me. So I was walking through the woods, completely relaxed and happy to be by myself, right? I had roughly an hour to do whatever before I had to return to the lodge, so I decided to make it count. For some reason, I have an amazing sense of direction in Japan. It's weird. I usually can't tell which way is North in America, but I can navigate effortlessly in a country that doesn't label its streets and has random addresses. This amazing ability failed me during this trip.
All of the trails crisscrossed each other and went in different directions. It was literally like a giant maze. Or a labyrinth. But I had a pretty good idea where I was and which way would lead back to camp, so I was fairly confident about my position. This caused me to get a bit...oh, overconfident and trek out even further from the campsite. With about twenty minutes left, I decided that I should start heading back towards camp, so I took a path in what I thought was that direction. I should have just turned around and retraced my steps, but by the time I figured that out, it was too late. When I saw this sign, I knew that something wasn't right.
And all of the paths were starting to get extremely overgrown and wild. Some of them were literally deer paths at that point. Okay, so don't panic--just keep walking and you'll eventually come out somewhere, hopefully where there are signs and people. Bad move numero dos. When I only had ten minutes left, I really started to worry. I don't really care about being a few minutes late, but knowing my host mom, she would call in reinforcements to go looking for me and stir up a lot of embarrassing commotion if I didn't get back soon. I started to run and then remembered why I had been walking so slowly in the first place--I had slept on my hip badly a few nights before, and it stung everytime I walked. So I was in the middle of nowhere with a bad leg and no map. Just great. But that didn't stop me from taking pictures.
Just as I was getting desperate, I followed a dirt path that led me through some neck-tall grass. I couldn't see anything, and I was just going out on a limb that the water I was hearing would lead me to the lake. It didn't. What I did see, when I pushed apart the grass and came to the river, was this:
An old suspension bridge over the water, hidden by tall grass on one side and a dead end on the other. It was really high over the water. And a little rickety, after being out of use for so long. My gut instinct told me not to go near it--I was having visions of an Indiana Jones scenario, and I didn't have a whip handy. But my curiosity got the better of me. I crossed it. I even made a movie of it and posted it on YouTube. It was actually pretty stable and cool looking. But I was officially out of time, and there had to be something on the other side, right? Nope. A chainlink fence and a highway. And all around me were those signs about it being a wildlife protection area. So I was probably trespassing on top of everything else.
I followed the fence for a ways, but there was not even a hint of a path anymore, and the overgrowth was really slowing me down. So I did the only thing I could think of and climbed over the fence. They make it look so cool in the movies during chase scenes and stuff, but I kind of slipped on the way down, and the ID badge around my neck snapped in two on impact. So I was now stranded with no identification. Can this get worse?
Well, I chose a direction and started walking along the side of the road. Every once in a while, a car would go by, and I tried to flag them down, but I don't think they understood the gesture. I would basically wave both arms over my head very energetically and lean out a bit into the road. But I think they all just thought that I was an extremely friendly American waving at them or something. They just waved back and kept driving. Sigh. I finally tried the universal "stop" gesture and got one of them to pull over. It was a family of four with two kids and a dog. Not very threatening. I asked them if they knew the way to the Tanukiko camp site, and they pointed in the direction that I was already headed, so that was good news, at least. I thanked them and took off at a jog.
This part was not fun at all. It was getting warm, I was still wearing my jacket, and I was officially late. By the time I arrived at any sort of civilization, I was badly in need of something to drink. But it just serves me right for being stupid. I followed some signs that pointed to the camp, and I was eventually able to see it in the distance...on the other side of the lake. I had actually walked so far that I was on the other side of the lake. And that thing was big. So, more running and a lot of odd looks.
I finally did get back, and I was only about half an hour late due to my hustling. My host mom wasn't really freaked at all, which is good. I think she was busy and lost track of the time, so she wasn't even aware that I was that late. Moral of the story: get a map and don't keep walking when you're lost!
So that's the just of the trip. There's obviously more than that, but I'll leave you with the pictures instead. As we were leaving, we looked out at Mount Fuji and saw that one cloud had lined up perfectly over the summit to give it a cute little "hat." I thought that was kind of neat. Next up, Kyoto!
So a few weeks ago, right before finals, I got an invite from my host family to go to Tanukiko (Lake Tanuki) over in Shizuoka Prefecture for some "camping." Now, I'm not going to go into this in detail. I try to stay very neutral in my blog because you never know who will accidentally stumble onto the Internet, right? So I'm going to skim over the entire trip and just post the pictures with commentary, because a lot of them were really cool. I've already ranted to several people about this trip, and I'm not going to go into it again now. If you really want the backstory of this, email me or something and I'll tell you all about it.
Anyways, they picked me up at about 10:30 Saturday morning and we drove for about an hour to get to the next prefecture over. I should probably introduce my host family at this point.
That's Minami-chan (the girl), Tamara-san (the mother) and Jun-chan (the little boy). The father, Makoto-san is kind of elusive and works a lot. I've only seen him a few times, and I didn't have my camera with me.
They're nice people. Sometimes, I'm a little thrown by Japanese customs and lifestyles, but I try to put up a wall between myself and my American perspective to keep it from getting to me. For example, I've been to a few different houses of Japanese families, and none of them use soap when washing the dishes. And half the time, it's not even warm water. Basically, to wash dishes (and this includes silverware and chopsticks), you rinse the dirty ones in cold water, swipe at them with a wet cloth, and leave them to dry. As someone who's borderline OCD half the time, this really makes my skin crawl. But I try not to think about it when eating. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to enjoy anything. It's my mantra, actually. Whenever I eat over there, I just go, Don't think, Don't think, don'tthinkdon'thinkdon'tthink....It usually works.
But I'm going off tangent. I was saying that my host family has been really nice to me, and I'm always touched by how far they go out of the way to accommodate me. I can only imagine how much money and effort they're putting into activities for my sake without me even knowing it.
We stayed at Tanukiko for one night, leaving mid-afternoon on Sunday. I didn't get to walk around much or really explore the area as much as I wanted, but I was able to take a few pictures in the brief time that I had to myself. Here are a few, for example.
That's Mount Fuji, just in case that wasn't clear. The lodge we stayed at had a great view of the summit. Mist and fog blocked most of the base until Sunday afternoon.
One of the first places I saw was a visitor/nature center at the entrance. It was pretty much the universal concept of a welcoming area, with cute activities for the kids to entertain themselves with as the parents waited. But the thing that amused me was on the back wall. A giant sign in red had a warning about bears being on the loose in the woods. Great. I kept that in the back of my mind when I was out by myself in the middle of nowhere with nothing but a camera and a 100 yen coin in my pocket. It only occurred to me later that it was winter and that they were probably hibernating at the time. Also, there were a bunch of stuffed animals scattered throughout the place. The raccoon-looking thing on the wall is actually a "Tanuki," the Japanese variety. They're what the lake is named for. I didn't see any, though.
Back to the hiking around. When I was off by myself, I took a LOT of pictures of the surrounding area. I probably have fifty of Mount Fuji alone from various angles. The backwoods were really pretty and absolutely no one was around. This was mid to late March, so everything was just starting to bloom and turn into Spring. I did find one deserted house out in the middle of nowhere, overlooking a ridge. Kind of creepy. There were signs around, but I couldn't read the kanji, so it could've been a warning about ghosts, for all I know. It looked like an old inn or something that had fallen into decay. I took a few shots and got out of there. By that point, I was far away enough that no one would be able to hear me scream. There were also about a dozen signs warning of bees and yellow jackets. If the scenery wasn't so gorgeous, I probably wouldn't have gone so deep into the woods and ignored the warnings.
Nice, huh? It's a real shame that I couldn't see more of it. The lake itself was across from the lodge and stretched back for quite a ways. When the weather was clear, you had a great view of the mountain over the water. A lot of people were out fishing, boating, and walking around the edges. The ducks were very well fed, I can assure you.
Okay, I said I wouldn't go into any detail about the weekend, but I have to talk about my idiot moment. This was a serious screw-up, even for me. So I was walking through the woods, completely relaxed and happy to be by myself, right? I had roughly an hour to do whatever before I had to return to the lodge, so I decided to make it count. For some reason, I have an amazing sense of direction in Japan. It's weird. I usually can't tell which way is North in America, but I can navigate effortlessly in a country that doesn't label its streets and has random addresses. This amazing ability failed me during this trip.
All of the trails crisscrossed each other and went in different directions. It was literally like a giant maze. Or a labyrinth. But I had a pretty good idea where I was and which way would lead back to camp, so I was fairly confident about my position. This caused me to get a bit...oh, overconfident and trek out even further from the campsite. With about twenty minutes left, I decided that I should start heading back towards camp, so I took a path in what I thought was that direction. I should have just turned around and retraced my steps, but by the time I figured that out, it was too late. When I saw this sign, I knew that something wasn't right.
And all of the paths were starting to get extremely overgrown and wild. Some of them were literally deer paths at that point. Okay, so don't panic--just keep walking and you'll eventually come out somewhere, hopefully where there are signs and people. Bad move numero dos. When I only had ten minutes left, I really started to worry. I don't really care about being a few minutes late, but knowing my host mom, she would call in reinforcements to go looking for me and stir up a lot of embarrassing commotion if I didn't get back soon. I started to run and then remembered why I had been walking so slowly in the first place--I had slept on my hip badly a few nights before, and it stung everytime I walked. So I was in the middle of nowhere with a bad leg and no map. Just great. But that didn't stop me from taking pictures.
Just as I was getting desperate, I followed a dirt path that led me through some neck-tall grass. I couldn't see anything, and I was just going out on a limb that the water I was hearing would lead me to the lake. It didn't. What I did see, when I pushed apart the grass and came to the river, was this:
An old suspension bridge over the water, hidden by tall grass on one side and a dead end on the other. It was really high over the water. And a little rickety, after being out of use for so long. My gut instinct told me not to go near it--I was having visions of an Indiana Jones scenario, and I didn't have a whip handy. But my curiosity got the better of me. I crossed it. I even made a movie of it and posted it on YouTube. It was actually pretty stable and cool looking. But I was officially out of time, and there had to be something on the other side, right? Nope. A chainlink fence and a highway. And all around me were those signs about it being a wildlife protection area. So I was probably trespassing on top of everything else.
I followed the fence for a ways, but there was not even a hint of a path anymore, and the overgrowth was really slowing me down. So I did the only thing I could think of and climbed over the fence. They make it look so cool in the movies during chase scenes and stuff, but I kind of slipped on the way down, and the ID badge around my neck snapped in two on impact. So I was now stranded with no identification. Can this get worse?
Well, I chose a direction and started walking along the side of the road. Every once in a while, a car would go by, and I tried to flag them down, but I don't think they understood the gesture. I would basically wave both arms over my head very energetically and lean out a bit into the road. But I think they all just thought that I was an extremely friendly American waving at them or something. They just waved back and kept driving. Sigh. I finally tried the universal "stop" gesture and got one of them to pull over. It was a family of four with two kids and a dog. Not very threatening. I asked them if they knew the way to the Tanukiko camp site, and they pointed in the direction that I was already headed, so that was good news, at least. I thanked them and took off at a jog.
This part was not fun at all. It was getting warm, I was still wearing my jacket, and I was officially late. By the time I arrived at any sort of civilization, I was badly in need of something to drink. But it just serves me right for being stupid. I followed some signs that pointed to the camp, and I was eventually able to see it in the distance...on the other side of the lake. I had actually walked so far that I was on the other side of the lake. And that thing was big. So, more running and a lot of odd looks.
I finally did get back, and I was only about half an hour late due to my hustling. My host mom wasn't really freaked at all, which is good. I think she was busy and lost track of the time, so she wasn't even aware that I was that late. Moral of the story: get a map and don't keep walking when you're lost!
So that's the just of the trip. There's obviously more than that, but I'll leave you with the pictures instead. As we were leaving, we looked out at Mount Fuji and saw that one cloud had lined up perfectly over the summit to give it a cute little "hat." I thought that was kind of neat. Next up, Kyoto!