Our Camping Adventure

Seems like it's been forever since I posted.

Camping was so much fun. As predicted, there was no tents, and even better, I didn't even have a blanket or sleeping bag. The town was so tiny rural it was crazy. When we got to Choushi Station, we had to transfer to the "Choushi Dentetsu", which basically amounted to a sardine can on an ancient track. It was so funny. We rode it till the end of the line, Tokawa "station". Here's a picture:

yes, that's really a station

When we got there, we asked a gas station girl where the nearest conbini was, to which she replied, there are no conbini's in Choushi. Now, that may not seem like a big deal to people who have never been to Japan, but if you have you'd be just as floored as we were because conbini's are literally EVERYWHERE here. But she told us where we could buy alkies which we did post haste. But after that, I thankfully, found a super, so we could get some food and water...and more booze. Sufficiently supplied, we set off to find the beach. However our initial effort was unsuccessful, locating only a port with some crazy surf and a huge wall. Oh and I forgot to mention, it was cold as hell, probably low 60's with 30+mph wind.

We were all starving so we decided to find somewhere to sit and eat our food. We sat in a little playground next to a temple and ate and talked loudly as we gaijin are wont to do. And in no time, we had an old couple staring at us from across the street. (They probably NEVER see a foreigner let alone 15, so they stared for a good while, way more than people in the Tokyo area) After that we set out to locate the beach once again. We found one shortly and decided that we would camp there despite it being a pretty piss-poor beach. Here's a picture:

We all wondered off in search of a better place shortly after we put our stuff down, and thankfully the others found a such a place. However, Joe and Constance weren't back from their wanderings yet, but it was ok, we left them a note to tell them what happened to us.

So we found the main beach that was sort of an inlet so the wind was reduced a lot which was fantastic (it was still quite strong though). We hung out there for the rest of the day drinking 300Yen wine and other such whitetrashities (that's my word, don't steal it). I went in the ocean up to my knees and it was freezing(this wouldn't be my last time in said ocean that night). The water was filled with different colored seaweed that was fun to squish between my toes. When the sun went down and the locals left, we set up "camp", which basically consisted of a few tarps and our bags. As I mentioned before, it was pretty cold and now that the sun was going down it was only going to get colder so we had to build a fire(ok we were planning on having a campfire anyway but once we got there we realized it would actually be necessary...for survival.)

We got it going with the help of some stolen wood, and some aerosol igniter fluid which was highly entertaining to watch. (We stole/burned sooooooooo much wood during the course of the night) The fire was fantastic though here's a cool pic of it:


Some highlights of the night: More 300Yen wine, cooking Joe's store bought fish in the fire, a couple chu-hi's, hobo packs, 300yen whiskey(Kirin, next time I say "hey, can I get some of that whiskey?", say no) , tai chea (chai tea), Kirin's urine, hanabi(fireworks), swimming in the ocean at like 1am, and of course what has come to be known as Anthony's Odyssey--

I wandered off at some point, presumably to go pee and was not heard from for a good chunk of time. After a while they realized I wasn't there and sent Matt to go find me. I was found by Matt about an hour later on some rocks and soaking wet. I'm told the following conversation took place;

Matt: Where the hell have you been??
Me: Fuck you!

lolz....That definitely sounds like something I'd say.

But that's not the best part, I had also acquired a British accent during my time doing god knows what, and spoke in said accent for the rest of the night.

The order of events for that night are hard to put together but I think I went back to the fire and passed out shortly after. I slept about a foot away from the fire, it was awesome. We all got up at the crack of dawn and began our long trip home, we were all ridiculously exhausted.

But it was oh so fun.



As an interesting(at least to me) sidenote: While writing this, I had to use my translation software to find the English word for inaka because I forgot what it was. (rural, country) Woo! My English is going to hell!