In-tents Golden Week Adventures

Well, my second (and probably last for a while) Golden Week has come and gone and summer seems to have fully set in here again. I had an amazing time over the past week and I gotta say, I don’t regret choosing to travel within Japan rather than heading out of the country on holiday – gotta make the last few months count!

For the first part of last week I went down to Miyazaki with Courtney and Kara for surfing. We hitchhiked there, which was an interesting experience. The guy who picked us up first was kinda strange but was only gonna drive us a half an hour to the expressway from the Kumamoto ferry port. However, as we talked to him in the car, he suddenly decided to drive us all the way there and on the regular roads – a 4 hour trip one way!—even though he had work the next day and so would have had to drive back to Kumamoto that evening. We were amazed at our luck but figured the guy was the lonely sort and was just happy to have three young women in the car on a sunny day. I actually quite liked him, and we chatted about the X-files and extraterrestrial life while Kara spent half the trip throwing up out of the back of the car (we had gone drinking the night before in Shimabara) and Courtney spent most of the time trying not to laugh at my nerd connection with our driver.

We arrived in Miyazaki in the early evening and after setting up camp on the beach, quickly changed into our swim clothes and ran to the sea. It was amazing and refreshing! That night there was a candle festival going on near the beach so we decided to check it out. There were candles and various lights everywhere, arranged in different patterns in this gorgeous Japanese garden. The effect was enchanting and we spent a lot of time taking it in. Finally though, our tiredness and hunger took over and we headed for the local Izakaya where we had a great traditional Japanese meal.

We woke up early the next morning and headed to the surf shop. The guy rented us boards and gave us a pretty extensive lesson, and in Japanese at that. I also bought a really cool rash guard so that I could look the part of a surfer…even though I had only tried the sport once before. Image counts, people!

The waves weren’t huge but we did get a few good rounds in all the same. I even managed to stand on the board a few times! That night we were exhausted after all day in the ocean and finished with a seaside onsen and a wine and cheese party on the beach. The following day we spent touring the nearby volcanic island and going for a long distance swim before heading back towards Kumamoto.

All in all, it was incredibly refreshing and I am now completely addicted to surfing. I am going to go to Miyazaki at least one more time before I leave Japan.

The second half of the week was a different kind of animal. I went with the boys (Aaron, Julian and Mike) to a large outdoor hippie fest in the mountains near Aso (an active volcano). It took us forever to get there (and most of us were already drunk when we arrived) but it was worth it. There must have been something like 1000 people in the camp, and it was an almost even mix of foreigners and Japanese people. We set up our tents quickly and headed for the main stage area. Over the course of several days we met up with tons of people we knew as well as befriended a bunch of new people. We drank, ate, sang, danced and generally had a great time. Lots of people had little booths set up in tents where they were selling anything from jewelry to chai, to curries, to hemp products. Many people sat in front of bonfires just playing African drums or acoustic guitar and people joined in if they felt like it.

I spent most of my time with Sachiko and Kazuya, and Kazuya`s two kids though. They are friends from Shimabara whom I totally adore and rarely get to see these days. They had come really prepared so they had a grill and chairs and tarp set up, which was good because a lot of the time it was raining and windy and they had a little safe haven.

It was an amazing experience, drifting from one campfire and tent to another, walking in the rain and the mud completely out of it. However, by the time Saturday rolled around I was starting to get a little sick from not having been dry in several days and so I was sort of relieved when all the boys agreed to head home. Getting out was a bit of a struggle though, as the rains had made the roads mud and we had to push several cars through it to get out. I was completely covered in mud when it was all done! Thankfully there was an onsen nearby, so we stopped there before heading home. They were not all that happy to see a group of muddy gaijin in their pristine baths, but hey, that’s what the pre-showering is for, right?

All in all, the whole week was organic and nature-y. In other words, kinda a step away from the norm for me. I probably spent more time in a tent in that past week than I have in my entire life. I felt at one with nature – and let me tell you, by the end of the week, I certainly smelled `natural`. It was really, truly, great – but at the same, coming back to Nagasaki and going out for dinner in normal clothes, clean, dry and in a nice restaurant felt wonderful as well. Long live variety!