Camping at Lake Ashinoko / Hakone

A rather rare experience for me these days was an overnight camping trip on Saturday to Lake Ashinoko, about an 80 minute express train journey from Tokyo. Although I've been there on numerous occasions in the past, I was looking forward to a change of scene and to perhaps escape the blistering heat wave which is currently making life difficult (and electricity bills more costly).

An acquaintance kindly invited me along, and rather unusually for me, I accepted the invitation. Usually I like to ring fence off my weekends and prevent anyone from getting in the way of my plans, but this time I decided to sacrifice my own independence for the company of others.

Lake Ashi(noko)

BBQ area

The only part I was not looking forward to was sharing a tent, and that did prove to be an uncomfortable and sleep depriving experience - next time I'll buy my own tent so that I can sleep undisturbed.

Senko hanabi

The experiences on this trip, though, were for the greater part, good ones. Rather surprisingly, the camp site next to Lake Ashinoko was not too busy. We had plenty of space to cook our food on the BBQ and to let off some Japanese fireworks, mostly similar to sparklers, but also the subtly hypnotic senko hanabi. These little fireworks give off lovely fine little needles of light and only last for 20 seconds or so.

After a tentative start to the BBQ on which our food was not cooking, we threw caution to the wind and all combustable materials onto the fire. The result was a fire with the capacity to double as a funeral pyre.

BBQ

After the BBQ and fireworks, we all headed off to the onsen before sitting outside and chatting until just after midnight. Then it was to the tent for a rather unsuccessful attempt at getting some sleep. Not the best sleep I have had, but I think I still managed a few hours of shut eye.

The next morning we were up early, had a quick breakfast, and then took a bus to the Lalique Museum. I had already visited the museum a few years before, so I sat admiring the immaculate lawn from the shaded comfort of an outdoor table with a cold bottle of Heartland Beer in my hand. Perfect.

Soon after, we took a cable car up the mountain to Souzan, famous for volcanic activity and eggs with blackened shells from boiling in the volcanic spring waters. As it was only a few years since my last visit there, I was more interested in eating kakigori, the Japanese name for a slush puppy (also called shaved ice). My cola flavoured slush puppy certainly was very welcome as the temperature on the mountain was about 35C!

Kakigori

A very pleasant trip away. This coming weekend, I am visiting Oze in Gunma Prefecture and the following week, Clara and I will take a trip back in time to Shimogo for a brief visit. More to follow on my August adventures soon.