This past Golden Week (April 29 - May 1), ets and I went off to the mountains for a spell of communing with nature (with all the creature comforts that we could feasibly bring with us). However, the days leading up to GW saw ets in ever-increasing fervor which led to a quick trip to the local Sports Depo to ogle camping gear and comparison shop.

A few days and a not-insubstantial sum of money later, we were in the possession of a very nice tent, tarp, cooler box, ice packs, air mattress, dutch oven, and all the other necessary camping accoutrements.

Ets, in all her grace and glory, managed to secure us a car-camping site which turned out to be quite near and actually very nice. The Japanese name translates into something like Jungle of Nature and that quite accurately describes it. Fortunately, the first night we camped out, there was only one other family there and we were far enough from each other that we couldn't see the lights of each others' lanterns. This meant a lovely dark campsite where we could see the cosmos in its infinite wonder.

The nights were butt-clenchingly cold and my cheap 7-year-old sleeping bag wasn't quite rated down to those temperatures. Fortunately, wearing almost everything I had was just about enough to help me make it through the night. (New bag acquired, rated to -12C).

As far as our first camping trip went, it couldn't have gone better. We're about to head off again this weekend with some friends (real hardcore campers) to a place in the same vicinity.