Camping in Tochigi

Took the tent out for the first time to "practice" camping. On the way we stopped by the river side to eat some bbq fish. It was incredibly hot, and sitting by the BBQ was not the best idea but it was fun, delicious, and a nice view from the open restaurant of the river.

Usually the river is set up to where there is a platform and a sort of funnel to direct the fish up the platform, called yana in Japanese. You can basically then catch the fish by hand and cook them up yourself, but for whatever reason it wasnt set up. This is just a picture from the internet on what it was supposed to look like.

Campsite was pretty organized with concrete slabs for pitching the tent, 10 total but no one else was crazy enough to camp in the heat.

After getting the tent set up we hung out at the picnic tables and had a little snack to cool down. The campsite was equiped with the covered picnic table area with electrcity:

Then it started to poor rain and thunder and lightening. The tent held up fine with no leaks or issues. The power at the picnic tables actually went out due to the lightening at one point, but we were camping after all so it wasnt a big deal, and our nice neighbors lent us a gas lamp who were also using the picnic tables.
Here is Misato now with a river behind her from the rain.

During the thunderstorm we ate our dinner and drank beer/wine and our neighbors of about 10-15 guys with their 3 small daughters (same who lent us the lamp) who were having a big party gave us some of their bbq although i dont think we needed it after the huge burgers we ate.

Even though our neighbors seemed like they were going to be a loud group of drunk guys they turned out to be really kind and turned in about the same time we did so they didnt keep us up. I think they stayed in some of the bungalows near by like these.

There was also a bbq area next to the picnic tables for cooking, although we used a pan and a gas grill Misato had brought,

and sinks with plumbing, rags, sponges and dish soap. This all seemed to work well as the campsite was clean in the morning. You can also rent many things at the front office like a spatula, dishes, pan etc... they also gave us trash bags 1 for recyclables and 1 for all other garbage.

This particular campsite also had a stage just in case you want to have an event there.

There was also an onsen nearby so we were able to clean ourselves up before we slept. We were definitely roughing it!

Kanazawa Birthday weekend

Misato took me to Kanazawa for my 30th birthday to do some sake touring/tasting. We took the shinkansen from omiya to Echigoyuzawa, and then an express train to kanezawa, but the express train was a bit rocky and we both felt a little sea sick. First day we went to a distillery called Yachiya run by a cute grandpa guy. This is the owner talking about the pressing process in front of the big pressing machine. Of course it was all in Japanese and I could catch some parts, but not everything. I did catch that women arent allowed in this one room, where the rice is germinating with the koji in fermentation process, supposedly because of the chemicals in make up, but im pretty sure it just something reminiscent of male domination.

At the end of the tour we had a vast selection of free samples.

After all the sake touring/tasting/buying we took the bus back to the station which has a huge Tori (gate usually for shrines) in front.

Then we went out to the historic part of town where there is a lot of remade tea houses and a 1 or 2 originals still standing after 200 years or so.

There was also a gold leaf wall house in the middle of this historic area.

We then found our way to this park outside of the castle with many statues.

Finally we made it to the castle which is a rebuilt wall of the original castle, but the front is a huge beautiful park.

After the castle we went back to the hotel for a little relaxing time and to watch the sumo tournament currently going on in Nagoya. Then Misato had made reservations for a nice full sake menu dinner, Japanese style with many dishes and a HUGE desert plate.

The next day we went to another sake distillery where there was a DVD with english subtitles so I could understand more of the process. This distillery allowed women into the fermentation room, as long as they werent wearing make up, more equal rights here at Sakagura. Apparently there is no sake being made in the summer because it is really hot and the rice isnt fresh off the rice paddy. The prime sake making time in January to April. We were allowed to taste 3 types of summer sake and eat a few treats. 1 of the treats was Fugu eggs which are apparently poisonus(like fugu fish) unless you pickle them for 3 years. Pretty tasty for fish eggs that were pickled for 3 years.

After the sake tasting we went to a famous park Kenryokuen, a former samurai house with a nice Japanese garden (in the picture) and the part of town called shrine/temple city, where there we went to a shrine that was for everything. Some shrines are specific for example cancer or if you want a child. We got a little private tour for 500 yen each and got to walk around the garden at the end. The samurai house was just a normal house, where a samurai lived, I was expecting something fancy because he was a samurai.

On the way home I bought a kanazawa local beer and the most delicious Ice Cream, as you can see its super premium.

On the way home Misato noticed the shinkansen was turning 30 too!

Hiking Nantaisan

Misato and I are planning on climbing mount Fuji this summer so we thought we would practice by climbing the highest peak in Tochigi, which turned out to be a lot harder than we thought. It was really steep and took us about 8.5hrs total including a 40min break at the top for lunch.

The next day we were really sore but walked around lake Chuzenjiko a bit, saw the famous Kegon Falls, water falls.

Then we saw a demonstration of a katana sword by an actual katana swordsmith. This is the raw materials to finished product, the big block is the only part of the sword in the end. The rest is a handle to use while shaping the sword.

The process is about 12-15 times of putting the metal in the fire then hitting it with the hammer each which takes like 20min so we only watched a couple of the first few.