Wifeless camping -- not for the faint of heart

I know the summer has been passing quickly because there is now a backlog of blog posts that have yet to be published.  This, as you may well have guessed, is one of them. 

Not too long ago (just a month), I took the kids camping.  We had been planning for the entire family to go, but Lyana had to leave town suddenly.  Well, we didn't want to disappoint the kids too much by cancelling altogether, so I said I was brave enough to take all three of them camping.  Overnight.  Away from home.  Without my wife.  I was actually really excited to do it.  Two other families decided to go with us (or did we go with them?  I'm not sure.  Oh, that reminds me, I think I still owe one of them 1400 yen for spotting us the campsite fee.  Honey, could you pay that for me, please?).  Anyway, I believe that camping is easier when they (the kids) have friends (someone else's kids) to play with.

We traveled about an hour from Misawa, near the town Nanbu (named for an old samurai clan).  We didn't plan a whole lot of activities, because all the kids really cared about was 1) being outside  2) sleeping in a tent and 3) S'mores.  That's camping (in no particular order).

So #1: being outside.  The origninal plan was to hike up the mountain, then visit the nearby Hokoji temple.  We parked the cars and started up the road to where the trail was supposed to be.

 

After 15 minutes of not finding the trail, the group unanimously voted to visit the temple first, and find the trail later.

The temple was easier to find because it was right next to us already.  I think I've already done a post on Hokoji temple, so I'll keep the captions short.

Alex and John on a little red bridge.

 

More people on the little red bridge, watching the big fish swimming aimlessly in the pond.

Lizzie and Katya befriending a moss-covered rock.

Katya and Bridget sitting on an entirely different red bridge, which is to say that it's not the same red bridge as in the three previous pictures.

Mark and Alex on the non-red bridge that leads to the restrooms.

  

More children on the first red bridge, watching the fish.  I think these photos are out of order.

Mark makes a funny face.  Not sure why; usually he smiles at the camera.

Mark on the other red bridge, mentioned previously but not to be confused with the first red bridge, the one above the fish pond.  This one has a pagoda.

This is what the bridge and pagoda would look like lying down.  I forgot to flip the photo before I added it to the blog, so it's easier to just have you turn your head than for me to change it now.  So turn your head.

This is Mark on a stone path, next to a fish pond, not by the first red bridge, but by the second red bridge, which is also not the third red bridge because that one was the same as the first red bridge.

Mark and Becca on the stairs leading up to the big pagoda, the same one you turned your head to see earlier.

Lots of statues.  People like to toss money at their feet. 

Mark and Becca on the steps below some Torii gates.

We couldn't figure out exactly what kind of shrine/temple this one was.  The torii gates are Shinto, while most of the statues and the temple were reminiscent of Buddhism.  One member in our group spoke Japanese, so she asked a caretaker and apparently the Hokoji temple is a little bit of both.

Okay, remember I said that we didn't find the trailhead earlier?  Well, after the temple we DROVE up that paved road (strange concept), and found a parking lot where we parked (I'm on a roll now).  We found a trail head and started hiking it (keep it coming) and walked and walked and walked until we couldn't walk any further.  Not because we were tired (it was only like 10 minutes) but because the trail was blocked by a mess of fallen trees.  Impassable.  We turned around and found a fork in the trail (not a "Honey, I dropped a fork in the garbage disposal" kind of fork, a branch in the trail, but not a tree branch, though there were lots of tree branches on the trail, some with trees still attached, which I've already mentioned.  I'm talking about a fork, I mean, a branch . . . you know what I mean).  This fork branch led nowhere, but the view was nice. 

And then we went back to the parking lot.  Oh, I forgot to mention that we met a Japanese couple on the trail, and they said that we took the wrong trail.  The mountain trail was on the other side of the parking lot!!  So we decided to . . . go set up camp.  It was time for fire and number 2 (I meant number two on the "what kids care about" list.  I don't know what you're thinking). 

So here's our campsite.  You can rent the "treehouses" or you can set up a tent.  It's much cheaper to set up the tent.  But I hear the treehouses (which are really just tiny cabins resting on a giant metal beam) are not too shabby.  

 

And finally, #3:  S'mores.  I didn't have a picture of the actual S'mores, but you can imagine it.  There's the fire, there are the kids and eventually they ate some S'mores.

We were going to do some more activities, because there are lots of other things to do around Nanbu, but I figure that we can do those another time, on a day trip.  Next time.  If you want information on Nanbu and how easy it is to get there, please let me know.

Robert