Golden Week in Kanagawa
8 May 2003, 08:10
One of the beaut things about Japan (that I’d forgotten) is the prevalence of home-style fireworks parties. If you’re about my age (yes, old) you may remember backyard Guy Fawkes Day parties in Australia celebrated with a cache of bonbons bought from the local store. You may also remember the wailing and gnashing of teeth when these fireworks were banned a few years ago because one too many revellers burned off their eyebrows. Not so in Japan.
In Japan, civilians can still buy fireworks and during Summer, the country is a veritable fireball of gunpowder as part of the “Hanabi” (meaning literally “flower fire”) festival. So you can imagine my delight when we went “camping” last weekend and were able purchase a bag of fireworks for 1,000 yen (about $A13) and have our own private little hanabi party.
As I’ve mentioned before, the Japanese definition of “camping” is not exactly the same as “roughing it”. We drove to a camping spot just out of Tokyo in Tsukui Machi, Kanagawa Prefecture and in spite of the area being but a fart away from the big smoke, it felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. There were trees! a river! more trees! more river! If you could ignore the strategically placed restaurant, Liquor “Cabin” (which admittedly saved our alcoholic arses after we ran out of beer) slew of vending machines and several thousand people lining the river bank, you could just about imagine you were in the Grampians. And at night, when the fireworks came out (also conveniently available at the Liquor Cabin) the place was like the Yarra River on New Years Eve. Without all the vomiting.
Our cabin was simply a large room with tatami mats and futons, with an area out the front for a pit in the ground fire (one of the only throwbacks to serious camping we were afforded) on which we cooked up an amazing feast of garlic potatoes, king shrimp, corn-on-the-cob and yakitori, polished off with the obligatory marshmallow cremating and a couple of bottles of Australian Shiraz.
After running out of our own fireworks (the Liquor Cabin was, inconveniently not open past 8 o’clock) we drunkenly stumbled to the river to join in other hanabi parties. Never a good idea to navigate uneven rocky river terrain when you’re pissed, as some of us (you know who you are) injured themselves in the process. Another handy hint to pop in the bag of “it seemed like a good idea at the time” is not to drink mugishochu (a heady cross between sake and whiskey) on top of beer, red wine and four kilos of barbequed food. The prevailing mood in the morning was certainly not that of a basket of playful kittens…
Yet, in spite of some sore heads and for some of us, bruised limbs and possibly broken bones, we heaved our arses to the local onsen, Fujino Yamanami, which has the misfortune of being perhaps the ugliest building in Japan – like a bad 1970’s vision of the Super-Bee. Ugly facades aside, the onsen itself shook off the blues, as it always does, although being Golden Week, the ladies complex was full of nude Japanese. And me. The token nude foreigner.
The only thing missing to make it the perfect weekend was a karaoke machine, and the campsite probably even had them for hire…
Aone Camp Ground, Kanagawa – 042-787-1380, mail@aone-camp.com
Fujino Yamanami Onsen, Kanagawa – 042-686-8073
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