Keeping You Posted ...: Golden Week 2008 ...

Golden Week is the first week in Japan and consists of a series of 4 holidays in a row. May 3rd, 4th, 5th & 6th are all national holidays but typically the entire week is taken as a vacation time. Golden Week is considered to be the longest vacation time of the year for many employers and many families use this time to travel both domestically and internationally.

"Golden Week is an extremely popular time to travel. Flights, trains, and hotels are often fully booked despite significantly higher rates at this time. Popular foreign destinations in Asia, Guam, Saipan, Hawaii, and major cities on the west coast of North America, such as Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, and Vancouver, as well as in Europe, are affected during these seasons by huge numbers of Japanese tourists" (duh).

We decided to plan a camping trip to an island south of Okayama called Shikoku. I wasn't quite sure of what to expect from camping in Japan, but any chance to sleep in a tent & sit by a campfire sounded pretty sweet to me. We rented a couple cars, packed them full of everything we needed, crammed everyone in & headed out.

Road tripping in Japan is great. It's usually great no matter where you are as long as you're with good people and this trip was no exception. At least everything was great until we had to cross the Seto Hashi (an incredibly long, two story suspension bridge). Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a full blown phobia of large bridges and this one is insane. I spent the entire 20 minutes it took to cross it with my head down, hyperventilating & tears streaming down my face. Yea, I know - I'm a wuss. After finally crossing the bridge of evil, we made it into Shikoku and drove down the coast until we got to our campsite at Shirahama. The drive was beautiful and there was sun & the ocean & waves & surfers & everything that was exactly what we wanted. We couldn't have been more excited.

Our little campsite (that's right, all 5 tents):

and the view from our tent, absolutely gorgeous:

After we got camp set up and ready to go, it took us a whole ten minutes to get our suits on & get in the water. It was cold, but oh so nice.

& as soon as we all got out, these adorable Japanese kids got in.

It was like we were swimming in shifts.

From left to right ... Tapio, Bernie, Olli, me, Andy, Andrew, Amanda, Amy & Meghan:

Day two we went to another larger beach with better waves to make some attempts at surfing, catch some sun and play in the sand. Although the attempts at surfing were pretty poor, the problem wasn't with the waves. Instead of trying to surf back to America, Amanda and I spent our time swimming and avoiding the jellyfish.

We also spent a lot of time playing in the sand like the kids that we are.

Our standard breakfast, lunch & dinner:
Night number 2 consisted of bad 80's pop songs and early 90's r&b one hit wonders, star gazing on the beach and drinking a few too many beverages. Everything was great and we were on vacation. Couldn't have asked for anything better ... except for maybe not having to wake up early the next morning. We spent day number 3 driving to Kochi city to scope out Kochi Castle. It was raining so we figured taking a drive and being cultural was the way to go. What we didn't take into consideration (or at least I didn't) was the drive through the mountains & the ups & downs & twists & turns & the stops & gos & the fasts & the slows. With 5 people in our small car & my pounding headache, I wasn't exactly in heaven.

The mountains were beautiful, despite the queasiness.

Andy & I were sick backseat buddies ...

After about 4 hours in the car, we got to Kochi, spent 45 minutes at the castle & then headed back ... only driving up the coast instead of through the mountains. Although we didn't stay for very long (really, no one was feeling really well), the castle was still beautiful. They always are.

The view from the top:

The castle gardens:

and some statues:

And then we left. Short, sweet, and to the point. We headed back to Shirahama and my sleeping bag and tent had never sounded so good. We spent the last night making smores, laying on the beach looking for shooting stars (which we successfully found), telling old stories and making new memories.

The next morning we took down, packed up, and said goodbye to beach.