Camping at Lake Motosu

A few weekends ago we went camping with about 10 other families in the Fuji 5 Lakes region at Lake Motosu. In only about a 90 minute drive from the center of city we felt like we had completely escaped the city sprawl of Tokyo. It was a wonderful long weekend away.

Shelley and I aren't quite sure we're camping people - or at least in the camping stage of our lives. People were pretty amazed that an 8+ month pregnant woman was choosing to go camping. Hey, I didn't force her to go folks! We like camping, but don't do it often...maybe once a year. But our kids were Jekyll and Hyde this weekend. For as bad as it was on Saturday and for as much as we wanted to pack it in and go home, Sunday was its equal in fun and relaxation. May I present the evidence.

We were camping by a lake, so we decided to take a walk around. The really easy, paved and flat walk around the lake turned into two hours of parental torture. For some reason Anthon has an extreme aversion to walking as a means of transporting himself. In his mind that's what cars, trains, strollers and a parent's arms/shoulders are for. If his attitude were a song lyric, it would be "Walking in LA, only a nobody walks in LA" from "Walking in LA" by Missing Persons. Talk about a meltdown. Crying, whining, yelling, everything. We had incident after incident. And mind you, this is flat, paved road.

Contrast that with Sunday. We rolled the dice again and took Anthon on an off-road, steep, slippery hike up a mountain. He must have viewed this as fun, because this hike was tiring, even for me, and much more difficult. Yet we didn't hear one peep. Not a single complaint. He was talking, he was joking around. He was having fun. So I guess we've learned that walking on pavement = functional and boring. Walking on dirt = fun and enjoyable. Good to know. Maybe we need to bring dirt everywhere we go and sprinkle it in his walking path so that he thinks he's hiking instead of walking from point A to point B.

The aforementioned hike was beautiful. There were two intermediate "peaks" before reaching the top. Each stop had its own view of Mt. Fuji. But for the last 2/3 of the hike you had completely unobstructed views of Fuji and the valley below as it sloped up and formed this most famous of views. I don't think I've ever seen Mt. Fuji so right in my face like this.

So I think Sunday made up for Saturday. We left Monday morning thinking we had a good time overall. Maybe we just need to be smarter campers. But soon with three kids 4 and under, I wonder how much more camping we can do for a while.