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| 2022 |
2023 |
2024
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1. Start 2025
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2. In Autumn
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3.
Castlemaine to Ceduna
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Kon.nichi.wa, Japan!
We are half way through our three week
camper trip in Japan.
My language skills have not really improved
although hello, thank-you and sorry have
been getting a workout.
As we are travelling in a camper and
that means driving ourselves, often free
camping,  and
most importantly, gives us the chance to get
to places that many tourists don't see on
the Tokyo-Osaka-Hiroshima route, we decided
to head north from Tokyo . I will happily
return one day and stay in hotels, and have
someone else organise accommodation and
transport and explain the culture and
history.
So we have been experiencing Japan from the
perspective of the illiterate. It certainly
complicates things being unable to read
anything and Google Translate only goes so
far. (Does anyone know why it keeps turning
everything on the screen upside down?) It is
more than a little disconcerting to pass a
big red flashing illuminated sign on the
road and wonder just what we are being
warned about. It is also interesting being
halfway through a five hour walk to a
volcano and not being able to match any of
the names on the signpost with the names on
the tourist brochure mud map.
 We
have been in small towns and rural areas
mostly so while the locals are unfailingly
polite and try hard, their English has been
only a little ahead of my Japanese. To mix
things up a bit, we have spent the last two
days in Niigata on the mid west coast- a
city of about one million people. So we have
added some new experiences -squashed Simon
into the hotel bath ( two feet deep and
three feet long), visited a saki distillery,
and parked the van in a city. We drove up to
the eighth floor before we saw the first
free spot, with the camper just scraping
into the height limit and definitely
exceeding the usual snubnosed length of  cars
here.
We have swum in lakes and the sea, had cold
showers, coped with Japanese high tech
plumbing type showers and toilets ( hot or
cold private area washes followed by blow
drying!) had an onsen, and are generally
about as clean as the locals. We have eaten
lots of local food, not liked it all but
mostly been quite impressed. I am not a
convert to Japanese breakfasts. I am
horrified by the price of fruit and some
vegetables.
The scenery is absolutely stunning -
sharp, steep mountains, lots and lots of big
rivers and lakes, and beautiful forest of
all types - cedar, oak, pines, maples ,
crab-apple, rhododendron to name just a few.
My biggest surprise, language apart, is how
easy it is to travel here. We have dodged
the expressways because I prefer to travel
slowly and see more and be able to stop
whenever we choose and driving is slow,
courteous, on the left side of the road, as
at home, requires zero blood alcohol
readings, and most roads have their route
numbers in numbers. People are unfailingly
polite, and try to be helpful. It is legal
to camp anywhere it is legal to
park. This is not quite the same as at
home because you cannot park on the street  anywhere.
In towns and at tourist sites, most parking
is "toll parking" In towns and cities, it is
all pay parking and this is where not
reading the language can be tricky. In
Niigata for example, once you have found a
spot, say in a tower parking block, you can
legally camp there overnight for the parking
fee. Everywhere has clean, functional
toilets, even light houses, forest
viewpoints and city car parks. Japanese
toilets really are as surprising as their
reputation. It is a bit disconcerting  that a
shower of water might start when you sit
down, the seat is very warm and the
instructions for all the buttons are only in
Japanese . Thankfully, it seems to be a
universal rule that the red button turns
everything singing, spraying or blowing hot
air off.
I have two disappointments. They really do
over package everything - sometimes two or
three layers extra. This creates huge
amounts of rubbish and there are no rubbish
bins except in shops or houses. They sort
their rubbish into recycled PET and bottles
and "  burnable"
. I wonder if this is how they power their
thermal power plants? There is little
rubbish on the streets or parks. We visited
a fresh fruit and vegetable market and
everything was in plastic bags, often two
bags.
They don't have daylight saving and
they are not morning people. We are here
over midsummer and the sun rises before 5
am. Shops in general don't open until 10am.
Coffee shops open mostly after 11 am.
Tourist  things
like castles, or historic buildings, about
10 am . Sometimes there are some locals out
walking in the morning, but often we are the
only ones . It is hard to sleep in, in a
camper.
"Combini" or convenience stores are our go
to solution. Need a toilet? an ATM? some
lunch? a hot dinner because there are no
restaurants anywhere near where you are
staying? even need a rubbish bin?
And they are everywhere - even in small
towns.
So half way through our time here, we are
enjoying this way of seeing some parts of
Japan. We are very happy to be hot most of
the time ( it is summer and the rainy season
here). Having come from our motorhome trip
west, we are well trained in putting things
in their place, making the bed each night,
playing "after you "when you need to get
something as there really isn't much room in
one of these campers. Most importantly,
Simon and I are still getting on well unless
I am driving and he is navigating , and even
that is improving!
Simon's
Journal
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