Japanese eager to learn how to camp

[emperor]

With summer just around the corner, many Japanese are taking courses to learn camping skills such as how to set up tents, cook outside and handle canoes.
The outdoor business has been sluggish in Japan since it peaked in the early 1990s, the company said.
"In Japan, about 7 percent of the population goes camping more than twice a year," said Makoto Baba, an executive in charge of marketing. "In the United States, more than 20 percent of its population does so. There is still room for further expansion in Japan."

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/040531/kyodo/d82t965o0.html

Apparently, the only thing they cover in Boy Scouts in Japan is how to defeat giant monsters using robots that combine to form Voltron.

Via Fark: http://forums.fark.com/cgi/fark/comments.pl?IDLink=976923

[Taro Toporific]

The standard phrase in the US Park Service when refering to campgrounds is "recreational slums." However....

I've been to zillion-yen, super campgrounds in Japan-- Hachijo-shima and Shadogashima to be exact. However, the level of crowding in a typical Japanese campground during the summer peek season is equal to a morning commuter train. Be VERY wary when invited to go "camping" in Japan since it is often means sleeping like stacked logs in the damp dirt floor lean-to ....or worse, a moldy tent with ALL the windows shut and neuro-toxin bug coils smoldering all night.
The Nippon Jamboree 1998, Boy Scounts

[Steve Bildermann]

Japanese eager to camp

how simply fantabulosa.....I'll brush up on my polari

HOW BONA TO VADA YOUR EEK!

[Steve Bildermann]

It always causes a sly smile whenever I read flame wars in which someone accuses the other of 'trolling' both being blissfully unaware of the extremely Non PC mental image 'trolling' brings up (in my head at least)

As feely homies, we would zhoosh our riahs, powder our eeks, climb into our bona new drag, don our batts and troll off to some bona bijou bar

[devicenull]

im tempted to do some of this up in hokkaido this winter... i really miss winter camping

[AssKissinger]

im tempted to do some of this up in hokkaido this winter... i really miss winter camping

In my opinion you're likely to have a better experience in northern Tohoku, especially Akita and Aomori. The culture is much more distant from Tokyo's and the onsen are better. Aomori actually gets more snow than Hokkaido but obviously it's not as cold.

[DJEB]

It ain't really camping unless you don't see or hear another human being for at least 24 hours, IMHO.

I'm already 4 years over due for a good canoe trip...

[emperor]

It ain't really camping unless you don't see or hear another human being for at least 24 hours, IMHO.

I'm already 4 years over due for a good canoe trip...

Is it just me? Or is that the sound of banjos and squealing pigs?



Im Sorry! Im sure hill-billies are pretty rare in Japan

[DJEB]

Hillbillies. That's why I like to go where the people (hillbilly or not) ain't. Hint:

United States

Area: 9,629,091 sq km

Population: 290,342,554

Canada

Area: 9,984,670 sq km

Population: 32,207,113

[devicenull]

im tempted to do some of this up in hokkaido this winter... i really miss winter camping

In my opinion you're likely to have a better experience in northern Tohoku, especially Akita and Aomori. The culture is much more distant from Tokyo's and the onsen are better. Aomori actually gets more snow than Hokkaido but obviously it's not as cold.

i love the cold of winter camping....
onsen? we are talking camping here... you know, tent, sleeping bag, rations, all fit onto a backpack that you hike in with and hike out with. talking about camping in a forest, out in the middle of nowhere. culture doesnt play a role in it, it's only camping if there is no other group of campers.

[Taro Toporific]

culture doesnt play a role in it, it's only camping if there is no other group of campers.

JAPANESE "camping"

[Taro Toporific]

....the post-camp garbage-burning pyre ceremony. This made 'The Burning Man' seem like a Bar-B-Que! ...

Ahhhh, natsukashiiiiiiiiiiii Rob!

The sacred Beach Burning ceremony is my fav.
Post-camp garbage, driftwood, seaweed, old tires, dioxin toxic waste in 55gal drums, dead seagulls... EVERYTHING goes in and EVERONE helps find stuff. After all night drinking on Zushi beach, folks kind of went Aztec on me (proving the Kon-Tiki Theory of Pacific migration) . The Japanese folks started to think about atoning for great sins and throwing the blue-eyed Quetzcoatl Taro on the funeral pyre.

In the frenzy to gather more and more driftwood in the dark, a couple of strapping Navy boys helped me drag in an old pile of lumber to burn. Next morning, I was up at dawn and surveyed all the drunk folks passed out in front of the fire. Then I discovered that the "old pile of lumber" was a Japanese house. I left before anybody woke up.

[emperor]

Thats Hilarious Taro!!

Back in my scouting days: the worst it ever got was some kids who should have known better - throwing (in minor cases) deoderant spray cans and (and in worse ones) bottles and canisters of petrol on a big open fire - leaving little time for the 50+ people sitting around it to evacuate the area...