21st DAY: Rainy Season is over, so STOP raining already!

It rained over the night furiously but it stopped by morning. We had a long drive ahead of us to make it to Lake Sagami. We figured the best thing to do was camp there and take the nearby train into Tokyo to party, check out some sites, and of course, some local talent. Boy were we wrong!

We got to Sagami by 4pm. We went to our trusty computer to look for a campsite. We saw one posted on a local map that wasn’t on the internet. This one was definitely closed down. It was down a steep hill a fair ways from the away anyways. As we were leaving, it started to rain. It came down fast and hard. We drove to the next site. It looked more promising. It was in a big park. It even had gates. We waited under the shelter of the entrance hoping for the rain to subside. It didn’t. Nigel went in to see how much the camping was. It was a joke. 6500yen ($70) if you had your own tent, 12000yen if not. Then I checked the other 2 sites up the opposite side of the road. Again, no luck. Both of them were closed with no one in sight. Other than that, there were nothing but LOVE hotels everywhere. We weren’t about to take that option. I figure it’s the secret getaway destination for young couples, or mistresses or something along those lines. The rain slowed so we opted to continue forward towards Tokyo to see our other choices.

The first town we hit was called Takao but we headed further for Hachioji. We ended up at Nishihachioji Station before we stopped. There found some lockers we could ditch our bags into while we ventured into the city but the problem was we still couldn’t find a hotel or guesthouse in sight. We kept going to Hachioji and kept looking. We searched for up to an hour and the only thing we could find was 4900yen each. We were tired, hungry and wet so we unwillingly took it. Nigel originally wanted to party that night but there was no way. Neither of us had any energy for that. The good thing was the room was clean, warm and inside in another comfy bed.

So the great idea to camp works really well if:

1. The campsites are open.

2. It’s not constantly raining.

3. Maybe get there a little earlier so we’re not always looking for a place in the dark when they may be closed because it’s at night but I doubt that. It’s just been a bad year. Slow economy, later rainy season so there’s been cooler weather so no one wants to camp, except us.