We, just guys, went camping to the Kasagi Campsite by train.

I was just relaxing at home when I received an email message from Nakamichi, one of the members of a comedy duo called Flower of Romance who debuted at the same time as me.
(The one on the left is me Takeda Barbecue, on the right is Nakamichi)
“I’m bored to death! Take me camping!”
The time was 5 pm.
I continued reading the message.
“But I have my part-time job afternoon tomorrow, so make sure we can get back by then. Thanks!”
Wait, what do you mean by “Thanks”?
It’s early evening, I have no car, and Nakamichi knows nothing about outdoor activities.
I was pondering over what we should do, then, Nakamichi arrived at my house, almost empty-handed.
“This can’t be real…” was my first reaction.
But considering Nakamichi usually being an indoor person, he was strangely excited about being able to go camping for the first time in 10 years.
So I, since I happened to have nothing better to do, just calmed down and prepared to leave.

I packed our things in THE NORTH FACE Base Camp Duffel 90 liter backpack and found a campsite where we can go by train and enter at a late time.
Nakamichi adds, “Oh, and I also want to swim in the river.”
So I searched for a campsite that would please Nakamichi, a man with the characteristics of a youngest child, and I found one in Kyoto. Kasagi Campsite met all our demands perfectly.
We bought our groceries and were ready to leave by 7pm. The sun was already gone.
We did rock-paper-scissors and I ended up carrying the small backpack and 2 chairs, Nakamichi carried the huge 90 liter packed-to-the-max backpack.

We walked to the station with so much baggage and soaked with sweat and hopped on the train, being stared at by businessmen and students who were on their way home from work and school.

“All right! In an hour and a half, we’ll arrive at the campsite. I’m getting excited, aren’t you?”
I spoke to Nakamichi, but to my surprise he was in a bad mood for having to carry the heavy backpack and for the humiliation of being stared at with suspicious eyes.

You’ve got to be kidding!!
You are the one who wanted to go camping in the first place~~~
You looks like bored~~~
Well, this was the typical Nakamichi so I just left him alone.
But for some reason he was overly excited about the one-man-operated train.

Eventually, we arrived at Kasagi Campsite.
We were surrounded by darkness. No campers. No doubt, it was a weekday.
With some fumbles, we put up the tent, set the chairs, and at 10pm we were finally ready to camp!
Starting at 10pm? I don’t know about that.

But actually drinking at midnight was great!
The only sounds we heard at night were the sounds of the river and insects.

We made instant smoked foods.
Octopus, bacon and fish cake.
The smoky smell increased our appetite and made us drink even more.

In this blurry picture, he’s eating midnight yakisoba (stir fried noodles).
This was really good.
As I was eating the noodles and having my drink, Nakamichi said, “This is a must when we go camping,” and played some music from his iphone at full volume.
You finally made some contribution to this camping activity! Well done, Nakamichi!
How can we enjoy camping without music?
This was the song he played.
♪Each time we learn a new word, we grow up and become adults～
It was Miyuki Nakajima’s “Inochino Betsumei” (“Another Name for Life”)
Hmm.
What a mismatch.
Near the end, it felt like we were being scolded by the singer.

This was what it looked like in the morning.

In the morning we need coffee, so we used the Mont-bell foldable coffee filter.
We used a piece of branch for support.

We fried bacon for breakfast.

And some eggs.

Toasted bread.

Bacon and eggs!
We had these for breakfast with the coffee that we had prepared, and it was just wonderful!

We also saw Kasagi Ohashi bridge clearly.
There were also some fishermen.

We didn’t go into the river and just sat down on the chair doing nothing.
That’s right. When I was searching for a campsite, one of the search conditions was
“A place where you can swim in the river”
Having forgotten his swimming wear, Nakamichi didn’t go into the river at all.
What the…!

But all things considered, we had a lot of fun.
Going home, I carried the big backpack and Nakamichi the small backpack and the two chairs.
We switched baggage this time.

We stopped by a hot spring place called Wakasagi Hot Spring Kasagi Ikoino Yakata.
We relieved our fatigue and looked back at what we experienced at this camp.
This is just great.
Then we got on the train and arrived Osaka at 2pm.
Many things happened but Nakamichi and I were so glad to have made this camping trip.

But, I noticed something.

“Nakamichi, where are the two chairs?”
“Oh my gosh! I left them at the hot spring place!”

I’ll never go camping with Nakamichi, ever.

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Takeda Barbecue