Japanese Glamping — Where are the pillows?

Claire Heginbotham
9 min readJun 17, 2018

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Lake Biwa is an impressive 670 kilometers squared.

The most exciting time of year in Japan has passed. The cherry blossom season is a national frenzy. Thrilled by the promise of warm weather, trees covered in pink and free-flowing alcoholic beverages, everyone rushes to gardens and parks clutching picnic blankets and bento boxes. The cherry blossom parties were fun, but they only lasted a week, and the good weather kept getting better. While wandering around a beautiful (yet dull) rose garden I decided it was time for some adventure.

Hours of frenzied Googling later, camping by Lake Biwa was the winning activity. Biwa is one of the oldest lakes in Japan; it was originally named the ‘Freshwater Ocean’ for its massive size. The lake is flanked by campsites, water sports clubs, and mountains. Some faciulities have websites (made at the same time HTML was invented) and very little information in English. The lack of English documentation directly translates into ‘not a tourist hotspot’ in Japan, and I knew this would be challenging but unique.

Campers have two option in Japan, rent or bring your own. Being temporary visitors, my boyfriend suggested renting being the best option, and a website with pretty pictures lured us into the concept of glamping. Glamping. I’ve always had a problem with glamping, mostly because the word ‘glam’ makes me picture blonde woo-woo party girls who wear too much blush and have bedazzled fake pink nails.

All packed — me with too many clothes and my boyfriend with too many power banks — we caught the train from Osaka station to Omihachi Station. Over the next two hours, cities slowly faded into the countryside, and skyscrapers gave way to mountains and rice paddies.

After taking a taxi to Omihachiman Holiday village, we asked for directions inside a blissfully air-conditioned hotel.

“A hundred meters up the road and to the left,” I translated as the flustered man at the front desk pointed out the hotel door. Foreigners were obviously not common here. We walked back into the midday heat and up the road on the lookout for tents. After the usual “is it isn’t it” conversation, we found our campsite

I have no idea what all the writing says, anyone keen to translate? The one circled in red was our campsite, a prime spot!

Checking into Omihachiman’s Campsite was an exercise of patience and confusion. A Japanese woman was at the front desk, passionately relaying her issue and causing the poor man to phone someone multiple times. After 30 minutes of haggling, they seemed to come to some agreement and she sauntered off to her campsite. Finally, we were first in line. Wearing a Kahki jacket that screamed ‘camping,’ the man looked us over with an expert eye. He shuffled a few documents, pulled out a map and circled the number 7. He then talked at length in Japanese, briefly helping us along with a word or two in English. The toilets were here, the cleaning spot was there and our tent was in the middle. Satisfied we understood the basics, he handed us paper tickets for the hot spring bath and the breakfast buffet and pointed us to a giant hall filled with camping gear. The old men dishing out the kit took one look at us and knew who we were. We booked under my boyfriend’s name, Morne, and it was the only one written in English — we were campsite celebrities. Morne was sent to collect a rickety cart (choices ranged from busted left wheel to repurposed bicycle parts), and we piled it with four blankets, two lights, one barbeque, a few utensils and our backpacks.

My boyfriend, morne, taking the rickety old cart back down the hill while I sit at our campsite. It had a busted wheel and made one hell of a racket on the way down.

Tent site number 7 was a breeze to find, and it had an excellent view. We had a giant tent that could sleep four and a 6-seater bench (the kind you’d expect to see at a seaside fish and chip shop) covered by a waterproof awning. The tent itself was on a raised wooden platform, secured with ropes and steel pikes, it looked like it had been there for a decade. Unzipping the single layer, we looked inward in childish curiosity. Two layers of corrugated white plastic sheets lay on either side of the tent. Each sheet was around the size of a single mattress, an inch thick and was about as soft as a damn wooden floor. We quickly realized our mistake; this was not glamping — this was just camping with rented stuff. There were no pillows. I love pillows — at home, I sleep with at least two, sometimes three if I sleep-cuddle. I would have easily given up a blanket or plastic layer for just one pillow. It looked like we were in for a far more rustic night. We pushed the layers together, exposing the wooden planks below. Spaced far apart, there was no barrier between us and nature. Plastic ‘mattresses’ together, we layered one blanket as a sheet and left two for warmth. The last blanket was folded and folded again until it looked like a log. It would have to do as our pillow.

The horror of our ‘matresses’. It looks like there might be a thin peice of foam wedged in there though, so thats something.

Exactly three small spiders were living inside the tent when I woke up the next morning

Happy we had done what we could, we changed into swimming gear, sat at our bench and opened a beer. Big city living drives you into a constant sense of urgency and gifts you with an odd desire to consume as much as possible. There, in nature, with nothing better to do than stare out over the green spring leaves and the glassy lake, I began to relax. A gentle breeze swept through the trees, bringing the delicious scent of lightly charred meat from the nearby barbeque area. A family arrived, pulling a cart up the hill that was so full it threatened to topple over. I grinned as a little boy pushed from behind while his father pulled from the front. Whenever the boy got lazy, the father would pretend to struggle, and the mother would encourage her son to help again. It was adorable to watch, and the memory still makes me smile. This was the spirit of inaka — countryside.

Me, with a beer and our barbeque, starting to feel relaxed. Behind me is the start of a beautiful lake and the rise of a nearby island.

Eager to cool down, we navigated our way down to the lake shore. Along the way, we passed a storage area packed full of red Kayaks and hoped we could rent one. The beach was a thin stretch of coarse sand ringed with grass, and alas, the Kayaks were unrentable. It would have been disappointing was it not for the view. Mountains covered in fluffy green trees rose into the warm air, forming a bay around us. Directly in front, glittering water stretched as far as the eye could see. On the opposite shore, you could occasionally make out the faint shadows of neighboring mountains — the only clue that we were still inland. Simply standing at the lake shore was incredible. The water was crystal clear and colorless, like rippling glass. There were mostly families around, each with a mother, father and at least two children. They all had little tents set up to provide shade, and every single adult was covered by clothing from head to toe.

The fresh water is as clear as glass. Lake Biwa provides drinking water to a large chunk of the Kansai area.

Among a sea of rash vests and shorts, there wasn’t even one-piece swimming costume in sight. Throughout my two days spent by the shore, I only saw one other adult woman enter the water. She was a rather large and vibrant mother of many — a rare personality for a Japanese person — and she was covered head to toe in a black rash vest and black shorts. And then there was me, in a skimpy bikini without boardshorts, feeling half naked and out of place. The water was deliciously cool and the sun warm but not sweltering. A sandbank was close to the shore, so we swam out to it and messed around splashing water at each other, laughing loudly, and being incredibly un-Japanese.

The beach sand and the grass were coarse. Hardly anyone was in the water apart from the ocassional laughing 5-year-old. The car in this photo belonged to some kitted out locals who were kayaking.

I recently dyed Morne’s hair a bright, fantasy blue, and the lake had an interesting effect on the dye. It leached the blue away, and by the time we were drying off in the sunset, his hair was a shocking pink.

Pink hair on the front and blue on the back!

Laughing and hungry, we walked up to our campsite to begin cooking dinner.

Included in our ‘glamping’ pillowless package, was a meat barbeque. They gave us what looked like fatty beef chops, delicate slices of marbled wagyu beef, two sausages, stirfry stripd of beef (thinly sliced), two thick slices of onion, some pepper, far too much cabbage, far too little mushroom and two packs of soft noodles. It had been ages since we had started a fire, and we both wanted to be in charge. Compromise is a part of any relationship, so we lit one firelighter each and piled the coal on together. First, we tested the flames out on the sausages.

This was the most fun either of us have had in a while. Grilling food over a fire is one of life’s simple pleasures.

I never trust sausages, I’ve heard too many stories about chicken feet and MSG, but Japanese sausages are pure quality. They were silky smooth with a moreish smokey flavor.

How it starts…

We had prepared for this barbeque a few months in advance by bringing my favorite summer wine from South Africa — a light and fruity pale pink Boschendal Chardonnay/Pino Noir 2016 — that we drank out of paper cups. Next, we piled on the chops and found them to be tender and tasty. The wagyu was the star of the shot, fat melting in the fire and making the meat as tender as tofu. We had fun with the noodle dish, grilling the vegetables and meat before adding them to a flat pan with the noodles.

How it ends!

Full and happy, we stumbled back down to the lakeside in the dark and lay on the patchy grass staring up at the stars. A family walked down a few minutes later and set off small fireworks while laughing into the night. I even spotted a single firefly hovering around a tree. Finally exhausted, we walked back and went to sleep on the hard plastic sheets and our makeshift pillow.

Fun fact: the sun rises at 4 am during springtime in Japan.

After a hard nights sleep, we washed the barbeque, packed up and spent the entire day next to the lake, tanning and swimming. Morne insisted sunblock wasn’t necessary and is still paying the price three weeks later with the reddest sunburn I have ever seen. I have a particularly good photo of him lobster red with bright pink hair. Once home in Osaka, we both flopped into bed, grateful for our expensive, fluffy pillows.

I lamented the lack of pillows to every Japanese person willing to listen, hoping for some reaction. Instead, they just looked at me funny, said “ohhhhh, mmmm, yes” and indicated that was just the way it was.

The motto of the story: If you go glamping in Japan, remember to bring a pillow.

Share your camping stories with me in the comments!

I’d love to hear some of the challenges and sucesses you had while out in the wild!

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Claire Heginbotham
Claire Heginbotham

Written by Claire Heginbotham

Tech and travel copywriter who writes content, kickass websites, and emails that convert. Low key Star Trek fan.

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