An UNDERRATED Time to Visit Japan? - Summer Camping in Japan's Countryside

Hello and welcome back to probably one of the hottest days of this year so far. The previous videos it has been rainy season but now it has completely changed and it's 38 degrees today and oh boy we are ready to get in that water behind us. But today is all about doing a beautiful day camp here in this lovely spot in the countryside of Japan. We're going to be hopefully doing some stand-up paddle boarding and just enjoying these beautiful summer vibes so let's get into it. For this day trip we have traveled to Gunma Prefecture which is about two and a half hours from Tokyo to a campsite called Airi Camp Base. Just down the road is the onsen town Shima Onsen and 50 minutes drive away is the famous Kusatsu Onsen. Who's heard of Calpis before? This is a drink kind of unique to the Japan region. We've got a pineapple variant today but this liquid is usually just like white. It looks a little bit like milk. It's got a very unique taste but I am ready to try this pineapple version on this Kusatsu day. Oh that's so refreshing. I can smell the pineapple from here actually. That's really good. I'm not a huge fan of like regular Calpis but on a day like today... When we first moved to Japan we received all these comments of like people being like eat up all the red meat you're never gonna have red meat again because like they only eat fish and like salad in Japan. But come summertime I tell you what Japanese know how to throw a barbecue. The supermarkets just explode with all these kind of like delicious cuts of like meat. Today we've got this lemon flavored chicken and we've got like variety sausages but they've also got all these like different styles of like beef and pork like with unique spices. I tell you what it's barbecue season. Let's get into it. You're not supposed to get this on camera. No no no this is a disgrace. I fucked up. Don't get this on camera. Cut. Cut. Cut now. Ray has cooked us up such a good feast. Half cooked the other stuff is just packet but it is what it is. I'll take the credit for it. Thank you very much. So camping in Japan is incredibly popular. This campsite that we're at now as you can see is so beautiful and it is more on the expensive side. It's like ¥12,000 upwards for one night. That's a reoccurring theme in Japan at really beautiful spots especially also around Mount Fuji for example. But you can get places that are like ¥2,000 to ¥3,000 a night so you know relatively quite cheap. But for day camping that's also really popular as well and that's what we're doing today. We're not staying overnight because we thought it might be too hot to sleep in a tent. So this was ¥2,500 per person to stay for the whole day and relax at this campsite. So of course summer in Japan is so hot and humid. It's so tropical but particularly in the cities you know there's this heat island effect. There's all the buildings, all the concrete. Tokyo when we live there, it's just you need your aircon on 24 7 to survive. I have been known to say for example on the channel that my job is Tokyo cheapo. I've said summer it's the worst time to come to Japan. But how do you feel? Honestly when you pair it with a day like this out in the nature I know it's hot. If you get out of the city, if you escape to the mountains, you come to a beautiful lake, a beautiful river. It can be some of the most enjoyable times all year round in my opinion. Yeah Roy actually really likes summer. I love summer. It's got to be my favorite season. It's my favorite season I'm gonna say. I mean like I said you can do things like this. You can go to summer festivals. You can stare at beautiful rice fields. Also hiking. Of course if you're gonna come for summer hiking then you're gonna be here in the hottest time of year. But you can pair it with beautiful camping like this. It's time for some stand-up paddle boarding. Are you ready? Yes. Show us your best form. Well I'm sitting down. That's not stand-up paddle boarding. Just you wait. We'll get going. This is perfect weather for water activities. The stand-up paddle boards were an extra 3000 yen each to hire for a couple of hours from the campsite. We were told that there was a nice stream and resting spot upriver so we decided to make that our goal. Enjoying the most beautiful blue water that we'd ever seen along the way. Surprisingly enough with all this beautiful water not many people, Japanese people, go swimming in these wonderful rivers and lakes. At least as much as we do in Australia. Exactly. I feel like it's part of Australian culture to find beautiful places to go swimming exclusively. When we came and rented the paddle boards they were like you're not allowed to come just swimming here. Like you have to be like doing like canoeing or like stand-up paddle boarding and I was like what if you fall in? And she's like oh well that's kind of like shouganai so yeah I fell in. Fell in in quotation marks. We've discovered the oasis at the end of the road. I don't know if I call it an oasis. It's a stream. All of that's for a stream. Now it's beautiful. Look at this. Such nice vibes. It's actually quite cold. You wouldn't want to do this on any other day besides a 38 degree one. Yeah. Wow look how beautiful the mountains are. Look how beautiful my husband is. Stop it. The beautiful mountains. Man that was actually so much fun. Like just paddling around in this beautiful area. You could like adventure through the trees and then just like falling off was actually rewarding and fun because it's so hot. So much fun. I can't say more than that. But there's one more thing that we want to go check out today. We've actually been there once before but it was like in spring or something like that. It wasn't you know one of the prettiest seasons and we want to go back and see what it looks like in summer. A little hint it's got something to do with spirited away so let's go check it out. What do you think? I think it's way better. Yeah no this is better than like just looking at it in a bunch of different dead sticks. This Japanese inn is said to be one of the inspirations for the bathhouse in Spirited Away. While it was impressive when we first visited in early April it doesn't quite compare to the vibrant summer green. Japan really does look at its best in this season but whether you visit or not in summer really depends on if you can withstand the heat. Well summer is incredibly hot but there's no denying the vibrant green is very beautiful. However I would still say this one is more beautiful and resembles Spirited Away more at night time. But I guess let us know what you guys think down in the comments. Does it look like the beautiful Spirited Away? But this is the end of the video. Thanks so much for coming along with us. We're really excited to do more summer stuff. We've got a whole good two months still to go so look forward to that and we'll see you next time. Bye!