Spring Break adventures!

Each year the school where my husband works has a one-week holiday called "Spring Break". This is an American term and tradition, one that we embrace as it's the only break in classes at school in the six months between Christmas and the end of the school year in June. 

In recent years our most common activity during this single week in March is to go camping. The weather is starting to warm up, though it can be a little volatile. We experienced it's volatility last week.

Tuesday

We left for our camping trip on Tuesday and the weather was great, if a little cloudy.

Our destination was the Boso Peninsula, east of Tokyo on the other side of Tokyo Bay. The fastest way there from our place, theoretically, is straight across the city and across the bay using the 15.1 km tunnel-bridge built 29 years ago. It features a 9.6 km tunnel, one of the world's longest underwater tunnels, and a 4.4 km bridge. The place where this transitions between a tunnel and a bridge is a tourist destination on an artificial island called the Umihotaru (literally "Sea firefly"). We'd decided to stop here for lunch, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be enough parking for the traffic it receives and we crept for ages on the access ramp from the tunnel. Frustrating!

But we did get a yummy lunch and then a photo on the deck outside (it was a little chilly):

Location of the artificial island

Another photo of the island that is fashioned like a boat.

We got to our destination early afternoon and had fun setting up our tent. We had a fairly large site (for Japan) and therefore multiple layouts in which we could have set up our tent/tarp annex. It turned out later that our prediction of where possible wind might come from was wrong. We did have a nice view and didn't pay top-price for it.

I put the below photos here for reference for what happened later.

Beautiful sunset first night.

This is where we were located.

On the first night there were a lot of people around, especially young men. They weren't loud, but they also didn't sleep much either. We were located near the amenities block and often heard people walking past.

Wednesday

All our fellow campers packed up the next morning. It's often the case in Japan that people just camp for one night, so we weren't surprised. 

We went for a walk before lunch around the local roads, and then after lunch drove down to the beach for another walk. We played games (Scrabble and Red 7) and the weather was calm and very comfortable and a relaxing day. We were looking forward to more of that the next day.

This new sprout is apparently called a "Jack-in-the-pulpit" or Arisaema Triphyllum.

This is a sign at an archaeologically significant site near our campsite. Apparently
the site has evidence of habitation since around 5 or 6,000 B.C.

Here is the underwhelming (for us lay people) site.

Welcome sign at the campsite. Look at that blue sky.

Selfie on the local beach with my ever-obliging husband

We enjoyed camp pizza, a free hot shower, and then readied the campsite for a rainy night. Weather forecast is something we always keep a close eye on when we're camping and the forecast on Wednesday night was for rain to come in for several hours from around midnight.

Windy night

At around 1 am we realised there was an excessive amount of flapping going on outside and David went out to check. One corner of our tarp-annex had collapsed from the strong wind. From experience he knew that it was best not to try to reconstruct the shelter at that point, so took the whole structure down to the ground and secured it over the top of our equipment.

Then we tried to get more sleep. But it was very broken sleep. I thought about stories from the Bible that involved storms, including the amazing story of Jesus sleeping in an open boat in a storm. And I tried to read my book on my Kindle to distract my brain from going into "what if" mode. The side of the tent our heads were close to was slapping us on the heads which significantly disrupted any sleep that might have happened. 

Around 4 am I was concerned by further noises outside and opened the door to our sleeping area to investigate. To our surprise, the front of the tent was not where it should have been (around a metre in front of the sleeping area): instead it was almost blown inside to where we were. Investigation showed that the pole holding the fly out there had split and was no longer able to do the job it was designed to do. The whole tent was flapping considerably at this point and it was very noisy. David also discovered that the kitchen had pretty much capsized, which put much of our dining equipment in the muddy grass.

At about 5 am we decided to abandon our sleeping bags and evacuate to the car. The part of the tent where we'd been sleeping was secure and nothing in there was wet, nor did it seem in danger of blowing away, but it was just very noisy and stressful being inside there.

The car was so peaceful in comparison, though I wish I could have gone back to sleep. We sat in the car and watched our tent, passed the time with games (including Scrabble), and ate a small breakfast (70g tub of yoghurt and a mikan/mandarin). Around 9 it started to calm down and we bought some caffeinated drinks from the vending machine at the campsite. 

Thursday: not so restful

Then we started to assess damage and try to make a decision about what to do: did we clean up (including a trip to the laundromat to wash all our towels, tea towels, and rags) and re-erect the tarp shelter and stay on one more night as we'd planned, or did we clean up, pack up and go home? In the end it was the weather forecast that decided us, and that this was supposed to be a holiday. More rain was forecast the next day, which would have meant that we'd be packing up wet the next day. Packing up wet gear has consequences when you're going home to a small apartment where it's harder to dry things, especially the tent. We decided to cut our losses and go home and try to salvage some rest in this short holiday period.

Around 4 or so David piled much of the kitchen stuff against
the fence that delineated our campsite from the next door one.
He tells me he nearly lost the tarp, but thankfully it
caught on a tent rope and he was able to grab it.

This angle shows that the back part of the tent (where we were sleeping)
was still intact, it was just the entry that got a bit demolished by the wind. 
However the wind was hitting the side facing the camera and knocking
us around inside.

Thus ensued four hours of cleaning, drying, washing up, and packing, done with sleep debt and not much food. But the power of water and soap is amazing. I picked up the fry pan out of the muddy grass, washed it up, and later cooked dinner at home with it!

We had conversations with the camp site caretakers who were very sorry that this had happened. They, like us, had not seen any forecast of strong wind (in the worst of it my apps were saying the wind was blowing around 27-37 km/hr, which may or may not have been right for where we were on an exposed ridge). 

Alas, I think the worst was to come. It took about 5 ½ hrs to get home (about 110 km). The congestion driving through Tokyo was pretty bad and Google maps was frustrating, more so because we were tired and hadn't eaten well. We got stuck in 5-10 km/hr traffic in tunnels under Tokyo where there is nowhere to pull over if you're tired.

I saw these guys when we stopped for ice cream after our beach walk.
I think they looked like we did after our windy night!

Rural Japan sight: a tiny tractor! Really just the size of a small ride-on mower.

Finishing drying out the tent in my office.

Needless to say we slept well on Thursday night. Disappointed, but also glad that we hadn't been so far from home and could bail out fairly easily. 

Friday and Saturday

On Friday we'd planned to meet a friend for lunch on our way home. After a slow morning we were still able to meet her, but sadly got stuck in traffic again. We did have a really lovely afternoon with our friend, though, and I came away feeling refreshed (and we had a good drive home). 

Saturday I had declared to be a "spring clean" at our apartment: tackling things that don't normally get cleaned, like windows, tops of high furniture, etc. But first we finished tidying away the camping gear. I also mended one of the tabs on the tent that had been ripped out by the wind. It was good to clean together and we finished the day feeling satisfied.

Most of our friends will wonder why we even bother with camping when things like this happen. But honestly, this is only the second time in nearly 15 years of camping that we've encountered such wind. And I'd much rather be dealing with this than walking down a very crowded street in Harujuku or going to Tokyo Disney (or be stuck in city traffic)! You take the good with the bad when you go camping and most often it is good. And certainly you store up lots of memories and stories!

An overflowing week

Last week was huge—such a contrast to a usual work at my desk at home. I'm glad for all the people I interacted with, though, so thankful.

Monday

Monday was the monthly missionary gathering of OMF missionaries in our area, involving around 50 or more people. This is held at our Japan headquarters on the other side of Tokyo and typically I spend between three and four hours on six or more trains to get there and back. Once I'm there, it's encouraging, but the train journeys can be a bit fraught if you get stuck on heavily populated trains.

The morning's schedule was:

9.30–10.00 arriving, chatting, and coffee/tea

10.00 singing, devotional, announcements, welcomes and farewells.

11.00 morning tea

11.30 prayer time

12.30 BYO lunch

From 1.30 we had a working bee (cleaning/gardening to tidy up the Japan headquarters building).

I got home after 4 pm feeling pretty weary.

Tuesday

At 8.30 I met a friend I said goodbye to in 2016 when she moved back to the US. She's part of my magazine team, so I haven't lost touch with her, but having 1½ hours to sit and talk one-on-one with her at a cafe was such a joy and encouragement. In the few years that she lived in Japan we spent many hours together at prayer meetings and volunteering at school. She's just one of the multitude of friends who have passed through my life in this cross-cultural life. It felt like a redeeming moment to reconnect last week.

The rest of Tuesday was spent working hard at my computer to ensure I could be away from my desk for the rest of the week.

I climbed into a hammock leaning
over a stream!

In the evening I picked up a young Australian friend from the train station who'd be staying with us that night. She'd travelled a long way from western Japan and then gotten a bit lost on Tokyo trains. We were all pretty tired by the time she arrived, so we fed her and then went to bed.

Wednesday – Friday

I did some more desk work in the morning before gathering a carload of ladies around midday to travel to the annual Women in Ministry retreat. Our houseguest was one of my passengers, as well as a missionary neighbour and a friend from church (these days I drive a small car with only four seatbelts).

I also climbed into a tree (with help
from a taller friend)

From then on it was almost constant interaction and activity until Saturday! But, as usual the retreat was a great blessing. 

The worship times were a highlight for me. There's something about singing God's truth into our hearts that is very precious. The worship leader didn't mess around by talking: she lead us through song after song, so the flow wasn't interrupted. I found that it gave me helpful contemplation time. This retreat has been a big "lily pad" in my life over the last 20 years. It's a notable "memory handle" when I think back over those years—I remember various times in my life that this retreat has coincided with other challenging events. 

For example, the retreat in 2011, just days before our lives were sent into turmoil (on this actual day, 11th March) with the triple disaster north of of here. 

I remember the retreat in March 2020 when the magnitude of the pandemic was just starting to dawn on us. I arrived at that particular retreat with the heavy weight of one of my best friend's son who was terminally ill (at 13 years of age) and straight after that women's retreat I hosted a writing retreat that was both incredibly fulfilling as well as incredibly taxing and exhausting. 

Speaker, worship leader with two
visiting Biblical counsellors

I remember the 2021 retreat held online, just a couple of weeks after some devastating news in our family and in the midst of our middle son's traumatic last year of high school.

And 2022, when I was numb after a couple of years of almost no in-person time with people, and when a friend confronted me after noticing my unusual demeanour, I fell apart in her room as I told her about some very heavy stuff within my own family.

That's a sampling of the memories that were coursing through my brain as we worshipped. It was actually pretty therapeutic to reflect on those things as I sang about the goodness and faithfulness of God. Annual events like these nowadays are reminders to me of the friends who are no longer there (usually moved away) and the underlying grief that accompanies me now through life. Remembering, though, that God is still with me and has walked with me through all of the above, and more, was very special.

My other take-away from the retreat is diving into Ephesians 3:17–19. It's a rich passage where Paul's words start to run away from him a bit. Here it is from the Amplified version (not one I usually use, but it was helpful in thinking this through):

And may you, having been [deeply] rooted and [securely] grounded in love, be fully capable of comprehending with all the saints (God’s people) the width and length and height and depth of His love [fully experiencing that amazing, endless love]; and [that you may come] to know [practically, through personal experience]

Meals were plain Japanese-style.

 the love of Christ which far surpasses [mere] knowledge [without experience], that you may be filled up [throughout your being] to all the fullness of God [so that you may have the richest experience of God’s presence in your lives, completely filled and flooded with God Himself]. (Eph. 3:17-19 AMP).

I was particularly noticing that my head knowledge of Christ's love is far surpassed by his actual love for me. I come from a theological background that doesn't emphasis personal experience of God's love, but I think that that is only part of the story in the life of a Christian, a part that I'm still growing in my understanding of and desperately need when I have doubts about my own worthiness and value.

Friday

On Friday at noon, we headed back to Tokyo, and ordinary life. But those in my car got another three hours of enjoyable fellowship in my car. I wasn't the most reliable of drivers, though, because I was tired. I pour myself into interacting people when I get the chance and it wears me out. It was actually hard to concentrate on driving as well as talking with those in the car and I took two wrong turns and one "dodgy" last minute turn! Two stops for caffeine later and I was pleased to finally park my car outside our apartment without any serious incident.

Our Australian guest's flight wasn't until the next day, so she stayed one more night with us. We were a little sad, because, though she'd physically been present at the retreat, she'd missed the entire programme on Thursday as she stayed in bed with a cold. Thankfully she was feeling a bit better by Friday and even able to play card games with us that evening (taught me a new game too—not easy when I was so tired).

Saturday

After we said farewell to our guest and had lunch, we rode our bikes to do a small errand for some other OMF missionaries at the mission's storage facility about 2.5 km from here, and then got groceries on our way home. It wasn't a fun ride: the wind was horribly strong and cold. But this was actually a much needed rest day, so we spent the rest of afternoon and evening lounging in front of the cricket (a rare women's multi-day cricket match, Aust. vs India).

Sunday

This was a pretty usual Sunday: left for church on our bikes at 10 am, ate lunch there, and got home by 3 pm—in time to hang-out online for a couple of hours with our kids.

I'm glad every week isn't like that, but also glad that some weeks are!