The typhoon's course did not look good for us; it was forecasted to cover almost all of Japan in the next 3 days. After packing up our camping stuff in the car, we drove up towards Toyama prefecture, via Joetsu. We thought if it miraculously got sunny, we could hike up Mount Tateyama.
I found this coastal food stop famous for fresh sea food and huge park, and convinced Kevin to get our lunch there. It was surprisingly extremely hot, the sun was high, the air was humid. Where was the typhoon?
We bought these crabs for 8000JPY and they gave us extra 1 and 1/2 more!
I have not eaten fresh oysters in a while
This is rice topped with crab liver paste
In the end, we were able to eat only 2, and packed the rest
It was mandatory to eat this silky soft ice cream 😁
We thought a lot about our limited options and decided to stay in an onsen hotel in the center of Toyama. By the time we checked in, the sky was already foreboding something ominous; our decision was right. We still managed to dine and walked a bit around the city before we ate (again) free soba and unlimited ice cream at the hotel. 🤣
We did not notice the typhoon at all; we slept like babies. The next day was pleasant, we were back on track and drove towards Noto Peninsula. The place is famous for having unpredictable weather, we took our chances again, and randomly called any campground. The first place we went to was right next to a sea wall, haha, without any facility. We looked around for a while before we politely declined the owner.
Finally, we found this huge public campsite on a hill with unbelievably well-maintained facilities.
The roads looked wild and beautiful
Making fire after setting up our tent
We kept our plan open as usual, that we would leave whenever we feel like it. It was on a Wednesday, so the campsite was not busy, in fact, we were the only ones at the tent site. The nights were starry, and breezy since we were at the other coast.
Camping is like playing house. The day easily goes by without you knowing it. You might think it is bring, on the contrary, there's a lot of things to do. You set up your make-do kitchen, bed (in our case, our mattress!), make space for a 'living room', tie the hammock, make some fire, etc.
There was a huge playground where we could do our morning yoga together
It was our first time to be in this area; very quiet, like in a thriller movie (lol), but peaceful. One morning, when we did not do yoga, we cycled for about 2 hours, and gave up because there was too much ascent, and we got hungry.
At some point we took a break from eating camping food that we drove to Wajima, a small town with very old atmosphere. Guess what we ate? Italian cuisine at Orizzonte. Yes, and it was remarkably luscious. The used local ingredients for their menu, and even let us have custom pizza, which was not a typical thing to offer to customers at restaurants in Japan. I think they did not have that much tourists in the area. If only Wajima were an hour away from Tokyo, we would love to visit much often. Anyway we were so full and bloated that we had to take a walk around.
There was another beautiful special spot along Wajima's coast. It's called Shiroyone Senmaida Rice Terraces. From the name itself, it is rice paddy area, but what makes it special is its proximity to the shore. Everything was just so picturesque. We could hear the waves crashing on the rocks; the silver reflections of the scorching sun on the sea looked so magnificent.
Everything looked so perfect, from the blue sky to the white waters breaking on the rocks, as well as the green and gold rice fields. We walked around the field, talking about a few things in life, before I let out a terrifying scream. My knees shook uncontrollably and I though I would fell off the steps. The reason? I locked eyes with this brown snake, 😁, I think we actually scared each other.
Can you imagine how I screamed at Kevin while he was taking those photographs? Anyway, when I calmed down, I eventually forgot about that poor snake. There was a souvenir shop near the parking lot where we stopped by to buy something unique. We bought dried puffer fish. If "weird" doesn't find us, we go and huntfor it, meh. 🙃
That night was really beautiful; there were other campers in the tent site, and the sky glittered with stars again.
Because it was forecasted to rain the next day, we decided to pack everything up, and drive to Takayama, to eat (blog entry here). xoxo