The last English Adventure camp of the summer was a five day camp in Chichibu with over 60 kids (I posted about the previous two here and here). Just in case you are feeling sorry for me for having to sleep in tents all summer, check this out:
It's a very sturdy tent, filled with comfy mats and blankets, fixed atop a wooden platform which is raised a metre off the ground. No bumps, no leaking, no flooding, and not so many bugs--camping the civilized way.
Joe made a comment in the last camp post asking where all the food pictures were, so this time I snapped what I ate. Above is gobou kaki-age udon (udon noodles with burdock tempura), eaten at a rest stop on the way to camp (we bus in from Shinjuku). Really good stuff, but not the best choice for midsummer--it was piping hot and we were all sweating by the time we were done eating.
At this camp we make our own breakfasts but most lunches and dinners are eaten at the camp cafeteria. The food is served buffet-style and is actually pretty good, although geared to the kids more than to the adults. For my first dinner, I had cabbage and green bean salad, yakisoba (fried noodles), fries, mini katsu (pork cutlet) and some kind of fried fish on the main plate, with miso soup, nikujaga (beef stewed with potatoes), and fruit cocktail with almond jelly.
This lunch featured minchi katsu (minced meat cutlet), pasta salad, cabbage, cauliflower and green bean salad, and pineapple, hiyashi udon (cold udon noodles), and curry rice.
For this dinner I ate rice, spaghetti with red peppers, pickles, age-shumai (deep-fried pork dumplings), fried fish, yogurt with fruit cocktail, cabbage roll, green salad, bean sprout and spinach salad, and miso soup.
Our big hike ended at a river, and before taking a dip we had bentos delivered. This one has rice topped with umeboshi (pickled plum), kara-age (fried chicken), daigaku imo (candied sweet potato), an orange slice, pickles and salad underneath.
Back at camp for dinner, I had miso soup, green salad, cucumber and chicken salad, fried shrimp, spring roll, fruit and almond jelly, and yakisoba.
For this lunch I had green salad, harusame (glass noodle) salad, katsu, pineapple, hiyashi somen (thin wheat noodles served cold), and curry rice.
The one lunch we did cook for ourselves was chicken roasted in dutch ovens. I got the before shot, but once it was ready things moved too quickly for me to take a picture, but trust me, it was good.
Oh yes, and dessert. We roasted marshmallows when our bonfire died down, and some kids went a bit nuts. Long after most kids had gotten sick of marshmallows and gone to bed, this guy was trying to break the world record for most marshmallows successfully roasted on a single stick.
Another great camp, and normally I'd get a bit campsick (a camper coined that term, meaning to miss camp when its over) when it was done, but I had just one day to get ready for my trip home so I didn't have time to be sad. Besides, I'll see many of the kids again at ski camp this winter. Can't wait!
Not too shabby those camp meals!
Posted by: Nate | 2008.09.20 at 04:21 PM