Family holiday

For those living in New Zealand etc. the concept of taking a 3 day holiday away as a family in the summer is not exactly a foreign one, but for those of us living with Japanese husbands it often takes a little more persuasion to convince them that going away as a family for more than one night in a row is an important part of the year. My husband is pretty good really and this year he decided that we should get into camping - great I thought, I have great memories of camping as a child. I also have memories of hauling a trailer behind the car that was stuffed full of all the things necessary to go on a camping holiday. My husband came home last week with a tent and a table - all set for camping! I decided to go along for the ride and let him choose where we were going etc. and only took part in getting the food ready for the trip.

Cutting a long story short... we left on Saturday in the middle of a thunderstorm and to protests from my mother-in-law who really has no idea why people would want to spend any time away from their home and jobs - especially when there is a thunderstorm. First stop - book shop in Oita to buy one book each to pass the time away if it continued to rain solidly for 3 days. One and a half hours later and 40 books heavier we left the book shop - it just happened they had 80% off all their English children's and adults books...... great start to the weekend! Another couple of hours driving and a few missed turnoffs and we were at our destination - the beach in Nobeoka, Miyazaki prefecture. Our luck continued and there was one free cabin so we didn't have to risk our luck putting up our new tent in the still steadily pouring rain. Also as luck would have it the cabin was pretty impressive - shower, air conditioning, kitchen... who could ask for more! Across the road there was a small aquarium so after the books were read (well some of them) we headed there for some fish spotting followed by hamburgers for tea.
The next day we started off with some mini golf in the rain (my son wouldn't give us any peace until we let him do it) then my husband took the kids swimming in the fairly heavy rain! I stayed in our cabin reading my book till the rain cleared enough to take photos! We didn't need to check out till 1pm so after lunch we checked out at 12:59 and headed to another beach close by where we decided to rough it in our new tent - fortunately the rain stayed away and after only a few disagreements about how the tent should be put up (camping wouldn't be camping without arguments about how to put up the tent!) we settled in and spent the day swimming, eating, and of course reading! The final day was spent fighting about how to put the tent away and more swimming...... with a bit more reading thrown in for good luck. A pretty good break away - despite a sleep on the very hard ground the second night. We bought sleeping mats on the way home......