My Tokyo Bucket List is full of ideas and dreams.

There are so many influences and opportunities flying at me daily and my bucket list works like a road map while I live in Asia.

On that list, waiting to be checked off, along side entries such as stand-up-paddle-boarding in Okinawa and driving a caravan through New Zealand, is camping lakeside at the foot of Mt. Fuji.

I am not sure exactly what motivated me to add this to my bucket list. Perhaps it was the 5 sleeping bags, 3 tents and plethora of headlamps that are sitting in our (incredibly crowded) Tokyo cellar, the proximity to such a majestic mountain or perhaps the simple fact that no one thought I would ever do it….

I wasn’t sure why I added camping to my Tokyo Bucket List.

But I can tell you now, now that I have done it. The best reasons to go camping – to be cold and damp, to not sit down once in 72 hours and to come home with pains in places that I never needed to know existed – simply boils down to 3 crazy truths.

Campfire meals tastes like no other

Oh my! I am a little bit obsessed with food and ingredients and eating. So, armed with no other expertise in preparation for our trip, I approached camping from the grub-angle.

I made a menu, shopped for the ingredients, prepared a few things at home. I think I was most excited about the food, even though the thought of cooking over a flame scared the daylights out of me.

Once we were there, mealtime became a focus of the day. You had to begin far in advance and we all pitched in, gathering little sticks, crafting the fire pit, chopping on a wobbly, makeshift table, etc.

We all had our jobs and it was funny to see. No one complained. No one tried to skive off. The tasks were fun and making the meal together was less a job, than an activity.

Unusually, I found that dining at camp was not totally dissimilar to home. It was a time to come together, to chat and to share. The added facet of campfire meals was that there was also a feeling of freedom.

For me, that meant I could eat whatever yummy meals the kids were eating, because everyone knows that camping calories don’t count. For Friso, that meant table manners were optional (and deemed unnecessary). But there was also a freedom of sitting in nature, around a crackling fire and against the backdrop of Mt. Fuji.

If you ask the children what their favourite meal was, I suspect they would say s’mores. Although technically not a meal, I am sure they could have easily eaten them three times a day.

In my opinion, our best meals were:

Campfire French Toast for Breakfast

Although a note here….we tried it according to the recipe and, when the kids began complaining that they were soooooo hungry and it was taking soooooo long, I took it out of the foil and cooked the slices individually in a pan.

Chicken Tacos for Lunch

Shredded Mexican chicken prepared at home, served with campfire salsa, chipotle black beans and cilantro in hard shell tacos

Bacon, Beef & Bean Casserole for Dinner

Yummmmmm, we prepared this recipe (modified from the Cowboy Baked Beans by taking out the sugar, using black beans and substituting canned tomatoes for fresh) with a green salad and crusty warm bread…and licked the plates clean!

I am still a complete novice at camping. So many of the tips I read were too advanced for me. Some advice, however, was perfect for a first-timer and I happily pass it on:

Plan your meals. Even though my friends giggled at me for doing this, I had what I needed and didn’t run out things. (I also had a bit of fun doing it!)

Take frozen foods along in the cooler. They keep the other items cool and you can use them up as they defrost. I took along a frozen carton of milk, one of juice, some mince meat and some bacon. I used them in my cooking as they thawed.
Take as many prepared meals as possible, frozen or otherwise. Our first night at camp consisted of a mac & cheese I had prepared at home that morning and sausages grilled over the campfire
Take garbage bags. This sounds really obvious but, and especially if you are camping in Japan, many campsites expect you to take your rubbish with you when you leave. We also used them for sitting on the wet ground (because I wasn’t prepared enough to have thought of any other way!).
Take food that can be roasted at the end of a stick. Seriously, if the children cook it, they eat it! It just tastes better when it is cooked over a fire.

One of the best moments of the whole trip was the sunshiny, early morning hours when we woke up, got the fire going and boiled some water in the kettle. We sat on the grass, me with a hot coffee and the kids with hot chocolates, overlooking the lake and the gorgeous views of Fuji-san.

We didn’t say much, but enjoyed the silence. We were tired, but satisfied.

You get a serious rush from pushing your boundaries

Camping (alone with the kids) was already out there in terms of my comfort zone. I was pretty sure I could do it, but not exactly sure how it would unfold. As anyone who knows me would tell you, I am a little bit over-protective of the children. I don’t like to take risks and I rarely leave things to chance.

I do not, by nature, jump in to unknown situations. I calculate and consider, always.

I had reserved our campsite before realising that it was considered one of the more “roughing-it” kind of places around the Tokyo area. I realised that other campgrounds in the vicinity have equipment rentals and convenience stores in case you forget something. Ours did not.

I was not deterred or scared off with this new information. I did, however, have the idea to book a sleeping cabin, just in case the tent-thing didn’t work out.

At this point, we were still within my comfortable boundary-pushing limits.

And then two things happened that I did not see coming.

As we checked in at the office, Lulu overheard that we were allowed to make our own campfire. The children were ecstatic! We would build our own pit! We could put it next to our tent! We could tell ghost stories and scare each other!

That meant that I had to build, supervise and extinguish our very own campfire. In my mind, the campsite employees would do that in a sort-of communal fire pit? Not me!

Oh my gosh, I was so nervous. I had bottles and pans and carafes of water standing around that fire. I made the children creep back, away from it a thousand times. I poured endless water over it at the end of the night and felt the embers with my hands to make sure they were cool.

But I did it. I overcame a fear and it was ok….until the next morning, when my little adventure seeking daughter decided that we should go kayaking.

Now, I love the water and all three of my children can swim. I was even a lifeguard for many, many years. But, kayaking with them in a lake? Without Johan?

All my senses were screaming.

But, here’s the thing about being in that situation. Rationally, I knew it was ok. They would wear life jackets and the water was warm enough to swim to shore, if necessary. Emotionally, I knew that I had to do this. I had to push my limits.

We have some of the best pictures and memories of that morning.

And no one fell in. Well, no one except for Friso…from the shore, while reaching out for his paddle. Oh boy!

The smiles on the children’s faces were priceless

Would I do this again? You bet. There is something about that genuine, happy uninhibited grin on those three little faces that made it all worthwhile.

Another one ticked off my Tokyo Bucket List.

Another memory, another amazing experience.

The details:

We camped at Lake Motosuko, which is the westernmost lake of the Fuji Five Lakes and the deepest too!

Kouan Campground is famous because the view from here is the one from the 1’000 ¥ note.

If you are going to camp in a tent, choose the lakeside grounds to have the best view of Fuji-san.

No swimming is allowed in the Lake, but enjoy loads of water-sports such as canoeing, boating and stand up paddle boarding!

Crazy campfire confessions that will make you laugh