We started off the day with some delicious Dim Sum ate the Michelin Star Restaurant, Tim Ho Wan. The food was absolutely delicious.
After, we checked out the Big Buddha at Lantau Iskand. In the interest of time, we took a Taxi instead of taking the lift (which ended up being slightly cheaper).
Here at some pics:
Arrived at Tokyo yesterday at 2:35 PM. Clearing customs was super fast and easy. Figuring out the train to Sugamo was also not bad, but had a bit of difficult at first since Google maps didn’t recognize my hotels address (apparently because it’s super new). But after loading my Suica card with 1000 yen (which had a previous balance of 500 yen), I was ready to go!
I met up with Ben at Sugamo station, and we headed to my hotel. We were planning to go to the on-sen at my hotel, but they didn’t open till 5pm, so we check out his place.
After chilling for a bit, we went back to my hotel, and check out the on-sen. For the most part, it was similar to the Korean Spa we tried in New York, but slightly better.
After the on-sen we made our way to Shinjuku for dinner (a really good Izakaya Place) and bar hopping.
We then walked around Shinjuku for a bit. One of the two following pictures brought back some bad memories from my last Tokyo trip:
Then we went to Tokyo Tower for some pics (fortunately the skies cleared and it stopped raining):
Shroo
-went to a camp called uncles and champagne. There was a dj called who
2C
Sleeping at 7am was pretty tough for two reasons. One is that the sun was up. And two, the tents became really really hot.
At around 10am, we decided to get up and make breakfast.
We then made our way to explore a couple of camps.
After eating dinner, we made our way to Eric’s camp at around 8:45pm.
When we got to his camp, we (Sam, Eric, and I), decided to do p (each had 100). Eric mentioned though that he needed to get back to his camp before 1am, since he was going to do m with his camp mates. We assured him this was possible.
Shortly after, we got on our bikes and headed to Richard’s camp, of course taking the 3 – 9 Esplanade pass through.
When we got to Richard’s camp, he was not there. We chilled for a bit at his camp, but then we decided to take a walk and leave our bikes.
We walked towards the center of BRC. Along the way there were these tangos that appeared to be moving.
When we got to the center, looking out and around… the art was very surreal and beautiful. I also felt like I was in a holodeck, or like at the center of the universe. Looking up seemed like I was in space.
We eventually made our way to the man in the center. Approaching it, and even look at the gears… they were all moving. Even the sand. Looking at things, you sorta know how they work.
After the man, we eventually made our way to some of the sound stages. One of them was called the Mayan Warriors. They’re lights and sounds we’re amazing. We then went to Opulent temple, where we stayed for quite a while. When we were trying to leave, Eric kept just turning around and heading back to it… it was like he was completely mesmerized lol.
After Opulent temple, we passed by this stage called the Bare Bonze stage, where the set up was just speakers, and a skeleton of a stage. I thought it was very creative.
The final stage we stayed at (mainly since it had a fire pit) was Kahzba. One of the djs, Hoj, played a really good set.
We also chilled at some couches that Kahzba had, although Eric was pretty cold (so we then stayed around the fire area).
We left Kahzba around 6am to get our bikes. On our way back, walking through the center, the walk in itself was also a journey. The clouds and the sky simply looked amazing, along with the mountains (it almost seemed like we could walk and reach the mountains). We saw people parachuting down. It’s unclear the number of people.
<insert pics from the morning, like the picture frame one)
After getting our bikes, we went to bed at 7am.
Lol. The takeaway is that Eric did not make it back by 1am… but we did have every intention of brining him back.
When we finally reach BRC Road, we spent a good 10 minutes driving 10mph before reaching the gates. At the gate line up, they were searching some people’s cars, and even got them to remove their bikes from their car mounts (one of the guys looked sorta like Eric… Sam disagreed). Fortunately, our experience was pretty quick and easy. We gave the gate guy our tickets, he scanned them and the vehicle pass, and then we were on our way!… to the next gate.
The next gate was actually a census checkpoint. Adora and Eric got questioned, but Sam and I didn’t (they said questioning was random). So we proceeded to the final gate, where we were greeted by a naked greeter. He got us to make embrace the playa dust by making dust Angels, and then ringing some sort of bell (while doing some sort of warrior cry I can’t remember right now).
Afterwards, we headed over to Eric’s camp at 8:30 and I. When we pulled in (Sam sorta pulled in aggressively), a guy named Dalton came up to us and started acting pretty territorial (he kept insisting we go to our own camp). Of course he was super nice to Eric and Adora. Unfortunately meeting Dalton was the first BM camp we met, so not a very good first impression.
So Sam and I spent 30 minutes trying to find a place to camp out. He talked to one guy for a good 15 minutes about what is the etiquette and boundaries for camps. Basically the guy he talked to said that camps are usually territorial, and they do mark their boundaries.
We then ventured into 8:45 and I, where I stumbled across a camp that looked like they had open space. I approached one of the camp members, Tara, and asked her if we could use the space. She said yes, so we were super stoked. But then, 15 minutes later, one of the camp mates said they were gonna use he space. Fortunately though they had space at the back of their camp, so they made some room. Also, the neighbors adjacent made more room for us so we could fit the car and our tents.
After parking the car, we started to set up our tents. Its the first time I actually set up a tent on my own. Fortunately I found the instructions. The take aways for me though for setting up any tent were: (1) the skeleton of the tent needs to be set up such that there is a good amount of tension, and (2) the stakes of the tent need to be pointed inward.
After setting up the tent, unloading our stuff and changing into proper attire, it was around 5:30pm. We then made our way to Eric’s camp to see how he was doing.
<pic of tent set up>
Eric’s tent was pretty awesome. It had a silver reflective coat to block the heat from the sun, it had fans that regulated the temperature, and they fit two twin air mattresses. Apparently the tent cost $500.
We then showed Eric our camp set up. Shortly after, he left, and Sam and I decided to do a little bit of exploring.
We first went to center camp. The most notable thing is that they sold lemonade. We also night some ice nearby and put it in or camel baks. There was also an information booth that we used to find out where Richard’s camp was.
We got to Richard’s camp probably around 6pm. He was there, and we chatted for a bit. We made plans to meet up again around 9:30pm at his camp.
<pic of center camp>
Sam and I then started heading back.
We got back around 7pm, and started making dinner before it became too dark (we made the mountain dehydrated dinners).
<pic of dinner>
We then proceeded to add lights to our bikes (I had to re-add mine since Sam took them off back in Rino since her became paranoid we would get pulled over because of them).
<pic of bikes>
We then headed over to Eric’s camp…
We woke up around 8:30am, which gave me 5 hours of sleep, so not super terrible. I took a my last shower for a good 15 minutes. Meanwhile Sam was taking care of our license plate issue (he also was paranoid about our bikes looking to ravey, so he took off my EL wire without telling me. I found out later at BRC and was super pissed).
We met up with Eric and Adora around 10:30am at a nearby Starbucks. They also ended up fixing their license plate.
Before heading out of Reno, we stopped by Target since we needed to get more propane tanks (well, not really, but we thought we did), and I picked up more comfortable shoes (my hiking shoes that I brought were hurting my right foot baby toe). The shoes I got were size 8.5, and the brand was champion. They were super comfortable, and did not disappoint during BM.
We headed out of Reno around 11:30, and google maps was saying we’d get to BRC by 3pm. Waze was saying 1:40pm.
Sam was driving, and he was super cautious about obeying the speed limit (mainly from the advice Richard gave him).
The last stop we made was for gas at this really ghetto Shell station, where there is only one gas pump pillar and the gas pump chord is like 20ft so your car can go on either side.
We ended up reaching the gates at around 2:10pm.