Chris Leslie's 2008 USA Summer Camp Blog

Days 52 & 53

2008-08-30T12:17:00.000-07:00

So I woke up this morning around 7:30, eager to get my things ready for the flight back to America. It turns out that we had continental breakfast this morning, up on the 54th floor. I headed up there and took a look at the skyline of Osaka City. It was an incredible sight! Even better, breakfast was fantastic! WE HAD CRUNCHY BACON FOR BREAKFAST!! Seriously, most bacon served here in Japan isn't served crunchy/crispy/what have you. It's always soft. I had that, along with some potatoes, scrambled eggs, a small bowl of cereal, some broccoli, and spaghetti. I know it sounds like a lot of food, but it was just in small portions.

We left the hotel around 10:00, on a shuttle bus to Kansai International Airport. The airport is actually on an island separated from the mainland, so there's this gigantic bridge you take to get there. When we got there, I had my luggage checked, and my luggage only weighed 46 pounds! WAHOO, NO LAME OVERWEIGHT BAG FEE FOR ME! EAT IT, AIRLINE INDUSTRY!

After that, Ami, Erik, Jeff, Phil, PK, Yusuke, Takashi, and myself waited for the rest of the group to arrive (I think they were late, though I'm not sure). We chilled for a little bit before Yusuke had to leave for his flight. After that, we all said our goodbyes.

I was really sad that I had to say goodbye to Sean. He's an amazing, awesome person and it's an effing shame that he lives in Washington instead of Wisconsin. His humor is very similar to mine, plus he's outgoing and always willing to talk about stuff. To me, he's a member of Stop That Nun, through and through. Thanks to him, I felt very comfortable about talking with others and sharing my sense of humor with everyone, along with himself. What else can I say? He's a Nun, and to me that's one hell of a fine compliment. He would fit right in with us.

After saying goodbye, I walked through the security checkpoint area, and realized that I forgot to say goodbye to Ashley! I had a phenomenal time working with her, she was my partner for a couple of camps and when we worked with campers, our work was solid, top-notch stuff. She's an amazing person and just like Sean, I wish she didn't live in Alaska.

And the same can be said for Lauren, who lives in San Francisco. The same can be said for Steph, who lives in New Jersey. The same can be said for Vy, who lives in Boston. I'm going to miss everyone on Team 4, but I'm especially going to sorely miss those of us that don't live in the Midwest. Hopefully, one day our paths will all cross again at some point.

As far as the rest of the team, those of us from the Midwest, I don't know how much I'll miss them. After all, at the most they're a 3 hour drive away from my house, so it's not so bad. Besides, I plan on heading to Milwaukee and Minneapolis in the near future, so for me, it's no worries. In fact, Phil and Takumi also go to UWSP, so I'll miss them for maybe a week at the most. Our time together has only just begun, in some respects.

Well, right now it's 3:56AM back in America, I made the time jump official and what not since I changed the clock on my computer back to Central Time. Sure, it's about 6PM in Osaka right now, but at the current moment it's way too freaking late for me to be awake. It's only a matter of hours now before I'm back home with everyone, less than 12 hours, in fact :)

After this entry, there will be no more updates to this blog, as it has successfully fulfilled its purpose.

Before I end this final entry, I'd like to say one last thing -- All my life, I've seen pictures and movies of foreign countries, of how other people live their lives. Trying to wrap my head around the lifestyles of other people around the world has been inconceivable. I have always wanted to travel to another part of the world, to see how other people live, how they communicate, how they eat and sleep and move about in their daily lives. I always wanted to see what constitutes as "the norm" for other people. And now, thanks to UWSP and Guy Healy Japan, I have finally lived that dream. This was a huge milestone in my life and I couldn't possibly be happier. Alongside of living that dream, I also met a group of amazing, stellar people who all rock at life, and changed the lives of hundreds of Japanese children. I feel that I am returning home older and wiser. For that, I cannot thank everyone enough for making this possible.

Thank you Dianne Smith, without your help I would have never found out about this program, without your letter I would have never made it into the program. I feel that I have grown immensely as a person thanks to this program.

Thank you Mary Shaw, with your patience and understanding, I was able to get the applications submitted with consideration for this experience.

Thank you Luke, Erik, Seth, Henry, Brett, Gibs, Katrina, and all the other Nuns, thank you for your support and your words of advice for my first time abroad.

Thank you to all the readers of my blog, I've enjoyed entertaining you all with my life experiences on the other side of the planet. I know that my host families are also reading my blog, so to Tamiko, Shinichi, Makio, and Miyuki, thank you for reading about my time here with you and of course, ARIGATO GOZAIMASHTA!!!!!

Thank you my love, Kaitlin Reim. Even though you knew I was going away for two months, you gave me a shot at love. And by God I've never had it this good with anyone in my life. Seeing you when I get back will be well worth the two months that I've been without you. I love you, my guarantee.

Thank you to my entire family. Grandma and Grandpa, for encouraging me to go to Japan even though Grandma would have preferred it if I stayed in America, heh. Marie, for being supportive even though the times we get to talk together are short.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for supporting me since Day 1 when I told you I wanted to go to Japan to teach English. You have been there for me the entire time, as you always have. You helped me get the right clothes for camp, you helped me find the right luggage and helped me get all the information I needed for my time here. And when I showed you my appreciation with your new computer, you returned the favor by e-mailing me every day! You two are my guides in life, everything I do is influenced by your wise words and incredible support. Same as me, Mom & Dad.

With that, I conclude a chapter, a turning point, a milestone in the amazing ride that has been my life.

Sayonara. See you, Space Cowboy.

Day 51

2008-08-30T12:15:00.002-07:00

This morning we woke up at 7am for the last time in Japan. I was able to sleep soundly last night, mostly thanks to the noisy campers in my cabin asking me if they could go visit Justin (to which I happily obliged). It was raining, so I packed my umbrella and after breakfast, we made the walk back to the facility for Eigo-Kai.

We started off with My Story, and my campers did okay at best. The one kid that refused to memorize his story realized the consequences of his actions when he stood up there completely lost. I helped him, of course, but I knew that he finally understood what he SHOULD have been doing.

We moved on with Camp Skit shortly after that. Allow me to tell you a bit about Camp Skit, since I didn't talk about it in yesterday's entry. As you may recall, we had an idea down for the skit, but no script was written. Well, halfway through practice last night, the kids changed their minds and we did a skit based on Peter Pan instead. One of the kids wrote the script, but they wrote it in Japanese, and Takumi had to quickly help translate it in about 10 minutes worth of time. Some of the kids also started making props, but really they only made a wand for Tinkerbell, and a bajillion pieces of confetti. I didn't realize it, but some of the kids in the group were making confetti just to make it look like they were doing something.

So for one last time, I gave everyone my big rousing Eigo-Kai welcome, and we watched everyone do Camp Skit. It came time to do my skit, and, well, it was worse than I had expected. I had to say just about every line for the kids, since they didn't even try to memorize it, and the kid playing Tinkerbell zoned out right on stage, messing with some confetti that was on the floor! This glorious clusterfuck was my swan song for Camp Skit. I was laughing so damn hard at the end of it, and so were the AC's! None of them could believe that I had such a large amount of patience to work with these kids, and not get mad when it blew up in my face.

After that, we went back to the mess hall for lunch, and held the awards and graduation ceremony there. I'll tell you what, folks -- I didn't feel this camp. I didn't feel it the way that I had felt a lot of the other camps. Most of the kids didn't want to do anything relevant to practicing English, or even talk to us. That's not to say there weren't kids who were awesome and wanted to work with us, in fact those were the kids that got the awards, heh. Unfortunately, I didn't get to work with any of those kids. This camp was unfortunately, a crap shoot.

And you know, sometimes that's how life is. It's not going to always end fantastically. As much as I really wanted this camp to be the best one, and as much as I wanted to move these kids and change their lives, most of this group didn't feel that, no matter how much energy we gave them. And believe me, we gave them everything we had, there was just little to no response from these kids.

Damn near inconceivable how this turned out. But, cest la vie, as that saying goes.

We left Camp Nose around 2, and Sean gave one of the camp staff members a kiss on the cheek! Her name was Pikaichi, but she insisted we call her Pikachu. And apparently, she told one of the AC's that she wanted to marry an American and have American babies. . .yep. I was the one that encouraged Sean to go give her a goodbye kiss ;)

We headed back to Osaka, and everyone was relieved, happy, yet a smidge depressed that our time with camp was finally over. We went to a hotel that was about 2 kilometers away from Kansai International Airport, and this place was freakin' classy! If I had to guess, I'd say it was at least a 4 star hotel, and it had well over 50 floors! Good lordies this place was classy.

But despite the classiness, I was tired. I went up to the room and relaxed for a bit, chilling on the Internet until we headed out for dinner at 5:40. We ended up going to a nice restaurant in the train station next door. Everyone (save for me and maybe a couple other people) were dressed up, people who had curly hair like Steph had their hair straightened, everyone was looking classy for one last night on the town!

Well, except for me that is. The clothing I brought with me for classy-ing it up doesn't really fit me anymore. Heh, that could define a lot of my clothing that I have with me now. What an interesting feeling it is, to know that my clothes are too big for me.

At the restaurant, we had okonomiyaki, yakisoba, beef strips, and french fries. Brent, Shane, Steph, and myself split two bottles of Sho-Chu, and let me tell you folks, Sho-Chu is some wicked liquor. I ended up getting drunk to the point where I was laughing like a hyena (much to Shane's delight), but even so, we had some final things to do.

Kelly and Yusuke gave out awards for everyone. I was awarded "Best Camp Shit EVER" (thanks to that abysmal Camp Skit from this morning), and everyone else received other awards. Justin stood up and gave out awards to everyone too, giving me an award for Best MC. Then, they handed out certificates (written in Japanese) that congratulated our hard work and dedication to USA Summer Camp. Alongside that, they announced the winner of the Erik Spindler Award (which was given out to the counselor who worked with their kids the most), and Ali won that award. I was very glad to see Ali win that award, as I felt there was no one more deserving than her.

Ali and I didn't talk and hang out as much as I had hoped we would, but it was incredibly easy to see that Ali is a PHENOMENAL AND AMAZING PERSON who rocks at life. She was always with her campers, always focused on working with them and having fun with them. Her charisma and personality made camp successful for a lot of the kids that we worked with. I couldn't be any prouder of her :)

After that, we moved back to the hotel and spent the rest of the time signing each other's certificates and awards. I went to bed around 2AM, downloading some episodes of One Piece for tomorrow's flight, and I packed my things into two bags (one checked luggage and one carry-on), just in case Northwest Airlines wanted to nickel-and-dime me for something.

I had one last shower and shave tonight, and it felt AMAZING. I really should shave once every day instead of once every three days, the hairs on my face get unbelievably itchy.

So that's that. My last full day in Japan. Tomorrow, back to America, back to my family, back to my Kaitlin, back to the Nuns, and back to school. Hoo boy! Adios for now!

Day 50

2008-08-30T12:15:00.001-07:00

We woke up this morning around 7am, and Phil and I brought the kids down for Morning Assembly. I found out through a couple of the other counselors that the two kids that had left last night went off to Justin's cabin and apparently made fun of me for telling them to leave.

I thought these kids were from a private school, but compared to all the other campers from private schools that I've worked with, unlike those kids these were incredibly rude and disobedient.

In any case, we moved on with breakfast, and after that I worked with my kids for One Minute Drill. They did alright, I suppose, save for one kid who absolutely REFUSED to practice at all. All he did the entire time was look off towards the wall and not even pay attention to me. He didn't talk, and barely responded to anything we did. I'm fairly certain that he just doesn't want to be here. When it came time to test the kids for how many sentences they could do in one minute, everyone had average scores (about 20-29), except for this kid who got 4. Literally, 4.

We moved on with our Recreation activity, which was a lot more fun than doing the Drill. Mee and Ami and I stayed at the facility with one group of campers, while the rest went up the hill to play in a soccer field. We played Sentence-Picture-Sentence, where you write a sentence about a topic (say, "The cat was smiling"). Then you pass it to the next person, and they have to draw what the sentence means. Then you fold the paper to hide the original sentence, pass it on, and have someone write a sentence based on the picture. It led to some pretty funny outcomes (in one case, the cat went from smiling to being a fat, singing cat)! After that, we played some Zumi-Zumi and some Soundball. In the end, the group of kids we worked with had a really great time, and so did I!

We headed down for lunch, then back up for My Story. All of the campers in my group were doing fictional stories about themselves (saying that their real names were Snoopy, or Spongebob Squarepants), and they were all good, but one of my kids, who was doing a story about Mickey Mouse, wrote about half a page and for the life of me, I couldn't get him to write any more or even practice memorizing his story.

Something tells me that these kids were forced into doing this or something.

After that, we had American Carnival in the gym. I ran the Dice Toss for one last time, handing out tickets and candy to everybody. My voice was a bit shot, so I had to refrain from doing my usual carnie-meets-vaudeville loud voice with the toss, but the kids enjoyed it :)

We held a water balloon fight after that, and all the kids (plus a couple of the counselors) got SOAKED. So soaked in fact, that we had to spend an hour taking them all back to their cabins to get fresh, dry clothes.

Shortly after that fiasco, we had dinner, and moved on with Group Discussions and Campfire. I liked the group that I was talking with for Group Discussions, so I stuck with them for a bit (even though I had to switch to another group, heh). Campfire came and went, unfortunately Jeff took over my scary story, but he did a really good job with it, so it was okay. Sean accidentally broke a window pane in the main building, thankfully he wasn't hurt, but he DID feel pretty embarrassed.

After that, we held bath time, but one of the kids from my cabin took my towel! Seriously, they left me with a crappy wet towel! I was PISSED. I was really really hoping this was done by accident (but really, how do you NOT grab the towel you brought with you for camp?), so I waited patiently to see if my towel would turn up. It didn't before I went to bath, but it somehow showed up after I took my bath. Talk about weird. . .

We held another meeting, and Phil and I spent a good chunk of our time laughing our asses off. Phil told me that he had pretty much ran out of sanity, so he was being extremely goofy, and I couldn't help but laugh :) At the end of the evening, however, Kelly suggested that we have another "let it all out" kind of talk like we did back at Nagoya. Some of the other counselors didn't understand, but Erik and I understood it fully. First, Jeff mentioned that tomorrow's the last day, so we have to be full of sunshine and awesomeness. Erik and I talked about how we felt in regards to the night before, and I also spoke about how I had heard through the grapevine that people were mad about my disappearance from camp yesterday. Steph spoke up and told us that she was angry about us using the common room to sleep because it was just that -- a common room. She pointed out that we had been given a place to sleep, and we chose to sleep elsewhere. I knew at that point that she did not know exactly what had happened, so I calmly clarified exactly what drove us down to the main room. I also apologized to Vy for yelling at her that night and told everyone that I had forgiven them for what had happened, and I hope that they can forgive me for my actions that night as well. I also pointed out that my sickness yesterday had everything to do with the stress and the lack of sleep. At the end of it all, we were all on the same page, and no hard feelings were to be had :)

Tomorrow is my last full day in Japan. Adios for now!

Day 49

2008-08-30T12:14:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning around 7:30, and not by choice, either. The staff came in to make breakfast, and they made it a point to push all the chairs in for the tables, banging and clanging things everywhere. I woke up unbelievably groggy and not even interested in talking with anyone.

Without another thought, I opened my laptop and started to write a document. I was upset, but I needed some advice. A pep talk. Words of encouragement. Something, anything positive, and I needed it from Kelly and Yusuke. I knew that if anyone would understand how I felt about what happened last night, they would. Here's an excerpt of my letter:

---------------
The AC Guidelines in our Counselor Handbook clearly state that ACÕs should 'Get Sleep'. I would assume that this means a healthy amount of sleep in the vein of 7-8 hours, however it seems that several members of our team do not believe in this concept, have not believed in this concept, and in this case, lack the consideration of others to apply this concept and think of others.

Waking up this morning, I felt detached from this team, not interested in conversation of any sort, finding it nearly impossible to look anyone in the eye, and finding it completely impossible to smile.

I am more than aware that we are at the Òfinal stretchÓ Ð this is the last camp before I am sent back home to America Ð however I do not feel that I can cooperate with this team any longer.

I am in a pinch right now Ð I am torn between wanting to be here and not wanting to be here. I am saddened at the current state of this team, and it is on those grounds that I am completely confused as to how this situation can be resolved.
---------------

Yusuke and Kelly took the time to read the letter, and shared my sentiments in that this type of inconsideration had gone on all summer. So not too long after that, we had a meeting.

Kelly volunteered to express my feelings for me to the entire group. She pointed out that two members of the team were hurt and felt detached from everyone else about what had happened, and that everyone had to be much more mindful.

We moved on with the day, even though I was groggy as hell and not feeling too good, and the campers came. They arrived about 40 minutes early, and about 3 hours before we even had orientation! So, Phil and I went up to Cabin 7, and dropped off our things.

The cabin setup at this part of Nose was that everything was really high up. Imagine walking 5 floors of stairs, and that'd be comparable to how high one had to walk to Camp 7. It's doable, but my God it's tiring, especially with over 50 pounds of luggage dragging behind you!

The cabin itself was clean and dust free, which is NOT what I expected compared to the crappy ghetto room I was in last night. Phil checked the place for spiders, and there were none, so it was all good. I picked a bottom bunk that wasn't part of a corner of the room (and out of the 5 available, it was the only one), so I felt pretty good about not having to deal with bugs hiding in the corners or whatever. I had run out of bug spray by this point, so contact with bugs while I slept was a high priority for me, heh.

We moved on with camp, and to be honest, I don't have much to say about it. These kids knew English and could speak it, but most of them didn't want to participate in camp. They were all between 13 and 14 years old, and they were more interested in talking with each other and doing nothing with us.

That lack of interaction defined the entire day we had with the kids. However, there was one thing that happened to me that made me miss out on about 4 hours of time with the campers. Shortly after performing the Camp Song, I walked into another room and had to sit down. I felt like throwing up. My eyes weren't focusing, my head felt woozy, and I felt like I couldn't do my job at all. The stress from last night, this morning, and the lack of sleep broke me down into nearly throwing up. Yusuke took me to a nurse's office not too far away, and told me I should sleep so that I would get better and be able to handle the rest of camp.

I slept for those 4 hours, and came back right at the end of My Story, and worked with my group for about 5 minutes. Erik had worked with my groups today, and told me sarcastically that they were an absolute delight.

Dinner came and went, and we moved on with Camp Skit. I spent the entire time trying to get my group to come up with an idea, and they "sort of" settled on a skit based on Doraemon, but at the end of practice, we didn't have a script. So we moved on with Dance Party, and we held it in the gym. However, there wasn't a sound system to be had, so Kelly had to use two CD players with a microphone connected to a small sound receiver to play the music. It was HILARIOUSLY ghetto.

After that, we sent the kids to bathtime (with only 2 bath areas for about 90 campers!), and that took about an hour and a half to get them all through. After that, we held our AC meeting, and I went to bed.

Well, I tried to anyway. Some of my campers were talking and eating snacks, even with the lights shut off. Even after I asked them to be quiet, after I asked them to go to bed after 5 more minutes, after I shut off the big lights and the small lights and the outside lights, they continued to talk and use a flashlight. Finally, I got up out of bed and did a "bed check" with my flashlight, seeing who wasn't in bed. One kid was sitting up on the top bunks with two other kids who were up, and I practically ordered him to come down. I told all three of them that if they wanted to talk, that they had to leave the cabin and talk outside, because they were being incredibly rude in keeping the rest of us awake (and there were 7 of us trying to sleep).

After that, 2 of the kids left and the other one went to bed, and I finally got some shut eye. Adios for now!

Day 48

2008-08-30T12:13:00.000-07:00

Today was the beginning of the end. The Final Countdown. Today, we'd be heading back down to Camp Nose, for our last round of camp before heading back home.

I woke up this morning around 10, feeling INCREDIBLY refreshed! And even better, the Internet was working this morning! Last night, it really didn't work at all, probably because everyone else was either downloading things or using Skype to call back home. Well, I had a certain someone to call, so I Skype'd it up and called Kaitlin.

We talked for probably 30 minutes, which definitely wasn't enough, but worst of all I had about 30 more minutes to clean my room up, shave and take a shower! I wanted to call Kaitlin back, so I raced to get all of my things done (which included a quick e-mail to my Mom, and updating the blog), and managed to finish everything with 5 minutes to spare. When I called Kaitlin back, I don't think she was expecting me to call back! I was determined to talk to her just one last time, even if it was for only 5 minutes, I'll take that over nothing!

After talking with Kaitlin, I brought my things down to the lobby, and walked to Nagoya Station. I talked with Takashi, our new Japanese Counselor, about buying an issue of Shonen Jump. The issues of Shonen Jump are released here every week, and they only cost about $2.40 for well over 150 pages of manga. We didn't see any stores selling it in the station, so we both ran back like mad to the 7-11 and picked one up before getting on the bus.

The bus. . .well. . .hoo boy. We had a 7 and 1/2 hour bus ride back to Osaka. The long drive had nothing to do with going straight to Osaka, in fact we had to go to two other camp facilities throughout Nagoya and pick up everybody else! I spent some of my bus ride talking with Takashi, and it turns out that he knows an old friend of mine, Lindsey Wollan! Lindsey was a graphic design student at UWSP that did the Guy Healy program 2 years ago. What a small world we live in.

Throughout the day, we stopped at a couple of rest stops, picking up snacks and whatnot. I found a package of Oreo cookies (with milk not too far away), along with some C.C. Lemon and Georgia Max Coffee. Everyone spent most of their time on the bus ride sleeping, myself included.

Eventually, we made our way back to Camp Nose in Osaka. I wasn't looking forward to returning to the hot humid weather, the super-steep roads, and those GIGANTIC FREAKING BATHROOM CRICKETS!

But there was hope! We drove straight past the cabins where we had stayed before, and it turned out that we were staying at a different set of cabins! YAY!!! Also, it wasn't hot at all, in fact it was drizzling just a bit, and there wasn't a bathroom cricket in sight.

Of course, there is also the fact that this camp has very few western-style toilets. I'm fairly certain no one wants to use the Japanese style toilets (I tend to call them "stop, squat, and drop toilets"), so there's no doubt going to be wait times to use the bathrooms.

We brought our things up to a different building from where we would be doing camp (we would stay at Facility #2 tonight, and use Facility #3 for camp), and we were split into two rooms (one for boys, the other for girls).

Except, when I got into my room, and set down my things, someone pointed out that there was a spider in the sink. . .and it was a big one. And by big, I'd say about twice the size of a quarter. One of the guys flushed it down the sink, but two minutes later, it came right out of the drain! Someone flushed it again and placed the plug in the drain to stop it from coming back. But oh no, that wasn't the ONLY spider. Another one started climbing up the wall, and he was moving fast! At this point, I wasn't feeling too comfortable about staying here. Then to top it off, Phil "tried" to kill it by trying to swipe it towards our beds! At that point I ran out of the room.

Yep. I ran out. I stood at the guard rails near the stairs and tried to compose myself. After about 5 minutes, I came back to the room, and found another spider climbing onto Erik's bed. At that point, I was done. I couldn't feel comfortable sleeping in this room!

And context be damned, it's worse than it sounds -- I freaked out when I saw these spiders moving all over our room and on our things. I couldn't think straight, I couldn't talk straight, and I had tears in my eyes.

Yusuke and Kelly talked to the facility people about their spider infestation and agreed to set up a cot for me in the mess hall. Not too long after that, Erik messed up his ankle something fierce, and had to sleep in the mess hall as well. So it was going to be the two of us sleeping in the giant mess hall. Thankfully, there'd be no bugs (well, spiders anyway). Call my situation a freakout, arachnophobia, or a buildup of stress with a fear of spiders, whatever it was, I reacted irrationally about the whole thing.

I went to bed around 2am, but not by choice. Most people stayed in the room, cutting pictures, listening to music loudly through their earbuds, playing card games, and chatting it up with others. I took some Melatonin to try to sleep anyway, but it was no good. It didn't get quiet until I turned off a couple of the lights for Erik to sleep. At that point, Vy asked me if everyone was being too noisy. Asking this question after staying up late into the night. Right. I yelled "IT'S A SLIGHT POSSIBILITY." and walked back to my bed, angry and frustrated that I had to burst out like that in front of everyone for them to get the point. There was absolutely no consideration for Erik and I!

Once everyone left, Erik and I talked about our frustrations with what had just happened, contemplating an early leave from Japan. I had felt like with one night, many members on my team that I had respected and enjoyed working with, those who I gladly laid down for and did favors for on a whim, had just stepped all over me without another thought.

Needless to say, I went to bed upset. The moods I had today were complete opposites. I never expected my night to end like this.

The Final Countdown!

2008-08-24T18:07:00.001-07:00

I have about 4 more days left here in Japan, and I won't have Internet access for awhile, so this is the last you'll hear from me until I'm back in America. This has been an amazing trip, and I am stoked to come back home to everyone.

But first, I have the final stretch. One more camp at Nose, but first a 7 hour bus trip back to Osaka today. I'll be sure to get in contact with all of you when I get back, but for now I have to race to get my things packed, a shower taken, and all that good stuff.

I'll see you all when I get back! I love you all and it won't be long now!

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWWWWWWNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!

Day 47

2008-08-24T18:06:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day of camp with the young kids. We only had a 2 day camp session with them (THANK GOD! I'M BEAT).

My kids were fairly well behaved last night compared to what I feared they would be like. They woke up and were talking when I came to bed at 12:30, but Brent yelled at them to make them go to sleep shortly after that. They woke up at about 6:50, but they were kind enough to not bother me, even if they were talking loudly.

Brent and I cleaned up the Tatami room that we were staying in, being completely baffled at how we were supposed to put away the futon beds and the blankets. Following the instructions on the wall, it was nearly impossible to copy what they had instructed. The futons just didn't fold the way that they said it would. So, we kind of half-assed it and made it look the best we could and shut the door.

I brought down the sheets and the key to the room, and the guy at the front desk asked me about having multiple keys. I didn't quite understand what he was talking about, we only had one key, but one of the teachers came by and talked with him, so everything was worked out.

Breakfast came and went, and we moved on with practicing Camp Skit today. We had the option of either doing a skit, or a song with our campers, since they were so young. Ashley and I opted for a song, and we debated heavily over what song we were going to do.

I suggested we do That's Amore, by Dean Martin. I taught the kids how to dance the waltz, and we'd teach the other kids how to sing like ol' Dino. Everything was going fine until I tried to get two of the campers to dance together. They weren't interested in dancing together, in fact they were quite embarrassed, and one of them started to cry.

Yep. This was bad.

Kelly came in to save the day! She came by and suggested we do a medley of two songs from Disney -- Hi Ho from Snow White, and Under the Sea from the Little Mermaid. The kids liked this idea much better, so we immediately got to work. I typed out the lyrics (since I had the song on my laptop), and wrote them on the chalkboard. We first taught the kids how to sing the song, then we taught them how to say the words, and then we taught them again how to sing the song. We had about 2 hours of practice this morning, and we managed to get quite a lot done despite the setback. I was so thankful for Kelly's help!

We moved on to the next activity, which was Scavenger Hunt. The idea behind Scavenger Hunt was that the kids would ask questions to the AC's about how old they were, where they were from, and if the answers matched the questions on the Scavenger Hunt checklist, we would sign them off, and the first team to complete the hunt would get a prize. This essentially meant that several of us could go down to the lobby on the first floor and sit in chairs, and relax while we wait for the campers to come to us.

And believe me, we needed that opportunity to rest.

After Scavenger Hunt, we had lunch, and after that we held another practice run of Hi Ho and Under the Sea. I told the kids that I would sing with them to help them memorize the words, and that I would help sing with them at Eigo-Kai in case they got too nervous and such. Ashley and I also worked on props, she made fish masks for everyone while I made a cutout of "the sea", which was basically a blue piece of paper with waves and seaweed on it. It wasn't much, but most of my time was spent working with the kids on singing the song from memory.

Eigo-Kai finally came, and we watched all 4 groups perform camp songs. The kids were ridiculously cute with their songs, even if they didn't speak a lot of English, they still tried their best and could do the songs with no problem. My group did alright, we didn't win anything but I was very proud of them regardless :)

After that, we held Graduation and watched the kids leave. Eventually, we headed back as well, and when we arrived at the station, we met Azumi, the American-obsessed girl from last camp! We talked for only a little bit, as she had just finished shopping at Nagoya Station and her dad was waiting for her in the car.

We headed back to the Daichi hotel where we had been staying in Nagoya, and after our meeting, I sought out an ATM. I withdrew about 7000 yen, the last time I'd be withdrawing money in Japan. My funds are fairly low at this point.

I went shopping for just a little bit and found some batteries for my camera. After that, I went to the 7-11, picked up some food for supper and breakfast, and headed back to my single room.

Ahh, how nice it is to have a single room! I took a hot bath and relaxed, listening to Cannonball Adderley on my laptop, ate my supper, and just chilled until I passed out for bed at about 9:00. I woke up at 7 in the morning, so I got a good 10 hours of sleep in. Ahhh, what a rest! Adios for now!

Day 46

2008-08-24T17:52:00.001-07:00

Today was the start of our camp with the Chiju Club. I woke up at 7am, feeling incredibly groggy (our desk alarm woke us up at 5:30am of all times!), packed my things again, and raced down and ate breakfast in literally a minute. We had a new JC with us, his name was Takashi and he was from another team that had just wrapped up camp. He seems like a pretty good guy if you ask me :)

We took a 20 minute train ride out of Nagoya, and went by taxi to the facility. On the way to the facility, my left sandal broke! Right as I was packing my luggage into the taxi, it came apart. Oh how I long for superglue! I didn't feel like pulling out my shoes, so I held onto my sandal with my big toe and slowly walked to the taxi, heh.

The facility was pretty nice, but I was too incredibly tired to care. Everybody's on edge, and the fact that we weren't allowed into our rooms until 4:30pm tonight to unpack didn't help things either. I ate a post-breakfast snack in the activity room and worked on my computer while we waited for the kids to arrive.

The kids came around 10:00, and to my surprise, they were incredibly young. Younger than the kids at Osaka Sinai last month, actually. These kids ranged from 7 to 13 years old. Their English levels were supposedly at 4 (on a scale of 1 to 5), but that wasn't even remotely true. These kids did NOT speak English to us! They kept asking me questions in Japanese, and when I would say "in English", they'd just look at me confused, and then they'd look away. This doesn't seem like it's going to be a good camp.

Takashi showed me his laptop today, he owns a nice Acer laptop, and I talked with him for a bit over how I'm very tech-savvy when it comes to making sure you get the most out of your laptop.

As far as camp, I was "checked out" before the campers even came. I honestly couldn't care! Whether it was the fact that I was super tired, super exhausted, or displeased with the fact that this camp felt more like Day Care instead of Summer Camp, I just couldn't get into it.

That is, until I found the vending machine downstairs. This thing was my saving grace. Why's that? Well, I found a drink called Real Gold. It's an energy drink that tastes like Mountain Dew, but better. It was fantastic! In no time, I chugged 3 cups worth of Real Gold and I finally had the energy I needed for camp! Sure, I wasn't too high on the kids being so young, but at least they couldn't tell I was feeling that way!

We had two activity station sessions today, instead of doing things like My Story and One Minute Drill. I partnered up with Ashley for our activities, and our first activity was Pronunciation. Kelly gave us a set of flash cards with words, and we taught the campers to pronounce words correctly. However, most of the kids wouldn't pronounce it correctly when we tried it. They would always say their vowels differently, more with a Japanese accent. It wasn't until I went over-the-top with my pronunciation, really emphasizing the vowels and sometimes saying them in a lower pitch that they finally got it right.

The second activity station later in the day was teaching games. Ashley and I taught "Red Light, Green Light" to the kids, which they really liked, along with "Soundball". If you've never heard of Soundball, the object of the game is easy. Everyone stands in a circle, and one person starts by holding an imaginary ball, and throwing it to a person while uttering a sound, like "ZAP!". The person it's thrown to catches the sound by saying "ZAP!", and "throws" a new sound to another person. The kids enjoyed that as well :)

Dinner was delicious today if only for one reason: we had ice cream. And they had Orange Sherbet ice cream. OH MY GOD. I plowed through two bowls of that delicious ice cream, and hammed it up with Phil as we mixed our ice creams to make them softer. The kids couldn't believe what we were doing, and the teachers thought we were weird, but they were all laughing, so it was all good.

We held a Dance Party with a boombox, since no sound system was available. The kids were super hyper for Dance Party, yelling and screaming and running around, it was pretty much too intense for me to handle, haha.

Brent and I shared a room with a group of kids today, and we also had to bathe with them. This was the first time I bathed and shared a room with campers. The kids were completely crazy in the tub, splashing everywhere and yelling and such. Takashi came into the bath, and Erik and Phil followed shortly afterwards. Being the guys we are, we splashed cold water on each other, which is quite a shocking feeling in a hot bath! I initiated Takashi in the bath by dumping a bucket of cold water on him. Now he's officially a part of our group :)

We sent the kids to bed at 9, but I stayed up and continued working on my blog and other projects before bed. I stayed up until about 12:30, working on a particular project -- I made a video for Kaitlin. She sent me a video last month with pictures of herself, so I decided to respond with an identical video, just with my photos instead, heh.

Today was a long day, had it not been for that Real Gold I would have been completely out of it. Adios for now!

Day 45

2008-08-24T17:38:00.001-07:00

Today was the last day of camp at Meijo High School. I woke up this morning feeling fairly groggy from the lack of sleep, but on the bright side, the Comfort Inn offered free Continental Breakfast! I got to chow down on Cocoa Pebbles cereal, some onigiri, a blueberry roll, and some delightful coffee :)

We headed back to the school, taking a bit longer than usual since we're so far away from everyone else. While everyone practiced My Story, my group was actually practicing Camp Skit! Talk about dedication!

Eigo Kai started, and all the campers performed their stories. Some were pretty good, others were just fine. The judges didn't pick any campers from my group for finalists, though. We moved onto the main part of Eigo Kai by going to another building across the street, this place had a much bigger classroom with a microphone setup (no sound system though). We were here yesterday for Dance Party as well. We started off Eigo Kai with Camp Skit, and my group went first!

On the bright side though, my campers were PHENOMENAL! Everyone performed their comedy bits with loud voices and charisma, and everyone else was laughing and clapping along with it. They did a phenomenal job. So good in fact, that they won first place at the awards ceremony! That's two camps now where I've worked with a great group and gotten them first place for their skit!

Today was Ayumi's last day with us, and I was pretty sad about it. Ayumi, one of our JC's, has been with us from the very beginning, from the day we arrived at Kansai airport, she was there to show us the way. She helped me find an ATM in Nagoya Station when I had troubles withdrawing money, she always looked out for all of us and worked extremely hard on making sure we had supplies for camp, and to make sure everything was okay. It reminded me of my work as a producer for Microcosm -- Ayumi was a behind the scenes kind of person, making sure that camp ran smoothly for all of us. She's a sweet, wonderful person and I'm going to miss her dearly.

Fortunately, she goes to school at UW-Whitewater, so the next time I go to Milwaukee, I'm making a pitstop with Kaitlin down there :)

After the Awards and Graduation ceremonies, we had tearful goodbyes with all the campers. This was a really great group, by far the best we've ever worked with this summer. And to think, we didn't even get to spend as much time with them as we have for all the other camps. Go figure that the group that we enjoyed the most was the one we spent the least amount of time with.

We headed back to the hotel, and since there was no laundromat around, I washed my clothes in the bathroom, totally ghetto style. I had my clothes hanging all over the room, trying to get them dry, with towels on the floor for any water that was dripping off. I spent the rest of the day chilling with Sean and Ashley and Ami in my room, along with Erik.

Erik's body wasn't agreeing with him too much, and he was stinking up the bathroom something fierce. We didn't have any matches, but Erik had cigarettes, so I made him light up a cigarette every time he stunk up the bathroom. It was pretty damn funny :D

I was up really late again today, writing a letter to my first host family, filling out a survey about my homestay experience, and organizing all of my things for packing up. We'd be moving to the facility tomorrow for the next camp, so much of my time is spent packing and unpacking wherever I go.

Crazy times, and a crazy busy schedule. Adios for now!

Day 44

2008-08-24T17:26:00.001-07:00

At last night's meeting, Yusuke told us that we had to pack our things, and leave our bags by the front desk at 7:30. I chose not to run my iTunes alarm clock, as Erik said he'd set his iPod Touch alarm. Well, as luck would have it, Erik's iPod ran out of battery, so there was no alarm. Mee came by at 7:26 and woke us up.

What luck! I had 4 minutes to get my things packed and ready to go, along with a super-quick shave (my face was getting pretty itchy with all the hairs), and managed to get downstairs by 7:39. Thankfully, we didn't have to leave right away, as apparently that 7:30 time frame was for those who wanted to go out as a group and get breakfast.

Oy.

I relaxed and quietly ate my breakfast. After that, we headed on back to the high school. Today we had a few more things planned today, including Group Discussions and American Carnival. Everything proceeded as it usually went along, my kids continued to work hard on their My Stories, my One Minute Drill group did average at best (at the most, 29 words per second), and the kids enjoyed American Carnival.

What surprised me the most today was Camp Skit. My kids had picked out their favorite comedians, so I took them out into the hallway to show me how they performed the parts out. Haruna and I practiced, showing her how I MC, and she copied me exactly. It worked out quite well! All of the kids in the group save for one had no problem showing me their impersonations. The one camper, Ayame, was too shy to give it a try. So, I stood alongside her and created a piece on the spot, and worked with her in front of the other campers. After a few tries, she wasn't shy anymore, and was comfortable reciting it from memory! I spent the rest of our time working with the campers on the volume of their voices, along with blocking (a stage term for movement), while Ashley helped some of them translate their acts into English. We had no need for props like we usually did for Camp Skit, this was going to be based entirely on their own talent.

We also had a Dance Party, which worked out fairly well save for some sound issues. It was more of the same, the kids love the songs we put on, especially the love song Kee Sei Kee (I think that's how it's spelled), a popular song by the group GreeeN.

Before I knew it, the day was over and we headed back to the hotel. We didn't get to stay at this hotel tonight, I guess JTB couldn't book this place for us an extra night, so the girls and the guys were going to stay at different hotels tonight. Along with the other guys, I went to the other side of Nagoya city to a Comfort Inn, while the girls went to a hotel about 4 blocks away from where we were staying.

The area I went to was mostly a bunch of hotels, along with a couple pubs, curry houses, a Starbucks, some convenience stores, a Hard Rock Cafe, and a Sega Arcade! I didn't even hesitate when I saw it, I made a beeline straight for the Arcade and plowed away at games. I was by myself, but I ended up spending 2500 yen on the games. I didn't win anything, but that was okay, as I had a lot of fun. I managed to bring back with me a Sega Token, one of the coins that they used at the arcade.

Tonight, I'd be sharing a room with Erik. We found CNN on cable and watched the news for awhile, but mostly in disgust. They were going in-depth about Obama suffering from a cold recently and making fun of how he would have to cough or sneeze during his rallies, no doubt questioning if he can be a capable leader even if he's sick.

Seriously? This is considered news? I always knew that the Mainstream Media was full of crap, but not to this extent. I'm truly disgusted and turned off from cable news networks. People died in Iraq today due to a senseless war. People in Georgia are suffering due to a senseless war. There's a smorgasboard of problems like this affecting us right now that are far more important than a head cold. But who am I kidding? For some reason, Americans are drawn to this type of crap.

Anyway, Erik and I stayed up until about 3am. We couldn't sleep, we just stayed up watching TV, chatting with the other guys, and making fun of the weird things we were seeing on the Adult channels.

If you've seen anything weird on Adult programming, I assure you it's not nearly as weird as Japanese Adult programming. I'll spare you the details.

Adios for now!

Day 43

2008-08-24T16:57:00.001-07:00

Well, well well, luck is shining on me today! I woke up and I'm not sick! Even with Erik and Phil both stinking up the bathroom and spitting in the bathroom sink, coughing and all that junk, I didn't get sick at all! I think I might know why, too.

See, before I came to Japan, I listened to a stand-up special featuring George Carlin on HBO. He talked about how people are ridiculously afraid of germs nowadays, and everyone's getting sick as a result. Why that is, has to do with a lack of an effective immune system. George said it something like this:

"We all have this highly powerful, complicated immune system that fights off infections and keeps us healthy. However, it needs germs to practice on! So if you spend all your time disinfecting everything, no germs get into your body, so your immune system is weak, and you end up dead."

I listened to that and thought about how many times I had used sanitizer and how my sicknesses would be really bad even though I thought I was killing everything. And then it made sense. Ever since I listened to Carlin's comment, I stopped using hand sanitizers. I stopped using a billion and one disinfectants. Sure, I'll wash my hands after I use the bathroom, but I don't wash it any other time (and the Japanese ALWAYS wash their hands before meals). And since adopting this lifestyle, I haven't gotten sick once. Not even when I slept in a small room with limited air circulation with 2 sick guys.

Funny how the comedians are sometimes right about things in life.

Well, anyway, today was the first round of camp for Meijo High School. Before leaving in the morning, I had the chance to talk to Kaitlin really quick. It was about 5 minutes, which if you ask me, is not even close to being considered long enough to chat, but I had to go. I really can't wait until I have free time to talk to her extensively again.

I plowed through my breakfast, chowing down the onigiri and the sandwich with 500ml of my Aquarius Zero. Best of all, it was a very fitting meal, I wasn't hungry at all after eating it. Not bad for 400-some yen.

I've decided to be frugal with my money not only on the grounds of having extra spending money for later, but also with the intent of losing more weight. I haven't been able to check a scale since my homestay with the Iwagane's (which left me at 120kg, or 264lbs), and I really want to lose at least 5 more pounds here. If I could just hit at least 259, that 250's weight range that I haven't seen since 2005, I'd be a damn happy man. My eating habits have changed considerably since coming to Japan (albeit by force), and I do not look forward to the temptations of American food when I come back, but this is a huge life change for me and I want to keep it going. My t-shirts are HUGE on me now, even my Super Mario Bros. t-shirt that I brought with me, which fit rather tightly on me during the Microcosm shooting!

If I have it my way, I want to be around 200lbs for graduation.

So, onwards to camp. We held camp at the high school itself, which really didn't feel like a high school at all. It felt more like a business office of some sort, one with a large foyer, something you'd expect to have a fountain occupying it or something. Instead, there was a large flight of stairs, but we chose to go into the administrative areas of the school, and take the elevator up to the 7th floor. I was incredibly tired though.

No, really. Sure, I was glad I wasn't sick, and sure I was glad that I ate a cheap breakfast, but I was fatigued beyond comprehension! Erik had to help me walk to the elevator because I was so dead.

But there was hope! At the top of the 7th floor was a Coffee machine. Better yet, it had iced coffee! I didn't even hesitate and bought 2 cups of Nestle Cafe au Lait and chugged them down. Give it a good 15 minutes and I'll be on fire again :)

We walked through the school's administrative office, which funny enough, looked more like a business office and hardly showed any signs of it being an educational institution. We walked on through and made our way to one of the two classrooms that we'd be using for camp. Everyone grabbed a seat and just chilled in the classroom. Why did we chill? Well, we found out that JTB decided that we should arrive at the facility at 9:00am, a full 4 hours before we'd even start camp. And considering the fact that we had everything prepared prior to even coming here, JTB decided we needed this time for some reason. I don't get it. And no one liked it. So, we chilled. Matt took a nap for awhile, Kelly borrowed my camp shirt (which I hadn't worn yet today) and used it as an night shade for her eyes, and slept for awhile as well. Some of us stayed awake, including myself. I had my coffee, so I was okay at this point and ready to go! I checked the area for wireless internet, but unfortunately was met with no luck (the high school's internet was free, but i couldn't log onto it for some reason). I chose to spend my time typing up the ol' blog, and listening to iTunes while I just let the time pass by.

Eventually, 1:00 came, and the students arrived for camp! Once again we had a group of high school students aged 15/16, and right off the bat I knew this was going to be a good group! We only had 25-30 students, so for each group we had two AC's to work with them. Ashley had picked me at the meeting last night, which I left early.

Speaking of which, I don't think I mentioned that. . .I left last night's meeting early since it was taking an ungodly long amount of time to get any work done at the meeting. I think it dragged on a good 30 minutes longer than it needed to be, and I decided to head back to my room. My stance was that if after all this time, if there was really something important that I had to know about, it would have been known already, and I wasn't interested in dilly-dallying around waiting to get work done. It left me in a pretty rotten mood, which started off the whole stressed-out-beyond-my-limit thing from last night.

But anyway, Ashley and I were teamed up for today's events. Our orientation group was a bit shy at first, but we got them to warm up and pick the name Team Ponyo (named after the popular Ghibli movie that just came out the other day). After that, we moved onto another group for One Minute Drill. This group didn't really get One Minute Drill, and it was taking far too much time for them to memorize any sentences. Something tells me this isn't going to turn out well. We tried as hard as we could with them, Kelly even came by and helped us out by asking the students a variety of questions in English to each other. I hope things get better tomorrow.

My Story was next, and the campers caught on pretty quickly. One of the kids, Takahiro, talked to Ashley quite a lot. So much, in fact, that he started writing 2 stories for Ashley, then when we told him that wasn't necessary, he'd stop every sentence or so on his original story and keep talking to Ashley about random things. He's got a thing for American girls, methinks.

The group that I had worked with for the Drill was doing really well with Matt and Vy on My Story! It turns out that one of the students, Azumi, is obsessed with American culture! She loves Zac Efron, listens to all the popular artists on American radio, and her family is a host family for Guy Healy Japan as well. She's writing a fake story about being Paris Hilton (we encourage the kids to make fake stories too!), so it should be a good one :)

After My Story, we moved on with Camp Skit. Ashley and I spent half our time with our campers picking out a theme. The theme they eventually decided on was a Japanese Comedy Showcase, where they would be reenacting their favorite comedians in English. A pretty good idea, plus it's rather original compared to what I usually do! We spent the other half of our time picking out their favorite comedians. There was one reason why this was important:

We were going to take the name of the famous comedian, and merge it with the student's name. Name merging things like this are commonplace in Japan and are applied in just about any aspect of the culture. One camper, who liked to be called Andy, likes this famous comedian that goes by the name of Nabeatsu. He likes to count to 40 and be really crazy and stupid when he does so. As a result, we merged Andy's name with Nabeatsu, and called him Andyatsu. We did this for all the campers in the group. Sure, we had a long way to go with translating the parts for the campers, but this was a big enough step in itself. One of the campers, Haruna, didn't have a favorite comedian, so I decided that she should be the host of the comedy showcase. But who to emulate? At first, she thought this would be an easy job in the skit, much to the dismay of the other campers, but with Yusuke's help, we decided that she would emulate MY emcee skills, and we'd call her Charuna. I promised her that we'd practice on her routine tomorrow, as it was nearing 5:30pm.

5:30 was the end of the day for this camp, since it took place at the high school, we didn't get the chance to stay with these kids. However, that didn't mean we had to stop talking to them after the day was done. Takahiro walked with me back to the station and we talked about electronics, mostly. We talked about electronics that we wanted to own, and talked about the price comparisons between Japan and the United States. He was surprised to learn that the US was cheaper by comparison!

After saying goodbye to Takahiro, we headed back to Nagoya Station, but before heading back to the hotel, I wanted to hit up some food. Ami, Erik, Mee and I went to Yoshinoya, the great beef/rice bowl place I came to with Yusuke and Shane before. Deciding to loosen up the wallet a little bit, I bought a 630 yen bowl of beef and rice, with a side of raw egg for 50 yen. I took the raw egg and mixed it in with the beef and rice, and let it sit for awhile to cook, and it was just as delicious as it was the last time I had it here :)

What surprised me the most, however, was what happened when we first came into the restaurant. We were confused over where to sit down, and the people working didn't know any English. However, a Japanese businessman who happened to be eating here, spoke in English to us and suggested we sit at the 4 person table in the corner. After that, he offered to buy us a bottle of Asahi beer! We gladly accepted and thanked him.

Sure, we were all wearing the same camp t-shirt, so he knew that something was obviously up with why we were together and why we were here in Japan, but this single moment of generosity was the greatest act of generosity I've seen from a stranger during my entire time here in Japan. This man was a good man, and I wish him nothing but the best in his life.

After dinner, we headed back to the hotel, and I found that some of my clothes were dry, so I put them away with great relief! That night, I ended up going back to 7/11 to get another round of my 800 yen breakfast, and hit up the Animate store with Erik to see what kind of anime merchandise I could find there.

That anime store was exactly what you'd expect an anime store in Japan to be: there were 3 floors of merchandise! One floor was dedicated to manga, the second floor was dedicated to collectibles and figurines, and the third floor was dedicated to cd's and dvd's. This place was packed full of merchandise, and had quite a lot of people in there, I'd say at least 100 people were visiting the store at any given time. Nothing caught my eye for gifts, though.

Erik and I headed back to the hotel, and chilled for the rest of the night. Sean asked me if I wanted to go hit up an arcade with him to play Guitar Freaks, but sadly I declined, because I was too tired.

I slept for a little bit, but then I was woken up by Erik and Phil. Phil likes to buy and sell things on eBay, which had Erik (along with myself) pretty intrigued. Listening to him do auctions and such kept me up late, so I chose to do some application updates on my MacBook, and run some album artwork retrieval for iTunes. I don't know when I went to bed tonight, heh. Fairly late, I'd assume.

Adios for now!

Day 42

2008-08-24T16:56:00.000-07:00

Today I woke up feeling groggy again, so I bought some more Georgia Coffee. We had Radio Taiso today in English, and it was as rancid as it always was, heh. I didn't get to eat breakfast with my campers today, though it didn't seem to bother them TOO much. After breakfast, Brent and Sean and I cleaned our room, folded up the sheets, and all that stuff. This facility is rather strict about its cleaning policies -- they ask that the pillow is laid on the bed a certain way, the blanket folded a certain way, all laid out on the bed a certain way. I guess it's because they have such a huge facility, that it must be nearly impossible to keep everything cleaned by themselves. That and there was the fact that the facility had over 400 people coming today! Talk about over-booking!

Anyway, we held Eigo-Kai, and we finished early for each part. The kids breezed through their My Stories, as well as their Skits. My group for Camp Skit did pretty darn good for me having little to no involvement with them. I suggested they practice a few times before we had to resume Eigo-Kai, and that was literally about all I did! These kids are MOTIVATED.

With all the extra time from the kids being so quick with their things, I capitalized on the situation and took a nap. I slept on a bench out in the lobby of the 3rd floor, sure it wasn't really quiet or anything, but it was better than nothing :)

After lunch, we gave out awards, held the graduation ceremony, and all the AC's gave farewell speeches to the kids. These kids were delightfully bright and outgoing, by far some of the best campers I've ever worked with! I took pictures with the kids and signed their nametags and notebooks before they had to leave. After they left, we had to wait about an hour before our bus would come back to take us to Nagoya Station. But after the campers left, within 10 minutes of their departure, a thunderstorm rolled in, with literally waves upon waves of rain!

Anyone else find it odd that this is the THIRD TIME IN A ROW that this has happened? Talk about an odd coincidence. The clouds burst forth, almost in sorrow after our camp sessions. Weird.

We rode a bus back to Nagoya Station, and everyone was super quiet on the way back. Why, you ask? Well, everyone except me was passed out. I was still riding my caffeine high from earlier in the day, but everyone else was sleeping.

The bus dropped us off at the hotel that we stayed at before (the one we had the big emotional AC meeting), and this time I was in a triple room with Erik and Phil. I was fine with rooming with those guys, especially Erik since I haven't seen him in over 3 days. But, with the good news came bad news: I found out that Jeff (from the other part of our team), got sick, and Erik and Phil were sick as well. Meanwhile, other sick people on the team were getting single rooms. Wouldn't it make sense to just switch it up so that I don't have to worry about getting sick? Ah well. We'll have to see how my immune system will hold out.

I did my laundry last night, but hardly any of it dried in time for us to leave, so I had to lay out my clothes all over my bed and on the tv. Outside of the AC vent, there isn't much ventilation here, so I'll just have to have it lay there and wing it.

For dinner, I went out to Denny's with Ami, PK, Sean, and Brent. Yes, that's right, we found a Denny's in Japan! Apparently they're everywhere, and I surprised Ayumi when I told her how common they are in America. However, the Denny's in Japan is nothing like the ones in America. The foods are entirely different, though they're still pretty tasty! I had a dish of Jambalaya and a side of Potato Wedges, for under 1000 yen. Nice deal, eh?

We were given 6500 yen for breakfast/lunch/dinner for the next 3 days, as we'd be holding camp at a high school about 5 minutes away (by train). Each camp session was going to end at 5:30 every day! WOOHOO!! I decided to go frugal with my money, as I wanted spending money for fun. I bought breakfast and lunch food for tomorrow, and here's what I got for each meal: 2 onigiri (200 yen), 1 sandwich (130 yen), and 1 bottle of Aquarius Zero (200 yen). All in all, I spent 830 yen on 2 meals. I'd say that's pretty good, as it's really hard to get cheap food over here.

At the hotel, I managed to get on the Internet, and helped Shane get Service Pack 1 for Vista on his laptop before he left for Mie. The Internet died for awhile after that, much to my dismay. We had problems with the Internet the last time we were here (just to get by, I used a neighbor's wireless connection), so I asked Yusuke to ask the hotel staff why we have downtime with the Internet when we're here. The staff told us that when people download large files (like this Service Pack), or use Skype to talk to people, it kills the Internet for everyone in the hotel. This apparently happens when everyone tries to do these things all at once. I don't know what kind of lame setup they have, but it sounds like the router for their Internet just randomly decides to stop transmitting data if there's a lot going through. To be honest, that doesn't make sense to me.

Also, the desk with the Internet connection in our room is right in front of the bathroom, and I can't move the desk at all. So with two sick guys, I'm hearing and smelling some lovely things come out of that bathroom. All I can say is, thank god for matches.

I tried to do my own work tonight, but everyone kept coming to my room, frequently asking me questions and doing this and that and wanting to do things on my laptop, and this went on for hours.

Literally, hours.

I had blogs to write, videos to work on, photos to upload, and I couldn't get any of it done. And anyone that knows me back at home knows that I have a big problem telling people to lay off when I need personal time, it's hard doing that when you consider that I used to be ignored and mocked when I was younger. I'm not used to this kind of thing. I ended up going to bed at midnight, incredibly stressed out.

So what do I think about this day? It was a mixed bag, really. Some good things happened, some rotten things happened, some things happened that didn't make any sense to me, and some things happened that made me want to lose my edge. Thankfully, I didn't lose it, but Erik could tell that I was near the breaking point. The sleep will hopefully stave it off.

Adios for now!

Day 41

2008-08-20T05:30:00.001-07:00

6:30AM. That's when I woke up today for camp. A grand total of 4 hours.

UGH.

Without even hesitating, I walked to the vending machine and bought a can of Georgia Coffee, Emerald Style (it tastes like coffee with sugar and milk in it, nothing special). It was ice cold, though, so I chugged it down quickly and dropped another 150 yen on a bottle of Coca-Cola. I knew I was going to need caffeine to survive this long freaking day.

We walked down to the flag area for morning assembly, and all the kids were already there. We observed the raising of the Japanese flag during the Japanese National Anthem, performed the daily Radio Taiso, and listened to two speeches from campers. The Radio Taiso we performed today wasn't the atrocious english version that I heard when I was last here (the guy doing the narration had no sense of musical rhythm, when that's a very important part), but the music player kept fading in an out, so sometimes everyone would just do their exercises without music. It was pretty funny :)

After morning assembly, we had breakfast. At every facility I go to for camp, they always serve soup and salad at every meal, including breakfast. Today, I just wasn't feeling salad anymore. I've had enough of eating salad at 8 in the morning, heh.

I plowed through my breakfast and headed back to my room for a power nap. A good 20 minutes was all I really needed, and thankfully, I got it! One 20 minute nap later, I was ready to face this uber-long day :)

We headed up to the 3rd floor room and began our daily activities. One thing I should mention about this camp, we've only reserved one room for our camp. And this room was about the size of a classroom, which I was less than pleased to find out about yesterday. We were originally on the 2nd floor, but there were two groups on this floor that were here for cram school, so we had to move upstairs because the cram school teachers started to complain. While that didn't bother me too much, I was bothered by the realization that we would be doing Dance Party and American Carnival in the same classroom that we were doing our regular activities -- without a sound system. We had to use a boom box last night for Dance Party, and Shane provided me a CD to burn a playlist onto it from my computer. Even with the volume cranked up all the way, it was tough trying to do dancing with everyone. Somehow, it all came out alright, but I prefer having access to sound systems like what we've been doing all summer.

Anyway, back to work on One Minute Drill. This time, we would be scoring the campers, and my best camper managed to say 41 sentences in one minute! However, while I was testing the other campers, the girl that did 41 sentences came to me and told me that my scoring was wrong. She was trying to recite based off of the list of sentences we gave them, and she tried reciting them in numerical order, and she claimed she only got up to 34, so that her score should be 34.

Talk about being honest! However, during her testing, she accidentally said some of the same sentences twice, but I counted those. For me, the One Minute Drill isn't always about saying 30/40/50 unique sentences at the same time, if you slip up and say a previous sentence, that's okay and I'll count it. I count it because it shows me that they remembered that particular phrase moreso than the others. Of course, if I catch a camper abusing that and saying the same thing over and over again, I won't count it.

After the One Minute Drill scoring, we moved onto our Recreation activity time. We had 90 minutes to play various games until lunchtime. We started off with Pictionary Rally, and Sean got a kick out of the fact that I play Yakety Sax from the Benny Hill show when we do the Rally. After the rally, we headed outside and played various games of tag and Red Rover, and headed back in for lunch.

At lunch today, I couldn't find my group, so I just sat a table with other campers. Today we were having curry! However, I wasn't feeling too hungry, so I just had one bowl of curry. Usually I get two, it's just too delicious to ignore. But today I wasn't feeling like eating more than I needed (a sign, perhaps?), so I ate my one bowl and headed back to my room to lay down again and kill the time until 1:00.

We moved on with the second part of My Story, and I read through my campers' stories and fixed the spelling and grammatical errors. Whenever I do My Story with my campers, they always just talk about themselves. With the My Story, you can make something up (like have them talk about being a superhero), and I've never convinced any of my campers to try something like that. I'm hoping I get the chance before I leave Japan.

Next came American Carnival. Instead of doing the Dice Toss, I took up the Arm Wrestling Challenge. I won against some of the girls, and against others I would let them win or make it look like a struggle, and have them win. I hammed it up with one girl when she won the game, I flew out of my chair and landed on the floor. She and a bunch of other girls started laughing and clapping, they got a kick out of it!

After the Carnival, we moved on with the Camp Skit activity. We didn't have very many supplies, but I grabbed what I could (apparently, we're using too much construction paper and the Guy Healy Office is complaining), and brought it to my group. That was about as much involvement as I got out of the next hour or so. They made their props, and started practicing, all without my direction. What a funny thing.

Dinner came and went, and we did our final activity of the day before doing the Campfire, which was Group Discussion. Sean and I talked about Pop Culture and various aspects of our lives with the campers, and managed to get all the campers to ask us questions. This ran much more smoothly than what I'm used to for Group Discussion. Usually I'm the one that ends up asking all the questions to the campers, but this worked out a lot better.

Next up came the Campfire. We had some troubles getting the wood to burn, as Ayumi lit the top of the woodpile instead of lighting it from the bottom. After soaking some wood in kerosene, Shane and I managed to get the fire going, heh. In order to save my voice for the Camp Story, I stood by the fire and helped campers roast their marshmallows while the other counselors sang camp songs.

The time came to do my scary story, and this time, we didn't have Matt with his whistle, so I told the AC's earlier in the day that the keyword was "dead", and at that point they should scream at the top of their lungs. I told my story very slowly, and very quietly. And, as expected, we scared the crap out of those kids! A chorus of screams flooded my ears and I started laughing. That was the end of the campfire, so we sent all the kids back up for bathtime, and kept scaring them all the way back :)

I took a quick bath, and openly wondered where the scale was. I hadn't weighed myself since being in Gamagori City with the Iwagane's, and my weight was at 120kg. I have no idea if I've lost any more weight or not. My clothes feel big on me, but they've felt that way since I started losing weight back at Camp Nose at the start of my time here. I'm hoping I get to find a scale soon, to see if I can drop my weight to below 260lbs. If I could just hit 259 (or lower, of course), I'd be damn happy!

I couldn't sleep, so I ended up talking to Lauren, Ashley, and Sean until 2AM, talking about the differences between Alaska, Washington, California, and Wisconsin. Funny how we were all from 4 different states. Lauren told me that when it's in the 80 degree range in San Francisco, everybody bundles up and wears coats. I got a kick out of that and told her how the temperature will stay below zero in Wisconsin and sometimes stay that way for a week straight. She said that she couldn't even imagine weather that cold!

Also, we talked about previous relationships, and talked about my relationship with Kaitlin. The more and more I talk about her to everyone here, the more they like her. Lauren and Ashley said they friggin' love Kaitlin, even though they haven't met her yet. Hopefully they'll get the chance to meet the girl I can't stop talking about :)

Ashley told me that her relatives own a cabin on a lake near a cheese factory in Wisconsin, which leads me to believe that they have a cabin on Lake DuBay (since Mullin's Cheese is near the lake). I don't think there's any other cheese factory in Wisconsin next to a lake, but in any case, she said that we'll hold a Team 4 party there sometime. And since Keisuke's coming to Wisconsin in December, we're already planning a party of some sort to happen :)

Sean and I talked until about 2AM, and then we went to bed. Another long day, another need for caffeine tomorrow. Adios for now!

Day 40

2008-08-20T05:29:00.007-07:00

We woke up at 8am this morning, I felt a bit groggy, but still ready to face the onslaught of 12 straight days of camp. Breakfast was at 8:10, so usually when we're at camp, the JC's tell us that we have to be up 30 minutes before breakfast.

There was no way that I was waking up any earlier than I needed to for breakfast ;)

After breakfast, everyone took a nap while I continued catching up on my blog. Sometimes I get very busy at camp, as well as at my homestays, so as a result I spend a good chunk of spare time trying to recall things that happened on previous days. I wrote up to about yesterday by the time that the campers arrived, and I threw on my camp t-shirt and raced down to the steps outside the building.

The campers this time were from an all-girls Junior High School. They were excited to see us, BUT, as soon as they came off the bus, they were really quiet. I stood by Ashley and Ami, and smiled and waved at the campers, even if I was tired and regretting the missed opportunity of a 2 hour nap.

We made our way to the auditorium with all the kids, and watched a tutorial video about the facility. It's entirely in Japanese, so us AC's had no idea what they were talking about. In fact, when we arrived at the facility yesterday, we had to watch it too, but we just made fun of it the whole time :)

After the orientation video, we moved on to lunch. I was expecting curry today, as that's what the facility usually served on the first day that campers would arrive, but. . .no curry today. Just some forgetful luncheon foods.

Once lunch was over, we moved onto Orientation. My group went with the name Team Ponyo (named after the popular Ghibli movie that just came out), they were a pretty quiet group, but they were well behaved. In fact, I could say that about the entire camp! The girls were all very quiet, but they were incredibly polite and reserved. It was different from the usual campers that I see, whom are usually shy.

We did the "mixer", where each AC introduced themselves to each group, and as always I showed off my pictures of everyone back home and the various hunting videos. Every time I show the video of the giant bear that Dad and Bert took down last summer, the campers always freak out, haha!

Next was the One Minute Drill activity. My kids. . .they caught on quickly. I usually have to dictate the sentences and have the kids repeat after me, but these kids didn't need to. They were reading out loud, and just PLOWING through the list! For being well reserved, they sure have one heck of a work ethic. I ended up just sitting there, listening to them practice. Eventually, I brought them all out into the hallway to play a game of UNO, which they really enjoyed :)

After One Minute Drill was My Story. The group I worked with on this one were just like the last one, there was no hesitation and they just started writing like crazy! Although, this group was definitely not as reserved as the last one. They kept repeating goofy phrases with me back and forth, laughing and clapping, and just being all around goofballs.

Then came dinner time. I sat with my Orientation group and ate with them, but they were really quiet. I didn't really have anything to talk to them about just yet. I always have a "getting used to people" period of time where it's not easy for me to talk at first.

After dinner was the Camp Skit, and this group surprised me the most: I told them what the Camp Skit was about, and that they had to come up with an idea, and they took off from there.

No, literally. I had practically ZERO involvement after that. They came up with their own idea, and wrote the entire script with time to spare! Although, the script was written in Japanese, but they promised me that they would convert it to English tonight before bedtime. But the entire thing was handled by them, I didn't have to get involved at all. All I had to do was wait until the script was done in English, and read through it and make changes then. What a group :)

Finally, it was time for bath. Bathtime was early, though, at 8:30 this time, which is delightfully earlier than bathtimes at previous camps. Besides that, the boys bath was completely empty, so we didn't have to wait to take a bath (although the female AC's had to wait before they could take a bath). Shane and Sean and I hammed it up in the tub, splashing everywhere and jumping all over the tub. Thank GOD there weren't any other Japanese guys around or they'd be largely offended by us.

I felt a bit woozy after doing all that, so I had to take a cold shower to regain my composure.

After our meeting tonight, I ended up talking with Sean and Ami until 2:30 in the morning. Ami and I engaged in what she likes to call "intelligent conversation", talking about the problems facing the world and how things can and should be better. Sean and I talked about life in general, talking about karma and how things have played out since our elementary school days.

It's funny, I learned that Sean and I had similar upbringings and similar things happen to us. We were both shunned from playing sports with others in elementary school, we both did band and played instruments, and dated psycho women, the list goes on and on, heh.

We ended up staying awake until 2:30 this morning! Tomorrow's gonna be a tough day. Caffeine is required at this point. Adios for now!

Day 39

2008-08-20T05:29:00.005-07:00

Today was my last day with the Iwagane family. We had ramen noodles with raw egg (cooked by steam) for lunch, and I received some super-cute pictures from Kaitlin today. I bid goodbye to the Iwaganes and gave them a picture of Kaitlin and myself, telling them that when I come back to Japan, I'm bringing her with me. I met up with the rest of the gang at Nagoya Station, and we split off again into a group with myself, Sean, Shane, Yusuke, Ayumi, Ami, Lauren, Ashley, PK, and Brent. We made awards today and I drank Ginger Ale to help my upset stomach. I'm in the same place that I was 3 camps ago, up in the mountains where I got sick when I first got there. We have an all girls camp coming tomorrow.`

I woke up this morning around 8am, feeling darn well rested! I brushed my teeth and hopped in the shower real quick, since I skipped it last night. After the quick shower and a shave, I started packing my things. Packing my clothing luggage was second nature to me at this point, but that souvenir bag. . .it was almost full and I had 5 gifts to place in it, along with 2 more that I had Lauren pick up for me during her homestay. AND, I had that Chopper plush to squeeze in there as well.

After some reorganizing of my souvenir bag, I managed to place everything in there comfortably. . .thank God for all those years spent playing Tetris, heh.

I packed the rest of my things, and took my laptop out into the main room, and chatted it up with Makio at the dining table. The free wireless Internet was working again, so I made a post on my blog to tell everyone to check out my photos, and gave them a link. In the meantime, I checked my Gmail and noticed that Kaitlin sent me some new photos of herself! SWEET! Also, I found out that my sister got a new job working for the Homestay Organization. I did some random web browsing and eventually gave my sister a call. It was really great to hear from her! We talked about her previous job and the problems she was facing there, and I also got to ask her how Jeremy and the dogs were doing. All in all, it was a great conversation with my sister like we always have.

After talking to her on the phone, it was time for lunch. We had a unique lunch today -- it was like ramen noodles, but seasoned (but not Yakisoba), and we boiled them with hot water from a teapot, and there was a little dip in the top of the ramen, and we placed a raw egg there, and the boiled water would cook the egg.

Did you follow all that? It was a pretty unique lunch, it's quite popular in Japan, plus it was delicious :)

But before we started lunch, Makio's sister and his brother-in-law came to visit. They didn't speak very much English, so I did my best to talk to them in Japanese. I told them my name, where I was from, and I surprised myself -- I felt very comfortable in speaking Japanese, even if I only knew a little bit!

Makio and Miyuki have taught me over the past week how to say certain phrases, as in what words to use. For example, if I wanted to say "Yes, really", in Japanese I would have to say "Honto desu". And if I wanted to say "Really?", I would say "Honto desu ka?" I learned that the "desu" means a declaration of sorts, kind of like a "yes, this is true" kind of term, and "ka" basically forms it into a question. So I would be eating Kakigori, and Makio would ask me "Oishii desu ka?" And I could respond with "Hai" (meaning yes), or "Hai, Oishii desu" (Yes, it's delicious). When talking with Obasan and Ojisan (Aunt and Uncle), I felt really relaxed in using words and phrases in Japanese.

I think I just might be able to learn how to speak fluent Japanese one day. I feel more comfortable using Japanese than I ever did using Spanish back in high school :)

Ojisan turned out to be a hunter as well! Except, he hunts octopus in the ocean. With a harpoon gun. Yep. This guy is freaking awesome!

Well, after dinner, it was time to go to the Gamagori Station. I bid goodbye to Baachan and thanked her for everything, and we were off. Makio, Miyuki, Kanan, and Hannah saw me off as I boarded the train, and before I left I gave them a picture of myself and Kaitlin. I told them that when I return to Japan, I'll be stopping in Gamagori City and paying them a visit. Makio told me that we were welcome in their house anytime, I said likewise if they ever find themselves visiting Wisconsin.

I gave everybody a hug, and I boarded the train, and I was off. This was the last homestay I had in Japan. From here on out, I had 4 camp sessions, all in a row. No more breaks. No more facility days. This is my final run in Japan.

I pondered this while I rode the train back to Nagoya Station by myself, the last time I'd be taking a train alone. As I sat and watched the houses and people go by, I thought to myself about what it would be like if America adopted a train system again for public transportation. Unfortunately, I don't think it'd be nearly as efficient as Japan's railroad system.

The 40 minute ride went by quickly, and I found myself wandering in Nagoya Station, looking for the place where I usually meet everyone. I saw some familiar faces in Ashley and Lauren, and in no time I was reuniting with everyone! We all shared stories and pictures, talking about our homestays, our travels (some people went to climb Mt. Fuji!), and the final stretch of our time in Japan.

But, our reuniting time was short, and we had to split up again. This time, I would be with Shane and Yusuke, with Ayumi, Ashley, PK, Ami, Lauren, Brent, and Sean. And we were returning to the camp facility in the mountains of Nagoya. The last time I was at the facility, we took a nasty bus ride that made me sick, if you recall.

Well, we boarded the bus, and we were off. On the way, we hit a rest stop right before a downpour began, and we all grabbed something to drink. I had an energy drink (and a damn tasty one at that), and we rode the rest of the way up to the big lodge. I felt a bit woozy after the bus ride again, but it wasn't nearly as bad as before. We unpacked our things in the same rooms again, and in fact I took up the same bed that I did the last time I was here, heh.

We all relaxed and shared stories, all the meanwhile I typed up on my blog like crazy until dinner, after dinner, and after our bath. This time around, we only had 30 minutes for dinner, and 30 minutes for bath. There's a cram school group here, as well as a group of elementary kids, so time for things like bathing and eating were short.

I spent a lot of my time tonight catching up on the week, writing in the blog, and going to bed around 11. Tomorrow starts the final run of my time here in Japan. The Final Countdown, as it were. And as I type that, Europe plays in my head :)

Adios for now!

Day 38

2008-08-20T05:29:00.003-07:00

I woke up this morning around 10:30. On the way back from Gifu last night, Ojo called us on Miyuki's phone and told me that he'd be calling me today to tell me when he was picking me up for lunch. When I woke up, Miyuki told me that Ojo had already called, and was picking me up at 11:20, so I got my composure together and got ready for lunch. Until Ojo arrived, I worked hardcore on organizing all the photos that I had taken during my time here in Japan, deciding that TODAY would be the day that I FINALLY get those photos online. I figured that it would be easiest to put the pictures on Photobucket.com, since uploading them on Facebook would take longer, AND not everyone would get access to my photos, so I thought it would be best to do it this way.

Right before Ojo arrived, I had all my photos organized, so once I would return, I'd go right into it and spend the afternoon uploading.

But first, it was time for lunch with Ojo and his friend Jun. We took Ojo's van to Charleston, a popular Italian restaurant in Gamagori. I talked with Ojo about Nigeria, about Wisconsin, and how I'm enjoying my time in Japan. It turns out that Ojo had been here for many years, and it took awhile for him to get used to driving to places. His van was about 12 years old, which he told me was fairly new for people in Nigeria, and that his wife changes cars once every 5 years! He considered it a waste of money, I had to agree with him :)

We arrived at Charleston and met Jun, a 19 year old college student. We ordered our food (I ordered noodles with oil dressing, as Jun told me that was one of the best things here), and we talked about college, hunting, anything and everything that came to mind about our different cultures. Eventually, the noodles came and they were delicious! I ate them with a fork, as there were no chopsticks to be had in this restaurant. I found it a bit odd to be using a fork, as is the case every time I use a fork since I've come to Japan. We also ordered some bread and I had a glass of lemon water, and we continued to chat it up about movies, television, animation, and all sorts of things.

By about 12:40, we had to leave as Jun had to head out for work at another place (it turns out that he worked here at Charleston as a part time job!). Ojo ordered a pizza that he was going to bring to the Iwaganes, and we headed back to the house. Ojo offered the pizza, and we bid him adieu. I think Ojo's a pretty damn nice guy. His English is fluent, and I think he has somewhat of a British accent when he speaks in English, so I'm thinking he learned from someone in Nigeria that came from the UK. An all around great guy :)

I spent literally the ENTIRE afternoon uploading photos to Photobucket, making great use of the free Internet I was receiving from my neighbor. I went on AIM and talked to Kaitlin for awhile, as it was really late for her, so she started stumbling when she typed (which I found really adorable, heh). After some time, I went to the supermarket with Makio and Miyuki for groceries, as we would be having curry for dinner! I ended up buying a couple packets of curry for back home as well :)

When we got back, I went right back to uploading the photos, and talking to Kaitlin on AIM. By the end of our conversation, I was having a heck of a time trying to decipher what she was typing :) So, I bid her goodnight, and I got up to Day 29 in the uploading the photos. I stopped there because at that point, the Internet stopped working for me again. It makes me wonder if my neighbor's Internet has some kind of bandwidth quota it can reach daily before it starts wigging out or something, as this happened when I came back last Saturday.

Before dinner, Makio and I went for a 30 minute walk around town, walking past the nearby hospital, and a graveyard. This week was the week that the Japanese celebrate a festival for the dead, honoring their ancestors, so the graveyard was fairly busy. It was a good walk :) Makio told me that he takes this route every morning for his health. I told him about how I used to run with Charlie.

I should really take that up again when I get back.

We ate curry at dinner, and as expected, it was FANTASTIC! God I love curry! Kanan, Hannah and I each had 2 bowls of curry. After that, I started passing out on the couch, so I decided it would be best to go to bed.

Sure, it was 9PM, but passing out on the couch meant I wasn't up for doing anything else tonight. So I decided to go to bed early, wake up early, and start packing to head back to camp. Adios for now!

Day 37

2008-08-20T05:29:00.001-07:00

I woke up at 8:00, and with nary another thought, I dialed up Kaitlin's number on Skype. I was groggy, and my eye was itching considerably from all the dust in the room, but I didn't care. Kaitlin and I haven't had very many problems in our relationship, and for the ones that we do have, we tackle as soon as possible and resolve them.

I talked with Kaitlin for 2 hours, first talking about how bad we both felt about the whole calling-when-I-say-I-will thing, and I decided that this method was flawed. Considering my circumstances in Japan, I have extremely little control over when I get to phone home, so we ultimately agreed that I would simply just call when I get the chance, rather than say "hey I'm going to call you tomorrow at such-and-such a time". This makes it easier for both of us, and I also told her that if I didn't call for days at a time, that it simply means that I can't call from where I am, and that I'm doing fine. Of course, she already knew that, but it felt good to clarity's sake, you know?

After two wonderful hours of talking on Skype, I decided it would be best to give Marie a call. Kaitlin went to bed, and I continued my day extremely happy :)

I called Marie, but I had no luck. She had already gone to bed, so I left a voicemail and continued to work on Internet stuff.

Makio came up the stairs and invited me to come down for lunch with the family at a nearby restaurant. We'd be taking 2 cars, Jiichan's and Ichiro's cars. Ichiro drove an electric hybrid Prius car, so having never been in a hybrid car before, I jumped at the opportunity.

Electric Hybrid cars are surprisingly quiet. There was an on-screen display telling Ichiro at all times, what power was going to where (whether it was the engine to the battery, the wheels to the battery, or the battery to the wheels). He also had a GPS system in it and I was just overall very impressed. I know that Jeff Dunham makes fun of the fact that a Prius is smaller than your usual car, but in this day and age I think we should forego the "dude what a small car you're such a loser" mentality. This thing gets amazing mileage and was quite roomy for being a small car! It's better for the environment and better for your wallet. It's a win win situation. However, I'd have no luck explaining such a thing to people in a state like Texas, that I'm sure of.

We arrived at the restaurant, and I had Udon noodles for the first time. The sauce they were served with was a bit spicy, but it was really good! Udon noodles are very thick noodles, I don't think I've had anything similar back home.

After lunch, we went back home and took a small tour of the yard. Jiichan used to have a Japanese garden in his yard, with a pond and everything, but it had been dried up and not used in years. We took a walk around, and Miyuki explained to me that Jiichan owns an apartment building next door, and that he used to own all the land in the surrounding area before selling it off to people for building homes. So I'd say that Jiichan is doing fairly well, money wise :)

On the way back to the house, to the right of me I saw a GIANT, yellow and black Spider. This was easily the largest spider I've ever seen in the wild, and I pretty much started to freak out a bit. Miyuki and I kept our distance, and Jiichan started messing with the spider by using a stick to futz with the spider web, ticking it off. We kept telling him to stop, but he laughed and kept on going. Oh what a joker. He reminded me of my own Grandpa :)

I headed back upstairs and spent the rest of my day on the web until about 4:00, when we decided to head back home to Gamagori City. I was a little disappointed that I never took up the opportunity to use Jiichan's old-style bath, but ah well, you can't do everything.

We came back home late tonight, and much to my surprise, I had free wireless Internet again! I'd get a chance to call Marie after all! Adios for now!

Day 36

2008-08-20T05:28:00.006-07:00

I must have stayed up until 3am today, because I didn't get up until around 11! I walked downstairs (carefully) and found that breakfast had already been obliterated. There were supposed to be some bread there, but I didn't find it, so I grabbed a piece of chocolate candy and settled, heh. I looked around for everyone else, and I found out that Midori had already left for work, and that Ichiro and Kazuma were going out for some errands. So, it was just myself, Kanan, and Hanna in Midori's house, just chilling and doing web browsing while Kanan played on his Nintendo DS.

Something I forgot to mention in yesterday's entry -- Jiichan has an old style bath in his house. The tub's water is heated by wood! Before everyone in Japan relied on electricity or natural gas to heat the bath water, everyone would use fire to heat it up. Jiichan had an old wooden tub that he used for baths, and if you wanted hotter water, all you had to do was throw some more wood on the fire. Pretty friggin' neat, I think!

I sent a text message to Kaitlin that I was going to talk to her at the end of the night. I didn't know if she was working today or not, but I hoped that I'd get good luck and get to talk to her for a bit, since it had been awhile since I heard her voice.

Eventually, the family and I (minus Jiichan) went out to an import grocery store. We were going to have a BBQ today, so we needed to pick up the food. Miyuki wanted to go to the import store, and then to a grocery store in a nearby mall called Aero in hopes that we'd find a better deal between the two places.

Lo and behold, in the import market, I found bags of Funjuns! I showed everyone the bag and told them how much I loved eating Funjuns back home. Makio said he'd like to try them today, so if we came back later, we'd pick some up. I was definitely down for that. We also found some Doritos, and Miyuki pointed out that she preferred the Taco flavored Doritos as a snack. I kept these two things in mind for when we would come back later in the day.

We headed off to the Aero mall, and did some shopping. We started at Pani Pani, a gift shop that Hannah loves going to. After much pondering, I found two gifts for Meagan and Hayley while we were there. After that, we hit up an arcade, where I won a Tony Tony Chopper plush doll (a character from One Piece) after only putting in 1200 yen! Now, of course that means I put in about $12 to win this thing, but let me tell ya: 1) I love UFO Catcher machines, because I find them to be a lot of fun, and 2) The money I spend, I feel, is worth the fun and the eventual prize that I win. After I won my prize, I moved onward over to the rest of the family and showed off the plush, and I still had about 800 yen in coins left for some more games. I offered to get a prize for Hannah if she could pick one out, and she wanted me to get a Mickey Mouse dressed up as a pirate. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I tried I couldn't win the Mickey Mouse, so we just left the arcade and moved on to the grocery store.

At the grocery store, I spotted Andes Mint Chocolate (imported), and Cocoa Rice Krispies. I mentioned to Makio and Miyuki that I know how to make Rice Krispie Treats with the mint chocolates, and they were so intrigued by the idea, that it led me to offer making it for the BBQ tonight! They obliged, and offered to pay for the ingredients as well!

After the mall, we headed back to the import grocery store, and I secretly bought a bag of Funjuns, a bag of Taco Doritos, and a bottle of Coca Cola (just because I was thirsty for one), and snuck over to the cash register, paid for it all, and hid it all in the car. Then I came back to the store trying to be completely oblivious. However, Miyuki walked by the Funjuns and suggested we buy some. Knowing that there was no other way to say no, I told her what I bought as a surprise for her and the family. She was delighted, and then we worked a deal to make sure that Makio didn't come by this area and grab any snacks.

When we left the store, we had a big box full of food, and Makio had to move some things around in the back of the car. He even moved my bag of snacks, which to my surprise, he didn't notice! Phew.

We headed back to Jiichan's house, and I poked around on the Internet while everyone started getting the BBQ ready. Once the BBQ was underway, Midori came home, and I started working on the Rice Krispie Treats. Midori helped me find the right pans, bowls, trays, and a measuring cup for making sure I could get the recipe done right.

Unfortunately, I couldn't make the bars as good as I usually make them. The krispie treat mix (after I had mixed up the marshmallows and butter with the krispies) became too hard (I think I needed more butter), so I had a really rough time getting it to lay in the pan evenly, and it became a bigger problem after I laid down the Andes mint chocolates and spread another layer of treat mixture. After it was done, I gave the pan to Midori, who placed it in Jiichan's refrigerator next door.

The BBQ was pretty tasty! We had clams, beef, chicken, mushrooms, corn on the cob, and yakisoba. I surprised Makio and the kids with the Funjuns and the Doritos, and everybody loved the snacks! Makio laughed when I told him that the snacks were in plain view in the car when we left the import market. I'm still surprised he didn't notice that, but I guess when you're not looking for something in particular, nothing will stand out as such.

We ate for about 2 hours, and then I brought out the treats. Everyone LOVED THEM! Andes Mint Chocolates (or just mint chocolates, for that matter) aren't very common in Japan. Jiichan liked it so much, he asked for another bar! I was so glad to see that everyone enjoyed my dessert. I love working hard to make a good meal/dessert, and seeing that I didn't screw it up is always a pleasing feeling.

After the BBQ, I showed everyone the 4 movies that STN Productions has made thus far, along with the new Point Brewery Commercial that had just been made a couple weeks ago. Everyone liked the movies, even if they were a bit vulgar at times. Makio's favorite was Forfeit, which Seth was delighted to hear about when I told him about it on AIM later.

By the time I took my bath, it was 11:55, and so I bid everyone a good night and raced up to my room to talk to Kaitlin. By the time I called her on Skype, she was already at work for the day. And an e-mail from her confirmed it.

I felt really bad about it. I had made these promises that I did my absolute best to fulfill, and by the time I did, it would be too late. I did call, as I said I would, but I had no idea it would take me until Midnight before I could do so. I decided it would be best to wake up at 8 in the morning and give her a call then, even if that meant I'd get considerably less sleep. I'm very limited here in Japan with my time, but I always try my hardest when it comes to talking to anyone back at home, Kaitlin included.

So with that, I'm off to bed, I'll be calling Kaitlin and my sister in the morning. Adios for now.

Day 35

2008-08-20T05:28:00.005-07:00

Today, we'd be leaving for Gifu City to visit Miyuki's father, whom I'm told to call Jiichan (Japanese for grandfather). But before that, we'd be going to a historical park called Meiji Mura!

I woke up fairly late today, just in time for lunch, actually :) We had hot sandwiches with the leftover mac & cheese from last night. Some of the hot sandwiches had hot ham & cheese, but also had noodles with marinara sauce inside them! It sounds crazy, but it was really good! I think I'm going to have to try this recipe at home.

After lunch, we chilled out until it was time to leave for Meiji Mura at 2PM. I did some Internet browsing and played with Kanan's rubix cube. I've never been good with a rubix cube, but would you believe it, I figured out how to get one side to be all red! I had one part of the puzzle figured out! Unfortunately, I really don't know how I did it, and I had no luck trying to get the other sides to match. I DID feel a sense of accomplishment, though. Ever since I was a kid, every interaction I've had with a rubix cube confused the hell out of me, so this was a cool little thing I could be proud of :)

Before we left, I had the opportunity to make Onigiri with the family! Onigiri is a flavored rice ball (well, triangle, really) that you roll up in plastic wrap. I had some difficulty rolling my onigiri into triangles, but I got the hang of it after the 2nd try :)

We left around 2PM for Meiji Mura, we'd be traveling to there and Gifu by car. I felt very comfortable being on the road again in a car, on a 4 lane highway. It kinda felt like home. I was so comfortable I started sleeping in the car. I have a hunch that I must have been snoring or something, because when I woke up about an hour later, the whole family was engaged in discussion. I listened in quietly as Makio pulled us up to a rest stop, where we had about 3 minutes to get something to drink before we had to be back on the road again. I walked quickly over to the convenience store at the rest stop and bought a big ice cream bar. This bar was unique from other ice cream treats in that you could split it into chunks, kind of like a candy bar, so I broke off 4 pieces and shared with the family while we continued to drive to Meiji Mura.

I fell asleep again, actually, but in no time we finally arrived at the park. Makio drove off to park the car while the rest of us started to tour the facility. Meiji-Mura is a historical park that features buildings that came from all over Japan. They had been built during the Meiji era (about 100 years ago), after the Edo era. The Meiji era is significant because prior to the Meiji era, Japan refused to incorporate any ideas and concepts from other cultures around the world. The start of the Meiji era signifies the start of when the Japanese began adopting cultures from around the world, undergoing an east meets west kind of transformation.

If you've ever been to (or heard of) Heritage Hills in Green Bay, it's kind of like that :)

We started off our tour by checking out an old schoolhouse. All the desks still had carvings in them from when they were last used, the blackboard in the classroom was literally a black wooden board, they even had some old textbooks that schoolchildren used to study from! I took a few pictures, marveling at these old artifacts. What amazed me more is that you could touch some of the things at this park, for instance you could sit down in the classroom on one of the old desks. This history is touchable, something you don't always get to do, you know?

We then made our way up a hill to a Catholic church that had been built in 1906. The first floor served as a Sunday School type area, while the second floor had the actual service area, pews and everything. For some reason, this church had a lot of organs inside of it, many of them donated from various places. I guess organs aren't very common in Japan.

After checking out the church, we stopped by a pond and I fed some carp. These carp were easily the biggest fish I had ever seen in the wild. Think of the biggest, fattest walleye fish you've ever seen and its somewhat comparable. I fed the carp some bread chunks (there was a box full of bread sticks, simply donate 100 yen and grab one stick), and they went into a little frenzy :)

We met up with Makio shortly after that, and had dinner at a fried food stand. I ordered 2 deep-fried potato patties (a mistake to get 2), and we had those with the Onigiri we made earlier.

We checked out the rest of the park after that, including an old townhouse that was relocated here all the way from Seattle, Washington! It was significant in that Japanese immigrants converted it into a Baptist Church, a place for Japanese immigrants to come together between 1900 and 1950. That was apparently good enough reason to bring the entire house, piece by piece, over to Meiji-Mura in Japan. Man, when they want to show off something significant, the Japanese go all out!

We moved onto the Main Street portion of the park, checking out an old doctor's office, an old Sake brewing place (that now served Kakigori), and an old university school building. At the university building, Makio hammed it up by pretending to be a professor, while I goofed off pretending to be the typical, sleeping American college student. We also went to a building that had a shooting gallery. It took a few tries to get used to the gun (since ALL guns in shooting galleries aren't properly sighted, which makes sense), but I won 2 prizes in a row once I had it figured out. I won a Doraemon keychain and Doraemon piggy bank (Doraemon is a very popular children's character in Japan, comparable to Mickey Mouse in popularity) as a result of my efforts. I also tried archery, but I wasn't really good at that, heh.

We eventually made our way to a grassy hill and watched the last part of the day's events, a concert followed by fireworks. The concert was pretty sweet, it featured a violinist and a guitarist performing Latin Jazz music! I managed to get some pictures and a movie without causing too much disturbance. They played a variety of songs I hadn't heard of, but it was a beautiful blend of harmonic chords with experimental styles that played off of each musician nicely. About halfway through the performance, the violinist revealed that he was blind! So he was not only good at being a musician, he also couldn't see his notes, so it was all from memory. One helluva talented artist, if you ask me.

After the concert, we were treated to a fireworks show, I'd say it was pretty comparable to something you'd see at the Riverfront Rendezvous in Stevens Point. And for that to happen on a daily basis at this place is pretty stinking impressive!

We left the park shortly after checking out a replica hotel, and I bought some gifts for my Aunt Denise and Uncle Wayne. After that, we all got back in the car and drove the rest of the way to Gifu City.

Once we got to Jiichan's house, we unpacked our things, and Miyuki helped me bring my things upstairs to my room, which would be across from Jiichan's. It was a bit dusty, but my room was pretty sweet! This house was about 45 years old, and had the steepest stairs I've ever climbed on. These were steeper than the stairs back at the old house on Union Street. What didn't help was that they were bare wooden stairs and I was wearing socks. I was really afraid of falling down, heh.

After we unpacked, we walked next door (which was literally less than one meter away from Jiichan's house) to Midori's house. Midori is Miyuki's sister, she works as a computer instructor by day and studies English quite a lot. She was excited to meet me, as Miyuki told me that Midori doesn't get to practice her English with native speakers very often! I also met her husband Ichiro and her son Kazuma, a computer programmer about the same age as myself. This family was doing fairly well money-wise, as they had a 50-inch High-Def TV with a 200 Watt surround sound stereo system, a Playstation 3, and a DVD/Laserdisc player (Laserdisc! Talk about a rare commodity) We chatted it up for awhile before everyone took baths and headed off to bed.

But before bed, I was invited to have a beer with Midori, so I gladly obliged, even though I was drinking beer on an empty stomach. Shortly after that, I made my way back to Jiichan's house, where I was invited to have 2 more beers and some smoked squid! The smoked squid was pretty good, actually. It tasted like beef jerky from back home, the only difference being the consistency of the squid. I chatted it up with Makio, Miyuki, and Jiichan, showing them pictures of Kaitlin, my family, and of bear hunting. During this entire time, I was feeling REALLY buzzed from the beer, but I tried my best to put on a sober, smiling face.

I stayed up fairly late, trying to shake off the drunkenness before going to bed, trying to find anything to do online that would keep me busy.

All in all, one heck of a day. Adios for now!

Day 34

2008-08-20T05:28:00.003-07:00

Today, I woke up around 9am, logged onto the Internet and checked how things were progressing in the rest of the world. After some time, I headed into the main room and found out that today we were going to a real sushi bar for lunch! This was no ORDINARY, run-of-the-mill sushi bar, this was a very popular sushi bar that had sushi rolling by on conveyor belts at each table!

We left at 11am, when the restaurant opened. Miyuki and Makio told me that we had to get there early, the restaurant gets very busy from its opening, onward throughout the day. Especially once 12pm hit during the lunch hour, we wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting to eat on time. So, we get there at about 11:15, and the place was already packed! Good lord! Well, after a short while, we sat down, and Miyuki and Makio told me that eating here was quite simple: grab whatever food you wish to eat off of the sushi line, but if you even touch it, you should definitely grab it. Common courtesy, you see :)

I tried plenty of different sushi, trying salmon, scrambled egg, sushi rolls, corn sushi rolls, shrimp, and even scallops! It was all really tasty. However, my tongue started to swell a bit after those scallops. On a side note, it got progressively bigger for about 30 minutes after we left the restaurant, but I ignored it since that seemed to be the only thing that was swelling up. It didn't stop me from breathing or anything, so no allergy emergency here :)

Anyway, back to the restaurant. Whenever we wanted something special, there was a touch screen menu on top of the sushi conveyor belt-thingy, all you had to do was navigate the menu and request something, and the food would come by on a separate belt above the sushi belt, on a miniature Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet train). It was pretty neat!

We got to talking about my experiences as a cook back home, and they asked me if I was interested in cooking an American dinner! And OF COURSE I accepted! I started brainstorming over what I should make them.

Kanan and Hannah wanted dessert, so they asked me what I wanted. I told them that I was definitely up for some Kakigori! Through the touch screen menu, I ordered a grape Kakigori, and it was pretty good! It tasted like real grapes, not the usual grape syrup that's loaded with sugar, the usual stuff you taste in American popsicles and sno-cones. Delicious stuff :)

After lunch, we headed off to another mall to do some shopping. I picked out more gifts for everyone, and we eventually went to the grocery store. I picked up some raw chicken breasts (boneless), broccoli, milk, butter, C.C. Lemon, macaroni noodles, and red cheddar cheese imported from New Zealand (it was the closest thing I could get to cheddar cheese). We left the mall and headed out to another grocery store, where I picked up some onion powder! At this point, I had all the ingredients I needed, plus a bottle of C.C. Lemon just because I friggin' love the stuff :)

When we got back home, Baachan wanted to take me to Takashimi Island, an island in the bay of Gamagori City that was very famous. The thing was, Baachan wanted just her and I to go! She was going to be my tour guide, even though I had NO idea what she was saying. This was going to be interesting.

Makio dropped the both of us off, and we stared our tour by Baachan showing me a hotel overlooking the bay. According to Makio (who told me this later), that it was a famous hotel that was built before World War II, and that when the Americans invaded during WWII, they occupied the hotel. Interesting stuff :)

After that, we walked down into a thick grove of trees, down a long set of stairs that led to the bay. We passed a shrine, where Baachan made a prayer, and then we walked to Takashimi Island. A bridge connected it to the mainland, and it was one heck of a walk! Baachan gave me a hat to wear for the tour, but my head's so freaking big, that it kept falling off. The wind didn't help, either, so I decided to just slam the hat over my head. It felt super-tight around my head, but it stayed, so the sun wouldn't get in my eyes. There were quite a few people walking up and down the bridge, for a Monday I thought this was a pretty busy place!

We made our way to the island, and walked up to the main part of the island, which was at the top of a few flights of stairs. The nature on this island was really old! The trees were huge, long and winding throughout the area, so thick that the sunlight was barely let in. It was an amazing, humbling place! There were several shrines, so I watched on as Baachan did prayers in front of each of them. I joined her for one of them as well. She walked past a roped-off area in hopes of taking me to the other side of the island, but we had no luck, so we walked back to the main area. There wasn't that much going on besides the tourists, but how can I describe it? Everything was so ancient, so rich in its history, everything built here was built so long ago, no doubt this place has been around longer than America's existence. When I put things into perspective like that, I become really humbled as an American citizen. We take so much pride in our history, yet our own history is ridiculously short, a short note in the epic novel of the history of the world.

After we visited Takashimi Island, we walked back to the mainland and went to a teahouse. We sat down and I got to enjoy some authentic Japanese Green Tea. This was the thick stuff, the exact same kind I had back in Osaka! Oh, it was delicious! Baachan was impressed that I knew how to drink the tea properly (you hold the cup in your left hand, turn it 90 degrees twice with your right hand, then drink with both hands), but I couldn't tell her how I knew how to do it. When we left the teahouse, I thanked the lady that served us tea and once again, impressed Baachan with how polite I was. Heck, I thought being thankful is what ALL foreigners should do when they visit Japan, heh.

Makio came to pick us back up after Baachan called him on a nearby payphone, and we went back to the house. I started working on dinner for everyone. As I looked for the oven below the stove, Miyuki laughed and pointed out that ovens below stoves don't really exist in Japan. Microwaves also double as ovens in Japan. So, I laid out the chicken breasts, seasoned them with salt, fresh ground pepper, and onion powder, and placed them in the microwave/oven for an hour. While I waited for the chicken to cook, I looked up some things on the Internet, chopped up the broccoli, and began boiling the macaroni noodles. I bought more noodles than I thought I needed, because I honestly had no idea what would be enough.

I like to think that when you're cooking for others, if you don't know how much you need, it's better to end up having more than having less. I had a LOT of macaroni noodles, but I used them all. I boiled the noodles, drained them, and started adding cheese after I melted the butter. Miyuki looked on and watched me cook this food, she took a great interest in what I was doing. Once the macaroni & cheese was done, I had Miyuki place it in a serving bowl, and I cut up the 3 chicken breasts into 6 halves (chicken was really expensive here, about $2-$3 per breast, and they weren't even that big!), and finished boiling the broccoli. The broccoli was a bit over-cooked, but it was still okay. We took pictures of my completed meal, and we all dug in. Everyone LOVED the chicken, even Baachan ate her piece. Everyone enjoyed the mac & cheese, and most of it disappeared by the end of dinner! I was glad I was able to give my host family an American dinner :)

After that, we all just chilled, I checked stuff out on the Internet, took a bath and went to bed. Tomorrow, we would be leaving to go to Gifu City to visit Miyuki's father and her sister! Adios for now!

Day 33

2008-08-20T05:28:00.001-07:00

I woke up this morning at about 9:30. Miyuki was just about to leave with the family to church, so she offered me toast for breakfast to hold me by until lunch. I was invited by the fam to go to their church and have curry for lunch. Of course, I willingly obliged, since I frickin' LOVE CURRY! After they left for church, I tried connecting to the neighbor's Internet connection, with no luck. I tried, for 30 minutes straight, connecting to the blasted thing. STILL no luck.

I was starting to get worried. I knew Kaitlin was waiting at home for my call, and I had NO WAY of warning her that I couldn't talk to her. I tried connecting to the Iwagane's Internet connection, no luck there. I grabbed my laptop and literally walked around town, looking for a free connection. STILL NO LUCK. I looked and looked and looked and tried my damndest, but EVERY SINGLE INTERNET CONNECTION HERE IS PASSWORD-PROTECTED. Good GOD, talk about being anal with your connections. No Internet Cafe's were in sight, either. So, I came back to the house, defeated and upset, knowing there was no way I could get a hold of Kaitlin to at least tell her I couldn't speak with her over Skype.

I played with Kanan's Rubix Cube in the apartment for awhile, trying to get my mind off of being worried and upset about failing to talk to Kaitlin. Miyuki came back and picked me up in the car, and off we went to the church. I explained to her my woes about talking to Kaitlin, and she cheered me up with a good saying that I had forgotten: "No news is good news." At the very least, I should remember that if I can't get a hold of Kaitlin, that she still knows that I'm fine and all is well. The only downside is that we'd have to delay our talk with each other for awhile longer. But at the very least, I was okay, so she didn't have to worry. That made me feel better :)

We arrived at the church, and I sat down with several folks at the table and ate curry. This curry was served with bread instead of rice, as it was more of a soup than a stew-like sauce. I chatted it up with several members of the church, and played a Taiko-drum game on the PS2 with Hanna and Kanan. I did somewhat well against Hanna, but I had no chance against Kanan. He was a friggin' MASTER of that game. I couldn't even come close to his scores. I've been playing video games longer than he's been alive, and he kicked my ass.

It just goes to show you that gamers in America have NOTHING on Japanese gamers.

I headed back to the house with Miyuki and Makio, and I spent a good chunk of my afternoon watching the Metal Gear Solid comic book movie I bought in Nagoya Station.

By the time 5PM came, however, it was time for the Noodle Slide. Now, I haven't mentioned this at all prior to this point in my blog, but Miyuki and Makio told me ahead of time that we'd be doing a Noodle Slide party when I got back from camp. So what IS a Noodle Slide?

Well, a Noodle Slide is a party where everyone eats noodles that come down a bamboo slide that has running water. Makio and I grabbed 4 halved bamboo trunks and connected them using a ladder, tables, and cloth threads. At the top, he ran a garden hose that would send water all the way down all 4 trunks, down to the water culvert at the streetside. We set up tables and chairs all over the driveway, and we had about 40 people come to the event. Everyone stands (or sits) at the bamboo slide, and waits for boiled noodles to come down the slide. You grab the noodles with your chopsticks, and drop them in your cup of sauce. You eat it similar to the way you eat Soba noodles, complete with onions and everything, but these were spaghetti noodles.

I waited down near the bottom of the slide with Kanan and Hanna. We didn't get TOO many noodles, as the kids near the top and the middle of the slides kept their chopsticks in the slide, waiting for the noodles to get caught by their chopsticks. According to Miyuki, this wasn't the way you correctly eat from the Noodle Slide, but ALL the kids were having fun, so it wasn't that big of a deal.

I helped out with the event by serving cobs of corn to everyone. We also handed out hot dogs, potato chips, rice cakes, and other various snacks. By the time everyone got their fill, Miyuki asked me to play some games with all the kids. I happily obliged :)

We started off with doing some bird calls. The kids laughed and tried guessing what the calls were. They eventually figured them all out, even my turkey call! After that, we played one of my camp games (one I call the frog jumping game). They didn't quite understand at first, but they caught on and enjoyed it. After that, we also played an English speaking game that was kind of like Simon Says meets Rock/Paper/Scissors. I led the group and we had fun doing that game too :)

After the games were over, a newcomer came to the party. His name was Ojo, he's from Nigeria! I've never met anyone from Africa before, so I thought that was pretty damn cool! He came to Japan to teach English, apparently, and that he's been in Japan for over 5 years. A trilingual teacher. . .whoda thunk it?

When he arrived, Makio sent down the last batch of noodles down the slide so that Ojo could eat. Once those were done, we moved onto dessert, which also took place at the slide! They sent down pineapple chunks, grapes, even candy like jellybeans and chocolate-covered almonds! After that, I helped pass out popsicle bars and we eventually saw everyone off.

I talked with Makio about my Internet problem, and suggested we try to figure it out. So, he grabbed his laptop and we went to work. We looked at the neighbor's Internet connection, and neither he or myself could connect to it. So, Makio pulls out his modem card, and a USB adapter, and an installation CD. Within 10 minutes, I had working Internet! WAHOOO!!!

I immediately fired off an e-mail to Kaitlin apologizing for not getting to talk to her earlier. Not too long after, I got to talk to her on AIM and I apologized a lot about not getting to talk to her this morning.

I took a bath eventually, and spent the rest of the night on the Internet. What a day, heh :)

Adios for now!

Day 32

2008-08-20T05:27:00.003-07:00

5 & 1/2 hours of sleep. That's how much I got today, and I definitely wasn't feeling rested. On the bright side, my voice felt just fine, so everything was going to be okay. I tried my Internet again today, this time it connected just fine! What the heck!?

Well, anyway, I read up on the latest One Piece Manga online, checked my e-mail, and after breakfast (which was once again that crappy little meal, which THIS time I refused to eat most of it out of disgust) I gave Meagan a call over Skype. Today was her 17th birthday, and even though I only had 5 minutes to talk, I decided it would be best to call anyway. Just like Grandpa when I called him last month, she didn't recognize my voice! But, she was excited once she figured out it was me. She told me she had a sprained ankle! Good lord, what a way to spend your birthday. She also told me that her and Kyle were no more, and that she's got someone else on her mind. I told her that Japan was crazy awesome and I said hi to everyone else in the house.

Today was also mine and Kaitlin's 4 month anniversary. I spoke with her last night (this whole time-difference thing lets me talk in the night and in the morning in Japan and have it still be the same day in America), although it was very brief because Skype didn't want to work efficiently last night. Only 3 weeks to go and I'll get to see my Kaitlin again :)

We all boarded the buses (correctly, this time), and headed back to the facility. We practiced My Story for about 30 minutes before starting the miniature part of Eigo-Kai, which I held with half of the campers outside of the building (while the other half stayed inside). We had some great stories, although nothing really stuck out for me. After we were done with this part, I ran to a nearby vending machine and grabbed a Pepsi. Why, you might ask? Well, all the campers were dead, including my Camp Skit group! Even THEY had fallen to the fatigue from staying up too late. They needed a wake-up call. So, we all sat down and I offered them my Pepsi. We all took turns chugging it down, and that seemed to do the trick! They were up and about, practicing their lines, getting the blocking down for the skit, we were set!

So, we started Eigo-Kai with presenting the My Story finalists. This kind of went by in a blur for me, as my focus was on my Camp Skit. This group had the potential to deliver one of the best skits I've seen all summer.

The stories came and went, and we had 10 more minutes to practice before our presentation. We practiced a couple times and we were ready to go! I had PK film our skit on my camera. I goofed up at one point early on in the skit, but everything else was solid. All the other groups put on great skits as well. I used music from my laptop for my skit, which Matt jokingly said I shouldn't be allowed to use anymore. After the skits were done with, we had lunch, another bento box, but this time the bento wasn't very good. I'd say it was on par with this morning's breakfast. I ate some rice out of it and left almost everything else alone in it.

The time for awards came, and would you believe it. . .MY CAMP SKIT GROUP GOT FIRST PLACE! WAHOOOOOOO!!!! They were SO happy! We hugged and cheered and took pictures and everything. After the awards ceremony, we did graduation and spent the rest of the time taking pictures with all the campers.

After that was over, we headed back to the hotel, had the campers gather their things, and we saw them off in their bus. I talked to Sayu a bit more about One Piece, which was really cool because she was a BIG fan of One Piece and I could talk to her about it in the same way I talk to Takumi about One Piece. It was pretty cool! Well, anyway, we saw them off on the bus, there were plenty of hugs and tearful goodbyes, and several counselors (along with myself) chased them down the hill and waved farewell as the bus sped off out of sight. I headed back to the hotel, grabbed my things and finished cleaning up the Tatami room, and off we went back to Nagano Station. But wouldn't you know it, right after the campers left, it started raining really hard again! What an odd coincidence, right?

We met up with all the other counselors at the station, and spent an hour there talking and catching up while we waited for the train. I missed being around Erik, as I've been working with him since I started camp, so it was good to see him again. I gave everyone hugs, it was so relieving to be together again. We all went into the station and I bought some ice cream balls that were similar to Dippin' Dots, they were really good!

We boarded the train and everyone proceeded to pass out for the 90 minute ride back to Nagoya. Myself included.

We woke up and arrived at the station, and I bid farewell to Keisuke. I hugged him twice, telling him that we'd be seeing each other again real soon. Why? Well, since he's dating Ali, and Ali goes to UW-Oshkosh, I'm only an hour away from Oshkosh. So all he has to do is tell me he's in the area and I'll drive over to go see him. I told him that and he was surprised at how close I was! So that made the both of us pretty happy.

I'm gonna miss him, though. Keisuke was always full of energy and made me laugh my ass off all the time. He's a fantastic person and his relationship with Ali continues to amaze me. They'll be enduring a major long-distance relationship for quite some time. I hope that distance doesn't stop what they've got going for each other. They seem to fit really well! So, I hope to hear from him when he's in Wisconsin, because there's no doubt in my mind that ALL of the counselors in the area are going to come down to visit!

Ayumi and I headed in our own direction towards the line that would be heading towards Aichi, taking me to the Gamagori Station. I talked with her during the ride back, mentioning that I had an idea for making a Team 4 video about summer camp. She agreed with me and said that was a pretty good idea, and I talked with her over how it could be done.

After about 40 minutes, we arrived at Gamagori Station, and I bid goodbye to Ayumi, and headed back home with Makio. I talked with him about my time at the past two camps, and when I came back to the house, I greeted everyone with a "To Daiiiii Maaasss!" which Kanan and Hanna got a kick out of :) I was greeted by Miyuki and we talked for a bit, and then I brought my things back to my room.

Tonight, we had Okonomiyaki for dinner! What a surprise! We had different kinds of Okonomiyaki, some with squid, some with pork, and some with a blend. I chose to go with the blend, and we all stuffed ourselves full with that delicious okonomiyaki. We talked at the table about my time working in a restaurant at the Eagle's View Golf Course in Wittenberg, and I mentioned that I cook for myself back at home.

After dinner, I hopped on the Internet, telling Kaitlin that I'm going to talk to her on Skype tomorrow, so that when she gets off of work, I'll be able to talk to her for a couple hours. I did my usual browsing on the Internet, using a neighbor's wireless connection. Suddenly, though, it stopped working. Their connection practically died on me! The network existed when I searched for it, but I couldn't connect to it! Surely, this was just something going haywire for the time being, and that I could get back to business tomorrow, right?

I certainly hope so. Adios for now!

Day 31

2008-08-20T05:27:00.001-07:00

Waking up this morning, I felt pretty groggy, but that was mostly out of fatigue from the past few days. I knew today was going to be a long day, but on the bright side, it'd be the last "long day" for awhile.

I hopped on my laptop to use the Internet, but it wouldn't work! No matter what I did, I couldn't get the wireless network to connect me properly with my laptop! My laptop would assign its own IP address instead of getting one from the wireless router, so no matter what I did, even if I was technically connected to the network, I couldn't use the network for anything. No Instant Messaging, no Skype-ing, no web pages, nothing. I was furious. I fiddled with it untiL I had to go down for morning assembly, and even by the time I headed down, it still didn't work.

I tried to ignore it and just move on with the day. The campers were absolutely dead save for that group of girls I worked with last night. Sayu and Yuuki are especially the most active members of that group. I was told that all the campers went to bed fairly late last night (some staying up as late as 3am). At first, I thought to myself "How can these kids DO THIS to themselves?", but then I remembered that I was a teenager myself not too long ago. How quickly you forget these things when you become an adult.

Breakfast was pretty quiet. I want to blame the crappy breakfast food they keep giving us, at this point I'm ready to just protest breakfast altogether. After that joke of a meal, I headed back to my room in one last attempt to try the Internet, but again with no luck. I asked the other counselors if they had any luck with the Internet, and they did! So for some reason, only I couldn't get any Internet. How odd.

Eventually, the time came to head back to the facility, but somehow we screwed up the order in how we got to the facility. We take two buses to the facility, and we have the campers split up in groups to fill both buses, with the Counselors filling the empty seats. However, we didn't fill one bus entirely, and the next bus was completely full, so some of us stayed behind! Shane, Phil, Yusuke, one of the teachers, and myself waited an extra half hour for one of the buses to return. I watched Shane and Phil throw rocks at a can of Coke.

Yes, we were that incredibly bored.

The bus finally came back around 9:15, and when we got to the facility, we noticed that everyone was beat at this point. The campers from their lack of sleep, the counselors with fatigue lingering from the last camp, everyone was borderline passing out. I turned music on over the speakers in the room to wake everybody up, but it didn't work that well.

We started One Minute Drill, and I worked with my kids really hard to get them to memorize those sentences, since today was the day we would be doing our testing. Unfortunately, they weren't too responsive, and my best camper got an average score of 22. Oh well, I guess.

Next came Recreation Time. We had 90 minutes of recreation time to play games, which honestly was 60 minutes more than what we needed. We ran out of ideas for games by 11:00, a full hour before lunch. I ended up playing volleyball with Phil and Shane against 4 campers for 30 minutes, while other campers fell asleep in the room. Honestly, I wonder why we're not given a list of games to occupy that large amount of time. One would think that Guy Healy Japan would supply us with something to work with, especially when you consider that folks like me have never worked with children before, and thus have very few ideas for recreation time. Well, no use complaining about it, right? We played volleyball with those 4 campers until lunchtime.

Lunch was brought over in bento boxes, it was about as good as the last time I had bento. I noticed that after some of the campers finished their lunches, they were napping on the floor. Wow.

After lunch, we worked on My Story. I worked with each camper in my group to make sure they were spelling their words correctly and did my best to help them understand what certain words meant. I also worked with them on getting their stories memorized. They were surprised that they had to memorize it! This isn't the first time I've had campers that were surprised about the memorization part. Something tells me that we have to be a bit clearer during orientation as to what we're doing with each activity.

Once My Story was done, we held the American Carnival. Somehow, we ran really late on preparation, some of the counselors were still signing the Camp T-Shirt that we give out at the Raffle by the time the kids were ready for the Carnival. I ran the Dice Toss again, but this time I had 2 huge, fuzzy dice to work with. As a result, it was harder for the kids to roll doubles. I just ended up giving tickets to them anyway. After the Carnival was over, I MC'd the Raffle, and announced that we had water balloons outside. We headed outside and had a good ol fashioned balloon toss, followed by a water balloon fight! One of the water balloons was coming right for the face of one of the teachers, so I blocked it with my hand. No worries, he still got wet :)

After that was over and done with, we headed back inside and finished up work on Camp Skit. My kids and I worked on copying the script from my notebook so that they could memorize it, and we spent a large chunk of time working on props. We had to improvise a few things with our props, though. See, in the Skit, all of us (myself included) have a role as a driver. I'm Mario, Sayu is Yoshi, Yuuki is Bowser, and the other two girls play Peach and Luigi. Mario and Luigi each have caps, and while we had green construction paper to make Luigi's cap, we didn't have red construction paper. So, Sayu took it upon herself to color an entire sheet of white paper with red marker! I was impressed by this because she also had her own hat to make (she made an Egg for Yoshi), and spent the rest of her time working on my hat. I worked on creating a yellow Invincibility Star, and the other campers in my group worked on making a Green Turtle Shell, a Crown for Peach, and Horns for Bowser. Outside of making that Star and getting supplies, my involvement in preparing for the skit was very minimal. I was incredibly relieved by this! After all, this is the kid of spirit we want to see from the campers!

After the Camp Skit, we loaded up on the buses and headed back to the hotel for a BBQ dinner (my second one at this facility). As Keisuke and the hotel staff worked on making dinner, it started to rain. And THEN came lightning and thunder. Intense lightning and thunder raced through the skies while we ate dinner. Some lightning bolts hit the ground and crackled, giving us one helluva show! One particular strike actually killed the power for the entire facility! Thankfully, the power came back on within a couple of minutes. During dinner, my Camp Skit group was hamming it up like crazy with the boys across the other side of the shelter. Matt was with them, and convinced them to point out one of the boys specifically, Asame. They told Asame that Yuuki didn't have a boyfriend, and they giggled. Asame laughed nervously, and so Matt and I went to work on him. We got him to say he would be Yuuki's boyfriend and the girls went NUTS giggling over it. Then, I whispered to Asame that he should say "Yuuki, aishteru" (which is Japanese for "Yuuki, I love you"). He freaked out and balked at the idea. The girls noticed this, and started chanting "As-a-me! As-a-me!", and asked him to say what I had told him to say. Finally, we got him to say it and the girls screamed with delight! Asame was laughing and blushing, and the girls were laughing and enjoying it all. But THEN, Matt and I convinced Asame to sit next to Yuuki, and take a group picture with his arm around her shoulder.

The girls loved it, and Asame was shy as hell. Of course, they were all just fooling around, but I found it interesting how open they could be about something like this. No teenagers in America would EVER consider something as goofball as this over dating.

After the meal, we started up the Campfire. I reserved myself behind the campfire, trying to save my voice for the scary story. I waited for all the campers to get their share of S'Mores, and then I began the story. Matt gave me some tips for this story, suggesting that I go slower and use simpler words, since apparently last time I had used words like "particular" that the kids didn't understand at last camp, and that I was going too fast for them to understand. So, I talked slowly, and quietly, telling the story just loud enough for all the campers to hear. I gave Matt the key word in the story (which is "dead"), and he blew the whistle. The girls all freaked out! It was fantastic stuff as always.

Bath time came and went, and it was time for bed. Tonight was Keisuke's last night with us, as he would be leaving for Hawaii before the next camp (he studies Mathematics at UH-Hilo). So, Keisuke wanted all of us to stay up really late. I didn't really agree with it, as I was just dead-beat tired and needed rest for Eigo-Kai tomorrow. I tried to sleep, but didn't get to until about 1:30.

That's all for today, so adios for now!

Day 30

2008-08-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

With all the crazy antics from last night, it's surprising that I woke up this morning feeling like I had enough sleep. We woke up at about 8, being in no rush to do anything until 11 when the campers would finally arrive. Breakfast was at 8, and guess what, it's the same old song and dance of shredded cabbage, 2 thin ham slices, and not much else. Considering all the other weird things I've had for breakfast, can't they ignore their little methods of meal selections just once and give us curry or something? Seriously.

After breakfast, I poked around on the Internet and updated my blog until about 11:00. At that point, the campers arrived! This felt interesting, having less than a day long break from campers, feeling that "here we go again" feeling. As the kids piled out of the bus, I noticed something peculiar -- no school uniforms. All these kids were decked out in trendy clothes, from short shorts to striped socks to big hairstyles to those Croc shoes that are (somehow) still popular in Japan. I had a hunch that this group was going to be wild, and awesome.

Lunch definitely confirmed it. I sat at a table with Matt, where at the end of lunch I had concluded we were with the 2nd rowdiest group of girls in the school, where Ali had taken the rowdiest kids. I played off of Matt, doing voice impersonations and being an overall goofball. We had curry for lunch (yay curry!), and I had an extra helping of curry because it's just too damn good to pass up. I seriously need to learn how to make curry at home and throw venison in it :)

Anyway, these kids went CRAZY for Brent! Brent's taken on a nickname here, "Tenpa", which means "natural afro", due to the poofy afro-like curly hair on his head. And the girls are eating it up! They keep feeling his head, going crazy over how curly it is. They did the same with Shane, who has a shorter haircut, but has afro-like curls on it too. They call him "Jero", after a famous pop star in Japan that looks similar to Shane. These kids were just nuts. And we hadn't even started yet!

We headed down to a different facility (this one was in town, unlike the last one), and we started off orientation. I introduced myself as a guy with many different voices, doing Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Chewbacca. I sat down with my Orientation group and helped them pick a team name, Team Minnie. Cocoro, one of the girls on the team, really really likes Minnie Mouse, so it wasn't too hard for them to decide on that name :)

After Orientation, we held the One Minute Drill for an hour and a half. The kids I worked with had only one problem in cooperating with me -- they were ungodly tired. Apparently they had a 3 hour bus ride (just like the last group of campers), and they wanted to pass out. I did my best to encourage them to keep their focus on memorizing English phrases and taking a break every now and then to get their energy levels up. I played a game of Uno with the kids, which they loved (I knew this Uno card game I brought would come in handy), and I also went for a walk with them around the building. I noticed outside that it was raining while the sun was out. I don't think I've seen that phenomena very much, sunny rain is an odd thing to see. It was a complete downpour with the sun shining bright! I explained to my campers that this wasn't something I usually saw back home.

Once the One Minute Drill was over (and seriously, I think 90 minutes is far too much time to be spent on it), we moved on to My Story. This group of kids was just as active as the last one, but I did my best to cheer them up and keep them energized by singing with the songs I was playing on my laptop, keeping a big smile on my face, and encouraging them to write as much as they could for their stories. In the end, they each wrote about a page worth of My Story material.

After that, we headed back to the hotel for dinner, which was the usual whole fish with pumpkin, eggplant, rice, and a hamburger patty. There was also soup, which was by far the best soup I've had in Japan. Probably because it tasted a lot like homemade soup ;)

I seriously miss home cooking. This hotel stuff, this 7-11 food, all the restaurants and junk that I've been do don't hold a candle to home cooking.

After dinner, we headed over to a new facility, where I got to work Camp Skit with the rowdiest group of girls from the high school. These kids were AWESOME! They were SO talkative, cheerful, and bright, it was exactly what I was hoping for! We blazed through the Camp Skit idea and our script (we would be doing our own version of Super Mario Kart), and spent the rest of the time talking about One Piece (which one of the kids REALLY liked), and I also sang "Hello, Mary Lou" for them (that old Barbershop song I sang with Erik Carlson, Luke Cieslewicz, and Steve Kraft). They were AMAZED at my singing skills, and overall we just had a phenomenal time during our Camp Skit practice. I couldn't describe it any better, how much I really enjoyed this group. They were above the stereotype of shy Japanese people, they were rowdy and they took pride in it. I couldn't ask for a better group of campers :)

After the Camp Skit was over, we moved on to Dance Party. I played the usual list, and the kids loved it! At the end of the Dance Party, Yusuke and Keisuke sang a Japanese love song for everyone, which we all got a kick out of. After that, we headed back to the hotel, completely soaked in sweat from all the dancing. On the way back, though, a lot of the girls took pictures, and some of them asked me if I had a girlfriend. I told them I did, and I opened up my laptop to show them a picture of Kaitlin.

I tell you folks, when these girls saw Kaitlin, they FLIPPED OUT over how cute she was. Completely flipped out. They all yelled "KAWAIIII" (cute in Japanese). I beamed, because I couldn't wait to tell Kaitlin what had just happened.

Anyway, we got back to the hotel, and everyone took a bath, we had another super quick meeting, and we headed off to bed. I spent the rest of my night updating my online blog, getting over 12 entries posted that had taken me forever to catch up to. That's about all I have for now, so adios for now!

Photos are UP!!!!

2008-08-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

After hours of organizing and such, I've finally been able to upload the photos from the first 29 days of my journey here in Japan! You can find them at this address:

http://s332.photobucket.com/albums/m338/tehleslie/

After clicking the link, you can find the albums named by Day (for example, Day 3, Day 4, and so on). Click each one and you can view the photos for each day! Enjoy!

Day 29

2008-08-07T07:51:00.005-07:00

We woke up at 7:20 this morning, 10 minutes before we had to be ready for Rojio Taiso! With Keisuke in the room, who had been waking us all up during our time here, we thought we had nothing to worry, but his cell phone died, so he had no way of knowing when to wake up either!

We scrambled down, groggy as hell, to the front of the building for the final day of camp. Breakfast came and went again, good lord this stuff just isn't appealing to me anymore. The Miso soup is more edible than it has been at previous camps, but there's this spongy vegetable in it that just doesn't taste right in texture. The soup might be the only thing I somewhat like about our crappy breakfasts, heh.

We headed back to the main building, and began our My Story Eigo Kai. Ali and I MC'd the event, calling up all the campers one at a time to perform their stories. One of the kids from my group, Ryo, was picked as a finalist for Eigo Kai! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

We moved on after My Story to practice on Camp Skits. My Camp Skit team was in another room, and they came by to summon me to practice the skit. They handled the practice very well, directing each other and directing me (even if it was in Japanese). I forgot we had an umbrella, so I quickly ran to Yusuke and asked him to help me find an umbrella (one of the scenes we did required an umbrella for it to be effective). Within no time, we were ready for the skit.

I did my usual "LLLLLLLLLET'S GET RRRRRRREADY FOR EIGO-KAIIIIIIII!!! shpeal and we were on our way. First, we did the My Story finalists. Unfortunately for Ryo, he couldn't hold up to the other finalists, but he did a great job regardless :) After the My Story finalists, we had all the groups perform their Camp Skits. My group did a pretty good job for handling it mostly by themselves.

After this part of Eigo-Kai, we held another Pictionary Rally and then headed back outside for lunch. Once again, we had bento, but it was really great! I got to talk extensively with Chisato, a girl in my group that was REALLY fluent with English and told me that she wanted to visit Wisconsin some day :) She's already been to America, she visited Texas, and asked me if Wisconsin was nearby. I had to tell her it wasn't, but I told her she was welcome in my home and that I would make venison if she came by. Chisato's a sweet little kid. Conversations with Japanese people like her are why I'm here. Japanese people are shy by nature, but some of them are really great at opening up, and Chisato was a fine example of that :)

After lunch, the AC's left the room so that the campers could do evaluations.

While they did their evaluations, I found some wooden sandals! PK and I fooled around and tried walking on them. I talked with the other AC's, and we noticed it was raining. Suddenly, a HUGE BLAST OF THUNDER rolled through the area! Birds were flying, kids outside were screaming and running towards the inside of the building. It turns out that lightning struck a tree less than 1km from the building! A little while later, we smelled smoke and realized that the lightning struck the tree on fire! Crazy stuff. I've never in my life, heard a lightning bolt strike that close. I only wish I could have seen it.

We were eventually allowed back inside the room with the campers, where we then handed out awards to all the campers. None of the kids I worked with won awards, but as usual, it's okay because they learned something and that's what really matters to me :) After the awards, we handed out graduation certificates to all the campers, and gave them all high-fives. After that, we did our farewell speeches, and spent the rest of the time taking pictures with all the campers.

Eventually, we headed back to the hotel, and I saw them off on their bus as they drove off. A few of us counselors chased the bus down the hill, waving until we couldn't see it anymore. And as luck would have it, that's when it started down-pouring! I raced back up the hill to get inside and dry off, and we had a quick meeting with Yusuke before dispersing for the day.

I spent the rest of my afternoon sleeping. Oh lordie, what a glorious nap that was :)

I spent a good chunk of my evening working on updating my blog, which I had been too busy to update as of late. We had a meeting before dinner, basically going over the list of campers that would be coming tomorrow. Dinner was another smorgasboard of various foods, including a completely cooked, coated in salt, fish. You had to decapitate its head using chopsticks, and separate the bones from the entire fish. It was rough trying to get the meat free of the bones, but I managed to pick up on the method in no time.

After dinner, I continued working on my blog, and took a break down by the grills, talking with the other counselors for about an hour before heading into the shower.

The real excitement came around nighttime tonight. For some reason, there were a LOT of bugs in our room. I didn't understand it, but didn't have a problem with it as the bugs didn't come near my corner of the room. I watched and laughed my ass off as Phil, Keisuke, and Shane went completely nuts slamming pillows all over the place, trying to kill every last bug. It was friggin' hilarious! We were so loud that an old man came by and basically mouthed us off on how loud we were. Then HE proceeded to stomp his feet throughout the hotel, walking down and back up the stairs before retiring to his room. What a crazy friggin' night! I was laughing so hard my lungs hurt :)

Adios for now!

Day 28

2008-08-07T07:51:00.003-07:00

We woke up at about 7:00 this morning, and Shane and I made our way down to greet the campers for the morning Rojio Taiso. They were groggy, but they all knew how to do the morning stretches. For me, Rojio Taiso gets my blood flowing, my muscles relaxed, and I feel ready to face the day. I almost have the stretches memorized, which will come in handy when I get home. I'd like to bring back the Rojio Taiso and try to do it every morning.

Anyway, breakfast was once again pretty meager. It was the same as yesterday, just as bleak and just as bland. I entertained the campers that were eating with me by balancing chopsticks on my fingers. I had never tried it before, but I managed to get chopsticks on every finger on my left hand, except I couldn't get one to balance on my thumb. Silly, but it's entertaining to the campers :)

We headed out back to the facility, where I hooked up my laptop again and played music throughout the day. I started to get worried when my laptop started to heat up from sitting on top of the stereo system, so I tried to keep things cool somewhat by shutting off the monitor display and leaving it be for the most part.

The One Minute Drill kids I worked with did really great! My best camper had a high score of 40! I've never had such a high score with this activity with my kids before! I was so proud of her, she studied a lot and kept asking for do-overs for timing her until the very end of the activity. It was sweet!

After the Drill, we headed outside. We started a game of Red Rover, which the kids really got into! They tried their hardest in breaking the lines of people, some would succeed while the others would fail. At the end of it, I took part in the game and charged my way through a line for the victory win. I hammed it up by asking someone to hold my glasses, then my nametag, then my sandals, took a stance and charged like a big freakin' bull to the other line. The kids loved it :)

We also played a game of 3-step dodgeball, which I declined to participate since my shin splints were acting up again from that charge in Red Rover. Instead, I walked around and took pictures and movies of everyone playing. After dodgeball, I rallied the campers for some camp songs. Ali lead the way with a few songs, including the ever-popular Boom-Chicka-Boom. I joined in, standing on a table and singing along.

Except something happened. The table gave way. It turns out that the table also served as a bench, and it wasn't locked in properly. I fell down on the corner of my butt. Matt quickly grabbed me and took me back inside to check if I was alright. I turned out to be fine, nothing more than a future bruise.

Eventually, all the kids came back inside and we played a game of Pictionary Rally. Basically, we have all the groups divide into two teams, and each team tries to play Pictionary as fast as they can, by running towards the back of the line to a counselor to get the secret word, run back to the dry erase board, and draw a picture of the word. The next camper tries to guess it right, and once they do they run back towards the end of the line to the counselors, and the process repeats.

After the rally, we all had lunch outside. Instead of heading back to the hotel, the hotel staff brought us bento (which is Japanese for lunchbox), filled with all sorts of veggies, meats, and rice. I've had bento once in Japan prior to today, and I must say that this bento was pretty darn good! I sat at a patio table (one with an umbrella on it) with my group and got to talk to them one-on-one, without loud noises or distractions from other campers.

Doing that is one of the things I really enjoy -- getting to sit down and really talk with people rather than attempting to do so in a loud and noisy environment. After lunch, we walked down by the little river that was next to the building. I walked up the tiny river, wading around and inviting the other campers to come in and get their feet wet and cooled off. Soon enough, everyone came to the river and we were all enjoying ourselves, splashing each other with cold water and playing with the water fountains. The best part came when the girl counselors plotted with me to push Keisuke into the deeper part of the river. This part of the river was really super calm, so there were no worries. And, as if by some subconscious will to do so, Keisuke made his way down to the edge of the river.

And we SO pushed him in. He was drenched from head to toe! We were all laughing our asses off, then Keisuke asked who did it, and I pointed at Ali. She denied it, but he grabbed her anyway and I helped him and Matt toss her in too! Then PK got dragged in by Keisuke as well! No one was mad, of course. We're all here having a good time and water isn't going to stop that anytime soon.

We headed back inside to continue work on My Story. I worked extensively with Ayaka and Hanae in my group, as they needed the most grammar changes in their stories. However, their stories were really great!

After My Story, we sent the kids out of the room to prepare for American Carnival. I took over the table for Dice Toss -- the premise of the game is really simple -- roll doubles with the dice and you win a ticket. The tickets are redeemable for prizes in a raffle we hold at the end of the Carnival. My table turned out to be incredibly popular! I didn't think that the Dice Toss game itself was really interesting at all, but I acted like a true 20th century carnie: "STEP RIGHT UP FOLKS, STEP RIGHT UP TO THE DICE TOSS, 3 CHANCES TO ROLL DOUBLES". I got the other kids to cheer for whoever was rolling, and to clap when they would roll doubles. It was a real strain on my voice, but it was so much fun :)

After Carnival, I went back to my Camp Skit group. After about 20 minutes, I finally got through to my group that they needed to make props for our Totoro reenactment. I showed them how to make a striped cat tail with two pieces of construction paper and a razor blade, and I helped the others finish the skit script. Somehow, I think we might be able to pull off a decent skit tomorrow.

Dinnertime arrived, and we headed back to the hotel. We went outside to the grilling area, where we were treated to Yakisoba. Tons upon tons of Yakisoba, so much of it that there was a boatload of food left over and they were still making more! It was downright ridiculous, but oh was it delicious and filling.

We ended up taking too long with our dinner, so we skipped Group Discussion and moved on to the Campfire. I whooped and hollered and yelled and sang along with the other counselors for about 15 minutes, and then I rested my voice for telling the scary story. We didn't have a megaphone with us, so I'd have to use my natural voice (thank you high school theater and forensics) to tell the story.

From what I could tell, the kids didn't understand the story as well as I had hoped, but they all freaked out when Matt blew the whistle at the end of the story. As we walked back to the hotel, several kids asked me if the story was true, but I didn't tell them yes or no. I left it to their imaginations :)

After that, it was bathtime, another quick meeting, and bedtime. This place is really peaceful, though I'm not down with the thin futons on the tatami floor. To make things worse though, the hotel overbooked the place! All of the guys had to either cram from 3 rooms into 1, or move to the other building on the lot. I chose to stay where I was, and Yusuke, Brent, and Matt chose to sleep in the other building. The room is literally covered with futon mattresses. You could sleep just about anywhere on here.

In any case, that's all I got, adios for now!

Day 27

2008-08-07T07:51:00.001-07:00

We woke up this morning around 8am, just in time for breakfast. Breakfast was pretty small compared to dinner, just some eggs, ham slices, lettuce, rice, and miso soup. It sounds like a lot, but trust me, the portions are very small here.

With Japanese meals at camp, you get a wide variety of food, but the portions are very small. It allows you to get a balanced meal when you eat. It's a good thing, but I still think breakfast should have been a bit bigger.

I went back to my room and found out that I had Internet! WAHOOO!!! I talked to Kaitlin on AIM, it felt so great getting to talk to her, even though we weren't using Skype it was still oh so worth it. I miss that girl. When I think of her, the song "Firefight" by Jimmy Eat World comes to mind.

And let me tell ya -- that song plays a lot in my head lately.

At about 11am, the campers arrived! They were all 15-16 years old, dressed in school uniform, but they were very quiet. We did our best to get them riled up, but they weren't very responsive. At lunchtime, I sat down with my group, Group 2, and talked to them about video games, Japanese culture, American culture, and anything else that came to mind. Chisato and Tomoki were the most responsive members of the group. Tomoki asked me to slow down in my speech so that he could understand what I was saying. It was tough for me to do that since the last camp we held had such smart, fluent English speakers! I did my best, though. Tomoki told me at the end of lunch that I was a "very interesting person". That put a smile on my face :)

It turns out that the facility where we would be teaching the campers wasn't here at the ghetto hotel, it was at another place, about 5 minutes away by bus. The hotel staff had 2 buses on hand that they use for transporting people to town, and anywhere else they'd like to go. I've never heard of such a thing before, but I think that's pretty sweet if you ask me!

The facility itself was very nice! It was basically a gym with several recreation rooms, an office staff, and a kitchen with a dining hall. It looked very snazzy, so it was probably built recently. No nasty grimy cement floors or shrimp crickets here or anything, the locations that Guy Healy picks out for teaching English are very top-notch!

The recreation room that we stayed in had a GLORIOUS sound system, which would make it easy for hooking up my laptop and optimizing the sound.

Too bad that it wasn't easy. We fiddled with it for an hour before asking the building staff to show us how to properly connect my laptop. Once it was connected, though, we decided it would be a good idea to play music throughout camp, to get their spirits up and such.

Seriously, this group was freakin' tired. I'm not sure why.

Group 2 was also my orientation group. I helped them make nametags, and they decided on sticking with the name "Team Cherry" as their group name.

Today, I worked on One Minute Drill, My Story, and Camp Skit with campers. The One Minute Drill group caught on pretty quickly, and they tried focusing on memorizing sentences right away, rather than working on it tomorrow. The My Story kids I worked with were amazing! They each had 1 page of writing material down, I had to encourage them a bit to write more, but it all worked out quite nicely :)

Camp Skit has been the toughest part of camp I've ever had to do. And today was no exception. This group could speak English, but they were hesitant in using English with me. I had to suggest ideas to them for 30 minutes on what kind of skit they should perform. Finally, they agreed on doing a reenactment of My Neighbor Totoro. Sure, I was doing the same skit again, but that was okay by me, so long as they could handle writing the scripts and such.

It took some time, but I coaxed them into writing almost the entire script today. Thankfully, they're not casting me in any big roles in this skit, so the pressure that I felt with my other skits in previous camps was lifted from me.

After that, we had the Dance Party! I gladly took the role of DJ and we did our usual run of the Cha Cha Slide, the Electric Slide, YMCA, the Chicken Dance, and the limbo dance. I was able to mix it up a bit today by playing "U Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer, but it turns out that the kids weren't down with that song, so I moved onto other stuff.

The day's activities were done, so we headed back to the hotel and ate dinner. Dinner was pretty good tonight, even if it was the exact same thing that we had last night. It was filling, though :)

After dinner, we sent the kids to bath, and then they headed off to bed. Tonight's meeting was once again, really efficient. I like it when meetings go this smoothly :)

After that, I meandered on the Internet a little bit and went to bed as well.

I was really tired, but this is what happens every time I do camp. It's a tiring camp, but in the end, it's oh so worth it :)

Adios for now!

Day 26

2008-08-07T07:50:00.002-07:00

I woke up this morning at around 9:30. Ayumi told me last night that we'd be checking out at 10:30, so I wanted to give myself plenty of time to pack my things and be comfortable before leaving. Have you ever completely unpacked your luggage when staying in a hotel room for more than one day? That's what I did. I had a lot of things set out in the bathroom, on my desk, and on my couch. Everything felt really comfortable and homely as a result, which helped me relax all the more after all this crazy traveling. I ate my breakfast and checked the Internet. My breakfast consisted of some onigiri and shrimp, pretty basic but delicious nonetheless :)

I headed down to the lobby at 10:30, where Ayumi was the only one waiting. She told me that she was off by an hour by mistake, heh :) So, I grabbed my stuff and went back to my room, and dropped my things. When I headed back into the lobby, more people were standing around, and Stephanie wanted me to come with her to the nearby electronics store to shop for a digital camera. I knew a little bit about digital cameras, but I knew that the only real major obstacle here would be changing the language settings on the cameras to English, so that we would know what we were doing when looking them through. We looked through a few Canon and Nikon cameras, she really liked the Sony cameras (they had touchscreen displays on them!), but the Sony's were too expensive and didn't have an English menu. Oh, but more about this electronics shop: On the outside, the name of just about EVERY electronic brand name ever was on it. From Sony to Microsoft to Nintendo to Nikon to Sanyo to HP to Apple to Epson to Hitachi to a bajillion others, this place prided itself in carrying every single electronic brand. And it did! The electronics were divided by floors, and each floor had at least two sections. The first floor had digital cameras and video games, the second floor had computers and mp3 players, the third floor had laptops and hobby stores, this place was an electronics nirvana. As my parents can recall for you, anytime I go shopping with them, it's guaranteed that I'll stop by the electronics department at least once on every trip. This place was exactly what I've always been looking for: nothing but floors upon floors of electronics. Too bad it was all too expensive for me :(

See, even though Japan makes all the electronics, they have to import the raw materials to make them, so they're more expensive than electronics sold in other countries. For example, video games are usually $10 more in Japan than in the United States, cameras are at least $20-$30 more expensive here, mp3 players are about $30-$40, and so on. Even earbud headphones cost $17 compared to the $5-$7 they'd cost back home! They're crazy expensive.

Steph ended up not buying a camera, but appreciated that I came along to help her out with looking at them. After that, we headed back to the hotel, everyone got their things, and met down in the lobby. It turns out that we would be separated again. This time, I was with Shane, Yusuke, Phil, Matt, Brent, Keisuke, Ali, Lauren, Ashley, and PK. We'd be heading back out to Nagano! HOORAY FOR COOLER WEATHER!

We took a train back to the Nagano area, and then took a bus to our hotel. Before we got on the bus, PK took some pictures of me in Nagano. I've taken quite a few pictures here in Japan, but very few of them feature myself in them, so it was nice to have some pictures of myself in Japan.

Anywho, about the hotel. We're kind of in a ghetto-like place. BUT, this ghetto has Internet! Well, we had it for 10 minutes anyway. Those of us with laptops quickly yanked them out of their bags and started checking up on things, but then the Internet died on us. Somehow, in some way, it died on us. I was a little frustrated, I had such good luck with facilities offering Internet access that it was convenient for me to talk to folks back at home.

But alas, I wouldn't have any of it tonight. My room is another Tatami room, it's rather large but Shane and I are the only ones occupying it. There's a TV in here, but I have no intention of watching any TV.

Since we had no Internet, we all decided to take a hike up the road to see what we could find. We're in a mountain range, there's mountains in just about every direction. They're very tall too, tall enough to poke the clouds, just like the last time I was in Nagano. The air's a bit thinner up here, so it's easy to get a little bit tired from just breathing, but it just takes time to adjust. So, we spent about two hours walking up the road, walking past farmhouses and graveyards, past corn fields and rice patties, until we found a river. Ashley suggested that we should walk up the river a ways, since the pathway was pretty clear. I was hesitant at first, since I had my camera with me, but I decided to give my camera to Shane and go for it anyway. After all, when in Japan, you HAVE to have the "now or never" mentality with trying new things.

I hopped down in the river, and it was FREAKIN' FREEZING! My feet were numb in about 10 minutes' time. But it was a lot of fun! The river was no more than a foot deep in most places, and we walked up at least 150 meters in it. We even walked through a tiny tunnel. During that tiny tunnel walking, water started splashing up on my butt. OH MY GOD THAT DID NOT FEEL GOOD. We kept walking, though, until we found a small pipe that was pretty much impossible to go through unless we crawled, and none of us were interested in doing so. So we climbed up on top of the tunnel structure and walked through the weeds back to the road. I cut my leg a little bit on the leaves, somehow. I'm not sure what caused it, but it was nothing too serious.

We continued to climb up the mountain road, walking past several large houses (this must be a vacation getaway for people), and as we walked I heard some loud grunting and whistle blowing. Turns out that there was an American Football field out here! And high schoolers were practicing up here! That was the first time I had ever seen american football being played here in Japan. It's so rare here.

Anyway, we walked until we found an overlook spot and sat there for awhile. Shane and Brent and I threw rocks to pass the time, while everyone took pictures of the amazing landscape. Eventually we headed back down. But on the way down, Matt almost ran into the largest spider I've ever seen in the wild! This thing was the size of a bouncy ball! Matt grabbed it by its web and chased Keisuke with it! I laughed a little bit, but I ran like mad because I friggin' hate spiders.

Dinner was really filling today! We had fish, potatoes, carrots, rice, soup, eggplant, pumpkin, and even some deep fried chicken! Talk about a filling meal!

Later, we had our AC meeting, where Yusuke handed out the camp schedules and asked all of us who would be willing to mc certain camp events. We were done in 10 minutes.

Allow me to repeat that. We were done in 10 minutes. WOW.

Lauren was at the point of tears over how efficient we were! I let out a huge sigh of relief, it felt great to get everything in the meeting done in a quick and controlled manner. That's what meetings SHOULD be like :)

After the meeting, I headed out to the bath, which was another natural hot spring. Because of this, we could take baths whenever we wanted, as the springs were pumping hot water into the bath all the time. It felt GREAT.

After bath, I tossed my clothes into one of the washers. They needed it too, because some of my shirts from the last camp were still soaked with sweat.

Oh, and one last thing -- there's a place to hang my clothes right outside my room! There's also a staircase, so not only do I have a balcony where I can hang my laundry and get a GREAT view of the area, I can also take a shortcut to the main building. Pretty sweet for being a ghetto.

Adios for now!

Day 25

2008-08-07T07:50:00.001-07:00

I woke up, feeling a bit bummed about about what happened last night, knowing that things would get hectic in about an hour. Kelly told us we'd be having our meeting at 10am, and that everyone should get things off of their chest that they wanted to say.

I drank some water and enjoyed the air conditioning until it came to be 10:00. I headed on down to Lauren, Vy, and Ashley's room and we started our meeting. I don't feel comfortable sharing what other people had to say, but the gist of it involves losing respect for others, how we felt about people dating in the group, and how we need to fix this team before we can move on. I stood up and described two things that had been brewing in my mind.

I told everyone that I'm usually silent on my opinions, as I like to think them over extensively before saying anything of worth. The first thing I mentioned was that we as counselors need to be more mindful of our surroundings. Several AC's had a problem being mindful about what they were doing at our AC meetings at the end of each day at camp. While we would try to maintain order to ensure a quick meeting, AC's would keep their eyes focused downward on their paperwork, talking casually with other AC's. I emphasized that we all have to work on being mindful in our meetings, and that talking casually during a meeting isn't why we have meetings in the first place. Everyone seemed to agree with me on this stance, which made me glad because that was a BIG reason why we usually have 30-45 minute meetings, rather than 10 minute meetings like we SHOULD be having.

The second thing I mentioned was my anger towards Kelly on the Camp Skit ordeal from this past camp. I told her that I was so infuriated about the lack of information given to me, and having me change my methods too far into our practice session, left me so mad that I couldn't look at her in the eyes. I also said that I was one bad comment away from wanting to go back home, because I felt that the expectations brought down upon me as an AC were far too overwhelming for me to handle, and that feedback on our performances as AC's should be handled in a different manner. Kelly understood and we both agreed that communication is a vital step in the process for mending our team and getting us going strong again.

The rest of the meeting involved everyone else saying what was on their minds, out of respect I won't go into detail, but it was a very cathartic meeting. At the end of it, Kelly gave us sheets of paper and told us that we had to write letters to Guy Healy indicating if we wanted her fired or not. Yusuke, our Japanese Director, pointed out that if Kelly had to leave, he would leave as well. Personally, I had nothing I wanted to write to Guy, I felt my problems were recognized and understood, and I believed that they were resolvable. However, I had to write a letter anyway, which kind of irritated me since I can't handwrite very well. So, I basically told Guy Healy that I was interested in working with Kelly Wolf as my American Director for the rest of the summer.

My conflicts about being here were resolved. I was fine with Kelly staying. Simple as that.

After Erik and I finished handwriting our letters, he and Shane and I went out to Nagoya Station to do some shopping. We stopped at the same place I went to last night, and I had another plate of lemon steak, along with a small Japanese hamburger patty. Once again, it was FANTASTIC!!! We walked through the rest of Nagoya Station, and I found the perfect gift for my Dad while I was there. Then, we headed up to the street level, and found that same arcade I went to last night with Takumi, Ayumi, and Brent.

This time I gave Street Fighter IV a try. They had four machines linked up in sets of 2, so you would always play a human opponent. I played one round, and was absolutely creamed by my opponent.

But don't forget, I'm in Japan -- these gamers are friggin' pros at what they do. They're literally untouchable by the average American gamer. Something that Takumi told me last night echoed through my mind: "These guys are really good at video games, but they have no girlfriends". While I recognize their gaming awesomeness, their social skills are no doubt inadequate.

Shane and Erik and I wandered around to other stores, and walked back to the hotel. I decided to take a nap for a few hours, resting from the morning's meeting and resting overall from camp.

At about 6:00, I headed out and got some snacks and dinner from the nearby 7-11. Just some things to toss in the refrigerator would be good enough for me for dinner and tomorrow's breakfast. Other counselors were going to go eat out, but I wanted to try and save some money, so I headed back to my room and ate my dinner.

Around 10:00, I was invited by Takumi to head out for some karaoke. FINALLY, we'd get to sing Highway Star together! We walked for about 5 minutes to a 5th floor karaoke parlor with everyone except for Erik and Ami and a few other AC's. It was myself, Keisuke, Ali, Vy, Lauren, Ashley, PK, Shane, Sean, Justin, Phil, and Takumi. We crammed into a medium-sized karaoke room, and for 2 hours we sang all sorts of karaoke songs. Right away though, Takumi and I sang Highway Star, by Deep Purple. He was really happy that he finally got to sing that song with me! I was happy too, because I love singing that song and I had been wanting to sing it with him for quite some time now. I also sang "Wanted Dead or Alive" by Bon Jovi, "Everlong" by Foo Fighters", and "Without Me" by Eminem. Near the end of the 2 hour session, we started skipping through karaoke songs, since we only paid for 2 hours worth of time and we didn't want to pay any more. Speaking of the bill, it ended up to the tune of almost $200 for all of us, so we all had to pitch in about 1800 yen or so. For no free drinks and just songs, I thought that was a bit of a ripoff, but oh well, we had an awesome time and that's what matters!

After karaoke, I took a relaxing bath in my hotel room, and went to bed. What an interesting day. At least it ended on a positive note. People were drunk at karaoke, but unlike previous times, it was a good drunkenness. No roughhousing or fooling around, just a bunch of adults having a great time singing like the fools we are.

I wouldn't trade anything that I've done so far for the world. It's been an amazing ride and I'm not even halfway done yet! Adios for now!

Day 24

2008-08-07T07:49:00.002-07:00

Today was the last day we'd be working with these campers before heading back down the mountain.

Oh! I forgot to mention that last night, after the campfire, we held the final part of Group Discussion. I leaded a Panel with other counselors in front of the 11th graders, all of which I hadn't worked with prior to this point. We got them to ask us questions about life back home, how surprised we were about Japan, and even talked about our current single/dating statuses, haha. The 11th graders had studied in Australia for 2 months, so their English was very fluent and impressed me quite a bit. The only problem we had during the panel was getting the kids to ask questions, but that sort of thing is commonplace with all Japanese students.

Anyway, we all got up and went outside for the daily rojio taiso. This version of the rojio taiso was done in English, and it sucked really hard. Why did it suck, you ask? Well, the guy narrating it had no charisma, and didn't match his counting to the music. Think of rojio taiso as an aerobics-on-tape kind of thing, but this guy had no sense of timing.

We headed in for breakfast, which was easily one of the weirdest combinations for breakfast that I had ever seen: We had super soft scrambled eggs (which had a hint of mayo in it, i think), french fries, meatballs, and miso soup. I think something might have been up with the eggs, because by the time we started Eigo Kai today, some of the campers weren't feeling very well and went to the bathroom to throw up.

Well, whatever was wrong with the eggs seemed to work with my stomach just fine, heh :)

We finished practicing the My Story part for Eigo Kai, and held it. Mika did a particularly great job, so great in fact that she was a finalist that was going to perform at the big Eigo Kai! Talk about a huge freaking turn around! This girl amazed me.

After the My Story Eigo Kai, we moved onto practicing for the final Eigo Kai, which meant it was time for my group to get in at least 20 minutes of practicing with blocking and memorization. Somehow, they managed to memorize most of it, and when they actually performed, they didn't do too badly!

Somehow, through some miracle of God, my kids managed to get through the entire skit without messing up. It wasn't a flawless, fantastic performance, but it was definitely much better than I expected :)

By the time we were done with the big part of Eigo Kai, with all the Camp Skits and Presentations, along with the finalists of My Story, we had about 20 minutes to eat lunch! We were really really far behind and had to plow through our food to get things done on time. I ate like a madman through my lunch and headed back to my room, making sure my things were out of it and that nothing was lost.

This morning, we had to be really anal-retentive about folding the blankets and sheets properly, as the facility was really high on this sort of thing.

On a side note, this anal-retentiveness stuff was mentioned to me last night, and that reminded me of the fact that the facility played the softer themes of My Neighbor Totoro before telling everyone that it was bedtime. Funny how everyone loves that movie so much that facilities would use it for a goodnight song to send everyone off to sleep :)

Anyway, about the blankets -- I had to fold it precisely, and with Matt's help, I managed to get mine folded correctly, along with several others' sheets.

It turns out as I was making a final check in my room, that my purple handkerchief went missing! I know that I hung it up on a handle for the windows last night, but now it was nowhere to be found. Oh well :(

I headed back upstairs for the awards and graduation ceremonies. We flew through them pretty fast, since we were in a hurry to finish before getting on the buses.

We gave out the certificates and the graduation pins, and the students thanked us by having one of the 11th graders give us a speech. It was very thoughtful of them to do that :) It reminded me of when the kids back at Osaka Sinai sang "You are my Sunshine" for us.

We all grabbed our luggage and headed down back onto the buses. About 10 minutes into the bus ride, I started feeling queasy again, so I took a nap to try to fend it off.

When the bus ride was over, we all took our respective train rides and left the campers. I ended up hugging Mika twice, telling her how incredibly proud I was of her. I gave her the advice again, that she should believe in me, because I'll always believe in her. It was powerful, profound, completely amazing that I was able to change this young girls perspective on her confidence. What a feeling :)

After saying goodbye to the rest of the campers, we took the next train back to Nagoya Station. We would stay at a hotel for the next 2 days, taking the time off to prep for the next camps and do some shopping. I had been told that tonight's meeting was going to be pretty huge, as some major things related to drama have been going on since the start of our time here in Japan.

I know that I haven't spoken much about drama that goes on here, but some things have pretty much played out like any reality show you've seen on tv. The "who's dating who?", the "they drank HOW MUCH last night?", and all that business. I was assigned a room key, room 713, which was just a single room. I'd get Internet to myself, which was cool since I planned on doing some Skype-ing to people back home, plus I had my own refrigerator that I stocked up with Coca-Cola and Aquarius. I heard that at around 6, everyone was heading out for dinner, so I grabbed my wallet and headed out.

Sean, Mee, PK and I stopped at this FANTASTIC restaurant called Franceutae, where they served steak strips to you still frying on the pan! The steak was circled by a paper guard, so that the grease wouldn't spit around and hit customers. It was really really, REALLY TASTY! This was by far, one of the best things I've had in Japan. Sure, it cost 1330 Yen, but it was well worth the price!

We did some random shopping and I met up with Ayumi while we were looking for an ATM. I found an ATM in the station, but it wouldn't take my card, so Ayumi and I wandered until we found a 7/11 up on the street, which I KNEW would have an ATM. I withdrew another 10,000 yen, grabbed some supplies for the fridge, and we were on our way.

Takumi met up with us, along with Brent, and we went for a walk around the Nagoya station. We stopped at an arcade, where they had a Taiko drum rhythm game. Brent and Takumi and I played a couple rounds of Taiko drums, and Brent and I played the latest One Piece theme song (it was my request). We also spotted machines featuring the long-anticipated Street Fighter IV, but too many people were in line for it, so I had to skip out on my chance to play it for now.

We also went through a part of the station where there was this giant, 50 foot female mannequin! Takumi was a total goofball and took an upskirt picture of the mannequin, and I took a look up there, and they actually bothered to put underwear on the mannequin! What an odd thing, right? Takumi hopped up on my back and Brent took a picture of Takumi reaching up into the mannequin. Dirty, but it was frickin' hilarious!

We also found a futuristic-styled building that housed a college for video game and computer design. It looked really cool! You'll have to see the pictures, I suppose :)

We went back to the hotel, and it was time for the meeting. All 23 of us crammed into Keisuke's tiny single room, but 3 of us came to the meeting drunk. Needless to say, we didn't hold the meeting. Kelly stressed the importance of the meeting because we were all supposed to write letters to Guy Healy indicating if we wanted Kelly fired or not.

Serious stuff, and 3 people came to the meeting drunk. Knowing full well ahead of time that we were having the meeting. This wasn't good. This wasn't good at all.

It left me really bummed out about our team. I went back to my room quietly and went to bed.

We're going to have a meeting at 10am instead, to talk about the letters we wrote, and have an open forum about things that bug us about other counselors. Should be interesting. Adios for now.

Day 23

2008-08-07T07:49:00.001-07:00

Today was Day 2 of camp with the kids at the Asahi Kogen facility in the mountains of Aichi. I wasn't feeling much better about last night's deal with the camp skit; even when Kelly talked to me last night, I was mostly unresponsive and just focused on my laptop. Today, I didn't feel all too different in the morning.

Breakfast came and went, this facility is serving shredded cabbage with every meal and it's starting to gross me out. I find it funny, since I figured that rice would have been the first food I would have gotten sick of. Oh well.

We stared off our morning with a Walk Rally. The purpose of the rally was to walk up various trails through the forests, find checkpoints, and have the kids answer questions at the checkpoints by using teamwork. My group was very cooperative, however, the maps were really really bad at giving directions. We got lost once about 15 minutes into the rally, and again about another 30 minutes later. We eventually gave up on the rally and started walking around randomly until we met up with PK and her group. Then, I talked with her as we made our way back to the right trail, taking us 25 minutes to get back using the "shortcut" through the woods.

This was my first time through Japanese woods, and while some parts felt really foreign and weird, other parts reminded me of the forests back home. So sometimes it was really comforting for me to be in the woods :)

After the rally, we moved back into the main room for more My Story, so I tried to just ignore my anger about the whole skit thing and work with this group on their stories. They were coming along really well! Mika was doing quite well with hers, as she had most of it memorized.

After My Story, we headed back upstairs and worked on the One Minute Drills. This was the group that I worked with when I first got to camp, the group that I met for about 5 minutes. As I practiced with them, one at a time, things were going fine, but then Kelly came by and suggested I have them all practice at the same time. Again, different from my method, but I took it in stride and gave it a go anyway. On the bright side, things went a lot smoother! Some of the kids got up to 27 sentences spoken in one minute, which was really cool :)

After that, we had lunch, unfortunately there was no curry to be had this time. Another ho hum meal with plenty of shredded cabbage :(

Once lunch was over, we worked on Camp Skit again. This time, I came ready with a list of props that we would need for the Totoro reenactment, so I had a plan: 2 kids would finish working on the script, and 3 kids would work on props. I took one of the girls, Sakiko, down to my room to get my umbrella. I specifically grabbed her because last night she wasn't focused at all and was generally grouchy and uncooperative when I tried working with her. So this gave me the chance to try talking one-on-one while I got my umbrella out of my room.

Fortunately, it worked, and she became more active in what we were doing, just by talking to her :)

At the end of Camp Skit practice, we had all the props ready, but the script had JUST been finished. No rehearsal, no blocking, I was going to somehow get this ready for tomorrow. Oh boy.

Next came American Carnival. Kelly asked me to make a playlist and hook up my laptop to the speaker system like I did for dance party, so I obliged and threw together some swing songs and some rock songs. While the music played, I attended the Balloon Pop wall with Brent. The kids LOVED the balloon pop so much, that they wore out our balloon pop wall (which was made of cardboard) and it fell down twice! We also noticed that some of the darts left holes in the wall behind the cardboard, but we just ignored it, heh.

After carnival, we headed down for dinner, and after dinner we had some recreation time before the campfire. I took the opportunity to rest a bit before the fire.

The campfire itself was EXCELLENT. I MC'd the event with a megaphone, getting campers engaged in camp songs and monitoring the flow of the event. After we made S'mores, it was time for a ghost story. I began telling a story about a girl who went missing in the woods one day, and that later she was found dead by the police. The best part about the story was that I told it really quietly, and when I got to the part of the story where I said "the police found her body. . .she was dead.", and Matt blew a whistle with all his lungpower. I didn't expect the whistle, and I DEFINITELY didn't expect the overwhelming waves of screams that came my way. We really scared the crap out of everyone!

Some of the campers were even hyperventilating, which was a bit extreme, but we scared everyone pretty good :)

After the campfire, we headed back up to the lodge, and the counselors scared kids in the dark (including myself). Many of the kids kept asking if the story I told was real, and I told them "Yes it is", and they would freak out, asking me again if it was a lie or not.

Bathtime came and went, and we had one more meeting and went to bed. Not much else to say about today other than that it ran a lot smoother than I expected it to :) Adios for now!

Day 22

2008-08-07T07:48:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good, no hangover, so I knew I drank enough water to bypass being intoxicated. I packed my things and headed down to the Lawson convenience store to pick up some breakfast. I grabbed some chicken nuggets, which aren't exactly a good idea for breakfast, but I was in the mood for them :)

After about an hour of waiting in the lobby, we headed back onto the train to meet up with the campers for our latest round of camp. The train ride only lasted about 7 minutes. Soon enough, I saw the kids in view. They were boarding two buses. Only about 1/2 of the counselors were with me, the other 1/2 were going to be leading another group of campers at the same facility. For some reason, we weren't "allowed" to talk to the other counselors that were working with the other campers at this upcoming facility, which I found rather silly, but whatever.

The kids were about 15-17 years old, so they were a bit older than the group I last worked with. There was a bus for each grade, as we would be teaching 10th and 11th graders. Lauren, Ashley, PK, Ami, and I would be teaching the 10th graders. We were encouraged by Keisuke to sit with the campers on the bus ride to the facility, something that I wasn't necessarily used to. I usually start working with the kids when they arrive at the facility, but this was different. I wasn't sure if I was ready for this, so at first I was hesitant, and sat in the front of the bus. However, Keisuke kept pushing me to get in the back of the bus with the campers, so eventually I complied.

Lauren was back there, thankfully. I play off of other counselors really well when starting up conversations. As anyone who's met me knows, I'm not good at small talk. So working with her, I got to know a few of the campers in the back of the bus.

However, things got nasty when I started to feel sick. The bus was swaying back and forth really bad, as it was taking super-tight corners and gaining elevation. I grabbed an antacid pill, hoping it was just bad digestion from the chicken nuggets, but that didn't help either. I drank the rest of my water, and that didn't help either. I stopped talking to the campers, and told Takumi that I wasn't feeling too good, so I sat in the front of the bus. We had a rest stop with some vending machines, I mistakenly picked up some Pepsi Twist instead of something that would have been better for my stomach (like tea, for example). I started to feel weak and felt like passing out.

Once we finally arrived at the facility, the view was breathtaking, but I couldn't pay any attention to it as I could barely keep myself standing. I stumbled up the stairs into the building and sat down next to a pillar. Soon, the other counselors started to notice that I didn't look well, so Kelly and Takumi suggested I go lay down on some stools while they go ahead with orientation. One of the other counselors grabbed my luggage, and I kept my laptop bag and laid down on some seats. I laid there for probably an hour or so, trying to sleep. The counselors from the other team noticed me laying there and hoped I would get better. I took a motion sickness pill and continued to lay down.

After that hour passed, I finally felt up to the task of going back to camp. I went up to the Meditation Room where I was told our bags were being placed until our camp rooms were ready. I checked through my things and slowly walked back to the other side of the building, up to the 3rd floor where orientation had just wrapped up. Kelly was working with my orientation group in my place, teaching them the One Minute Drill. We had about 5 minutes left, so she let me take over and talk to them, doing drill practices.

Needless to say, the 5 minutes went by really fast, and it was time for lunch. Today we'd be having curry! Finally, for the first time since my homestay with the Maedas, I'd be having curry. I was in such dire need of energy, I ate two bowls of curry and didn't even feel full. I was ready to take on the world!

After lunch, we moved into an auditorium-kind of room and worked on My Story. The kids immediately went to work without even needing an explanation! These kids were either really smart, or they had done this before, heh. In any case, they each had 1/2 a page written in no time, so I pushed them to write more. One of the campers named Mika, was especially against the idea of adding more. I told her that I knew she could do it. She didn't believe me. I told her that she had the ability to make a great My Story and that she should believe in herself. She told me that she didn't.

So, I told her "If you don't believe in yourself, believe in me, who believes in you!"

That seemed to give her the confidence she needed, as she immediately started writing to fill up the rest of the page. Talk about a heck of a pep talk!

After My Story, we had Group Discussion. I wandered from group to group, asking them about pop culture and what their favorite movies are. Good times were had talking about animated movies, movies like Back to the Future, and talking about video games :)

The Japanese sure love their video games. It's why arcades still exist here :)

Then came the Dance Party. Those kids just LOVE the "Dragosta Din Tei" song! I'll have to find out why it's so popular here. I MC'd the event, taking on the role as DJ. Here's how the format of the Dance Party usually goes:

For starters, we do the Cha Cha Slide. Sure, it's not very creative, but it gets kids warmed up for dancing, so it works quite well. Then, we move onto the Electric Slide, then usually we do Dragosta Din Tei. Then, we do the Chicken Dance, followed by the YMCA, and finish up with a limbo dance set to Jump in Line (shake shake senora).

After the Dance Party, we moved onto dinner. As usual, we sat with the campers, though some of us try to sit as close to other counselors as we can, so that it's easier to talk to the campers. At least I do that, anyway.

Once dinner was over, we moved back upstairs to the 3rd floor for Tongue Twisters. For an hour, we tested the enunciating skills of our campers with various tongue twisters. They did really really well, so we did our testing early and ended the session. I took the opportunity to play a game of UNO with the campers. Turns out they love UNO!

Then next, came Camp Skit. I knew the drill, I knew my method, and off I went. The campers agreed to do a reenactment of My Neighbor Totoro, and I started writing up a script. In an hour, we were well on our way to start practicing, memorizing, and blocking out the actions.

THEN. . .then everything came tumbling down. Tumbling the frick down. Kelly and Takumi told me that my method wasn't correct, in that the kids should be writing their own scripts, and that I should start over and have them start writing their own scripts.

I was completely livid. This method, which could have been explained to me during the previous camps when I wrote the scripts for Camp Skit, had been told to me a month into the program, an hour into the 3 hours of time we actually get to practice the damn thing. And I was expected to have the kids put on a solid performance! WITH MY TIME TAKEN AWAY, HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO DO THIS!?

Words failed me. I was furious beyond reasoning. Since when did this job call for such impossible expectations? Why not tell me this AFTER this camp so that I'm ready for the next camp? WHY?

Now I had less time than everyone else to get a script going, lines memorized, and props made, not to mention getting the kids to do proper blocking so that it actually LOOKS like what we're trying to put on.

Worst of all, my kids weren't even paying attention! Some were too tired, some were busy slapping away at tiny bugs that were flying all over the room, there was absolutely NO focus. I had everything under control with the method that I had implemented and now it had all gone to shit, even IF my method was wrong, it still worked for getting the kids to focus.

Erik was wandering from group to group, so at one point I just asked him to take over for me because I couldn't even do my job as counselor anymore. This was bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

I sat down on a bench on the second floor and started to wonder why I was here. I sat for 10 minutes, trying to wonder how other people in my life endure such bullshit in the workplace.

I wasn't having fun anymore. I was one bad comment away from asking to be sent on the next flight back home.

I regained my composure and headed back up to the 3rd floor and sat with my campers as they continued to write the script. At the end of our time, with 2/3 of my practice time for Camp Skit taken from me, we only had 1/2 of the script done. At this point, the script should have been completely done, and that memorization would have begun.

But nope. Not for me. Other counselors were that far, but not this guy.

After Camp Skit, we headed to the baths and I tried to calm down in the bath. It didn't work.

Erik tried talking to me, Ami tried talking to me, they could tell I was in a foul mood.

By the time our meeting began late at night, I couldn't even look at Kelly in the eyes. I couldn't look at anyone. I was still livid.

I ended up going to bed really mad, trying to calm myself down with music, but it didn't work, unfortunately.

So in summary, this day hasn't exactly been all that great. I went from being sick to being furious. I can only wonder what's going to happen tomorrow.

Day 21

2008-08-07T07:46:00.002-07:00

Makio had to work in the morning, Kanan was at school, and Hanna was at camp, so only Miyuki would be seeing me off today. I woke up around 10:30, making sure that everything was packed and ready to go.

I floated about on the Internet until 11:45, when Miyuki made toasted sandwiches for breakfast. We made small talk and I complemented her on the sandwiches.

FUN FACT: Bread slices in Japan are actually a bit larger than they are in America. It seems to me that bread is sold here in slices of 6.

After breakfast, I dragged my things downstairs and said goodbye to Taeko. I told her "Ja Matta", or at least that's how I said it :) It means that "I'll seen you later", or "I'll see you soon".

Miyuki and I drove off to the train station, and Miyuki walked with me to the train to see me off. I was kind of surprised by this, as you have to buy a ticket to get to the actual train. I guess it wasn't that big of a deal to get a small ticket, but in any case I thought that was really neat that she did that!

I hugged Miyuki and we said goodbyes, and off I went back to Nagoya. My first train ride by myself, with barely any guides to help me. Miyuki went over the train map with me a couple times to make sure that I understood exactly which station to get off at. Well, I knew that I was going to Nagoya station, but I was worried that the map inside of the train would have been completely in Japanese (and sometimes they are), so she told me that if all else fails, just get off at the 6th stop.

Thankfully the maps inside were English. I was going to be fine, heh.

The ride back to Nagoya was a smidge pretty, so I took some pictures, and I also took a video of the train slowing down, picking up new passengers, and departing. I'm hoping that I can find good use for that movie in a montage about Japan when I get back home.

After I got off the train, I wandered my way back to the main part of the Nagoya station where I met everyone else. I started to share stories with the other counselors when Mee arrived with her host family. I introduced myself to Mee's host sisters, both of them were really little kids. I ended up playing with them for a good 20 minutes! I chased them a bit, gave them piggy back rides, lifted them up with my arms, gave them funny looks and everything. They loved it :)

Once all the counselors were together, we hopped on the next train to another part of Nagoya, where we would be staying in a hotel for the night. The hotel itself was pretty classy, I was really starting to get impressed with Guy Healy's means of accommodations. If I had to guess, I'd say it was a 3-4 star hotel. There was free high-speed Internet in the rooms, and the AC guaranteed that it would be nice and cold for us when needed :D

I roomed in a Triple Room with Erik and Brent, and got my laptop up and running. I didn't get too much time, however, because we had a meeting about the upcoming camp the next day. But first, Keisuke took it upon himself to get naked and roll his body around in all of our beds! And he wasn't even drunk!

This guy is effing crazy. Seriously. Fortunately, he's hilarious and I love the guy to bits.

We headed down 2 floors to the room where Ashley, Vy, and Lauren were staying. The meeting took about 30-45 minutes, all the meanwhile people were helping themselves to sake and various liquors. It wasn't TOO bad though.

I headed back upstairs to my room and got caught up with everything in the world, and shot out a few e-mails back home. Erik told me I should get dressed up as the whole crew was going out for drinks and food for the evening. I hadn't dressed up at ALL during my time here, so I figured now was a good time as any.

I grabbed my red button dress shirt, my tan pants, and my Reebok sneakers (hey, it's the best I got here, heh), and cleaned myself up. I took a shower, shaved (which at this point, I really really needed it), and after checking myself over, Erik and I headed down to Lauren's room.

All the girls were dressed up, everyone was putting on their best clothes, the girls put on their best makeup, and the guys put on their best colognes (myself included). I'm not looking for anything here that would require cologne, I just wanted to FEEL classy and have a great night on the town.

I've been wearing shorts day in and day out, so wearing pants took a bit getting used to. What didn't help was that my 42 inch belt barely keeps up my pants. I had to yank my pants up to my stomach to get it to fit somewhat decently. Something tells me I'm losing weight AND inches over here :)

While the girls got ready, I helped myself to some Sake and some various rice wines, mixing it with C.C. Lemon and with orange juice. I hadn't eaten since breakfast with Miyuki, so I knew that I was going to feel the effects pretty quickly.

By the time we started heading down the elevator, I started to feel it. Chris Leslie was officially drunk in Japan.

We headed down to a bar/restaurant place nearby the hotel, where they served finger foods along with various alcoholic drinks. Erik and I both got bottles of Asahi beer while everyone toasted with Sake every now and then. As expected, I don't remember much of the time we spent in the restaurant, but I know that the food served to us came few and far between (I'm sure that was on purpose). In the end, we each owed about 2700 yen, which came out to somewhere in the area of 30,000 yen in total for all of us! Drinking in Japan isn't cheap, so this was probably the only time I'll be going out for drinks.

We headed back to Lauren's hotel room and all sorts of shenanigans started happening. I'll spare you the details, but Ami and I watched on as people made out with other people, and all that kinda thing.

Eventually I headed back up to my room, and I was still really feeling the effects of the alcohol from earlier (I had stopped in the restaurant out of fear that I was going to start throwing up, something I've never done while drunk and am to this day still very proud of). I drank about 1 liter of water and had some popcorn that I bought from a convenience store earlier and went to bed.

What a crazy day, eh? Well, adios for now!

Day 20

2008-08-07T07:46:00.001-07:00

Miyuki offered me a ride out of town to attend the first session of “Jump! Up! Camp!” with her and Hanna. Miyuki teaches English privately in her home. They have one room next to the master bedroom that is full of materials for teaching children English. Most of her students are no older than 9, however some of them are as young as 1! Anyway, we took the car out to another town (sadly, I can’t remember the name of the town) to a church, where the camp was taking place.

The Iwagane family is Christian, though I don’t know what their denomination is. I know it’s not Catholic, and the style of the church left me confused as to what it could be. In any case, we walked in and we were early. 3 musicians were in the church, practicing songs for the camp orientation. There was one woman playing the piano, one guy playing the bongo drums, and one guy playing the acoustic guitar. They were all very friendly to me and we shook hands. Eventually, the campers arrived, and they were all really young! There was one thing that I noticed about one of the campers.

You know how in France, girls don’t shave their armpits and all that? Well, ever wonder what unshaven legs look like on a girl? Well, if you have, just look at any guys legs and you’ll see the same thing. If you didn’t wonder, however, my apologies for that *ahem* unpleasant image I just put in your heads. Umm, yeah.

MOVING ON! I was introduced by Miyuki to everyone as a foreigner from America, and she had me do some bird calls to impress everyone. She had me do the bird call, and asked everyone to guess what the bird was. I did a turkey call, an owl call, and to Miyuki's surprise, a crow call. Everyone got a kick out of it :)

After my introduction, they moved on with camp orientation. I sat in the back and watched on as they sang songs, introduced all the campers, and went through their orientation books. After awhile, it was time for lunch.

I was looking forward to this particular lunch because Miyuki made a Bento box full of food for herself, Hanna and I, packed neatly and arranged into a lovely display. Some mothers in Japan take it upon themselves to go all out in creating bento boxes of incredible detail, using every type of food and seasoning they can apply to make something elaborate like paintings, faces, messages, or even 3d replicas of video game systems.

After lunch, we focused on making name tags for everyone. I was very interested in the method they used for making these tags. They used large sheets of plastic for writing your names and drawing some pictures and symbols on them. After that, the sheet of plastic would go in the toaster oven, and it would shrink to the size of a business card, and they'd flatten it in phone books, and then superglue a pin onto the back of it.

I think they call them "Shrinky Dinks" back home in America, but I've never actually seen it before. I thought that was pretty neat :)

During orientation, it started to rain, thunder and lightning and everything. This was the first time during my entire stay in Japan that it had rained! FINALLY the heat would back off and give way to rain :)

However, Miyuki forgot that she left the car windows open, so I raced outside in the rain to close them. The seats were fairly wet by the time I got to the car, so we'd have to learn to deal with it.

Around 1:30pm, Miyuki and I left the church, leaving Hanna there (as she would be staying for the camp for the next 2 days), and we headed back home to Aichi. During our drive back, I spotted a Sony factory and a Sega Arcade shop, unfortunately I didn't take any pictures, but oh well.

The drive itself was a bit wet thanks to the seats, but it wasn't TOO bad. At least the roof doesn't leak like Charlie's car does ;)

We stopped at a grocery store to pick up some ice cream. Miyuki had some coupons for free Hagen-Das ice cream cups, so we picked up one cup for everyone. Miyuki asked me if I had ever tried Green Tea ice cream before. I told her that I had never tried it. I've had my fair share of green tea here, but I never really applied it to anything else. Natural green tea is a fairly bitter drink, and I couldn't imagine it being appealing in any other form than a drink. I remember Shane having a Green Tea Kakigori, but I couldn't fathom it being any tasty. However, I've tried a lot of new things here in Japan, so I'm not going to stop any time soon.

We headed back to the house, and I spent my afternoon on the Internet, browsing and reading up on the latest news.

At about 5:00, Miyuki was in the middle of English lessons with some kids downstairs, and she had asked me earlier if I would be willing to come down and talk to the kids. I came down of course, but I waited outside the door for awhile since they were in the middle of singing some songs. I knocked on the door, and Miyuki let me in. The kids eyes were so WIDE and their jaws dropped. They were really excited to meet an American! I talked with them, asking them their names, their favorite things, and what they like to do daily (something that Miyuki asked me to talk to them about). After about 10 minutes, the lesson was over, so I saw them off and headed back upstairs to my laptop.

Since this was also my last day before heading back to camp, I decided it would be best to pack my things appropriately. I was offered by Makio to leave whatever I wished for the time being, since I would be coming back in 2 weeks for a one week homestay. I decided to leave my souvenir bag at the house, since I really didn't need to lug that thing around.

Dinner tonight was a traditional Japanese dinner, Miso soup with a bowl of rice, cucumber slices, tofu, and salmon. Taeko grows a lot of cucumbers in her garden, so there's cucumbers at every meal (kind of like how there's rice at every meal in Japan). The salmon was really really good, it reminded me of salmon back home, but Miyuki told me that the salmon was really salty. So, I guess the salmon I’m used to is really salty. Hmm. . .

Anyway, Makio invited me to come up to the attic to check out his record collection. Makio has a LOT of records, and most of them were jazz records! He had Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Sonny Rollins, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Coleman Hawkins, Ornette Coleman, all the Bebop and post-bop musicians. It was really sweet! Unfortunately, Makio doesn't own a record player, so I encouraged him that he definitely should pick one up. He was surprised to learn that in America, we still sell records (yes we do, in fact some bands release new albums on cd AND on vinyl) in a limited capacity. I'm hoping that he'll be able to find one and get one before I come back for the second homestay.

The Iwagane family is very musically inclined, with a keyboard AND a piano in the living room, plus Kanan plays the cymbals in band, so I think it would be great if they got to listen to some unique jazz sounds from Makio's collection.

Other than that, not much else happened today. Adios for now!

Day 19

2008-08-07T07:44:00.000-07:00

I woke up around 9:45 this morning. The Iwagane’s went to church this morning, and I slept in to try to rest from the past 3 days of sleepless mayhem. Wandering around the apartment, I found that Mayuki, my host Mom, left me a breakfast of eggs, bread, and cucumbers, with a little note saying it was for me. I sat down with my breakfast in front of the TV, hoping to catch the show One Piece on tv. I flipped through all the channels, and didn’t have any luck! I knew it was on here at 9:30 in the morning, so I’d catch it halfway through, but I couldn’t find it. So, I settled for just watching some random TV. Around 10:30, I got bored, so I grabbed my laptop and tried to give wireless a go.

Wouldn’t you know it, I got lucky and found free wireless! I browsed the web for awhile, catching up on world news and reading up on the latest happenings with my friends. Around Noon, I called up Kaitlin on Skype and chatted with her until about 12:50. I vented a bit about some things bugging me, but spent most of my time just chatting it up and showing her around the house with my webcam.

As it turns out, the place where the Iwagane family lives is pretty nice! It’s in a very quiet neighborhood, not too many buildings around, plenty of fields with crops and rice growing in them. It was very peaceful over here, although there was one thing that was a bit noisy about the area: The Shinkansen. The famous Japanese Bullet Train. Every 5 minutes, one of the trains went by. Thankfully, it wasn’t TOO loud, though if it was coming, you would know it.

Around 1:00, Makio gave me a tour around the house, showing me the water pump they had outside, along with a description of the house itself. Makio explained to me that the house was built mostly out of steel, and that it was brought over in 15 pieces by truck. I tried wrapping my head around the idea of a house being assembled together like Legos, or like a jigsaw puzzle. Makio told me that the house was assembled in one day!

IF it was really brought over like jigsaw pieces, I can’t say that I don’t believe him. That would be feasible with the right amount of manpower, right?

After the short tour, we took a ride in their car. The car had manual transmission, which was fairly uncommon for cars in Japan. Apparently, the car is really old, but they keep it because my host Grandma likes driving a manual transmission car.

Anyway, Makio and the whole family took me to the bay, where I could see the Pacific Ocean!
Holy freaking crap. Did you know I’ve never been to ANY ocean before? I literally FLEW out of the car and started taking pictures of the area. I saw boats, yachts, and even a couple of cruiseliner ships! I ran up to the end of a dock and just stared down at the waters below me. I had finally seen an ocean ☺

There was a mall beside the ocean called the Laguna Mall, so we headed on inside. Makio promised me that there was a store inside with various Asian and Japanese goods, so I was excited about checking it out to buy more souvenirs for everyone back home.

But first, we took a stroll through the fish market. I saw all kinds of fish I’ve never seen before, live clams spitting out water through their shells, live crabs lying in wait in their pools, heck I even saw a live Octopus in that market! They were also selling what I’d like to call Squid Chips. Basically, they take an entire raw squid, cover it in powder, and have it pressed flat in a cooker. Then once it’s done, they sell it in wrapped packages. I tried a piece, it was. . . .well. . .it was fishy, so it wasn’t TOO bad. I was expecting it to be far worse, heh ☺

We found the store, and while I can’t tell you what I bought, I CAN tell you that they couldn’t accept my debit card. There was another store in the mall that wouldn’t accept my debit card either. What an odd thing, huh? It had worked everywhere else!

Fortunately, there was an ATM in the building, so I withdrew 6000 yen, returned to the stores, and made my purchases. After shopping, we stopped at a dessert place and picked up some Kakigori. This time I had the Strawberry flavor, wondering if it would have a fruitier taste than the Lemon kind I had back in Kyoto.

Turns out all the Kakigori flavors had the same type of sweetness. All syrup, no fruitiness was to be had. In one way, that would be a dream come true for me, since I absolutely LOVE popsicles, snow cones, and shaved ice, but this stuff was far too sweet to truly enjoy.
That didn’t stop me from eating it, though ;)

I finished my Kakigori, and we went outside and watched a band play Hawaiian music for awhile. People are really high here on Hawaiian music, and they LOVE Lilo and Stitch! Stitch is basically as popular as Mickey Mouse in Japan.

After the adventure in the Mall area, we headed down to the beach. Below my feet were seashells. Thousands and thousands of seashells. They crunched as I walked on them. I don’t think I’ve ever had such an odd, yet delightful experience in nature before ☺

I collected a few seashells, and Makio and I took turns trying to skip rocks in the ocean. The waves stopped most of them, but we got one to skip about 4 times.

Then, we headed back home, stopping at a book/cd/dvd store. I grabbed a CD that Seth asked for. It was only 1800 yen, pretty sweet if you ask me, as most cd’s cost twice as much as they do in America.

I thought about buying something for myself, but nothing really caught my eye. Afterwards, we headed to a local Ramen shop for dinner. Finally, I would get to have REAL ramen! Real, authentic Ramen from Japanese Chefs in a Japanese Restaurant in the city of Aichi, Japan. And let me tell you – it beats the pants off of any ramen I’ve had in packets. Although that would be obvious, wouldn’t it?

After dinner, we headed back to the house, and I presented my gifts to the entire family. They LOVED the cow plush, they poured through the Wisconsin picture book twice, and put the chocolates in the freezer. The cow now sits on top of their piano ☺

Not much else happened today, I browsed the Internet a bit more, and then I went to bed in my air conditioned room (HOORAY! AC!). Adios for now!

Day 18

2008-08-07T07:40:00.000-07:00

Hoo boy, another long day today. Today was Day 3 for the campers, so after their final Eigo-Kai, they’d be heading back to their school.

The only thing is, it didn’t bug me that much like it did with the girls from Osaka Sinai. I hadn’t really bonded with any of these kids. Sure, I worked with them, and I was very proud of their work, but outside of the activities, I didn’t do anything with these kids. I guess I felt down in that respect.

But on the bright side, tonight I could FINALLY get some real sleep! I woke up this morning fairly tired again, but thankfully there was coffee to be had. However, I had about 5 minutes to drink 2 cups. Yeowch. I swallowed it all down, hoping that my voice would stay intact as I almost lost it last night.

We all came walking down the hill with big smiles on our faces. I kept looking off into the distance, smiling at those gigantic mountains, those massive hills, all teeming with flora and fauna. I couldn’t help but admire these massive chunks of rock sticking out above the earth. I had gone from seeing little piddly Rib Mountain to seeing mountain ranges that would take a day to climb, if not more. These mountains were one of the many reasons why I wanted to come to Japan.

Now all I have left to see is a wild monkey. I’ll consider this trip done when I see one ☺
We met up with the campers and did the morning Rojio Taiso, and headed back into the lodge for breakfast. Surprise surprise, another dull meal, though it wasn’t as bad as yesterdays excuse for a breakfast. I was a little mad at those delicious dinners I had back at the lodge, spoiling me while my next meal would taste like dirt in comparison. But ah well, I had a bowl of rice, so I was content with breakfast ☺

This morning, we finished the last of our prepwork on My Story. I took each of my kids out into the hallway for a one-on-one session with their story. I’m glad to say that they ALL had their stories memorized! I couldn’t believe it! I gave each of them a high-five and we worked out the last kinks of their stories, which was usually pronunciation. Some of the stories had bad grammar, but I rolled with it since I didn’t have time to correct it.

At the very least, so long as someone understands what you’re trying to say, people always get the general idea. So on the bright side, they’ve got that part figured out.

Eventually, we had everyone in the room perform their My Story in front of everyone. I picked my best speaker, Kengo, to start things off. He told everyone a story about how much he loves tennis and how he wants to be a pro player someday. The boy who wrote his story in cursive talked about how he wants to write novels for a living! I’d say he’s off to a fine start, his grammar was spot-on. The other campers talked about tennis or talked about their pets. If I have a problem finding a subject for campers for My Story, I resort to having them talk about their pets. That’s my fallback when we can’t come up with anything more creative.

After my kids performed, I watched another 20 or so kids perform their stories, and the counselors and I picked our favorites out of the group. Amazingly, Kengo was picked as one of the finalists!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOO-HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Kengo would go on to perform at Eigo-Kai, which was actually happening shortly after the semi-finals we just held with all the students!

We held Eigo-Kai in the gym, which was above the activity rooms and in that building across the road that I mentioned earlier (you know, the one with the damp tunnel). As the kids piled in, I connected my laptop to the sound system and whipped up a playlist for “graduation”. After every Eigo-Kai, all the kids receive certificates for graduation confirming that they completed Summer Camp. I threw on some Green Day, Eve 6, Styx, The Who, Simon & Garfunkel, Eric Clapton, and Snow Patrol and figured that would be good for the graduation ceremony later.
As Eigo-Kai was about to start, once again I grabbed the mic and gave everyone that Michael Buffer introduction that everyone loved yesterday (Shane told me he’d want me as emcee for life, haha). THIS time, we got a video of me performing. It’ll be online soon enough ☺

After my intro, the My Story finalists came up and I resumed work on my graduation playlist, to see what songs would work in what order. I had Keisuke look at it and listen to it with headphones to confirm that we had a good playlist, and he liked it ☺

I sat down on the stage, so that I wouldn’t cause too much disturbance as the kids performed their stories. There were campers that blew away Kengo’s story, but unlike some of the other campers, he looked straight on at the crowd and told them his story. Other campers would usually look down as they talked, and we do our best to discourage that method of talking. So even if his story wasn’t as long or as creative, he still did a fine job giving it and I was proud of him ☺

After the My Story part of Eigo-Kai, we went straight to the awards ceremony. We handed out awards for the best performances of My Story, Group Presentation, and Tongue Twisters. My student that performed the Swiss Wristwatches tongue twister won 3rd place! None of my other campers won awards, but like I said, that was okay.

After the awards were sent out, I ran back to my computer and started playing music. We handed out graduation certificates to all the campers, and did our farewell speeches to them. We had to do our speeches quicker than usual, as there were 30 counselors and Takumi translates into Japanese for all of us, heh! I simply said that I was very proud of all the campers and that practice makes perfect.

After the speeches, all the campers and counselors got together for group pictures. We eventually did one big picture with everyone, and we had a few pictures taken where everyone gave silly faces. Those are always fun ☺

Finally, Eigo-Kai was over and done with, and it was time for lunch. I spoke with my campers, showing them pictures of Kaitlin and my family, and being a goofball by trying to balance chopsticks on my nose. After lunch was over, it turned out that the campers all had gifts for the counselors.

At first, I thought it was just for some of them, but I turned around and one of my counselors had a plaque-like sign for me. Each of my campers wrote down their names and their favorite phrases, both in Japanese and in English!

I almost came to tears. I bowed deeply and thanked them for the gift.

Looking closer at it, I saw that they put a lot of work into it! It was covered in decorations and multiple colors. They told me they worked on it late last night. I promised them that I would hang it on my wall when I came back home to the States.

After that, we said our goodbyes. The kids would be staying at the facility for another couple of days, so they went back up to their rooms and the counselors made a line for giving out high-fives. We even got a few hugs from the campers as well. It was really touching. I didn’t cry though, even though a little part of me wanted to.

I guess I just didn’t get enough time with these kids. But that’s how it goes sometimes.
All of us counselors had a big group hug and we headed back up to the lodge for our things. I looked at the hill behind the lodge, and kept thinking, “why not, right?” I found out that the bus wouldn’t be coming for another 2 hours, so I rallied PK and Matt to come with me, skipping the meeting, to go climb that hill.

One of the phrases the campers gave me was “Now or Never”. With this trip, I don’t think truer words can be spoken!

We walked behind the lodge and started to make our way up. But, we were quickly discouraged: the weeds were ridiculously high and we didn’t know if any of the foliage was poisonous. None of us had pants on, so we didn’t want to risk it.

I had been wanting to climb that friggin hill the entire time we were here. But it just wasn’t plausible. Besides, one of the other counselors found us and told us to come in for another lame meeting.

The meeting turned out to not be all that useful to me, it was about our upcoming camps: The counselors would divide into 2 groups, and so the responsibilities for each group changed (who would run what activity in American Carnival and My Town, etc.). I was able to keep what I had before, so my involvement was fairly low. I exported the songs I had been using for Dance Party and Graduation off of my laptop to Shane’s laptop, since he was in the other group and they needed that kind of music.

After that, I packed my things and headed outside. And of all the random things to see when I was heading out, there was a puppy playing with Devon and Shantal! Now, I’ve seen dogs and cats and other animals here, but I never got to play with any of them. I’m not sure what breed this dog was, but he was friggin’ cute! He licked my face and kept licking my ears like crazy. I think someone took a picture of it, heh.

He also kept trying to brace himself on me, but I wouldn’t have it. He tried to hump Devon, though, which was pretty funny.

Soon enough, the bus arrived and we all headed off to who-knows-where. We made a couple of rest stops, where I found the Japanese equivalent of Pringles (thicker and less salty, and DELICIOUS!), and ate a corn dog (yep, an American corn dog). It was a bit jarring at first, tasting some American food, but I grew used to it rather quickly. I also had an ice cream bar that was covered in chocolate, and then had a piece of chocolate on the inside! I wonder how long it’ll be before that comes to America. But for all I know, American carnies would deep fry it and cover it in powdered sugar. They can deep fry oreos and twinkies, hell why not try ice cream I guess.

The bus ride wasn’t as long, but mostly everyone was tired out. A lot of people slept in intervals, while at other times, we all talked about which celebrities and musicians we absolutely despised. We ended up getting on the topic of what music artists I liked. Apparently my taste in music was so different that people had to know. So, I pulled out the laptop, turned on iTunes, and proceeded to name every band that was in my 50GB collection of music.

Eventually, we arrived in Nagoya. From here, we’d be moving out to our host families for a 3 day stay. At the train station, the members from Team 1 headed off for their train back to the rest of their group, and we all chilled while Yusuke handed out our train fares. It turned out that my family wasn’t meeting me in Nagoya, but in their town of Aichi, which was a 30 minute ride by train. Ayumi’s hometown was a bit past Aichi, so she traveled with me to make sure I didn’t get lost.

We chatted it up on the train ride the whole time, talking about various things while ignoring the giant bee-like bug that was hovering above us. At first, I thought it was a giant Japanese hornet, the ones I had been dreading to see in person, but looking at it closer we concluded that it wasn’t a hornet.

Eventually, we arrived at Aichi, where my host dad, Makio, was waiting for me with his two kids, Kanan and Hanna. We chatted it up while we drove back to their house, where I met my host mom, Miyuki, and my host grandma, Taeko. Taeko didn’t speak any English, but that didn’t stop her from talking to me, heh.

We spent a good hour looking over my photos from back home, showing them videos of bear hunting and deer hunting, and I did a couple of voice impressions for them as well. We only spent an hour looking at the photos as Kanan wanted to watch the Saturday night Japanese comedy hour. After the comedy hour, we all took baths and went to bed.

Looking at myself in the mirror before the bath, I was a bit shocked at who I saw. I saw a thinner face. I can’t remember the last time I had a thin face (well, unless you go back to when I was 11). I pulled out a scale and looked at the results:

122kgs. That’s 268lbs. Since leaving for Japan, I’ve lost 12 pounds. Holy freakin’ crap!
I unpacked my things and went to bed. This was a quiet house in a seemingly quiet neighborhood, so I should have no problem relaxing here. Adios for now!

Day 17

2008-07-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

Today can be summed up in 3 words:

Ouch, then YYYEEAAAAHHHH!!!!

So I woke up at 6:00 this morning, tired out of my freaking mind. I was dead from last night’s sleep and could have used another 8 hours. The same could be said for every counselor in the lodge, we all stayed up too late and were tired, weak, and lacking any motivation at all. Worst of all, there was no coffee to be had! Somehow, we all had to keep going on natural energy, but gosh there wasn’t that much of it to be had.

We all walked quietly down to the hotel, where the kids were already outside and ready to do the daily Rojio Taiso. The Maeda family doesn’t practice it every morning, so naturally my body wasn’t ready for these morning stretches, but I gave it a go anyway. After some grunting and groaning later, my body felt a bit better. We headed inside with our groups (mine being group #4 again) for breakfast, and good lordy this day wasn’t proving to be a very good one: the breakfast was absolutely crappy. Barely anything I recognized as food was presented to us for breakfast, as most of it consisted of super-strong spices to put on our rice. I chewed away at my rice and hoped that lunch would be more promising.

Our first activity of the day was Group Presentation, basically the advanced version of the My Skit activity from the previous camp. I had a bit of difficulty with my group (group #8) finding a subject they wanted to talk about, but eventually one of the boys spoke. He suggested we talk about the J-Pop star Yui. It turned out that he was a huge fan of Yui and wants to marry her (awwwwww!). Within about 15 minutes, I typed up a script for everyone, and ran it in a similar format that I did with my Santa Claus skit: Everyone reads 2-3 sentences, and recites them by memory. The presentation would be an informational piece, with cd’s and dvd’s as props for our presentation. The focus would be on the memorization and pronunciation on tough words. Unfortunately, the presentation wasn’t that much fun (as others were working on news reports and Jeopardy! Parodies), but my group didn’t want to talk about anything else, so I took what they gave me and gave them what I could with it ☺

After Group Presentation, we did an activity called Group Discussion. Starting with group #9, I moved from group to group in the room (groups 6-10 were in this room), talking about theirs and my views on pop culture. With each group, I talked about popular movies like Harry Potter and Shaolin Soccer, animation like One Piece and Totoro, popular bands like The Beatles and Orange Range, along with a little discussion on video games (even though it wasn’t my category to speak on, as it wasn’t covered in the list of “pop culture questions” I was given to use). I discussed popular American culture and popular Japanese culture and asked the campers what they liked and how it differed from my own culture. All in all, the discussions weren’t too insightful and deep, most of the kids just listened, to me, heh!

Once discussion was over, I took my group outside for what I was told was to be lunch! I guess the teachers like having control on if the students are inside or outside, as they were present for lunch. On the bright side, lunch was grilled yakisoba! I watched on as the kids in my group cooked the meat (beef and pork), the vegetables (cabbage and onions), and the noodles (tossing powder on top of them). I offered help where I could with the grilling(well, they used a large pan-like apparatus to cook everything instead of just a metal grill), but they handled it so well I just watched in astonishment. I didn’t know how to grill when I was 15 years old!

The Yakisoba turned out to be delicious! Some other counselors said it was “okay” at best, so that might be my hunger from breakfast talking.

After lunch, we moved back to our My Story groups, and my kids were progressing just nicely with their stories. One of the kids had his story written in cursive! I didn’t know they taught cursive here ☺ They were on the verge of getting all of the words enunciated just right, and getting some of it memorized.

When My Story was done, we took a break and then resumed with our Group Presentation groups, and at this part of the day, I was really starting to drag. I asked my group to create the props for the presentation and gave them construction paper, scissors and markers to go at it. It took them awhile to get what I had meant when I asked them to make props, but eventually they nailed it. After finishing the props, we focused on memorization, and began practicing the presentation in the front of the room. About 5 minutes before 4:00, they had the skit just about nailed, so we were doing great!

I had to leave my group and leave them to Sean, as I found out that we were going to have a Dance Party after all! We would have it from 4:00 to 5:00, during the time that the kids share taking baths. I whipped up a quick playlist featuring Y.M.C.A. and the Cha Cha Slide and some other songs, and hooked up my laptop to the speaker system. Instead of dancing with everyone else, I served as DJ in the back. While some kids would bathe, the others would dance. At about 4:30, I left my laptop in the convention room so the next round of kids could dance (I didn’t know who would use my laptop during that time, but I trusted everyone there), and made my way back up that grueling, nasty hill. Let me tell you, that 15 minute walk is killer, but the dinner waiting up ahead pushed me to endure it.

Dinner today wasn’t as flat-out amazing as yesterday’s, but it was still really friggin’ good. We had spaghetti with shrimp, more of the marinated tomato slices, and deep-fried pork with potato balls (an interesting concept, to say the least).

After the Dance Party, we sat with the kids during their dinner, and moved back down to the activity rooms for the last part of Group Presentation before the kids would be performing for everyone in the room. At this point, I was barely awake, many of the counselors were quiet and tired. Kelly called for an emergency meeting for all the counselors, and told us that the teachers noticed our lack of enthusiasm and were contemplating not returning next year for Summer Camp if the kids don’t have a good time. So she told us the teachers would be watching us like hawks, so we had to find energy somewhere deep inside of us and make it last through the rest of the night.

So somehow, some way, I mustered enough energy to turn my hyper-activeness back up to the 150% I give when I’m well-rested. Heck, one might say I was more hyper than I usually am around the campers. I gave high-fives to all the campers, hooted and hollered and cheered, and made the enthusiasm of the entire camp do a 180. The kids became PUMPED for Group Presentation, so when it was time for everyone in our room to perform, I offered my group to go first.

Needless to say, they weren’t happy about that, but I reminded them later that sometimes it’s okay to go first, so that you’re not nervous for the rest of the time.

After all the groups in my room performed their presentations, the AC’s got together and we decided which two groups were the best. Mine wasn’t picked as the News Report about Mickey Mouse escaping Disney World (put on by counselor Devon) was picked, along with the News Report about the Olympics (put on by counselor Brent). I was okay with that, although I’d love it if one of my groups this summer made it to Eigo-Kai.

Soon enough, we all headed up to the convention room, all the AC’s were pumped and there was nothing but smiles to be found on the camper’s faces. I headed up to the main stage and started goofing around with the other counselors as the kids made their way in, but then I had an idea:

What if I introduced everyone to Eigo-Kai like Michael Buffer announces boxing matches?

I kept the mic with me and gave it a shot.

“Llllladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages! Tonight, you will see the best and the brightest, the top performers, the amazing actors and actresses of Group Presentation! So I ask you, ARE YOU READY?”

Then everyone cheers, and I respond

“I said, ARE, YOU, RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREADY!!!????”

Everyone cheers even louder, and I respond

“THEN, for the dozens in attendance, and the millions who will soon be watching AROUND the WORLD, ladies and gentlemen.. . . . .
uuuuuuuuUUUUUUUUHHHHHHHH LET’S GET RRRRREADY FOR EIGO-KAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!”

That got everyone fired up like you wouldn’t believe. The kids were cheering, the counselors were going bonkers, and the teachers were smiling. I think we were doing something right tonight.

All the kids that were selected performed their group presentations for everyone. Some of them were very original (a couple adopting children around the world), some were based on fables and stories like The Lion King. It was really good stuff ☺ I did my best to keep smiling, so that the teachers wouldn’t get the chance to complain about anything. Even when I yawned, I smiled.
After the miniature Eigo-Kai (the big one is tomorrow), everyone headed off for bed. We had one short counselor meeting and Kelly was overall very happy with how much energy we brought to the campers that night. We would do our best to keep it up in the morning and throughout the day so that the campers and teachers want to come back next year!

There was no bath again, so I showered and went to bed. Needless to say, I crashed epically this time.

Adios for now ☺

Day 16

2008-07-28T06:00:00.000-07:00

Wow.

Today has been a whole lot of wow.

From teaching elementary school students to junior high students, the gap for the kids’ English level of knowledge is considerably large between the two groups!

The teachers from this junior high school asked us to give their students the Advanced Schedule for camp, which consists of a few different activities from the ones we did for the girls of the last camp:

1) Tongue Twisters
2) Word Building (use 3 words on a flash card and make a sentence using those words)
3) Group Presentation (like Camp Skit, but more complicated)

We still do the My Story activity for the advanced campers, but the story has to be about 2 minutes in length.

Anyway, I got up and my butt was just a-draggin’. I found some coffee downstairs and had two cups. Jeff came by and as a member of the Sunshine Committee (a group we appointed at Orientation to pump up the counselors every morning), he waved some Jazz hands in my face and I gave him a smile. I could smile, but I sure as heck wasn’t ready to face the day. I rubbed my eyes and tried looking outside, and I could not believe what I was seeing.

We were in Nagano. Farther north than anywhere I had been thus far, and higher in elevation than anywhere I had been thus far, which explained the cool air. What I saw before me were the biggest mountains I’ve ever seen in my life. This was all I needed for a wakeup call.

They were huge! The mountains were so high, the clouds passed through them. I had never seen a mountain range so high before. The mountains mocked the sky they sat under, poking at the clouds above, taunting them almost. It was truly a sight to behold. Mee told me to turn around and look at what was behind the lodge. Behind me happened to be a HUGE hill. The hill was dotted with little trees, and the tall grass moved with the wind in large waves. Once again, I was at a loss for words. I’ve never seen such beauty in nature before. Nothing comparable to this can be found back home.

I headed back inside the lodge for breakfast, which was a bit disappointing in its selection. Most of the food was already taken by other counselors, so I treated myself to a little bit of eggs and a little bit of hashbrowns, and those odd look-like-hot-dogs-but-taste-like-keilbasa weiners. A disappointing breakfast, but hey, kids were coming and I had to put on my game face!

Kelly told us that the campers were all staying at a separate facility down the hill, and that getting there would be a 15 minute walk. The walk was a bit steep, which I knew I would soon come to regret in a few hours.

As we headed down, I noticed that the area we were in had a lot of various bed & breakfast hotels, so this must be a popular getaway kind of place. It’s not a bad idea, considering how breathtaking the view is!

We reached the hotel where the kids were staying, and saw the buses down below with the kids coming out. They were all dressed in uniform, and lined up for a speech from one of their teachers. They were so obedient! At first they would talk and chat and be loud, but as soon as their teachers spoke over the microphone, INSTANT SILENCE. Wow.

After the speech, we greeted the students and I attempted to rally my group, group #4, to come over to me. For some reason, I was the last counselor to get his kids together. I couldn’t figure it out, heh. I’m the biggest guy here, with a booming voice and raising my hands high with 4 fingers up, and they couldn’t find me. Maybe they were just confused? I guess that’s possible, but it was still kind of odd. I took my group, which was 3 guys and 2 girls, up to their rooms. The kids unpacked their luggage and I waited outside in the hallway as the guys changed into their casual clothes. The girls stayed on the second floor, and the guys stayed on the third floor. When they were ready, we headed down for lunch in the dining hall.

Doing small talk with new people continues to be a weak point of mine. I tried asking some questions and such, but it wasn’t working all too well, so I talked with Erik on the far side of the table to get conversation going. Eventually, I pulled out some voice impressions of Santa Claus, Chewbacca, and Jabba the Hutt, and that made the kids laugh quite a bit ☺

After lunch, we had orientation. The orientation room was a convention room that smelt like used motor oil, yuck! I have no idea why it smelled like that, but it did. We had enough room for the campers though, which was key to begin with. We began orientation and the campers made their name tags. I asked my group to come up with a group name and they chose Team Spiderman ☺ We practiced our introduction to the entire room and we chose to sing the first part of the Spiderman song as our intro. There were 24 groups in total, each averaging about 5 to 6 kids. The room got hot pretty quick, so we were all sweating quite a bit. I ignored it and laughed it up with the campers and the counselors. The counselors did their introductions, and I did mine with some more voice impressions to get the kids to loosen up. After our introductions, each counselor had to meet each group, and that took so long we ended up cutting it short! I met all but 6 of the groups. I guess on the bright side, I wasn’t working with any of the 6 groups I didn’t meet, so there were no worries to be had.

After the intros, we did our camp song for the campers and we split up to begin the activities. Before we started working on My Story, I tried rallying the AC’s and the JC’s for doing a Dance Party today. Apparently, the teachers at this school didn’t want the kids to do a dance party, and they didn’t want them outside playing games either. These teachers are pretty strict, and that didn’t sit with me well.

However, I knew that through group persuasion, things can change, so I tried pitching my idea to everyone. The AC’s really liked it and were all for it, but Ayumi, one of the JC’s, showed me how impossible it was to do a Dance Party today. Immediately I felt defeated, but tomorrow looked promising, so I tried to shrug it off.

The activity rooms were in another building across the road, but since the teachers didn’t want the kids to be outside (they were afraid the kids would get hit by cars, apparently), we used the underground tunnel to head to the next building. I was a bit creeped out at first, because the tunnel was a bit dark and damp. What didn’t help was that Ashley and Jeff were doing these weird shrieking noises at each other for fun. It was pretty weird.

I worked with group #5 for My Story, and I didn’t even have to use my example for them to get the idea. Immediately, the kids started working on their stories, referring to their Japanese-to-English electronic dictionaries, sometimes asking me for spelling and pronunciation. I felt a little out of place in not having to help them as much, but I gave them as much help as I could when they asked for it. I suppose the real test will come when they have to say the words and memorize them.

After My Story, the kids took turns taking baths. I found this really odd because it was 4PM, and baths usually don’t happen until 9 or 10. But, this is what the teachers wanted, so we just went along with it. We played some games in the convention room, and at about 4:45, I went back up to the lodge for dinner. Apparently, we only ate breakfast and lunch with the campers, and there would be food for us at the lodge. So, I began the grueling hike back up to the lodge. Good lord, my calves had better be buff by September, that’s all I gotta say. Other counselors were coming down the hill from the lodge, telling Brent and I that the food was terrible, and not worth coming up for. I couldn’t tell if they were serious or not, so I just kind of ignored it and thought to myself, “Hunger makes the best spice”. So I kept my spirits up despite the fear of having to eat bad food.

Well, guess what. I was pranked. That food was easily, the tastiest, amazing-est, most delicious gourmet food I’ve EVER had. This tops any restaurant I’ve been to, any five-star hotel, anything, ever. This food was heaven-on-a-plate meant to boost our morales. And boy howdy did it boost my morale! I felt ready to take on the world after that meal! The meal started off with a ball of marinated mozzarella cheese, accompanied by tomato slices, which accompanied the cheese perfectly. After that, the main course came out, which was fish covered in a rich sauce (so exquisite I can’t recall what nationality it could possibly be) lightly dressed in mayonnaise, and a chunk of meatloaf covered in marinara. The spices in this food went so deep, it was certainly created with a lot of care and effort. I thanked the chefs and bowed deeply.

After dinner, I was re-energized to continue working with the campers! We sat with them while they ate dinner (which was far far less in quality compared to what we just had), and then I worked with group #6 for the Word Building activity.

It turned out that these kids weren’t quite ready to take 3 random English words and make sentences from them. It was very very challenging for them. I tried giving them examples and that didn’t help either. One of my campers was falling asleep, even! Eventually, the time came to test the campers, and my best camper did about 6 different sentences in 30 seconds. I had heard some other campers did up to 9, but given the short amount of prep time (we only had 1 hour for this activity, compared to about 4 hours for all other activities except Tongue Twisters) we had, I guess I’m not surprised.

I worked with group #7 for the Tongue Twisters activity, and this was by far the most fun I’ve had in an activity ☺ We went through a list of tongue twisters given to us by Kelly (along with a few I found off the Internet), and spent 30 minutes trying to say them all correctly. I was quite surprised at myself when I realized that I could say the tongue twisters very clearly! My best student used this tongue twister: “Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?”. He was able to say it PERFECTLY and quickly. I was very proud of his efforts ☺

After Tongue Twisters, it was 9:00, so the kids headed upstairs for bed, and I took the opportunity to empty the cooler full of Mugicha into my Nalgene bottle. Mugicha is barley tea, and is popular in Japan as a thirst quencher. It’s an acquired taste, to be certain, as it took several glasses of it over a few days before I started to like it. Japanese people like to drink it along with their meals, if they’re not drinking water.

Well, since the day was done, there was another long-ass hike back up to the lodge, but this time there was rain, so I had to run back to the lodge!

To be honest, I only ran a little bit. I’m not good at running up hills.

But I returned to the lodge, ready to take a bath, only to find out that the tub was empty! So, deciding to do a favor for everyone else, I turned on the faucets to fill it up, and just took a shower. I was really sweaty and gross, so I didn’t care if I took a bath or not. Sometimes, I feel better here if I just take a shower instead of a bath.

After my bath, we had a very short meeting and everyone was dismissed. Today, I was very impressed and proud of Kelly’s work as our AD. She worked under a lot of pressure with the teachers breathing down her neck all day, and she handled it with patience, grace, and focus. Her work today reminds me of how I try to be an effective Lab Coordinator in the computer labs. I’m fairly certain everyone else felt the same, as the counselors were in high spirits overall as a team.

I got to talk to my mom on the phone at her work tonight! I get delighted every time I get the chance to talk to my mom and dad back home, so I updated her on where I was and what I was up to. Later, I sent her the itinerary for my trip so she and Kaitlin know whether I’m at camp or at homestay, and passed my laptop onto Matt so he could call home.

Shane and Erik broke out some Japanese beer, and soon enough a lot of counselors were in our Tatami room, drinking it up. Ami and I chatted for about an hour while she drank a beer, I declined as I was already tired and that I’m picky when it comes to beer. It ended up being fairly late again when we all went to bed, sometime around 1:30 if I’m not mistaken. Everyone’s out cold and I’m looking at tomorrow and thinking “oh god, this is gonna be ugly”. Adios until then!

Day 15

2008-07-28T03:11:00.000-07:00

Today was the day, after almost a week with the Maedas, that I would be leaving them and heading off to Nagano for camp. I wasn’t ready to go back to camp.

Nope. I liked it there in Osaka.

We woke up around 8, and ate some breakfast. I took a look at my camera to check the battery, and you would not believe it. The damn thing broke. This time, for real. The LCD screen cracked on it, and since it has no viewfinder it’s virtually useless for me! GAH! So today, along with meeting all the other counselors and taking the bus ride to Nagano, I also had to find time to get a new digital camera. Gah, gah, and double gah.

On the bright side, after checking my bank account, I found that I had an extra $164 from my last two weeks at work before I left. So at least it wouldn’t hinder me on my travel expenses or anything.

Before we left the house, I gave Tamiko a picture of Kaitlin and myself. I’m really high on coming back to Japan and visiting Kyoto with Kaitlin someday, so I gave Tamiko a picture of the two of us and I told her “When I come back, that’s who I’m returning with.” She was very grateful for the picture! She posted it on a corkboard by the kitchen.

We grabbed our things and said our goodbyes to Natsumi. She had to study, so only Hiro and Tamiko would be the only people coming to see us off. I thanked Natsumi for everything she did (including making a gift last night that I won’t reveal just yet), and she told me “You’re welcome”. Natsumi was very quiet throughout the homestay, but I had always tried to say phrases to her in Japanese, so I felt great when she thanked me in English.

So off we went, away from the AC and into the hot sun for the uber-long walk to another train station. Ali happened to be living in the same complex as us, so she and her host family came with us for the walk. It wasn’t until this walk that I realized just how heavy my big luggage bag is. I haven’t put it on a scale or anything, but it’s easily over 50 pounds. It wore out my back something fierce, so I switched from carrying it to rolling it on the ground. Eventually, Hiro offered to drag my luggage for me, so I let him. You know, for a 10 year old kid that probably weighs 70 pounds soaking wet, he’s pretty strong! I’m gonna miss that kid. Shane and I bonded with him during our Kyoto trip on Sunday, plus he can race an elevator
.
Let me rephrase that: I’ll take the elevator, and Hiro will take the stairs. Hiro can match the elevator’s speed whether we’re going up or down. The kid is FAST. I don’t think I mentioned it before, but yes, this kid is very hyperactive and I think he’s awesome ☺

So we made our way to the train station, got on the train, and it took about an hour to reach Osaka Station. At the station, we met up with Steph and ate lunch at an ala carte-style restaurant. I grabbed some Japanese-style wiener wraps, a teriyaki sandwich and some tator tots (hey, that surprised me too! Tator tots in Japan!). After eating lunch, Tamiko, Shane and I headed over to the nearby post office. Shane wanted to mail some postcards, and I decided it would be best to mail my camera back home, so that it wouldn’t get damaged anymore on the trip. It cost 1200 yen to send the camera back, but at this point, money wasn’t fazing me when it came to that camera. As far as taking pictures at this point, though, I concluded that I would just buy a new camera with the extra $164 I had in my savings. Once I get back home, I’m going to take my old camera to Best Buy, as I know I have some sort of replacement plan on it. Then I’ll sell whatever camera I bought (my Mom agreed to buy it off me, since she doesn’t have one) and that’ll be that.

We headed back to the mall that Shinichi and Shane and I hit up the other day, and found a 7.1 megapixel Canon Powershot for $130. It used the same memory card that my Nikon camera did and also used AA batteries. It was also the cheapest camera I could buy there. I guess you really couldn’t get any more convenient, eh?

After buying the new camera, we met up with all the counselors back at the station, and met several new counselors as well. The upcoming camp was going to have over 140 students, so 13 counselors from Team 1 (we’re Team 4) were sent down to work with us for camp to handle the extra large load of students. I was a bit nervous in talking to them right away, as I was so used to my own team, so I just chilled with Tamiko and Hiro for the time being. After all, it was my last time I’d be seeing them for quite a while.

Shane and I played around with Hiro for about 15 minutes and chatted with Tamiko, thanking her for everything she had done for us and what her family did for us. Eventually we had to say goodbye, and I almost choked up, but I knew I’d be seeing the Maedas again, so it was okay.

I’m gonna miss Hiro, though. That kid was awesome.

Once all the counselors were rounded up, we headed off to a bus that was about 2 kilometers away from the station. 2 kilometers doesn’t sound too bad, but when it’s 95 degrees outside, it’s pretty freakin’ bad. The bus was parked in an odd place, it was parked right next to an area of thick weeds and plants, and the sidewalk we were walking on was higher than the road, so we had to traverse through the weeds with our stuff. It was one heck of a finish to one heck of a trek to the bus.

In any case, we all boarded, and the bus was soon on its way. Where were we going? I had no idea. Not an idea at all. Kinda funny, isn’t it? I know WHAT I’m doing here, but I rarely know where I’m going. It’s amazing I haven’t gotten lost, yet ☺

Kelly grabbed a microphone and told everyone on the bus that we would be doing introductions. The trick to the introductions would be that when you do your introduction, you also have to name the people who went before you. Thankfully I went third, haha. I introduced myself as a UWSP student that enjoys making films. As the introductions went on, I learned the names of all the new counselors. Some of them were really cool, some a bit on the eccentric side, and some were a bit quiet; it reminded me of how I felt about my team when I first met everyone.
I spent a good hour talking to Carmen, a former bartender from Appleton. When I asked her how old she was, she asked me to guess. I guessed 22 and she said “Haha, I wish I was 22”. It turned out that she was actually 28! That made me feel good about being 23, heh. But on the bright side, I think it’s pretty cool that a 28 year old wants to travel to the other side of the planet to teach English and experience the same stuff I’m experiencing. You’re never too young to try something new, as they say.

Well, I don’t know who said that, but somebody did.

Anyway, the bus ride was LONG. Like, 6 hours long. I started to wonder if we were getting lost. I had dinner at a rest stop with Sean, I had a delightful dish of cold soba noodles and we chatted it up about our homestays. After dinner, it must have been 8:30-9:00 when we finally arrived at our hotel. We drove up a lot of hills on the way, so I knew we had to be high up, at least as high as Camp Nose, but it was too hard to tell.

We made our way into the hotel, which we found out was pretty classy! It had a contemporary-yet-rustic feel to it that made you feel like you were visiting Grandma’s house. Best of all, this place had Internet! 2 facilities in a row with Internet! Gosh we’re friggin’ lucky.

Erik, Shane, Keisuke and I took a room upstairs, which happened to be the only Tatami room in the hotel! If you don’t know what a tatami room is, it’s basically a room with rice mats for a floor. You sleep on futon mattresss that you fold up and store in the closet in the morning. It’s a traditional Japanese room, but this room also had a refrigerator, couch, tv, and coffee table. It has 3 windows, 2 of which actually go to the main dining hall (which kinda sucked, because it was hot), and one window in a cubby-like hole that Erik decided to sleep in. He named it Bag End, after the home of Bilbo Baggins in Lord of the Rings, since it was small, yet roomy. We almost had everything set, but then Keisuke left the room and we had Justin as a roommate instead. It turned out that there was a lot of confusion over room keys and how many people could be in one room (I honestly didn’t understand it).

I took a place nearby the closet, and set up my futon mattress on the floor. Unfortunately, we had a counselor meeting, so there was no sleep to be had just yet. I sat through the meeting in a daze, as I usually do when we have late meetings, but thankfully the meeting was short. I headed off to the bath (which was small, like Camp Nose, but thankfully no evil shrimp crickets), and started to bathe. The showers had unstable temperature like Camp Nose, so it was either freezing cold or boiling hot. I finished my shower quickly and sat in the tub for awhile. Eventually, Shane entered the tub and Keisuke started showering. But he kept the water on super super hot, so it steamed up in the bath so much that I started to get light headed.
After heading out of the bath, I laid down on my bed and tried to relax, I wasn’t feeling too well from the bath. I decided I wouldn’t call anyone back home just yet as I was really beat, and instead I chose to wander the hotel, and wander outside a bit. Several counselors were outside enjoying the cool weather (which surprised me!), and I moved back and forth between my room and outside while letting other counselors call back home using my laptop. Eventually, I wanted to go to bed around 11, but as luck would have it, my room was popular with other counselors.
We had several visitors ending up staying in our room for the night. Lauren, Steph, and Vy joined us in the Tatami room and everyone ended up talking until about 4:30 in the morning. I tried sleeping, but didn’t get any sleep until everyone else was knocked out. It was a rough night, but I ended up talking with everyone and had a great time, so it was worth it despite the small amount of sleep.

So today was a rough day on all ends, but tomorrow should be promising. 140 students are coming tomorrow! Adios for now!

Day 14

2008-07-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

Today was quite the adventurous day for Shane and myself! In short, we went on our first unaccompanied trip through Osaka.

We woke up around 9am, Tamiko had to work this morning, so she wouldn’t be returning until 2:00. Shane and I decided that we were tired of using dial-up service, so we wanted to find an Internet café. We also wanted to find a bank so that Shane could convert $100 to 10,000 yen, and I wanted to find an ATM so that I could see how much spending money I had left, and to do a little withdrawal.

We first went to the Seiyu, because I saw ATM’s there and it was the closest place to start looking. Unfortunately, the directions weren’t available in English, so we moved on. We found a bank by the train station, and they had SEVERAL ATM’s, but still no luck. Shane took his money to a teller and had to fill out a form to get the money converted. They had a machine that the bills were fed through to validate their authenticity, but one of the bills wouldn’t go through. With a patience that I’ve never seen in any bank teller (or anyone in customer service, for that matter), she tried to get the bill to go through at least 30 times, but it wouldn’t go through. We concluded that a small tear in the bill had to do with it not getting processed. Talk about a solid, airtight conversion process.

We asked around if there were any Internet cafes, and a lady pointed down the street next to a 7-11, where we also happened to find an English ATM! On the not-so-bright side, I could only withdraw money in increments of 10,000 yen (or $100), so I just dealt with it and withdrew 10,000. We headed up to the Internet café, but it was closed! Apparently, it was also a karaoke bar, and it wouldn’t be open until Noon. It was 11:25 at the time, and it was really freakin’ hot outside, so we opted to hop on the train over to Tennoji and see if we would have any luck there.
Shane told me that Internet cafes were very common in Tennoji, so we wouldn’t have any problem.

Traveling on the train by ourselves was an interesting experience for me. Shane is well-versed in Japanese, so I had to rely on him for directions, questions & answers, and the like. I felt like we were alone, yet we were going to be alright.

In any case, we arrived at Tennoji at about 11:50, and started asking around about the café’s. Sure enough, there was a 24 hour café right next to the train station!

This café was pretty sweet – there were several workstations if you wanted to work in public, and there was a private section where you could work on Internet stuff privately (yep, that kind of place), and even sleep there! Apparently, homeless people in the Osaka area like to live in the Internet café’s. I didn’t see any vagrant-looking people wandering around, though.

For 1000 yen, we could get 3 hours of high-speed Internet, and we could use our own laptops as well! We could also get free Pepsi, C.C. Lemon, and other drinks as well, along with being able to read out of their VAST comics and books collection (and yes, there were pornographic magazines there too). Seeing the adult magazines was only a bit disturbing, as the atmosphere seemed very professional and friendly, so it was all good.

I hopped on the Internet, got caught up on the news going on in the world (because I really don’t know what’s going on most of the time while I’m here!), read some comics and blogs, and then I called up Kaitlin. It was an absolute delight to hear her sweet voice echo through my ears. I miss her something fierce, and getting to talk to her makes me feel better just a little bit, every time I get to talk to her. We talked for about 90 minutes, until my 3 hour usage time was up. At first, we spoke over Skype, but apparently that disturbed some of the other clientele in the café, so I had to keep quiet. I was reduced to just talking to Kaitlin through typing, but we managed ☺ The best part was that we got to see each other through webcams. She cut her hair recently, and she looks great with it!

After saying our goodbyes and such, Shane and I headed out and paid our 1000 yen for using the Internet Café. I made use of the free soda and had a glass of Pepsi and a glass of C.C. Lemon, all at no charge ☺ We headed out, and decided to get some food at McDonald’s. They were selling a new chicken sandwich, you could get it either Mexican style (with salsa on the chicken patty) or Asian style (teriyaki and mayo on the patty). I opted for the Asian style with some fries and a Coke Zero, and looked for a place to sit. This McDonald’s had 3 different floors! There was the main floor for ordering, then the basement and the second floor for eating. Crazy, but efficient!
After grabbing McDonald’s, we headed over to a UFO Catcher shop where I managed to win some awesome gifts for folks with little effort. The training from my Dad’s days at Weston Lanes with the Claw-Grab machine paid off!

I pondered going to a Pachinko parlor to give it a try, but we were running out of time, so I decided it would be better not to essentially waste 1000 yen in doing so. We hopped on the train back to the Urobashi station and headed home.

We talked to Tamiko and Natsumi about our trip, while Shane and I took turns playing Mario Kart on the Gamecube with Hiro. For supper tonight, we had curry. Fantastic, homemade curry. Oh my lordies, I’ve never really had curry before (unless you count the pastry I had a few days ago), and this stuff was phenomenal! It was even better when I added a homemade chili salsa to it! I must have had 3 plates of that curry. I don’t think I’ve eaten this much food in Japan until today.

Well, with my new bag, eventually I headed off to my room to begin packing all my things. It took a good 30 minutes to get everything worked out, throwing away receipts and garbage and whatnot, but everything is packed nice and neatly.

One last night of glorious AC, then it’s another round of summer camp. Adios for now!

Day 13

2008-07-24T05:39:00.000-07:00

After yesterday’s grueling (but worth it!) tour of Kyoto, Shane and I crashed pretty hard again. I woke up at 11, and today was more or less going to be a free day. Today was a holiday, so Shinichi wasn’t going to head back to Hamamatsu until later tonight. Usually he comes back from work on Friday nights and heads back on Sunday nights. Despite being gone for 5 days out of the week, the family is very close and very solid compared to families I’ve seen in America that are similar.

Today, there were 3 things on the agenda for the Maedas, Shane, and myself:
1) Head to Mos Burger for lunch
2) Go to the local shrine to see the floats
3) Head to Seiyu, buy a bag for carrying my souvenirs

We traveled to all the locations by bike, and as I’ve already pointed out: bike riding in Japan is interesting, relaxing, and fun! It’s a delight every time I get to ride ☺ We headed towards Mos Burger in a different part of the city, near some auto dealerships and other businesses. When I noticed the dealerships, I was reminded of Wisconsin just a bit – this part of town was a bit more open than the crowded buildings of Sakai City that I had been used to.

I don’t know if I’ve clarified before, as Osaka gets pretty confusing, but the Maedas live in Sakai City, which is a suburb of Osaka (though one could pretty much call it an urban city).

Anyway, we headed to Mos Burger, and ordered some foodsies for lunch. The Mos Burger itself is kind of like, a burger with a mix of salsa and chili thrown on top of the beef patty. It’s pretty good! Tamiko asked me if I was weirded out by the name of the restaurant, since it’d be pretty easy to mistake it for Moss Burger if you haven’t heard of it before. To be honest, I really wasn’t, I guess you could blame that on my desire to try any Japanese cuisine. To this date, I haven’t eaten a single thing in Japan that I didn’t like.

After lunch, we headed up to the shrine, where a small festival was being held. I can’t quite recall why the festival was taking place, it might have been a mini-summer festival, Tamiko said it was being held really early this year. In any case, the floats for the festival were HUGE, and IMPRESSIVE! Each float weighed about 2 tons, made of wood, featuring two people sitting on top of the float, 4 children playing the taiko drums in the middle, and at least 3 dozen men holding the float up by hand!

To get a better view, we moved up to the shrine itself, where I saw the LARGEST FREAKIN’ TREE I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY ENTIRE LIFE. I emphasize this for a reason: this tree was 700-800 years old! The branches on the tree were literally trees in their own right! There was grass growing on this tree! This thing was old, it was gigantic, and it took my breath away. I took plenty of pictures, and made a video in an attempt to put it to scale, but WOW. Just. . . .WOW. A steel support structure was built next to the tree just to hold some of the branches up. You know, these kinds of trees are the kinds of things you only read about, or see on TV. It’s SO different seeing it in person.

Moving on to the shrine itself, I performed another prayer according to Buddhist tradition, and Tamiko and Shinichi were once again impressed with how perfectly I had the prayer down-pat. When I do the prayer at the shrines and temples, I thank God for the chance to come here to Japan, and thank God for letting me live it up here and experience so many things that I’d never experience in Wisconsin.

After the prayer, we watched the floats down below get raised up by dozens of men, and watched them dance as they walked down the road with the shrine. They would do the dance for a couple dozen meters, then turn around and do the dance back to the position where they started. They repeated this a few times, and then headed down the road back to the city. At that point, we decided we had seen enough and would move on to the Seiyu.

Seeing the festival was, how do I put it. . . .it was really cool! The whole traditional getup, the floats held up by human hands, the singing and the chanting, it blew my mind away. That’s what this whole trip has been, you know?

After the festival, we headed down to Seiyu (the Japanese equivalent of Wal-Mart) so that I could buy a bag for my souvenirs. Some of you know how I shop: I find what I need quickly, and I’m outta there.

Well, sometimes anyway ☺

The bag set me back about $40, but it’s a necessary purchase, as I have NO room in my regular luggage to pack souvenirs.

After going to Seiyu, we enjoyed some ice cream, had supper, and saw off Shinichi as he was heading back to Hamamatsu. I shook his hand and bowed deeply, thanking him for everything. He kept asking if it was okay that we had such a long day yesterday in Kyoto and I assured him, it was well worth it! After saying goodbye to Shinichi, we went to bed. Outside of going to Mos Burger and seeing the Festival, today wasn’t too particularly eventful. But it was still good stuff all around.

Adios for now!

Day 12

2008-07-21T03:12:00.000-07:00

Today.
Was.
Epic.

Never in my life, have I seen anything so rich in tradition, rich in history, and so beautiful all at once. Never in my life, have I experienced something so cultural, so humbling, and so awe-inspiring.

Today, I visited Kyoto, Japan’s oldest city and the former capital of Japan. And today, I drank water from the natural springs of the highest mountain in Kyoto. Those “natural spring water” bottles you buy in America are NOTHING like what I tasted here.

Our day started at 7:00am, as we were going to depart from Osaka at 8am and spend all day visiting temples and famous spots in Kyoto. We skipped having a real breakfast at the house and stopped at a convenience store along the way. I had a rice ball (seriously, who knew that a clump of rice would be so delicious?), a chicken sandwich, and a Suntory Boss Cafe (an Espresso with Milk). We hopped on one train, then switched to another train line, then reached the Osaka line, and I think at that point we took a train that would take us straight to Kyoto. That particular train was nice, it had two floors of seating, like a double-decker bus J The ride itself from that point took about an hour, all in all it was a 2 hour trip by train.

After we arrived, we took a bus to our first stop: the Golden Temple of Kyoto. The beauty of this temple can hardly be described in words! The wood that makes up the temple was plated in gold, and it sits on the edge of a small lake. Since we went on a Sunday, there were tourists (both regional and foreign) all over the place. We didn’t get to go into the temple, but my god, seeing a building made of gold that shines in the sun, is a memory I’m never going to forget. Tamiko told me that this temple looks even more beautiful in the fall (what with all the red/orange/gold colors on the trees, of course), and that this temple is the most beautiful thing you will find in Japan.

I have to say, I definitely agree with her on that point.

We made our way past the temple and found a couple of gift shops – unfortunately they didn’t accept plastic, so I couldn’t buy anything. Then again, everything looked pretty pricey. I’m guessing this temple also serves as a sort of a tourist trap in overcharging for goods. There was also a place by this temple where you could throw money at a stone dish, and that if you could get your coin to land in the dish, that you would be blessed with good luck (ummm, not believing that one). I knew the money would be put towards the upkeep of the area, so I tossed in 25 yen. I didn’t get any of the coins in the dish, but that didn’t matter to me.

As we made our way out of the temple area, we met up with Steph! Shane and Steph and I chatted it up quite a bit about our adventures with our host families, though we did get a bit carried away and talked for a good 10 minutes. Tamiko and Shinichi asked us if we could move on to the next area and OF COURSE, we agreed! It’s just one of those things about Wisconsinites: We can talk and share stories all day long.

The next place we were being taken to was a temple that had been in existence for over 800 years. Unfortunately, it was burned down twice and had to be rebuilt, but this temple was known all over Japan for having the most famous stone garden in all of Japan. The stone garden was used for meditation by Buddhists, although I don’t know if the garden is still used for that purpose. Shane and I sat in front of that garden for about 20 minutes, taking it all in and just relaxing. You could get lost staring into that stone garden, it was huge! Shane mentioned that if he could move to Kyoto, it would be just to come hang out at this garden every day. Shane’s really big into Japan, he speaks the language far better than I do and can read some kanji. If I was a betting man, I’d say he just might move to Japan and teach English. So when he says he’d move to Kyoto just for seeing something like this, I can believe him!

We moved just a bit past the stone garden and sat down in front of a moss garden. Just think about that, a moss garden next to a stone garden. You go from something static, unchanging, and rough to something soothing, dynamic, and living. From not having life to having it. It was a heck of a change, and let me tell you, the Japanese know how to make moss look pretty and make you think about it as an extension of life.

I contemplated snagging a rock from the stone garden for Marie, but each of those stones have been there for hundreds of years, plus I’d probably get deported for violating such a sacred area. Worst of all, even if that all happened, I’d probably have to give up the rock too, heh.

After the moss garden, we went to a small water basin to cleanse our hands. Near temples, there are water basins that exist solely for washing your hands, basically to purify them. Shane and I each took pictures partaking in washing our hands. It’s one of those things that you’d never get to experience in America (where we’d probably have some Purell-sponsored “cleansing station” which would just be a bottle of sanitizer).

Once we were finished walking through the temple, we moved on to a local café near the temple that served Soba noodles. Soba noodles are served cold (which believe me, on a 95 degree day is VERY REFRESHING!), and you dip them in a bowl of soy and green onions. After eating the Soba noodles, Tamiko and Shinichi treated us to Kakigori. OH MY GOD. KAKIGORI IS FANTASTIC! Kakigori is a shaved ice dessert, think like a snow cone, but 4 times in size. I had the lemon variety, which turned out to be sweeter than I was anticipating. It tasted like I was eating a giant frozen lemon lollipop. Shane had a Green Tea variety, Hiro had a Strawberry kind, Natsumi had a Milk kind, and Tamiko and Shinichi shared a Green Tea kind. We stayed at the café for probably an hour and a half, enjoying the air conditioning, and chugging down glass after glass of water.

The heat in Kyoto was worse than Osaka, so of course, I brought my Nalgene bottle (which still has its Mephisto the Band sticker on it, Erik ;-) I’ve had it for 5 years), and I’ve been drinking from it ever since I got here, Kyoto especially.

After lunch, we headed down to a bus stop and waited for a bus that would take us to Kiyomizu Temple. This temple rested on the side of a mountain, where a natural spring resided on top of the mountain. Mizu stands for water in English, so the temple itself was named after the springs. The temple was easily one of the biggest natural-made structures I’ve ever seen in my life! The temple was built with all wood and only wood. No nails, no screws. They cut holes into the planks of wood and connected other planks that way (kind of like a Lincoln-log-meets-jigsaw-puzzle kind of thing). Since the temple was so high up, we had to walk up a road to get there. And that road was freakin’ steep. It wasn’t so bad walking up the hill, but with tourists everywhere (including some annoying American tourists), people would stop right in the middle of the road. Stopping while climbing uphill is the one thing I can’t stand the most. It’s not easy walking up a hill, but having to stop and start again is even worse.

But eventually, we made our way to the entrance of the temple, guarded by two large, 15-meter high guardians carved of wood. Walking into the temple, we stopped at a place where three large, heavy iron objects were placed. There was a set of iron shoes, a small iron staff, and a large iron staff. If you were able to lift the shoes, you would have good luck with shoes, with the small staff, you would have some good luck, but if you could lift the large iron staff, you would be blessed with great luck. Shane couldn’t lift it by himself, and neither could I. We tried together once, and couldn’t lift that big staff. However, that didn’t stop us. One more time, we both grabbed the staff and gave it everything we got. And sure enough, we lifted it! Gosh was that thing heavy! It must have weighed at least 300 pounds. Everyone clapped and was impressed, Tamiko said we are very lucky people and will have lots of good luck in the future. Shane and I decided that the lesson to be learned was that teamwork is essential to accomplishing goals that one person cannot accomplish on their own.

We made our way to a large wooden stage, where plays used to take place. Inside the temple, we found a praying location, with a large metal bowl for praying. To pray correctly, you would kneel down in front of the bowl, take the accompanying soft mallet, tap the top edge of the bowl, put the mallet down, and pray. After the prayer, I moved onward further into the temple, where I observed one of the most sacred areas in Japan – a golden statue of Buddha, placed far away in a room with other statues and a praying location. Photographs were not permitted at this area, as it was prohibited.

But, I tried to sneak one and take a shot from a distance. However, every shot I took was a terrible one. I’m pretty sure that Buddha himself was saying “nah-ah-ah, Chris”. Tamiko pointed out that it was prohibited to take photographs, which made me feel bad because I KNEW that I shouldn’t have been doing it, but I did anyway, so I made amends by deleting the photos on my camera. I figured that to undo what I had done was my only option at this point. I felt humiliated, even though I was the only one who knew that I deliberately broke the rules. But, I tried to amend for what I did, and it’s the best I can do to make up for it, you know?

Well, anyway, we headed on out of the temple to the area that defines this temple – the freshwater springs. From high atop the mountain, a natural spring brings down fresh, cold water. Everyone gets to drink from the springs, as there’s a pipe system that brings it down to the area near the temple. The line for the water was very long, but oh was it worth it. I drank from the springs of Japan. It knocks the socks off of Fiji water, Dasani, Aquafina, and all that other junk. This was water straight from nature. And it was refreshing, and delicious. The only downside was that before I got there, one of the guards informed everyone to stop filling their water bottles with it so that the line could get through faster. A shame, really, because I would have LOVED to have that water with me all the way home. Heck, I probably would have found a way to keep it until the end of the summer and bring it back home. It was truly delicious, natural, clear, clean water.

We walked back down the road, stopping at a few locations that accepted Visa so that I could buy more gifts for everyone. We continued to walk down the path, and took a bus to central Kyoto to one last area, a Shrine. There, at the shrine I performed another prayer, executing it perfectly according to tradition, which impressed Shinichi and Tamiko! After visiting the shrine, we were treated to dinner at a Chinese restaurant.

Chinese food done by the Japanese is different than how it’s done with Americans. It’s far less greasy, far less fattening, but just as delicious and just as spicy. I had an order of pork strips with Kimchee spice sauce, with a bowl of white rice. It was a tinge spicy, but not covered in oils like American Chinese food, and it was FANTASTIC!

After dinner, we walked through some of the tight streets of Kyoto, passing by jazz clubs, traditional restaurants, gift shops, and eventually over a bridge, where musicians were playing on each side. The music was local, yet mystical. I felt like I was in another world, listening to that music. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any ATM’s nearby, so I couldn’t afford buying their cd’s :(
But during our walk, I got to experience true urban Japan: small, winding roads with businesses on both sides, electric poles covered in cables, all next to bubbling brooks with cherry blossom trees.

That night walk was one of the most beautiful things I had ever experienced in my life. This day as a whole was one of the best days of my life. I mentioned to Shane that another one of the best days of my life was the day I realized I was finally happy and comfortable in a relationship (I’ll give you one guess as to who it is and how recent it is, heh).

After the walk, we headed back home, arriving at the apartment close to midnight. I took my shower and crashed quite epically. I crashed so epically, in fact, that I lost my blanket in the middle of the night!

Kyoto is easily the most beautiful city in Japan. Easily. If I ever find a way, I would love to take Kaitlin with me to visit Kyoto (and visit the Maedas, too!). Paris can’t hold a candle to the true beauty that is Kyoto.

That’s all I have for now, adios!

Day 11

2008-07-21T03:11:00.000-07:00

Shopping in Osaka is expensive, but it is oh so worth it!

This morning, everyone woke up, and we headed off to the train station. Tamiko wouldn’t be joining us, as she was working until Noon today. We all took the train to Osaka Station, which was in the middle of the city. Outside of the station was the first mall we would be hitting up – and OH MY GOD. This mall was huge! It was at least 8 stories tall, with different types of stores to be had on each floor (for example, one floor was electronics, one floor was men’s clothing, etc.). Our first stop was the Jump Shop, an official store for Shonen Jump (anime & manga) merchandise. I picked up several presents for my friends here, and spent a good $60 on stuff. I hadn’t heard from any of my friends as to what they wanted, but I had a very good indication, so I hope they like what I got them. Plus, we’re heading back there on Wednesday, so maybe I can do an exchange or something.

Next, we headed down to the electronics floor. The first place we entered was a Gashopon section – they’re those toys that you get from machines when you put a quarter in them. Walls upon walls upon walls of gashopon machines. And sure enough, I found something for someone in there J I wandered over across the store and found the video games store. Holy freakin’ crap! There was a giant statue of Solid Snake from the Metal Gear Solid games (which I definitely took a picture of), and walls upon walls of video games for every current video game system. I didn’t buy anything, though. After all, these games are in Japanese, so I can’t read them, plus they’re about $10 more expensive than what they cost in America. So I chose to just wander the store instead.

Eventually, we made our way to another electronics shop, where I picked up an audio cable and a video camera cable for my laptop, along with a DVD of the latest One Piece movie. The cables were cheap, but the movie was $35. And this was a new release! DVD’s in America are SO much cheaper, but oh well. It’s a good buy :)

After the electronics section, we headed back outside and started walking through the main shopping areas of Osaka. I took some videos of the shopping areas, loaded with people dressed in all sorts of fashions. We stopped by a “UFO Catcher” shop, which is basically the Japanese equivalent of American claw-grab machines. The games here are fairly expensive (100 yen per try), but the games are a little bit easier. And sure enough, I won something for someone. I know they’ll like it, heh :)

We proceeded to walk up to a bridge, and met up with Tamiko. We reached the bridge, where Tamiko talked with me about how the river below was named after being a river great for fishing. We walked down by the riverside, which I also took a movie of, and walked to a theme park inside of a building. Inside the building was a theme park that was supposed to look like old Osaka, complete with some carnival games, and plenty of food.

I’ve always wanted to try Takoyaki. It’s a piece of octopus meat surrounded by bread, covered in a thick soy sauce. And I finally got to try it. It was SUPER HOT, and there were these flake-like thingies on the takoyaki that were moving! At first, I was a little weirded out, but I was told that the flakes move because of the heat. But in any case, the takoyaki was delicious! They’re about the size of a donut hole, so I ate about 6 of them. We also had some okonomiyaki (the dish I had on my first night here), and watched a man perform some sort of robotic-like dance behind us. I snagged a video of that too, heh. In fact, plenty of the things I did today I managed to get on video, so I’ll try to get it on YouTube as soon as I can.

After our lunch of takoyaki and okonomiyaki, we stood in line for a haunted house attraction. Japanese people LOVE haunted houses, so I was excited to take part in going through one. The creatures in the haunted house were very deranged-looking, some of them were just flat-out creepy. They were based on mythical Japanese monsters, and let me tell you, the Japanese are a bit more creative with their monsters than we are.

We were sent into the haunted house by groups of 3’s, so Natsumi and Shinichi and I headed on in, with me leading the group. The scares were really just about monsters appearing out of sliding doors, but they looked less than pleasant.

After the haunted house, Hiro had to leave for Cram School, so he was feeling down, but off he went anyway. We walked through some more of Osaka’s shopping district, and stopped at another electronics shop when I noticed that they were selling 2GB flash drives for $9. I walked in and bought a USB travel mouse for $5, along with the flash drive, so I’d say I got a fairly good deal.

We walked through some more of the shopping district, finding appliance shops, pottery shops, and an appliance shop where they sold these really cool scrap metal statues of Darth Vader and The Predator (both of which I got pictures of). I wanted to buy more gifts for everyone, but at this point my bag was really really full of gifts.

But as luck would have it, we stopped by a shop (I won’t say what they sold, heh) where I found more gifts for people. My bag was REALLY swelling at this point. I asked Tamiko if we could find another travel bag somewhere, but it was too late to look for one, so we headed home instead.

For supper, we were treated to spaghetti. But it was a bit different! This spaghetti had eggplant, onions, and strips of bacon instead of meatballs. And it was pretty good! I think she fried the bacon just until it was soft, so that it wasn’t crunchy or anything. And they were small strips. I think I’ll have to make it for some of you when I get home, it was really good! Tamiko and Shane and I then proceeded to discuss various recipes.

Eventually, Hiro returned from cram school, and we all sat down to watch a comedy showcase special on tv. Japanese comedy is very different from American comedy, where the Japanese tend to make fun of their language and the way you can say certain words. Osaka is the central hub of comedy in Japan, so a lot of the comedians we saw were from Osaka.

After the comedy hour, we all took showers, and eventually I got a crack at checking my e-mail, and went to bed.

Tomorrow, it’s all about Kyoto! Kyoto is one of the most ancient cities in Japan and was originally the capital of Japan! I can’t wait to see it!

Day 10

2008-07-21T03:09:00.000-07:00

Today, I slept gloriously.

Fantastically.

Epically, even.

I slept from Midnight to 11am, a well-deserved crash if you ask me.

Tamiko bid me good morning and asked me if I enjoyed my sleep. It’s customary in Japan to ask someone if they slept well. Of course, I did, heh, but Shane slept in until about Noon. When he finally got up, Tamiko suggested we ride bikes over to McDonald’s for lunch. In my mind, I was a bit hesitant. After all, I’ve seen Super Size Me, and if you haven’t seen the movie, many nutritionists say you should NEVER eat there. But, as a visitor in Japan, I decided to just roll with it.

Bike rides in Japan are what you would expect a bike ride to be, but the bikes here have a few things I have yet to see in the U.S.: 1) A bike lock that is permanently attached under the seat, that locks the back wheel. A key is needed to open the lock, and it would be especially tricky for thieves to steal that bike (unless they had a truck or something). 2) A holder for an umbrella. The sun is hot, shiny, and unrelenting, and people here use their umbrellas to shield themselves from the sun, instead of just for when it rains.

In any case, the ride to McDonald’s took about 30 minutes, as the restaurant was located next to a train station. The ride itself was very exhilarating, using all sorts of small, crazy winding paths, riding alongside the train tracks, and ringing the bike bell (you know, the ching-ching bell that no one uses in the U.S.) that informs pedestrians in front of me to be careful when I pass by. You get a good feel for Japanese culture when you ride a bike through town, because, well, that’s what they do here!

I know that if Henry is reading this right now, as soon as I mentioned McDonald’s, he’s wondering if I had the Mega Mac. And the answer is YES. The Mega Mac has 4 beef patties instead of 2 (like the regular Big Mac), and is a tinge bigger than the Mega Mac. And it is delicious! The fries weren’t drenched in fry oil and salt, and of course, the Coca-Cola was fantastic! But I’ll tell you what’s not fantastic: the price. The cost of a Mega Mac combo was about $7. And everything else in the restaurant cost quite a bit, combos and regular stuff included. However, with the price you get a bit of class. Here, the female workers wear dresses, and everyone wears the old-fashioned diamond-shaped hats. It gives you that professional, old-timey-yet-modern-classy feeling.

After McDonald’s, we headed to a teahouse in Sakai City (on bike). The teahouse itself was relocated from a previous location elsewhere in Japan, and the tea was exquisite. Walking around the teahouse, I finally saw my first bamboo tree! They look kind of odd, since I’m used to seeing coniferous trees. But anyway, Tamiko, Natsumi, Hiro, Shane, and I entered the teahouse and sat down. We were greeted by an old woman that was our server, and she served us sugar wafers, made of pure sugar, with kanji symbols written on them. It tasted like a sugar cube, but a lot sweeter. After the wafers were consumed, we each had a small bowl of green tea, and were given instructions by the server on how to properly drink from the bowl. We had to pick up the bowl with our right hand, place it in our left hand, then turn the bowl with our right hand, twice. Then, we could drink from it. And it was quite possibly, one of the best teas I’ve ever had. It was thick and a little foamy, but delicious!

After the tea house, we made our way to a park where Hiro’s friends wanted to play soccer. Tamiko and I left everyone to play soccer while we sought out some soft drinks. We looked all over the park, and not a single vending machine was in sight! Funny how those machines are just about everywhere in Japan (yes, even in the mountains!), but we couldn’t find one at a park. So we walked over to a greenhouse, walking past the park, which was full of pine trees and other various flora and fauna, and the pine trees made me think back to home. For a moment, I felt like I really wasn’t on the other side of the planet, seeing those trees. It felt like Japan really wasn’t all that different from America. But only for a moment, as reality kicked in and I realized there’s a plethora of things that makes Japan differ from the States. Too many differences, even if the pine trees make it a little bit like the same.

We found vending machines inside the greenhouse and I asked for Soniq, a clear, fruit-tasting sports drink. We bought bottles for Shane, Natsumi, and Hiro as well. Tamiko talked with me about earthquakes in Japan – I mentioned that I had slept through one back at Camp Nose, and she mentioned that earthquakes in this part of Japan are somewhat rare. I was a little disappointed to hear this, I’ve always wanted to experience an earthquake. Sure, it’s probably frightening, but to feel a power from the earth as immense as an earthquake would be absolutely mind-blowing – as if this trip wasn’t mindblowing enough! We talked about how rare earthquakes are in Wisconsin, and eventually talked about thunderstorms and tornadoes in the Midwest, and about typhoons in Japan.

In fact, there IS a typhoon nearby Japan right now! Fortunately, it’s not hitting Japan, though. It’s headed over to China.

Anyway, we finished our discussion as Shane and Hiro came back, sweating like crazy from playing soccer in the blistering sun. We all biked back to the apartment and just chilled for a few hours.

People tend to ask me if I’ve ever had sushi before. I always tell them, “Yes, but I’ve never had GOOD sushi.” My experience with sushi stems mainly from Chinese buffets, so every time I had it, I knew that I wasn’t getting the real deal. I’ve always wanted to have real, authentic Sushi, or at least as close as I could get to it. But as luck would have it, Tamiko was preparing a “roll your own sushi” night! She brought out a platter with raw salmon and squid, strips of cucumber, eggs, and crab! She also made us Miso soup. She took a seaweed strip and showed us how to properly roll sushi, then dipped it in soy sauce and took a bite. My first sushi roll was. . .not as much of a roll as it was a sloppily made burrito-kind-of-sushi-roll. But in any case, I tried it, and it was FANTASTIC! I tried the squid, the crab, and the salmon, and Tamiko eventually brought out grilled eel as well, and I tried that too (eels are a bit. . .soft), and everything was delicious.
Thanks to Tamiko, I finally had great sushi. And what better place to get it than from a Japanese mother, in her home, in Osaka, Japan? I’m sure that sushi bars here offer phenomenal sushi as well, but THIS was a Mom’s home cooking.

You can’t beat that.

After supper, we watched some tv, and Hiro treated us to a bit of Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro (2 very famous Studio Ghibli films, and if you’ve never heard of Ghibli, think like the Japanese version of Disney, but with super-high quality hand drawn animation), and we soon headed outside to the nearby park for some fireworks!

Lo and behold, Shane and I came across Ali, who was living it up with the kids and setting off sparklers. As an homage to Henry back home, I grabbed 3 sparklers, held one in my teeth, and called it San-Hanabi, or “3-Fireworks”. Shane took a picture, and while I held the sparklers in my hands, I felt something burning in my right hand. Like, REALLY BADLY. After the sparklers fizzed out I took a look at my right hand, and sure enough, I burned myself. 3 wonderfully nasty burn marks on my index finger on my right hand.

With all those kids around watching me be an idiot, well, I felt bad. After all, this is why you don’t mess around with fireworks. So I chalked this up as my first DURR moment of Japan, heh.
While we celebrated fireworks, some dingbat old man came down from his apartment, in his slippers, I might add, and told us we were being too loud and weren’t supposed to be in the park this late at night. Since all the kids were only accompanied by their mothers (no Dads around), we all headed back to our homes, since we didn’t want to raise a ruckus.

Not too long after, the man, the myth, the legend himself, Shinichi, my host father, arrived! He works as a manager at a music business called Roland Corporation, in the city of Hamamatsu. Roland Corporation makes musical instruments, they’re not as big as Yanigasawa but they work hard and do well. To travel to Osaka from Hamamatsu takes 4 hours one way, so Shinichi works and lives in Hamamatsu during the week, and comes back to Osaka on the weekends to spend time with the family. All things considered, the Maeda family is a very close family.

But more about Shinichi – he plays Bass Guitar, as I mentioned before, and he’s huge into American rock music. Looking at his cd collection, you’ll find The Eagles, The Beatles, Van Halen, Boston, Whitesnake, Kiss, Mick Jagger, Rush, and plenty of others. Shinichi used to play in a band with a group of friends, and they would pretend to be Queen. He showed us a tape of his band on a talent show, performing We Are the Champions. They did very well for being a parody band, even the guy playing Freddie Mercury was fantastic (and supposedly, that guy didn’t know how to speak English at all). After showing us the tape, Shane and I showed him pictures of our families, pictures of my Dad and I hunting turkeys and deer and of my Dad bear hunting, and pictures of Kaitlin. He also thinks Kaitlin is very cute (and after all, she is!), and we spent the rest of the evening chatting it up about our experiences in Japan.

Shinichi told us that tomorrow, we would go shopping in Osaka, and do a daylong tour of Kyoto on Sunday! HOLY FREAKING CRAP! Well, that’s all I have for now, so adios!

Day 9

2008-07-21T02:27:00.000-07:00

Today = incredible.

No other words can really describe it.

I felt an overwhelming load of different emotions. From happiness, to sadness, to excitement, to anger, to joy, I felt it all. Today was the last day for the campers at the Youth Hostel; today was the day they performed at Eigo-kai and their graduation ceremony would be held later.

I was a nervous wreck. I had no idea whether or not my students had practiced their My Story work, or their Camp Skits. The props for the skit were barely finished! A small part of me tried to reassure me that everything would be okay, but boy howdy the rest of me wasn’t buying that story. I have a tendency to worry about things, something I get from my Mom ;)

Breakfast came and went in a flash, and we were off to the gym for the start of the first part of Eigo-Kai: the students would perform their My Story skits in sets of 4 groups each. The counselors for each group were responsible for picking the 2 best performers out of each set (we pick 2 out of 24 kids). I volunteered at last night’s meeting to be the emcee (the host, as it were) for my section of Eigo-Kai (groups e, f, g, and h), and called up each student All of the kids did a really good job, although most of them referred to their counselors (myself included) for help every now and then. And that’s to be expected, because at our camp, we have 3 ground rules:

1) Smile!
2) Speak in English as often as possible
3) It’s okay to make mistakes

So asking us for help was perfectly okay :) After all the kids performed their My Stories, it was up to Ami, Ashley, Brent, and myself to pick the best ones. We picked the best two and submitted our decisions to Kelly and Keisuke.

Soon thereafter, the main part of Eigo-Kai started: All the kids were assembled to the front of the gym, and the top winners of My Story recited their stories. Afterwards, it was time to do the Camp Skit. A lot of skits were good, and some were okay, which made me feel better about my own Camp Skit. . . .after all, we didn’t practice once. Not even once, did we have our Skit practiced so that the girls knew what they were doing. All they knew were their lines and what they were wearing. The two girls that were elves had two presents that they gave to Santa: A small present box, and an umbrella. The two girls that were reindeer had antlers made of paper, and were on their hands and knees. The other two girls, that were the children whom were going to receive presents from Santa (me), were sleeping off to the side. All of their actions and positions that I just described, I had them do right on stage in front of everyone. It was SO NERVEWRACKING! But fortunately, the girls did just fine and read their lines :)

After all the skits were performed, it was time for lunch. The kitchen staff were particularly stingily about food portions for lunch, we were instructed exactly what to take and how to put it on our trays. I found that pretty weird, to be honest, but I figured that there must have been another group of people coming after we would leave the Hostel, and that food supplies were short. That’s the best explanation I can come up with. During lunch, however, Takane came up to me with a letter. It read:

(on outside) To Chris, From Takane:
(on inside) Thank You, 3 days, Takane

And it was covered in hand-drawn stars and everything! I bowed my head deep and thanked her for her gift.

After lunch, it was time for the awards ceremony! We handed out awards to the best One Minute Drill groups for Best Average (which was 40 phrases!), Highest number of phrases (44!), awards for the best My Story performers (emphasis on pronunciation and how loudly they spoke), and awards for the best Skit. Funny enough, my favorite group, Group Q, won awards in EVERY category. Even though I wasn’t assigned to help them out with any of their activities, I was extremely proud of them!

Then it was time for graduation. All of the AC’s handed out Graduation certificates to the children, and then we gave mini-speeches to the children, with Takumi translating for us. I thanked them for our time spent together, telling them they each held a special place in my heart, and that I would like to say farewell by doing various impressions (laughs, mostly). After everyone said their farewell speeches, the children’s headmaster thanked us by having the students perform “You Are My Sunshine” for us. I almost broke out in tears at that moment, the same could be said for the rest of the counselors as well.

And THEN, the waterworks came. Many of the kids were crying, some of the AC’s were crying, I felt like breaking out but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to it. It might have had something to do with the fact that very few kids came up to me, but meh. I was still sad to see them go. We walked them back to their buses, I got a hug from Mari and Takane, and one last fist bump from Mana. As they got on the buses, well, then I started to feel it. I put on my sunglasses (because you know, it’s bright out and I want to look cool), and as the bus drove off, then the waterworks came. I could barely hold my composure as the tears ran down my cheeks from my sunglasses. No one noticed (especially Steph, since she had a bet that I would have lost it real easily). Erik talked to me and tried to cheer me up as we walked back to the Hostel. I grabbed my things and went to the gym, and proceeded to pass out on the gym floor. I was drained, physically and emotionally. I was perfectly fine with passing out for a few hours, but alas, fate wouldn’t have it.
It turned out that Tamiko Maeda, my host mother, was on her way to pick us up and would arrive in 6 minutes! Shane and I grabbed our things and headed over to the lobby, where we found her already waiting! We did our formal introductions and headed off to her vehicle.
Tamiko had her vehicle (a Nissan something-or-other) parked by a grocery store. I asked if it would be alright to pick up some batteries for my camera, since the 100 yen batteries were so terrible. She said it was alright, so Shane and I headed on in, and I grabbed a set of batteries and a Fanta Grape soda. I was about to pay, but Tamiko offered to pay instead! It was incredibly nice of her, so I allowed her to pay, plus she bought ice cream for us, along with ice cream for her son Hiro, her daughter Natsumi, and Hiro’s friends! No more than 30 seconds into the vehicle and we were on our way to the Maeda household, which was in an apartment complex. On the way, we learned that the Maedas are a musical-kind of family. They love music of all kinds, from rock to classical to jazz, and Shinichi (my host father) plays Bass Guitar!

When we arrived at the Maeda residence, I took off my sandals and we were directed to our room for the next 7 days, which had a bunk bed and an air conditioner! OH HOW I LOVE THE AC HERE! It tends to be about 93 degrees outside with a 50% humidity, so it’s an absolute dream to have AC. Here in Japan, the AC units are built into the walls, with pipes leading outside. It’s like a space heater for the room, which they use in the winters (no central air or heat here, it’s all about energy conservation). The apartment is somewhat small, but still very roomy. There’s a corner couch, a widescreen tv, a room with a piano and some desks inside, and a tatami room (where the parents sleep). The bathroom is split into two parts: There’s one room that just has the toilet, and a sink built into the toilet! Yes, you heard me right: Built right into the toilet! It sits at the top of the toilet, and when you flush the toilet, the fresh water that eventually goes into the tank comes through the sink first, so you can wash your hands. When you think about it, it’s not gross in the slightest, it’s fresh water coming in and I think that’s very practical. I think it’s something we need in the States, but with my time in Japan so far, I’m starting to think that the U.S. would be better off adopting a lot of things that people do in Japan when it concerns the environment.

Anyway, the other part of the bathroom features the bathroom sink, the washer (they air-dry their clothes, no dryer here), and the actual bath. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get some pictures of the residence, as it’s a very comfy place.

After settling in, I headed off to the bedroom to grab my gifts for them. I gave them a Wisconsin picture book, a Wisconsin plush cow, and a set of chocolates shaped like Wisconsin. Takumi thanked me and was very honored by my gifts! The chocolates went straight to the freezer, and she started thumbing through the picture book. We found a picture of a turkey, so I described what a turkey was and did examples of turkey calls. She laughed and thought it was very funny, and also found it amazing that I was able to do that. I pulled out a few more voice impressions as well, and started to show her pictures of turkey hunting.

Shane and I talked with Tamiko for the next 3 hours, showing her pictures of my Dad bear hunting, my dad and I turkey hunting, as well as deer hunting. I also showed her a video of Dad driving a snowmobile, which Hiro and Natsumi also watched, and kept saying “sugoi!” (it means, “that’s amazing!”) They were especially impressed with the 550lb bear that Dad helped take down last fall! I also showed her pictures of the family, as well as Kaitlin. She said that Kaitlin is very cute (and let’s face it, she is), and thanked me for showing her all the pictures and videos of life back at home.

After all the talking was said and done (hehe, a pun!), it was time for dinner. Takumi made us tacos (which surprised me!) and okonomiyaki (think like a Japanese Hot Pocket covered with bacon, soy, and mayonnaise). Hiro wasn’t too high on the tacos, but I found them to be very comparable to the tacos back home! The Okonomiyaki was absolutely phenomenal! You know, I haven’t eaten a single thing here that I didn’t like. I also had my first taste of Mugicha (a type of tea here). It’s definitely a taste that you acquire, but it’s good!

We watched some TV after supper, while everyone took turns taking a bath. Here, in the summer, the Maedas choose to just shower instead of filling the bath, and do the bath thing in winter. During this time, I started to see more and more different kinds of Japanese tv. The commercials are especially weird, but some of the tv programs are very funny, even though I don’t understand them.

That’s about all I got for now, I took the top bunk (keeping up with tradition for this camp), and it squeaks a bit when I move, but otherwise it’s not too bad. Adios for now!

Day 8

2008-07-21T02:26:00.000-07:00

My oh my, today was a draining day for me.

No, seriously. It was just as draining as yesterday.

The morning was very rough. I woke up at 6:30, with about 7 hours of sleep, needing about 4 more hours before I could even remotely consider myself well-rested for the day. At breakfast, I downed 2 cups of Boss Coffee (Pepsi makes Boss Coffee, Coca-Cola makes Georgia Coffee, both cold coffee) and a glass of Pepsi to wake myself up. I was in charge of a different group today, Group F. I had a hard time connecting with them until I brought out some voice impressions. Doing some Goofy and Mickey really cheered them up, and then Sean busted out a spot-on Donald Duck impersonation that blew me away!

Sean’s very good at impressions. Very good, in fact. He can pull out a mean Sean Connery, a perfect Donald Duck, plus he loves shows like The Critic. If only he didn’t live in Washington, I’d have him over for Rock Band and Marvin’s in a heartbeat!

Today, we began the My Story activity. The purpose of the My Story activity is that the campers write, in English, a story about themselves. Saying things like “Hello, my name is Chris Leslie, I am 23 years old, I go to UW-Stevens Point”, and then reciting them from memory. At first, my group was confused, so for an example, I recited my own My Story to them that I completed during my orientation at Camp Nose. It went something like this:

Konnichiwa! Watashi wa Chrisu-des. Watashi-wa nizhu sansai-des.
Translation: Hello! My name is Chris. I am 23 years old.

When they saw my example, it pretty much just clicked for them. The light-bulb in their bright little minds (ooh, a pun!) went off, and away they went at writing their stories. All 6 campers in my group CONSTANTLY asked me to do proper pronunciation, proper spelling, over and over again. It was difficult trying to meet all their needs, but eventually they were met, and all the girls had a story written down. The hardest word for them to pronounce was “with”. The “th” sound doesn’t seem to be used in Japanese, as they tend to say “wis” instead of “with”. So I taught them how to say it correctly, but I will mention it later.

After My Story, we headed down to the gym for American Carnival. The purpose of the Carnival is fairly obvious, I’m sure J We put on an American-style Carnival! Complete with tattoos, balloon animals, balloon popping, cakewalk dancing, ball tosses, and other activities, the purpose of the carnival was just to have fun moreso than it was about teaching any English. The kids loved it! They kept Shane and I very very busy as they were all really good shots with darts.
At the end of the carnival, we held a raffle, with the top prize being a camp t-shirt (hmm, did I mention I have 2 official camp t-shirts? If I didn’t, well, um, I do, heh) signed by all of the counselors, along with other prizes.

Lunchtime came, and went, and it was back to the One Minute Drill. The girls I worked with progressed quite well since I last worked with them. Each time we did a 1 minute test, they remembered more and more phrases. Even Mari, who had me doing the Brook impression every time she saw me, could remember up to 20 different phrases! My best two campers remembered 22, and I believe the camper with the least phrases had 14. I memorized about 13 at my own orientation at Camp Nose, so these kids have me beaten EASILY.

After the One Minute Drill, we headed outside for a game of tag, a relay race, and a game of duck-duck goose. It was really hot, and knowing my skills as a runner, I didn’t participate too much in the games. Shane, Sean, Keisuke, Ali, Lauren, and a few other counselors took part in running with the kids. I sat on a hill along with Mee, Erik, Ashley, Justin, PK, and Steph. We were observing from the hill, and I was trying to find Kelly, as she didn’t appear to be anywhere. I asked the other AC’s about where our director was, and apparently she told someone that she “just wasn’t coming”. Huh.

After running around in the hot sun for an hour, we took the kids back inside to work on the Camp Skit. I was NOT looking forward to this. Kelly told us that this was our last time to practice the skit before we put on the performance at Eigo-kai tomorrow, so we should have it practiced down-pat and start building costumes and props. However, there was something odd about her saying that. You see, at orientation, she told us that it would not be wise to write a script for the skits on the first day of practice. We only get 2 chances to practice the skit. So, following her orders, I did not write any lines on the first day, and yet, we were supposed to magically have our skit down-pat. I didn’t write any lines for the skit up to this point. Long story short, what she said before didn’t match up with what she was saying at the moment. So, putting my game face on, I started to write up a script for the campers and write them down on notebook paper for them to work on memorizing in the evening before bed. With about 10 minutes left before the end of Camp Skit, I scrambled to get supplies so that we could create our props. Mana worked especially hard on my Santa hat, getting the shape right and everything. Mana really warmed up to some of the counselors, myself and Erik included. Erik taught her how to do a fist bump, telling her that “she was gangster”. I got her to do the fist bump with me too, it was really cute!

After Camp Skit, we had dinner, and I was in charge of my Camp Skit group through dinner, all the way to the Campfire activity outside. There, we made s’mores for the campers, which they really liked! I roasted some of the marshmallows, but they gave me really short sticks (like, maybe 10-inch sticks) to roast them on. And, I didn’t know there were gloves to put on for the roasting, so like a dingbat, I’m standing there bare-handed next to super-hot coals trying to roast my marshmallows. And of course, it didn’t work. Thankfully, the hairs on my hands are somewhat resilient and didn’t burn off. After they finished their s’mores, we did some campfire songs that Jeff knew. One of them went like this:

“Jeff, do your thing!
I can’t!
Why not?
I just can’t!
Why not?
Well, my back’s too sore, my belt’s too tight, my booty shakes from the left to the right
To the left, to the right, to the left, right, left right
Reeses Peanut Butter Cup, stick with us we’ll cheer you up!
Bang Bang, Choo Choo Train,
come on (another counselor’s name), do your thing!”

And it repeats like that until we’ve done all the counselors. I always do the Peter Griffin voice for my part (if you don’t know who he is, just imagine a baritone-level voice of a new-england man who pronounces “car” as “cahh”), and the kids ate it up. They were clapping along, singing with us for each song that we did (we also did the Bumblebee song, and the Singing in the Rain song).
Once the campfire was over, we headed back inside to continue work on My Story. I chose to use my own story as an example for my group. I brought out my notebook with my story written down, placed my hand over the parts that I wrote, and began to recite it by memory. They understood and went straight away to work on their stories. I loved watching them write down the sentences and try to memorize them. They were working so hard on their stories, and they were so EXCITED to work on their stories. They were so enthusiastic and focused that I couldn’t help but smile.

After My Story, it was bath time again. I took the opportunity to call my parents before they went to work, telling them about the kids and how I’ve never worked with kids before, and how that’s all changed. After I sent my kids to bed, I scrambled on over to the lobby and called up my grandparents. At first, Grandpa didn’t recognize my voice at all! He talked to me as if I was a foreign number or something, so I said “Do you know who this is?” and he said “No, I don’t”, so I responded, “Grandpa, this is Bud!” Then he was really excited and got Grandma on the phone as well. It was so nice to hear from them and how things were. I told them all about Japan, my thoughts on it, and how I was using Skype over the Internet to call them so that there was no 3 second delay. I couldn’t stop smiling and laughing when I was talking to them. It felt like we weren’t so far away after all, you know?

In the bath, we got a little rowdy. Keisuke jumped into the bath (literally), and told me to come on in as well. So I entered with style: a HUGE bellyflop right into the tub, which made everyone laugh and Keisuke even swore a little bit (I should explain, he has a tendency to swear when he’s tired or when he’s a bit frustrated). After that, I hammed it up, doing Macho Man elbow drops, the Hulk Hogan Leg Drop, and the People’s Elbow in the bath, and everyone (myself included) was laughing their asses off!

It’s amazing, how incredibly relaxed and comfortable I can be in the bath, so relaxed that I ham it up and do pro wrestling moves, acting like a complete goofball. But being a goofball is what camp is all about, it’s what life over here is all about: Being a goof and having fun.
That’s all I got for now, adios and good night!

Day 7

2008-07-21T02:24:00.000-07:00

Today was one hectic, crazy busy day. After the daily rojio taiso and breakfast, we all headed to the 2nd floor to Room AB for final preparations for the campers. I kept looking at the clock, getting more and more nervous as each minute passed. At 10:30, the campers arrived in the same location that we arrived at, a good 400 meters away from the hostel. We all ran to the bus as soon as we found out the campers had arrived.

And let me tell you something: That moment, when I turned the corner and saw all the kids hop off the bus with their bags, in their light blue dresses, white hats, and beaming faces with smiles everywhere, I understood exactly why I was here. I was here for these kids. I never worked with kids prior to this day. I was nervous about working with them, but I knew that I had to put my game face on and give them 120% for the next 3 days. I was nervous, but I was ready.
The girls came from Osaka Sinai Elementary School, a private Catholic school for girls. I offered to grab several bags and made the trek back to the hostel, carrying 5 bags on my back. All those times I went to Luke’s house with ½ of all my possessions really came in handy! I was cruising like a pack mule to the hostel, and the girls all said “thank you” when I took their bags.

Eventually, at the hostel all the girls were given group assignments and room assignments. I was responsible for taking group Q to their room, and eating lunch with them. Group Q, which turned out to be my favorite group in the whole camp, consisted of 5 girls: Takane, Mimi, Miki, Yuko, and Asane. Takane and Mimi were the most outspoken members of the group, and in their room we played hide-and-seek, and we had a mini-dance party in their room with my laptop. We danced to YMCA, and they were all really into it and loving it! I had Group Q PUMPED for camp in no time flat! We went down to eat lunch, and I started doing a few voice impressions for them (I did Goofy, Mickey Mouse, Peter Griffin, Darth Vader, Santa Claus, Jabba the Hutt, Chewbacca, the list goes on). They loved every minute of it!

After lunch, we all went upstairs to the 3rd floor for orientation. I brought out the laptop and showed pictures of my family and Kaitlin to the girls, and they oohed and ahhed at the pictures. They also thought Kaitlin was really cute (and let’s face it, she is). After showing them my pictures, I was summoned to the front of the room with the other counselors, and we all did introductions for ourselves. I introduced myself by slapping my big stomach and declaring “I LIKE MMMEEAAT!” All the kids laughed, the really got a kick out of that! After the introductions, we spent some time introducing ourselves personally to all the camper groups individually. I mentioned that I liked One Piece, and said some phrases from the show and did some impersonations (especially Brook), and they got a kick out of that as well! One of the girls, Mari, really likes One Piece and asked me throughout the day to do the Brooke impersonation for her. I happily obliged, because she cracked up every time she heard it.

Our first activity was the One-Minute Drill. The purpose of the activity is that the campers memorize and recite as many English phrases as they can in one minute. They didn’t quite understand at first, but as we continued the exercise, they caught on and started memorizing phrases like: “Hello! How are You? Did you sleep well? Is this your first time to Japan (they have a hard time with this one)?”. After 30 minutes of practice, we took a 5 minute break and I tried asking them how old they were. Unfortunately, they thought we were still practicing and said back to me “How old are you?” I decided to act on it and said “I’m 23 years old, how old are you?” THAT seemed to work, and they all told me how old they were. It seems that all of the kids at the camp know English, but don’t understand sentences and certain phrases very well. Bridging the gap between my English, and their knowledge of English, was very difficult, but eventually we connected.

After the One Minute Drill activity, we sent the students to their rooms, and we began prepping the 3rd floor room for My Town. Here’s how My Town works: At the door to the room, we have tables set up and an Immigration station, where campers get an “Official Passport to My Town, USA”. After receiving their passport, the students head into the room, and are free to head to any of the locations we have set up in My Town. We have a tattoo parlor, a library, a restaurant, a jail, an optometrist, and a doctor’s office (which Erik, Sean, and I are responsible for running). At each of these locations, we teach the campers phrases to say when they are at the location (for example, at the Doctor’s Office they would say to the doctor that “My head hurts”, or “I don’t feel good today”). After saying these phrases, we treat them to something pertaining to the location (a tattoo at the tattoo parlor, fake food at the restaurant, and toilet paper bandages at the doctor’s office, complete with candy). Every now and then, Matt and Brent (who were the sherriffs of My Town) would arrest a student, pick them up, and take them to the jail. Sometimes the kids tried running away, and Matt & Brent shot them with their squirt guns. Sean and I would pick out random girls and say “OH NO! I think this person’s dying!” Then we would grab a table with wheels (pretending to be a gurney, complete with “Huphuphuphuphuphup sound effects from Sean and I”), and roll the patient to the doctor’s office. Then we would pretend to use a defibulator and “shock” the camper back to life (we shook them a little, they giggled every time), then we’d give them a Tootsie Roll pop. Everyone got a kick out of Sean and I grabbing random kids! Some of them would scream and try to run away while the other campers laughed, but no one cried or anything, it was all good times.

After My Town, we headed down to the second floor, and we put on our movie for the kids. They loved it! They laughed at Jeff goofing up like a maniac, they laughed at my Peter Griffin laugh, they laughed at Sean riding on Jeff’s back, they laughed watching us all get defeated by Jeff at the end of the movie, GOD they just laughed at everything! They loved it. They really freaking loved it.

After the movie, we headed down to the café for dinner, and then headed back up to the 3rd floor for Camp Skit. The purpose of this activity, is that I help the students create a short skit, based on any subject, and performed in English in front of the entire camp at Eigo-Kai (the name for the huge ceremony we hold at the end of the 3-day camp session). The group I worked with, consisting of Kanae, Namiki, Nanami, Mana (a girl with a pacemaker), and two other girls, were especially difficult to work with. We decided to do a skit about how Santa delivers presents to children on Christmas Eve. It took 40 minutes for them to decide what parts they wanted to play in the skit. I played Santa, and we had 2 Elves, 2 Reindeer, and 2 Children (who would receive the presents). We had almost every part picked out, but Mana insisted on being a reindeer, and that caused problems for everyone. I was surprised by this, because I thought the culture taught children to endure things even if they didn’t like it. Well, this wasn’t the case for Mana. Eventually, the parts were decided over a game of rock-paper-scissors, and Mana won the role of being a reindeer. I was a bit frustrated that the majority of our time was spent picking out roles, and the girls really didn’t know how to speak English, which made things especially hard. I was getting mad at Mana, but then she noticed the Straw Hat Pirate logo on my nametag, and started to say “One Piece! One Piece!” I mentioned some names of the Straw Hat Pirates and she talked back to me about them. So after being a brat for 90 minutes, she finally warmed up to me.

Let me be honest: My patience can endure for about 60 minutes before I start to lose it. Somehow, I endured for 90 minutes. And then Mana warming up to me made it all worth it J
After Camp Skit, we headed to the gym and did the Dance Party! We were going to rock out to the cd playlist I made (which also included “Never Gonna Give You Up”, by Rick Astley, heh), but the cd didn’t work, so we used another Dance Party cd, and danced like crazy to the Cha Cha Slide, YMCA, Feel Good Inc, Dragosta Din Tei (the numa numa song), and other songs too. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a great time dancing! EVER! The kids were clapping to the beat, and we were stomping our feet, singing to the songs, trying out different dance moves, and overall just having a PHENOMENAL time! By the end of the dance party, my shins were aching (I had shin splints), I was out of breath, and overall just beat. From the gym, we directed groups to go to the bath areas. After I sent my group to the bath, I called up Mom & Dad real quick to let them know how things were going. Mom had already been dropped off by Dad (they carpool), so I talked with Dad for 15 minutes before my group came back from the bath. Then, I took my group upstairs to their room, and told them they had to be asleep by 10:00pm. They understood, and I left them to do some web browsing and chill with the other counselors.
At 10:30, we had our AC meeting with Kelly, and it lasted until 11:30. To be honest, I don’t remember much of the meeting, as I was laying on the floor in a daze.
I went to bed at 11:40, and literally CRASHED. Those kids took all 120% that I had to give and left me wiped out. But it was worth it.

It was definitely worth it :)

Day 6

2008-07-21T02:20:00.000-07:00

Hello! It’s been many days since I last wrote in my journal, about a week to be exact. It’s Monday now, and I’m sitting at the kitchen table with Shane at the Maeda residence in Osaka. The first round of campers have come and gone, and now Shane and I are currently enjoying life with our host family.

Well, I suppose I should begin with last Monday. Monday was our last day of orientation at Camp Nose before we headed off to the hostel to prepare for the first group of campers. We finished our prepwork for My Town, completing all the props we would use for it (don’t worry, I’ll explain that very soon). After lunch, we packed our things, and I said farewell to Cabin #8, the cabin that served as my home for 5 days. I tried taking pictures of the cabin, along with pictures of the rest of the camp, but the batteries I bought from the 100 yen store only let me take about 5 pictures at a time (and that’s if I was lucky), so it’s safe to say that I’m never buying batteries from a 100 yen store again. I guess I should have seen it coming, right?

Anyway, we packed up the bus, and we all bowed and thanked the camp staff for making our food, teaching us how to use kayaks, and allowing us to use their facility. We hopped into the bus, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief: the bus had air conditioning! For 5 straight days, we endured the heat, the humidity, and the small temperature changes at night. Air Conditioning, for us, was like “living the high life”, heh :)

For an hour and a half, we rode down the mountain back into Osaka. For the first time in days, I listened to music on my MacBook. I rocked out to Coheed & Cambria, The Pillows, some tracks from Rock Band, Paramore, and Death Cab for Cutie. And by “rocked out”, I was lip synching the words, shaking my head, moving around, all that business. It didn’t matter to me that other counselors could have thought I was weird, I was letting loose and it felt damn good. A lot of people took pictures of Osaka city, I decided not to try to rely on my cheap AA batteries and just enjoyed the scenery along with my music.

We finally arrived near the Osaka International Youth Hostel around 4:00pm. Well, by near I probably mean really, really, REALLY far away, at least 400 meters. We spent a good 20 minutes dragging our luggage and our supply boxes trying to find the right way to the Hostel. The Youth Hostel is right next to a park, and the way the park was designed, roads and parking lots and such are very far away from the park. So after the delightful air conditioned ride on the bus, we wandered in the nasty, humid heat trying to find the Hostel. Eventually, we did find the right way to the hostel, and let me tell you: I’ve never been to a hostel before, and it felt like a freakin’ hotel. Everyone told me that this was the fanciest hostel they had ever seen, so I guess hostels usually don’t look like a 2-3 star hotel like this place did.

The first thing we found out upon entering the hostel was that we had wireless Internet! And it was free! As soon as I found out, I planned on posting my journal entries to my blog, and I planned on calling my parents and Kaitlin that night. Yusuke gave us our room keys, and I was sent to room 315, rooming with Brent, Jeff, Matt, Takumi, and Yusuke. I dropped off my bags and took the top bunk above Matt, near the air conditioner. After unpacking and all that jazz, we headed over to Room AB on the 2nd floor for prep work for American Carnival. Yesterday, I had volunteered to be responsible for Balloon Pop (we set up a wall of balloons), along with Shane. While working on prepwork for the Balloon Pop game, I created a playlist on my laptop for the Dance Party that was happening tomorrow night. I bought some songs that I didn’t have, like the Cha Cha Slide, the Electric Slide, and downloaded songs like The Tootsie Roll and the Chicken Dance. These songs didn’t exactly fit in with my iTunes collection of rock/indie/progressive/jazz/classical music, but hey, it’s for the kids, so it’s all good.

Around 7:30 or so, I called up my parents. It felt SO GOOD to hear their voices again! I talked with Mom and Dad about my time in Japan thus far and shared some stories with them (including the bathroom crickets at Camp Nose). When I think about my parents, I think about how much I miss them, my grandparents, my sister, Kaitlin, my friends, and the rest of my family back home. I get bouts of homesickness every now and then, I guess it’s inavoidable.
After working on Balloon Pop, Sean had organized a skit for My Town that we would be putting on for the kids tomorrow. He wrote the script for a movie that we called “USA Ninja School”. Steph, Lauren, Matt, Jeff and myself were the ninjas in training, and Sean was the Ninja Instructor. Basically, everyone but Jeff is a good ninja, and every time we do ninja moves, Jeff does the wrong move, and we make fun of him. Then Jeff trains to be a better ninja and defeats all the ninjas at the final exam. Hopefully, we’ll get a video of the movie posted soon.
At 9:00, we all headed down to the hostel bath area. The bath area was much bigger than the one at Camp Nose, with plenty of showers and a huge pool-like bath. It wasn’t as extravagant as the one at the hotel, but it was pretty nice.

After the bath, I surprised Kaitlin with a phone call! I bought credits on Skype so that I can use the Internet to call home phones and cell phones, unlimited, for about $7 a month. She was so surprised to hear my voice, and it was so soothing and delightful to hear hers. I told her all about my travels, and how everyone thinks she’s really cute (because let’s face it, she is), and that I missed her and all that lovey dovey stuff. I know, we’re disgusting sometimes, but I love every minute of it. I miss Kaitlin something fierce L and I can’t wait to hold her in my arms again!
After talking to Kaitlin, I lent my laptop out to other people to use Skype to call home. . .I went to bed and left the responsibility of my laptop to Erik, who returned it to my room later that night. Everyone offered to give me money for calling home, but I refused. There’s no way I could divide the monthly charge amongst 17 people and be reasonable about it. I’m not down with that, so I’m fine with lending it out. When I’m loaded with cash, I tend to not worry about that sort of thing.

There’s not much more to say about Monday. . .we all felt really nervous about the campers coming the next morning. Finally, the real reason why we were all here was going to be here in less than 12 hours!

Adios for now!

Too Tired

2008-07-15T07:03:00.000-07:00

Kids wore me out today. We're in a meeting, it's 11:03pm and we're getting up at 6:30am. Wtf.

I'll be sure to write out everything that's happened. It was amazing and I had the time of my life. Expect updates probably around Thursday morning (morning for you, evening for me).

Adios till then,

A very tired Chris

Day 5 Journal Entry

2008-07-14T02:16:00.000-07:00

Today, we got the opportunity to sleep in a bit later than usual. I woke up at 7:20 instead of 6:30, and yet I still felt tired. I’m betting it had something to do with the fact that everyone kept me up until about 11-11:30 last night, bullshitting and killing bugs. I do remember Keisuke scaring the hell out of me when he tried apologizing for causing such a disturbance. It was funny, but it’s all good. Erik was snoring something fierce last night. Seriously! I’ve never heard someone snore as hard as he does. It was getting so bad that he woke himself up from snoring. In any case, I got up, and we ate breakfast, and did the dialing Rojo Taiso, and practicing the Camp Song. We’re getting pretty good at the camp song! Then, we packed our things and got ready to take the bus down to the main part of the city of Osaka! The bus had air conditioning, a luxury that we haven’t felt in DAYS. Needless to say, it was pretty nice compared to the mad humidity we’ve had this entire time. The days are terrible for humidity, but the nights are cool and drier, so it makes for wonderful sleeping. Anyway, the bus ride to Osaka was a nice fun ride, I took plenty of pictures of the countryside.

When we were around the edge of Osaka, I found out that we were actually taking a train into the heart of the city! My first train ride in Japan, I was very much looking forward to it! Yusuke gave me my train ticket, and I had to insert it into an odd device that worked like a card insertion kind of thing, and spit my ticket out at the end of the device. Eventually, we made our way onto the trains, and we were off! Riding the train into town was a pretty fun experience, the cars are connected yet they wobble a bit when the front car changes directions a little bit.
As I write this, I find it hard to dump my thoughts. It’s so hard taking it all in when there’s so many things going on at once. All the things we’re being introduced to everyday that’s part of the culture is pretty much an overload.

After we got off the train, I passed by a Takoyaki stand, but I missed my opportunity to get some. It has eluded me for now.

We eventually split, and I wandered around with Brent and Takumi. We found a bookstore, where I bought One Piece Volume 50, and the 3rd ColorWalk book (it’s a book featuring all of the 2-page spreads that Oda drew from 2001-2003). We wandered around a bit more, and found various fish and meat markets, bakeries, specialty stores, clothing shops, 100 yen stores, and restaurants. We met up with Kelly and Jeff, and we collectively walked up to a sweets café where Yusuke was eating dessert. We chatted for a bit with Yusuke, then Kelly and Jeff and I split off and headed to a local grocery. There, I talked with Jeff about how this whole experience is such an overload to the system, and Kelly commented that she enjoyed traveling with us because of the fact that this was our first time in Japan. We wandered throughout the entire supermarket (finding an abysmally small corner of a section dedicated to cheeses), marveling at the live crab stuck in ice, the giant red herrings, the many types of milk, bread, eggs, just EVERYTHING was a complete amazing overload of their culture. It’s so crazy, thinking about how these foods are the foods that they buy, and how different they are (from the taste to the texture to the packaging of the box) compared to American food we get from our supermarkets.
Anyway, we then headed outside, and found a pachinko parlor. We stayed for about 2 minutes, as it was really freaking loud in the parlor. I’m not sure why it was so loud, but meh, it was, so we left. We found some people had REALLY been collecting the little steel marbles for pachinko.

Next door (if not nearby), we found an arcade! The first game Jeff and I played was a round of Mario Kart Arcade GP 2 (unreleased in the United States, as the first one was the only one that made it to the States, and only in a few places), then we played a round of Guitar Freaks (Konami’s answer to Guitar Hero and Rock Band), which was pretty good except for the fact that you HAD to play the notes perfectly or you missed. I played the opening theme to Death Note (the first one, not the infinitely awesome second one), and a couple other songs, and then we headed out to a 100 yen store. Eventually, we headed back to the main station area at 1:00, and just about everyone left for karaoke. I was a bit upset, because I wanted to do karaoke, but I also wanted to get a new digital camera since mine broke, and there was the fact that I hadn’t eaten lunch yet (though everyone else except Kelly and Jeff did). PK, Mee, Ami, and Ayumi weren’t too high on doing karaoke, so the 5 of us went off and did our own thing. We went to another 100 yen store, and Mee found out what was wrong with my camera! It simply needed new batteries. After thinking it was completely broken and unusable, constantly trying to get something to turn on, I had never thought of replacing the batteries. I felt like crying, I was so happy about it! I gave Mee a hug because she was awesome and deserved it as a sign of my thanks for “fixing” my camera. Later, I made sure to buy about 16 AA batteries so that I wouldn’t have to worry about running out.

Then, we headed off to an anime store that was a bit of a ways away from the mall. I’ve never seen so much merchandise for anime! I found stuff for One Piece, Bleach, Naruto, Death Note, and other anime I’ve heard of (and seen) like Gurren Lagann. I eventually picked up a One Piece cd, which featured the whole pirate gang along with the new member Franky, and a song of his on it as well. Today was really a day just to get stuff for myself, as I’d much rather get gifts for everyone later on in the summer when I don’t have to spend the majority of my time lugging the gifts around in an already tight set of luggage. Eventually, the group split up into just myself, Ayumi, and Mee. Ayumi was being particularly awesome today as she did a lot of translating for me when Japanese clerks asked me questions, and when I wanted to ask them questions (on a side note, thanks to her I found out that the 9th movie of One Piece came out, but that it was sold out), so she was especially kind to me in helping me out today. Ayumi and Mee were pretty much my heroes today.

Oh! I found Internet! There’s actually Internet to be found in Osaka! In the middle of one of the malls, I found a small hotspot where I was able to connect to a router (which was just named by its MAC Address), and got to check my e-mail. I can’t believe my mom is sending me daily e-mails! It’s so nice of her. Also, I got a video from Kaitlin and I just about cried. Everyone thinks that she’s really cute, and Lauren told me that she was jealous that I have a great person like Kaitlin who makes videos for me and e-mails me and such. Being on the Internet, however, really made me homesick.

I’ve been able to avoid the homesickness for the most part, but once I found a way to communicate on the Internet again, boy howdy did I really feel it. I’m trying to be positive about it all, though. I’m in Japan and I’m trying not to focus on missing my friends, my family, and my Kaitlin, though I do miss them all something fierce ☹

Around 4:30, we headed back to camp, and for supper we were treated to an American-esque dinner! We were treated to whole chickens (divided up of course), carrots, potatoes, pork wrapped in bacon, a bowl of rice, and a bowl of Japanese ramen. The ramen tasted like of like Mrs. Grass soup, except really cranked up in taste. We thanked the camp staff that worked on making that food all day, as I guess it was made in pots that were buried in hot coals.
Then, we focused on a list of party songs for our Dance Parties that will take place during camp. Kelly asked me to find a bunch of songs in my iTunes collection that would be appropriate, and I found about 34 (out of 10,000, heh). Then I took a bath, and here I find myself, at 10:24PM, writing away at my journal.

Out of everyone here, I really wish I could talk more with Vy, Lauren, and Ali. They’re the 3 people I really don’t get to talk to, and I’ve heard they’re good people. Hopefully opportunities will present themselves and we’ll get to chat it up.

That’s about all I have for tonight, it’s time for me to be getting to bed. Everyone except myself, Erik, Ami, Ashley, and possibly some other people aren’t at the gazebo, where a bunch of drinking is going on, and they’re quite rowdy, heh. Adios for now!

Day 4 Journal Entry

2008-07-14T02:15:00.000-07:00

Today was the first time during this entire trip that I felt homesick. Last night I dreamt of home, and doing things with my friends at my apartment. Waking up this morning felt particularly weird once I realized that home was but a distant memory, existing on the other side of the Pacific Ocean, two time zones from being halfway around the world.

Even though we’re given an hour before breakfast to clean up and get ready for the day, I chose to shave and get myself cleaned up before we did the daily Roger Taiso. As everyone sat in the lodge, I noticed that everyone (including myself) was really hot, so I took a few Japanese-style fans (these were usually for making fires hotter, as there was a fireplace in the lodge), and started waving them around certain groups. Everyone was appreciative, and I thought nothing of it because really, it’s freaking hot and every little bit helps. Kelly joked that we should start up a “Fan Committee” featuring myself, compared to the other committees in this camp (others handle campfire safety, overall positive attitudes, etc). Breakfast was good as usual, scrambled eggs with weiners that tasted a LOT like keilbasa, but in smaller sausage-type links, soup, and rice. After breakfast, we moved our equipment up to the big central lodge at Camp Nose. I have no idea how higher up this lodge was compared to the one we’ve been staying at, but good freakin’ god I’ve never climbed such a nasty steep incline in my life. The hills on Aunt Bernice’s farmland were nothing like this. Just constant, steep incline. Fortunately, the lodge we were moving to had plenty of electrical fans! I brought my laptop with me and sat next to a fan to cool off. We spent a couple of hours creating the My Town stations that we’ll be commandeering during the My Town portion of the camp. Basically, the children get a “passport” to enter the American city of My Town, USA, and get to check out various places like the Doctor’s Office, the Restaurant, the Dance Studio, etc. While at these places, the children learn to say phrases relating to the place that they are currently visiting. Erik and I are in charge of the Doctor’s Office, so we’ll be hamming it up with “diagnoses” and freaking out over random kids, saying things like “I think this person’s dying! Quick, get them on the gurney!” and doing fake CPR and stuff like that. Fortunately, malpractice is legal in My Town, USA (that should illicit a few “DOH, HO HO HO”’s from some folks back at home).

After finishing up prep work for My Town, we walked back down to the old lodge for lunch, which was going to be Yakisoba. This was done over a grill (with a large metal-like pan-skillet-what-have-ya-kinda-thing), and Keisuke began cooking squid on the grill. After that, he added cabbage slices, and then many packages of ramen-type noodles, topped off with a seasoning. During the entire process, Keisuke was sweating bullets! It was freaking hot and he was giving it his all, so I offered to switch out and do the cooking, but he refused, so I did the next best thing: I took a fan and tried my best to cool him off. He appreciated it, and continued cooking. The Yakisoba was DELICIOUS! It was by far one of the best things I’ve had during my time here in Japan the past few days. Unfortunately, it was still really freakin’ hot, and we had to walk all the way back up from our cabins to the new lodge. I just about died, heh, but I just kept pushing and eventually made it. After we arrived, Yusuke gave us all more detailed Homestay information. It turns out that Shane is going to be living with me when I’m with the Maeda family! Shane is cool people and I enjoy talking to him when I get the chance, so we should have a good time with the Maedas. It also makes me feel better about the whole homestay thing, since he’s done it before so I won’t be so nervous in doing this.

For the next couple of hours, we chose not to do prep work for the Carnival, since we were way ahead of schedule and had plenty of time to do prep work before the first group came. Speaking of the first group, I’ve found out that it’s 90 kids, all girls. I can’t wait to work with them, mainly because it’ll be tougher getting to bond with the girls since I’m not the same gender (or at least that’s how I think it’ll play out). So anyway, we chose to just chill and find other random things to do (like practicing campfire songs) until 3:00. At 3, we headed up (EVEN FURTHER UP THIS DAMN MOUNTAIN RANGE, GAHARHRHHAHRHGH) to a lake for KAYAKING!!!!! I’ve never done kayaking before! We had an instructor show us how to use the kayaks. . .in Japanese. Fortunately it was very easy to follow, and soon enough we were all in the water. Well, except me at first. I was too big for the green kayaks they had set out, so the instructor told me to go get a red one. However, after I dragged out a red one, Keisuke kept telling me that they were for two people, not one, and it took Ayumi to make him realize that I HAD to use it for myself. It was just a misunderstanding. But anyway, I was in the water soon and I had the paddling down. Steering, however, was a real pain. I kept turning to the left, and when I tried to stop, the kayak would almost flip over in that direction! I made my way over to the other side of the lake, which was very clean, by the way! I could see the bottom, well only for a few meters into the lake, because the dropoff for the 6 meter deep lake was very sudden. It kind of reminded me of Lake Superior, though it wasn’t that steep. During the kayaking, I chilled with Ashley, Takumi, Kelly, and Shane, and it was good times abound. However, starting with Justin, people started falling out of their kayaks. Some people were doing it by accident, others on purpose. Even I fell in after a bad attempt to control my steering. However, the water felt great (even if we weren’t really supposed to be swimming in it). I fell in twice, and eventually put my kayak away and chose to take a swim in the lake myself. Watching people flip each other over in kayaks and canoes, swimming around, goofing off so much, well to be honest, I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. It was a great experience and everyone agreed that we needed that as a group.

After kayaking, we headed back to the lodge, I grabbed my things in my bag (although I couldn’t hold it the way I had before, since I was soaking wet from falling in), and we headed back to the old lodge for some supper. I got the chance to show the rough cut of Microcosm to Erik, Shane, Mee, PK, Sean, and other folks for a bit, but right as Alex gets introduced in the film, supper was ready, so we had to hold off on finishing the film. Everyone seems to like it, and some people were asking me to keep them updated on the official premieres and having it on Facebook and such. After supper, we started up a campfire, and made smores. The Japanese way to start a campfire is crazy complicated. They build it like a log cabin, then surround it with an octagon of wood. It definitely gets the job done, though.

As I’m typing this, I’m becoming more and more tired. The kayaking really wore me out! Well, to sum up what happened tonight, some Japanese kids came by the campfire, and we put on a show for them by doing some campfire songs, as well as our Camp Song. They responded in kind by singing some English-training songs, and a few Japanese songs as well. Those kids were so adorably freaking cute that they almost made Jeff cry with how amazed he was by them. Japanese kids are so different from American kids in how they speak, how excited (but not hyperactive) they get, and how enthusiastic they get about things. It’s another thing about the Japanese culture that wowed me and makes me really look forward to camp!

After the kids performed their show, Ami and I shared thoughts about the orientation and I listened to her thoughts on how everything’s been playing out. Eventually, Jeff and Ashley joined us, so we had to cut our conversation short. I agreed with her a lot on how she felt about everything and I’m really hoping that this team shows what it’s made of once we do the first group of kids.

After talking with Ami, I chose to head back to my cabin to start typing up my journal entry, but lo and behold, Ami came to my cabin, asking me to kill one of those blasted bathroom cricket beetle things. Armed with Off Spray, I coaxed the bastard out of his hiding place above Ami’s bed, which caused Ashley to scream so loud I got distracted (heh), and eventually, gave that cricket a good smack against the wall, and took him outside.

It’s 10:13 right now, it’s early but I’m freakin’ tired, plus tomorrow we have a day to spend in Osaka! Hopefully I can get a new digital camera, and maybe some souvenir gifts or something (I’m not sure if I want to be holding gifts this early, but we’ll see).
That’s all I got for now, so adios and have a good night!

Day 3 Journal Entry

2008-07-14T02:14:00.000-07:00

Today has been a day of mixed feelings, if you ask me. Last night was my first night here at Camp Nose, and I found great difficulty in sleeping on one of the top bunks in Cabin #8. Since we’re out in the middle of the woods in the mountain ranges, next to a road that connects Osaka and Kyoto, there’s bugs and animals everywhere. I tend to freak out about bugs crawling on me when I’m sleeping, whether I’m worried they might bite me, or crawl into my mouth when I’m snoring or something, either way I’m not a huge fan of it. So as expected, I woke up several times last night thinking there was a spider dangling from the ceiling above my forehead. I would freak out and grab my flashlight, unfortunately waking up people like Takumi because of my antics. I kept waking up randomly until about 5:30, when someone woke up and started talking with other people. It was a bit irritating since we didn’t have to wake up until 6:30, but dozing off when you’re half asleep is fairly easy. Apparently, there was an earthquake last night! It woke a few people up, but despite all the times I woke up, I slept right through the earthquake.
As we made our way to the lodge, we started the morning by doing (and this is probably the wrong spelling for it) the roger taiso. It’s essentially a morning exercise that a lot of people do in Japan to get the blood going, and to stretch the muscles for the day. Kelly plays a song on her iPod that features a Japanese man dictating us (along to music) on what stretches we should be doing. I’m starting to like it, I’m thinking I might ask her where I can get an mp3 of it to keep it up once I head back home.

After the morning taiso, we finished our work on the Camp Song! Ashley and I are excited that the song we worked on with Erik, Keisuke, and Mee was picked as the dominant part of the Camp Song. We also used a part of the Shout! Song, but to explain it better, I’ll just type out the lyrics to it:

Team 4 USA Summer Camp 2008 Official Camp Song

Welcome to our summer camp,
We got fun and games.
We got everything you want,
English is our game.
We are the AC’s and the JC’s,
Welcome to our team.
Now let us hear everything you’ve got,
Let us hear you scream!

*Jeff interrupts* Now waiiiiiiiit a minute!

You know you make me wanna SHOUT!
Speak some English and SHOUT!
Learn some new words and SHOUT!
Have a good time and SHOUT!
Learn some vowels and SHOUT!

Girls: AaaaaaaaaAAAAaaa
Guys: AaaaaaaaaAAAAaaa
Girls: EeeeeeeeeEEEEeee
Guys: EeeeeeeeeEEEEeee
Girls: OooooooooOOOoooah!
Guys: OooooooooOOOoooah!
Girls: UuuuuuuuuuUUUuuu!
Guys: UuuuuuuuuuuUUUuu!

A little bit softer now, a little bit softer now, a little bit softer now, a little bit softer now, a little bit softer now, a little bit louder now, A Little Bit Louder Now, A Little Bit Louder Now, A LITTLE BIT LOUDER NOW, A LITTLE BIT LOUDER NOW!

You know you make me want to SHOUT!!

After breakfast (which consisted of Scrambled Eggs & Corn, Bacon, some sort of Soup, Lettuce, Tomatoes, and Bread slices with peanut butter. I was the first person to realize that we could make BLT’s with what we had, so people jumped on that opportunity :D

After breakfast, we performed the song for Guy Healy and T-Cash, they both liked it a lot! It’s a lot of fun getting hyped up for this summer camp with just the Camp Song. After performing it for Guy, we began orientation, where we talked about some aspects of the upcoming camp sessions. From the sound of things, we’re going to be doing a lot of trivia-type stuff, word repetitions, and acting out phrases. The phrase-acting will probably be my favorite activity we’ll be doing in this part of camp. For example, one of the papers you’ll get will say something like “Crying: I can’t take this anymore!” I asked Kelly and Guy if going over-the-top in the acting phrases was a good idea, and they agreed, because if I show over-the-top enthusiasm towards the material, I will get at least half of what I’m giving out. So that was pretty cool in getting to know that!

Eventually, we moved onto lunch, which was a rice bowl with beef strips, some sort of noodles that I HAVE to find out what they are, a bowl of soup, and more strips of lettuce. Erik and I took a bowl, filled it with soy sauce, and dipped the lettuce strips in the soy and ate them. That really freaked out Takumi! It was funny in that regard, but I’m very positive that I was DEFINITELY NOT supposed to be using the soy sauce like that. But this is a learning experience, so that’ll happen.

There’s one western-style toilet in the entire camp. It’s in a building different from the lodge, and yesterday I found a freaky looking giant beetle-type cricket bug with HUGE antennae hopping around in the bathroom. So today, deciding that I was tired of trying to get used to the art of squatting, decided to battle the beetle for rights to the bathroom. Brent went along with me and watched me as I threw my shoes at the beetle. It was hiding right next to the western toilet! Eventually, after enough shoe throwing, I coaxed it out into the open more, and slammed on it with my shoe, killing it and winning the battle. It stunk something fierce for a minute or so, and Brent recorded a movie of my victory. Takumi told me that these bugs tend to live in bathrooms and bath houses, so I should expect them.

The first part of the afternoon began the downfall of the connectivity that we had as a group from the first day. Kelly had a really hard time controlling everyone and I noticed that she wasn’t using the two-fingers-raised method to quiet everyone down. Erik and I pointed out that it really felt like everyone was getting off track and not focusing anymore. Eventually, we were let out for a few hours of break before supper, so Erik and I headed back to the cabin and chose to sleep it out. Jet Lag had finally defeated me, as I crashed pretty hard, but considering that I hadn’t had any caffeine that day, it makes sense that I was tired around midday. After we woke up around 5:30-ish, we headed back to the lodge to see that grills were out and that supper was being made. Kelly pointed out that we had something going on at 5:00, but since it really didn’t happen that there was nothing to worry about??? I guess that if we do miss stuff in the future, that people will get punished by having to do pushups and such. I know my crash was very situational, so I’m not worried too much about it happening again.

Supper was amazing! Takumi, Ali, Keisuke, and Ayumi grilled strips of meat, slices of potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, corn, and other vegetables, all served on top of a bowl of rice. It was very delicious! You know, I think I’m starting to get used to eating with chopsticks. Sometimes, I wish I had a fork for scooping up the rice, but I can handle eating just about anything else with chopsticks. After the main course, Ayumi gave everyone cups of yogurt, which were also quite delicious! It was the best plain-tasting yogurt I’ve ever had. Erik’s told me that the Coca-Cola here is also quite delicious. I’m wondering how is it that America blows in making such good tasting food and drinks.

After supper, we spent the rest of the night working on nametags for the upcoming campers (96 kids are coming!), awards, and our banner. I spent a lot of my time cutting paper and getting to know Ashley, Matt, and Takumi. Ashley is from Alaska, she’s into a lot of indie bands that I haven’t heard of, but she likes Death Cab, and enjoys trap shooting. Matt served in the Military for 7 years, and has gone on sniping missions. Takumi’s huge on American music, especially older bands like Deep Purple and The Eagle’s. As we cleaned up in the evening, I noticed some lizards outside clinging to the walls. Ayumi told me that their names (which I have unfortunately forgotten) stand for “building guardians”, so I thought that was really awesome!
Unfortunatly, I don’t have a lot of pictures of what’s happened today. My camera broke! I dropped it less than 1 foot onto the concrete floor and now the damn thing won’t turn on ☹ Thankfully, Erik and Phil have offered their cameras to me since they’re not using theirs, and Takumi told me that he knows places in town where we can get a new digital camera for cheap. So on the bright side, I have options. However, once I get back to the states I’m getting that camera taken care of. I knew that cameras were very fragile equipment, but less than 1 foot? Seriously? Meh.

Around 9:00, I headed into the bath, by myself. I looked down by the wall, and lo and behold, another demonic beetle cricket thing. It was definitely time for another epic battle. I cranked the hot water on the shower nozzle to the maximum, and that water was blazing hot, we’re talking like scalding-close-to-boiling-point water and gave that beetle all he could handle. However, he didn’t move. Didn’t react. Nothing. I was more or less confused. So I just washed him down the drain and took my bath. I am in dire need of a real towel, since I forgot to pack one, I’ve been using the purple handkerchief my mother gave me. It works, though it’d be nice to have something a bit larger (or thicker, even).
On a side note, I decided to give these eastern toilets another go. I realized that it’s a lot easier to squat if you take off your shorts, and it’s easier to go if you keep flushing (thus to avoid nasty smells).

So now I’m here again on the top bunk, feeling much more comfortable than I did last night, and I’m starting to get used to this place. You know, it’s still a bit of a shocker thinking that I’m in Osaka, Japan, when some aspects of this place remind me of home. I remember telling Luke a few months ago that I wanted to go to a place where the trees I would see were different, the people and the buildings were normal to them and not foreign, to see what other people saw as the norm. It’s still quite baffling to see trees and not recognize what types of trees they are, seeing animals and bugs that are odd-looking, and not seeing any mosquitoes around, but I’m adapting.

That’s about all I got for now, and it’s a good time to go to sleep. It’s 10:34 and I have to get up in under 8 hours. Adios for now!

Day 2 Journal Entry

2008-07-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

It’s 10:06PM here in Osaka, Japan, at the Nose Camp way up in the mountains. It’s 8 in the morning for you folks back home, but let me tell you, the past 24 hours have been nothing but amazing. Let me put it bluntly:

I’ve faced the entire city of Osaka butt naked.

Yep.

Butt freaking naked.

After we arrived at the Osaka airport, I went through Immigrations and Customs and had little to no problem getting through. The people working there were friendly and understanding. As I made my way to the terminal, I became acquainted with Ami, Mee, Erik, Jeff, and Brent. These folks are quite interesting! Ami is very reserved and somewhat conservative, but is a joy to speak with. Mee has done the Summer Camp thing before, and I get along with her well. Erik is an interesting character to say the least, very opinionated and a bit crazy at times, but I can pick up a conversation with him anytime. Brent is a bit reserved, but knows quite a bit of Japanese and converses well with people that speak the language. Beginning at the terminal, I was astounded by everything around me. Everything was written in Kanji. People around me spoke fluent Japanese. It was finally kicking in and making me realize that I was in Japan, I was REALLY in another country, in another part of the world, in another city in another culture that I had never experienced before.

We were greeted by a lady in red with a “Guy Healy” banner, welcoming us to the country and to the area. Our coordinator for the camp program, Kelly, is a really sweet lady that I met on the flight over. Her and Keisuke (who I consider the Japanese version of Charlie, since he looks so freakin’ much like Charlie, down to the clothes style and the haircut, heh) took us to a local convenience store in the mall to get something to eat, since the hotel we were going to stay at wasn’t in anywhere particularly close to stores or restaurants or anything. When I walked into the store, I was once again astounded by what I saw! Manga in one corner of the store, Doujin volumes on the opposite end. All sorts of food available, including various drinks and juices. I decided to pick up a tray of noodles & pork strips, along with a rice ball, a bottle of Suntory Cherry Soda, and a bottle of Pepsi Nex (think the Pepsi version of Coke Zero). The lady at the counter checking out my products didn’t speak a lick of English (or at least I don’t think she did), but I assumed the questions were similar to those I’d encounter at a Kwik Trip. My first official Japanese purchase cost me about 897 yen. I pulled out a 1000 yen bill and stood there somewhat confused as the clerk cooked my food (something I guess I agreed to as she kept asking me questions in Japanese). Eventually she accepted it, I thanked her, and I was on my way.
The bus ride to the hotel was very breathtaking. I saw the bay, along with dozens of fishing boats, along with the downtown area (featuring a GIGANTIC ferris wheel!), seeing various buildings including a SEGA building, numerous neon lights for all sorts of businesses, Pachinko slot games, and car dealerships. The lights in Osaka aren’t plentiful as Tokyo (I’d imagine less, anyway), but it was still a sight to behold. The streets in Osaka are very small and tightly-cornered, making it difficult for our bus driver to navigate through the winding routes. Eventually we made our way to the hotel. During the ride there, however, a fellow whom a lot of us call “Captain” by codename, is a guy who is just flat-out annoying: He spent the entire bus ride romanticizing the Japanese culture, orgasming like a fanboy would over Japan, being completely nonsensical in his embrace of Japan. Saying inappropriate things like “Pachinko Sluts” and such, I simply kept my mouth shut on the matter since I don’t speak unless I have something relevant to say. I’m hoping he shapes up as the camp experience continues, but he’s not making any favorable impressions on anyone at the moment. But anyway, about the hotel: it was a very classy hotel! I received my hotel key and found that I would be shacking up with Brent – the reserved guy who knows his Japanese. Within minutes of getting into our room, I started fiddling with the controls for the Air Conditioner – I had never seen something so elaborate for an air conditioner. I’d assume it’s a very practical air conditioner if you know how to read kanji. After unpacking and checking out the air conditioner, I gave a crack at the Japanese western-style toilet – it’s basically a western style toilet, except the seat is warmed and there is a. . .water pressure system that will *ahem* clean your butt, lessening the need for using as much toilet paper. As it turns out, my first experience using this spraying mechanism had the water pressure at maximum, and let’s just say that I had water going where it shouldn’t be going. Eventually I figured out how to flush the toilet, but I came out of that bathroom a changed man. Something tells me that this was Japans way of hazing me or something. I can see how the water is practical for reducing toilet paper usage, but it’s something that would definitely take getting used to.

After my interesting experience in the bathroom, I got my first real crack at Japanese bathing. I entered the Japanese bathhouse on the 8th floor, which was actually a natural hot spring! The water was pumped up from below the hotel, as the hotel rests on a natural hot spring. Nothing but pure, unfiltered mineral water poured into the hot springs. After entering the bathhouse in my yukata (which is a kimono-style bathrobe), I disrobed amongst other men, took my towel, and entered the bath. It’s a very interesting process, the way you bathe in Japan. First, you clean yourself using a shower and various soaps, removing all the dirt and sweat and grease. After that, you take your scrubbing towel, and enter the hot springs bath. This bath was GIGANTIC, and it was super hot! It was like a hot tub, but without the jets and the air bubbles. My muscles relaxed something wonderful while I was in that bath. I soaked for about 15-20 minutes, and then Erik and the other guys found out that there was an open-roof bath on the floor above us. So I headed on up and there I found myself, on the highest floor of the hotel, overlooking Osaka, bare naked and wet from the hot springs. I found it astounding that what I had done wasn’t offensive or perverted – it was the norm. It’s nothing to them to bathe naked together, the men bathing together or the women bathing together. No shame was to be found in being naked amongst others. It’s an amazing feeling that calms your nerves once you get used to it. It’s male bonding at its finest.

Eventually, I made my way out of the fantastic, hot, luxorious bath and made my way back to my hotel room with Brent. I decided to finally eat the food I had bought from the store in the airport. The pork and noodles weren’t too bad, the rice ball was quite delicious, and the Suntory Cherry Soda was delicious! I seriously wonder why we don’t have popular just-cherry soda back in the States. After finishing my meal, Brent and Jeff came into the room to eat their own food, and I decided to crawl into bed. They flipped on the tv, and we found nothing but game shows, news reports, and a horse show. The game show was a bit odd, since the show featured more skits than actual gaming, but thus is the way it’s done here in Japan. Brent told me that Osaka is considered the comedy capital of Japan, so I shouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of crazy game show comedy stuff on TV. Eventually, I went to bed, though it was very difficult when I remembered what time it was back at home.

I woke up at 6:30am, not being able to sleep any longer. Keisuke informed us the night before that we had to be ready to leave for Camp Nose at 8:40, so I took the extra time I had to reorganize my luggage, figuring out a system for my dirty clothes and such. To combat the inevitable Jet Lag, I downed my bottle of Pepsi Nex, which came with a Lego Star Wars toy attached to it. I’m not quite sure what it’s supposed to be, but I’m keeping it anyway. I know that it’s a keychain, at the very least. Around 7:40, Brent and I headed down to the second floor to get some free breakfast. The breakfast was absolutely amazing! There was so much food, I chose to just try it all and refuse anything I didn’t like. I filled my plate with scrambled rolled-up egg thingies, strips of bacon, cabbage, beans, slices of ham, a chunk of salmon, and fried potato balls, along with a glass of milk. The attendants didn’t really speak any English either, but I chose to just go with the flow as to what they asked me and I did just fine. The chopsticks we were given were fairly standard size, but they were much bigger than any chopsticks I’ve used back at home. It was so easy eating that food with a chopstick. Eventually, I got myself a bowl of rice porridge, and attempted to eat it with a tiny spoon. Steph, a girl from the Jersey area that’s spunky, sassy, and a little tough, joked that I looked like Beast from Beauty and the Beast when he first tried to eat soup. I laughed and agreed with her, then gave a crack at eating the porridge anyway. After breakfast, I grabbed my luggage, and Brent and I headed down to the main lobby, where the rest of the group was getting a tour of a teahouse built right next door to the hotel! Inside of it was absolutely amazing, down to the paper doors, the padded floors, and just everything about it was phenomenal.

After the teahouse tour, which lasted all of 2 minutes for Brent and I, we packed back up onto the bus and headed out for Camp Nose, deep in the mountains beyond Osaka. It took awhile to get up here, especially for a bus riding such a steep incline, but we made it and arrived at the lodge. On the way to the camp, I met and spoke with Takumi, who turned out to be a recent graduate of UWSP! We bonded a bit over the fact that we both read One Piece and he was impressed that I was caught up in the manga (up to Chapter 506). We talked a bit about the 4Kids dub and I mentioned to him about how Funimation has saved the English version and is working at making amends over its terrible introduction in the States. We also talked about other hobbies we do, he likes karaoke and I like Rock Band, among other things.

At the lodge, we spent the entire day doing Day 1 of Orientation. Guy Healy (who’s completely American by the way, in case you were wondering, since I sure was) did the first part of the orientation, spoke about the awards given out at the end of camp, and was speaking with us on how we were picked because of how promising we seem to be, and implied that it was up to us to live up to those expectations. Kelly then took over and we started going over the itinerary for the camps that would be taking place in the near future. After the itinerary, we had lunch, which was pretty much a teriyaki burger and fruit juice. I’ve kept myself hydrated all day, since it’s very humid here in the mountains (there’s also a river nearby, besides the cloudy weather), so the small lunch didn’t bother me one bit. After lunch, we spent the afternoon doing two activities, the 1-minute drill (memorize as many phrases as you can in 60 seconds), and the My Story (tell a story about yourself in several lines), except that we had to do it in Japanese, to understand what it would be like for the campers doing this in English. It was very interesting, learning how to speak in English and memorizing phrases, and speaking them correctly, but it was an enriching experience. Takumi was my coach for the 1 minute drill and I was able to remember 13 different sayings in Japanese in one minute. The My Story exercise was handled by Keisuke for my group, and he helped me construct a story about my age, my hobbies, my sister, and how I like to read One Piece. Our final project before leaving for break was to create our nametags. I created mine and tried to be creative with stickers, color borders, and a drawing of the Straw Hat Pirates’ Jolly Roger Flag. One of the JD’s (Japanese directors), whom we referred to as T-Cash, noticed the jolly roger flag and thought it was neat that I was into One Piece. After this, we were all given a 2 hour break called “Jet Lag Pity”. I had spent 240 yen on 2 cans of Georgia Coffee (basically cold/iced coffee in a can, made by Coca Cola, it is DELICIOUS and I wish they’d bring it to the States) to keep myself awake to combat the lag, so Erik and I used the free time to just chill in our cabin and shoot the shit with Keiske and Takumi on video games and other various pop culture thingies. “Captain” chose to spend his time saying dirty words in Japanese, out of a book that he owned called “Dirty Japanese”. Seriously, this guy claims he was in the military for 7 years and I’ve never met someone so immature. In any case, I came back to the lodge with Erik, and T-$ had a present for me! He had found a box that had been emptied out for the Thousand Sunny (the ship the Strawhats sail on) and offered it to me as a gift. I was so deeply grateful that he had thought of this gift for me! I wasn’t expecting to go crazy or anything on gifts for myself (really, I’d rather get gifts for everyone else), and for his thoughtfulness I was truly appreciative, I bowed to him and thanked him in Japanese to attempt to show my gratitude. After this, I joined some of the AC’s along with Kelly in tossing a Frisbee around. Somehow, other people in the camp have taken a liking to me, I think. Kelly pointed out the blonde patch on my head and thought that was pretty neat, other people cheered me on as I tossed the Frisbee around and such, and overall I’m really starting to get along with everyone here!

Dinner was eventually served and we were treated to a meal of Miso soup (I think!, not sure yet), rice with some sort of egg omelete concoction on top, and a plate of beef strips. The chopsticks for this meal were smaller, but I managed to mostly clear my plates. As the day progressed, along with dinner I also got to know Ashley, a young lady from Alaska, as I sat and ate dinner with Ami and Erik. After dinner, we all talked about movies and I was challenged a bit on my stance on Harry Potter (on how he should have died and stayed dead in the last book, making his role more profound in the books). Our last activity for the day was to come up with a camp theme song for the campers, focusing primarily on ease-of-speaking the words, getting involved in clapping, and such. My group, consisting of Mee, Ashley, Erik, Keisuke, and myself, came up with our own take on Welcome to the Jungle by Guns ‘n Roses, followed up by a hoedown dance of Cotton Eyed Joe (just as a treat for the AC’s. I had been randomly dancing to the Cotton Eyed Joe dance in front of Erik and Keisuke and they ran with the idea that it should be included in our song pitch. Upon pitching the song, I burst out into the hoedown at the end, and everyone loved it! Ultimately, the Welcome to the Jungle pitch got picked along with a take on In the Jungle, so we’re going with similar themes here! Tomorrow, we’re going to reconvene on how to improve the Welcome to the Jungle song since we’re missing some lines in the song. After that, I headed into the bathhouse, which was ridiculously small! The bathtub could only hold 3 guys and the showers were very temperamental. I shared the bath with Shane and Erik, and once again I was reminded how lax the culture is here with naked men bathing together. It’s a natural, no-big-deal kind of thing. You socialize and the fact that you’re naked doesn’t even bother you all that much. However, I forgot to pack a towel. Thank God I have my handkerchief. It’s not easy drying off with just a handkerchief, but you’d be surprised at how well you get by with it.

After heading back to the cabin, we were offered to go look at the stars with the other AC’s, so I loaded up on Off Spray and headed out. Unfortunately, it was cloudy out, so Erik, Justin (a guy from Louisiana), Mee, and myself laid down on the road and just admired the sky from there. However, within minutes of sitting down, Erik flipped out because a centipede was nearby his face! Oh, the bugs here in Japan, I knew they were inevitable, but no one told me that centipedes lived here! I’ve been somewhat paranoid that I’m going to get some creepy crawlers here in my bed, but I’m trying to ignore that fact and just try to sleep soundly, so we’ll see. It’s 11:13 right now, so I’ve been typing for quite awhile, trying to catch up with everything. It’s been a crazy past 36 hours, so yeah. I think now’s a good time to go to bed.

Oh, and one last thing: The Japanese style toilets here, the ones that aren’t like western-style, really are just like urinals in the ground. You have to squat. And there’s barely any water in it. And it’s just *ahem* lovely when you try to go number 2 in one of them. I’ll spare you the details, it’s just lovely, that’s all I’ll say.

Adios for now!

Some random thoughts and Day 1

2008-07-14T02:03:00.000-07:00

Howdy howdy!

Today's the first time I've really had Internet access all week, so I'm taking the opportunity to update my blog. Osaka is a beautiful region and if I'm lucky, I'll get to talk to my parents and Kaitlin in the next couple of hours. But anyway, here's Day 1 of my daily journal. It's a long one, heh:

I’ve always been one to support the notion that there is a first time for everything. A first time for new foods, new activities, and new opportunities in life, all of which sum up exactly what I’m set out to do in the coming months. For the next 53 days, I will be teaching English in Osaka, Japan, to kids of various ages. Right now, it’s 7:59PM Central Time, though I’m 35,000 feet in the air somewhere above Alaska. We’re watching the in-flight movie “Fool’s Gold” and let’s face it: it’s not my kind of movie.

My day started out around 3:00 this morning, as I spent the night with my family and my dearest Kaitlin. I was already packed for the flight, so it was a simple matter of throwing my luggage in the car and driving over to the Minneapolis International Airport. I slept on the way there, dreaming twice that we had arrived at the airport already, and that it was very foggy. Each time I dreamt our early arrival, the color of the dream changed. At first it was a blue fog, and then it was a thick orange fog. In any case, there was hardly any fog to be had that morning. When we crossed the Minnesota state line, I started to get nervous. My stomach cringed at the thought of leaving my loved ones behind for 2 months. The goodbyes had been somewhat easy up to this point, but I knew bidding my parents and Kaitlin farewell would be hard.

It seems that since the last time I was in an airport over 10 years ago, people aren’t allowed to visit with their departing friends past the Security Checkpoint, so after I had checked my bags, converted some money to Japanese Yen, it was time to say goodbye. I wasn’t ready for it. I don’t think I ever could have been ready for it. I was dreading the clock as I knew I had to leave. As soon as I hugged my mother, I lost it. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I cried, not because I had second thoughts about the trip (because I wouldn’t trade anything for this opportunity), but because I had never really done a goodbye quite like this. Even my dad choked up as we hugged. I had a really hard time letting go of Kaitlin, but she had these words for me as I had told her them before to her: “At the end of this long road, I’ll be waiting for you. I’m your guarantee.” I grabbed my things, and said one final farewell, and stood in line.

Security checkpoints are not very considerate for people new to the system. As a first-time commercial flier, I had no idea what I was doing and was trying my best to go along with things. I tossed everything in the conveyor belt for the X-ray and I was immediately asked afterwards for my boarding pass. I declared that I didn’t know I had to have it on me (since there weren’t any signs for it, despite signs for literally everything else), and the TSA officer mocked me to his fellow colleagues as my presence being “amateur hour over here”. Fortunately, his snide remark doesn’t affect me as I’m not the one choosing to work in an airport for a living, my standards are just a tinge higher.

After passing the checkpoint, I waved to Kaitlin and my parents several times as I made my way farther back into the Terminal area. I gave one last final wave (and a blown kiss to Kaitlin, heh) and walked on in, alone. Turns out that Terminals are pretty much just giant versions of malls, a lot of walking, and a lot of unnecessary convenient stores and bars. I made my way to a WiFi workstation and pulled out the ol’ Macbook to charge it up and see if I could get online. Funny thing about places that offer Wi-Fi: Pay attention to see if they say it is FREE Wi-Fi or not. They wanted me to pay $5 for an hour of net access, and since I’m not interested in frugal spending, I passed it up and chose to play some classic TriPeaks instead. I put a Windows XP partition on my MacBook with the awesome Parallels Desktop program, but outside of classic Windows games (and maybe Diablo II if I really wanted it), it really serves no other purpose. However, it’s fun and it’s a distro of XP that requires little resources, so running on a Virtual Machine, it runs very fast. After putzing around on my MacBook, I wandered over to Gate 14, where I’d be departing for Detroit. I had about an hour or so to dick around, so I chose to just sit and watch CNN Headline News to see what kind of bullplop CNN was feeding the public. I only saw one good news story, about the Iraq Prime Minister wanting a timetable from President Bush to do troop withdrawal. Seriously, even the Iraqi’s don’t want them there now, it’s time to head home.
Before my flight, I met up with Erik and Ami, two other people coming in for the Summer Camp Program. I chatted a bit with them before it was time to board the plane. The plane ride to Detroit was my first time flying commercially, to anywhere. The whole takeoff process, the jets blasting us faster and faster, and then the wings tipping up and feeling the wind course under us was an experience I’m never going to forget. The flight to Detroit was VERY short, not much more than 90 minutes tops. I spoke with Ami during the flight and learned a bit about her and where she came from on the way to Detroit. After we landed, we met up with the rest of the group, including Jeff and Mee, along with a newcomer whom I have yet to really speak at length with.

The Detroit Terminal really makes you feel like you’re not in Detroit. What should be the home to Lions Football, Red Wings Hockey, and Tim Allen’s Home Improvement sitcom felt more like a wayside stop, or like The End of Time location in Chrono Trigger. There were walkways throughout the terminal, and plenty of places to eat. After traversing the terminal up and down, we all settled on a Jose Cuervo restaurant, deciding our last meal in America will be some shoddy Mexican food. And shoddy is a great word to describe it! I had a pulled chicken sandwich with green chile peppers and chipotle mayonnaise, but really I felt like I was eating at a half-rate restaurant. While we talked it up waiting for our food, the waitresses were congregated nearby, talking very loudly. Talking about. . .nothing in particular. Dicking around, which has become our first official inside joke as a group. After the paltry Mexican food, we headed to our terminal departing for Osaka. It was at this point that I finally realized just what I was about to experience. I saw Japanese folk of all ages everywhere around me, speaking in Japanese. Announcements over the P.A. were being done in Japanese. It’s an interesting feeling, realizing you’re about to engage in a completely different culture, especially one that’s romanticized by thousands of American fanboys and fangirls. I got the chance to show some photos of friends playing Rock Band, pictures of the baby bunny in my backyard at the Apartment, and some production shots of Microcosm before we had to board the plane.

The plane itself was freakin’ HUGE. I’ve never seen a 747 in person before. It was twice as big as the plane I had been on for Detroit and had two levels for passengers. The takeoff was even more impressive than the first one back in Minneapolis! These things go freaking FAST, about 600mph in the air. As we ascended into the sky, beyond the clouds, I surveyed the farmlands below me, the Great Lakes sinking into the horizon, and the clouds that lay below me. It is truly a breathtaking sight that everyone should experience at least once. Since boarding the plane, it’s been a long dreary ride, as it’s 13 hours to Osaka and I think we might be close to halfway there at this point. We’re probably going over a good chunk of Alaska right now, but it’s hard to tell because the windows are shut so people can watch this Fool’s Gold film. Jeff and I are sitting next to each other for this ordeal and we watched 300 earlier. Finally, I’ve seen 300 without some guys making fun of it (Rifftrax, heh). It’s a great manly action film of manliness!
Well, that’s about all that’s happened for now. It’s past 8:30 and unfortunately there’s no electric plugs to be had to charge my laptop to keep myself busy. On the bright side, since I didn’t bring my iPod, I took this opportunity to listen to my iTunes on my Macbook and indulged in some Pillows. I’m glad Seth recommended these guys to me ☺

By the time I arrive in Osaka, it’ll be 6:20PM there, meaning it’s 4:20PM for you folks back in Wisconsin. I’ll most likely be dragging my heiny from the jetlag and the whole time-adjusting thing. It’s really hard to adjust my biological clock for the flight since we’re flying with the sun, so it’ll never be sunset or anything. But yep, that’s been my first day for Summer Camp, Orientation is tomorrow (well, Thursday), so I’ll have more to write then. Sayonara for now!

Hello All!

2008-06-29T22:50:00.001-07:00

I'd like to welcome you to my blog for my trip to Japan! For the next two months, I will be in Osaka, Japan, teaching English to students of all ages and learning their ways of life and their culture. For a country bumpkin like me who rarely leaves Wisconsin, this is one of the BIGGEST opportunities I'm ever going to get to live life in another part of the world. There is no doubt in my mind that this will be one of the most enriching experiences I'm going to have in my life. I am beyond excited for this!!!

My flight to Japan departs on July 8th. From that point on, anytime I get the chance to come online, I will be posting my experiences, photos, and possibly videos here. This blog will also be used as an online journal, documenting my thoughts about my time in the land of the rising sun.

The time in the Japanese region is approximately 14 hours ahead of Central Time in the United States, meaning that 10AM on Monday would be 12AM Tuesday for Japan. Think of my time awake there as working a graveyard shift here.

So with only 8 days left here in the U.S. before my departure, I'm finishing my preparations for the trip. I hope to have one last good party with my friends here before I leave, so I'll be doing my best to prepare a night full of Rock Band and epic Marvin's goodness :D