Kendo Camp

Kendo camp...ugh.

Kendo camp started last Wednesday at the start of practice (6:00 pm). So it was a very long day for me. I got up at 6:15 like usual to get to school on time. I had school during the day and then I had practice from 6:00 until about 8:00. After practice we had to quickly get changed and head down to the gym showers. THAT was an interesting experience. They stuck me with the fourth-year girls to shower. The shower room only had 3 actual shower heads in stalls, but nobody actually claimed a stall, since there were 4 of us. (I assumed that all of the other fourth-year girls live close enough to shower at their own homes.) So we were all switching back and fourth between showers, kind of like musical...showers.

After showering (we had to hurry since all of the other girls had to shower after us), we went back up to the locker rooms to eat dinner. Dinner consisted of a bento, as all of our meals did, ordered from some bento company. After eating we headed down to the school bus stop to meet up with everyone so we could go into Machida to go bowling. Keep in mind that we took the 10 pm bus on a Wednesday. We get to Machida, go to the bowling place (forgot the name of it already) and go up to the 7th floor where we get the entire room to ourselves. Of course there are probably more than 50 of us, so...it was a bit crowded.

But let me explain a little bit about the groups. We had 5 girls and 5 boys in our group. Shibata-senpai (male, 4th year, captain), Mina (female, 4th year), me, Ai (female, 3rd year), Yuki (male 4/3 year?), San-chan (male, 2nd year), Mei (female, 2nd year), Tomi (female, 1st year), Shu-chan (male, 1st year), and this other male freshman that I cannot remember the name of at the moment. Each group would do different activities together every night. Of course the first night EVERYBODY went bowling, and they actually split us up and mish-mashed the groups together to bowl.

So during the first game I was bowling with people who weren't in my group. Among these people was the enigmatic Masuda-senpai. And everybody turned out to be incredible bowlers; it was rather embarrassing. I kept getting gutterball after gutterball. But I ended up not being last, so it was all good.

After 3 games of bowling it was about 2:00 am on Thursday, and the other guys were talking about going to karaoke after returning the bowling shoes. Luckily Mina was returning to school to do some homework, so we went back together and I slept for about 3 hours until I had to get up at 6:00 am to get ready for kendo practice at 7:00. I think I was one of the very few who actually slept at all. Consequently kendo practice didn't go quite as well as it usually does.

Then I had school during the day. I think most people slept through their classes after practice. But, of course, I can't really do that since I'm here to...study abroad. So I spent all day studying and doing homework. Then we had practice again at 6:00 in the evening, so we did that. Afterwards, my group didn't have to rush through to the showers since we were going to an onsen after dinner. We ate dinner in the locker rooms and then headed down to the room where the boys were supposed to sleep. Other groups went about their separate ways, and we combined with another group and played cards in the room until the boys arrived to drive us to the onsen. We played card games and then we played bingo. I won first prize, too. ^^ I got a Tommy Hilfiger duffle bag.

Afterwards I had my second trip to an onsen. This one didn't quite have the prestige of the Dogo onsen, but it was pretty nice. And it's been getting easier and easier to deal with the...communal nakedness, if you will. I guess it helps that nobody else really thinks about it.

After a wonderful time in the onsen, we returned to campus and I think I helped people put together a Lilo & Stitch jigsaw puzzle. Then I slept for about 2 hours until practice at 7:00 that morning. And I actually got hit in the throat during that practice. Consequently that school day was torcher. Fortunately it was a Friday, and I only had two classes. Unfortunately, though, I was unable to sleep during the day. And then we had another practice that night at 6:00.

And that night my group combined with Masuda-senpai's group for nomikai, which is basically sitting around, drinking alcohol, eating snacks, playing games, and talking. Of course we also had a few comical impressions performed once the alcohol had been out for a while. I'd post the videos on here, but I'm a little bit afraid to ask the performer for permission....

Then the next morning we had practice at 9:00 am and then it was over. Wow, it's already been almost a week since it ended and I'm still recovering from it.

Sorry I haven't been updating in a while. Things have been super busy with school and the kendo camp. I've had about 5 hours of sleep in the past two days, so I'm very grateful for the weekend so I don't have to kill myself to do my homework. But I'll write about some of that stuff a bit later. I wanted to give you guys a special treat! ^^ My travel companion from my tour of southern Japan had started to make little comic strips of our adventures together while we were on the last leg of our journey. I asked her to scan them for me so I could post them on here. They're really funny!



*These were not drawn by me! (unfortunately)

I'll post more the day after tomorrow. Enjoy!

Okaasan II

Alright, my host-mom came home yesterday. YAY! And I was a bit too harsh on my host-dad, he did do some cleaning since we were getting our new host-student on Thursday. She got here just fine, although I think, since we ate dinner at our host-aunt's house with a total of 8 people, that she was a bit overwhelmed. And my host-mom came back home yesterday, looking as healthy as ever. Apparently they couldn't find anything wrong with her. But we're making her take it easy, and I think it's driving her a bit crazy.

At any rate, I had a horrible first day of school this past Tuesday. I thought it was Monday and on Mondays I don't have to be at school until third period. Unfortunately on Tuesdays, I have a speaking and core Japanese class first and second period. Perfect, right? I miss the most important class I'm taking on the first day of school! Ugh. So I had to e-mail the teachers and apologize and ask for work and stuff. One of them still hasn't gotten back to me. But five of my classes this semester are only in Japanese. The teachers only use Japanese. We're not allowed to talk to each other in English. The homework instructions and SYLLABUS are all in Japanese. Not to mention the textbooks, which are also all in Japanese.

It's actually really great, since that's kind of the reason I came to Japan. But after all day of that sort of thing, I get extremely tired. Kendo is a nice outlet, though, even though nobody speaks English to me in there. But I had 10 PAGES of Japanese homework after missing the first day of my core class. Thankfully a lot of the classes I'm taking are only once or twice a week, or I would die.

Coming up this week is a Kendo camp sort of thing. We'll all be sleeping (separated by gender of course) in the building that our locker rooms are in for 3 days. I don't really know a lot about it, but we have practice at 7:30 in the morning, I think is what somebody told me. And I have a HUGE bruise on my elbow from the armor. Since the armor I wear is new, it's pretty stiff, and so the stomach armor is kind of a bit wide-spread. So every time I would bring my arms down or give someone a faito punch, my elbow would hit the armor. It's a lot better now, but I have to squeeze the armor together while somebody else ties it in order for it not to be so in the way.

Anyway, I better get back to all of my homework.

Okaasan

So, I asked my host-dad the other day and he said that my host-mom is fine, but she's staying at the hospital until at least this coming Thursday. That seems like an awfully long time to me. And then he said that they were running tests on her. But when he first said it I freaked out because in Japanese the word for these medical tests sounds like a Japanized way of saying "cancer." So I still don't know what's really going on.

But the house is slowly falling into decay in her absence. My host-dad apparently does not have the ability or the inclination to do housework of almost any kind. Most of the rooms are fine, maybe gathering some dust and debris on the floor, but the kitchen looks rather like a disaster zone. He doesn't really wash the dishes and newspapers are everywhere. Not to mention the packaged snacks that my host-mom usually put out for tea time. The laundry is piling up in the washing machine, and I seriously doubt that he squeegees the floor when he's finished showering.

And he can't cook, either, it seems. So we've been having lunch and dinners next door at his older sister's house. The food is good, but, honestly, not nearly as good as my host-mom's. And they absolutely STUFFED us on my birthday. They threw me a small birthday party. I had gone out with friends for sushi for lunch and when I got home we went next door to have...sushi...and cake. Lots of it. And then they talked and talked and talked. And most of it I couldn't understand. And they sang the happy birthday song to me...which was a bit awkward, because a couple of them didn't really know the words all that well (the ENGLISH happy birthday song).

But when I came back home last night after kendo, the house was all dark, which was odd. I've never come home to a dark house. Besides he had left a couple of hours before I had so that he could go visit my host-mom in the hospital. Well, I walk inside and Hachi RUNS for the door. Haha, she had spent the whole day inside. So I go around the house turning on lights and closing the gates over the glass doors and windows. I ate my McDonald's (the shrimp burger is actually REALLY good!) and then did the dishes that had accumulated in the sink. He told me this morning that he'd probably be late again tonight, so I think I'll do some sweeping and vacuuming.

And when he came home, he asked if his sister had come over (because the gates had been closed) and he seemed surprised when I told him that I'd closed them.

...I AM an adult, you know. I think I can manage to walk around the outside of the house and close metal gates without being asked...

And Hachi, I can tell, really misses her. She was unusually friendly when she came back in after I let her out.

Well, things have been rather odd lately. My host-mom is currently in the hospital. She had some sort of episode during tea time this morning, which was rather scary. I'll let you know what happens whenever I find something out.

But here are some pictures me and my host-sister-in-law took when we went with my host-mom to her international school's elementary school kids' performance of Beauty and the Beast.



Those costumes are insane! Japanese mothers really go all out for these kinds of things it seems. I'll post some of the videos next time.

Sakura Festival

This past Sunday my host-mom, host-aunt, host-sister, host-sister-in-law, and myself went to the Sagamihara Sakura Festival. Thankfully it took place just before all of this rain came, so we were able to see a lot of blossoms. There are a couple of streets in this city that are just lined with cherry trees. It's really quite beautiful. I actually pass one of them on my way to and from school. Not to mention my school's campus is pretty much surrounded by cherry trees. For the past two weeks the streets and sidewalks have been littered with cherry blossom petals. It's a bit ridiculous, almost. I've seen piles of them against curbs.

But at this festival there was a parade with all sorts of dancing and then they had a Taiko exhibition. And during the parade the wind picked up and cherry blossom petals went fluttering all over the place. In fact I took a video where it almost looks like it's snowing, but it's actually just sakura petals.



And here is that video I was talking about:

Kendo 2

Alright, here are some pictures from the blossom viewing and my new armor!



Cool, huh? It's really really hard, and I think I sprained my toe the other day...