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.