Relax…

As the last entry mentions, I went camping with the aikido club. We went to a local camping hot spot, Yorosan ( yoro mountain.) A 45 minute bus ride followed by a 30 minute car ride, or if you are a student, a 2.5 hour hike (close to 15 miles) up the mountain.

Luckily I was able to get a ride. I arrived at the top of the mountain and went to the campsite in time for dinner to be started. Camping quarters consisted of large 4~5man tents erected on wooden platforms. I enjoyed bunking with some of the 3rd years, one of whom is funny as hell and has good english.

Back to dinner. A camping dinner in japan involves toriyaki, a rough translation is bbq meat. This involves cooking everything from garlic chives, eggplant and onions to bacon and chicken legs. For close to 40 people, we had 4 pits going and close to 250$ worth of food. In addition to this of course, liquor.

The funny thing about japan, as I have mentioned before, is that there is no concept of alcoholism or any negativity associated with it.

With this in mind, the students gladly poored us our beers and the supervising adults quickly suprassed the point of inebriation. I am hopefully not the only person that finds amusement in this.

After drinking till around 12:30 and putting all the students to bed, I too went to dreamland. Did I mention we were getting up at 5:30 for a 10km run and jo suburi?

After sleeping for about 4 hours, I awoke and joined the students. We did our morning bow in, grabbed our jo’s and proceeded on our way. I don’t know how far exactly we ran, I am thinking it was more around 5 km, but we came to an observation deck. From here we regained our breath and started our jo suburi. There were 7 forms that we went through for 60 cuts each. (tally ho, 420 cuts) After this we lined up in a horseshoe shape and did suburi. ( tally ho, [38 people x 10 cuts a person ] x 2 repetitions = 760 cuts ) So roughly 1200 cuts. After that we explored the campgrounds at a brisk jog, around another 8km. We then made and ate breakfast; rice, miso soup.

After breakfast, we continued our exploration of the campgrounds, no jogging this time. This park has one of the largest nurserys in the prefecture. They grow roses and orchids. I will have pictures up soon.

We then made lunch, which consisted of spaghetti and a hard boiled egg. Soon as we were finished with lunch, we packed up and readied ourselves to return.

I was extremely happy when I was asked to come forward, and unknowingly was given my new obi (black belt.) I wasn’t expecting to get it before I came back to stlouis, but I did! After this I was informed that the two cars were full and that I would join the students for the hike down the mountain. Easier down right?

After hiking down the mountain and ’swimming’ in a stream, I made it back to my house. All in all this was quite and enjoyable time. The new students (ichininsei) are warming up to me nicely and are not as scared of me as they were. I even had one of the girls tell me that she hopes to marry a cool foreigner like me some day. w00t. Good times and another great memory.