Coed Onsen camping trip and sumos

Yabara Camping Trip

I went camping for the first time in AGES, 2 weekends ago in Okayama which is about 3 hours south of Osaka. I went with Charrissa and Mary (new KIS teacher). We joined an organization that puts together camping trips. It was great! Lots of firsts on this trip... first camping trip in Japan, first coed onsen experience and first time I met Jacquie. (Jacquie taught at KIS the year before me, she left right before I arrived in Japan, but heard stories upon stories about her...also an aussie :)

It was just like your typical camping trip...tent, sleeping bag, gas stove and coed baths (oh wait maybe not typical). Ya, this camping trip was not exactly your typical camping trip considering you meet and 6 hours later you were nude with each other (but that Japan for ya). We meet Jacquie and her friends in Osaka and had the best Mexican food in Japan...sooooo good. Then meet Lawerence and the other camper for a 3 hour drive to Yabara in Okayama Prefecture. We arrived at the campsite around 9pm, set up camp, then went to onsen around 11.

This onsen is a traditional coed onsen were men and women, boys and girls bath together. It's a natural hotspring, right next to a river. The water directly below us and seeped into the baths that were made. You could literally sit in the bath until you got too hot, pop into the river to cool off then get back into the hot water (oh and there was a huge hotel right across the river-imagine eating breakfast and looking over and seeing a bunch of naked people-haha).

We were told peak season was over so there shouldn't be too many people there at 11pm at night. So I was thinking oh shouldn't be too bad maybe 5-10 people should be there. But, boy were we shocked when we saw the onsen was packed full of people. I definetly hesitated when I saw how packed it was.

All in all it was a great trip. It was nice to get out of Nagoya for a weekend and visit a prefecture I had never been to before. And experience my first coed onsen...my last?????

Our tents, the grass was tall=soft :)

Sumo visit to school!

Every year at KIS professional sumos visit and give us a sumo demonstration then wrestle with the kids. Its such an amazing experience, not a typical thing to happen in Japan, we have connections through parents :) It's so fun to watch the kids "push" around the sumos, they try try soo hard.

Sumo demonstration...boy, you could hear the thud :)

My boys were all bark and no bite...I love this picture :)

Gambatte Taiki!!! Go Taiki Go!

5 Year Class with the sumos!

We taught them the Macerana!

They came to our closing circle since we are oldest class in the school. They walked in and the class felt 1/2 the size. We voted as a class and decided to teach the sumos the Macerana dance and sing Skidarinky dinky dink. It was a very awesome day!!!

****Next weekend is Saori's wedding!!! I can't believe it. We will be going to Hamamastu for her wedding and stay the night. Jacquie and I will learn how to surf..hmmmm :) So expect a big post on that soon.

Weekend with the Takeyama Family and other little tidbits

Are you shocked??? Two postings in 2 weeks :) I have more time on my hands this year, wahoo no summer school for me, yes!

I guess I'll start off with my weekend with the Takeyama family. I had an amazing time last weekend. They picked me up at my apartment at 7pm Sat. night and I didn't get home till 5 the next night. I had Haruka in my summer school class at KIS last year (she is 4, her brother Kouhei is 3). Tomoko, Haruka's mom and I became good friends last summer. So when I told Tomoko I was coming back for 2 months she invited me to stay at their house for the weekend. It is very rare for Japanese to invited you to there home for any reason, so I felt very honored (Japanese would rather entertain in a restaurant because the houses are so small).

They picked me up at my apartment and took me back to their "mansion", mansion in Japan means luxury apartment, kinda like a penthouse in the States. It was very nice, their house even talks to you, which caught me a bit off guard the first time. For instance, when the bath is done it tells you the water is ready, then shuts it off automatically...how cool is that. Oh, right getting off track...they picked me up and when we got to their place they made Shabu Shabu, sooo oishi! Shabu shabu is a Japanese soup, you put vegetables into a boiling broth and then you have your own plate of beef and pork. You place a piece of meat in one at a time and swish it back and forth while saying shabu shabu (although they may have been pulling my leg on that one, haha).

On Sunday we went to Toyota to made some traditional Japanese paper fans and then went to the onsen (ohhh, the onsen how I have missed thee-we need them in the US, on second thought hmmm maybe not). Over all, it was a wonderful weekend, and it's amazing how big Haruka and Kouhei have grown in a year. They are just as cheeky and crazy as they were last year, but now just bigger and louder :) I feel lucky to be able to get an inside peek at how a Japanese family lives, and for the Anthropologist in me that was interesting. But it was also really fun to have a girls night and hang out with Tomoko (when the kids and her husband went to bed) drink some sake and talk about our cultures and lives.

The Takeyama family and me

So... what other news is there to tell y'all

*it's rainy season and its raining every freakin day, and I can feel the humidity starting to creep it's way in, grrr-that also means typhoon season is coming....

*We had a minor earthquake the other night around midnight, I was about to go to bed when my computer started shaking, I Aimed Char and she felt it too. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't crazy, but I definitely did not get a good nights sleep that night expecting the real earthquake at any moment... (FYI, the BIG one is supposed to hit Nagoya at any moment-so that didn't help me fall asleep that night-it even has a name-Tokai Earthquake if your interested)

*I did another Brenda :) involving a broken glass bottle of Alfredo sauce (miraculously none ended up in my backpack) and bikes falling over left and right in front of the cheap shop...oops, I never learn