Osaki Week-ender
Osaki Weekender was a hit. I think all parties involved could not deny the fact that the intercultural gathering was a success (with perhaps the exception of the neon-colored rice pudding that was a bit difficult to get the Japanese to like). I get ahead of myself. I will start with Friday. In Kishira Junior High I was invited to take part in the 6th period games. Three times a year 4 students get together and plan some games to be played during 6th period with the teachers. We were divided into three groups – mushrooms, fish and chestnuts. I was a mushroom. The first game I had never played before. One of the children held up a paper that had people with different color hats in a certain formation. Each member of the team had to wear a colored hat and be in the position that corresponded to the man of the matching hat color as in the drawing. The team to get most in a minute won. This happened to be my team. The second game was an arm wrestling tournament. I came in second place in the men’s division. (I lost to a 3rd grader.)
After our tutoring session that night in Kanoya, we went to Laura’s house where she prepared a delicious salad and pasta dish. We met two very cool ALTs from Fukuoka Prefecture about 3-4 hours north of us that came to partake in the Rotary Club’s party.
The next day, Cristina and I spent the morning making our Halloween costumes. We decided last minute that I was going to be a leprechaun and she was going to be a bumblebee. Both of our costumes came out very good and just cost us a little bit of time and $8 for both. We met up with the other 13 ALTs in Laura’s house and arrived at the campsite at around 2:30pm. We started off by splitting into several groups to play ground golf. Ground golf here is a mixture of put put and croquet. Both Cristina and I were good but did not manage to be in the top 3.
After ground golf, we went to Osaki’s onsen. It was just us ALTs so I did not have the fear of 60 Rotary Club men accompanying me to my first time at an onsen. I was surprised at how much I liked it and how luxurious it was. Luxurious is not the word that I was looking for, but it did exceed my expectations as to the atmosphere it provided. First, you walk in and you split up according to height (just kidding) gender. Then, you walk into the bamboo-floored locker room where you place your stuff in a locker and undress. Then, you walk into the next room where all the pools and showers are. About a 1/3 of this large, open room was dedicated to showers. There are several nozzles sticking out of a slate wall. You basically pick one and sit down at a bucket in front of each nozzle and scrub yourself with a towel that you take in with you. You are supposed to make sure that you scrub yourself thoroughly before stepping into a pool. It was quite odd to see children in there too. Apparently that is why a lot of ALTs say never to go to the onsen in your town, because chances are that you will be with some of your students. They had quite a few pools. They had a couple of 1-person Jacuzzis, a big ceramic-tiled pool, a smaller ceramic-tiled pool that was ice cold, a small 10 person wooden tub and another 10 person hot tub outside. All the pools had some type of waterfall that was pumping hot water from the springs. Apparently, there have several onsen in Japan that have been getting in trouble for saying that their hot water is from a spring when it is really not. Also, some have been fined for mixing cold water with the spring water too cool it since it is usually too hot. The way you are supposed to cool it is with a pipe pumping cool water circling another pipe that is just for the spring water. Anyway, we were there for an hour. I see myself visiting these frequently in the winter.
After the onsen, we were escorted to the cabins, which were amazing. They were log cabins in a wooden area on Osaki’s beach. This also exceeded my expectations. I wish I had pictures of all of this but I do not because I didn’t get the right batteries for the camera. After settling in, we went outside for some yaki niku, grilled meat at our table. We ate, we drank and made new Japanese friends. Japanese children came and they asked us to get in our costumes. So, we did. Apparently, Japanese people are not familiar with bumblebees or leprechauns. They kept on asking me if I was Harry Potter. We paraded around the campgrounds until we came to this part of the campground that had a stage set up with some music equipment and microphones. We introduced ourselves to the hundred some odd people who were there. They laughed and cheered. We were treated to some mixed drinks from a bar. Mine was something with some macha, the stuff used to make green tea. We went back to our cabins to drink and play some more. In the midst of all of this, I was obsessed with this one little boy that kept on wanting to play with me. I kept on doing the “Give me five, up high, down low… too slow” thing for hours. His name was Shotaro and I swore that I was going to adopt him by the end of the night. I thought that it would be neat if us ALTs could do some kind of big brother big sister program here.
After the kids left, we went into the main cabin for an after party. Here we played some drinking games. Some of us ended up getting into some deep conversations concerning American politics. The ironic point being that most involved were not even American. They then replied saying that it does concern them because of the amount of control that Americans have over the world. I was surprised at this comment and the frustrations that they had with not being able to vote for who they considered the world leader, the American president.
The next day, we woke up and cleaned up. We went to Shibushi to show Laura’s Fukuoka guests some of the beaches. After they left, we went to this shady, dingy looking amusement park with about 7 rides. It is so funny because it really does look like an abandoned amusement park. We paid $3 to get in and another $3 to ride the “roller coaster”. We sat there for a while with Laura and Jill and had some frozen coke (very popular here).
We stopped on the way home at a pizza place that Laura’s predecessor had recommended. We had some great cheese toast and pizza. Cristina and I then went home, killed two giant spiders in her house and watched 7 episodes of Alias. The Alias episodes were a real treat because there were some we had not seen.
Well, that’s pretty much it. This morning I went to the nursery and now we are going to have our Monday morning meetings in the afternoon. Hope to hear from you soon.
After our tutoring session that night in Kanoya, we went to Laura’s house where she prepared a delicious salad and pasta dish. We met two very cool ALTs from Fukuoka Prefecture about 3-4 hours north of us that came to partake in the Rotary Club’s party.
The next day, Cristina and I spent the morning making our Halloween costumes. We decided last minute that I was going to be a leprechaun and she was going to be a bumblebee. Both of our costumes came out very good and just cost us a little bit of time and $8 for both. We met up with the other 13 ALTs in Laura’s house and arrived at the campsite at around 2:30pm. We started off by splitting into several groups to play ground golf. Ground golf here is a mixture of put put and croquet. Both Cristina and I were good but did not manage to be in the top 3.
After ground golf, we went to Osaki’s onsen. It was just us ALTs so I did not have the fear of 60 Rotary Club men accompanying me to my first time at an onsen. I was surprised at how much I liked it and how luxurious it was. Luxurious is not the word that I was looking for, but it did exceed my expectations as to the atmosphere it provided. First, you walk in and you split up according to height (just kidding) gender. Then, you walk into the bamboo-floored locker room where you place your stuff in a locker and undress. Then, you walk into the next room where all the pools and showers are. About a 1/3 of this large, open room was dedicated to showers. There are several nozzles sticking out of a slate wall. You basically pick one and sit down at a bucket in front of each nozzle and scrub yourself with a towel that you take in with you. You are supposed to make sure that you scrub yourself thoroughly before stepping into a pool. It was quite odd to see children in there too. Apparently that is why a lot of ALTs say never to go to the onsen in your town, because chances are that you will be with some of your students. They had quite a few pools. They had a couple of 1-person Jacuzzis, a big ceramic-tiled pool, a smaller ceramic-tiled pool that was ice cold, a small 10 person wooden tub and another 10 person hot tub outside. All the pools had some type of waterfall that was pumping hot water from the springs. Apparently, there have several onsen in Japan that have been getting in trouble for saying that their hot water is from a spring when it is really not. Also, some have been fined for mixing cold water with the spring water too cool it since it is usually too hot. The way you are supposed to cool it is with a pipe pumping cool water circling another pipe that is just for the spring water. Anyway, we were there for an hour. I see myself visiting these frequently in the winter.
After the onsen, we were escorted to the cabins, which were amazing. They were log cabins in a wooden area on Osaki’s beach. This also exceeded my expectations. I wish I had pictures of all of this but I do not because I didn’t get the right batteries for the camera. After settling in, we went outside for some yaki niku, grilled meat at our table. We ate, we drank and made new Japanese friends. Japanese children came and they asked us to get in our costumes. So, we did. Apparently, Japanese people are not familiar with bumblebees or leprechauns. They kept on asking me if I was Harry Potter. We paraded around the campgrounds until we came to this part of the campground that had a stage set up with some music equipment and microphones. We introduced ourselves to the hundred some odd people who were there. They laughed and cheered. We were treated to some mixed drinks from a bar. Mine was something with some macha, the stuff used to make green tea. We went back to our cabins to drink and play some more. In the midst of all of this, I was obsessed with this one little boy that kept on wanting to play with me. I kept on doing the “Give me five, up high, down low… too slow” thing for hours. His name was Shotaro and I swore that I was going to adopt him by the end of the night. I thought that it would be neat if us ALTs could do some kind of big brother big sister program here.
After the kids left, we went into the main cabin for an after party. Here we played some drinking games. Some of us ended up getting into some deep conversations concerning American politics. The ironic point being that most involved were not even American. They then replied saying that it does concern them because of the amount of control that Americans have over the world. I was surprised at this comment and the frustrations that they had with not being able to vote for who they considered the world leader, the American president.
The next day, we woke up and cleaned up. We went to Shibushi to show Laura’s Fukuoka guests some of the beaches. After they left, we went to this shady, dingy looking amusement park with about 7 rides. It is so funny because it really does look like an abandoned amusement park. We paid $3 to get in and another $3 to ride the “roller coaster”. We sat there for a while with Laura and Jill and had some frozen coke (very popular here).
We stopped on the way home at a pizza place that Laura’s predecessor had recommended. We had some great cheese toast and pizza. Cristina and I then went home, killed two giant spiders in her house and watched 7 episodes of Alias. The Alias episodes were a real treat because there were some we had not seen.
Well, that’s pretty much it. This morning I went to the nursery and now we are going to have our Monday morning meetings in the afternoon. Hope to hear from you soon.
posted by Jesse Montano at
1:36 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home