Over the Puddle

Well, as the new entries are taking quite a while to write, I thought I would take this opportunity to put down a few thoughts I have.

The question I get asked the most is if I like this camp, and what I am doing. I admit, it is strange to think of myself teaching English. Of course, this isn’t like a real school where I assign homework or anything. Really, I just coordinate the students, so they do some prearranged activity, like work on an introduction for themselves, work on a skit, or repeat and memorize phrases.

True, I do work with them, and do teach through example and helping. Some things, like the skit, I generally write, and then help them memorize and pronounce their lines. This can be a lot of work, and I generally like it when the students come up with something themselves, because then they can be more creative, and do what they want to do, rather than what I think they want to do.

Everyday is a lot of work. Some days are better than others, but generally I like what we do. It’s always fun to do recreation time with the students, and get to know them. Some students will stay in your memories, and others you wish you could forget. Really, there is a lot more of the former than the latter.

Every day is also very structured. You go from one thing to another like clockwork. Of course, we freely tinker with the schedule to make it more to our liking, or what we think the students need to work on. Some activites, like the one-minute drill, get extremely boring after you’ve done it a few times, but you fight through it, and try to make it intersting and make sure the students understand.

Really, it is at the Eigo-kai that you see the fruits of your labor. At Eigo-kai, the students get up in front of all the students and counsellors, and recite their introduction, or perform their skit or song, and you can see what they have learned. You may not be making a huge difference, but by nuturing a friendship with the students, and making them interested in America and English, you foster the desire to learn.

The second question I often get is am I having fun? I must say, both times I’ve been to Japan, I’ve been lucky with my host families. Both have been well off financially, and I’ve been able to do things that other counsellors could not. I feel a little guilty about going to places like Hiroshima via shinkansen, when other counsellors are trapped in their host family’s house, with no where to go.

I think it also helps that I understand at least a little Japanese. Because of that, even if I didn’t do anything with my host family, I could still go about creating things to do. For instance, I could go out and book a reservation on a train, and go visit Kyoto or something. Others cannot, because they don’t have the language skills.

Also, time seems to take on an odd distortion. I constantly look at my watch, and wonder at the fact that only a month has gone by. It feels easily like two or three months have gone by. Not in a bad way. Some people may feel like time is stretched out, that they have been here for months because they are not having fun, or don’t like what they are doing.

For me, it feels like it has been longer because I am constantly doing something. I rarely have a free day, like today, where I don’t have anything planned. I am usually busy 24/7. Days of the week gradually lose meaning, and often I have no clue what day it is. Camp starts and ends whenever it is planned, which helps contribute to the blurring of time.

Do I like what I am doing? I think so. The fact that I’ve come this far, and still enjoy what I’m doing says something. Some people have asked me if I would ever consider doing this as a full-time job. As far as teaching English in Japan goes, that is one hell of a commitment. It would require me to move halfway around the globe, and basically have a completely different lifestyle.

I am not against that, and have pondered the idea, but it is not an easy choice. I know people who would gladly do that, and wouldn’t be surprised if they do choose just that. Some of them are fanatical about the Japanese lifestyle, and wouldn’t hesitate for an instant. I’m not that fanatical. I enjoy Japanese culture and the lifestyle, but not to the point where I want to become Japanese.

I would have to give it some serious thought. There are many things I do like about Japan, and several I don’t. For instance, I grow tired of being more or less illiterate here. If I were to live here, I would definately study the writing system, and make myself literate. I would also study the language again, to become truly bilingual.

There is always the flip side to teaching English in Japan, and that is teaching Japanese in America. My host family has asked me if I ever considered doing just that, and the thought had crossed my mind. They also say I should live in Japan, because I have so many apparently Japanese habits they think I would fit in.

The fact that I can’t make a clear decision either way means I should give it more thought. Who knows, after this two week prefectural camp later next month, I may be so burnt out that I never want to do this again. I’ll have a better idea once I finish this program.

Do I like the USA Summer Camp program itself? There have been several things that have really upset me, such as travel arrangements, and last minute changes. Overall, I think I like this program. It has been rewarding so far, and has given me a fresh view on life.

This is also the first time that I have ever really dealt with children, or a camp. Being an only child, the only children I ever dealt with were my friends, or my firends’ siblings. As we got older, I dealt with less and less children.

Would I do this again? That is a tough question. If this were a few years earlier, I probably would. Now, I always have to keep an eye on my money, for rent and bills. Going a summer without an income is alright, but probably not something I would want to do on a regular basis. Soon I will graduate, and will have to start paying back student loans. I will have to be assured of some form of income, and doing this again next summer would probably not be a good idea.

Besides, even if I don’t do this again, there are other paths I could choose. I could become a JET teacher, or teach English privately, which I’m told makes decent money. So ultimately, I wouldn’t mind doing this again, but I probably won’t.

So there you have it, answers to some common questions, and a peek into the workings of my mind.

I had an incident at the grocery store that I thought was particularily funny. I went with a friend of the famiily to go grab some lunch at a grocery store near here. We picked up some small things, but went to an udon shop in the store for lunch. I ordered champon (which for some reason surprised the person I was with), and she ordered an udon set.

Now, I’ve had champon before, and I like it. So, I was happily eating my lunch, minding my own business, when I overhear some Japanese high school girls talking. They were a few tables up from me, and were discussing who or what I was.

At first, they were talking somewhat loudly which caught my attention, and the fact that some of them were looking right at me also clued me in. During their discussion, someone suggested that I was American. Now, I think I look like your average joe from America, and figured the discussion would end there. No, not quite. A few of the other ones said quite loudly that they thought I was not American.

About at that point, the person I was with asked me a question in Japanese, to which I responded. After that, the conversation between the girls quieted down quite a bit, probably because they realized I understood at least a little Japanese. They left a few minutes after that, I assume to head back to school.

So there you have it. I don’t know what the final verdict was, but apparently I am not American!

This last homestay wasn’t without incident. One morning during my homestay, I got a call from Kevin telling me about a train crash that happened just outside of Isahaya. Now, what really surprised me was that Tomomi, the Japanese counsellor that we had gone to Nagoya with was on that train!

Apparently she had been on the fourth car, and so didn’t suffer any injuries. I’m not sure exactly what happened, if someone tinkered with the track causing the derailment, or if someone had put something on the track, which caused it to jump the track. It was the Kamome express train, and they do travel at a decent speed.

The first car had completly jumped the track, and was partially in a field, and the next two cars jack-knifed behind the first car. The fourth was parially up in the air, but was fine otherwise, and the other cars were fine. No one was killed, but there were about 70 injuries I believe.

So, after hearing about that, I gave her a call just to check up on her. Apparently she was fine, just shaken up. She made the news though, and was interviewed on TV, which is how Kevin found out about her. The crazy thing is that she still continued on to camp after that, and was working the next day!

We said we should try and get her, myself, Kevin, and Lauren together and go out one night, but I don’t know how probable that is anymore. We’re running out of time now. Just a couple more homestays, and that’s it. Lauren and I are signed up for the prefectural camp, and Kevin has his own plans after camp ends, so we’ll probably be pretty busy.

From here on out, all camps except the prefectural one are going to be held at the Sasebo camp. That actually sort of works out for me, as Sasebo is easy to get to from Isahaya via train. However, the travel arrangements that were made kind of threw a wrench into the works.

When whoever made the travel arrangments made them, they didn’t really think about the fact that there are about five of us in Isahaya or Omura. Now, we were supposed to go by train back to Nagasaki, and then jump on a bus and go to Sasebo. This is dumb. By doing that, us five actually go out of our way to travel at least 45 minutes to get to Nagasaki, and then backtrack right past where we live before getting to Sasebo.

Some of us thought about just making our own plans, but with the recent train wreck, we thought it would be a good idea to go ahead with the plans, despite how dumb they were, so that no one would be worried.

Now, it has been raining a lot here recently. The rainy season just does not want to give up. As a result, there has been flooding, and it has been slowing down transportation. So, my train ride, which takes either 35 minutes or 50 minutes depending on which train I get on, took an hour and fifteen minutes!

On top of that, when we finally got to Nagasaki, the bus ride took about 3 hours! This caused us to be really late to the camp, which worked out because everyone else was late as well, and made us all irate for sitting on the bus that long. When we finally got to Sasebo, we made it clearly known that the five of us would not be doing that ever again. There’s no reason for us to backtrack like that.

Once we got there, we found out which camp(s) we would be working on. This was a little different because we haven’t had more than one camp there at a time up to that point. Lauren, Dianne, and I were on prep for the first day and a half.

I remember thinking at one point how cool it would be to have a day off like that at camp. Boy was I wrong. It was one of the most boring times I ever had. While everyone one else was working, Dianne and I planned our camp. We didn’t have to do much, which left us a whole lot of time to do a whole lot of nothing.

While everyone else was gathering and heading to dinner with their groups, us three were standing around, lost. Other counsellors would come up to me and complain or praise their groups, and all I could say about my day was that I had slept a lot. Time passes really slowly that way. When my group finally got there, I was really happy to have something to do.

We had the Seido Girls Elementary School group, with 21 students originally. They were a pretty good bunch of girls. Several of them had very good English, and one girl, Fukiko, was even fluent in both English and Japanese. She had apparently lived in America for two years and had gone to school there.

There was another girl, Reiko, who was a bit of an odd one. She had also lived in America for two years, in Minnesota. At first, I wasn’t sure how much English she knew. Apparently, she could understand quite a bit, but simply refused to use her English. I’m not sure why. She was definately more interested in trying to get me to speak Japanese.

After a while, I simply gave up pretending that I didn’t understand Japanese, and instead went with it. She found out I understood Japanese on the first night, when we had some free time. I was in one of the rooms, and Reiko was there. I was listening to the girls talk idly, and chuckled at one conversation they had. Reiko said (in Japanese), “Why don’t Americans understand Japanese people?” and the rest of the girls replied “Because of Japanese!”. I’m not sure if this was a carryover from a previous conversation or not, but I chuckled at it.

Reiko noticed that, and asked me if I understood Japanese. I replied that I knew a little, but didn’t specify how much. She got a little worried, as if she had said something bad before. Anyway, after that, she would speak Japanese to me off and on, and I would feign ignorance.

Finally, after the third day of this, I gave up. Instead of playing dumb, I would respond in English, and then ask her to say it in English. I remember at one point she said in Japanese “Why won’t you speak Japanese?”, and I replied in English “Because this is an English camp”, and she said “ah sou ka” (oh yea). Kind of hard to repeat the mixed conversation, but it was funny at the time anyway.

I finally found out how good her English was at the Eigo-kai. When she stood up to do her introduction, I was blown away at how good her pronounciation was. She may have been reluctant to speak English, but she could quite well when she wanted to.

The skit for my skit group kind of fizzled. The girls wanted to do several funny commercials, and it would have been kind of pointless for me to help, considering they had what they wanted to do pretty much in mind at that point. Atsuko, our Japanese counsellor, told them to write up the skit in Japanese and then she would translate later. As a result, I was out of the loop a bit. I spent most of my time, retrieving Shino, a problem kid, who had a habit of wandering off or not paying attention.

When it came time for Eigo-kai, we had worked out most of the kinks, but the skit didn’t come off quite the way they hoped. There was some impressive gymnastics in it, and a baseball game, but while it was funny to us, the rest of the group didn’t quite get it. Oh well.

We also had some fun recreation times. We took advantage of the decent weather on the second and third day and played soccer and had a campfire. We also watched Totoro in English, which I was surprised that they sat through. I think Pictionary also went over extremely well.

We also had a carnival, which was my first one, as I had missed the last one when I was in Nagoya. Unfortunately, the room was small, and because of the fog, we couldn’t really open the windows. As a result, the room was a sauna. I had to change my clothes just because of the sweat after that. I think we about 60 people in that room.

We also did another My Town, which went over reasonably well. I ran the Hallmark shop again this time, and we got quite a bit of traffic. The whole idea of the My Town is that the students get fake money, so they can pay for the various activities and shops. Anyway, and one point, one of the girls in my skit group came over, and started to make a ‘postcard’ of a $1000 bill. I thought she was going to counterfeit money, and chuckled at the thought. Later, I was surprised when she had it ‘mailed’ to me!

Overall, the camp went well. This was a five day camp, which was a bit long. I was still in the three day camp groove, and was sputtering towards the end. It didn’t help that I had a festival to go to that night, and Hiroshima the next day that I was looking forward to.

It was after all the camps left, that we realized we had a problem: no bus!

I had heard earlier that we were going to be getting our own charter bus, and wouldn’t have to ride with anyone else. When, after all the buses and kids left, and we were standing around waiting for a bus that didn’t come, we started asking around. Guy was also under the impression we were to have our own charter bus, and when he called and found out there wasn’t one, he was as confused as the rest of us.

Apparently, whoever setup the travel arrangements, forgot to mention that we were supposed to ride with the Seido boys. When they left, so did our ride. So, now we were stuck at the top of a mountain, with no bus, and there were three of us who desperately wanted to go home so we could go to the festival in Isahaya.

The first idea was that those of us who wanted to go home quickly could jump into the van, and get driven down to the station and hop on a train. This seemed logical so no one raised any objections, and I figured everything would be fine. I asked to make sure that we weren’t going to load any of the supplies onto the van, and when told we weren’t, loaded up everyone’s luggage. After that was done, we all got in the van, and sat, and waited, and waited.

When it became readily apparent that we weren’t going anywhere, I went in to find out what was going on. Guy was walking around do something, and Jim was just walking around doing nothing. When I asked him, he said that we needed to load the supplies onto the van now. That pissed me off, considering I had just asked about that just a little bit ago.

Anyway, we offloaded the luggage, and loaded on the supplies, and reloaded the luggage, and sat again.

After about five minutes of this, I went in again to find out what was going on. Apparently, they had decided to call up taxis for everyone else, and that they would be going down later, considering it would take about twenty minutes for them all to come up the mountain. So, I got back in the van, and waited again.

After about ten more minutes, I went in to ask again, and found out that they had decided to wait until all the taxis came up, and then everyone would go down. Guy heard that we were in a hurry, and so instead of offering us a ride to the station, took off by himself in his car to buy tickets for everyone. I wasn’t really happy with that.

So, we waited, and eventually the taxis came, and everyone else loaded into the taxis and left, leaving the people who were in a hurry sitting in a van that was supposed to have left about 40 minutes prior. When we came to inquire about this, the Japanese counsellors were trying to get all the last minute stuff taken care of. Figuring we would be leaving momentarily, we all got back in the van, and sat again.

Turns out no one knew where the key for the van was, and that the only person who knew had taken a taxi earlier, and now no one could get a hold of her. So we sat. Takeo, the camp coordinator, was desperately trying to get a hold of Maiko, the person who knew where the keys were, as he had plans himself. By this point, I was not the only one pissed off. All of us who had plans saw them starting to disappear, and we were powerless to do anything about it.

When everyone who had plans that night started to get vocal about how pissed off we were, Takeo felt bad, and called down to Jim and Guy, and told them to stay there, and that he would call a taxi for those of us who needed to get home. So, we offloaded our stuff, and waited another 20 minutes for our taxi.

By this time, it was about two hours past the time we were scheduled to leave the camp, and about an hour and a half past when we loaded on the van. Finally, the taxi came, and we got into the taxi and headed to the station.

When we got to the station, we made it abundantly clear that we had had it with these travel arrangements, and that we would find our own way from this point out. This was not the first time, nor the second time that the travel arrangements had been screwed up, but the third time. Enough was enough.

By the time I got on the train, I was livid. I had been looking forward to going to the festival, and now I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make it in time. As it turned out, I lucked out, and got there in time, because the train was early. My host mother was hung up in traffic for a while however, so I had to wait at the station. By the time the whole mess was straightened out, I had missed the opening, but made it in time for the fireworks.

It’s the stuff like the travel arrangements that really make me want to go home. It’s just ridiculous that anyone could screw them up that bad, and that they would have to spend about $200 last minute to get everyone home.

So, for the next camp, I’m making my own way, and I don’t much care what anyone says. There’s three of us who agreed we would split the cost to take a taxi down the mountain and we could make our own way from there.

The next camp should be a three day camp I believe. I don’t have any plans for the homestay after this one, but it will be the last one with my host family, so we’re bound to do something.

I returned from the Saga camp yesterday, and it was a blast overall. The kids were great, the camp was scenic, and we had a lot of fun. We also had three extra counsellors shipped in from the Fukuoka group to help out.

The camp started off to a rocky start though. The call I got saying that we were returning to camp a day early to have a little time to relax was a load of crap. What happened is someone screwed up the schedule, and in fact we -had- to be there a day early, or the students would beat us to camp the next day. So we spent our day of ‘free time’ working and planning the camp. I wasn’t too happy with that.

Despite that, we did manage to sneak in about 45 minutes of freetime. During that time, I decided to go investigate a tower I could see poking out over the trees. It was a long walk, and quite a hike up the hill, but I made it. The tower offered a great view of the camp and the surrounding area.

The next day arrived, and I was a little nervous. This was the first time we worked with anyone in grade school, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. We had joked about bedwetters (of which there were a few), and kids swimming in the baths (which did happen last year), but overall the kids were a great bunch.

This camp was also a little different from others in that the teachers of the school decided that it would be in the best interest of the students to have the same counsellor for all their activities. I liked this idea, as it gave me an opportunity to really get to know the students and what they were capable of. Each counsellor had an entirely different room group as well. Kevin and I actually got two rooms a piece, which really wasn’t too bad.

During the days, we did skit practice, had a ‘My Town’ activity, and had a lot of recreation time. This camp was different from the Souseikan camps in that at the two Souseikan camps I was emotionally drained at the end of a day, this time I was just physically tired, but ready for more.

For the skit this time, my group decided to do a Harry Potter skit. In this skit, Snape sent Harry off to detention with a Mr. Gnarl, and Mr. Gnarl turned out to be Voldemort, who ultimately defeated and killed Potter in a duel over the Philosopher’s Stone. Not true to the Harry Potter story, but the kids liked it. They especially liked the end fight scene, and I just let them do as they pleased for it. The skit was tied for third overall, so the kids were happy as was I.

The ‘My Town’ activity kind of misfired. I had chosen the Eye Doctor as my activity, which was a mistake. Once we started, I did run though about 70 students or so, but the rest found other places to go. At first the kids were required to go to all the places, such as the Post Office, Bank, Passport Control, Card shop, etc…, but as the time went on, they were only required to go to like 5 of them.

What really compounded the problem was the fact that Ben, one of the new Fukuoka counsellors, tried to help thinking up a way to spice up the Eye Doctor. We were both stumped at what to do, so he came up with the idea of doing balloon animals. This was a mistake. As more and more kids realized there were balloon animals and swords to be had, the town dried up. About 80% or more of the students were standing in long lines to get balloons, and the amount of people making the balloons went from one to five at one point.

After everyone had balloons, they stopped doing the rest of the ‘My Town’ activity, and happily had sword fights in the middle of the gym. Eventually time ran out, and we moved on to the next thing.

We lucked out with this camp in that we actually had good weather for a change. This allowed us to do fun stuff like go to an obstacle course, have a campfire, and do Indoor Bingo (which isn’t Bingo really at all, and isn’t indoors….).

The obstacle course was a lot of fun. We gathered all the kids and had to walk several kilometers to the obstacle course. Once we got there, there was a rope course for the kids to do, and several other smaller courses as well. It was rather funny to watch about 150 kids scramble over the obstacle course like a swarm of ants.

The campfire was also fun, but a lot of work. The campfire started Japanese style. Now, I wasn’t aware of a difference, but in retrospect I should have been. Some Japanese people believe that when a fire is lit, a god comes to that fire. So, they had a whole ceremony, where three students were dressed in white and bearing flaming torches, and one student was dressed in gold with a crown. They read a short speech, summoning the god to the fire, and lit it. As the wood had been doused in kerosene, it went up pretty good. They also had a little dance, and a song to go with the lighting of the fire. The song sounded familiar, and I know I’ve heard it somewhere before.

After the fire was going, then the campfire switched to American style. We entertained the students with songs, and later demonstrated how to make Smores. The teachers didn’t want the third graders to roast their own marshmellows, so us counsellors took over the job. After the third graders, the remaining students could roast their own, which gave us counsellors a whole new thing to worry about: kids and fire.

While us counsellors who were watching the kids roast their marshmellows were busy blowing out flaming marshmellows, the remaining counsellors attempted to keep the rest of ths students entertained with more songs. I didn’t envy them, as we didn’t really have any plan going into it, so they had to come up with songs off the tops of their heads. Finally, all the kids had their Smores, and took a bath, and went to bed.

Finally, we had Indoor Bingo. The game basically went like this: each group was given a sheet with pictures on it, arranged in a 5×5 grid. The object was that they had to go around, and find where the pictures were taken, match it up on another sheet of paper with numbers for each location around the facility, and then stop at all the checkpoints, where they were given a question in English that everyone had to answer. The group was finished when they had 3 ‘bingos’. It was a bit chaotic, as there was some miscommunication about the checkpoints, but it still was fun.

The nights were a little tiring. The students were supposed to be in bed at about 9:30pm, and lights out was at 10pm. Generally, my rooms were playing some form of card game, and were quiet, so I would just let them do as they pleased until about 10pm, at which time they had to go to bed. Once they went to bed, that’s when it got chaotic, because suddenly they had nothing to do.

I think most of the counsellors were reluctant to see graduation come. This group was probably the most fun one so far, and a lot easier than Souseikan. My group had 8 kids: Kanako, Sayaka, Hirari, Rizumu, Ryuji, Masaya, Hikaru, and one other I can’ think of right now. I’ll miss them.

The trip home wasn’t without adventure. Apparently there was another miscommunication, and instead of stopping in Isahaya (which is where I live, and close to several other peoples’ homestays), we went all the way back to Nagasaki, after which those of us who lived in Sasebo, Isahaya, and Omura had to backtrack at least 40 mins to get home.

Next camp is in Sasebo, and right now transportation doesn’t sound well thought out. Those same people who live in Isahaya, and Omura are supposed to go back to Nagasaki, to backtrack yet again to go to Sasebo. I’m told it takes about 20 mins to get to Sasebo from Isahaya, but if I were to do as they have planned, I would have to ride a train for about 30mins into Nagasaki, only to backtrack again by bus to get to Sasebo. Some of us are thinking of just skipping the Nagasaki step and going straight to Sasebo. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do yet.

The next camp is scheduled to start on the 20th, and go for about 5 days. I don’t really have any plans at this point for this current homestay, but staying at home and taking it easy for a few days doesn’t sound like a bad idea.

My host mother also went in and bought the tickets for the trip to Hiroshima, so that is a definate thing. I’m really looking forward to that. I think we are leaving on the 26th, or maybe even the night of the 25th. We are going by Shinkansen, so travel won’t be too long. I think we are coming back the night of the 26th, or maybe morning of the 27th. I need some more details, but I am not too worried, because that homestay is a 5 day homestay.

Four camps down: Souseikan I and II, Nagoya, and now Kaisei Elementary. Three more camp sessions to go, and the special two week one at the end. From now on, all the camp sessions will be at Sasebo, and there will be several schools at the camp at the same time, so we will have several smaller camps going on. Now that we’ve had the best, and the worst of camps, I think I’m about ready for anything.

Well, this weekend didn’t turn out quite as expected. We were supposed to have a going away party for Anne and Kari, but that apparently fell through. In retrospect, either I or Kevin should have probably tried to set something up, as the other counsellors probably don’t know enough about Japan to do so. In the end it didn’t matter, because Josh told me that apparently Anne had already been sent to Fukuoka on the day that were supposed to have the party. I feel bummed out because of that.. I still haven’t heard anything about Kari, but I assume she’s going back soon too.

While I was killing time, waiting to hear about the going away party, I got a phone call while I was in an arcade, but didn’t notice it until I went outside. When I looked at the number, I didn’t have any ID with it, and didn’ recognize it. I figured it must be an American counsellor calling me about the party, so when I called and got a Japanese voice, I started to break out my Japanese. It turns out it was Yoko, Guy Healy’s wife, and she could speak English, which made things simple. Long story short, because morale was so low, they decided to send us up a day early, so we could have some free time. I didn’t really object to that.

So, because my plans fell through with the going away party, I hooked up with Kirsch, and the other JASIN students. We headed to a nomihodi (all you can drink), but Kirsch was a bit disappointed when the four Koreans decided they didn’t have enough time to go and went back. So, we hung around with the other Americans for a while, and then went over to where his host sister was.

His host sister, Mie, had apparently been having a good time with two Koreans from Gaidai, and two of her friends. When we got to Kagomemura, they were all fairly drunk. They were a blast to be around though, so we stayed until they finally decided to go to Karaoke. I was a bit worried that four tipsy Asians would not be able to find their way to anywhere, much less sing when they got there. They apparently made it safe and sound though.

The next day, Kirsch, his host family, and I were to head to Fukuoka, and go to Space World. The weather, however, had different plans. Because Space World was a wash, we stopped at this little old village outside of Saga. I’m not sure if it is an original village, or just a tourist attraction stylized after an old village, but anyway, it was fun. We were going to do something else after that, but Kirsch’s other host sister, Akane, was in Nagasaki and had forgotten her housekey, so we had to go back.

When we got back, we were a little hard up for something to do. So, after a bit of calling, we hooked up with the other Americans, and went out to eat. We finally stopped at this Japanese style restaurant. The food was good, and the prices weren’t too bad.

The next day, Kirsch and I met up with two Koreans, and went to a Takoyaki. I’ve said it before, but Koreans are fun to be around. I’m amazed at how good they are at Japanese, and a bit envious too. I get a bit of a workout with my Japanese too, because there’s no guarentee to how much English they understand, so we have to talk to them in Japanese.

Now, I don’t normally like Takoyaki, but this place was good. They made it up right in front of you, first putting in the octopus chunk, then pouring on the batter, and letting it simmer for a while. After that, you started to roll them into the takoyaki balls that you normally see. They were amazingly hot, but pretty tasty. Something I would definately do again.

When we finished our lunch, I headed back to Isahaya. The silly thing is that during these last few days, I went to Nagasaki, and then to Saga when Fukuoka got rained out, and then back to Nagasaki, to come back to Isahaya, and then go back to Nagasaki again, to go out to Saga, which is past Isahaya. So, I’m doing a lot of backtracking.

When I got back to Isahaya, I watched Sumo with them, and then they decided to head out for dinner. We invited Natsuko (I hope that’s how her name is spelled) along, and had a pretty good time. Overall, I think we spent about $160 for dinner. I also ate some things that I probably wouldn’t have if I had know what they were, like the beef heart, or chicken cartilage, or something from a whale’s snout. Anyway, we had fun, and returned home to watch a movie for a while before Natsuko finally went home.

Right now I am at my host father’s company, while waiting for my train at 1:30pm to head back to Nagasaki. It turns out he owns several pharmacies, and this is his office. Not a bad little place really. It is also nice because I can jump on the internet here without having to go all the way to Nagasaki.