Monday, April 20, 2009

BBQ Weekend

Sorry I slacked again on my posting, so it’s going to be another semi-long post.

Today it has officially been two years since I left Japan for the first time. My flight flew out of Narita airport on April 20th two years ago. It really doesn’t feel like it has been that long. My first visit here was amazing and changed my outlook on life a little. I’m glad Halston came up with the idea and asked me if I wanted to go to Japan. If he didn’t I don’t know if I would have came in the first place, and I definitely wouldn’t be here now. I think most of the people I was there with would agree when I say last time here felt like a different world/era.

On Wednesday it was Bridget's 25th birthday. We had a little celebration at Chakoya for her. It was a fun night, because right after the dinner I went and played Volleyball. Here's the link for facebook with pictures on it. It has pictures of everything I'm going to talk about in one album.

On Saturday I went to Utsunomiya to have a BBQ with the Frisbee team. I had to wake up at 6:45 to catch a 7:40 train which made me a bit cranky, since it was a Saturday, but it was ok because it was an awesome day. What I didn’t realize was that it was practice first then the BBQ for lunch then more practice. I showed up in jeans haha. I still practiced with the team a bit in regular shoes and jeans. The whole point of the practice was to introduce the freshman players to what Ultimate Frisbee is like, since not many people really know too much about it. There were probably around 8 freshmen guys and 12 freshman girls. Since I showed up in jeans, during the morning part of practice I went to the store and shopped with a couple people from the team for the food and stuff. It was really a lot of fun and I’m glad I went. I took a lot of pictures here’s the facebook album. Here's a couple good ones for those to lazy to see the link:


On the way home I found out Adrian was going to Sano to meet up with Matt and some others for the night. I texted him and asked which train he was taking because I was on my way back to Sano from the Frisbee practice and Oyama (where he lives) in on the way. Adrian ended up taking the same train to Sano as I did. We talked a bit on the train then met Matt and Oliver at the station. We were all hungry so we went to an Izakaya (Bar/restaurant) and got some food. I got some pork kimchee thing it was good. Matt couldn’t decide what he wanted so he just pointed to the menu hoping what he pointed to was good. Adrian also did this but their results were quite different. Turned out Matt got garlic chicken hearts hahaha. Adrian got some set meal that he enjoyed. After we finished up at the Izakaya we searched around for a Jazz Bar that we’ve all heard about but never found. After searching for 30 mins or more we gave up. We went over to 7-11 (Which I found out is a Japanese company) and got some ice cream and cheap wine haha. We walked around Sano then walked to a park and drank and talked.

Yesterday (Sunday) I went this log cabin resort 蓬山ロッグキャビン (Yamogiyama Log Cabin) like area for another BBQ. This time it was with ALTs and some of our Japanese friends. It was mainly people from Ashikaga and Sano (neighboring cities). The place was a bit away from civilization as I had to take a 30 minute train ride, and then a 30 minute bus ride to get there. The bus only comes one time in the morning from the train station to the resort, and twice in the afternoon only from the resort to the station haha kind of ridiculous.

The log cabin area was awesome. They had a huge grilling area, where we did all our barbequing, and a giant playground area. The playground area had waste deep water flowing all around it like a moat. There were a series of bridges and canals. It was pretty amazing. There were ton of obstacles that if you made a mistake you ended up waste deep in water. A lot of the ALTs saw this as a challenge. So we all did some time of obstacle. I ended up trying to cross a floating log bridge. It was pretty tough and I almost made it all the way but fell in on the last piece. We stuck around the cabin resort until around 6 when the final bus came. Again check facebook for pics: facebook Also here's the video of all the things we did on the playground. Really fun place.



After that I went with Satomi, Kristine, and Matt back to Kristine’s house. We relaxed a bit and went over all the pictures and videos we took from the day. Satomi and Kristine were laughing so hard they were crying and complaining that their faces and stomachs hurt. I got a ton of funny videos which I’ll be posting on youtube/facebook for everyone to enjoy because they are just way too funny to not share with the world. After that we went and got some dinner at Gusto which if I had to compare to an American restaurant I’d say its like Perkins or something like that (cookie cutter family restaurant). Akemi met us there and freeked me out haha. Her hair is long and she covered her face with her hair then came at the table I was like.. uhh who is that? After we ate we went back to Kristines and talked a bit more. Then I took the train home and got home around 11:30.

I think over the whole weekend, besides sleeping, I was home for a total of 3 hours. This weekend has definitely been the most fun I’ve had on a normal two day weekend since I’ve been here. I’m glad the weather is finally nice here and I can be outside all weekend

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