I know there is a huge gap between my last post, but I will just have to fill in the rest of the details later. I want to write this down whilst it is still fresh.From Thursday afternoon to Saturday evening, my school's rugby team went to Rokunohe to play in the All Aomori-ken high school rugby tournament. We left Thursday afternoon at around 3:10 PM and it took us about 3 1/2 hours to get to our Misawa hotel called, Tensui. It was nice, we arrived and then had dinner very soon afterward. It was a very good dinner and I ate almost everything! You can tell Misawa has an air base in it because a lot of the signs were in English and more accommodating for English speakers. Afterwards, Nakamura and Tandou sensei went to their room to drink chu-hi. Drinking here in Japan is very different than in the U.S. We sit down in the room and just pour each other drinks. It is more social and we have Japanese snacks such as dried squid (my favourite!), rice crackers and other things too. We have a TV on and we sometimes watch it and comment about it. It was nice because as we drink more and more, we were able to open up and joke about each other. Mostly about Tandou sensei and his lack of a girlfriend!
The next morning, we had breakfast at 8:00 AM and would meet at 10:00 AM to leave to the field. We got there and our game was at 12:00 (noon). They did they warm-up and everything was on the field immediately. The timimg in Japan for important events is very efficient, which was very nice. The game we played on Friday was an easy one for us and they easily disposed of the team (which I forgot the name) and won 84-0. There was no contest and I soon began to see how good we really are. After the game and post-game bows, we stayed around because every team helps out with lining, scoring and match reports.
We had some problems on the way back with the bus, the piston was broke or that is what I understood it to be. We took another bus and I went back to my room and took a mini-nap to be interrupted by knocking on my door. Tandou-sensei informed me that Nakamura-sensei wanted to go to the onsen now, so I got ready and we went. It was a very interesting experience. The onsen is a place where anyone can go and relax and destress. This time it was only men and most of them were old. You are naked the whole time and you are supposed to have a towel. I did not, so I was naked all the time. The first thing you do is take a shower and scrub yourself down very well. You want to be clean for the actual hot springs, so no one gets your dirty grime or anything like that. There are multiple pools, two cold pools and one sauna. I spent my time in all of them, but most of the time, I tried to get into the sauna and the cold pools. I felt very refreshed after the experience. I ended up buying ice cream cones for everyone because they covered the cost of me getting in. It was 350 yen. (I don't know how to write the yen sign yet on a US keyboard! haha) We got back and I had another 1 1/2 hours until dinner, so I just layed in my room and then went to dinner. It was good. Through the middle, I got a phone call and it was Karesa. We planned to meet at 9:00 at the Misawa train station. So after dinner, it was to drinking again and we drank a lot more. By the time 9:00 came around, I was buzzed and it was good. I made my way to the train station and soon found out there are two sides and two exits. When I finally met up with Karesa, I met her husband and their friend from the airbase, Han. We ended up going to a ramen place which also serves Thai food, but the kitchen was closed to Thai food, so they ended up having ramen. The place is famous for putting a lot of garlic into their food. When we finished, Han drove me back to the hotel and I went to bed shortly after.
The next day, the same schedule. Breakfast at 8:00 AM and then we left a little bit earlier, at 9:50 AM. We had all of our stuff and when we got there, we took it with us. The day was not as nice as before, it was cloudy and overcast, but still sunny enough to get me sunburned for the second day in a row!!! The game was a tough battle between the two teams, it was us and another Hachinohe team. Hanchinohe has many different high schools, so I couldn't remember all the team names. We won the game on only one try and conversion, final score was 7-0. After, some of the students whose parents came up took them back and we got back onto the bus. I took a nap and we were back around 5:30 PM!
Please check out my pictures of the trip on the facebook and I am putting one up here!
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