  Yesterday was the school festival at Toyoshige Elementary School. It began around 9am, I got there about 10. The students had a sports day where you split up the 1st -6th graders (all the students) into two teams. The red team and the white team. The compete in sports events like tug of war, and basket toss and the neat thing is that the parents participate with them. Its like a mother/father basket toss. There is another where they race to get things like a scavenger hunt with their parents.
The have games that the older men and women in the village compete in as well like bowling and croquet (i think that's what its called). The students also have a marching band which was really very good. I saw a lot of my junior high school students there as well. I had a good time and ate an obento lunch with the teachers in the teachers' room. I left there around 1:30pm and came home to prepare for my camping adventure.
I went to Lake Shiriberiko (something like that) in this town called Ichikawadaimon. It was rainy all day yesterday and I once again really didn't want to go. I did however because I'd already reserved my spot and thought that it would be fun to meet some of the older JETs and members of YETI (yamanashi english teachers inc) that I had not yet met. The drive up the mountain was steep, rainy and very winding so I was very pleased when I finally reached the top. Then once I got there the cabin we were staying in was on the opposite side of the lake entrance so I had to carry my things a pretty far way.
Since it was raining, I left my futon and swim gear in the car. But low and behold when I got to the other side there were people in the water while its raining swimming. All I can say is to each his own. Then there were people who just drink all damn day. It gets quite old and people didn't really seem to get sick. I just don't feel comfortable with any of them enough to be pissy drunk. I've only been drinking beer since I've been here which is also rough on my stomach. At home, a few coronas every now and then is cool, but this Asahi beer is not as light. Nor does it get you tipsy as fast so I just don't like drinking here that much. Not to mention the British girls I've met can drink just about every American girl I know under the table so I don't bother to get into the contests.
I like being around other English speakers and there are always some young Japanese people that hang out with YETI too which is also very cool, I'm just not into the drink until you pass the hell out thing. I finally met Peter or "Junior" as they all call him. He went to UNC came in the year before me. Of course we never knew each other but it is good to connect on some of the UNC stuff and people we both know about.
He was in Chi Psi his freshman and sophomore years so he knew a lot of the UNC Student Body Presidents and friends so that was very cool. There was a UNC sweatshirt hanging up in the cabin and it was so funny because we both thought it was each other's but it ended up being some girl from New Zealand's who I later found out only bought the sweater because it was blue and had no idea what or where UNC was!!
Too wierd. There was a lovely bon fire and some Brazilian guys who were camping across the lake from us came over and brought a stereo and some music to party too so that was kinda wild. Two guys went swimming naked and then maybe 6 other people went swimming with them but they all had on suits. This all was going on around 11pm so of course the lake was pitch black. There was a toilet out there but I refused to go because it was literally an outhouse type thing with a hole in the ground.
It had the appearance of a porcelin hole and the smell was atrocious! I had to go in the woods and would much rather than to vomit from the sheer smell alone. I wore my grey ARMY t-shirt and ARMY hoodie that G gave me so everyone kept asking me if I was in the freakin' ARMY. One guy even told him that I was intimidating him because the letters were so big and bold...my response...get some balls man, its just a f'...in jacket. The wildest things tend to bother folks. Oh, and I met the editor of the YETI newsletter called the NASH. She told me that the needed writers and asked if I'd write an opinion column. I have PLENTY of opinions so why not put them to some good use? I'm not sure what my column will be about this time though, but I'm sure it will come to me. I told her the only way I'd write is if she could promise me fortune and fame and she did so I said I'd do it.
I think it will be fun. This morning at 5am, my cell phone alarm begins going off in a cabin of about 40 people all laid out across this huge tatami matted floor and I had to tip toe across them to find the damn phone in the bottom of my purse. I was sorry to wake folks up but most of them had been drinking heavily so it didn't phase them much. I couldn't go back to sleep after that so I laid there for a while and all the random snoring started to get to me so I got up and went outside where some other early birds had already gone. They cooked some bacon that they'd found left from the day before and had eaten it by the time I got out there. I couldn't believe they cooked any meat that had sat out all night and pork of all meats...but that's their guts not mine!
I helped them clean up the yard and we of course in japanese style had to separate the garbage by burnables, cans, bottles, and plastic. We started crushing the beer cans to make room for more in the bag and once we started doing that we basically woke up the rest of the camp site. I think some people got pissed, but I didn't think you were supposed to sleep until noon when you were camping anyway right?
Overall review: It didn't really feel like camping, met some cool people including a fellow tarheel, have a new hobby and direction for my writing, don't plan to attend anymore YETI events if I don't really want to go, confirmation received that I'm not in Kansas anymore.
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.Off to shower, then to lake Shoji. My JH students are canoeing today, then I have my Japanese lesson in Kofu. Never subject yourself to listening to Bob Marley's "Redemption song" sung by a half drunk acoustic guitar player from the US-Midwest. Its not worth your time and will probably piss you off for disrespecting Bob like that. 
