Going to Hakone #2

I’m typing this now with only 3 hours of sleep since EK dropped me home late, very late. He had gotten lost and was just way behind to begin with and I didn’t get much sleep. I finished packing and now I’m about to leave for work. I packed a whole hell of a lot because I’m not sure what I will need to bring and what I will need to have while I’m there. But I really wished I would have gotten more sleep because now I’m going to be tired as hell and I’m babysitting all the students too. Damn. It should be a fun weekend that I’m looking forward to, but we’ll see how it goes.

So I had to wake up at 4am to get ready and leave my house by 5am to get to school by 7am because the bus was leaving at 7:30am. All that just went by in a flash and before I knew it I was at school. I had arrived on time or actually a little early which was good for me. I had to carry a heavy bag going to work so it wasn’t so pleasant. But I was lucky that there weren’t that many people going on the trains at that time.

It appeared to the students that I was only there to see them off because I was outside of the bus and waving good-bye to them, but little did they know I was going to ride in the car with the extra stuff for the BBQ with Mr. Kda. I’m not sure how this happened, but the buses were way ahead of us. We were driving all fast to catch up and we finally did right before we hit the exit that we would all stop at for a little bathroom break and for the students to get anything they want. The rest areas in Japan are much different than the rest areas in California. They have a certain feel of safety and it’s larger with many more things available for the tired tourist aside from the restroom. After this short little break, I joined the high school girls in class Kiku on the bus. It was only about 20 minute ride on the bus from the rest stop in Ashitaka to the exit for Hakone. We stopped at the Lalique museum in Hakone before we went to the Yakumo Residence in Hakone. You can take a look at the museum from the website, since I wasn’t able to take pictures inside. http://www.lalique-museum.com/eng/index.html. We also had a wonderful spaghetti lunch there. It was absolutely fantastic.

By the time we were leaving, it started to rain a little and I think that people were in a rush to get their stuff from the big bus to the microbus that will take us to the residence. When we arrived at the residence, it had stopped raining so the students, after changing into their jerseys and getting the house ready, they went outside to play ball. At first they were playing double Dutch and asked me to play. I didn’t at first, but decided that it would be best to try it out. I wanted to get the respect from the students and wanted to be more personable so I think that was a good way to do that. I think that it worked too. After they were tired of that, which was really quite quick, they kinda broke off into their little groups and some of us outside were playing volleyball. We didn’t have a net or anything so it was just hitting a ball over a line without having it bounce. It was pretty fun. But it was a bit short since they had to go back into the house to prepare for the class game. They had like an activity hour for 2 hours before they had to get ready to start the BBQ. So they just played games and more games. I didn’t understand some of them so I didn’t play, but then the VP said that I should play and Mr. Kda should play too. Since she’s the boss we jumped in there and played. We didn’t have to play too long because we jumped in near the end of the time allotted for that.

Then the madness began. How do you do a BBQ with it raining? So we set up the canopy in a way that it would lead up into the house so that we could cook outside and bring the finished ones in. We also did yakiniku indoors with each table having a burner to cook for themselves. It was a really delicious dinner, but there was just too much food. After I was finished eating with the students and creating conversations with them, I was invited to eat with the teachers to finish the left over foods. Since I’m the youngest and lowest on the totem pole I had to eat the bulk of the leftovers. I was really stuffed at this point. But we managed to at the very least get a lot of it eaten.

But low and behold, that wasn’t the end of it. After all the clean up and the girls taking their showers and baths, the male teachers took their showers and baths. This was about an hours worth of time. After all that, and bed time, the VP invited teachers from both houses to come and have a ramen meal to end the evening. It was in appreciation for all that we’ve done for the weekend and will continue to do, but damn we were all already stuffed. But damn was it delicious. I was amazed that I was able to finish it. I mean I must have expanded my stomach by a few inches because I ate so much today. The food was delicious though, but still too much is too much. After that, we all called it a night and went to sleep.