Last day in Hakone - 7th grade seminar

We did the same thing as yesterday to begin with, meaning we had breakfast early in the morning and had the morning assembly outside, although I didn’t join today. I was busy doing other things to get ready for departure. After we finished breakfast, we cleaned up the Hakone residence. I had to clean the bathroom like I did yesterday with the Ume students. We didn’t do a very thorough job like the one we did yesterday, but that was in the interest of time and energy since we still have a packed day ahead of us. After we finished all the cleaning, we went back to our rooms and packed our stuff. We needed to get out in a hurry so that we could get to all the places that we wanted to go today on the school tour. My cut on my upper lip got worse today. I decided that it was the fault of my razor and now I’ll probably have a scar for a month or so that won’t go away and will be un-pretty for a long time. It created a blister with five- six pimple like bumps. It hurt a lot too. Once we got all of our stuff packed up, we changed our clothes back to formal gear and got ready to leave the school.

The first stop from the bus was to an area that overlooked a nice area of the lake. They had a material museum and the students had some handouts to fill out. It really wasn’t that interesting, just that there were figurines that were made to look like the olden days and how the customs was done back then. Then we went to a docking area so that we could go on a pirate ship ride. It was actually a pirate ship look-a-like ship that was actually pretty cool looking. I really enjoyed it since it was a unique experience to have in Japan and with the students. I’m not really their personal teacher since I don’t teach half of the girls there, but it was nice to have the experience with them.

I have met some of them in Okinawa and at least been exposed to them this year. The next thing that we did today was have lunch at a nice hotel. I’m not sure what hotel it was, but it was nice. We had a little fondue type of a lunch where we had to basically cook our own food. It was pretty good, but still I didn’t prefer to cook my own food. I would think that if you go to a nice place for lunch, they would at least cook it for you. But they didn’t and I had to do it for myself. I’m not really into fondue, so that was also the other reason why I wasn’t as impressed. We had to wait a little bit before we could even go in too. But we all left promptly when we finished. Some students were faster than others, and that’s usual, but when they are all in line to go to the restroom, it just takes a long time since it’s a girls school and everyone is basically a girl and the lines just become too long. I think some of them went into the men’s room too, when no one was in there just so we wouldn’t be late. Now that’s hard core right there.

We went to another spot in the Hakone area and we took a ride on a gondola to a famous Onsen at Owaradani. It wasn’t so bad at all really. It was nice and a bit high, but it was interesting when you’re in there with students. They tend to wave at everyone that goes by the other side. I’m not a big fan of onsens only because they smell like sulfur and if you’ve smelt sulfur before, you’d understand what I’m talking about. It happens to be a very famous one in Hakone too. They have some interesting stuff there and we looked around and took a little hike to the top to get a great view. I was having troubles breathing since it stunk like rotten eggs, but I managed to get some pictures of the area. Then we went back on the bus and were on our way home. I was a bit relieved that we were going home because I wasn’t feeling too well at this time. The problem was that we had a lot of traffic going home so we were about 30 minutes late to get home. Everyone at this point was very tired.

I left school around 5pm, but didn’t get home till around 8pm. I needed to unpack tonight so that I could pack for tomorrow and going to Thailand. I wanted to get all the final details of the trip, but CFri didn’t send me any information. So I’m a bit worried and I don’t know what to bring really. I’ve never been on a tour group so I’m not sure what to expect too. But I trust her and her judgment. So I’ll write more when I get back.