kumbayaa

a timeline of how 3 days at summer camp went...

friday...6am
wake up in order to arrive at nagoya station by 8am. do final packing for moving apartments on the same day that was done by kind roomates.

8am
meet the kids. find out i have 13 kids to look after in my group, ages 6-12. 6 ecc teachers, 6 tom sawyet staff (japanese counsellors who spoke no english), almost 80 kids.

830am
leave on the bus to nagano. have to entertain kids on bus by making fools of ourselves.

1200pm
bus breaks down due to overheating

130pm
finally get to the campsite, which is actually quite nice. do some english activities for hours which include doing handprints out of paint, making rockets with baking soda and vinegar, and a treasure hunt.

5pm
get to the barbeque area where were told we must make rice curry for dinner with the kids. not ever making rice curry before it was rather difficult, especially since i only had 1 knife to share with 5 girls, had a ratio of 12 onions for every potato, and the fact that my japanese camp leader wasnt very adept at making a fire.

8pm
finish making dinner and get eaten alive by mosquitos

9pm
do night hike with the kids and get lost in the woods

10pm
put kids to bed and clean up. sign some english passports for the kids and play uno. have japanese style communal bath with all male counsellors, both english and japanese

11pm
have japanese style boardroom meeting where we are told by japanese counsellors that things could have went better because we were a few minutes late for certain activities (literally). we counter by saying that we thought the kids had a great time and that you must be flexible at summer camp (ie: bus breaking down).

12am
retire to bungaloo and play uno until going to bed at 1am

saturday 630am
wake up and pack

700am
breakfast, more english activities with kids

900am
leave campsite 1 for campsite 2

1100am
kids get motion sickness on bus and throw up

1200pm
get to a mountain and ride a cable car up it. kids get 5 minutes of free time on the mountain before taking the cable car back down

100pm
take the bus and arrive at campsite 2

130pm
have lunch which includes rice on a stick and nothing else. kids complain about being tired and hungry, so do counsellors

200pm
pitch tents for kids. ecc teachers help girls pitch tents on a small section between the road and the river on rocks...tom sawyer staff help boys pitch tents on a hill on rocks. again no instructions on how to erect it so the tents stability were tenuous at best

300pm
go on hike to go and pick potatoes. upon arriving at the potato field it begins to rain. hard.

400pm
leave potato fields all muddy and hike back to camp in the rainstorm

500pm
look after kids while they change from muddy clothes to dirty clothes. it stops raining.

630pm
have dinner at campfire which includes mutton stew and rice. when finished it begins to rain again, only harder than before.

730pm
kids find shelter in bungalows...counsellors try to entertain them. decision is made to ditch the tents and send the kids inside for baths and bed

10pm
kids finally finish baths and go to bed. counsellors go to dining room where the camp owner brings out a big bottle of homemade sake, snacks, and gifts. drink sake until 1230am bedtime.

sunday 600am
wake up groggily for 630am breakfast. counsellors hungover.

800am
help kids pack up and get stuff on bus for 930am departure to the river.

1000am
arrive at a train site and take a slow yet scenic train ride through the nagano greenery. quite beautiful and gives counsellors some time to rest and refuel.

1030am
arrive at final site and proceed to give a 50 minute english lesson to the group in bad heat and a rocky, grassy floor. more english activities later until noon.

1230pm
have a great japanese style barbeque at the campsite while making sure the kids dont burn themselves cooking their meat on the coals.

200pm
after some picture taking and general sillyness we pack back on the bus for the ride home to nagoya. kids are okay but dirty...counsellors are exhausted and dirty.

600pm
arrive back at nagoya station to give the kids back to the parents and say goodbye.

conclusion: fun yet exhausting 2 days.

just so you know...

there might not be many updates in the next week or two because ill be very busy. on friday i go to nagano for 3 days for ecc kids summer camp. that is the same day that im supposed to move from higashi betsuin to meicki, so some will have to be done before and some will have to be done after. once i get back from summer camp, there will be 4 kids-free days of work before starting the summer holiday for 2 weeks on the friday. thanks.

on this update

the blog has been neglected like a bad stepchild as of late so ive done a big update here for all of my 2 internet fans. in this update i may refer to a few or all of these pieces of information:

1) my summer plans include:

i) going to tokyo for 5 days. ive booked a ryokan for myself, amanda, and her best friend claire who is flying into japan for 2 weeks for the summer vacation. when were there well meet up with paul, mike, and steve who will be coming up from osaka and kyoto.

ii) climbing mount fuji after tokyo is done

iii) buying a japanese rail pass and doing some day trips in the week before i go to tokyo (i get 2 weeks of summer vacation starting on august 5...the tokyo trip is in the second week and so will fuji)

2) i have to move again thanks to a variety of factors...the biggest of which being the idiot expat housing agent who continually screws us over. i live in higashi betsuin now, just south of downtown...ill be moving near nagoya station with paul and mike which will be just east of downtown but an even more central location to everything. the room will be basically the same except that we will get cnn and espn for the tv and wont have to worry about making too much noise anymore. another factor is that eamon, one of the roomates, had to quit ecc and move back to canada because his dad is sick. its sad and him leaving was a bit of a preview of what itll be like when everybody eventually parts ways at some point in the future.

3) from july 22-24 ill be doing a summer camp in nagano for ecc. i have visions of animare and happy kids dancing in my head. if itll be half of what animare was ill be happy. on the positive side, ill make as much from 3 days of japanese summer camp as i made for 30 days of czech summer camp. and i get to miss 2 days of work and go to camp instead, which is always a plus. theres about 6 teachers going on this camp, including amanda, one of the trainers, a teacher i havent seen since training, ect.

4) i bought tickets for an oasis concert during the summer vacation. itll be my first japanese concert experience so im pretty psyched. actually theres huge rock festivals taking place in the summer in tokyo, osaka, and niigata but this one seemed like the best bet because its actually in nagoya in an outdoor venue, its cheaper, and you get to see the main act instead of biding time through a bunch of acts you either arent interested in seeing or have never heard of before. i think its literally a dream come true for amanda so i dont think anybody is more excited in nagoya than her for it but im also rather happy to go so it should be good fun.

more later.

on learning japanese

so theres one month to go until summer comes and ive made 2 pledges:

1) to go to the gym almost every day to prepare for the fuji climb (even though about 3000 people a day climb the mountain in the summer and children/grandparents even do it)
2) improve my japanese

the japanese would be the top priority at this point as im at point where i could decide to just leave it and be content with the survival japanese that i already know or try to improve to the point where id be able to communicate at some elementary level in a japanese conversation. id like to do the latter and hopefully by august ill have some results. im rather slow so who knows but its worth a try i think.

on free time lessons

top 5 free time lesson warmer topics:

5) what are you going to do on your summer vacation?
4) have you been to the expo yet? how was it?
3) where should i go on my summer vacation?
2) what do you think the impact of inflation will be on the world bond market?

and

1) how bout that humidity outside, eh?

on london

some fairly terrible events happening in the uk this week...i remember being at home and mike on his computer saying london was awarded the olympics, and then refreshed the same news site where it was reported that there had been terrorist attacks in the london tube. it happened thursday night for us so the thursday morning bombing was just taking place. we switched on nhk which had japanese journalists with english feeds as they had no time to take care of the translation yet. cant wait for cnn at freebell for a real news channel. the biggest bomb was between kings cross and russell square subway stations, which was pretty much exactly where my hostel was when i stayed in london.

the story is pretty big here with koizumi in england for the g8 summit and everything. some students were able to tell about the big gas bomb that went off in the tokyo subway about ten years ago, but none seemed to be worried about terrorism except for my almost fluent political scientist professor student who im always able to talk about world events in great detail with. she says any country thats in the g8 should be worried about terrorism, and id have to agree.

on good food

ive been denying myself going to the outback steakhouse the last few months because ive thought it as a bit defeatist...when in japan do as the japanese do (but i wont even go into how much mcdonalds i eat over here). but amanda and i visited the said steakhouse on friday and came to a few conclusions:

a) we are not used to western style food portions anymore
b) japanese medium means western rare on steaks
c) free bread at restaurants is a godsend
d) we dont know how we went without steak for so long

seriously, this was like going to the keg at home and having the best prime rib theyve ever cooked. im sure it was just okay by vancouver standards but by nagoyan standards it was the bomb (nagoya has great food, but the western food is just okay usually). we both had stomachaches afterwards for eating so much but we didnt care...it was delicious. definately going back there sometime soon...im dying for an onion loaf and bottomless coke.

on nagoya hair

ive noticed that the girls in nagoya are notable for a few aspects: unique fashion sense, bad teeth, big eye pupils, elaborate sandals and painted nails, and hair. apparently theres something called "nagoya hair" that the girls here like to wear...basically its mullet-like in that its long and straight in the back, and shorter in the front with a bit of a curl. its difficult for me to describe as im definately no expert on the intracicies of female hair design (or any hair design for that matter) but my students have told me that theres definately a distinctive style there. i guess ill be able to report better once i come back from tokyo in the summer but ill leave it at that for now.

on weather

the japanese have an obsession with the weather. i cant go one lesson without a student pontificating on the humidity of nagoya because of the mountains in gifu or the estimated commencement of the rainy season. they just love talking about it and love hearing weather comparisons of what itd be like in vancouver or prague at this time of year. i think i could be a climatologist (is that a word???) or at least a local news weather man upon my return to canada based on the knowledge ive picked up here about geography and its relation to weather patterns.

to be perfectly honest, though, the weather here is a little bad. were in the rainy season right now so its raining 3-4 days a week pretty hard, and will be for another few weeks. the humidity is very high right now too, but apparently were not even in summer yet. summer begins when rainy season ends, so itll get about 10 degrees hotter (it averages 25-30 C right now) and more humid from mid july through to the end of september. which means riding my bike to work in a shirt and tie is going to be a pain in the derriere. at home at least we have a great air conditioner that cools the entire apartment...we have it running 24 hours a day which is killer for the electricity bill but necessary for our sanity, especially at night.

on expo

i teach 2 days a week at ecc hoshigaoka school, which means its my "base" school. its also on the yellow subway line on the way to expo, which means i get alot of students who either work at the expo or go with their families/boyfriends/girlfriends alot. so inevitably i end up talking about the expo alot...and ive never been yet. i feel i already know what expos all about, ie: waiting in line for 5 hours for the hitatchi or toyota pavillions, the greatness of the germany pavillion, the disappointment of the australian pavillion, the gondolas, the robots, yada yada yada. i feel less of a need to go now than when i got here simply because ive heard too much about it.

on a related note, itll be interesting to see what kind of a city nagoya is when all of the foreigners working at the expo leave. i got to japan basically on the exact date the expo started and itll end at the end of september, so some say that nagoya will go from a lively international town to just another japanese metropolis (nagoya has a reputation among some for being rather boring). while some may mourn the loss of the odd new zealander or austrian, i for one wont be crying in my cornflakes. if i wanted a city with places to go every night id move to osaka. i would prefer a japanese city thats loaded with japanese people and the special status that a foreigner in japan warrants. i noticed it when i went to nara in may...people stared at us and treated us nicely. at the moment im just another rude foreigner...maybe thatll change once the expo crowd leaves and the city calms down for the winter.

on the internet

i think ive saved literally thousands upon thousands of yen on internet usage by using this free internet location in downtown nagoya. its free because every time you go in they try to sell you on signing up for yahoo broadband internet service, but when i say i dont have a computer they take my membership card and leave me alone. one of my students in obu city has a sister that works here too so the staff is friendly.

its also air conditioned, which is a plus to go into any store/indoor area at the moment.

on crepes for breakfast

i had some nice canadian breakfast thanks to the girls downstairs. they had a small sunday brunch party and made crepes, fruit salad, sausages, coffee, bought danishes, buns, ect... it was good stuff. i miss those canadian breakfasts as previous posts on the topic of circle k pancakes and mcdonalds hot cake combo have shown loyal readers.

they even bought pure canandian maple syrup. amanda and the aussies havent quite warmed to it yet but theyll eventually come around. their big thing is vegemite...if you dont know what vegemite is its a dark spread that you put on bread, crackers, ect...with the texture and consistency of molasses. i say its really salty and really good but theres different opinions on what exactly it tastes like and who exactly likes it. i do know that its "one of the worlds richest known sources of vitamin e." gotta have that vitamin e.