Wednesday, August 09, 2006
What a "traditional" Weekend!
Today was a tough day because I said goodbye to RA and drove her down to the airport. Even though it was tough at times for me to have visitors I am definately going to miss the two of them. RE took off about a week and a half ago and he missed out on one of the best weekends EVER. My weekend was definately one of the greatest I have ever had overseas doing crazy things. I started out with Friday off...
My only job for the day last Friday was to go and buy ice to keep the beer chilled throughout the dance festival that was being held in the big O-hama. Sounds pretty easy, and it was. I was able to spend almost the whole day down at the beach just riding waves. I am FINALLY standing up on the board. While its not for an extended time period, its still an amazing feeling! I am not sure any photos even exist but when I get my hands on some I will make them available to the blog-viewing public! I arrived late at school and set about completing my hard task of driving the the ice factory and loading up. Upon returning to the school the drinks were iced up and people were getting dressed in their traditional Japanese summer Kimonos called Yukatas. I was even lucky enough to score a loaner from the bosses husband. It was shaping up to be a festive evening indeed!
Back in the day students would never come to class during the city Dance Festival so The Matsu, rather than simply cancelling classes, decided to join the dancing! I am glad she made that decision. I was thinking that I was gonna be really bored dancing around the streets and was hoping that at the very least there would be some pretty ladies on the sidewalks to keep me occupied. They were not needed. I brought along my video camera and these Japanese dudes would go crazy for the cam... The two hours went by sooo quickly! I could not even believe it. A bit of a downer though was that I lost my money clip and some cash. That was not able to keep me down for long though! I will post up some video of our dancing when I transfer it from my camera to lap top.
After the dancing was finished we rocked on back to the school where a BBQ was getting underway. I fired up the grills and we all started cooking the meat! My ice task was coming in handy because the beers were chilled and ready to go. We ate, drank, laughed, then drank some more! This night was one that will likely go down as one of the most entertaining and enjoyable times ever for me.
Saturday was again spent on the water just paddling around and hanging out at the beach. I got back to the school at about 6:30 in time for us to meet up with everyone to check out the annual fireworks festival. It was really cool. While the noise levels dont even come close to comparing to Shanghai and the Lunar New Years, the choregraphy was still pretty cool. After the show we went over to a snack bar and drank and ate for a while. I should mention as I was leaving the beach a car drove past filled with three ladies. This is why I love Japan, they pulled a U-turn and came back to the car park and hung out around my car for a minute. When I finally said hello they went giddy and begged for a photo... Who, outside of celebrities, gets that kind of attention anywhere else in the world? It was a funny situation to observe... At times like that I feel as though I am not actually living in the moment but rather having an out of body experience.
Sunday was the day of the big surf contest. My buddies were entered so I went down there pretty early, 6 AM, and tried to film some of the contest. It was a really chilled out day but I got fried by the sun! It was sunny and hot all day long. More importantly the waves were pumping! At one point they did pause the contest because some mist had rolled in and the judges could not see the surfers. My boys did not fare too well but they had a good time and for surfers, thats the most important thing!
That night was the start of another festival in the T-ra. It was awesome just strolling around and watching the different people (pretty girls) walking about. There were all kinds of different food booths out and about. I saw quite a few students and enjoyed the evening.
Its time for bed over here. I am tired and its late. I will post up some photos in the next little while. This week I am going to finally edit some of the video footage that I have taken and post it up. I am thinking about finally buying an external hard drive to store everything. The extra space might make things easier for me.
Stay well and keep smiling!
My only job for the day last Friday was to go and buy ice to keep the beer chilled throughout the dance festival that was being held in the big O-hama. Sounds pretty easy, and it was. I was able to spend almost the whole day down at the beach just riding waves. I am FINALLY standing up on the board. While its not for an extended time period, its still an amazing feeling! I am not sure any photos even exist but when I get my hands on some I will make them available to the blog-viewing public! I arrived late at school and set about completing my hard task of driving the the ice factory and loading up. Upon returning to the school the drinks were iced up and people were getting dressed in their traditional Japanese summer Kimonos called Yukatas. I was even lucky enough to score a loaner from the bosses husband. It was shaping up to be a festive evening indeed!
Back in the day students would never come to class during the city Dance Festival so The Matsu, rather than simply cancelling classes, decided to join the dancing! I am glad she made that decision. I was thinking that I was gonna be really bored dancing around the streets and was hoping that at the very least there would be some pretty ladies on the sidewalks to keep me occupied. They were not needed. I brought along my video camera and these Japanese dudes would go crazy for the cam... The two hours went by sooo quickly! I could not even believe it. A bit of a downer though was that I lost my money clip and some cash. That was not able to keep me down for long though! I will post up some video of our dancing when I transfer it from my camera to lap top.
After the dancing was finished we rocked on back to the school where a BBQ was getting underway. I fired up the grills and we all started cooking the meat! My ice task was coming in handy because the beers were chilled and ready to go. We ate, drank, laughed, then drank some more! This night was one that will likely go down as one of the most entertaining and enjoyable times ever for me.
Saturday was again spent on the water just paddling around and hanging out at the beach. I got back to the school at about 6:30 in time for us to meet up with everyone to check out the annual fireworks festival. It was really cool. While the noise levels dont even come close to comparing to Shanghai and the Lunar New Years, the choregraphy was still pretty cool. After the show we went over to a snack bar and drank and ate for a while. I should mention as I was leaving the beach a car drove past filled with three ladies. This is why I love Japan, they pulled a U-turn and came back to the car park and hung out around my car for a minute. When I finally said hello they went giddy and begged for a photo... Who, outside of celebrities, gets that kind of attention anywhere else in the world? It was a funny situation to observe... At times like that I feel as though I am not actually living in the moment but rather having an out of body experience.
Sunday was the day of the big surf contest. My buddies were entered so I went down there pretty early, 6 AM, and tried to film some of the contest. It was a really chilled out day but I got fried by the sun! It was sunny and hot all day long. More importantly the waves were pumping! At one point they did pause the contest because some mist had rolled in and the judges could not see the surfers. My boys did not fare too well but they had a good time and for surfers, thats the most important thing!
That night was the start of another festival in the T-ra. It was awesome just strolling around and watching the different people (pretty girls) walking about. There were all kinds of different food booths out and about. I saw quite a few students and enjoyed the evening.
Its time for bed over here. I am tired and its late. I will post up some photos in the next little while. This week I am going to finally edit some of the video footage that I have taken and post it up. I am thinking about finally buying an external hard drive to store everything. The extra space might make things easier for me.
Stay well and keep smiling!
# posted by ricky_pops @ 8:00 AM 
