The Long Weekend

So my first week at school wrapped up pretty well. The Eishin cup disrupted it in the middle, and then the last day was short to finish the Eishin cup because it got rained out on Thursday. Kids in my class keep getting handed back tests and I get nothing. Sigh. But I'm sure I can start failing Japanese tests soon enough, I still can't read. It's really hard. All day during class I look up kanji and try to understand my notes. English was really exciting on Friday. The teacher was reading the answers to a test, it was a long translation. About halfway through him reading, I realized it was Matilida. I love that movie! That made things much more exciting and I couldn't stop smiling the whole class.

So Friday ended early, and track wasn't all that long either. Just a quick few kilometers and then the team broke up to watch the remaining Eishin cup games. They were the championship games. I had forgotten how much fun good soccer is to watch. These kids are really good. I was impressed many times over. They were much more physical than my gym class. The teams had clearly different styles. One team passed the ball the whole game. The other team sprinted up the center, kicked to the outside and swung it back in. They ended up winning, but I think the passing team had better form.

So Friday I went home, walked the dog, studied my JLPT textbook, and then it was time for dinner. Today was a super busy day so it was a good thing I went to bed reasonably early. I only got to sleep in an extra 15 mintues even though I didn't have to be at school until 45 later. I'm completely bound to the train schedules. But it did mean I got to have much more for breakfast. This ended up not being as good as it sounded, because I sloshed all the way to school, and I was worried about throwing up in the middle of practice. Luckily I had enough time to digest. Whew. Practice was awesome. It was mostly hell, but that is awesome by track standards. I've noticed that the stretching and warmup routine here is not nearly as defined, nor given as much importance as at home. The Japanese are reluctant to sit on the ground, because it's dirty and they hate tracking dirt inside. They take off their shoes when they go inside, they don't want to soil their clothes. So there's lots of squating, but they cut out a lot of important stretches that way. I've found I need to get to track a bit early and do my own warmup and stretching.

The workout was 50 minutes with a 50 meter sprint every minute. Despite the fact that it was 8 seconds running, 52 seconds rest, it was really hard. I managed to be very consistent and keep 7 or 8 seconds the whole time. Track back at home taught me a level of mental toughness that has allowed me to jump headfirst into the sport here, despite basically taking the summer off. I'm really glad for that, but I'm still super sore. The team here is much smaller than at home, but that is mainly due to the size of the school, which is also much smaller. Long distance composes of me and two other guys. And they don't have any Cross Country distances, just the 800 meter dash. I'm still not quite sure how the meet schedule works. I've tried asking several times about when the races are but I keep getting different answers. I've decided to just wait until I'm told to race.

After the workout we had to comb the field. Since the field is dense sand and not grass, our footprint were clearly visible and made it kind of lumpy. So the whole team got wooden sand rakes and made the field look nice. Now I get the reason for the sand fields, the level of maintenance is something that students can do. As I was changing in the locker room, which is actually just a room, they don't have lockers, I noticed that everyone else was putting on their uniform. I assume that since it was a Saturday with no school and I was going to be changing anyway I didn't need to wear my uniform. I guess I was wrong, but no one said anything to me.

I pedaled back to the train station and waited for my host mother to pick me up. Then we drove out an hour to the border of Tokyo to visit her parents. I slept the whole way, it was excellent. We got to the house which was a very normal Japanese house, and had lunch. Lunch was awesome, consisting of sushi, rice balls, and dango. Dango are awesome. They're sticky dense rice balls covered in sweet sauce, then squewered. Mmmmmm. My host mother's parents are very nice and were very hospitible. They spoke a little English, at least enough to ask me where I was from and about my family. Super nice. Then the boys went fishing and the girls went to an art museum in Ueno. Fishing was boring at first, but it always is. I always have to get into the pace of it. After a few minutes it became quite enjoyable. We fished on the river that borders Tokyo. It's really wide and on the Tokyo side has open grassy space with soccer and baseball fields. You could here the baseball, and the trains that crossed the bridge. It was quite peaceful. After about half an hour I realized I was falling asleep with the pole in my hands, so I took a break and took a nap. I was also motivated by the fact that it was really hot, and I forgot to put on sunscreen.

After my half hour nap, I fished some more and caught three fish, all about the size of my index finger, or smaller. They were the tiniest little buggers I've seen caught on a hook. I got them all with the same worm. That was cool. That made it a lot more fun, catching fish is always more fun than not catching fish.

After fishing we went to dinner at a really cool Japanese returaunt where they served you sliced of raw beef and you cooked it on coals set into the table. It was super super delicous. Then we headed back home. On the way we stopped to meet my host mother's best friend from middle school and her teenage daughter. Now it's super late and I have to go to bed so I can wake up for church tomorrow. Goodnight!