Before going, we had already met some of the Japanese students in DESA. Atsushi-kun, the club president, is Patrick's host brother. Kousuke-san is extremely tall, probably like 6'6". Ami-chan we met before because she works part time in the Stanford center. Some of the other students we met while drinking together on Wednesday - Akiko-chan and Shuu - and others we met when they gave us a tour around campus - Maki-chan, Hotta-san, etc. Of course Shigeo Majima was there too - he was one of the students who came to Stanford last quarter.
The bus trip to Wakayama was long but not boring. We had a nice coach bus with all the standard amenities (except TVs) and even aisle chairs that could be folded up. The trip took 3.5 hours, with one 15 minute break at a rest stop. We left at 2P.M. on Saturday. On the bus trip there Atsushi-kun led a game that consisted of riddles of Japanese puns. I couldn't really understand any of the questions except for one - in English, it was something like, "what sport can't I do?" Somehow I thought of the answer - boxing. In Japanese, it sounds like bokushin, where boku is another word for "I" and "hin" in the Kansai dialect is a negative suffix. My host mom just taught it to me last week. So it was incredibly lucky that I could answer it correctly.
Dinner that night was BBQ, but Japanese-style. Every group of about 10 people sat around a table with 2 grills. We had the hardest time getting the fire just right but in the end we all ate a lot of tasty meat, rice, and vegetables. Everybody also introduced themselves to the rest of the table and we had some conversation, except I had a hard time communicating with the girl next to me for some reason. It just seems like some people are more patient or sympathetic listeners and with others it is feels impossibly awkward. Stephanie didn't sit at my table, but she kept turning around and telling us how hungry she still was. In the end we gave her some meat from our grill to keep her quiet :).
After dinner there was nomikai, or a drinking event. This was the best part of the trip in my opinion. There were 3 long tables in a tatami room (flat rush mats) and 2 large buckets filled with alcoholic beverages in the front. In addition there were all sorts of snacks - popcorn, wasabi chips, potato chips, and sweets. We started the night off with a kampai (cheers) and then the whole room erupted in lively conversation. I had 2 chu-hi (like wine coolers) drinks and some plum wine that night and was pleasantly buzzed the entire time. I sat at the end of the middle table at first and had a fun time talking to a girl I can't recall the name of now, something like Hatari-chan, and another group of people - a foreign exchange student from Australia named David, a really nice Japanese boy who was president last year, and another girl I didn't know the name of. Afterwards, I joined Jason and talked to a senior named Yuki-san. None of the conversations were very deep, for example we learned that Yuki doesn't dance and doesn't really like karaoke either, and what music she likes, but that can't be helped because of our limited Japanese ability. Unfortunately the nomikai had to end pretty early, at 10PM, but that was OK because the party just moved into the cabins we had for the night. Patrick was in a different room, so Jason and I first hung out with these two Japanese freshmen, Yuuzou and Ken. Yuuzou was so wasted, but hilarious. He kept saying that our Japanese was really good and that we should "jishin wo motte itte" or have confidence. It was actually a very good observation but he was so drunk he kept repeating himself. He also kept thinking that Jason's name was Alexander, which was hilarious because nobody on the trip had a name that was even close. Anyways, Ken and Yuuzou were great fun, and then later at night we all piled into the girls' room. A bunch of us played Uno and then sat around talking, another group was playing cards. It was really hard to follow the conversation when the Japanese kids were talking among themselves, but it was still a lot of fun. I ended up sleeping at about 1AM, and Jason slept soon afterwards. Pat was in the card-playing group and apparently he didn't sleep until 5AM.
The next day we all woke up at 7:30 AM and had breakfast and chilled until 10. Then, we left for the amusement park, yuenji, and the onsen (hot spring), which was 70 minutes away. At yuenji, a bunch of us had a seafood barbeque which was really expensive. I spent about $25 on ingredients and had to cook it all myself besides. I bought a jumbo shrimp, a large scallop, a skewer with 4 large pieces of maguro (tuna), a skewer with pieces of marinated pork, and a hot dog. In retrospect, it didn't fill me up and it wasn't particularly tasty (although the scallop was delicious) so it might not have been the best choice, but it was worth trying out. I was in a group that went to the amusement park after lunch - it consisted of me, Pat, Jason, Stephanie, and 2 Korean exchange students. The park didn't have any great rides, but we still had fun. I rode the swings with Jason (besides us it was all little kids) and then we all rode this roller coaster that was a combination of the Disneyland Tea Cups with a traditional coaster. We also played some carnival games and went to an arcade. We even came out with some sticky pics to remember it by. By the end of Japan I will have an immense sticky pic collection, I'm sure. We all went back to the bus at about 3:30 and then got back to Kyoto at about 5:30. One other thing was that Japanese people are really punctual. Everybody was always back in the bus at least 2 or 3 minutes before the announced time and we would actually start driving on the dot. This was pretty amazing because there was nobody yelling at everybody to get moving, everybody was just conscientious and cooperative. A lot of credit also goes to Atsushi-kun and the other organizers for making detailed plans and executing them smoothly. On the way back, Pat and I were really impressed with the camaraderie that was built with the retreat and talked about doing the same with the Stanford badminton team next year. I think it is a great idea, and we will be sure to bring it up with whoever ends up being captain next year.
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| DESA retreat |
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