Slap hands game at dinner
A wall mural in the guest house
Kayla takes advantage of a Sanvino shoulder on the way back from the castle
(thanks Greg for the pictures)

It’s 6:45 AM here in Arao, it’s raining. Today, we're supposed to go to the water park, assuming the rain stops, and then play soccer tonight against Sanvino and the Kumomoto team. It ought to be fun.. One thing I have to say is that the girls were very good yesterday about using sunscreen and drinking water or fizzy lemonade…maybe they are growing up!

OK, more about yesterday. As I mentioned last night before collapsing, sand soccer was a blast. There were 8-10 teams of all ages, with the two older teams treating the event as totally fun. In fact, when the last game was over, Terri rallied all the parents and Trebol girls to form a tunnel, and not only did the Trebol team that just finished playing and its opponent run through, but team of 21 year olds also came running over from where their game had ended and ran through, and then so did all the other teams, and then the referees came running through, too! It was the perfect way to end the event…way to go Trebol!

So after the watermelon smashing event and treasure hunt – I didn’t catch much of the latter as like many of us, I was trying to stay a little cool – all of the girls and many parents went down to the water, which was 100 meters away. The water was WARM – if we were scuba diving, I would have worn my skin…which would have been a good idea because within a few minutes many of the girls were running from the water, their skin itching and burning from something in the water; I’d guess some algae of some sorts. Claire wasn’t bothered, neither was I, nor Paul or Greg and a few other girls. Weird. Fortunately, there were showers at the beach, so that helped relieve the discomfort.

Next stop on our day’s adventures were to Kumomoto castle, which was built in the early 1600s and is one of three major castles left in Japan. The main castle sits on a sprawling estate that is home to several prefecture museums (prefecture is the equivalent of our states, and Kumomoto is the prefecture capital), which unfortunately we wouldn’t have time to see. We broke into groups and headed off into the castle or a stunningly beautiful guest house that the government had just finished restoring (all construction was done using period tools, an amazing feat considering that some of the beams in the building were made of tree trunks that were 5 feet in diameter!). All the gold in the guest house was real – gold leaf covered fixtures and gold paint in the many large murals – the floors were beautiful bamboo, and the detailing was stunning. To protect the floors, visitors were handed plastic grocery bags in which to carry their shoes as they toured the guest house. When we exited, we handed the bags back for reuse. [As an aside, recycling containers are ubiquitous in Japan, as are vending machines.]

The castle itself was massive – six stories of rock and wood – and the entire structure was restored to match its external appearance prior to a huge fire that destroyed much of the castle during the last civil war, in the mid-1800s. The inside was retrofitted to serve as a museum, and it was filled with artifacts from when Japan was ruled by feudal lords. As we climbed from one floor to the next, the temperature inside soared, but on the 6th floor there was a wonderful breeze coming from the big windows that afforded a nice 360 degree view of modern Kumomoto. After touring the castle and guest house, nearly everyone discovered the air conditioned “drink house,” which contained soft drink vending machines. Most of us spent the final few minutes there cooling off, as it was very, very hot.

At 6 PM, we piled back into our buses and vans for the trip home and an awaiting dinner. At one point, one of the Sanvino players started chanting, “Obama, Obama, Obama…YES WE CAN!” Soon, that chant morphed into naming each person on the bus… “Brynna, Brynna, BRYNNA…YES WE CAN!”, etc. I understand that there was plenty of laughing in the vans, too, which is not surprising given that we’re all seemingly having a great time.

We arrived at the community center where we had the welcome party to find a lavish spread of leftovers…Japanese style. While we were at the beach and in Kumomoto, the Sanvino parents had taken all the leftovers from last night’s BBQ and turned them into an array of dishes that were, well, scrumptious. Everyone was ravenous, and both Sanvinos and Trebles dove in, stuffing ourselves once again. And then, when it seemed we could eat no more, Mrs. Kuwamoto (who was one of two parents who came to Colorado) brought in eel sushi – it turns out that Sunday was a national holiday and eating eel is traditional on this particular holiday. Oh my, was it good, a marvelous way to top off a marvelous meal. Who needs dessert when you can have eel sushi! Following dinner, the scene became chaotic, with parents cleaning up and the younger kids running around screaming and chasing each other. YIKES! Meanwhile, the older kids sat in a huge circle and played a camp game that involved slapping hands and singing a song, kind of like musical chairs. They finished – Haley was the final survival in a dual with Dahlia – just as it was time to go. Everyone left at 9 PM, happy and exhausted. What a day!!