The End of Adult Summer Camp

The Last Days of Adult Summer Camp

Ok calling a lot of us adults might be a stretch but we try, sorta.

With only a little time left together we tried to take advantage. In this short week it felt like we had known each other for a long time, as if we were all college buddies. So as college buddies we drank, quite a bit for that matter. For example the first night with a little help I almost finished off the 2L milk carton of Sake I got for 900yen ($9). I really want to be more god like. haha. We also tried to spot Fuji-san but at least I never saw him better than during this sunset. :(

If we weren’t outside, we were in the lobby of the hotel. They didn’t seem to mind us drinking there (in the pool was another story though). We tried to swap info as much as possible mostly on the app LINE that is super popular here in Japan because it is free to use with many service plans. Probably 30 or so folks were going to be in the Tokyo area so it was likely we could hang out. We even talked about doing Western food potlucks.

Our last day started with 3hrs of language class. It was super rough considering the hangover but I definitely learned some nihongo. The next event was amazing traditional Japanese instruments with a history lesson and performances by masters. This was truly a treat, you can’t find these types of experiences especially with only 100 others. We even got to get our hands on the instruments and try them ourselves. Matt was so kind to take video of a lot of it:

• Koto instrument solo
• Tamaki instrument solo
• Yuugao
• Mizu no hentai
• Haru no umi
• Sakura Henso-kyoku

I want to thank the organizers of this great week and the staff of the Shonan village center (they were amazing - in the pic above you can see how they bagged and tagged all of the lost and found items…). It was a really fantastic week with fantastic people. I am excited to see everyone again at the end of the summer and hear about everyone’s grand adventures and hopefully some good research results too.