Did you bring your nudity today?

So this week was week four of camp. It was Alice and Wonderland week...it was my week. it went pretty well I think. I was super nervous but it seemed to turn out okay. We also had midterm evaluations, which I think I did really well on. it was good to get feedback and know that I am a doing a good job. I needed that this week. I feel like this week was a hard week just because I am starting to get pretty tired, but that is to be expected. I still love it here. Japan is so fantastic, even if it is expensive. I am starting to think of all the things that I want to bring home for people and I just don't know how i'm going to do it.

So here are my pictures of Alice and Wonderland Week Decorations:






This week I was in charge of cooking club. Cooking club is one of those things that all the kids like to do, and just by chance I ended up with the BEST group ever. Even though have of them were older boys they were all still perfectly content making cheerio necklaces and tea sandwiches. It amazes me how great these kids are and how much fun they can have doing the strangest things. This week I definitely found that game I like: Capture hte Flag. I didn't really like it as a child, but playing it at camp is super fun and the kids seem to like it a lot too.

How field trip this week was to see Toy Story 3 in 3D. It was pretty awesome let me tell you. The movie theater was really cool. There are assigned seats in movie theaters in japan and before the movie starts there are a bunch of rules like: no kicking, no talking, no cellphones etc. It was kind of ridiculous. It is hard to watch previews when they are all in Japanese. The movie was pretty good though. The whole concept was pretty sad though. A lot of kids cried. A little boy next to me cried through the whole movie because he was convinced the toys would never make it home. I kept telling him that it was okay so that I didn't have to leave the movie...bad counselor.

The week ended like it always does, and the camp is changing once again. Every week I feel like I say good bye to more and more kids that I have grown to love. It's hard, and yet kind of satisfying to know that so many will come to take their places.

This weekend, I went out with everyone to Shibuya on Friday night to go to a club, but some of us turned back because it was a 3,000 yen cover charge (30 bucks). But we ended up having an adventure of our own to get back to the hotel. We barely caught hte last train, and then realized it was going the wrong direction...and then we barely caught the right train coming back. All in all an excellent evening. The next day, Megan, Brit, Zoe and I went to Shibuya during the day. It was cool: a lot of shopping, but it was a pretty cool place to see. I didn't buy anything though. I haven't been buying a lot of stuff since I got to Japan. I mostly just take a lot of pictures and gain a lot of experiences. I don't really buy a lot of stuff for myself. I guess I buy food for myself...but that's more of a life or death situation. I also spend a lot of money to travel on the train and such.

Saturday night...was the best night this weekend though. Melanie, Megan, Brittany and I went to this all naked spa. We took this really cool monorail and saw some pretty things.






My favorite is the bridge and the little tiny statue of liberty. It is so small...probably like only 12 feet.

So we get to this spa, and by the way I had to talk brittany into coming. Well we get there and find out that tattoos weren't allowed. GAH. Silly Japan. Well, actually, Megan told me that the reason they don't allow tattoos because a lot of Japanese tattoos have to do with gangs, and fights break out and that is why they don't allow them.



So, anyways, off we go to a Sunkus and we buy bandaids, stick them on my tattoo, call it a neck injury and head back to the spa to wait in line to be let it. It was like an amusement park ride. It was actually kind of funny to see. After paying 1670 yet (only about 17 dollars) we are given yukatas (cool robes) and go into the changing room to get naked. The instructions said to leave your underwear on but i just threw caution to the wind and just went commando under my yukata. woo hoo, party in japan.



So then off we trumped and we found this foodcourt between the dressing room and the baths. it was so weird. There were food and games and gift shops. It was like a whole world in this bath house, and there we were, all in our yukatas, surrounded by other people in yukatas and all i kept thinking is "we are all naked right now underneath."

Once we got to the women's changing room, we received two towels, a hand towel and a bath towel. We read a sign that told us only the hand towel was allowed in the bath house. so the dreams of covering up even a little were gone. we put our yukatas in our lockers and found ourselves nude among other people who were nude.

but let me tell you. nudity is totally worth it in this bath house. There were so many different baths, some were hot, some were cold, some were luke warm, some had jets, some were in barrels and some were OUTSIDE. I was outside in japan naked. Bet you can't top that. We spent two hours in those tubs just relaxing and talking about all types of exciting things. Then we showered off and dried off, put our yukatas on, walked back to our regular clothes and went home.

nude experience in japan = amazing!

Sunday I stayed in for most of the day to finish my programming, which I did. At 7, a group of us trumped off to a summer festival at a shrine nearby. Shrines have festivals to raise money. It was so cool. There was music, dancing (I danced with the Japanese: be jealous) and lots of traditional dress. the dancing was really fun and hard. There was a giant tower in the middle with a drummer on top, and dancers underneath, and then there were outer rings of dancers, and some of us joined the outer ring. One woman even made a point of telling us we were doing a good job.
see, look at the drummer and the dancers.



Let me tell you. Japanese festival food is weird and cool all at the same time. We are talking octopus balls (weird but okay), noodles (excellent), chocolate covered bananas (thumbs down), meat on a stick (always a great idea) and sweet ice (which kicks American snow cones' ass). It was a great festival. I love that I get to see and experience the Japanese culture and they are so open to just letting me try everything.

Good-bye for now!