Camping after Nikko

After Nikko we went to the store and bought ingredients for our dinner with the group once we got to the camp site. I realized shopping In Japan is really hard and frustrating. I was in the cooking group and had to make a salad... You wouldn't think that this would be a big deal, but it is. Making a Japanese salad for 30 people is rather difficult. One, the language barrier... Trying to communicate what Mark said to me about ingredients such as: spinach... How do you describe spinach? it's green... I never eat it so I don't know the size leaf it is lol it was interesting... We also put corn in our salad along with tuna and tomato's.


The second thing that was a challenge was not being able to read the label's. My team ran into this problem when we were shopping on our own. Sugar and salt look a like and are not in the same isle, salad dressings were also another matter, trying to find a tasty one that everyone likes that was cheap since we were on a budget. Our dinner selection was salad and yakisoba! After making our purchase we bagged up our food and headed off to the camp site!



Once we got to the campsite we uploaded in the pouring rain ran to the covering by our cabins and uploaded our things into the cabin's. I helped make the salad with Miki while the rest of the team worked on the yikisoba over the fire afterwords there was a skit and mini dance party

The Nanako Dance around the Mosquito repellent disc






Cooking dinner



Looking out of the campsite, it was so pretty



Me making salad :D



Danza washing dishes



Mmmmm dinner!



Cooking dinner over the fire.



Eating dinner






The Skit!



After dinner we split off into pair's for pair talks I was paired up with Yuki (Danza) and we spent a good hour talking about life and school and family. I went to bed right after that and got some good sleep for the next day.





Monique had a great idea to make french toast for the students, so we did!... Imagine eatting French toast with chop sticks... Yes...that is what we did :)



I woke up early the next morning around 7:00am and came out to see this beautiful view off the porch of my cabin.



dipping the bread in the egg milk sugar mixture :D




Cooking them over the fire








After breakfast we split up into two different groups and went our different ways. My group went to a dairy far/petting zoo like place. We went fishing :) wich was fun, the fish were very hungry and eager to chomp down on our bate. The students had fun fishing and we proceeded to eat the fish after we caught them.... mmmhum... eat them. We brought back the fish to the people who gave us the polls and they skewered the fish through the eye and we stuck it in the fire pit and roasted it over the fire for 30 mins.











With the bate



Me and my fish!



Ross and Danza showing their fish they caught with out bate!



Nino with his fish :D



mmmm cooking the fish...




Eating some amazing fresh made ice cream






While we were at the gift store it started pouring rain! we all waited a while to see if it would stop... but, it didn't! So we made a run for it to the car.



This is C.C. Lemon, my favorite drink so far that I have had. It's Lemonaid! And so so good. :)



This is TH, I got to ride in the car with him on the way back to Tokyo. He is holding what he told me was"gasoline" (this is a classic TH lie) there was a picture of a gasoline stand on the can, he told me that Japanese like to drink gasoline. After some banter back and forth he told me to try it but be careful because it was strong. It turned out to be an energy drink.. Oh TH... He hasn't been able to get me to believe any of his playful lies yet. I'm not being gullible this trip! haha. No, TH is a cool guy, I have been paired up with him during Bible discussions and have enjoyed the more thoughtful side of him.



So, I found a silly thing called and "American dog" it is a corn dog that was made into a squishy toy. it made me giggle.



The last pictures are of driving through Toyko on the way back to the apartment. During the ride we took a wrong turn and was stuck in traffic for 45 mins. While waiting... I really didn't know what was going on, no one explained to me what was happening... I thought this was kind of normal...? well.. not really, after watching them push a bunch of buttons on the GPS I thought something was up. But I had no idea what was going on. I was the only American in this car, the others had 2-3 in them. So, while they are talking in Japanese I was totally clueless. After a while TH translated to me what was going on.


This video was taken during the 45 mins that we were in a tunnel after taking a wrong turn. This tunnel went on forever... it was crazy. The poor carbehind us didn't have AC because it broke on the way. :(



This video is of us finally out of the traffic jam that we were stuck in for a good 45 mins.









We celebrated getting back by eating some yummy food, this dish is actually liver! I ate liver for the very first time :)