11:55pm
We had our usual meeting with everyone at 9am.... to plan our last week here :( it's truly bumming me out. We decided on a few things like another trip to Zao and worked out details of our train ride back to Tokyo.
We pedaled to the church around 10am for the daycare's "Homecoming Day" where all the parents come and the kids show them what they've been learning, and where kids who "graduated" from the daycare the year before come back to hang out and play games and whatnot. We did a Bible story (Jesus calming the storm), then led everyone in a few songs (the Tutie Taw, Hokey Pokey, Jesus Loves Me and I've got the Joy) and played games (duck duck goose and London bridge is falling down - which they all got a huge kick out of, especially when they were the ones "trapped" when the bridge came down). Then we had curry lunch (yum!) after which Laurel and Moe surprised them with "I is for.... ICE CREAM!!" and passed out mini ice cream snacks for all the kids :)
There was also some watermelon smashing and then free play time wherin we gave all the kids a few spins around and played Red Light Green Light, double-team style. Took a bunch of pictures and had a totally fun time with them all and lamented that it's probably the last time we'll see them. :(
Rode back to the house and around 2pm Uta-san came over with her laminating machine and we made pressed flower crafts with her and Mieko-san and Noriko (who was using the hemp supplies we gave to Mrs Aoki at the meeting). That was a lot of fun if somewhat tedious and Noriko made little namecard things for all of us.
After awhile they told us to get out our yukatas as the annual Kaminoyama Yukata Festival was going on that day at the castle grounds. They walked us down to the yukata store and bought us fake clip-on obis (which we immediately nicknamed "fobis") as they said it would probably be easier for us to get those on when we were on our own back in the states. We went back to the house and they dressed us up in our yukatas + fobis (a primo photo op), then drove us to the castle where the festival was in full swing - hanging orange and white paper lanterns, numerous stands setup with toys and food, dancing and songs going on up on stage, and massive throngs of yukata-clad festivalgoers. There was also a yukata beauty contest going on and Mieko and Noriko decided we should enter the foreigner division, so we signed up at their urging (not terribly excited about the thought of going up on stage) and stood around looking through the crowds hoping that there were other foreigners at the festival. Turns out there were 9 in total - a group of guys from another Asian country (I believe Malaysia - they were all fluent in Japanese) and a really tall white guy there with his Japanese wife & kid, who during the contest (while we stood up on the steps of the castle and awkwardly answered questions in English [video here and here]) revealed that he was from New Zealand (though we found out afterwrd he was actually originally from Scotland but lives in NZ and was visting his wife's hometown). We took a photo with him and thought it was cool to talk to someone in fluent English in the middle of Kaminoyama.
A LOT of people took our pictures as we wandered around the festival. A couple reporters from the Japan Times took our pictures and I gave them my address so hopefully if they publish us they'll send us a photo! A lot of other regular folks took our photos as well which was kind of cool and kind of surreal.
We wandered around a bit more, had some yummy festival yakisoba (I managed to order in Japanese) and ran into Sakura, from the daycare, and Keita-kun and his older sister (students from the Aoki's) who gave us colorful marbles and wristband glowsticks :) Darkness fell and the castle lit up behind the festive atmosphere, an image I'll have in my head forever :)
We headed back to the house late, all in all quite a bit more satisfied with this yukata experience.... even if one of the dudes from Malyasia won the foreigner beauty contest. (Yes... we lost to a man... or as we referred to him later, "most beautiful man")
Afterward we read our women of God bible verses and argued a little bit about politics. now it's late and I haven't showered and I'm hot and sweaty :(
Oh, when we got home from the yukata festival the kittens were all over the street and near the bar o_O they definitly figured out how to wander around.. don't know what we're going to do with them..
