Days 38-40: Rest and Relaxation

Oof, I have let myself procrastinate for far too long. I'm going to try to catch up in a spree of blog posts before I go to bed… (let's see how that goes…)

Many a Friday ago (July 18), after class we all took a trip to a local elementary school to visit and interact with the students there. And oh man, it was the highlight of my week, if not my month. They were incredibly 元気 (genki - lively, energetic) and were so excited to welcome us. We entered in a procession under a row banners that the students were holding for us, and after sitting down the students gave us a variety of presentations: they greeted us in English, we greeted them in Japanese, we played with them, we danced with them, they shared a song with us and in turn we shared one with them (what else – "Let it Go" – and I accompanied on piano).

We each received a nametag decorated for us

After the whole-school assembly, groups of about 5 HIF students went to each classroom to lead the kids in fun games / activities that we had come up with. I was amazed by the view out the classroom window, looking right out onto the sea. I loved my elementary school, but I wouldn't have minded this kind of scenery.

An excited child jumped up into the picture

My friend Lu-San let the group in a fun game that involved running around and switching seats based on things the kids liked. I then led several rounds of "Vegetable Off," a game I learned from FOOT at Yale, where one person calls out a vegetable and the two competitors try to take on the shape of the vegetable. I had the whole class participate at once, and had the class teacher choose the best of each vegetable.

"Vegetable off" 

 When it came time to leave, I had the feeling that maybe I'm somehow supposed to work with children – they brought me such life and joy. After leaving the school, I had to find the nearby bike repair shop, since I had accidentally flattened my front tire earlier that day. Thankfully – since bikes are such a common means of transportation here – there was a shop very close by, and the mechanic seemed very knowledgable and fixed it up quickly. On my way home, I rode along the edge of the peninsula, parallel to the shoreline, a route I had accidentally discovered on my way to school that morning (i.e. by getting lost). I decided to stop for a few minutes and walk along the shore.

That evening, Nick and I decided to go to the Hakodate-historical-theater presentation that was playing on weekends throughout the summer; we had both received tickets as prizes for being supportive classmates (or that's the understanding I got, though the explanation was entirely in Japanese, so who knows). The show was at Goryokaku Park, just a short walk away, and it was actually rather impressive for what was basically a community theater endeavor. The bits of choreography, for instance, were much more precise and together than any amateur production I had seen. And especially impressive was the sheer amount of people involved. Over the course of the show, they sang what was basically a theme song of Hakodate,  about 20 refrains of it altogether (key changes and all), so we all had memorized by the end. And of course, being outdoor theater, the whole experience made me think of the Muny in St. Louis, where I'd spent the past several summers performing and interning.

Saturday (7/19), there was a hike planned on a mountain not too far away, but it was cancelled due to rain. This let me spend a very relaxing day, first wandering the perimeter on top of the Goryokaku Park/fort, then at home resting, practicing my kanji writing (for about two hours, actually) and reading (I finished the book I had been reading, The Alchemist).

The path to the top of then

Kanji practice

On Sunday(7/20) I went to the Hakodate train station, since I had agreed to help my classmate conduct interviews for her independent study project on Japan's character culture (there are a plethora of animated mascots that represent cities/towns, in addition to those from regular cartoons). We interviewed about 30 different people who had come from all over and of all different ages, and it was definitely a good way to practice speaking and get out of our comfort zone.

 That evening, my host family all went to the big fireworks display down in the bay. The next day, Monday, was a holiday (though we still had school), so a huge crowd had gathered for the evening, and the fireworks lasted for about an hour, in bursts of about 5-minutes each. (One of the sequences was timed to "Let it Go" – I tell you, Frozen is just as ubiquitous in Japan as in the US.)