What I did Last Week (or, Sandpenis)

Today is the last day of 学園祭 gakuensai at Kwansei University. I didn't really get to go, which is to bad because I heard it was a lot of fun. But I did do a ton of other stuff instead.

On thursday a bunch of us went to a beach on 淡路島 awajishima, an island south-west of Kobe and famed, apparently, for its onions. (we didn't get to try any) It was a ton of fun, even discounting the fact that I got to go swimming in November. It was a touch cold, but who am I kidding, the subtropics are awesome.




It took us a little over an hour to get there, by train, and then another train, and then fifteen minutes on a ferry that takes you underneath the longest suspension bridge on the planet. I forget the name because it's really long and obviously in Japanese, but it involves the character for red. 赤



There was maybe some frisbee played, and some wine drunk, and some stories told, and some supermarket-bought food consumed. Jesse and Samuel and Eric built a sandcastle, around which they gathered a sandvillage, and Max, as I recall, added a sandpenis. That's Max for you.



Tragically the village fell prey to orbital bombardment, or a meteor shower, or maybe Jesse was just throwing sand. In either case the castle managed to stick it through, at least until the tide came up, by which time we had left. Me and the boys and Allie and Barbara hit up an お風呂 ofuro bath-house, which is different from an 温泉 onsen hotspring by the way, while some others went home for dinner. We'd been meaning to all go to the 温泉 as a group because there was a really terrific package-discount offered with the ferry-ride, but, what are the chances, it closes on the first thursday of every month. 残念。

We got to see that bridge I mentioned by night though. They light it up like a series of inverted rainbows, and it looks gorgeous until you try to capture it on camera. The pictures didn't turn out very well. We came back late, and tired, and with sand in our collective hair.

The next day I was off to a two-day choir retreat. Did I mention that I joined the choir? No? I'm bad like that some times. The students had a couple days off because of 学際 and of course if you're Japanese this means you go find something else to throw yourself into. It was fun, but by the end of it my head felt like it was going to explode from the Japanese. I did discover that I like He Trusted in God, the 28th movement of the Messiah.

I came back on Saturday evening and missed the fireworks. I'm not too dissapointed with that though, because today I heard they were pretty tepid. I am sad I missed the bands and the delicious food though, especially because I just spent Sunday lazing around at home. It was a good kind of lazing around, at least.

When we were at the beach I kind of took off on my own for a bit. I swam to this kind of random yellow pole that stuck out of the water a little further out. Kenta took a picture of me, and if you peer really closely, or just digitally enlarge it, you can even see me a little bit.