Field Studies Day 5

I woke up at 7:00 and packed my stuff because it was our last day there. I did not have much to pack since I put many things back the previous night before I slept. After everyone woke and started packing up, the teacher came in a did an examination. But since we started packing up, you can guess what the results were. After we put back our stuff we put back the Futon’s. Then the teacher came in and this time he said that it was alright. Then we went for breakfast and we bid farewell to the hotel people. Then we went outside to our buses and said goodbye to our EOC people. One of them came on the bus because his wife stays at Yokohama. We couldn’t watch a movie that time because there were no CD’s. After a few hours we went and bought our lunch from a convenience store. I bought a hot dog, sushi, apple tea and some Mentos. I had a good lunch. One of the mentos was cracked in the middle so I took off one half of it.

This was the inside of a mentos.

After another couple of hours, our EOC guy who got on our bus got off. That was when we had another 10 minutes from school. Then we got to school and got our luggage and headed home. And that my fellow readers, was the end of field studies 2011.

Field Stides Day 4

I woke up at my usual time which is 7:00. I had breakfast as usual and we went down to the entrance with our bags. That was the day we went hiking. First we had to get on a shuttle bus to go to our hiking spot which was on a mountain. Something very strange happened then, our people from EOC brought two dogs! One was a Golden Retriever named Teddy and the other one was a mix of a Golden Retriever and a Husk dog called Sky. Before we started there was a playground so we played there for a while. After about 15 minutes, we started up the mountain. First we had to go uphill which the floor was pretty wet for some reason, so it was hard to go up the slippery dirt. After a while we got some big sticks and used them as hiking sticks, in fact some people got two sticks and one person peeled off all the bark from his stick! We stopped many times for breaks. After about two hours or so, we got to the top of the mountain which had a wonderful view.

This was the view we got from, the mountain.

When we got to the top, we had curry, rice, chai tea and some cinnamon and apple cake for lunch. After that we did some activities and went back down the mountain and back to our hotel. Then we had dinner and we did our skits. Other people’s skits were pretty funny. At the end two of our EOC people did their skits without and were very good, I was pretty impressed with how they did their skits so well without practicing at all. Then we had to go to bed in our rooms.

Field Studies Day 3

That day we were able to sleep well. We then took a bath and had breakfast. After we got ready we split into our two groups and our group went rock climbing first but not on a real mountain but on an artificial set for rock climbing. There were two stages, one is an easier stage and the other one is harder. I couldn’t go to the top but it was my first try in my life.

this is me rock climbing, I went up to 5 meters

Then we went to the place where everyone else were and had a BBQ lunch. Then we went for river clean up for quite a long time.

This is inside the river. You could even drink from it.

While we were coming back we went and saw the ski jump used for the Hakuba Olympics, and strangely some people were on the ski jump without any snow on the ski jump.

This is the ski jump used in the Olympics, up close!

When we got back Sean invited me in his room and we both wrote in our journals. We went and took a bath, had dinner which was salad, soup, macaroni and cheese with tuna, chicken which strangely had some blood in it, and cheesecake. But the worst part was that I came in slightly late so I had only 1 seat left and that was next to girls, it was quite humiliating because this is my first experience eating with girls. Anyway, after that we went to get on the hot air balloon! First I thought it was going to be scary because some others who were on were screaming. But when my group actually took off it was not that scary at all, in fact it was pretty fun. After that we had to go to bed.

this was the hot air balloon that we got on

Field Studies Day 2

That day I woke up at 1:00 am in the freezing night, then I woke up at 2:00 am to go to the bathroom which had some big bugs. It happened when we went camping at 4th grade, the first night we sleep I don’t get to sleep well (I don’t know about everybody else). I got up for the day at 6:30 am. When everybody got up and out of their tents, we had to take them down because we were going to the hotel at 4:30 pm. After that we split into 2 groups according to which bus we took while going to Hakuba, our group first went mountain biking. It was very tiring especially uphill, in fact most people actually got off their bikes and walked up the hills. By the time we got back, we were worn out. But I learned how to brake while standing and riding. We had lunch and then we did canoeing. Some people fell off their canoes, others managed to survive and go to a small island made of rocks and stones. By the time we got back, I was so cold that it took 5 minutes to put my shoes and socks on. We had to sit on the floor of the canoe which was very wet so it was  freezing. Then we were heading for the hotel. The name of the hotel was called “Yamano Hotel” or 山のホテル in Japanese. Our room number was 304 which was a tatami room. Then we had dinner and went to bed.

This is our hotel called Yamano Hotel

Field Studies Day 1 Woo Hoo!

It was October 17 2011 when I got up at 5:30am for field studies in Hakuba. I was very tired but usually by the time I am ready to go our destination, I’m wide awake. When we got to school, everyone who were going were there along with their parents. When we got on the bus, we waved goodbye to our parents. Unfortunately we came to know that the bus ride took 5 whole hours, we all read books, talked to the people close to us, listened to music, and some people (Which I am glad it was not me) were strained with agony to do their business. Around the end of the ride, we watched a movie called “One Peace” on the TV the bus had. When we got there I felt a little chilly, I feel cold pretty easily. Our campsite was near a lake called Aokiko or 青木湖 in Japanese, and was crawling with nature.

This is lake Aokiko

Our chaperones introduced themselves as the Evergreen Outdoor Center (EOC) with half the people Japanese and half the people not Japanese. After they introduced themselves we had lunch. Then we had to set up our tents, one of our room mates was an experienced camper so he knew how to set up a tent. We also had some help with setting up the tents from one of our EOC people. After that we had an orienteering activity which is basically to walk to the direction the orienteering point paper says using a compass and completing tasks that the orienteering point paper gives. While we were at it, I started to have a stomach ache. Yet I managed to get to the campsite. After that we were getting ready to make dinner which us kids made with the help of our chaperones. At first the girls were cutting the vegetables, then the boys (including me) crammed into the kitchen and because of our teamwork dinner was ready quite fast. But I had to admit our dinner was awful, we were so focused into the sauce that we forgot to put in any salt! It was a catastrophe. After dinner we went to another campus and had a campfire. At first the fire was small, but the EOC people taught us two campfire songs. One was called the banana song and the other one was called to potato song. After our songs the fire was way bigger than before. Then we roasted some marshmallows! My one got burned but the inside was tender.

This is our campfire after the songs

After that we went back to our campsite, brushed our teeth and went to bed in our sleeping bags.