Weekend fun with more to come

So after a bad week of being sick, this weekend I was feeling much better and had a lot of fun! Friday I made it back to school. It was actually really nice to be back there and work again. 7th period the whole school had a fire drill. All 2000 students, plus staff, ran outside to the field behind the school. Apparently they time the kids while doing this and I guess we beat last year's record. The whole fire drill itself took about an hour. First everyone had to get organized by class and stand in rows. Then they chose some kids and demonstrated how to use a fire extinguisher. After that there were a bunch of speeches and then finally we were released to go home! I came back to my apartment and changed clothes and then Carly and I met John and Katie at the train station to go out to dinner. We went to this hamburger place in Tokyo that was absolutely delicious! I had a cheeseburger and a chocolate milk shake that was to die for, and we all also shared some nachos. It reminded me so much of home, grease and all! I got home about 9:30 and collapsed into bed.

The cool hamburger place. It was all in English on the sign!

I was supposed to go rice planting with the 8 grade students on Saturday morning, but I decided to stay home and take it easy because I didn't want to over-do it and get sick again. I spent most of the day just relaxing, reading, and cleaning my apartment. Saturday night I definitely got a cultural experience of a lifetime. Beth took Carly and I to the onsen. For those of you that don't know what that is, it's the Japanese public bath houses. (And yes they separate men and women, in case you wondered!) I was really nervous about going, but decided that I couldn't pass up the opportunity and just needed to suck it up and go for it. We took the train to one that is fairly close to Matsudo. When we got there we first took off our shoes and put it in a locker. Then we walked upstairs to the dressing rooms. Everyone strips down and all you take with you is this little hand towel. The showers are kind of hard to describe. On each side of this walk way are little "shower stations." You sit down on this stool and you have you own set of shampoo, conditioner, and body wash. There's a small bowl for a sink and a shower head. Everyone spends about 10 or more minutes throughly washing every inch of their body. After you are clean, then you are ready to go into the baths. You walk outside and you're on top of the roof (don't worry, there are walls so no one from outside could see the people up there). You carry your towel around with you, although it's really useless to try to cover yourself with it because it's so small. One thing we were told is to not let our towels into the bath water because the water and people are clean, but the towel is dirty (since it's what you use to wash yourself with beforehand). At first I just imagined we'd all just go in and sit in one bath the whole time, like a giant hot tub, but actually there were about five or so baths outside, with I think 2 indoors. Each bath has heated natural mineral water that is piped in and certain baths have certain minerals. For example, one of them is an "iron bath" with lots of iron minerals in it. Some of the baths are hotter than others too and they vary in sizes. The whole place was actually very beautiful in design. It looked natural, with rocks and trees, and you could look up at the night sky. Besides the big baths, there were 3 small tubs for only one person to go in at a time. You could also lay on your back with your towel covering your front, on this flat area with a little bit of water running down it. It was very relaxing. After trying out several of the baths we went into the jacuzzi, that had jets and chlorinated water. We also went inside for a bit and tried one of the baths there as well. I thought it would be really weird walking around naked, but everyone is just there to relax and I never felt like anyone was looking at me or anything. Beth made a really good point about the Japanese bath houses that I wanted to share. In America our bodies are so personal and private that young girls never get to see what real female bodies look like. Instead they are influenced by what the see in the media and think they need to look like that. In Japan however, because of things like the bath houses, girls are more easily able to see that women come in many shapes and sizes and they don't have to be ashamed of whatever size or shape they are. I just thought it was an interesting point.

Sunday (today) I went to church. A team of 7 women from America were visiting our church, so it was really nice to get to talk to them. After the service we had a big potluck lunch that was really good. I helped to lead worship during the second service and afterwards I left to go to Harajuku. I picked up my remaining gifts for people back home and then came back to my apartments. Tomorrow Carly and I leave for our trip to Kyoto. The school sends the interns there for a fun trip. They gave us about $700.00 to pay for the train tickets, lodging, and food. We are leaving Monday morning, taking the shinkansen (the really fast train) to Kyoto, staying in hostels all week, and then coming back Friday afternoon. It should be a good trip. I plan on bringing my computer with me, so I'll try to update during the week.