I wanna cut a watermelon on a beach...

Even though today was Saturday I had to work all day. I caught the bus in front city hall at 8:20 and we headed off to pick up the Germans from their guest house. It was raining pretty hard, which made it really fun when we loaded their luggage onto the bus. They were leaving the guesthouse and heading off to their homestays today.

The first stop on our tour of Kameoka was Izumi Shrine. I have been there a few times with Shigeno-san and also with the delegation last October. Only today it was pouring. And of course I was being a dumb girl and was wearing the wrong kind of shoes for hiking around a shrine in the rain. But it was fun anyway. Luckily the Kameoka Sports Association bought all the German’s umbrella’s or else the day would have been a complete failure.

Mr. Fujita came with us again. And again he told us all about the famous Kameoka samurai Mitsuhide. I couldn’t help shooting the boy a text telling him that true to form Fujita was boring and confusing us with his broken English history overview of Kameoka.

After walking around the shrine we went to Oomoto, which I think is a weird branch of shinto…or a cult…or something. But it is a large shrine built on the remains of Kameyama Castle (which was of course, Mitsuhide’s castle). They got to sit through another tea ceremony. I was impressed because Benjamin got through the whole thing sitting seiza. I can only last like 7 minutes in seiza before my legs completely fall asleep. Though he did fall over when he stood up. He he

Next they took us to the restaurant Shikisai (4 seasons vegetables) on the 4th floor of the Seiyu supermarket. They only use vegetables grown in Kameoka. The meal of the day was a combination of about 7 different rice balls with various toppings and fillings. It was hilarious to watch them pick off the stuff they didn’t like, including the seaweed wrapping. Ah well. It’s not for everyone ( I love it though).

I got a call from Kojima-san while I was eating and she wanted me to have the Germans come up with a game to teach the little kids at the World Studies (an international exchange even with kids where you teach games from your home country)…

If you know they are coming months ahead of time…why not give them at least a few weeks notice instead of 30 minutes? No, that’d make too much sense.

Of course it stopped raining as soon as we were finished with the outside events. We headed over to the International Exchange Center for their World Studies event. It went really well. There weren’t that many kids, but it was really fun. First there was a quick introduction of Germany and each of the members of the delegation. Then we all stood in a circle and played an ice breaker game. Using a watermelon beach ball we would toss the ball to a person and they would say their name. Then we switched it and you would have to say the name of the person you are throwing to.



Then we played a huge game of keep away. I kept worrying that one of the crazy tall German kids was going to step on a kid.



After Keep Away, the Germans learned a famous Japanese kids song and the sign language that goes with it.



Then, the Germans taught their version of freeze tag. The Japanese play a similar game but you freeze in a specific position. In the German game you stand with your legs apart and someone crawls through you legs to set you free. The Japanese kids LOVED it. They thought it was hilarious.



The only tough part was that the professional translator, either because she didn’t want to step on my toes since we were on “my turf” or because she was tired, stepped back and didn’t translate at all. So the poor Germans were stuck with my English translations. It worked out pretty well, though.

For the final “game,” everyone got a sheet of plasticky paper and wrote their dreams down on it. Then they introduced their dreams to the group. Again, I got stuck translating (both ways, so the Germans had to speak English too). Some of the dreams were really cute…like they want everyone to always be happy. Some were confusing…like the little girl who wanted to cut a watermelon on the beach?
I actually found out a few nights later that what she said “suicawari” or literally “watermelon separate” is the name of a summer game they play at the beach. It’s kind of like a pinata and they blindfold someone who has to try to slice a watermelon. Sounds smart…give a blindfolded child a big knife.

Anyway, we taped all the pieces of plastic together and made a sort of parachute, and then we stood in a circle each holding a piece of the parachute and spun in a circle. We used to play a game like it in elementary school. Then the kids all got under it and we would raise and lower the parachute. It was really cute. The kids were having a lot of fun.


After that they delegation separated out to their home stays