Feed them on your dreams

            Welcome to this special Mother’s Day edition of Japan Travel Diaries. How is it special? Well for the first time in a while we have pictures (a few). Also it is special because of this: Mom, I love you. There, you don’t get me to publicly announce that and therefore embarrass myself just any day of the week. Chris, Connie go hug your mother or I’ll kick your teeth in. Seeing as my siblings don’t actually read my blog (those ingrates) and myself being in Japan, I must rely on Mom and my extended family to deliver the message and, if necessary, the corporal punishment.

            Additionally I want to send my love out to all the other mothers out there in my family or otherwise. Have a happy mother’s day. Well, technically it was a few days ago (do to technical difficulties) so I hope it was a happy day.

            On a much less important note: me and my magnificent ego (who sucking it up today). I did not update last week so you can be sure I have plenty to talk about. Most interestingly was my Sirobara Choir camp. Last week was Japan’s Golden Week, a entire week of naught to do but get drunk and twiddle our thumbs (surprisingly hard while inebriated, or so I’m told). Japan likes to end its holiday on Friday and celebrate with classes, which is done to ensure we don’t get too comfortable with freedom.

            So, what do we do for camp? Here’s a hint:

            We hoof it up to Nigata, who hasn’t been informed that it’s well into springtime yet and embarrassingly come to the party in its winter’s best. Well, actually it was in fairly crappy winter attire. The kind were the snow is on the ground here and there (hard to tell from the picture), but has solidified into a single icy mass that makes creating a decent snowball an annoyingly difficult task (although, I’m sure those on the receiving end of this solid chunk of ice appreciate the effort).

Our lodge in all its glory

Asked for a room with a view. Should have specified of what...

            We arrived about an hour late so we decided to skip the first practice and go straight to dinner much to none of our dismay. Dinner itself was an outside barbeque which was all well and dandy except Mother Nature (who, unfortunately I cannot profane due to the holiday) decided it was time for a downpour. Luckily, we did have a large tent over our respective grills (eight in total) and simply stayed as far away from the outer rim as possible. The food was absolutely delicious. I told one of the other members that it was the best thing I ate since coming to Japan and I wasn’t just being polite. What it consisted of was various meats and vegetables simmering away while we waited to dunk them in the sauce (slightly different from American BBQ). Akio (a bass section leader) tried to eat most of the meat himself, but there was really plenty to go around. I stuffed myself and, right when I thought we were done, they put soba noodles and various seasonings on the grill and started mixing everything together. I probably should have stopped eating at that point, but it was too good to pass up. My stomach would hate me for the rest of the night.

            When we all were done eating, we had about four hours of practice before hitting the hay. What I really wanted to try was the public bath at the place we were staying (a ski lodge). It might sound odd, but there is nothing more relaxing after a long day than an oversized tub heated to the brink of my level of tolerance. That and, after 4 months of only showers, the change was welcome. However, it was not in the cards as I had roughly 10 minutes to clean myself (which is done before one enters the public bath) before my roommate returned and needed the key.

            The second day we all (mostly) rose bright and early for morning exercises. Breakfast consisted of miso soup and fish, which amounted to the two things I least wanted to eat early in the morning. Must get myself some real American breakfast food, with extra grease.

If you can't tell from the picture this pan of curry is about the size of a small pony and equally delicious

            The next 8 hours (with the exception of an all you can eat curry lunch) was devoted to practice. And so we did. This can be mind-numbingly boring because we mostly review the same three songs we’ve been practicing for a month. I can’t wait for some new material, but it isn’t ready until June.

            After dinner (seafood again), we gather together to play games. All the part leaders put on costumes and put on a skit. The point of the games was to determine the country that the princess, played by a girl named Roki (I had Eye of the Tiger stuck in my head thanks to this), would study abroad in. Each country was a play on the name of the actor/actress. For example, we had Michi be Michi Mouse and Jackie be Micheal Jackie.

This is tenor (my section) leader Mark...frightening, no?

            The first game was a relay which our team managed to fail miserably at. But we pulled out of last place after the trivia section (in which I was no help at all). The next section we had to find all the letters on the back of the opposing five teams backs and rearrange them into words. We had two 3 minute sessions to due this in. This was really fun because you were attempting to hide your letter while looking at others.

           For the final game, we had a skit contest. We had to invent a love story between a guy and a girl on our team. The trick was the guy played the girl’s part and vice versa. This was complete with costumes (a Chinese dress and judo outfit for our team). When all was said and done, our team pulled out in first place.

            To celebrate, we sung songs for the next three hours (which puts us at 3 AM). For those of you doing the math, that puts us at about 15 hours of singing for two days. That, and when we finally got back in Tokyo we had a 3 hour karaoke marathon. Woot!

            Okay, its past midnight here so I’m gonna wrap up. There will be a lot more pictures coming from the camp as soon as my friends upload them (which may take weeks). I will do a review of them when I get a hold of them.

            God help me if the first titular song reference that popped into my head wasn’t Mother’s Little Helper by the Rolling Stones. The one I actually used doesn’t refer to mothers directly, but I think it strikes the proper tone. That and it’s easy enough that my mom should get it.