This weekend the KIT staff planned a field trip for us to their Anamizu Bay Seminar House. It was an overnight stay, but there were a lot of stops along the way. Our first stop was at a Japanese mechanics or robot museum. A nice tour guide gave us a demonstration of a few interesting old robots. Both were made hundreds of years ago. The first was a robot that served tea:

You would wind it up and inside the sole spring would drive the tea robot to you, and then when you picked up the tea, he would pause, and when you returned it, he returned back. The other one did flips down stairs, as many as there were stairs. It used an hour glass filled with heavy mercury:

There were a lot of other interesting things there:

Next they stopped the bus at a rest stop for us to take a break and to be able to see the Sea of Japan. I made sure to get my feet in:

We also stopped at a fisherman's wharf in Nanao I believe to have some lunch. It was mostly souvenirs and seafood, and they had a good "Gelato Gelato" place.

When we got to the Seminar house, we found our bunkbed rooms, and put our stuff in them. Then we had an orientation to show us the schedule for our stay, where the fire exits and bathrooms were, and how to fold our sheets. For us Americans, it felt a little bit like they were holding our hand too much, but the Japanese do it because they care a lot and feel very responsible for your well being.

The first fun thing we did at Anamizu was to go out for a cruise:

We cruised around Anamizu Bay for a good hour or two, and it was really refreshing. I talked with our teachers a bit about their life in America (they all study there) and their friends and family in both places:

After the cruise we had some free time so I hung around the dock for a long time because it was a really peaceful place. But at one point I layed down without noticing these small catepillars under me:

They were a little prickly and also a bit like poison ivy, but not as bad. I got a couple of rashes but they went away in less than a day. Afterwards we had a barbeque again with the Students for Global Exchange right on the dock. The SGE students were also staying overnight, but arrived after us. There were a lot of different vegetables and types of meat, and we just had a few open barbeques to cook things ourselves. They even had such fancy stuff as snails:

After the barbeque, there was a little more free time to play in the gym, but it was too full by the time I got there. Then it was time to get clean. One difference between America and Japan when it comes to bathrooms is that a lot of older style bathrooms have a place where you sit and clean yourself and rinse yourself, and then get in the tub, which is filled with really warm water. Since your already clean, other people can use that same hot water to relax in after you.

But at Anamizu it was a group bath, and we all had to go in together. This was a first for a lot of us. From what I understand, it was totally normal awhile back in America for children to have to shower together after gym class, and it was no big deal. But things changed, so it was a little weird for us, but once we got over it, things were fine. The hot bath to soak in was pretty enjoyable.

After the bath, we noticed that the Japanese men spent a lot of time on their hair. While none of the American women brought a hairdryer for the one night stay at Anamizu, there were probably about 5 or 10 of them between the men, and a lot of hair straighteners as well. I don't have any pictures, but the Japanese men's hairstyles are pretty awesome.

After that it was time for bed, but some of us stayed up playing various board games with the SGE students. Some of the games were only in Japan so they explained those to us, and we explained some American games to them.