Tuesday In Mishima
03 Nov 2010 Leave a Comment
Today in the morning the GSE Team met at a hotel and proceeded to our first tour of the day. It was at a Mishima fire station. Bri was very excited, because the fire station had its own call-center located in the building. It was a small call center. It turns out that when people dial 119 in case of an emergency, the call is answered by a larger call-center a few towns away. If the emergency is in Mishima, the large call-center transfers the call to Mishima. Bri even got to prank-call 119!!! She and Jerry also when up in the fire truck bucket to 30 meters, since Bri didn’t get to in Shizuoka-city.
After the fire station, we had lunch at a sushi restaurant. The sushi was on a revolving conveyer belt, and you could just choose what you wanted, or special order items. I had tuna, crab, and sweet egg. I also had vanilla ice cream for dessert!
Next we when to a hotel where us girls were fitted in Kimono. The kimono are very tight around the ribs, and they had trouble dressing me because I am tall, and the kimono was too short. But the kimono were very beautiful, and I was excited.
Next we attended a music performance in kimono. Craig’s host-mother plays Koto, and Japanese stringed instrument. He had practiced a song “Sakura” with his host-mom the night before, and they performed it for us. What a surprise! Next we all got to try playing the koto. It was quite difficult. Then we watched two performances by Craig’s host-mom and her student. The music was quite trance-like, and Jerry even fell asleep. I began to have a coughing fit in the middle of the second song, and had to excuse myself in search of water.
We changed out of our kimono, and p0roceeded to take a quick onsen, as we were running out of time. Jerry and Craig took onsen in the same hotel where we were dressed for kimono. Windy, Bri and I were driven to a separate hotel for our onsen. Only Bri and I took an onsen, as Windy did not want to. She hasn’t done it yet, and doesn’t know what she is missing!!
Now I am back with my host family, getting ready to have dinner. I am very tired and I think I will go to bed early.
