Kyoto. First half of August.

It is a month and a half since we moved to Japan. By now:

* we can effectively shop in the supermarkets,
* we keep on buying foods unknown to us for gambling purposes,
* we made our first handmade sushi and they were good,
* we made and loved soba,
* we are proud owners of a regularly blooming plant,
* we orient a bit better in northern Kyoto,
* Zhenya finished her Japanese course, stopped freaking out about getting a job, was sick and healthy again, and currently enjoys having time to learn and prepare for future work in a relaxed way,
* Georg's work routine gets to be routine (a good thing for Georg!)
* Georg gets to know Julia more and more... (it's a programming language),
* Georg is really into the gym at the moment,
* Also he is into working from 8 am to 7 pm, but his consumption of coffee stayed very similar to what it was in Munich (around a liter a day :) what makes it less scary is that it is a cold brew coffee that has way less caffeine and is less intense than the Dieter Braun style coffee.

But a clear highlight of August was our field trip to Fukuchiyama. It was organized by Kyoto Prefectural International Center and cost only 2500 yen per person. In two days we got to see and do a lot of Japanese-style things, some of them we didn't know to exist...

We started very early on Saturday as we headed for the train station from our home. From there a bus took us to Fukuchiyama to something like a kids' culture center. Kids dressed in traditional Japanese clothes played taiko drums for us. And that was our first introduction to the kids we were going to spend the weekend with.

All the international guests were split into 4 teams comprising of 3 international guests and 5 Japanese kids of different ages plus 1 older kid who was a group leader. We then shortly introduced ourselves to everyone. At this point, we figured out that we were among the worst Japanese speaking foreigners there :)

For lunch, we made our own sushi rolls and had some soup with somen. Next, a bus took us to a small village nearby where we were supposed to stay in a local community center (or smth like this). The

Japanese-style room where we dropped our bags looked very clean and nice, as all Japanese-style rooms we have seen so far. We soon learned that we were supposed to sleep in such a room on the floor with only some flat pillows to substitute for a bed. A very Japanese experience!

The people at the community center (elderly, very smiley and healthy-looking Japanese men and women) showed us how to build up tents, in which the kids were supposed to sleep, and then each group had to build one. We were so impressed with how kids were very attentive when the demonstration was going on, and how every single one helped in making the tents later on. No drama, but also no stress, they laughed a lot and played around during finishing the task. The tents were built in no time.

We then were taken to a local farm where green peppers and cherry tomatoes were grown. We picked some and brought them back to the community center to be used for dinner. There the fun started. With the help of the people running the community center, we prepared the food for everyone! We split into teams and proceeded to make burgers, rice burgers (the bread was substituted with compressed rice and seaweed squares as the outermost layer), and pizza with fresh deer meat (the meat was so delicious!). The burgers were seasoned with a sauce (we don't know what it was made of but it was also delicious), chicken necks grilled in some tasty sauce, and freshly grilled green peppers. The best part was - all the ingredient were fresh and yummy! Would have been great to eat that pizza again! The dough was very good, even Georg was more than impressed and he is very picky with proclaiming a pizza delicious.

After dinner, the kids took baths and changed into nightclothes, while we were hanging out. Then we started a big bonfire! First, everyone had to form a row and be very quiet. Then we entered the field with the not yet lit bonfire in silence and formed a ring around it. One kid was given the honor of litting the bonfire with a torch. We then

started to play random games led by a leader in the middle of our circle. He would clap his hands 10 times and we would need to run around and form a group of 10 with other people. The goal was to avoid being left over. The bonfire was getting really big at times, but they were always controlling it with water. It was Zhenya's first bonfire ever.

In the end, two people from the circle were given the honor of lighting two torches and bring them out of the circle (maybe it is a symbol for keeping the fire going). We all left the field in a row and silence again. Those small traditions intertwined with normal life are so interesting to observe.

We then burned some Japanese sparkles and fireworks to finish the day off for the kids, who then went to their tents.

The last on the list for the day (and by then it was already a very long day) was to take a Japanese hot bath. Japanese first wash well in the shower and only then enter the bathtub. This way the water in the bathtub is not changed at all, and everybody takes the same bath. It may sound weird, but it is a bit like a jacuzzi. The bathtub fits 4-10 people (depending on their size, think of Georg, and how tightly people want to be packed), the water is really hot, but there are no bubbles. Somehow, it is way better than jacuzzi and was surprisingly relaxing. We wished we had more time to stay.

We then were taken to man and woman sleeping rooms where we tried to get comfortable on the floor for the night.

Next day started early. At 6 am. But it was perfect as it wasn't hot yet.

The moment the sun got out in an hour or so, it got hot very fast. We did some radio gymnastic with a very funny Japanese person counting in a funny voice: ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi and so on (which simply means 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 :)) Apparantly radio gymnastics is a thing here, we had a feeling Japanese knew the movements by heart.

For breakfast, we had miso soup and rice and leftover burgers. Very Japanese, very savory, and very filling breakfast food.

We then played dodgeball in the rice field filled with water to our ankles. After the games between our teams, we also played a very weird game of running through the mud from one side of the field to the other in order to catch the ball lying there. Lucy - a British girl - was a real champion in this game. First of all, she was very fast, and second of all, no one could beat her plunging towards the ball from some meters before it right into the mud. It looked rather cool :)

We had already seen and done so much but that was still not all the impressions they wanted to gift us. For lunch, we had the flowing somen soup! Basically, it is a somen soup but you have to catch the noodles with chopsticks from the water flowing down the bamboo

tracks! Catching tomatoes is extra hard and earns you extra proudness points :)

Just before we left, a local couple performed some songs on the Japanese drums and a bamboo flute, which was also very nice. Such cultural moments are simply very nice here.

The bus took us back to Kyoto then. Everyone was so tired on the way back that the bus was silent for all three hours of the drive.

It was an amazing trip, which would have been made better only by having a pillow and a blanket for the night, and by speaking better Japanese to be able to interact with kids more. The kids were so open, it would have been great to be able to talk to them.