The first part of our morning was taken up by the trip to Tamano City near Okayama. We were seen off my E-Chan and made several train and bus exchanges to get to our destination. I discovered many wireless hotspots during our trip there but again, the bullet train moves to fast to use them. Okayama must be one of the poorer places in Japan. Everything seems to be run down and there was relatively more graffiti painted everywhere. Along one street, there were even swastikas painted over certain posters, but since the swastika is also a religious symbol here I couldn’t decide if I should be worried about it or not.

We met our homestay family along with our Mitsui Engineering and Shipbuilding’s (MES) contact Kajihara-san at the hotel we will be staying after the homestay. Everybody was quickly picked up by their families. The lady of the house that I was staying at, Hiromi-san picked me up as well. She was accompanied by the very retiring Naho-chan who upon seeing Dr. Stapp, started crying in terror.

Hiromi-san brought me to her house and without much time to drop my stuff off, I was engaged in a video game for my life with the two sons of the house, Kohei and Tatuya and apparently every other little boy in the neighborhood. I think I was playing the game Kirby and I think we were fighting each other or just flying around seeing who could do the coolest aerial tricks or maybe we were just running around seeing who could find the most loot, any way I just ran around the screen running into things and they, with their finely honed twitch muscles, kicked my butt.

Before I could understand the current game I was whisked outside to participate in another bizarre game that I didn’t know how to play, dodge ball. I think the rules go something like this: there are two teams that play on a large rectangle with one half belonging to each side. The object of the game is hit all the members of the other team in the body (not the head) and put them in the out zone on the far side of the playing field where they can still pick up the ball and throw it at members of the opposite team. There is a rule that lets you get out of the out zone and back into the game but I never figured out what it is. I got all these rules from just watching them play, a bit of interpretation from Hiromi-san, and a lot of jabbering and pointing from the boys.

We had a blast! I was a relatively big target (the other players being small Japanese boys) but I had the advantage of surprise over them. I think they didn’t believe that I would take their game seriously and play hard, well they were wrong. I have plenty of experience playing games against kids 20+ years younger than me and I needed every bit of it. I was quickly regulated to the out zone but somehow worked my way back in until finally it was an epic showdown between Kohei and me.

Now by this time, it seemed like all the adults in the neighborhood had turned out to see how the match was going on with the strange foreigner adding an extra element of pressure. I also got a lot of finger pointing and “oohhing” and “ahhing” from the kids when I put on my sunglasses. Apparantly, Japanese people are less sensitive to bright light than Westerners and only rock stars and the like wear them.

After hard fought exchange of vicious throws I was ultimately victorious when Kohei zigged when he should have zagged. Well, he did beat me at Kirby and every other video game we played after all. There were no hard feelings, we shook hands and high fived everybody and had a good time.

Then we played the game that we both understood no matter our language, baseball. We divided into teams and scraped out some bases in the ground and brought out the whiffle ball bat and squishy orange ball. This game was good for our team at the beginning but Kohei and Kano-chan’s team fought back hard. Some of the kids dropped out of the game making defense all but impossible turning the game into a home run derby of sorts. I didn’t keep score but I thought it was about even at the end. One of the funniest things I that happened during the game was the kids were trying to give me their gloves but I had to keep trying to explain that I’m a lefty (very unusual in Japan) and my hand wouldn’t fit their gloves.

Then we had a dinner teppanyaki which was delicious! An after dinner dinner was served by the young lady of the house and probably the cutest little girl in the world, Naho-chan. She served me a lovely stew of apples, tomatoes, grapes, and melons which I accepted gratefully. As you may have guessed she quickly overcame her sense of shyness especially when I pulled out my camera. She was quite possible the cutest, most adorable little girl I have ever met. She was two so our Japanese skills were the closest of anyone I have me here so far.

Tomorrow, a good night’s rest for the since we’re going to be very outnumbered at Hibi Elementary.