Hey gang. When I left off in my last post, I was telling you about the typhoon. It didn't hit anywhere near our beach, but that didn't stop it from affecting our weekend. Krista picked us up in Yunomae around 12:45, and it was very breezy here. The entire way there, the wind blew through the trees so hard, not to mention the rain. Blarg. Rain is the last thing you want to see on your beach vacation weekend. It took about 1.5 hours to get to Ashikita, and luckily it wasn't raining at the time. We were a bit early, so we decided to explore the beach. We wandered by our bungalows on the hillside, down a questionable "pathway" to the ocean, and when we got out of the trees and onto the actual beach, holy crap! Standing beside the ocean, it seriously felt like we were going to get blown away. The wind was so strong!! We were at a pier, and we walked along a sidewalk to get to the beach. We're pretty sure the beach there was man-made b/c it wasn't very big. The view was beautiful, though! Across the way, we could see the islands of Amakusa. Despite the cloudy sky and rough surf, it was still gorgeous!
We assumed that we had killed enough time, so headed back to the bungalow area to check in. We met a few other ALTs in the parking lot and asked if we were going the right way. They said yes and that we would know it when we got there (with sly little smiles on their faces). We pulled up to the bungalows, and music was blasting from one, people were standing in the parking lot doing stupid things, and some guy swung off of light pole. Ian affectionately named it "Little America." hahahahaha. It's a good thing that we had our own little isolated area because if we had any neighbors around, I'm pretty sure we would have scared them off. :) We got checked in and changed and went back to the beach. This time, we actually got in the water. While the current didn't seem that strong, it definitely pulled us down the beach. None of us were stupid enough to go too far out in the rough surf. Ian and I decided to dig a hole. It's pretty much what you do at the beach, right? Someone asked us if we were digging a hole to China, but Ian said, "No. I'm digging a hole to America." HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Get it? We're on the other side of the world, so now we have to dig a hole back to American, not China!
Later that night, we BBQed. There were nice BBQ pits in front of each bungalow, so basically each cabin grilled out. We had a feast of meats and veggies. Delicious. At this time, the booze began to flow forth like milk and honey, so EVERYONE was getting rather wasted. The night progressively got more and more interesting. :) Without going into too many details, there was a banjo sing-a-long, illegal fireworks on the beach, and some pretty deep conversations about the meaning of life.
I really did not enjoy sleep last night. The futons were NOT cushioned very well, so it might as well have been like sleeping on the ground. :( In addition, we went to bed around 1 and woke up around 8. However, the worst part of the night was the 4 AM mukade attack. Disgusting. Mukade are poisonous centipedes in Japan that everyone hates/fears and are hard to kill. Someone noticed one in the bedroom earlier in the night, but nothing further came of it. I had also seen one outside by the BBQ grill. Four people slept in the bedroom and another four in the living room space (including the Reeds). Around 4 AM we hear a scream followed by several potty mouth words and a series of smashing sounds coming from the bedroom. The mukade had crawled across one girl's face, was flung across the room, began headed for the other sleeping people, and was immediately beheaded. Imagine trying to sleep after that. Every little itch or twitch my body had I was petrified was a mukade. We also killed two cockroaches in the cabin.
All in all, the weekend was very nice. We had a great time! One downside of being fourteen hours ahead of the States is that Monday always comes sooner. :( I don't care what country you live in. You're still going to dread Monday.
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