Dentists and Dodgeball

Thursday, June 6th.

So I woke up at 3am.  I've awakened at 3am a few times during this trip simply because of the time zone differences.  Japan is 13 hours ahead so it's nearly the exact opposite of what we're used to on the East Coast of the US.  But today I woke up at 3am because of the pain.  It was bad.

I tossed and turned for a bit.  Went downstairs and sat for a bit.  Hopped in the onsen for a while... that was nice.  When the sun came up (which it's been doing at about 4:30am in  Japan) I walked around the campground for a bit.  I was just doing anything to keep my mind off the pain.  Breakfast eventually came.

Breakfast - I may be smiling but I am in PAIN! 

 I wanted to let Yuji enjoy his breakfast before I said anything about the tooth because I knew as soon as I told him he would go into high gear.  At 8:45 I told him.  By 9am he and the camp staff had found a dentist and I was in a truck heading to the village.  The dentist was on his day off but agreed to come in just for me. 

The entire dentist story could be a blog in and of itself but the long and the short of it is, I told Yuji at 8:45am that I had a problem with a tooth.  By 10:15 I was leaving the dentist's office and heading back to the campground.  Amazing.  I had been so worried and in an hour and a half it was over.  A little bit of drilling a little bit of pain killer action and some antibiotics. The pain was gone... and despite the lack of sleep I felt an amazing relief.  Nothing like a root canal in the middle of a trip!

Not real sure what this says... but I do understand "pain killer"!

Back at camp and I even feel good enough to photobomb people!

Thursday was sports day at the camp.  From 10-12 we could play a variety of sports.  So I played some basketball when I got back with Matt and some guys.  Later I played tennis with Oxford Mike.  Three hours earlier I was in agony and now I'm playing tennis.  Then we had lunch to re-energize for the afternoon's activities.

Lunch...  check out that tooth!  Feeling good!

After lunch there was a volleyball and dodgeball competition.  It was a blast and my team won the volleyball tournament and came in third in dodgeball.  The dodgeball was really funny.  It was really about 70 or so people 18 and older whipping volleyballs at each other.  And somehow no one was seriously hurt.  hahaha Ridiculous but so much fun.

Volleyball champs - Love this team!

Dodgeball action...  craziness.

After the sports, we had a little bit of time before dinner.  I headed back to the house and took another dip in the onsen which felt great after all the sports.  A few of us headed down to dinner together which was outside.  There were six barbeque pits set up.  Now it wasn't barbeque like we think of it.  It was more like what we might call Mongolian barbeque.  We had quite a spread... vegetables, meats, poultry, and seafood, along with noodles.  It was delicious.

Getting ready to grill with the volleyball team and a few others.

Here's a better pic of the food being cooked.  That dude with the white glasses beaned me in dodgeball earlier in the day.  He was vicious.  hahaha

 After dinner came the fireworks.  Well... it was more like assorted sparklers.  It was a great time for more pictures.  Also some of the students found some really creative things to do with the sparklers and cameras.  I thought it was silly at first but when I saw the pictures, it was pretty awesome.

If it seems a little smoky... it's because about 500 sparklers were going off.

Here's Alex and others lighting a few of those 500 sparklers.

I thought this was fun.  Also the "Technos" pic at the top of the blog is a sparkler pic from this night.

 After sparklers it was karaoke time.  BUT...  what happens at karaoke stays at karaoke.  So, while I can say that all faculty and Matt participated in crazy karaoke insanity, no details of our amazing singing will be revealed in this blog.  I will simply say that IT WAS EPIC.

Speaking of epic...  I've been to over 20 countries... I've had lots of international adventures... but today was one of the absolute best and most memorable days that I have ever had abroad.  I'll never forget the resourcefulness of Yuji, the kindness of the dentist, the joy of playing volleyball with a truly international array of teammates, epic karaoke, my first onsen experiences and just the overall joy of the day.  Today was special.  As fun as it is to go from famous site to famous site, today was about interacting with people and that's what made today great.