A few days in Utsunomiya

Hello boys and girls, it's Ian again. After Shan's party the night before, we spend Saturday gently recuperating in Mike's apartment, until 5:00 when we met six of the nurses from Friday. Since dating in Japan is a group activity (at least the first few times) we decided to take them bowling. Japanese bowling lanes are far better than American ones, in my experience. They're cleaner, they're more regular, and they have screens on the back wall playing music videos. The only similarities were in the cheesy animations they played on the score monitors when you got a strike or a split or whatever.

In the first game we did not do well. The Stars and Stripes were soundly trounced by the Red Circle. Then the girls upped the stakes. In this bowling arcade there was a ridiculous suit of a bowling pin, complete with a face hole and little arm holes. Words can't describe it, just go see the photos. The girls decided that whichever guy had the lowest score would have to wear the suit. Needless to say, our games improved dramatically. I ended up losing, so I was put in the suit while everyone else laughed and took photos. In a show of masculine solidarity, though, all the other guys took turns in the suit. There are pictures of them too.

After bowling we tried some of the Japanese gambling machines because one of the girls had won some free gamling tokens. They're fairly incomprehensible; you put a token in a slot so it lands on a tray that moves in and out, but you try to place it so that it will push a pile of other coins over the edge and into your tray. I didn't really get it. We left pretty quickly and took the girls to get sushi (thank god it's not as expensive as it is in the States). We made pleasant if limited conversation, and then parted ways at about 11:00. All in all it was a great evening.

The next day Dane and I went with Mike, Joey, and Luke to the beach while Shan and Nate stayed with the apartment. The sun was high, the water was a little chilly for my taste, but the wind was awful. Everything below the kne was constantly sand-blasted. Joey dug a trench with the shovel he brought, which offered some protection, but after a couple hours we left. We stopped in a shopping mall for ice cream, and Dane and I got some swimsuits.

That evening we all decided to go to the onsen (Japanese public baths). One of my top ten reasons to live in Japan, if you're okay with nudity. This place had an outdoor hot spring, a steam room, a sauna, a cold plunge, little one-person baths with massage jets, and a bath with an electric current in one corner, so you could sit and be constantly shocked. I'm not sure what therapeutic value it has, but it felt cool. The whole place was incredibly relaxing.

The next day, Monday, was probably our most relaxed day so far. We stayed around the apartment, did some shopping, and took it easy until that night, when Mike mentioned he had some alcohol he wanted to get rid of. I think we all remember how that went.

We'll catch you up on the rest of our adventures tomorrow. Peace!

ian