Chateaus, Pizzas, and........

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And Other things that don't belong....

It's been awhile...(sashiburi). My apologies for not keeping up, but I've been soo busy this past month. But now I'm finished with school, so I can start hammering away at all these posts I need to catch up on.

UPDATE-----As of now, all my pictures are possibly gone, which is why I waited even further to update. Maybe in a few weeks I'll get them back, lets keep our fingers crossed.-------

So I guess I would of left of on our school trip to the Chateau. Our school had planned a bus trip to some rural part of Japan. I can't recall anything else about the location. The entire KCP student body was crammed into 18 buses or so, and we set off around 8am.

It was about a two hour ride. The teachers kept pulling elaborate stunts to keep us entertained, but they should have known better that after waking up at 6am that morning, all we would want to do is sleep. They had class representatives introduce their peers and teachers, with a trivia quiz following it. At the time, my japanese wasn't good enough to keep up, so I just put on my headphones. Then they had us play guessing games where we could win prizes and such; yelling through the microphone keeping those unfortunate snoozers awake.

Eventually I found myself at the chateau. It was during the dead of winter, so there weren't too many pretty things to be seen outside. The building itself contained giant barrels lined down the walls. The atmosphere was that of my relative's basement; moldy and forgotten in an elegant sort of way. As to be expected, there was a wine shop at the end. But unfortunately, I'm no connoisseur when it comes to wines, so I headed for the exit.
Outside there was a fountain with a pretty garden in the back. I took many great pictures there with my classmates until it was time to go to the next part of the trip.

We boarded the bus and arrived shortly later at this farmy sort of place. There were open, sandy-yellow fields with several dwellings arranged in a circle, surrounding a courtyard. The upper center of the circle was a huge cafeteria, with a vast, quiet park stretching far behind it. The dwellings were actually shops, surprisingly up to date with new fads and such. What grabbed my eye the most were this giant golden eggs said to contain mystery items, possibly even a DS game! I gave in and picked one up, but what waited for me inside was a Turbo Twister...whatever that is. Its a sort of top that you wrap a string around, and ,kind of like a side-ways yoyo, you thrust it out, activating its spring loaded mechanism for a good spin. It was really difficult for an amateur like me, but the Koreans seemed to already knew the ropes and tried to show them to me. But the fun was ended when it busted open on the cobblestone. I laughed at the fact, but he insisted he pay for the damage, it was only like $3 but I couldn't stop him. What a nice guy.

After that escapade, it was time to bake some Pizzas. By the dozens, we lined up at the tables and began tackling the dough. And nothing I've ever encountered was stickier than this particular wad of dough. Adding egg,oil, and water and turning it into something worthwhile was indescribably frustrating. Once the job was done, toppings were sprinkled on, and in the oven it went.

As we waited, we played in the park. A korean-style tag game was started, but it didn't make any sense to me. It was like red-light green-light, tag, and capture the flag put together. The other Americans played frisby. I don't know what it was about those guys, but they had an obsession with playing frisby. Like everyday after school, they would get really excited, run to the park nearby, and play frisby. I found it humorous, but I could never empathize with their overwhelming desire to play frisby, that and handstands.

Anyway, eventually our pizzas were done and we dug in. They tasted more like lunchable pizzas, but when you put them in the microwave. We scarfed them up, said our goodbyes, and returned to the buses.

The trip was "neat", but I expected something a little more, I don't know, Japanese?

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