Today’s class flashed past in no time and after a kombini
lunch, we caught the bus to …umm…somewhere to go to see the Japanese
Archery. The bus ride was not as
pleasant as it should have been, as we passed a motorbike accident along the
way. The rider looked to be in quite a
bad way but he was being taken care of.
Once we got to the Archery building, we watched a group of ladies practising kendou and then the archery instructors gave us a demonstration of the technique, and
then I was pleasantly surprised to discover that we were also participating.
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| Ladies practising kendou |
Firstly we went through the moves (which are very slow and
specific) and we practised getting into the correct stance by using an elastic
band to stretch like the bow. Once we’d
been through that routine, we took it in turns to shoot an arrow at the targets. While I won’t ever be a world champion, I
really enjoyed the experience and wouldn’t mind doing archery as a hobby. Maybe not Japanese Archery, as the bow is
huge and it requires a lot of strength.
I’ll add archery to my ‘maybe in retirement’ list.
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| Showing off my style |
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| Archery instructors with the Thai students who shared the excursion with the Aussie group |
The bus back to the main bus station was really packed as
the school students were all on their way home, but that’s all a part of the
Japanese experience too.
Ulla and I window-shopped for a while before going into
Starbucks for our daily dose of chai latte and Internet. I’ve been exchanging Facebook messages with
my Japanese penfriend and I’m going to meet him in Hamamatsu after the course
is finished. I’m looking forward to
catching up – even though I have to catch the shinkansen at about 7.00am on
Sunday! There is a big kite festival
each year in Hamamatsu, and on Sunday the preparations will be underway, so I’m
expecting to have an interesting day.
During dinner I made a bit of an effort to discuss today’s
activities and my plans for tomorrow and on Sunday in Hamamatsu. Most of the words are there, but stringing
them together is still so tricky.
I finished the day with some revision to face another day of
brain-stretching tomorrow.
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