Community BBQ

Exercise 6/6: 3.5 Km walk
Time: about 1 hour

Walking with the neighbours for some unknown cause...I LOVE being illiterate! (sarcasm :-/)

(mmmm. I posted the above at about 8:45 am my time and then actually did the walk at about 11am...but I knew I wouldn't be home in time to post it before 4pm... just in case you itunes gluttons out there were wondering about this post ;-))

The cause turned out to be enjoyment of fall leaves in the mountains...not a raise-money-kind- of-thing apparently. We filled up 4 buses and drove about 1 hour into the mountains. Then we hiked for 1 hour to a group BBQ site. This was SO interesting! The shelter had long benches for people to sit on (logs split in half and stained). In between each row were long concrete thingies shaped rougly in a u. We were split in groups of 8 and each group was given a "BBQ Pack" to make a fire in the concrete u. Once the coals were ready we put a grate and a grill across the top of the u. Then we spent the afternoon cooking veggies and meat and yakisoba and fish (whole) and it was so fun! btw the cooking utensil of choice here is chopsticks! Even for a BBQ. I am sure Colin will get around to posting pics on our family website...eventually.

Oh, and after, while we were waiting on the buses, we played some games. We did a ring-toss in pairs: You throw a ring at your partner at the same time and catch your partner's ring with the same hand. Colin and I quickly achieved this...and then being gaijin, had to try something different! ;-) We used 3 and tried juggling as a pair. (we got applause for that) Then we used 4 and tried doing it with both hands simultaneously. That was HARD...but fun.

The other game was a first for me. The equipment were long baton-like rods (but too long to actually do any baton twirling). The women lined up (maybe 7 or so) and held a rod upright in each hand with the bottom touching the ground.

• One person said, "ii se no rei" (ready, here we go) and
• we replied "don don pa".
  
• On the "don don" we tapped out batons on the ground to the beat (1-2), and
• on the "pa" we let go of our own and reached for the person's batons on our right.
  

The goal was for everyone to catch the next person's batons before they fell...and count how many times you could do this in a row as a group. Very fun.