the last study trip ever. i had a crappy camera before, and i bought a brand new one (canon ixy series, 10 megapixels --- pinagmalaki daw ba dito?!) especially for this. of course i don't want my pictures looking crappy and blurry, since this is the last study trip we will ever have in this program.

i'll save the drama for last. first, im gonna tell you what we did:

June 22

12:00am
i was still awake doing my survey. i needed to finish it so i could send it to my sensei already, so she could check it and give it to her students. i was awake the whole night, and i didn't sleep a bit. it was too difficult to make this stupid survey, but i love my sensei because she does everything for me. enough of this crap, i don't wanna sound like tuyen whining all the time about studies in his blog.

8:20am
i'm prepared and ready to go! i remember looking so tired, obviously lacking sleep. i couldn't see very clearly. hahaha.
we met in front of the kaikan office, and soon, the bus arrived, and we were off to nishi-arita in saga to plant rice this time around! yay! (we already went there before for rice harvesting, btw)


around 10ish - 11ish (i forgot)
we arrived at nishi-arita and we went to the rice paddy to plant rice! yay! it was my first time and i must say, i didn't expect what i felt under all that mud. that was so itai, i hurt my feet really. coming from an 'agricultural' country though, i know what i was about to face that time, and that planting rice is not as easy as it looks. well, i was wrong. haha. it was easy if you have like two dozen people doing it. what made it difficult for us was walking barefoot on all that mud, with sharp gravel and rocks and insects and whatever you can find. it was really abunai for our feet. at least for the farmers, they have boots and stuff to protect them. we have none. anyways, going back, it was really easy. you just put the rice stalk (not sure with this, it's just called palay in tagalog. haha), and you wait for everyone to finish, and you go backwards until your group finishes the entire paddy. i didn't know you're supposed to follow a line though. now that explains why the rice stalks look so neat on a rice paddy. hahaha.



oh, oh! we all got interviewed for a local television program. our tutor was like asking us questions in very fast japanese, but yokatta, i was able to follow and somehow answer her question without making a fool of myself so much. haha. and after the rice planting, we got to wash our dirty, muddy, hobbit-y feet in the canal. well, they were still dirty but just to wash off the mud was enough for the meantime.


when i looked at my feet and my newly-painted toenails, i wanted to scream and cut someone else's hair off. what happened to my nails was just traumatizing. dirt stuck under the nails, very ugly toes, and pollack sensei said it would take days to wash it off. arienai!


lunch time
yay! after the very tiring and painful rice planting, we had a barbecue together with the farmers. it was really fun. yakiniku overload. after that, we got to take a lot of pretty pictures, and bond with each other a little more. :D


3:00-ish
we arrived at nakamasu ryokan located in some far flung place. i heard the place is called takeo onsen, but i'm not really sure. bekky, monika, and i fortunately shared the same room, so it was fun being with them (unlike before, when i was forced to be with people i don't really know). we rested for a bit, and then headed off for the onsen. for me, it was really a weird experience. this is my first time and i really didn't want to do it but then one way or another, i had to, because i'm already here in japan. i am just glad i did this with the people i'm close to. (for those of you, my friends, who have no idea what an onsen is: it is a public bath where you obviously take a bath in public. haha. joke. unlike the normal spa and stuff in the philippines, you take off all your clothes in an onsen. so there.)
after onsen, we had tea and took a nap. i didn't know an onsen makes you feel tired and sleepy. yeah, it made me relaxed, but too relaxed i couldn't move and control my limbs anymore. haha.



7:30
we had our usual teishoku, the ever present meal during study trips. it's just too much that by the end of the year, you get tired of eating it. but anyways, after dinner, we went out and explored the place. finding nothing interesting aside from closed shops and restaurants and a huge number of 'snack' bars, and after being stalked by a couple of drunken guys who smell of ramen or stale eggs, we went back to our hotel and played cards through the night.
bekky and i went back to our room while monika went drinking with the guys. i wish we could have gone out too, but hearing she was with someone i loathed and hated so much, i was just glad we stayed in our room. it was nice though, just talking and stuff. haha. and we were off to dreamland.


June 23

10ish - 11ish or so
we went to Nagasaki, the famous atomic bomb place. first stop was the atomic bomb museum. it was really sad and depressing there, seeing the effect of the nuclear bomb, and how it ruined so many innocent lives. seeing all the exhibits, with the solemn atmosphere of the place, really gave me goosebumps. once or twice, i was on the verge of crying. everything was really moving and touching there.
then we went to heiwa koen or peace park. it was just normal, we had fun taking pictures but i guess everyone was still not that genki and happy because of the effect the museum left us.


12:00 something
we had lunch in chinatown. at last! not teishoku! very good chinese food, but it wasn't enough, with imai sensei sitting with us, yappari. we also did our omiyage shopping: we bought castella to give to agape house, and some other stuff as well.

3:00ish
we went back to saga to visit  Yoshinogari, a famous archaeological site of the Yaoi period. it was a really big place featuring reconstructions of early japanese life. it was so cool, and we took cool pictures again.


5:30
we reached Kaikan and there ends our last-est best-est study trip ever. so much for sometimes cheap, oftentimes free, always cool study trips organized by the JTW office.

going in this study trip, i didn't really feel any sadness or whatever. i just enjoyed every bit of it, took as much pictures as i can, and tried to capture in my mind all the things and emotions and experiences i couldn't capture with my camera. but retelling what we did, realizing this is the last of the bestest things i had here, remembering all the trips we had and all the fun things we did along the way, from kuju, mt. aso, susenji, all the way to saga and nagasaki, made me a little sad, thinking i won't be able to have this much fun when i come back home. everything will be so different, i suppose. well, i guess this blog is one way of preserving all the emotions and experiences i had with these study trips.

going to this last study trip, and doing it with friends, is really a great experience. i remember telling pollack sensei how fun it was, and he said it is kinda bittersweet for him to have this one last trip with our batch. well, i didn't understand it quite well before, but now i do. it was just pure fun, being with all these people, but sad as well, because this is practically the last of the best things we had here. :(