Gankoyama

This past Thursday and Friday I, along with my 2 colleagues, took 20 teenage students to Gankoyama - a campsite in Chiba - the big, rural peninsula near Tokyo.

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Overall I'd say the trip was a success. The most stressful part of the trip was getting there because I wasn't sure about the bus from Yokohama to Chiba -- if there'd be space on the public bus for us all and how to purchase tickets. I met 15 of the students at 8am at school and herded them from school to the train station, onto a train, to Yokohama station and through the massive station to the bus terminal. We arrived at 8:30am where we were supposed to meet my 2 colleagues and the other 5 students. The students were there but the teachers were not. I was not pleased. Eventually we all bought tickets and boarded the 9am bus. Around 10:30am we transferred buses to a private charter we booked which took us another 1/2 hour to the campsite.

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Almost immediately after arriving, it started raining and it pretty much poured until just after we left the campsite the next day! It was a cold, wet, muddy mess but it was fun. The kids made bow and arrows, cooked, chopped wood, relaxed, and fooled around.

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We left on Friday at 2pm and retraced our steps back to Yokohama around 5pm. Despite the whole trip lasting less than 48 hours it seemed a lot longer!

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For the spring we are considering a bigger trip to Hiroshima.

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