August 8th

Today we went to a traditional Japanese home and did traditional Japanese things. This involved putting on yukatas. For the girls, it's rather uncomfortable. There's a towel that's wrapped around the waist, and then three long, thin, pieces of fabric, a hard shell that we liked to compare with armor, and the ribbon that you see. It's very much like a corset because it's all around the waist. It was also very hot. We also did our hair, and there were these cute clips that we wore in our hair.

We then watched traditional Japanese dances, and then tried a Japanese line dance. It was a lot of flailing on the delegates' part. We then tried a whole bunch if things, it ranged from more traditional Japanese dancing, to making hair clips, origami, shogi (Japanese chess), tea ceremonies, and a Japanese instrument that I can't remember the name to. The girls ask did the hair clips, and we talked a few guys into doing it add well.

We then ate lunch, and then saw a performance of the Japanese instrument. A delegate even went up and performed a duet because she was that good.

After that we arranged flowers in Japanese style.

We then went back to our host families' houses. My family ate shabu-shabu. Which is basically a pot of boiling water where you put things like tofu, bean sprouts, noodles, some sort of green leafy vegetable and pork. Then when it cooked, you dipped it in a sauce and ate it.