In order to reach the location of KCP’s school excursion for this semester, I had to ride the hour train to Shinjuku, then a full hour further west, past Mitaka (home of the Ghibli Musuem) and to Nishi-Tachikawa station. I arrived 15 minutes late, didn’t think to ask one of the teachers where the classes specifically were gathered, and proceeded to wander around the gigantic park blindly for about half an hour.

I finally arrived, forty-five minutes late, to the “BBQ Garden”, where all the classes were assembled around their respective grills. I found my class, explained why I was late to about everyone in my class individually, and proceeded to not take part in the cooking of food whatsoever.

I’m not afraid of cooking at all, but I’m way over my head when it comes to cooking Korean food. First off, I don’t know the first thing about it. The second thing is that the average Korean male seems to know a whole lot more about cooking than the average college student in America. In my dorm last year, you would be considered “the guy who knows how to cook” if you could scramble an egg without getting shell in it. During the discussions in class the previous few days, and during the actual cooking process, the Koreans were all passionately involved in the cooking process. Arguing about the heat of the grill, carefully choosing the right proportions of vegetables and meat, passionately debating the value of one mushroom over another. I decided to look busy by taking pictures, and nobody ever asked for my help. A win-win.

As for the food itself, it was great. When one of the cooks finished a batch, they would put it on the tarp and everyone would pick at it for about a minute before it was all gone.

It was also a chance to talk to a lot of my former classmates and teachers. It was a pretty fun time all in all, until I decided to take up one of the Koreans’ challenge to eat a very spicy pepper, which proceeded to wreak havoc on my insides for the rest of the day.

Being a park, there were lots of things to do. I found a basketball court and hung around it for a while, waited for the current game to get over, and then proceeded to play for about 2.3 minutes before we were called back to the grill. Here’s a picture of me watching the game, with my “someone set a screen” face.

After the food, we were split up by level and did some activities. Level 4 had a dodgeball tournament. It was different from American dodgeball, in that there were two squares next to each other, with the teams in the center. Five people from each team were lined up around the opposite team’s square. There was only one ball, but other than that it was like normal dodgeball. The first few games were not going to make it on ESPN Classic any time soon. No intensity whatsoever. It was almost frustrating. Then it was our team’s turn. Because the only penalty for getting out was that you had to go around the perimeter of the other team’s square, but could still play, I decided just to try and catch every ball. And because the ball that they used can best be described as “floppy”, it was pretty easy. With some minor strategizing, like standing on one side of the square with the ball so everyone hid in the corner and then tossing it to a teammate closer to the bunch, it was pretty easy. We wound up winning the tournament pretty easily.

Were I in America, I would probably be in the lower half of talent. But here, everyone kept going up to me and telling me how awesome I am at dodgeball, and that I must do a ton of sports. I wound up winning MVP of our team. The whole thing is actually really silly, but fun in an ego stroking way.

After the day was over, and most of my classmates went to do their favorite national pastime (drinking party), Encaron, Sehan, Li and myself (man their names look weird in roman letters) went to a Japanese garden that was inside the park. The park was so huge, I’m surprised there wasn’t a zeppelin parking lot tucked in somewhere.

It was magic hour (the time before sunset, when the direction of the light makes the colors look better) so I tried to get some photographs. There were a ton of things to take pictures of. I’m normally a person who tries to find the one, best angle and take the best possible picture, but I was torn between a ton of different places. I kept walking about 10 steps and thinking “whoa! that’s even better!” As a result, I got a few pictures that I’m pretty proud of. As always, check flickr for a larger batch of them.