Arakawa camp Kiyosato Yamanashi 2014

Kiyosato Station, Yamanashi, Japan. If you ever want to travel from Tokyo to this place, it will cost you at least 6000 yen round trip. WOW!
This town used to be really hopping. Unfortunately, several combinations have caused many of the shops around the station area to close. A drop in the population, its actually cheaper to travel outside Japan then inside! Its sad, as I counted about 12 shops which were closed, all of which were within walking distance of this station.

This type of train was what used to chug up the hills to get there. The weather was also a lot cooler up there, about a ten degree difference. Hence I'm wearing jeans and a flannel shirt in August in Japan!

Take my shot buddy, I need to get back to my students! You will find trains like these all over Japan as displays for kids to climb over and then break something.
Once again, my company was asked by Arakawa Board of Education to teach their World School Program. This year we had teachers from USA, Canada, UK, The Philippines, Australia and New Zealand

Mark from Kenya and I. We had a lot of laughs.

Mark from Kenya, Jai from Hawaii. Both these guys were great players on our training team. I didn't notice the sweat stain on my shirt.

Brian from Queens, New York. We work together in Edogawa, Tokyo this year.

We went up to Kiyosato, Yamanashi from August 21-25. I got home, went to bed for about 5 hours then cycled to school in Edogawa. Unfortunately, I lost my voice from all the excitement we had to do with the students on the trip. I'm still resting it. Hopefully, I will be able to teach my students with some more speaking, but then again, having them do most of the talking means I cut most of my work! I guess its a win win, unless they don't do any talking.