The Hunchbacks of Hokkaido

At first, we thought it was kind of funny that our house was a little to small for our dinosaur sized legs but now we are a concerned for our health. No joke, we are afraid we might return to the States with hunchbacks. We realized most of what we do when we are home (besides sleeping) involves us hunched over. Our kitchen counter top, as you can see, requires no explanation.
Our living room table is the perfect height for a coffee table but not for a dinning table, computer table, movie screen, and an "all purpose" table. In addition, all the mirrors, sinks, and the fridge in the house require hunching. And finally, Kellyn gets the added bonus of sitting in chairs built for elementary school children the entire time she is at work.

Just so everyone is aware we are not complaining. We love it here. Our purpose in posting this blog is so that no one is frightened when we walk off the plane making Quasimodo look like Frankenstein compared to us.

Field Trips Equal Getting Kicked in the Crotch

Last Saturday Kellyn's place of work took a field trip with about 100 students to a Hokkiado fruit farm. Due to the large amount of kids and the small amount of teachers (100 kids, 8 teachers... and a couple bus drivers) Kellyn's boss, Mr. Ohtani, asked if Joe would be able to join the team. Since Joe doesn't work on Saturdays there was no way out for him.

We woke up at 5:30 on Saturday morning, hauled ourselves over to the office, drove another half an hour to meet our bus load of kids at their school. We were in charge of 20 students (Kellyn only knew about 6 of them from her classes). We eventually met up with the rest of the groups at a "fruit" park were we played "organized" games then had lunch. After a tour of the facility we headed off to the fruit farm where we were all allowed to pick apples off the tree and grapes off the vine. Although, we were quite exhausted by the time we reached the farm, picking the fruit was a unique experience. Since we have never had real/natural grapes straight from the vine this was the best part of the day. We never imagined that eating grapes would expose us to cultural difference as well. In Japan (and possibly other parts of the world) one doesn't eat the skin of the grape and all grapes have two or three seeds inside a very chewy and slimy nucleus. It took a while, but the grapes grew on us.

Now you might be wondering why going on this field trip equaled getting kicked in the crotch. Well, despite the adorable exterior of the children Kellyn works with lies a force of energy that manifests in the form of a punch or a kick. In addition, most of the arms of these children are in perfect position for punching a sensei dead on in the crotch. We haven't quite figured out why it is acceptable for a child to punch their teacher in the crotch, the stomach, the leg, or anywhere else for that matter, but it is. It is possible that these kids are an acception, but either way we knew a trip like this would not end without at least one child catching us off guard and making full frontal contact. Thankfully, not every student is this rambunctious. Some of them just want to hug you, some just want to play, and some just want to talk. Kellyn is getting use to this environment and has gotten pretty good at blocking the attacks. Unfortunately, there was one child in particular that seemed to have it our for Joe. This kid was a five year old wizard at the surprise attack. One time this child was blasting Joe from the back so Joe pulled him around the front thinking "If I have him in front, I will be able to better defend myself." Wrong. As the kid was being swung around he wound up his fist and let if fly. PUNCH to CROTCH.

Kellyn's now just waiting for the Holloween parties that are fastly approaching.