One Saturday I had the opportunity to go camping with some of the faculty and students of Takayama Nishi.  We drove to a small camping area outside of Takayama and set up camp between two small rivers.  Also accompanying our group was Nogami sensei (Kozue's father) and several of his elementary school students who were visiting from another prefecture.  These little kids were awesome!  They had so much fun catching fish and bugs.  I need them to come to America to show my students how to do things right!  That little girl was ready to go camping - she had a camouflage jacket, a camouflage hat, a camouflage shirt, and a backpack that she could have lived inside.  It was two or three times as big as she was!  

The first thing they did was buy about 30 rainbow trout and release them into the river.  Then the kids (and me, of course) tried to catch them barehanded.  We caught about 7 of 'em.  This is why man has invented fishing poles!

After the "fishing" we prepared to cook.  The students cleaned the fish and vegetables while the adults lit the fires and prepared the meat.  The students did most of the cooking, and the food was excellent!  We had fish, chicken, beef, pork, vegetables, noodles, and french fries.  All really good!

After dinner was game time.  We played badminton and catch while we waited for it to get dark.  After dark was fireworks time.  The students had a great time lighting sparklers and shooting roman candles.

The fireworks lasted about 45 minutes or so.  They didn't run out of colored gunpowder - they ran out of matches.  :)  So we took a walk to look for fireflies.  They weren't out in force, but we did see a few floating around the rice fields.

Playing with sparklers.

         
Taro and Taihei take the opportunity to catch some niji-masu.

Wildlife documentary #387:  Spider hunting techniques.