Day #8 - Gotemba & Tokia

We woke this morning to lovely blue sky look out the window you could see Fuji is nice and clear. We took this opportunity to get a few photos of the mountain is with you later in the day it would cloud over. After quick on scene and then some breakfast we are on our way again down the mountain from the hotel towards a beautiful lake area which was called Lake Ashe. A beautiful area with any glacial water is coming down into it and also a lovely place apparently to fish so Mr Holtsbaum told everybody. According to Dr Google Holtsbaum there was a pike trout salmon and bass all available to catching this lake.

Upon leaving this area we headed down the hill into Gotemba, and visited a wonderful Peace Park. Within the park there were lovely manicure gardens although Matty Brown tells me the trees grow like that naturally. I’ll leave you to be the judge when you look at the photos. There were also some temples and a bell the boys enjoyed ringing which symbolised interest to the spiritual area.

We left here and the boys were super keen to get some retail therapy so we took them to a premium outlet shopping centre where they spend a couple of hours wandering around the stores buying up on the cheaper items like shoes and clothing. This for them I think was the highlight of the day.

Mid afternoon we headed off to Tokai University where we met the head coach and assistant coach of the rugby union team here. A very successful team in Japan also coached hear by Grant Andersen who is on our trip helping us with our boys. We got to visit the home facilities of the rugby team but also have a look around the campus at all of the different departments. With 18,000 students at this university it is one of the biggest in Japan. Probably the highlight of the visit to the campus was going to see the judo team training in a purpose-built facility. As we watched we found out they were world and Olympic champions training in front of our boys and this was a very special moment. But then next door the kendo team started training and if you look at the video on Flickr you’ll understand that this also was a very special moment for all of us involved.

Well strolling around the campus we ran into old boy Noah Scallan who at now has been at the university for two years on a scholarship and playing here for the seagales (yes that’s the actual name) rugby team which is the universities rugby club. The name of the club was in reference to the sea wins the come off the Pacific Ocean nearby.

After a few hours at the University we headed over to our hotel dinner and the boys in preparation for tomorrow at a team meeting and then off to an early bed. The game tomorrow Will be played at Tokai Sagami High School which is nearby to the university. You will notice the address is on the blogger for all those that are here in Japan to come and watch.