Bowling ...

A group of teachers invited Amanda and I to go bowling with them on a Saturday night. We all met for dinner and then headed to Sonic Bowl, yes the same sonic as in Sonic the Hedgehog. I was pretty excited, I'm not going to lie. This was my first time bowling in Japan and the word on the street was that the teachers weren't very good. When I told them that I could bowl in the triple digits, they looked amazed. When I told them that Matt could bowl around 200 they about went in to shock. One of my teachers admitted that she hardly ever bowls over a 50!! I considered making wagers on the game right then & there.

The bowling alley was just like the bowling alleys back home, only cleaner & less smokey. Also, noticeably missing was a beverage stand of some kind. Maybe it was bring your own? I can't say that I've ever heard of a dry bowling alley before.

Our first line of business was to get shoes. The method was pretty efficient. It was the typical Japanese vending machine style. You put in your 300 yen (roughly $3.00), choose your size, push the button & voila. You have shoes. My only problem was that my shoes were too big! I'm sure that I could have requested a different size, but sometimes it's just easier to suck it up. So I'll blame my poor scores on the fact that my shoes were too big. :)

The shoes were your standard bowling shoes,

except these bad boys were velcro only.

The competition was on.

Junko kept score and refused to alter mine after I tried

to convince her that my gutter was really meant to be a strike.

All smiles, despite her score. :)

Yuka was embarrassed by the fact that she literally threw 8 gutters in a row.
My teammates Tomoko & Yuka.

The night was a success. I love spending time with the teachers outside school, not to mention I took the #1 slot on our team, despite the fact that my score was below average. It's actually kind of embarrassing, so I won't post the actual number. I will say that I was over 100, yet under 130. My bowling crew from back home knows that I can put up bigger numbers than that. It seriously must have been the shoes. :)

much love,
-tara-
xoxo