My first day off since starting work and I planned to have a lazy day and go swimming in the pool. Turns out that the Jamboree don’t hire the pool out so we can’t use it which is annoying. Instead I went to the supermarket and bought some kiwis – I’ve been missing proper fruit! I also bought a solar charger in the hopes that I could stop queuing for the charging tent but it turns out it’s too hot for them here! How daft is that?
Luckily I found some spare sockets in the food hall so sat and caught up with my blog for a bit and charged all my gizmos. I lacked energy to do anything amazing so it was nice when Becca found me as we could catch up and chat about our respective jobs – a zero energy task!
Later that day I was booked onto the hot springs tour which was amazing. I was a bit anxious I didn’t know anyone else that was going but I think that turned out to be a good thing seeing as you had to go stark naked. It was good fun though and there were lots of different pools from boiling to cold, a sauna, a tiny electric shock pool, some monkey bars and an outdoor waterfall pool. What was really touching was the Japanese ladies there who on seeing by sunburnt shoulders got really concerned and starting pouring cold water on them and patting them. One of them got me out of the pool and pulled me over to her station where she got out some ointment and an exfoliating pad and starting scrubbing me all over. She kept getting me to feel her skin to see how soft it was and telling me that doing all this would make my skin as soft – at least I think that was what she was saying, it was all in Japanese.
It was one of the ladies who came to the hot springs birthday and so we all went to the bar near the pool and had a round of drinks. It was nice to meet more new people even though now all I can thin when I see them is… I’ve seen you naked…
On my second day off me and Becca queued up early for the World Scout Shop and were the second people inside. I bought some souvenirs for myself and a house warming present for my brother, Michael and his girlfriend Sam. After we headed over to the subcamp area with Alex to see Unit 53 from West Lancs. We joined in the activities and had some of their ‘Hunter’s Hotpot’ and built a Blackpool Tower our of straws and blu tack. We then wandered around the subcamps trying lots of different food, from Brazilian banana sweets to Mexican chilli lollipops to Canadian maple syrup pancakes! I was stuffed. It really is amazing how many different cultures you have such easy access to!
The best thing was trying to find all of the Eastern European countries we had visited on our trip two years ago and getting a photo with all of the flags (Greece, Macedonia, Serbia and Hungary). Serbia was impossible to find but mainly because we forgot what the flag looked like and were looking for the wrong one for the majority of the time – we eventually googled the flag and managed to find their camp! I also finally managed to wangle myself a Hungarian necker!
After our long walk we refreshed ourselves with some pringles and coke zero at the supermarket and then headed to the culture ceremony at the arena. This ceremony was much better than the opening ceremony. There was a stunt jet pilot who performed all sorts of wacky manoeuvres and drew the Jamboree logo in the sky; the voice actress of the main character in the new pokemon series; lots of different singers and bands as well as speeches from the Crown Prince and the Prime Minister of Japan.
A quick late dinner and I headed over to Offsite HQ for a work meeting. We were informed that due to the tides some units may not be able to get into the sea during their water module slot and were asked to think of fun alternative. Someone suggested Ninja and we had an example game. The Japanese IST loved it and insisted on playing it over and over again – it felt strange to be teaching game called ‘Ninja’ to the Japanese!
The team then headed to the food courts where I had some very tasty Hungarian donuts but because we all had work the next day everyone headed to be pretty early. It was still nice to sit and chat with the team – meeting and getting close to them all has genuinely been my favourite part of the Jamboree so far!
bexcapades 