Trip to the Natural Food Store

Mikio, one of the fathers of my first graders, had been worried about my health. So he emailed me one day and said they would like to take me to the natural food shop. So we arranged for them to pick me up at 10:00 o'clock this morning. He and his lovely wife, Yoko, then proceeded to drive me to their place. They live right next to the Hikuma train station (the one I use to catch the Red Line train). And they invited me in to meet Yoko's mother. Okay. I have nothing to do during my 6 days off. Sure. She turned out to be quite a hoot. She knows only very basic English, but we had a great talk. She is 60 years old (I told her no, she must be 16) and she owns a bar. Cool. Then Mikio says that we will go to the restaraunt in an hour. Restaraunt? Turns out the natural food shop is a natural food restaraunt. They served me some soda and asked if I would like to play a card game. I love games, so okey-dokey! Turns out it is an old favorite of mine, which my family calls 7-up. So we played several rounds of this card game. During the card games they ask me if I like to bowl. Yes, I like to bowl. Oh, good, after lunch we will go bowling. And they have made preparations to make an all vegetarian dinner for me in Japanese style. Dinner? I left my air conditioning on thinking I would only be gone for an hour or two. Well, they are just soooo nice, and we are having a great time, so how can I say no? So over lunch at this really cool buffet style, natural restaraunt they ask what sights I have seen in Hamamatsu. I have to answer that the only sites I have seen are the shopping malls. But I hope to get to the beach during my time off. They ask if I like to swim. Yes, I like to swim. They then go into conference and start chattering away in Japanese. Would I like to go to the swimming area near the lake tomorrow? This is probably where I should have said no, but thanks. I should stay home and clean my kitchen. But I didn't really come to Japan to clean an apartment. So I say "That would be delightful!". So after lunch we go bowling. Mikio barely squeaks out a victory over me in the first round, and I rally to a score of 126 in the second to beat my Japanese hosts into submission. We then go back to their nice little apartment house, play some more card games. They ask me to teach them an American card game. Darn, they already play my favorite, except for Texas Hold'em, and I don't think I can teach them that. So I teach them "Go Fish". They ask if this is a very famous card game. I laugh. After our fill of card games we adjourn to dinner. We laugh and they ask me lots of questions. Then they say that they plan to stay at a resort at the lake and would I like to join them. In for a penny in for a hundred yen. Why not? So, it turns out my 2 hour trip to the natural food store has turned into a 3 day excursion with a Japanese family.