Kyuudou (Japanese Archery), Mishima

I took the Shinkansen down to Mishima to see Kiyoshi over the weekend. Kiyoshi was my roommate during my 2nd and 3rd years at SNC, and now he’s back in Japan living with his sister and finishing up at Nihon University. We watched four movies in three days; for some reason that’s one of our favorite pastimes. It was really good to see Kiyoshi and to meet his family; he’s such a nift hombre, and his family is appropriately nift. His sister stays in all the time studying and caring for these little tiny botanical projects she has set up, and for some reason that’s really cool to me. The real highlight of the weekend was our trip out to Fujikyuu Highland with Kiyoshi, his sister Mitsue (I love Japanese names ending in “e”), and an Ayako from SNC. They have what’s supposedly the world’s tallest roller coaster (they have the certificate from Guinness there and everything), and also another coaster that’s supposed to be the world’s fastest. It was all terribly fun, and I can’t think of any other time in my life that I more regretted forgetting my camera. Sorry. I’ve been invited back, though, so sit tight, as they say. Er, anyway, this is a picture of some people practicing Kyuudou. It’s really, really precise what with all the specific motions you have to go through before shooting an arrow. It takes like five minutes just to shoot once. I hope they didn’t use this form in battle, or anything.