Sun, Ships, and a whole lotta Manju

Last Saturday, Karleen and I were invited to a ship launching at Naikai Innoshima. One of our students, Mass, who works for Naikai was the Head of speeches, so he had to do a speech in English and Japanese. So, needless to say, we were there for support.
We were picked up at 10am by one of the other Japanese teachers here, Suzuka, and proceeded down to the docks. We met some of Suzuka's friends, 2 Japanese teachers and a girl from Florida who works at one of the schools. The gates opened at 1030ish and we headed down where they gave out "snacks".

I believe they are called Manju. I'll talk about them more later

The ship

Suzuka, Karleen and I with a box o Manju

When we got to the ship, we could see the podium where we saw Mass. He saw us, gave us a big old wave, then took our picture from the podium. Awesome.
We were in the actual shipyard, so construction was still going on while we were there. So, it was pretty loud and smelled of spray paint.

We met up with another student of ours, Takeshi, and talked with him for awhile. He explained to us that this was a continental ship for a German company, and technically it's a "small" ship, since it can only hold 2000 containers.We also saw a bunch of our younger students running around, so of course they had to come up to and see us, and they kept coming back, but bringing their friends who don't come to Ark...very cute. During this time, we both noticed a girl "lurking" around staring at us. She finally came up to us and started asking us questions. She's a student at Hiroshima University and taking English there, so seeing 2 white people, she REALLY wanted to speak with us. Although she didn't know much, she asked us everything she knew, from our favourite Japanese food, Japanese city, season...etc. Mass came on the speakers, so we knew it was starting, after waiting almost an hour outside. He said one paragraph in English, then in Japanese. He did very good, we were able to hear the English and understand it. This was when they unveiled the name of the ship...
So with the raising of the Japanese Flag and the German flag on the podium, singing both the national anthems, they were finally ready to release the ship. With balloons and streamers they
dragged the ship into the water, as we clapped and music played.
During this, I had the camera out waiting for that perfect shot, and Karleen was filming. As soon as it was done, she gave me the video camera and said..."I'm going to faint"...wha? I quickly took the camera and held her up. She said that she felt like she was going to throw up and that all she could see was white. I guided her to a spot to sit down and Suzuka went and grabbed some drinks. Karleen felt better and we headed home. She was supposed to work, but she was in bad shape, so I took the day for her. During one of my classes, one my students asked me why I was so Pink...Pink? Then it clicked in. We were out in the afternoon sun, which we haven't yet, and I was burnt and Karleen had Heat Stroke. Fantastic. We are all better now, it took a few days for Karleen, but she's back to normal now.

That night I decided to break out some of those Manju's that we got at the launching.
It's a snack with the outside made from flour, rice powder and buckwheat and an inside filled with sugary red bean paste.
I had tried one before a few weeks back, but we needed a few pictures of me eating them. They are very strange. The taste is pretty bland, it's not bad...but far from good.
That was our fun day at the Ship Launching, and look what happens...Heat stroke, sunburn, and manju...

Nobody's going to ask us out anymore....

Woah Ooh, here he comes...He's a ManjuEater!