Catch up - Part One

Cripes I'm behind! Sorry for how lazy I've been here everybody, I've been busier lately, and when I did have the time to write in here I was usually too pooped. So I have like, two weeks to catch up on! Yeeee.

So in the last two weeks I've been up to a few fun things, and a lot of down time. There has been karaoke, two school festivals, and a staff-wide dinner party among the most prominent (that have pictures), but I also found an absolutely awesome art store that has been one of my favourite things recently. *laughs* The prices here are absolutely great, and for the kind of stuff I like to draw, Japan has exactly what I'm looking for. Sometimes...I love this place.

So a little while ago, Hitoshi, Megan, Gill and I headed out to a huge karaoke parlour called 'Shidax' in downtown Sasebo. Megan and Gill had also invited a Japanese girl (whose name I've woefully forgotten) that they had met at the cell phone store where Megan had gone shopping that day. Apparently she was just really nice, and they invited her to come and she agreed! I was surprised, to say the least, but she was a total sweetheart and it was a lot of fun. She spoke almost no English however, but I think she understood what we were saying half of the time. The other half, Hitoshi and I (usually) vainly tried to peice together sentences.

Karaoke in Japan is incredible, the rooms were cozy but completely soundproof, the range of songs was endless, and you got unlimited drinks with the room for quite cheap! With every song there are background 'movies' to go along with it on the tv screen. Japanese songs had what looked like music videos of sorts, but English songs always just had various footage of England from the 90's. It was kinda bizarre, but pretty funny. Here's Hitoshi, who has a really good ear, that boy can harmonize at the drop of a hat.

Here are Gill and Meg, who both have great voices as well. Gill is actually an amateur musician back in Scotland, playing the guitar and singing in bars occasionally, and she's got a great set of pipes. I'm not usually a fan of karaoke, because my pitch is pretty awful when I can't hear myself or I'm not used to the key, but it was a lot of fun!

So on the weekend before last was Sasebo Nishi's 'Sports Festival', which gives students a chance to showcase their abilities and have fun. Its mostly about fun. All of the students are split into three teams: red, blue and yellow, and then these three teams compete in various events, gaining points depending on how they do. The team with the most points wins obviously, though there were various categories. As far as I could tell, teachers weren't really affiliate with any one team, but I considered myself on the 'red' team from the start because I was assigned as one of the teachers to watch the students before hand, and later competed in an event for the red team too. Red team, red team OI OI OI!!

The students donned bandanas according to their team, and then marched out and around the field in a very military-like fashion. Other teachers apparently find this a little odd to watch as well from what I was told, but its tradition so they still do it.

Here you can see the field, and all of the students lined up with their flags, ready to "fight" (I'm quoting them, I swears)! Its blurry, but you can see each team's special banner behind them as well. That was also a contest, to see which team came up with the best banner. In the end of the yellow team one, but like a champ I don't think I took a picture of it.

So after the opening ceremony, the games began!! I took a billion pictures of all of them, but quite obviously it would take forever to describe them all so I'll just show some of my faves. There were...speed races of varying lengths:

:Obstacle courses that ended in a race to the finish in a potato sack.


And a race where teams of three or four had to hold long, thick pieces of bamboo and race around pylons. Students did it, and then teachers and parents who had volunteered took part too. Including me!! Our team even won!! Of course, the two fathers I was running with dragged me the whole way. *laughs*

You can see me in my 'sports day' gear, including my new pair of track pants that I bought from the men's section of a department store. I didn't even TRY the women's section. The clerk looked at me and politely explained I wouldn't find my size there. Boo. Being men's pants, they tapered oh so unbecomingly, but dang if they weren't comfy!

The teachers were situated beneath tents on the far side of the field, apart from the long rows of parents or other members of the community who had come out to watch the events. Here is Kuzuno-sensei, one of the English teachers I work with and a nice lady. She seems incredibly sharp to me, in wit and tongue, and I get the feeling that if I could speak Japanese better, we'd get along pretty dang well.

This little munchkin belonged to a P.E. teacher who is on maternity leave, but came out for the festival. She actually let me hold him for a little while, as many of the teachers did, as I think she was grateful for the time off. He was a real sweetheart, and in that stage where he's figured out his legs work, and let him bounce on people's lap for ages.

After the sports were done, there were dances and demonstrations! Girls came out and did a lovely little fan dance to a beautiful piece of flute music to start it all. It was a simple dance, very traditional, but they did a good job.

Following that was a demonstration by the kendo club, where members led participants in a short demo of what kendo is. They were divided into lines of girls and boys, and mostly just did running swipes at each other, back and forth.

Then came the judo club, where mats were set up for them to throw each other around. Timing them was the only boy member of the Taiko club, who is incredibly good and a nice kid. He can't participate in sports because of an injury he sustained in a car accident when he was young, which keeps his right leg permanently bound in a splint. He has a slight limp when he walks, and uses a crutch occasionally, but he marched up to that drum with perfect dignity.

So after the judo club came races out from the gates with a hearty cry, they started the demo, which was essentially throwing each other over their shoulders and slamming themselves on the mats. Judo is like a wrestling/grappling form of martial arts, and is about strength and using your opponent's motion/weight against him. We have a new teacher here who teaches it, and he's a brick house.

After the demos came lunchtime, and immediately following that, each team performed a dance! In Japan there is something called 'para para', where at concerts or in music videos, often times songs have their own little dance to go with it. Its usually very simple and silly, but fans learn the dance and do it along with the music. Essentially that's what the Yellow team's dance was, a 'Sailor Moon' and 'Cutie Honey' (another anime about scantily clad fighter-babes) themed 'para para'. One of the teachers even helped out, dressing up as a character from Sailor Moon, Tuxedo Mask! He was viciously way-laid by a couple evil teachers though, le gasp.

Here were the girls dressed up as the Sailor Scouts. My 14-year old self reared her nerdy little head and I just had to get a picture of them, they were too cute.

And here was the Yellow team's dance, fully equipped with boys in skirts!

Next up was the blue team, who did a jaunty little ensemble in t-shirts made to look like bikinis. And more boys in skirts.

Finally there was the red team who started off their dance with some very cool choreopgraphy in black and red uniforms. Then some animal-based power-rangers showed up and did a little dance.




And then finally...ended off with boys in skirts.



After the dances came a parade of the various sports clubs (which included brass band..I'm not sure why), who all then lined up to show off their teams.



Much to my delight, these teams then had a relay race against each other! Quite obviously the track team 'won', but it was more a thing for plain fun than anything.

Most of the teams also 'showcased' their sport while they ran, so the tennis team bounced a ball on their racket, the basketball team threw the ball back and forth to each other...and the rugby team...



Well, the rugby team tackled each other, over and over, around the entire track. Hopefully its obvious just how hard I was laughing.



And the laughter was NOT helped after I got to watch the girls' tug of war game. For some reason, tug of war is girls only over here. In this version, there were long thick pieces of bamboo set in the middle of the field, and two teams on opposite sides would run at them and try to get each peice over to their side. Often times, it ended up in stubborn lasses getting their butts dragged while being overpowered.

After that, there was MORE dancing! Or rather, this time it was supposed to be a form of 'cheerleading'. It was pretty spiffy! The blue team used fans and sharp choreography, an they won this category, it was very cool.



Then came the yellow team, who used large flags and umbrellas within their routine.

And finally the red team, who did some cute little sashays and such, but was overshadowed by the awesome of the others. Dangit.


So after the events were over, it was announced that the red team won overall (woo hoo!), with the most points. As everybody worked to clean up and take down the tents, I snagged a few pictures of some of the cool stuff up close. I was helping to clean too, don't look at me like that mummy! Here were the 'drums' that the red team used to punctuate their cheer. I asked what all the kanji said, and apparently it was just listing off the student's names.

And finally, here was the red team's banner, which was a representation of the story "Journey to the West", which involves Goku the monkey warrior, a priest, a pig-demon, and a frog-demon. Its actually a story that's been rehashed into various anime, including Dragon Ball, which some of you might recognize by name.



So that concludes 'part one', 'cause this went on forever, but I'll update again soon and show some of the cultural festival highlights!! Thanks for reading! ^^