Day 60 in Japan - Bri Does Sports

Today was a long day. A REALLY long day. It was wonderful, and hot and dusty (Japanese schools don't have grass - they have dusty dirt fields for Sports), totally Japanese and the most fun day I've had at school so far. I am a bit too buggered to write a proper blog about the matter, so I will provide you with some short summary bits, some dot points and a bunch of pictures.

First, the opening ceremony - the Japanese, Hyogo (our prefecture), and Akashitkita flags are marched around the sports field and then raised up the flagpoles. Then, all the students march around in their classes, and the classes all show off the flags that they have been working on for weeks.

After the opening ceremony, the events started. One thing about Japanese sports festival day - there are no individual events. Everything is relays - it's really just classes competing against other classes. I guess if you want to race other people to show how fast you are, you join the track and field club and compete there. So there were boys relays, girls relays, mixed relays, 6 x 100 m relays, 4 x 200 m relays, swedish relays, and even the funniest relay I have ever seen. But more about that later.

Some of the (not plain running relay) Japanese events that were on the programme today:

- bohiki (girls in teams fighting to drag the most bamboo logs back to their side of the field)

- tug of war (line up 80 people and get half to pull a rope one way, and the other half to pull it another way)

- relays (Sweden relay - meaning that each person runs a further distance - first person runs 50m, then 100 m, then 200 m etc. AND very excitingly an obstacle course relay - the girls scramble under nets, bounce tennis balls on rackets, bounce balls, and they boys run, do hurdles and vault over a horse. Or more hilariously, fail to vault over a horse. Oh, and then they sack race).

- hoop stick (starring a certain new ALT - you have to push a bike wheel with no spokes and no rubber tyre bit along the ground with a thin bamboo stick)

- kibasen (boys fighting for caps - this one warrants it's own explanation and videos below).

- whole class jump rope (40 people, one rope, 3 minutes. Class who gets the most continuous jumps in 3 minutes gets the most points)

The ladies of the desk - I was officially part of this, but
I didn't do anything important the whole day.

Two classes lined up ready to Tug o' War

Bohiki - Girls fighting for "bo" - bamboo sticks.

The whole school lined up ready for the first relay events

Obstacle course relay START!

Ready... set... GO!

My science class' prize-winning flag :) Yay 1-9!

Probably.

My school's marching band are really fantastic.

The parade of the sports clubs - kendo, swimming, karate, soccer,
soft tennis, handball,  volleyball, baseball, weightlifting and more.

The BRILLIANT sports club relay. You haven't
seen a relay until you have seen a boy
 in swimmers freestyle around  the 200 m track, following a guy
attempting to run in full kendo armour, who is covered in dirt
from falling over the baseball guy who did a full slide
over the line. The best relay I have ever seen :) 

Me stick hooping. I got a big round of applause when I finished! :) 

About half of the class flags - they were lovely and colourful,
and they were really all good - no lazy classes at Akashikita.

So, the only other thing I wanted to talk about (other than casually mentioning my fantastic stick hoop performance again to make sure that it sticks in your mind) was the kibasen - the "boys" event that I gather is kind of the highlight of the day. The three kanji that make up the name for this event are ki (knight) ba (horse) and sen (battle), and that's exactly what it is, in a Japanese way. There are 4 boys on each team, three as the "horse" and one as the knight, who has to try to steal the cap of the other teams knight. It's brutal and fast and funny and probably dangerous, but I loved it. 

Chaos in a single picture.

So anyway, now I am really, REALLY tired and covered in dust, and a little bit sunburnt and I am definitely going to bed.

Food Highlight of the Day: Today's bento lunch was a special "Sports Day" bento. It contained prawns, prawn cutlet, squid, a huge mussel (uneaten) rice, pickle, konnyaku, sweet potato, chestnuts, fish, lettuce, cabbage, plum, orange, sweet red bean, and more stuff that I'm forgetting. Due to it's special sports day status, as well as it's epic size and contents, it gets to be food of the day.