On May 16, 17, and 18, we had our big school festival.
The first day was performance day (with some preparation for the second day as well). It was sort of a long, two-part talent show (staff and students only), but I think "performance" part of the title might be kind of misleading... Like the talent shows back at my high school, there were plenty of drag acts, a little dancing, a few instrumental pieces, but a lot of it was skits and weird (parody?) pre-recorded videos.
One of the videos had a student briefly playing me, although I was too confused to know if it was actually funny. She was wearing a weird half-mask and said, "Okay, okay, okay. I am an ALT." That was probably the only ten seconds I understood of any of their videos, but the students seemed to like them, and that's what counts.
On the second day, the school was opened to the community. Students set up food stands and game rooms inside the school and charged for tickets. I ate some ice cream, Chinese dumplings, a hot dog on a stick, and more, because the students kept harassing me to go to their rooms. It was loud and crowded, but nice to see non-students in the school. The clubs also set up display rooms -- the English Club (with many assists from me!) made displays on holidays celebrated in English-speaking companies. Like most club rooms, it wasn't as lively as the rest of the school, but it still looked nice. Near the end of the day, I walked in and saw that all the otaku first-year boys were sitting on the floor reading comic books, though. Maybe try to do something more exciting next year?
The third day was my favorite, because I got to put my new camera to good use! This was the school sports day. I'll run through it.
But first! I finally got good pictures of Japanese cheerleader boys. They wear their school uniform, plus a headband that hangs down in the back and streamers around their shoulders. They're a big part of the sports day.
Opening ceremony on the school grounds, overlooking Ito and and ocean. The homerooms were divided into three groups (A=red, B=blue, C=yellow), mixed up by grade. They were competing in the events (and in other competitions during the festival).
There was even an Olympic-style flame that was run around the track. They take their opening ceremonies seriously!
And so no one pulled a muscle, everyone got to do morning exercises together. I just took photos, because I don't know the routine. And because it's funny to watch.
There were traditional running relays, but also weird races, involving classic events, such as:
Spinning around baseball bats to get dizzy,
and potato sack racing.
There were also some gender-segregated tug of wars. The girls' were pretty exciting, but all the boys' games seemed to end within 30 seconds.
This event was done by girls only, I think. It involved opposing teams running into the field and trying to capture bamboo poles. If boys did it, it might turn into a fist fight.
The big event after lunch was team routines. Each team had 15 minutes to go out onto the field, do an opening cheer, and then a cheer/dance routine that involved making shapes, like in marching band (but with no instruments).
This is Team A. They made a nice flower as their big shape.
I was impressed with Team B's giant B, but I think they got third place in this.
The elected cheer boys and cheer girls for the day did more complicated dancing in the front (and they didn't have to wear their awful gym uniforms).
Team C had the loudest cheerboys, I think. That should count for something!
Their routine culminated in this star.
Later was the ever-popular (in Japan) team jump roping! Everyone in the homeroom tries to see how many jumps they can get. There's around 35 people on each rope, so it's pretty difficult.
Scores were kept throughout the day.
The last non-running relay was the weirdest. It included, among other things:
the box crawl,
running with a basketball balanced on a tennis racket,
flipping on to a mat,
a tire drag,
the always-hilarious run-though-a-net,
and the inexplicable "flour face dip."
That last part seemed unpleasant.
In the end, third place went to Team B (their bird-themed flag is below).
Second place was Team C (their lion-themed flag is shown below).
And first place went to Team A! (Their... demon-lion themed?... flag is shown below.)
I think they won because of their inspirational, Obama-inspired team motto: "Yes, A can!"
(That motto would've worked better with Team B, though, huh?)
