Sports day

Yesterday morning Kaori invited me to go to her nieces' "sports day" at their kindergarten. It started at 9am. Ouch. I don't usually wake up until about 930-10. oof. But, well worth it. It was really fun.

Kindergarten is a bit different in Japan. It is four years, from age 3-6. So, Kaori's nieces, aged 3 and 6 both go to the same Kindergarten. As you can see, it is a huge school. Total, about 18 students. Kaori's family lives in the country in Japan. And apparently, nobody else does. Kaori told me she went to the same school when she was a kid and there were about 60 kids at the school when she was attending. Sad to see that sharp a decline.

Here are basically all the kids lined up and doing their intro run.

Oh, yeah, sports day. Maybe I should explain what that is. As far as I can tell it is a huge deal in Japan. A time when parents can come out and see their kids. And the school gets to show off their kids. All of my child students have had sports days over the last month. And they basically cancel classes for a week to practice for their sports day. I guess it is a big thing.

I don't know what other sports days are like but this one was basically the kids do little athletic routines interspersed with the parents doing activities. They came out to music and did a little intro run.

Maiya's intro run. Notice the moms standing in the background. Moms are very helpful in Japan when teaching. I take advantage of my students' moms all the time.

Noa's intro run. She is the one in the mid-back in the shorts and polka dot shirt.

Some more intro runs.


Different hats for different grades. Light green-3, blue-4, green-5, orange-6.


And then everybody did exercises. No pictures of this since I was doing exercises at the time. Yeah, not knowing what I was getting into, and having to go to work later, I was wearing a dress shirt. But luckily jeans instead of my suit pants. I should have known when I saw all the dads wearing track pants. Of course that seems to be the style here, so....

After we did our exercises the little kids (age 3 and 4)came back out and did a little cheerleading routine.

Lined up to cheer.





Okay, so Maiya didn't really do too good a job at the cheerleading.

After that the relatives of the students were called out onto the "field" (rocky/sandy area?) for a tug of war competition. Well, I was neither a parent nor sibling, but I was called out as well. So I guess relatives and white people.

And we tugged! And we won! And this is what I won:

That's right, toilet paper! Toilet paper that says "We appreciate your kindness."

Japan...

After that, the kids came back out to do a ninja obstacle course.

First, they had to invade a castle


Then, they had to walk through fire


after which, they had to spin around yelling "ai, ai, ai!" because the fire was hot (duh!)

And then, they had to throw ninja stars into a basket.


And, of course I didn't get a picture of it, but this one little girl was having the damnedest time throwing the shurikens. In her defense, it was super windy out. Anyway, the teacher holding the tree steady kept creeping forward to get closer to the girl. She started about three feet from the tree, and by the time she finally got one in she was about six inches away from it. It was very very cute.

After that the kids did a hula hoop dance.





And then it was grandparents vs kids in a basketball game



The person holding the white basket, for the kids, is Kaori's brother, Noa and Maiya's dad. Brave guy!

After that the kids did a jump rope thing. But for some reason I stopped taking pictures.

And then the fathers were called out for an embarrassing parade. I don't know what else to call it. They had to dress up and look for the mothers who were dressed up and hiding around the field. It was very very funny.

Here is Kaori's sister-in-law (sorry, I forgot their names) dressed up as a drunk grandmother.


My favorite part, her mustache.

After that we had to leave to go to work.

Overall, it was a very fun morning. And I got to listen to a ton of Japanese, which is always helpful. The head teacher spoke really slowly apparently. I thought it was great, I could almost understand her. Everyone else probably thought she was a stroke victim. Either way, I appreciate it.

I highly recommend anyone coming to Japan to go to a sports day. Something different than looking at my umpteenth temple. Yes, they are nice, but I am pretty much templed and shrined out at this point.