Relaxed Focus: Katsuura Shogakko Undokai [Sports Day/Festival].

Last weekend was Katsuura shogakko's sports festival, where I managed to score yet another sunburn on top of my pate. You'd think by Sept we'd get some cooler weather, but no, up in the 90's still. Damn you Global Warming!! Or something like that. Where's the abnormally high temperatures when I need you, like in February, I ask you?

The march-on of the kids always reminds me of nothing so much as the military parades I had to take part in. Which makes sense since I was told that sports festivals in Japan may have been first introduced here by the British military many years ago. It does strike me as remarkably similar to a parade and military style field meet.

Only 50-something kids in the whole school... always fun to go to. The kids are pretty awesome.

All hail to the vice principal!

Followed by the synchronized warm ups.

Always Synchronize! This is the key to Japan, I think.

Then came the tug of war.

And then, a relay race that involved carrying about large, malformed dummies bearing an odd resemblance to Super Mario.

In Japan, it's been determined that fitting punishment for failing to jump and SYNCHRONIZE with your fellow classmates is getting smacked in the shins with a bamboo pole being run directly at you at high speeds. Makes em tough.

And then the parents get in on the act.

Costumes optional, but clearly encouraged.

The parental units fall before the power of the eventual winners of the push-a-metal-circle-with-a-stick-of-bamboo relay... the mighty Jr High School students!

Teams Red and White continue with their diabolical meeting... planning the destruction of their respective enemies.

Also, getting water and tea from their sippy cups and thermoses.

Careful examination of the picture above will reveal an English teacher beginning her swift run to glory. [Hi Akemi!]

Relays!

More relays!

Never ending relays!

Only in Japan could you conceivably WIN a race by seeing who could send the whale to his death at the end of the fishing pole in the sky.

"Who can kill the whale first? You win!"

Japan cracks me up sometimes.

Synchronized dancing! [Have I mentioned synchronized?]

The adorable little cutie below kept wandering about. Much to the amusement of the adults, myself included... Like monkeys with shiny things, we all just stared and smiled at her adventures, which included walking, bouncing up and down, and falling down. Adorable. And no, I still don't have any interest in having one of my own yet.

Followed by running. More running! More relays!

Then I served as a ringer in the tug of war for the Niyama neighborhood [Akemi - the English teacher - and I worked out a clever cover story where I was her adopted half brother, if anyone were to question our bonafides.] Powered by gaijin strength and several grandpas we defeated all enemies, to emerge victorious, complete with certificates and intricately decorated beer cans.