So originally we were supposed to have Sports Day - tai'ikusai or 体育祭 - on Saturday the 12th. This would be a day of work for me, and then we would have the following Monday off as a vacation to make up for it.
It rained on Saturday. So it was canceled, and we instead had Sports Day on Sunday.
It rained a little bit in the morning, but not enough to justify canceling it again. The kids were adorable. They all ran around in teams of about 100 kids....well, here, let me explain how the blocks work. Each grade is separated into three classes. There's First Year - Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3, Second Year the same, and Third Year the same. The first year classes are each about 31 students, the second year classes about 32, and the third year classes are each around 35 students.
The teams, red block, blue block, and yellow block, were made up of every grade's class one, class 2, and class 3. So for example, Blue Block was made up of classes 1-1, 2-1, and 3-1. And so on.
Sports Day started with a massive relay race. Every single kid in every single block ran the relay around the track, passing the baton from kid to kid to kid to kid. There were some insanely fast kids! My little special ed boy especially tore up the track.
Then, there were other sports, like tug of war, group jump rope (like fifteen kids at a time jumping rope! The same rope, yes.), caterpillar racing (About twenty kids standing in a line, with ALL of their feet tied together, their hands on the person in front's shoulders -- hilarious!), a sort of pole race where five kids ran carrying a pole, and had to spin around cones like clock hands, a sort of six legged race where one person was wearing a basket and the other two had to dump fuzzy balls into the basket (of course, when they bent over to pick things up, everything would fall out...), and a lot of other fun stuff. The kids were a lot of fun to watch - they were all wearing little headbands of their block colors - these are known as hachimaki. They were all very competitive, but at the same time they all encouraged the team that was running behind. If Red Block was falling behind in the race, everyone would start yelling "Aka ganbatte!" (Red, do your best!) and "Aka faitoh!" (fight-oh -- heehee) and it was all very adorable.
Okay, I interrupt the post here to say that Alex is an AWESOME COOK. He just brought me a beef and vegetable stir-fry he made with very authentic looking rice and pickles. OM NOM. I love it. Okay. Back to your regularly scheduled post.
Also during the Sports Fest, there were PTA events. There was PTA tug of war, which was hilarious, and PTA tamaire (玉入れ - Literally translated as "Put the ball in the thingie"). I was on the PTA tamaire team. Now, this SOUNDS like basketball, but actually it's very, very different. There were five teams. Each team stood in a circle, a student standing in the middle. The student was holding a fifteen-twenty foot pole with a very long and skinny basket at the top. I know you're thinking "Okay, how is this not basketball?" Well see this basket is about two and a half feet deep, and the rim of it is about...nnh....the circumference of a large grapefruit. Or a small cantaloupe. Whichever you prefer. There were beanbags scattered all over the ground, and, in a set amount of time, you're supposed to get as many beanbags into the basket as possible. The basket has a bottom so they don't come out. Now, the way the Japanese PTA people did it was grab big handfuls of beanbags and chuck them all into the air at once.
I'm a wimpy little weakling though so I couldn't chuck the beanbags nearly high enough that way. So I grabbed an armload and started winging them into the air as fast, hard, and accurately as I could.
Against all logic our team (consisting of misc. parents, me, the art teacher, and the music teacher) completely creamed the other teams. I'd like to think that I made some kind of contribution with my "You're doing it wrong" tactics, but I think I only got like one or two in.
Plus, it was fun, because everybody chucking these things in the air, they would just land on everyone, so I'd be lining up a shot and BAM beanbag to the face.
The students got a HUGE kick out of me playing tamaire though. I could hear them absolutely screaming from their little tarps where each block was sitting - "Natari-sensei FAITOH!"
Then we all got a little brand-new roll of Saran Wrap for our exertions and were sent back to our seats.
After Sports Day, the teachers had a party at an izakaya in nearby Nodagawa. We all took a bus to get there. That threw up a flag to me. A flag that said "Oh hey, people aren't going to be driving home from this."
Now, I have to get one thing straight right now because my family read this thing. I am really not a drinker. I can't really drink too much, and when I do I just fall asleep before anything exciting or amazing happens. However this also means I fall asleep before I can drink enough to get myself in trouble, so that's good.
That having been said.
Drinking is an intensely important part of Japanese business culture. Japanese workplaces are all incredibly formal. It's the after-work parties, the izakaya or enkai, where people really loosen up, get to know each other, and talk frankly.
So I was very culturally acceptably tipsy.
I didn't expect Japanese beer to actually taste good, and not awful like American beer! After a couple of those, an umeshu (plum liquor - very sweet! ...very strong...), and a shot of this weird white sweet rice sake that apparently is famous in the reason, I was having a little trouble walking...but apparently no trouble speaking Japanese.
By the way, I have very intelligent friends when it comes to drinking, so, Mother, I was very careful to drink lots and lots of water, at least one glass of water per drink. This way I didn't really get overly in trouble when people kept ordering alcohol for me. Of course, this made the Japanese teachers laugh at me. "Mada omizu!?" (You're ordering more water!?) they'd say, and I'd answer by holding up my drink in one hand and my water in the other hand and saying, very seriously, "Baransu wa TAISETSU." (Balance is precious) which of course made them erupt in peals of laughter at how SERIOUS BUSINESS I was.
Also, miraculously, while ...indisposed, I had to go to the bathroom several times, which is what happens when you drink a substantial amount of alcohol and five glasses of water over the span of two and a half hours...and when going to the restaurant's bathroom, I found, to my horror, it was a JAPANESE SQUAT TOILET.
For those of you who are unaware of the full horror of this revelation, here is a picture for your reference.
That's right folks. It's a porcelain hole in the ground.
You're supposed to pull your pants down (Girls too!) and squat over the thing, do your thing, and finish up. I'm always too scared to try them because I have this phobia of, you know, messing up and all the consequences that entails.
But you know, this isn't the sort of thing to worry about when your impulse control is already suffering.
Apparently I can use them just fine, even when I'm having trouble walking. I was pretty elated. I don't think I could do it sober.
But I mean the izakaya wasn't all JUST drinking. We ate a ton of food too. The way it works, is that you get a bunch of family style dishes and pass them around. We got a couple small pizzas, had some spicy marinated shrimp stuff, a bunch of stuff I didn't recognize but ate anyway (because that's how I roll!), tempura, chicken, french fries (!?), and....
wani.
Wani is Japanese for crocodile.
I dunno where they got it or if the teachers were just playing an elaborate trick on me, but it was actually really good. It tasted uncannily like chicken though. When I got home I asked Alex about that and he said that he'd heard the same thing. Surreal.
We got dessert at the end; I got a cute little piece of chocolate cake. One of the other girls got apple sherbet. It came in a frosty little frozen apple that had been hollowed out and filled with the sherbet. I immediately regretted my decision.
Other highlights of the night were me teaching everyone how to tell someone they're good looking in four languages, a double-jointed contest, and trying on each others' glasses.
We took the bus home in high spirits and boy oh boy did I crash.
The next day was a vacation. I was happy about that. But I wasn't hung over at all, thanks to all the water I drank.
Today I went back to school. One of the English teachers' children came down with the swine flu (!! seriously!) so he wasn't in today. Everyone was really busy. It was fun. I often prefer busy days to the not-busy ones, because I have a lot to do and a lot of classes to attend, and I'm not left sitting in the teacher's lounge like a lump.
After classes I went to visit the band again. Since the Sports Day is over, I have time to go see them again. The girl who asked me to come was there again, and we talked excitedly about classical composers for about fifteen minutes. She likes Chopin and Mendelssohn. My heart practically flew away.
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