Zoorasia

This last weekend, I went with Mishima Kita's ALT and a Japanese friend to Zoorasia in Yokohama.

Mishima Kita's ALT and I really, really love C.C. Lemon. It was like heaven to see nine of them in a massive soda machine.

I really wanted to see Meerkats, but unfortunately, there weren't any at the zoo. It's my favorite animal. We decided that our favorite animals at the zoo were the otters. They were so cute!!! They were sleeping together and kept hitting each other while sleeping.

We saw some penguins, but they smelled really rank. We don't like birds, so we left that area quickly.

This was a really funny monkey. He looks like Pinocchio. His nose is so long.

This is an Okapi. I thought it was like a horse-zebra mix, but it's actually not. It's its own animal. Apparently, it's related to the giraffe. These are really popular in Japan, but I don't know why. They aren't very popular at all in America.

This was some insane flower we saw when we were walking.

Sports Day

The Sunday of the school festival weekend, we had Sports Day. I took a bunch of videos of the events, but for some reason, they aren't uploading. I guess I'll only post the pictures then. The Sports Day started with this weird Japanese stretching song. It reminds me of the military. I guess because it's so uniform.

During the day, I sat by the score board. The Judo team was in charge of monitoring the score. Below are some pictures of the Judo team.

I think the first event was the homeroom jump rope competition. I have a really good video of this, but unfortunately, it's not uploading. One of the next events was this thing where there were wooden poles. The students would run to the poles and try to pull them back to their side.

Here is Ms. Oishi talking with a student.

This was the 3-legged race.

This was a relay race.

The red team lost the relay, but they are cheering on their team member by surrounding him.

This was a really strange relay. They had to dive under this net, and stick their faces in some powder substance.

This was the club team relay. Here is a member of the table tennis club. Most of the teams ran in their sports uniforms, and used things like tennis rackets as their batons.

Also, the red and blue team had a dance competition, but unfortunately, I only took videos.

School Festival

Recently, we had our school festival. The Thursday before the school festival, we prepared for it. I helped the English Club with their exhibition. They decided to do an exhibition of four American States. This year was a little different than last year's festival. The sports teams didn't sell food outside this year. The school decided that it wanted to focus more on exhibitions this year. The festival lasted for two days: Friday and Saturday. It was open to the public on Saturday.

Here are some students at the opening ceremony.

During the day, there was a room designated for bands. I thought this one was especially good. They sung a song by RADWIMPS which is my favorite Japanese band, so I really enjoyed it.

Every year, my favorite exhibition is always the Biology Club's. They always have lots of animals like axolotls and frogs. Last year, they had a snake. I really like axolotls because I actually have a pet one. He's really cute, and his name is Uppi. This year, they had this thing where you could catch goldfish and keep them. Apparently, it's really popular at summer festivals in Japan. You are given this paper net type thing, and you have to try to catch as many goldfish as you can with it. However, you have to be careful because the paper breaks really easily. You should only move it side to side. I caught about 5 including 2 big ones. However, I decided not to keep them because I didn't want to have to take care of them.

This year, the third year students were in charge of the food stands. There were such things as hot dogs, shaved ice, and donuts this year. They also all made a themed display to go with the food. My homeroom chose traditional Japanese and sold anko donuts.

Students walked around with signs trying to get people to buy their food. The student below was advertising her homeroom's donuts.

The second year students made exhibitions. The one below had lots of hands-on acvitities. The student below is playing with some weird substance. If you grab a handful really hard, then it would make a ball. When you opened your hands, it would become loose again and turn into liquid.

The first year students were in charge of the stairwells. They decorated them, so that you could see a design as you walked up them. The designs were all of different countries.

Also, there was a cross dressing contest. Here are two of the boys that participated in it. Recently, I was looking at high school pictures of when we had a cross dressing contest. I think Japanese boys make a lot prettier girls than American boys. It was difficult to tell that some of the Japanese boys were even really boys. In America, the contest is more just funny, but in Japan, I think they like it when the boys actually look cute. This year was also different because they had girls cross dress as well.

Below are some of the students who were walking around during the school festival. I guess that pretty much sums up most of the festival.

Shizuoka Wedding Magazine

Recently, a friend of a friend was looking for a foreign person to model for her new wedding dress store in Numazu. My friend recommended me, and I agreed to do it. I think it was a really good experience, and it was really fun. My pictures are on her sign board and website. Also, two of the pictures have been put in the June edition of "Shizuoka Wedding." It's free, and you can pick it up at places like the convenience store, supermarket, or restaurants like Jonathons. This is the cover of the edition I am in.

This is one of the pictures in the magazine. It's a wedding kimono. The picture was taken during cherry blossom season in Fujinomiya. The shrine there is really, really beautiful. I didn't realize wearing a wedding kimono is so painful. When they were putting it on me, my face and hands started to feel really cold, and I began to get dizzy. I almost fainted, but they loosened it. After that, I was fine.

The second picture is in a traditional western wedding dress. I don't really like this picture that much. I think I look kind of scary in it...haha. Often at Japanese weddings, the bride often wears a wedding kimono and also a western wedding dress.