GMBB!

On Sunday, March 23rd, the Gotemba Minami Brass Band Club held their annual concert. Which to me, was more like a HUGE production than just a "concert". It was amazing! It was not what I expected at all!

In America, when you go to an orchestra concert, the audience expects to sit still for about 2 hours, listening to classical music by students who are superglued to the floor with their instruments. It's very boring for everyone involved... both players and family/friends. Take it from me... I played the bass in an orchestra show once in high school. Notice I said, "once". 0_o

So, you can imagine my surprise when the GMBB Concert had a light show, Disney Princesses and Princes coming to life (in full costume), dancing Baseball Club members, comedy routines, a GMBBBoys Club, dancing, JPop Best and glow sticks. Not to mention the video montage to introduce all the members and the posters and pictures out in the lobby which made it all seem like one big family gathering.

I was also surprised to see so many students and teachers coming out to show support for their friends and fellow classmates. All the major clubs were there and I saw so many students. Even graduated students, and students from other schools. On a Sunday. The middle of a Sunday. This would never happen in America. I know... I've done countless years of School Choir productions. It's only ever the parents and grandparents that attend.

Japan never ceases to impress and amaze me. The more I'm here, the more I realize the rest of the world has a lot to learn from its example.

The Gotemba Minami Brass Band Concert was a great day. I can't wait for next year!

I don't have as many pictures as I would have liked. I found myself just enjoying the moment rather than focusing on taking pictures of everything. But, I hope you enjoy the pictures I do have :)

Why, yes, that would be a disco ball up there ;)

This is one of the posters from the lobby. It's the First Year's poster!

Even the curtain was amazing! haha :)

GMBBBoys Club!

You aren't seeing things. That's Aladdin with his lamp and the Genie!

The Great Postcard Exchange

We wanted to do a pen pal activity but with 205 students all writing a post card at once, the proper avenue was hard to come by. However, I managed to find "The Great Postcard Exchange" from doing a bit of online research. The Great Postcard Exchange was originally created by a librarian in Wisconsin in the USA in order to get library kids across the country writing postcards to each other discussing books and other reading related topics. I emailed the program director and long story short, Gotemba Minami Kookoo began writing postcards to kids in the US!

We got our first one back the day before our last class! It was sent to Keisuke in HR13! Everyone was pretty excited!

Funny faces ;)

Winter at GONAN

It has been one long and COLD winter here in Gotemba! On Valentine's weekend, we got 85cm of snow! That's 3 feet for all you metric system people. Over a month later there were still small piles of snow around town. It's been warm (Gotemba-warm) the passed two days so I think MAYBE all the snow is gone by now.

A friend and I visited the school the day after the snowfall.

So much snow, but Mt. Fuji sure looks beautiful!

 You can't even tell there is a tennis court and a handball field under all this snow!

Clearly, you can see how happy I am to be shorter than a pile of snow... 0_o