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.

Gotemba

Recently, my friend from Kamakura came to visit Gotemba. The first place we went were these gardens in Gotemba. It's called Chichibunomiya Memorial Park. The flowers below were so huge, even bigger than my fist. The weather was really nice, so it was a perfect day for going around Gotemba.

After that, we went to the Peace Park. It's hard to tell in these pictures, but the shrine is actually really big.

Next, we rode bicycles to Fujioka, and went to the cave there called Komakado Kazaana Cave. It was in a totally random spot. Like, you would never expect there to be a cave there. Apparently, it was a lava cave, and was formed about 500 years ago when Mt. Fuji erupted. It was really wet. I don't think I've ever been in a cave that was so wet.

Finally, we rode our bikes back to Gotemba, and got this wonderful view of Mt. Fuji from near my house. Then, we ate ramen. I'd say it was a pretty successful day.

3rd Year BBQ

Recently, I went to a BBQ with the 3rd year students. The weather was really nice, and the day was perfect. We ate yakiniku and yakisoba, and then ate smores.

High School Debut

Last night, I went to the movie theater with three of my friends, so we could watch the Japanese film "High School Debut or Koukou Debut". I was really surprised because I could understand almost everything that they were saying in the film. I think it was because everything they were saying was super easy and they only used slang. Sometimes, I wonder if I know more Japanese slang than proper Japanese. Also, there was no one else in the theater, so we were able to talk really loud during the movie. It was really fun because we joked around throughout the entire movie. Also, I think Junpei Mozobata is really cool. Apparently, he was in "Buzzer Beat" too, which was the first Japanese drama I watched. However, I can't remember him in it. I need to watch it again.
The next movie we want to go see together is "Paradise Kiss".

Kamakura

For the first weekend of cherry blossom season, I decided to go to Kamakura. My Japanese friend who I had met in Thailand offered to guide me around because he lives there. It was really difficult to get there though because the trains were still messed up due to the earthquake, but eventually, I was able to arrive. His family's house is right by the station, so we were able to ride bikes. We went to so many temples and shrines. I don't know how far we rode bikes, but it must have been so many kilometers.

At this temple, there was a snake climbing on the wall. It was so crazy because it was a straight drop that he was climbing on. I think his home was in that hole in the cliff.

Another place we went was Hokoku-ji Temple. There is a bamboo forest here. It's really quiet and pretty.

Also, we went to this little cave thing where samurai did seppuku (ritual suicide) back in the day. Also, I can't remember the name of this temple, but below are pictures of a really cool temple by the ocean. There is a special place at the temple, which you can get access to if you ask for the key. There are these lantern stone things which I think are tombstones. Apparently, some people got into an argument, and the man was like I'm taking these with me from Kyoto to Kamakura. They are so huge. I'm not sure how they transported them.

There was a really cute stray cat at the temple.

After seeing a bunch of temples and shrines, we rode bikes along the ocean. The beach is really pretty there, and lots of people were surfing. Next time, I go to Kamakura I really want to visit this island below!!

After riding along the ocean, we went to the big buddha. It was pretty cause it started getting dark just as we arrived. The flowers were really pretty here.

After finishing our bike ride, we went to my friend's house. His mom made us lots of food. I was really happy I got to go to their house because I never get to go inside Japanese people's houses. I got to see what they ate and what she cooked, so I was so happy that I had this chance.