Sports Day!

Today, I got to see my first ever elementary school sports day. I have visited Gofuku elementary school a few times this term and was so happy when they asked if I would join their sports day.

Gofuku is a small school right in the middle of the city. It is joined on to the local community centre and the playground for the 6th graders is on the 4th floor! Because it is so small, the community really got involved and the families of the students were encouraged to take part in a number of activities.

Some of the activities they do at sports day here are crazy so I took videos of some of my favourites.

Shooting practice

Piggy-back hat grab

Ball relay

Karashi-renkon dance

This spicy, (karashi) lotus root (renkon) is a famous food from Kumamoto but I had no idea there was a dance too! As usual – check out my pictures for more fun and games!

I just don’t think Dan Brown’s books make good movies. In fact, I’m not even sure his books make good books but sometimes you want to read something that is quick, easy and entertains you. He certainly does that.

Are his books the least bit plausible? NO
Is the writing even that good? NO
Are his books far too over-hyped? YES
Are the movies just as over-hyped? YES

This one was; thankfully, better than the first but oh Tom Hanks, what happened to you? You are so much better than this; as are you Mr. Ewan!

Food for thought...

Two quotes from my organizer which have got me thinking;

“You cannot belong to anyone else, until you belong to yourself.”

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”

It seems things like our weight and appearance are so trivial when thinking about the mess the world is in. Economies failing, people losing jobs and homes, war, famine, crime; the list is endless.

I have been telling myself for years that I will get healthy, lose weight and be skinny. Will it make me happy? I don’t know. But evidently, being larger than life doesn’t make me that unhappy or I would actually have done something about it.

This may be getting to deep and meaningful……I need chocolate :)

And the winner is.....

Kris Allen!

Japan is showing American Idol but is currently 3 weeks behind. Cherese has vowed to watch the episodes as they are aired in Japan and so now she cannot look at the news or her facebook. I thought it was a good idea but unfortunately the surprise was ruined for me as I logged in to MSN and so I thought I might as well read the whole story.

There are so many debates about the outcome. Some people are saying that a black president and a gay idol are too much for America in one year but I don’t think it’s a sinister as all that. Adam is amazing and he is going to be so famous but Kris actually got a lot better in the competition and according to Simon Cowell, that’s what it’s all about.

Cherese is not going to be happy when she finds out…….

Tomiai Visit

Kumamoto City continues to grow by expanding the city limits and taking in extra towns and villages. Recently we took in the town of Tomiai and with it a new ALT became part of our BOE. His name is Lander and today a group of us got to visit his elementary school.

It was part of an international day where the kids got the chance to interact with a number of foreigners and try out some of the English they have been learning. The kids at the school are so much more advanced than most kids in the city because the school employs a full time English teacher. I don’t know any other elementary school that does this but if they visited Tomiai, I think they would.

One highlight of the day was eating lunch with a 4th grade class and listening to them challenge each other with English acronyms. They actually knew what DVD, CD, ATM and many others stood for. I couldn’t get my high school kids to do that last year! Great kids :)

Swine Flu panic!

As the swine flu continues to spread, dad can always be counted to send something funny.

He knows I love Winne-the-Pooh – so mean!

Jungle Adventures

Dawn, Cherese and I decided to have a day out today and take a mini-hike to Hanaokayama. This is a hill near my town; upon which sits a huge white temple. It can be seen all around the city and even though I have visited a few times already, I never get bored of going there.

As we were walking through the back streets of the town, we stumbled across a local rose garden. I had no idea it was there but it was worth the hour detour we ended up taking because of it.

As we walked near the back of the garden we noticed a few paths that led into the bamboo trees. Thinking nothing of it we followed the paths deeper into the trees coming across old buildings, stone lanterns and many weird and wonderful sights.

Soon enough the trees got thicker and Dawn spotted a sign warning of snakes. I knew it would happen, but I still shrieked like a girl when I saw it. A brown, meter long snake slivered across the leaves in front of us. And that wasn’t the end of our adventures. A while later Cherese and both stopped when we heard strange plopping noises. As we stood still Cherese screamed as she felt something fall into her hair. It was only then we realized we were standing under a huge tree and the plopping noise was things falling out of it. Bugs or no bugs we were both ready to get out of the jungle (as we nicknamed it) and head to our original destination.

A little while later we were eating lunch over looking the city. Here is our Kumamoto’s famous castle! (One of the top three in Japan and my apartment is the green one in the bottom left corner)
It was worth the trek, the snakes, the bug bites and heat just to see my favourite tori gates again. A great day!

Kidnapped!

I opened my organiser this morning and a smile came to my face. “Happiness is always a by-product…But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.”


Today at lunchtime I was kidnapped by a group of 2nd grade students. Imagine a group of 7-year olds who have probably never seen a foreigner this close and all of them seemed to think the same thing and the same time; “I want to play with this weird alien thing.”

So I got pulled into a game of tag and, of course, they all wanted to tag me! It was another hot day today and just as I was thinking how I could escape the game, I was suddenly surrounded by the other 2nd graders who had decided to be my protectors! It was so cute to have my own little bodyguards.

It was cute until one of the girls holding my hand, decided to see how hard she could pinch me before I yelled – damn kids!

Lei Day

After a busy day at school it was off to the orphanage for class tonight. Things have been so up and down since we got the new batch of kids. Maybe because there are more of them and we now have boys and girls. If it’s good, it’s really good but if they are having a bad day, it can all fall apart.　

To celebrate Lei Day in Hawaii, Dawn decided she wanted them to make lei’s out of string, straws, pasta shells and card. It was a really good day today and most of the kids got so into it, they made two lei’s each! He’s hoping our good days continue!

Such different days!

It amazes me just how different schools can be.

Monday
* Great teachers – so friendly – tea on my desk after every class
* Great kids – they loved every game, tried hard and had no attitude
* Great day – played kickbase at lunch time and was awarded MVP title

Tuesday
* Walk into staff room – no one speaks to me all day
* Terror kids – talking over me, yelling, not doing anything
* Tiring day – resort to walking around the school at lunch to have a breather

I had this quote in my organizer today and I liked it

“We ourselves fell that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”

I'm a believer

Cherese has converted me – I too love Adam Lambert!

Too Hot!

Most of the schools in the city are getting ready for their sports festival. The Japanese sports day is so different to back home. They have dances, songs, team chants and many different weird and wonderful “sports” activities. As a result of this they also have to practice it for about a month before the big event!

Today was one of the hottest days and (as a treat I’m sure) the kids decided that they would take this opportunity to “practice” their relay race. Not being able to say no, I ended up running around in the hot sun for 30 minutes.

Note to self – say NO sometimes! : )

Sand Festival

Today Dawn, Agnes, Kevin and I took a 10-hour round trip to Kagoshima to see a sand festival. Everyone knows about the snow festival in Sapporo where huge sculptures are made from snow and ice. Well today was the sand version!

Trying to save on costs, we decided not to take the expressway but drive the entire way on normal roads. Had we known it would take 5 hours to get there we might have changed our minds.

I have to admit it was worth it though. This year the theme seemed to be mythology and the stars. The professional sculptures were amazing and so lifelike. We learned there was to be a night show with fireworks so we wasted time eating festival food, looking through telescopes that had been set up and leaving our mark on the welcome board.

Spaceworld!

Last night Dawn and I drove to Kita-kyushu (about 3½ hours from Kumamoto) so we could enjoy a full day at Spaceworld; a space themed amusement park and the biggest one in Kyushu.

It was a lot of fun! As we queued for our first ride a chubby Japanese kid, in a Jesus T-shirt no less, was so excited to see foreigners that he just had to have a debate with us on the best place to sit on a rollercoaster. I only understood about half of what he said but he was so excited I just kept nodding along.

My biggest challenge of the day was getting on the Zaturn ride – so scary! Here are a few short videos I took when deciding whether to actually get on or not!

This is the scariest ride I've ever seen!

And now I'm in line for the scariest ride!

Here's the result!

UFO!

I had planned to go to Spaceworld with Dawn today but I overslept! Instead of wasting the day we headed downtown for a day of shopping, purikura and UFO catching games.

I’m sure almost everyone has played the catcher games at some point. I think I am becoming addicted to them and have won around 20 toys in total! It also helps that I am a blonde haired, blue eyed foreigner and the staff often help me by moving the toys closer to the hole so I can usually win by just nudging the toy over the edge.

I know I’m going to keep a few of them but I will probably give the rest to the orphanage kids when I leave – maybe that’s my motivation for playing all the time?!?! (Denial is such a great thing)