As promised, the Junten Easter party went ahead on Friday, only six days after Easter, and it was a bigger success than I think anyone had estimated. I think Matt, Barney and myself had agreed we were expecting around 60-70 students to arrive, although secretly I was a little more pessimistic, but I was quickly shut up when moving around inside the room became a huge, uniformed obstacle course.

We kicked off at 3.30, with what turned out to be the main attraction of the day - the egg painting challenge. Having spent about an hour on Wednesday blowing the insides of eggs out, I was eager to see this be a success - the stench of those eggs still haunt my dreams and I wanted to see something justify the years of counseling I’m no doubt heading towards.

…so…many…eggs…

Anyway. After a quick explanation of the rules, the kids got to work on turning boring white eggs into what happens when a chicken goes berserk in a paint factory. We set a time limit of around twenty five minutes, but in that time some of the kids really did create some amazing work.

In the end, however, there could only be one winner. Well, five actually. Matt’s mother had brought with her from England a load of prizes for us to distribute, which made the competition a lot more serious when the kids realized what was up for grabs. Second place went to an egg which was meant to be Mr. Wada, and English teacher at our school. It came very close to winning, but in the end it was defeated by the egg on the right of this picture;

Before I go any further, I have to point something very important out. At every single party we’ve thrown for the school, I have in some way made myself look incredibly stupid by wearing a daft costume. Halloween saw me don my ghost outfit. Christmas saw Mr. Mike Claus distribute presents. What possible clothing atrocity could I have donned this time?

Moving swiftly on, then. After the egg painting challenge had drawn to a close, it was time for us to tell the kids what Easter was actually about. Well, that was the plan. Fortunately, we had an exchange student from Australia, and two returnee students from America and England to do all our work for us, while we I ate all the jelly beans.

To stop the kids getting sort of bored, we then played two very short games. The first one was a race - each contestant had to push their egg, using only their nose, a short distance. I am sad to say I only managed a 3rd place. More unfortunate was the fact that none of the girls would play the game, because they were wearing skirts. I’ll say no more. The chicken race game was more of a hit - run along a winding course with your hands holding your ankles. This time the girls could play, and it led us nicely into the final game of the day - the Easter egg hunt.

Because we had to very carefully ration our eggs, we decided to hide little fluffy balls all over the place. The kids had to first complete a crossword, then the hunt began. It tided us over nicely to 5.30, at which point the most fun game ever started - Operation Easter Cleanup.

The kids had a great time, and secretly so did I. As far as I know, this will be the last party we put on for the school, so it’s sad to say I won’t be wearing any more ridiculous costumes. Nevermind!

Yesterday I played soccer! A short update will appear magically in a little while!

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