As Nate pointed out, I forgot to mention which team was the victor at sports day in this update, so without further ado; The Red Team won! Hurrah!

Saying that, it wasn’t much of a surprise. Due to the way the teams were organized, the white team got all the clever people and we got all the sportsmen. Not that I’m saying people who play sports are dim. Not that I’m saying I’m still bitter about not making the hockey team in upper sixth. No, really. Stop shaking your head…

“But Mike how can you possibly justify writing this update?! It’s so short!”

I honestly have no answer to that, so here are some extra photos to distract you whilst I escape out the window…

The chivalry, moments before descending into the Valley of Death to run each other through with bayonets steal hats.

One of the better skipping teams. Not as good as our champion English class, however. So there. Notice the white headbands, which means they were not on my team and therefore were rubbish.

Because when you think of physical competition, you think of Elmo & Spiderman dancing around in circles like they’ve just drunk three liters of paint thinner.

How could I not finish with another photo of Darth Cheerleader? Here he is in all his glory. His shirt reads Daasu Beeda and is written in the script used for foreign words, so it’s meant to say “Darth Vader”. Glad to see the evil overlord is finding work in his old age.

There we are then. The world’s shortest update. I have another two planned, so keep your eyes peeled and your brain sufficiently shut off to wade through another one of of Mike’s wacky stories.

Yesterday, I got as far as lunchtime at sports day, and so far we’ve had mounted headwear theft, the Power Rangers showing their support, and children fighting over logs like angry beavers. I’ll get this out the way quickly; lunch was very normal and not worth writing about. Throughout the rest of the day there were quite a few Yosakoi performances which I will write about tomorrow.

With the hats sufficiently stolen and lunch devoured, the kids prepared for the next event in the baking heat – the tug-o-war. Of all the events (except possibly the relay) this was the most normal of the events, with your pretty standard “pull harder than the other team to win” rules. However, one poor team of boys lost their footing and ended up falling over each other, and they still managed to beat the white team. Haha!

Just as I was getting bored at how mundane the day was turning, we were told it was time for the Staff tug-o-war. This was quite exciting as I hadn’t really done anything at all. Except it wasn’t really the same event. Whilst the students had taken part in a simple 1v1, we were going to participate in “The Cross”. Basically, you have four teams instead of two and they all pull in different directions. You end up each time with two winning teams. The teams consisted of;

1. The Teachers team, including myself.
2. The Parents association, including Matt.
3. A selection of students from the red team.
4. A selection of students from the white team.

Sadly, the teachers team was opposite the red team, making it impossible for us to win with them, so in the end we decided to cheat and side with the PTA, leading to a 2-1 victory once we sorted out our tactics. The prize was one of those pens that has four colours in it, and mine turned out to be lucid pink. At least I won’t lose it.

Eager to get back the insanity of the morning, the sports day organizers outdid themselves with the next event, which I previously wrote about, the big pole game. As I wrote;

The goal is to have your attackers push over a great big pole that the other team are defending. The rules are, well, nobody knows as nobody ever follows them. This is basically a big fight with the added danger of big poles.

Simple, right? I’ll let the photos speak for themselves;

It was pure insanity and can only be described as a fight. Anyone who harps on about tactics and planning is lying and should be thrown over a fence. I don’t even want to know how the organizers begin to justify this event as it is just a fight. These two photos are the best I could get without being swept away into the mass of overexcited Japanese boy.

After a couple more Yosakoi performances, it was time for the last event – the group skipping. There was a teacher’s team for this as well, but I was suffering a little from the heat and missed it, but as I understand they got 19 in a row, which is impressive considering they hadn’t practiced at all. The winning student team, one of our English classes, clocked up 58 in a row, and the school record is 62 so they did a great job.

At long last, around 4.30 or so, the day was over. I was burned all along my arms and neck, tired and still incredibly confused. The kids were exhausted, which made it even crueler to make the listen to incredibly boring speeches whilst sitting on the dusty floor in the burning sun, but whatever gets them into university, I suppose. Afterwards I headed to the obligatory staff party before heading home and falling face first into bed.

I’m sorry this update and the previous one have so little about why the Japanese sports day works the way it does, but I have a valid reason for this; nobody knows. I’ve asked quite a few staff members, and every time they either shrug, or mutter something and then slowly back away, staring me straight in the eyes and chanting “Foreigners can smell fear!”.

Yosakoi update tomorrow!

On Thursday, I wrote about the warm up for the Junten sports festival. However, after posting it to the site, nobody reminded me to wear lots of suncream, and as a result I am now incredibly burned, all along my arms and on the back of my neck. Serves me right for worrying more about taking nice photos than staying safe, I guess. Curse you new camera!

The day started with an unbearably long welcoming ceremony, which included a couple of songs played by the school orchestra, whilst the students all sat in rows and visibly cooked in the sun. I find it worrying that the school thinks the best way to get excellent athletic performance is to lightly toast the athletes, but I’m no sports coach. Then one of the most senior students came and gave a motivational speech and everyone cheered and felt very happy. Except me. I felt fairly marinated.

Once the serious part of the day was behind us, it was time to show off. The entire school is split into two teams – the red team and the white team (the colours of the Japanese flag, incase you forget which country you’re in). As you can see above, 3-3 class and 3-5 class were on the red team, whilst 3-6 and 3-4 were on the white team. I was on the red team, incase you’re wondering. The first order of the day was to have various students from each team dress up in crazy clothes and boost their team’s morale. I think that was the idea anyway. All they managed to boost was certain members of the staff’s blood pressures, based on the amount of time it took for a bunch of kids to dance to some bizarre J-pop.

The white team opted for the power rangers, with lead singing from a student who clearly liked Gary Glitter a little too much. As for my team…

We decided that the best way to strike fear into the hearts of the opponent was to have Darth Vader wear a tanktop and lead a dance troupe made up of cheerleaders, ninjas, girls dressed as Spiderman and girls dressed as Elmo from Sesame street. I have to be honest, I was not asked for my opinion as a member of the red team, but if I had been I would definitely have suggested we do a routine that involves going to the nearest psychiatrist.

Bizarre starting ceremony behind us, it was time for the class 4×400 relay. The English department did not fare well throughout this entire event. In every year of senior students, we have one class who receive extra English lessons. Even though all three classes were all on the white team, I couldn’t help but root for them, which is why I was quite upset by the results;

1st Year: Last place
2nd Year: Disqualified
3rd Year: Last place

We’ll stick to conjugating verbs, then…

By now it was blisteringly hot, and the air was utterly dry. The soil from the ground was blowing up into everyone’s faces and making everyone unhappy. It would take a fantastic event to pacify everyone. That event came in the form of the steal the stick from the opposite team game, one of the events I forgot to mention yesterday. (Mainly because I didn’t know it existed).

Basically, this event consists of a whole lot of girls from the white team and a whole lot of girls from the red team trying to steal as many large planks of wood from the centre of the arena as possible. When one pole was picked up by both teams simultaneously, a tug of war would occur, with more and more girls joining in until the writhing mass of limbs eventually crossed one of the goal lines. After four rounds, the score was tied between the red and white teams at two each.

I was confident by now that this day could not possibly get any more bizarre, but I have slowly learnt that things can always get weirder. Next up was Hat Thief game I mentioned before. This event is called Kibasen in Japanese, which roughly translates to “Horseback Duel”. I was pretty close with my analysis yesterday, although the game was much more violent than I could have imagined. The kids decided to replace tactics with swipes to the face of the opposition, which is a fair tradeoff, I suppose.

This event was the last event before lunchtime. I will write about the afternoon in a separate update tomorrow. Throughout the day, the Yosakoi performances took place, which were incredibly impressive and deserve their own update too, so you’ll have to wait two whole days to hear about them. Can you bear it?!

I apologise for the lack of recent updates. It is currently rainy season here in Japan, which of course means it’s far too humid and wet to do anything, including breathe properly, so as a result everyone is wandering around like zombies, myself included. Hardly in a position to write a blog!

Tomorrow is Junten’s sports day. I’m sure you’re aware of how a sports day works – you turn up at a sports ground instead of school for a day, do a bit of running, then forget about it and go back to not working in lessons. We’ve all been there, done that. Well, things are slightly different in Japan. Both Thursday and Friday saw Matt and I heading to the school’s other campus to “practice” for Sports Day. In reality, the event is not a competition at all, but a publicity stunt. This means that not only is it a practice, but it’s a practice of how to have a sports day, not practicing the actual events. I estimate I have spent twelve hours at the sports ground, and I have seen about thirty minutes of sports practice. The rest is spent learning where to stand, what to say and how to listen to the school orchestra. I kid you not.

The events themselves are somewhat…different, too. Instead of the typical 400 metes or javelin, there are a host of bizarre games that focus less on physical prowess and more on, well, hitting other people. Here is a handy list with names I made up;

• The Big Pole Game consists of each team separating into halves; one half is attack and the other defense. The goal is to have your attackers push over a great big pole that the other team are defending. The rules are, well, nobody knows as nobody ever follows them. This is basically a big fight with the added danger of big poles.
• The Skipping Game requires each class to get twenty six people jumping over a skipping rope at the same time, while the two tallest boys in each class spin it. This is actually a lot harder than it looks and requires quite a lot of teamwork to go well, which is probably why the vast majority of the classes never get more than about 6. At the actual sports day, a staff team will have a go as well, which I will be a member of, and I expect no less than 300 consecutive jumps. Keep watching the blog to find out how many I do. (Once I’m out of hospital)
• Hat Thief involves three students forming a tripod for another student to stand on, then running around trying to steal the hats off the other team’s heads. Not much to say here – this is basically a big fight with the added danger of…er..hats?
• Yosakoi dancing is a traditional Japanese dance, well summed up by Wikipedia here. Loads of kids all do the dance together, with each year group doing a progressively more difficult dance. I don’t think this is a competition but it looks quite cool when they’re all going at once.

My job tomorrow will be photographer, so I hope to do quite a nice update soon with lots of lovely photos. Sorry for the lack of them today.

What happens when the sun is up, it’s a Sunday and the British are around? We have a picnic. Because in England the phenomenon known commonly as “a nice day” happens, scientists have discovered, just once every three thousand years, every English person for miles grabs some blankets, triangle cut sandwiches and SP5,000,000 sunblock and drive like maniacs to the nearest park or beach, blind with optimism that the sun may actually touch them.

Lynsey, fellow Brit and professional picnic enthusiast, had spotted that all of the requirements were in place. With a heart full of hope and a squeezy bottle of Hellman’s Mayonnaise, I headed to Shinjuku to meet her and her friend Kanna.

The weather forecast was actually right for once and it was pleasant whilst we were picking up the sushi, Yakisoba (noodles!) and prawn salad that was to be our feast fit for a king. We headed to Shinjuku park and paid the couple of hundred yen entrance fee. This may strike you as strange, but I can confirm that Shinjuku-Gyoen is the only park in Japan with real grass that isn’t horrible and prickly.

I thought I’d wait until this long to break the news – I didn’t take my camera with me. I know, I’m sorry and it won’t happen again. (It totally will). I had no idea Shinjuku park looked so nice, otherwise I would have taken it with me.

We chose a spot under a tree in the shade, where Lynsey and I wouldn’t burn in the first thirty seconds (I nearly made it to a whole minute!) and started chowing down. Sadly we had chosen to make base camp right next to a large community of ants, and immediately under a huge crow’s favourite branch. Lynsey and Kanna seemed unfazed by this, so I got a lot closer to the wildlife of Japan than I wanted to.

We had decided to couple our meal with some rather tasty beer. The problem is alcohol is not allowed in Shinjuku park. At first I was worried we’d get spotted, but at 4.30, when the park closed, the sheer amount of empty wine bottles suggested we weren’t the only alcohol smugglers in the park.

After the picnic it would have been insanity not to go to a coffee shop. This is the only reason we went, it definitely was not for the delicious cakes. As I can see what looks like a large angry mob on the horizon, I shall make you a deal. Don’t kill me, and I’ll post a big update with lots of photographs soon. Put that pitchfork down.