here the students are beginning what they called some sort of simple exercise. right. they made a human fan and that is seriously cool! the seniors are pictured here and the age of the students decrease as you move back in the photo. an impressive feat, but not the most impressive. just wait. oh, and do take note here how the adults are sitting under the nice shade tents while i kids sweat it out in the hot, hot, super hot and HUMID japanese sun. jeez.
and now the students have moved on to something just a bit harder, (something i always attempted as a kid but never had the guts to get past two people high building...) the human pyramid five rows high!!!! and they just climb right up there and know that the kid under them is going to hold them or that at least they will support their fall is they slip. oh the trust they are forced to take here. subarashi! (great!)
this was my personal favorite of the building portion. the kid standing on top just stands there for many moments motionless and you can almost feel the tension happening in that human building. the guys on the bottom are all bent over and have no idea what is happening on top and the guy on top is a scaredy cat if he looks down. oh to be a student in japan... 
i think instructions here were something like, "just put your butts together and then let someone stand on it after they climb over you to get up really high." who knows, but the hits like this just kept coming all day...
this is by far the most popular and most anticipated event; tug of war! this is a big deal in japanese culture and adults and children do this all over the country. here a few adults step in to help with the festivities and hold some of the flags to represent all of the kids neighborhoods that are present, which is yes, all of them in naru. very colorful and fun.
oh the caterpillar, how i loved watching this one all well. these are small children (4th grade and below) getting into cardboard that has been smoothed out and they must roll it with a partner to their teammates waiting on the other side. they in turn roll it back across to more teammates waiting and the game goes on until all have completed this task. keep in mind they can't really see where they're going and they have no real sense of aim when they begin their rolling. it got very funny and those poor kids were just so confused.
okay, i know i keep saying it , but this was really something else. you may have seen this awesome act performed on some blooper television show or on youtube late nights, but this is the real deal; students lining up and one brave student (with helmet!) gets to walk across the back of all of the other students and they must keep running and getting in line until the student has made it across their backs all the way to the finish line. i laughed and laughed and laughed at this. no one else was laughing. apparently they've all done this at some point during their school years...no big woop.
one of the great things about sports day was that everyone was able to get involved. they had a race for students and parents, a dress-up the teacher silliness and an elderly competition. there was a fair amount of jogging happening from these old folks and i was aptly amused and impressed at their feats. here one of the naru elders holds his prize for finishing the race. yes, it is a box a saran-wrap. they all got one. it was pretty hilarious. again, me only one laughing.
just a couple of the observers taking it all in, but when was the last time that you saw two rival tofu companies represented on the t-shirts of two people standing directly beside one another? that's what i thought, never. me too, that's why i took this photo. i do love the little laughs that living here will give me, and i could never explain why it is funny to me in a million years to them.
and the winning team celebrates! it was short lived though i'm sure of it. they probably had to go to a study session after the competition was done...such is the life of the japanse youth.
oh the caterpillar, how i loved watching this one all well. these are small children (4th grade and below) getting into cardboard that has been smoothed out and they must roll it with a partner to their teammates waiting on the other side. they in turn roll it back across to more teammates waiting and the game goes on until all have completed this task. keep in mind they can't really see where they're going and they have no real sense of aim when they begin their rolling. it got very funny and those poor kids were just so confused. 
okay, i know i keep saying it , but this was really something else. you may have seen this awesome act performed on some blooper television show or on youtube late nights, but this is the real deal; students lining up and one brave student (with helmet!) gets to walk across the back of all of the other students and they must keep running and getting in line until the student has made it across their backs all the way to the finish line. i laughed and laughed and laughed at this. no one else was laughing. apparently they've all done this at some point during their school years...no big woop.
one of the great things about sports day was that everyone was able to get involved. they had a race for students and parents, a dress-up the teacher silliness and an elderly competition. there was a fair amount of jogging happening from these old folks and i was aptly amused and impressed at their feats. here one of the naru elders holds his prize for finishing the race. yes, it is a box a saran-wrap. they all got one. it was pretty hilarious. again, me only one laughing.
just a couple of the observers taking it all in, but when was the last time that you saw two rival tofu companies represented on the t-shirts of two people standing directly beside one another? that's what i thought, never. me too, that's why i took this photo. i do love the little laughs that living here will give me, and i could never explain why it is funny to me in a million years to them. 
and the winning team celebrates! it was short lived though i'm sure of it. they probably had to go to a study session after the competition was done...such is the life of the japanse youth.okay, so that pretty much sums up sports day. i will give the videos another chance and see if i can work something out, if anyone has any ideas on how i can post them i would love your feedback! hope you enjoyed and caught a bit of a glimpse into what fun and craziness this is all for me everyday.
until then, namaste friends.
No comments:
Post a Comment