Undokai

So, after a fairly normal work week, this Sunday was my first all day Undokai (since I was so late to the last one). Granted, even still I was late to this one too, because I'd had people over to my house the night before for dinner (Tien Chian made dumplings. She's Xia's wife, and for the first few weeks we were here she was visiting her family in China. So yes, really. good. dumplings). And then we all (Jeff, Amy, Xia, Tien Chian, and me, with Kirsty after dinner) sat around talking, until about 2 in the morning. So after 6 hours of sleep, I pull myself back from the depths and go down to Seijou's Sports Festival.

By the way, American Field Day's are just pathetic compared to Undokais. So we get together and during a day of school have games. Yeah, these kids have been practicing for weeks. And I was thinking that it would be something silly and I would get bored in a few hours (if not just one) and now I see why they've been practicing.

So yeah, there were some races, which were nice and all, but then they had things like:

The fifth and sixth years got together and made successively more complex human pyramids. It was awesome.

The kindergarteners got together with their parents and danced to a song, the kids knew the moves better than the adults.

The parents and grandparents participated in a relay race, including people who looked well into their sixties. It was so cute to have the announcer (a student from one of the classes, it changed for every event) say (in Japanese) "go go, keep it up Granny, until the end, keep going!"

The teachers from visiting schools got together with the principal to do a relay race that you put your face in the small end of the megaphone and had to kick a rugby ball down the field, around a cone, and back. It was hard, my team came in second.

Traditional dancing with drumming.

The classic 2 teams game where the first years (and second years, but only because the school was so small) have a time limit where they have to toss a bunch of little balls into a basket about 8 or 9 feet in the air. Each team one once :)

A teacher relay, where each grade has a team. During this one, they were calling out wither they had enough people in each team, but when they got to 6th, they realized they were one short, so they asked me (right then!!) to participate. I said yes, of course, and went down. And forgot, because I was first leg, to try my shoes so that they weren't so loose to slip on and off easily (you have to change your shoes so often here, it's just easier), so I had to run and my left shoe almost came off, and it was 1/2 way around the track, then I had to run funny to keep my shoes on, and these teachers and volunteers can really book it. (Breathes). But our team ended up winning :) We were: the cute 6th year teacher (he is really adorable), the secretary (Erika, because I know her name now :) ), the kocho (principal), the cute 3rd grade teacher (cute in the . . . hello kitty is cute kind of way, not the hot kind of way), the assistant who I think is the PE teacher, and me. And we won the right to carry around this really heavy stick with bags of onions hanging from each end. We run fast and our legs hurt and we have to carry the heavy sticks. Great prize. But it was fun.

Oh, and did I mention during the jump rope/bicycle/unicycle/stilts demonstration it started to pour. Only kept up for a few minutes (it had been hot, and it really cooled it off) and then slacked off to a nice drizzle, which was nice, but during the closing ceremony, where the whole school had to stand up at attention on the field and various people say speeches for how good everyone did and just hang on a little longer, the bottom fell out. And the kids had to stand there, in the pouring rain while the adults just laughed and carried out the ceremony in dignified Japanese style. By the end of the speeches some of the kids were just dancing and playing in the rain (in place). It looked like they were having fun, even if it was uncomfortable.

Afterwards, we cleaned up and sat in the teacher's lounge just relaxing (the tatami room where we sit on the woven mat flooring and have tea during the school day) and talking. I have 4 phrases in Hogen I have to practice before I see them again. Hogen being the Miyako dialect that even the kids don't remember very well. And I say dialect, but it's not related to Japanese, think Cherokee. They are:

nma nma. It's delicious.
aran! It's wrong.
bata gou gou (elongate the "oh" sound). I'm full.
bugarii bugarii. I'm tired.

I had to look back at my notes just now. It's not looking very promising, but they'll appreciate it if I try. And it is fun.

We sat down for about an hour, eating fruit that one of the teacher's mother's prepared and then went to the Shokudou (lunch room) for the after party, which concisted of catered food (mostly chanpuru, mixed stirfry of stuff) and lots of drinking. I got a ride back to the city with my new friend Hiromi-sensei (5th year teacher), the kyoto (vice p.), and Marie (Mah, ree, eh) (who I didn't quite know) using a service called a daiko (they come and drive you and your car to your house), but because they drove Hiromi-sensei's car, I left mine at the school (Kirsty was nice and drove me back to get it this afternoon, we went out to dinner after. Very nice).

Instead of getting dropped off at my house, I asked to be dropped off at the bowling alley, because that's where most of the ALTs and some of the English speaking peeps were, and they played a bit (I was a little late, so I didn't, and then I was enjoying talking to everyone so much more than I would have if I was playing because I get bad after a few drinks and it just upsets me, so I didn't play the second set either) and at some point I walked with Scott to the liquor store (which I know where a liquor store is within walking distance of my house) to refuel, because the bowling alley doesn't serve so they allow outside drinks. After the two games, we went in search of karaoke.

Unfortunately karaoke closes at 1am on Sundays, no matter if the next day is a holiday or not, so we ended up at (surprise surprise) Copa. As in Copa Cobana. It's a nice little bar with good atmosphere. And a really big white leather couch that fits about 12 people. Which is about what we were by that point (some of us had gone home). I stayed a bit, and then realized that if I stayed any more I would have just fallen asleep on the nice white leather couch so I walked home. Makiko-sensei, who teaches Junior high with Jeff and Teresa, was nice enough to agree to look over my phone bill with me next Friday at pizza and tell me why it's so high, as well as to follow me out and make sure I know where I'm going to get home (Copa is at the other end of Nishizato, the street I live off), so I said I was fine and thanked her (at least I hope I did, I got a little blurry about that time, not so bad off, more just 6 hours of sleep, staying up all night, and playing all night, ya know?) and stumbled the 3 blocks home (yes, from one end of the main drag in town to the other, it's 4 blocks, I live on that last block).

I woke up at 2pm this morning. I seriously thought it was about 10am with how hard I slept. Wow.

I had dreams of living in the West coast and running north to Oregon to get away from the bad. I was flying with Rosie. No plane, just flying. And when I woke up and turned on my computer (which I thought would be too late to talk to people) Rosie called. One of those moments.

By the way.