Sports day japes

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Saturday was the sports festival for both my elementary schools, both of which had invited me to attend. Short of cloning myself, this meant arriving at 8.30am at Dai Ni school (the school nearest to where I live and with only a small amount of students) and staying for an hour and half, before dashing the fifteen minute drive across the mountain to the larger school for the second part of the morning.

It was a fun spectacle, with (unsurprisingly) a range of weird and wonderful activities. The highlights included all the kids (and at one point the parents) in a giant horseshoe formation, lifting a giant inflatable ball and moving it around the group in a Mexican wave formation. I also enjoyed the Calvary stand off, with a red team v a white team, three kids form a horse shape and carry a fourth kid, who has to try and steal the cap from the opponent team, whilst avoiding having his own cap taken. This one got quite violent!

In the evening I met up with some of the other ALT teachers and headed into the centre of Iida for an evening festival one of our friends was taking part in. This bizarre festival involved many groups of about 15 or so men in traditional costumes carrying a heavy wooden float for over three hours (some of which with women balanced on top), drinking copious amounts of beer as they stagger up and down the streets, swaying from one side of the road to the other and chanting something that sounded like "Bus strike" over and over again. Apparently the meaning of the chant has been lost in the mists of time, so no one alive today actually knows what it means.

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