Sunday, 01 June 2008

• School Festival Part 1

  First and foremost, I can't express what an experience this has been.  I don't want to say it all now as my time in Japan hasn't ended quite yet (although the last day is coming up pretty fast), but these past few days have been the peek of my program.  So let's get started!

  Up until this past Friday (May 30th for those who don't happen to remember 3 days ago), all the classes in the school have been preparing for the "Ryouhou Sai" (School Festival) which is composed of the "Bunka Sai" (Cultural Festival) and the "Taiku Sai" (Sports Festival).  These festivals take place over a 2.5 day period in the school and parents, students, and children from anywhere can attend it.  Each school has their own Ryouhou Sai and takes place whenever the school prefers. 

  First I'll start with Day 0.5 of the Ryouhou Sai.

  After half a day of complete devotion to set up our portion of the Bunka Sai, the entire school gathered for an assembly to kick off the Ryouhou Sai of Ichiritsu Koukou (the junior/senior high school I attend).  We even got to count down and use mini firecrackers (? well, more like cardboard cones that exploded when you pulled the string and confetti flew out)!  A short movie was played to introduce the Festival which included pictures of the different classes preparing and the such.  This was then followed by lots of performances by the Baton Club (think cheerleaders with twirling sticks and without the cheers) and the School Band as well as games for the whole school to enjoy.  The best game that was played that day was probably the "Super Couple" in which "couples" would be chosen before hand and presented the day of to be judged by the teachers to see who is the best couple.  The catch: the male has to dress up as the female and the female as a male.  A girl from our class was chosen to be the 'male' counter part of the couple and I think our entire class thought that she was by far the best male looking female (that's confusing...) despite not winning the contest. 

  Then came the evening portion of the Festival.  This was not required to attend unless you wished to do so.  It was bascially a whole bunch of performances of individual groups or individuals. 

  Forgetting to bring my camera, I had to resort to my camera phone.  And since it's a phone, I can't use it during the afternoon portion of the Festival but could snap a few shots of the Evening Festival. 

  

   

  • 7:34 AM
  • 12 Views
  • 2 eProps
  • 1 Comment