The big event!

This starts the blog of my best day so far in Japan!

There is no way to explain the excitement that this event contains for my kids. There is so much preparation that you can't help to excited whether you really are or just want it to be over. My day was suppose to start off at 6:30am to get ready and have a good breakfast to be at school at 7 but that didn't happen. I woke up at 6:52 with no alarm and rushed out the door to arrive at 7:15. My VP gave me a hard time about it but it was fine. I was placed on the set up crew for each event. The beautiful of this Japanese culture is that they allow the children to do everything. So of course they had practiced each events set up several times and so the teachers really had nothing to do. Not that I could actually do anything because I didn't understand what needed to be done. I was the best cheerleader ever today!

My friend Emily came to watch a little and cheer me on, not that I did anything. I cheered as relays and races took place and I watched and cheered as every grade did their dances. As it turns out, I got to learn most of everyones dances because I had so much free time in the weeks before this. I want to be able to explain every event to you in detail but I realize thats boring so I'll let the pictures and videos do the talking.

They will pass this ball all the way around the field. One ball for each team (red and white). It's really funny to watch the first graders get it, they get killed.

Apart of the 5th and 6th grade dance, they also do mounting. 3 tiers is the highest they go but its pretty impressive.

Some of the best 5th graders ever! We have secret handshakes!

I got to help with a couple of the games. This game is called "What color do you like?" and I picked the color that got to bypass the obstacles.

She's the sweetest ever!

Even these pictures don't do it justice so I tried to take some videos to show you exactly how it was.

1st video is of 1st graders playing a game. They are shaking pom poms from their shorts. It was something I hadn't seen before so it was really cute.

2nd video was me getting prepared for my one and only duty of the day.

This is the 5th and 6th grade dance. The sun was at a bad angle but I thought maybe Gamma could use some of these moves for Spring Sing next year. There is no way to get you to fully portray this day. There was so much going on, most of which I had no idea about, that I could only get so much on video without looking like a tourist. One more video. This one is of me dancing the Japanese traditional dance that all the kids learned in the gym one day. Everyone was quite surprised that the foreigner could do it.

This day made me love Japan even more. It got me closer to my kids and my teachers. Afterwards, the teachers always have a party to celebrate Undokai being over so I got to be apart of that. All of these things are helping me bond and get to know me teachers so much better which is helpful when I teach with them every week. So far this was my favorite cultural experience and I'm not sure another can contest with it but we'll have to wait and see. Let me leave you with the 1st and 2nd grade dance. Its a long video and the same thing over and over but I love it. Love you all!!

All pictures and videos needed to be removed. Sorry!