What would you like with that?

Maybe everyone would like an order of writing to go with that side of pictures! Just maybe? Well, okay! My school had their culture festival last week. It’s a chance for each class to do their own thing and hope the visitors enjoy it. Since my class is going to Australia in October (minus me of course cry cry) they decided to make Ayers Rock. It was a very stinky process which involved soaking infinite chunks of cardboard in water to create what I guess was supposed to be a rustic rocky appearance. Plus the miles of hair removing tape (that is if you haven’t shaved your arm hair off) we had to use to stick the cardboard to the wall. It turned out nice in the end. I don’t think anyone got hurt from the pieces that fell from above the doorway. Korea was a popular theme with the other second year classes since that’s where they go for their trip. They had students dress up as Pe Yonjun, the Korean soap actor who has made more money doing commercials in Japan than Brad Pitt. He’s a favorite with the 35 and over housewife population of Japan. The third years all made food. My host sister’s class made ‘mochi’. I guess I would describe it as rice gum, but it’s really not supposed to be as gooey as they made it. There were also ‘so hot you’ll die’ versions of noodles and curry, I passed on that. For the main entertainment they had a stage in the parking lot set up. I would say the cheerleaders and cross dressers got the most hype. There were also bands set up in the gym; again I’m not really sure what language they were singing. It was a long day of being crazy and scaring people with my foreignness (mostly the little kids who visited, ‘wooow, a foreigner!’). Then of course we had the Sports festival yesterday. In my opinion, far less exciting, but all the more amusing. We started in the morning at 8 with the rain falling on us as we got into formation on the field. Naturally, to prevent injury from rickety joints, we did synchronized musical aerobics before starting. All Japanese children learn the same routine from elementary school, keeping this in mind you can just imagine the music they use! I think it’s one of the funniest things I’ve seen since being in Japan. The rest of the day was spent cheering classmates on in their different events. Although, there seemed to be a fair amount of jeering as well. Two of my friends came back from a class relay crying because people were yelling ‘I hope class four falls!’ That’s one thing about Japanese high schools that’s really evident, the separation by class, year, and gender. Each class seems to fall into a stereotype, the sports course are meat heads, the S class are nerds, the international course thinks they’re better than everyone else, first year girls are evil, (foreigners rock ;P) etc. When we ate lunch during the sports festival there were little groups of blue, sky blue, and red (the different year’s colors), none of the groups were mixed colors except for mine. And that was only because the first year exchange student came to eat lunch with me because the first year girls in her class were being mean. Anyway, that’s my bit of brain snack for the day, until next time!

CULTURE FESTIVAL pictures

Just cleaning up the art room after the festival. That's my host sister about to lose her life to a broom.

Of course my camera's battery had to run out when the guys came on the stage in their kimonos! So I took these on my cell...

The people watching the cheerleaders...

The CHEERLEADERS!

I never knew I'd be lucky enough to meet Stitch!!

My class mates and I in front of the love wall.

I got to wear a sign for our class getting people to come visit and write 'love' on the wall!

High speed curry eating contest!!!

Culture festivals!

Good morning everyone! I’m enjoying a long awaited TWO day weekend! Those two days would be Sunday and Monday. Where has my Saturday gone!? (to school!) Well, this is the season for school culture festivals in Japan! I went to Edogawa High School the other day to see my host sister’s school festival. It was definitely different. Edogawa High is a public school unlike mine so that translates to artistically altered uniforms… For anyone who has read Japanese high school romance manga, well it certainly took place at a public school. I saw my first ‘ganguro’. It’s pretty much the scientific name for a girl who gets really tan and wears white makeup creating the look of a backwards panda. Not to mention the bleaching of hair. All the skirts were quite mini and the socks were quite saggy. If you go to the sock department in a store you’ll see these long white things that look more like scarves than anything, but they’re really high socks. They come as long as a meter and are popular among the more daringly fashion conscious girls. They look much like the skin on a sharpee puppy when worn. And to keep them from slipping further down the leg than desired, well what else would you use but a glue stick! The festival itself was yummy. All the senior classes were making food and my favorite was the taiyaki, a fish shaped pastry filled with chocolate. It tasted like peanuts for some reason though. They also had school bands playing. When we left there was a group called something like ‘George Stroganoff’ playing Offspring songs. It’s a very funny thing to hear Offspring sung by a Japanese high school student. I’m sure there were some English lyrics in there somewhere. Well, I get to look forward to the same thing, without the socks, at my school at the end of this coming week. And then the next will be the school’s sports festival. I’ll tell you about it all if I survive the 20 person jump roping contest! Noooo

Anyone still out there???

It’s been awhile. But you know school started and I somehow just got busy again, imagine that ^_^v Anyway, all the classes are getting ready for the schools culture festival coming up on the 23rd. We’ve been busy designing our class T-shirts and our class project which involves turning our classroom into a mini Australia. All the seniors are doing food. And I can tell you I’m SO glad I’m not, and not because everyone would die from my cooking! But from now until the end of the festival they have to submit a uh... daily ‘kemben’ for testing. Basically they have to do a poo test!! Yuck, no thank you. My host sister is a senior and we had an interesting conversation talking about the ways in which you might get the ‘sample’ into the insanely small test tube. I promise you it’s all very normal. Well, enough talk of STOOLS and other furniture! I’ve just realized no one really knows about my new family!! Well they’re awesome, all nine of them. Three are cats, but everyone should know by now that cats count (one two three…). I have three younger sisters and a younger brother, and the mama and the papa. I don’t know exactly how you spell their names but the cat’s are Popo, Ramu, and Carl. One as an under bite and curly ears, he’s really cute! And Popo can randomly open doors and scare the stool out of you when she sneaks into your room at night. Anyway, I promise I’ll be back again to write more. I miss you guys!!! Bye!