Because I like biting bread off a stick

November came and suddenly it's as if the Gods have realized they had left the heater's switch on; they turned it off. It is coooold! Since our house has no insulation (Yay! for Japanese houses) we have the joy of waking up to a nice 10 degrees Celsius... It makes getting out of bed even harder.

We got our first snowfall on Monday night continuing through Tuesday morning but it all melted away. It'll be a while before it stays. I saw pictures of that crazy snowfall in the US and it makes me glad to be sitting at my heated table, inside.

Last Saturday, Mr. kanmuri and I braved the early morning cold and drove to Morioka to take part in the Lalala's International Sports Festival. Lalala is a small international group which organizes numerous activities to promote cultural exchange. You can learn more about them here.

During my career as a teacher in Japan I have seen many Sports Festival but up until last Sunday, I had never taken part into one. This sports event was modelled after the ones taking place in elementary schools. It was tons of fun.

Here are some pictures. I will try to explain the different competitions. If you want to know more about the origin of sports festivals in Japan take a look at this post I wrote a while ago.

Our team, the White team.

Bread Eating Competition

In this activity we had to walk in hoops to reach the pole with dangling bags of bread. Then, we had to bite off the bags with our teeth.

Victory is mine

Caterpillar Walk

For this activity we had to walk in a huge cardboard caterpillar and then push a ball around with a stick.

Pop the Balloon

This game was really simple. We all tied balloons to our legs and then had to pop the balloons of the opposite team.

Throw the balls in the basket

The title pretty much says it all. The first team to finish wins. We won twice because our team had all the tall people :D I don't have pictures of us in action because everyone took part in the game.

Boot Camp

I don't know what this one was called but it reminded be of a military exercise with the net thing. Simple game, we had to crawl under the net, and then take down paper baskets with a ball attached to a string.

Race

I'm sure this game has a name but I don't know it. Ten people of each team tied their feet to two parallel ropes and raced across the gym. We won, two times :D

In the end, our team won by two points and Mr. kanmuri was chosen as the MVP of the event.

Both Red and White teams

And lastly...

I got the sliced bread... oh yeah!