Today was the awaited for RELAY DAY! (Sports day? Sports Festival? I think that is what it is supposed to be called, but all we did was run races)

Of course this was not my slice 'a cake. I hate all sports, expecially anything that involves running. Luckily the races were so one-after-another that people would forget who won/lost the last race by the time the next one was over.

I ran in the...

11. Scavenger Hunt Race. --Don't ask.  ..ok, I'll tell you anyways.. After I got my peice of paper read to me, I ran up to the first group of girls I saw and was like '[I need] 6 High schoolers!!' and they were like "..we're all middle schoolers." So I run over to the other half of the feild while yelling "6 high-schoolers!" and no one ran up to me, and they -all- looked like there were in middle school, so I just sort of stood there dumbly for a second, before I was saved by one of my friends who kindly collected the remaining 5 girls I needed. (Normally during the races, groups of girls will quickly scatter to the aid of the scavenger.. only no one seemed to get what I was saying, or I needed to pull them out myself..?)

16. Drink-Ramune-and-Run race: You have to open a bottle of 'Ramune' [rah-mu-neh] by slamming a plactic cap into the top, which breaks loose the marble sealing it off. The problem from there is that you can't 'chug' it.. you have to hold it at a 45* angle to get it out the fastest (if you hold it much higher, the marble seals it shut again). I think I -almost- won, except I didn't realize the marble had stopped it (rather than me finishing it off), so I started running, only to look back and see there was still another inch left, so I ran back-- busted the marble loose-- finished drinking it-- then finsihed the race.. last. (out of 4) Everyone had to belch after that, haha. (Japanese girls do NOT belch if it is at all avoidable..)

18. Egg-and-Spoon Relay (with a ping-pong ball): I was 2nd in passing my spoon on, but I didn't drop it once! The girl in front of me kept dropping it! And whenever people do that they can practically take extra steps! (I have pride, unlike other peole~)

20. Club Relay: This wasn't much of a race, more of a parade. Erika and Akai(?) dressed up in a Pikachu and Elmo costume!! And we carried banners around with us as we made out rounds, shouting promotional phrases to encourange people to join our (dying) group!

After that was finished, the ESS (English Speaking Society) asked me to run with them (they have never talked to me before this..). They, being the boring people they are, were justing running, so to make it worth my time I started shouting promotional phrases and the like-- until it evolved into my shouting 'ESS!' and the 2 of them chanting 'YES WE CAN!' which turned out to be very catchy (and in fashion, haha)



So the only race I didn't get last in was the Ping-pong one.. (where I got 2nd)

All-in-all.. I lived.. I guess.

Yosei Festival (Night Shops)

This festival is every 3, 13, and 23rd of the summer months. I go to almost every time with Yuzuki and someone else (Hiro, Sheena, and in the case Yukko). I have been making myself sort of popular with the vendors.. As you can see from the guy waving the gun at me*. As well as little kids who I pass on my way to school every day will exclaim "It's 'the Foreigner!' ".


 

In the last scene where I am walking backwards, I am actually in the process of fufilling a dare I got chumped into** by Yukko after loosing a rock-paper-sissors game. I am attempting to casually approach my dare's target (the group of boys) casually; to my luck they gave me a stereo-typical 'Hello!' wich gave me the perfect moment to turn around and face them.. They were not particularily interesting to talk to, yet they kept negating my attempts to leave.. I need a seperate video for that though. (Yukko filmed almost the whole [long] thing!)

--------side notes----------
*Sheena and I were standing with Yuzuki as she failed to win a prize (a bouncey ball) at a game; after a sign of defeat, Sheena pulls out a previously-won toy gun and points it at the vendor threatening 'WE WANT IT ALL!!' and the like; and from then on we have been friends with him, and the guy across from him.
In this video you don't see the bouncey ball guy; but the guy in the green T-shirt who waves a points a plastic gun at us knows us from that time.
We met other vendors though other ways I guess..

**We were hanging out around the temple trying to eat a candy-coated apple when Yukko turns to me with her fist at ready saying 'Let's play rock-paper-sissors!' to which I obeyed. Yuzuki and I lost to Yukko's rock, so it was decided that I lost.. and that I should go talk to 'the group of boys over there'.. so I did.
They were really incapable of intelligent conversation, and seemed to have a hard time catching on to what I was saying in perfect Japanese (as they kept trying to speak in English to me.. for no reason. The longest sentences they made were 'Are you from Osaka?' 'Do you like boy?'  'Do you want to be my boyfriend?' and 'I'm fine, how are you?' ..they had trouble coming up with the word 'boy', so I give them points for getting as far as 'boyfriend'.. I had to tell them politely that it would be aqward for me as a girl to be a boyfriend. lol