Laura is excited about the Fushiki Fighting Floats Festival.
Nick is so excited that he actually joined the festival as a participant.
The deal with the festival is, people push these floats around for a while…
…until it finally gets to be time…
…and they ram them into each other at high speed repeatedly.
The Daimon Kite Festival was rained out this year. ☹
In the afternoon though,
the rain cleared up a little,
and we all went over to Nick and Laura's apartment
to have a party on the roof!
A good time was had by all.
Late into the evening, the guitarists strummed on.
And the flames of barbecue burned brightly.
In this event, little kids put on capes and ran through tunnels.
(The capes make you faster.)
The event I participated in was a relay race to fill a bottle with water.
I've been trying to think of a good translation for "tama-iré."
So far, my best theory is "the game where you put little balls into a basket that isn't basketball."
Eventually, an elementary school student stolen my camera.
I think he said his sister is somewhere in this crowd shot.
Some of his pictures turned out OK.
Other shots seemed a bit off.
Some look like the kind of thing I would shoot.
Eventually, I got control of the camera back.
And the sports day closed with bowing all around.
Adam's family came to Japan, so they decided to throw a talent show.
Dave and Kaoru are hyped for it!
Augie hacks out a tune.
The crowd didn't entirely get into the death feedback loop thing, but we all appreciated his refusal to "sell out."
Jill the Celtic.
Everybody gets together to sing!
Practice for sports day.
Man, there are a lot of kids at this school.
Ayaka lifts her knees high.
Uh, yeah…
He pledges to the principal that everyone will be sportsman-y and whatnot.
This time, I got to play put-the-balls-in-in-the-basket for the red team.
These were my balls. My team won the game!
Here's our poster.
The white team won the poster competition.
The green team has what looks to be Kaneda-sensei in an alligator suit drinking green tea ("cha").
"Friendly genie."
"Bee Spears." I think this was a pun of some sort.
This race was crazy, since it involved wearing dinosaur suits and balancing stuff.
Whiplash race.
The little kids' race.
I don't want to talk out of turn, but I totally could have out raced these kids. It was sorrowful.
Our MCs.
Red team grits for the tug-o-war.
Blue team at rest.
Blue team heaves to!
Rope jumping.
The blue team's cheering demonstration.
These guys were funny. I think.
It wouldn't be Japan without needless cross dressing.
Natsuki is on the whistle.
Green team won the cheering contest in part by chugging a bottle of tea while yelling, "[Drink, drink, drink!]"
The tire pull.
A chicken fight. On land, 'cos they're hardcore like that.
Tonami was crowded for its Yotaka 'Fighting-er Floats' Festival.
Two floats collide at high speed!
Then they wiggle and try to bash each other.
Afterwards, I ran into one of my students, Ômaki. We talked on the train.
This may look like a sort of meaningless shot, but actually, it relates to how when I first got here, the cokes were big and relatively cheap. I was pleased. Then later, they stopped selling these big cokes and switched to small ones. It was heart breaking. But then the next summer, it came back! It turns out, the larger coke size is a summer only promotion. This summer is my third time to see the elusive "large cokes of Fukuoka."