Taiku Sai

A few weeks ago my school held it's Taiku sai (Sports festival). I've been pretty fortunate to be able to see both a bunka sai (school cultural festival) and a taiku sai in the space of 12mths. That's mainly because, the school festival is only held once every 3 years. And seeing as how I was part of that, I thought I would miss out on the sports festival which occurs in the years between.


I first had an inkling something was happening at my school, when one afternoon, all the classes ventured outside to practice jump rope. Of course, I was not told of the taiku sai until 2 days out from the event and that it was being held on a Saturday. The tone in my teachers voice, didn't make it seem like it was an option either. Anyway, all was forgiven when my teacher also said that we would be having the following Monday off as compensation.

The sunny afternoon in question, where the kids ventured out to practice jump rope.

The kids is hard training!

Now, a Japanese taiku sai is not like any sports day that we would have back at home. Don't get me wrong, there's still plenty of physical exertion involved. However, if you were expecting to see traditional track and fields events like; sprinting, hurdles, shot put, long jump, discuss, distance running then you would have been sorely disappointed. No, a Japanese taiku sai involves events such as throwing balls into a very high basket (no, not basketball!), tug of war, relays with obstacles other than passing a baton, jump rope ... and dancing the new yagi bushi.

Also grandeur notions of weired Japanese sports being played like children building pyramids on each other and then ramming each other til one team is standing is also sorely lacking from the events lists.

So to the big day. Unfortunately being in the middle of the Tsuyu season (rainy season), it was bucketing down with rain on the Saturday. The taiku sai, which normally occurs outdoors, had to be shifted into the gym. So the flags of the world went up and away we go!

From what I can remember of primary and high school ... we used to compete in different house colours in sporting events. This similarly occurs in Japan, so there were four teams with the colours; Midori (green), Pinku (pink), Murasaki (purple) and Shiroi (white). Each teacher also belonged to a coloured team. On the day, I was quickly recruited onto team shiro. No doubt, they saw the abundant amount of physical talent in me (stop laughing everyone!). Now for some of the events, the students competed in their coloured teams and for other events, they would compete in their homeroom classes. So that meant that some 3rd kids were pitted against some 1st year kids.

Here's a run down of the days events. It's all in Japanese, but not to fear, I will explain.

To the first event of the day, throwing the small balls into the small and incredibly high basket. Each team had about 5mins to get as many balls as they could into the baskets. Pretty simply!

As you can see, the basket is pretty high and you do get tired after a prolong period of piffing these balls up there. This was pretty much the only event that I was able to partake in!

In the end, team shiro won ... YEAH! I'm going to say that it was basketball skills that got us this win here. This is set the tone for the rest of the sports festival where team Shiro pretty much dominated.

Next was the pole relay (at this point, I'm just making up names for these events ... I don't know the Japanese names of them). This one had the kids compete in their homerooms. Basically the kids would make two lines, with the two kids at the front with the pole. The race starts with the two front kids running to the end of the gym and then back. On their way back, they must lower the pole so that their classmates can jump over them, then handed off to the last pair. The last pair then hold the pole high, so the classmates can duck under them, and to the end of the gym and back ... etc. The first team to complete this with all their class wins!

Following up was the old favourite, "Tug of war". I would have come in handy on this one, but was relegated to being a cheerleader instead. Pretty simply, the more you pull, the better chance of winning. So here are my boys getting ready. Ready ..... Set .....

Go .... pull!

Girls, you too ... pull!

Huzzah, celebrations after a victory!

The next two were two different types of relay races. The first had the students, jump over a hurdles, then grab a piece of clothing from the rack ....

Fold the clothing properly, then pick up a mystery card asking them to pick a member of the audience with a specific attribute to run to the finish line. Attributes included; anyone who was a teacher, anyone who was male, anyone who is a parent, anyone born in December ... etc.

The next relay was a little bit more difficult. In this one, they had to first stack up cans ... the number the stack was determined by the card they chose. So some students only had to stack to cans, while others had to stack 4 or 5.

Next was what caused the mostly difficulty. The kids had to put a thread through a sewing pin. Very difficult for some adults, let alone kids.

Finally, they had to only use their teeth to bite off a piece of bread that was hanging by a rope, then the finish line.

Next was performing the New yagi bushi dance. Each of the teams put their own spin on this classic Japanese folk dance. My team, added a little acrobatics ... with one of the girls doing some back flips and jumps to end it. Unfortunately another was a little more inventive and took out the top prize.

Another strength competition. Trying to win three different pieces of rope by pulling it to your end.

The jump rope was next. A little rev up for one of the teams before they begin.

And off we go. In the end, I think 1-2 class won when the had about 25 consecutive jumps for their class.

Absolutely knackered!

So the day ended with team shiro holding about 100 point lead, however, there were still to be some events that had to be completed outside. So the continuation was held during the week.

The second last event was a simply and plain relay.

And team Shiro wins again.

The final event was a relay of sorts. The first person would run around then pass the baton onto two of their classmates with their legs tied (above picture). So these two had to run in unison. This relay continued through 3, then 4 and finally 5 people tied together. I can assure you that this was no easy task for some as you will see in the video below.

Here are some of my boys attempting to complete this race. They were leading, and then it all fell apart.

The boys did eventually make it to the end.

And the final scores are in. Team shiro (C) wins by a pretty comfortable margin in the end! Yatta!!

We were awarded our little certificate, and so ended the Taiku sai!

4-Play-Hike-Club

In our quest to conquer Japan, the boys and I had agreed to climb the mighty mount Fuji or Fuji-San as the Japanese call it. We have tentatively scheduled the climb for the middle or end of July. You may wonder why we would want to climb Fuji in the middle of the humid Japan summer, but you can only climb Fuji safely during July and August. It also gets pretty cold as you approach the top of Fuji. During the other months, Fuji is covered in sleet and snow which makes the climb treacherous for novice climbers.


So in an attempt to prepare our bodies for the tough climb we needed to get some training and smaller hiking trips under our belts. Luckily for us, Ashikaga is surrounded by mountains ... heck my school is situated in the mountains. So finding some mountains to train on was not a difficult thing. Plus, Mike loves doing things that don't cost any money. Don't ask me why, but he gets the same amount of money as us, but is forever living like his in poverty.


Anyway, during Golden week, we set out to do two climbs. The first climb we did included myself, Clarence and Mike. Not having hiked mountains in a long time ... needless to say I was struggling through our 3 hour climb. As most of you will know, I'm not one for walking or climbing or any sort. And even thought climbing Fuji was my idea, training for it was not.


The hike itself, simply wasn't straight up the side of the mountain, then down ... no, no, no. It was up and down about 3-4 mountains, over a mountain range. I have to admit, I was doing a lot of complaining and wanted to give up on a number of occasions. Maybe it was the fact that we underestimated the length of the climb and didn't bring enough liquids. The dehydration must have been making me delirious.


At the end of this climb, all we wanted was one of Japan's most wonderful invention a vending machine! We had to walk for another 20mins before we found one, it was bliss! And the end of this particular climb, we found a map, which showed other hiking tracks. So in a moment of delirium, Mike suggested we do a 4 hour hike two days later. I was going to throw him off the side of the mountain.


Anyway, we reconvened two days later in preparation for our 4 hour hike and picnic. John was to join us on this occasion and we promptly named our hiking group, "The 4Play Hike Club". This time we were smarter and came prepared with plenty of water. However, John being a novice didn't bring a backpack and had to drag a plastic bag around for almost four hours.


We came to the map point and off on our second hike we went.

The boys, prepared for a big day ... ready and willing!

Looked how pumped they are.

Some of nature against modern Japan.

This particular hike was similar to our previous one in that we were not just hiking one big mountain, but several smaller ones over a range. Going up was difficult, and going down should be joyous but everytime we went down, we knew that we only had to go up again.

Mike at one of our many rest points. Looking cool behind his master, The Sun!

Looking over the city of Ashikaga ... or is that Sano????

I did way better on this climb. Not so much complaining as I knew what was to lie ahead. The problem with the last climb was that, everytime we reached the top, I thought it was the end, only to find that there were several more kilometers to go. I was much wiser second time around. The same couldn't be said for John. He did a fair amount of struggling through this climb. A moment of ponder for me, before we were off again.

Mike thinking that this was actually a model shot.

The local wildlife were in abundance.

One of the many signs that tried to help us on our way. Ofcourse, all in Japanese and Kanji at that. We managed to not get lost though. The first mountain that we were meant to rise upon had the Kanji for "Little" and "Big" and then "Mountain" ... so it was "Little Big Mountain". From the ground there are actually letters on side of the mountain, like the Hollywood sign. Anyway, its actual name is Mt Daiso.

Clarence going bush, and showing that he too can climb mountains.

More mountains, with a nice perspective of the deal tree branch.

We could all be advertising for a Colarado ad right here.

Maybe one of the wrong paths that we might have taken. I'm saying that because we crossed many old Japanese people hiking and there was no way, they'd be able to get up and down a rock face. But Clarence is hanging on for dear life.

In case you got severely injured on the climb, there was a hospital close to these here mountains. No kidding!

And if you were simply tired of climbing, maybe a spot of golf!

On this climb, we must have trekked over atleast 5-6 mountains, up and down. This was the mountain range that we had climbed over. Pretty impressive to see what we had just achieved.

More mountains.

You can see on this picture a little path leading to the top. This was our final climb, just a little more and we were done.

One last look over the city!

A final sign to help us out ... only 0.4km more ... almost there.

Yatta! We made it to the top of Mt Daibo, 285m above sea level. This wasn't actually the highest point we had gotten to on this day. We actually reached just above 300m at one point. After 4 hours of exhaustion, we were ready to just lie down and die.

Well on to the next climb then!

A Japanese BBQ and Ashikaga Frower Park

Spring has fully arrived in Ashikaga and the heat is certainly being turned up. in Japan. After surviving through the winter months, its now time to deal with the summer's oppressive heat and humidity. It's also been raining a lot more, we'll have about 4 great days, then about 2 days of non-stop rain. Anyway, no complaints here ... its certainly better than the winter, especially riding around. Although, summer does bring its share of dangers ... like low flying bats and giant mutant-like insects, that crash into your face while riding. Anyway, the following are a few shots of the spring bloom.

You guys must be sick of seeing flowers right!!! Well, brace yourselves, there's a lot more in this post.

Another one here.

This was a cool tree, initially I thought it was one tree that produced both pink and white blossoms, but on closer inspection it was actually two trees. Still the effect is cool.

April was also the celebration of John's birthday, hot on the heels of Mike's birthday about 2 weeks previous. Being sad and believing that people wouldn't come to his party after Mike's, we decided to organise a surprise BBQ for John. I had to let him in on the secret the night before as John tends to sleep through daylight hours. So, I had to ensure that he would rock up. Everyone loves a BBQ and we'd hadn't really had one during our time in Japan. I mean, being an Aussie and not having a BBQ for almost a year is unheard of.




Mike and Clarence dutifully bought a little BBQ and the guests supplied the food. John was certainly surprised by the BBQ and had a great time. Even suggesting that we should do it more often.

Mike was in charge of making sure the food was cooked and not burnt.

Look at all the little delectable things that we had ... hamburgers, sausages, chicken, even vegetables and beef. It was dericious!

We picked a little park near Mike's place to hold this magnificent event.

Some of the ladies enjoying their time.

The weather god's were shining on us this day ... perfecto!

Mike and Catherine on a quick spin in the peddling vehicle.

And then the Birthday boy received his cake.

Look how chuffed he is. The cake was good and a great time was had by all! Good times!

Ashikaga is also home to Ashikaga Flower Park (or as the Japanese would say "Ashikaga Frower Park"), where each year during Golden week, hundreds of people from all over flock to see their giant Wisteria trees in bloom. Ashikaga is apparently home to the biggest wisteria trees in all of Japan. It's such a big that, the national papers even write stories about it.




Waiting on the train stations during the Golden week days were crazy, I never seen so many people in Ashikaga before. Me and the boys decided to visit it one Wednesday afternoon on our half day, not a real manly thing to do ... but hey, its something to do. Plus we managed to avoid some of the massive crowds visiting. It would normally cost about 300yen ($3) to get into the Flower Park any other time of the year, however, during the Wisteria season, it would cost you 1600yen ($16) for admission ... Wow, that's quite a hike. Anyway, the pictures follow and there's not much story, so sit back and enjoy.

Ashikaga Flower Park.

The pyramid of flowers

One of the giant wisteria trees ... there's about 3 of them in this park.

Apparently, your not meant to touch the blossoms but I'm not Japanese ... so suck!

All around the wisteria flowers were these giant bumble bees ... probably about the side of our 50 cent coin. Needless to say, I didn't want to use my own hand to give you guys perspective on how big the bees were.

Of course, the park also had many other flowers in bloom.

I was really trying to hide!

Some yellow wisteria.

A white wisteria tree.

The park was also meant to be pretty spectacular in the evening under lights. However, we couldn't be bothered sticking around.

After a long day, went to a ramen place that my teachers had taken me to once. They make all the ingredients fresh on site. So what better to finish off the day than some freshly made ramen and gyoza.