Sports Day!

Every October, the Japanese celebrate Sports Day, a day that supposedly commemorates the year the Japananese hosted the summer Olympics and reminds them as a nation to keep in shape. Schools honor this by closing for the day. However, in typical Japanese style, Hannah Jane's "school" celebrated their Sports Day on the Sunday before, requiring all us parents to be there by 9am on Sunday morning for the opening ceremony:

Following this opening march onto the field, the entire school lines up in neat little rows and stands perfectly still while they are addressed by the school officials. While I understood nothing beyond "Konnichiwa!" in the beginning, a friend tells me the speeches were something about loyalty to school and how important it is to exercise and all that. After the speeches, the entire school sung a song or two together:

.....followed by a very fun and amusing dance:
And then the races and events started. Hannah Jane's class had just two of these races, both of which involved the parents helping. In one I had to run with her ---in a box--through an obstacle course:

Thankfully our part was done after this, and we got to go home and enjoy our Sunday. But the rest of the school went on --even through the rainstorm that came later --to run, jump and exercise their little hearts out until well into the afternoon. We took our prizes (some japanese cookies from a local grocery store and a new washcloth for cleaning up before lunch at school) and went home. Still, Hannah Jane, as you can see from the post-race picture here with her buddies, thoroughly enjoyed herself!