Festivals Festivals

I start this post with a quaint picture of the Southern most part of Hofu that I was able to get to. I just rode my bike South, until I could ride South no more. :) And I found a cute place, with fathers and sons fishing, and old ladies staring at me like I was out of my Gaijin boundaries.

It was great. All of these pictures are from the second weekend in October, I think. Maybe the weekend before. Or after. Thats why I need to catch up on my blogging ;)

There was a random parade in Hofu going on. It was lovely. It started at the train station (basically where this picture was taken) and went all the way up to Tenmangu Shrine in the Northern most part of the city. I wonder how long it took for the participants in the Parade to walk to route, because it was the slowest parade I have ever seen.

As far as I could tell, it was a parade celebrating traditional Japanese culture. There were all sorts of spots in the parade line. From traditional singing, to guys that looked like ninjas jumping around, to lots of traditional Japanese royalty stuff.

I want to be a little Japanese girl!

There were many princesses being carried up to the shrine in this fashion. It was all very beautiful and peaceful.

And then we switch gears to the school festival at my base school. Far from peaceful, it was lively, hopping and fun! My students did all kinds of skits, plays, dance routines, singing, and joking.

I guess each class had to do something for the festival. In Japanese high schools, the teachers change classes, not the students. So for the most part, the kids are all in the same one class for the year, and teachers pop in and out of that class. I can see benefits and drawbacks to this system that is so different from most American High schools. But certainly one benefit is that all the kids in the class get to know each-other very well...and thus they can create some pretty engaging stuff for festivals! :)

Here is one of my classes doing "Thriller", and you can see when you watch the video. They were so amazing.

The entire festival was hosted by Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama. The MC's were the Obama's. Of course I mean Japanese students who did pretty good role-playing as far as I could tell in listening to their Japanese Obama role-playing. Japan loves Obama. All the time, in different circumstances, I hear "Yes we can!".

I love festivals! I love students! Keep on dancing!