Bunkasai 2010

Hello all!

We're very sorry that we've not been posting lately. We're going to try to get back on a schedule starting now.

I do have some good news though. My parents and parents-in-law were gracious enough to give me my christmas gift (new computer!) early. Said new computer has much better video editing software, so we're finally getting some video clips around here. Yay!

I've got two clips for you today. I would post more, but video takes a really long time to upload. I'll work on getting more up tomorrow.

Yesterday, Caleb and I attended a bunkasai, also known as a school culture festival. The kids acted out plays, sang songs and performed traditional dances.

The first video is of a fan dance. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize for the blurry picture. I forgot to take my real video camera ( I know, smooth right?) so I had to film these video clips with my ipod. I'm a little impressed with the quality of picture it produced anyway. I mean the thing is half the size of a poptart.

The second clip is of the lion dance. I know those costumes look like dragons, but my sources tell me that they are, in fact, lions. My sources also inform me that it is lucky to receive a bite from the lions. Caleb got a bite this year. Unfortunately, the students were close enough that even my blurry ipod video shows their faces, so I chopped that part off. (Also, my thumb covers the camera for about half a second. I still can't figure out how to hold a camera that small.)

Tomorrow I'll try to put up video of wooden plate dance and the crazy formal cheering they do at the end of the festival.

Elementary Culture Fests

I have finally finished all my culture festivals. There was one for each school. The elementary school festivals were really cute and fun. The first one that I went to was in Chokai. The kids did skits and singing both as a whole school and as a class. They did little songs about animals living in the mountains.
As you can see cute animal costumes are a necessity.


The second elementary culture festival was in Kozuya. It was pretty much the same except that the fifth graders had grown their own rice and sold it. It was really good. They gave me a small bag of it for helping them divide it into bags. Also they had one of their plays was about the unification of Japan.

Overall I really liked doing the elementary culture fests. They were fun to watch and the kids were really happy I was there. However, I wish more parents had introduced themselves to me. I had been hoping to meet parents and see how they felt about English education. I goes since my predecessor didn't speak Japanese they assumed I didn't but I got a lot of smiles.

As a in general update it has snowed here for the first time. It mostly melted in the afternoon but it was cold in the morning. Today to winterize the house I moved the bed into the room right next to the living room. We are now using really just to room of the house. We also got out the kerosean heater because its too cold for our clothes to dry . We also insulated the house by putting bubble wrap on the big glass windows in the main rooms.