Undokai (Sports Day)

This past Sunday was my junior high school’s Undokai (sports day). It’s not really something that they have in America so I will explain. It’s like a big sports competition between the school. The school is divided into groups (mine was in 2 groups – red and white – because there aren’t that many students) that compete against each other. With each event the winners get a certain amount of points and whichever team ends up with the most points at the end wins. Actually, because there aren’t that many students and the elementary school is right next door it was a combined thing with the elementary school. So they compete, but not in the traditional sense. The track events were pretty standard, but then there were weird activities and relays that were pretty funny to watch. Oh, and all the parents and people come to this event as well to watch. So, I guess I’ll go through the activities and post pictures about them.
First here is a picture of just a regular race being ran and then after that is a picture of a relay the elementary students did where they had to climb a bamboo pole and grab a paper banana hanging from the top, then run back to the line for the next person to go.


After that there is a picture where the students each got a corner of a circle of rope and then tried to grab the flag that was sitting just out of reach in a cone. Lol.

This next event was really funny. It was with the junior high students and it was a sort of obstacle course. They first had to run to an area with a bunch of baseball bats and then with the bottom of the bat touching the ground, put their heads to the top of the bat and spin around like 10-15 times. Then they had to walk across a balance beam, and then crawl under a stretch of net. After that they had to run over to a huge pad (like the pad you land on after high jumping) and blow up a balloon enough to pop it when you sit on it. Then they of course had to sit on it and pop it and run over some hurdles to the next phase. At this next place they had to splash water on their faces, and then dig something out of a box full of wheat powder with their mouths and eat it. Then, with the white wheat powder all on their face, they have to read this statement into the microphone and then run through the finish line. Lol. The statement was usually some weird embarrassing statement. I could only catch what a few of them meant but the kids always laughed and looked embarrassed or something, lol. Here’s pictures of that one.





Next was the course for the elementary school students. They were so cute. They were all wearing blue plastic capes and rain boots. First they had to race their scooters down a stretch, then throw a ball to hit a target, and then climb up on a platform and jump onto the high jump pad to pop a balloon, then run to the finish line. Lol. It was funny because the balloons were being held the the pad by tape at first but the kids were getting tangled up in the tape so they stopped using tape and then the balloons kept drifting in the wind every time a kid tried to jump on it, lol. But they were able to do it after some time.




The next event was a junior high one where there was a person from each team (red and white) who had a basket on their back and they ran around trying to avoid getting bean bags thrown in the basket by the other team.

The junior high also put on some uniforms and did a cool cheer thing before that.

Then the elementary students lined up and as a teacher beat a huge drum he would stop and call out different poses, and the students would do the poses (like v, airplane, tokyo tower, etc)






Then there were some relay races where they students competed against their parents or siblings, and there was an race where the the different teams would launch bottles into their air and another student after students would have to catch the bottles, and there were some dances done as well.





The dance above in the middle picture was the elementary school dance. Then I posted the junior high dance. The junior high also did a dance competition between the teams, which was really funny because some of the guy students on the team that won were dressed up as rocker chicks and playing air guitar right in front of the judges, but I couldn’t get pictures because I was actually a judge for that event. Then my camera ran out of battery before I could get pictures of the really cute grandma and grandpa relay that the elementary students did. They put on little vests that old people wear here and had a cane and then slippers that were tied together so they had to shuffle their feet. Then they had to race all hunched over with the cane on the ground, one hand behind their backs, shuffling their feet. It was the cutest thing ever and they really did look like little grandmas and grandpas, lol. I got to participate in this event called Dragonball. It was all the teachers split into 2 teams partnered up, where one person stomps on one end of a small teeter-totter thing making a ball that was on the other end fly up and the partner has to catch it, then run back to the line where the next pair would go. I was the stomper. Anyway, this was a long post so I will go ahead and end it there, but it was tons of fun to watch. I’ll post some videos throughout the blog of some of the stuff too.