Look at the fun on these kids faces. These kids enjoyed undokai rain or shine! They really did. Kouiki's parents were kind enough to make copies for us and so these top 3 pics come from them. : )
All good friends! Branden and on the right of B is Kouiki-kun and on the right of Kouiki is Saya-chan. These kids play at school together, and also on weekends. They're all real good friends these kids.
Out of all the pics for B's undokai this year, this one has got to be my most favorite, because it's of Branden smiling, Kouiki smiling, Saya-chan smiling. It's just like they didn't even notice or care that a camera was there taking their picture. Do you know what I mean. It's just like these little 2nd graders were just having a ball, camera or no camera. Sorry if it sounds dorky but yeah I really enjoyed this picture a lot. : )
Anyway how did it all get started? Well, on Friday, I went and reserved a spot at Branden's elementary school. Most schools in Japan do not let you save a spot beforehand. It's really uncommon to be allowed to do this. However our school does this. I think because it's way way in the countryside maybe. The number of students at this school anyway is so small. Like 40 kids total for the ninensei class and that's counting the 2 classes, of 20 each class. : ) Like average 40 each grade or less. So definitely under 300 kids for the entire school. Way under that actually I'd say by my best guess.... the entire school probably has about 260 kids for the whole school (grades 1-6). And so yeah the student count and family count is quite small for the elementry as a whole. I mean if there were like 2 thousand kids or so there could be a problem with reserving for sures. But at our school even if you waited to the last second to get a spot, you'd still get a good or decent spot. Ha ha ha. : ) Anyway, we called the school Friday afternoon asked what time we could save a spot. The head teacher said, "sure no problem and to come right after class lets out would be fine, somewhere between 4-5pm was okay". At 4:30pm I got there. Nobody was there yet. But about 3 minutes after I parked another mom got there too. We asked if it was okay. They said yes. And so we went and saved our spots.
The boys and I saved this spot. And the woman and her daughter saved that spot over there. All I did was lay down the leisure sheet put the 4 stakes into the ground to keep the sheet down and flat. Went back to the car and laid down the table and the big umbrella lay down on the sheet unfolded and umbrella stand. It didn't take too long. I went home and made supper. Now I could kick back, relax and know at least the spot was there and we didn't have to wake up at an ungodly hour to save the spot since we did it on Friday. Phew, a load off our minds. Noboru was at work while I set up and he was happy I could handle saving our spot no problem. A load off his mind as well. : ) My girlfriend rang my door around 6:45pm Friday and said she just got back from saving their family spot and by then more then 70 spots from her best guess were already saved.
Saturday, the day of undokai. We woke up at 6am. I fed the kids and got started in on our obento for undokai. It didn't take too long. I had the chicken marinated the night before. So, it was pretty easy. Just make a salad, clean some grapes, fry up some chicken. Form some rice balls. Since our spot was saved, we didn't have to rush to the school too early. We got there around 8am. It was to start at 9am sharp. Since I lugged everything to the school the day before all Noboru had to do was open the table and open the umbrella. Good team work. LOL. : ) It looked really cloudy. The weather forecaster the night before on the news said, rain showers were a possibility but more then likely it would just be a thick cloud covered day, we don't mind cloudy days at all, we thought. And then my friend that morning at the school told me the forecast did indeed say we'd get rain for sures. : (
So many people saved their spots. No people.... just leisure sheets, ha ha ha. : ) There were lesiure sheets all around the field.
By now it was 9am. It had just started. Red team versus the white team. What color is your hat basically is the team you're on. The hats actually have 1 side red and 1 side white. : ) Branden is a red hat at his elementary school. Noah is a white hat at his yochien. : ) Anyway they brought out the Japanese flag and played the national anthem, it was really nice.
Branden is on the far right of this picture. : )
It seems right off, the 1st graders raced right away and then the 2nd graders went on right afterwards. Here's Branden racing.
Man he ran his heart out. He came in 2nd place. It was such a close race, he lost by a hair but yup he came in 2nd. We cheered him on and told him how proud we were anyway. He really did do a good job.
Now it was sorta like a 3 legged race type race. But this is a race where 2 people slip into this band type thing and run together. The 1st graders ran with the 6th graders and the 2nd graders ran with the 5th graders.
There is Branden and a 5th grader running as fast as they could.
The 1st and 2nd graders went and had a tug of war! All the 1st and 2nd grade red hats versus the 1st and 2nd grade white hats!
Now it was time for the 5th and 6th graders to have a face off, between the red and white team. Or I guess I should call it a "hat off" instead. The object of the game is to knock off your opponents hat. So yup, you are elevated and people carry you all through the field. People meanwhile coming after you and trying to knock your hat off. Meanwhile you are equally trying to knock somebody else's hat off at the same time. This game is so popular, crowds are ohhing, ahhing. Cheering and screaming during this particular match.
It can get to be quite a heated match at that! Look at these 2 battling trying to knock each others hats off. We also have a much milder version of this at our yochien. : )
And then it was time for lunch. All the kids go find their families and have lunch with them. : ) From 12:00 to 12:40 was the kids lunch time. And then they had to get changed into their red shirts afterwards.
Noah and hubby eating. And the rain...I'll get to in a bit.
I'm eating. I had karaage, salad and potato salad.
Branden eating as much and as fast as he could. He had 2 onigiri's. Lots of chicken, and salad. Some cookies. Some grapes.
And then a quick shirt change and he was full and on his way. : )
The older class played the Ponyo theme song on instruments. And the 2nd graders did their Ponyo dance. : )
It was so cute to watch.
B's really good friend in front of him wearing the Champion shirt. He was just at our house last night playing soccer with B actually. : ) And Saya-chan in the red shirt sorta in front of B but in the other row. She was the one in front of the girl in the pink shirt. : ) And "boy next door" on the far left with the lightning bolt on his red shirt. He and B like to play Pokemon DS games together. : ) : )
Now back to the weather. How was the weather at undokai? Honestly the weather was horrible. The weather the day before undokai absolutely gorgeous, the weather the day after undokai like 90 degrees F, so like a hot beautiful Summer day. Yet the day of our undokai was cold and wet. The morning it was just cloud covered. Not a drop of rain. But seriously, it seems right around 9am when undokai started is when the rain also started. And it wasn't like a light sprinkle here and there. It was like a definite medium rain. Not typhoon type rain. And not a mist either. A definite medium steady rain. It rained from 9am to about 10am. And then it stopped. It started up around noon, so it rained during lunch but this rain was more a mist around lunch and it lasted just about 20 minutes. And then it didn't rain again the rest of the day. But the temperature? It was really really cold. I was relieved I brought and packed up some extra clothes that morning and threw them into a Costco bag, a sweatshirt and a raincoat and a pair of jeans for Noah for an emergency. And he totally used and needed them. I was relieved I brought hubby a sweatshirt and myself a black cardigan because towards lunch time I saw hubby put on his sweatshirt and he thanked me and said, "you packed really well", lol, I just smiled. : ) I also packed B a gym sweatshirt which I had to finally have him put it on after the Ponyo dance because it was just THAT freezing cold. It felt like we should have been eating a nice pot of nabe for our undokai lunch instead of the lunches we all packed. Ha ha ha. And all drinking hot coffees and cocoas. It felt like mid November type Chiba weather versus September Chiba weather. It was just the craziest thing.
Look at our leisure sheet? That's how every one's leisure sheet ended up looking. And in Japan, we don't put our shoes on our sheets at all, that's a no no. : ) And we never do either. However the mud was everywhere. Everyone around us just started stepping on their own sheets because if they didn't their socks would ended up mud soaked. I held out for a long time until I finally agreed to put my shoes on. It did rain, it was REALLY cold. But if you could see these kids faces and their smiles, they honestly didn't care about the weather...not 1 iota. They were all just so thrilled it was their undokai. Their day to shine. To show us their dance routine and how fast they could run, etc. So because the kids attitudes rocked so much! I think all of us parents had a really good attitude too. Yeah it rained....so what! I'm sure everyone living in Japan will have at least 1 year of their childs schooling sports day where the weather isn't so good. So, it was our turn. Ha ha ha. What can we say. And it probably won't be our last bad weather undokai either. But we all took it in stride. So that's the postive. : )
And now it was the father's club tug of war. Hubby's in that club at the elementary school. So, we got to cheer him on.
Yup Branden was the one wearing this sweatshirt in this pic. Undokai was over in about an hour. But the weather grew even colder. I finally had no choice, but to have him put on his sweatshirt. He said..."oh mom" Ha ha ha. But I said "sorry, but I don't want you catching a cold." And funniest thing.....about 10 minutes after B was wearing one, I saw about 4 other kids starting to wear their sweatshirts too. And one even put on the matching pants, I'm seriously not kidding. Then I told B, "see now you're not the only one now." Ha ha ha. : ) But yeah, I had to...it was honestly really THAT cold that day.
Branden really stretched out this summer huh? He seems to have gotten taller and really thinned out some this summer, not that he needed to be thinned out or anything, lol. He just looks taller and leaner now, he really grew over this Summer, I can see it. Ahh he's growing up, sniff sniff. Genki is right behind B in this pic. His oldest and dearest friend.
And then it was over. From 8am to 3:45pm, it was a whole day thing. Not to mentioned we woke up at 6am. We were cold, tired and sorta ready to go home. : ) All the kids had to carry their own seats out to the field and then at the end of the day they brought them back to their classrooms. : )
And B, putting his chair away. They all had a classroom chat for about 5 minutes. Then they all were free to go home.
All the kids were given this for participating. A school notebook, and some origami paper. I laid the leisure sheet over our fence and rinsed the sheet off with water. All the mud came off right away, hung it over the fence over night to dry and clipped it so it didn't blow away. Noboru put the table into the shed since it was dry and left the umbrella out to dry on the patio until the next day as well. We stayed home all Saturday evening and night. We were sorta tired and ready to just enjoy a night of rest. We had supper and hubby showered and bathed with the boys. Our first hot relaxing bath of the season, ha ha ha. I went in afterward the guys got out. Showered and soaked. Watched TV, had some popcorn. Just sorta kicked back all night. The kids went to sleep and we stayed up watching TV a bit longer.
Next morning, Sunday it was a gorgeous and hot summery type day. What the heck? Ha ha ha. A gorgeous day. We did have a good laugh about the difference in weather between Saturday and Sunday though. The leisure sheet was dry and as good as new. Hard to believe it was a muddy mess the day before, but it really was. Anyway nice and dry to the shed it went. : ) All in all it was a pretty good undokai. 1 undokai down, 2 more to go! : )
Out of all the pics for B's undokai this year, this one has got to be my most favorite, because it's of Branden smiling, Kouiki smiling, Saya-chan smiling. It's just like they didn't even notice or care that a camera was there taking their picture. Do you know what I mean. It's just like these little 2nd graders were just having a ball, camera or no camera. Sorry if it sounds dorky but yeah I really enjoyed this picture a lot. : )
Anyway how did it all get started? Well, on Friday, I went and reserved a spot at Branden's elementary school. Most schools in Japan do not let you save a spot beforehand. It's really uncommon to be allowed to do this. However our school does this. I think because it's way way in the countryside maybe. The number of students at this school anyway is so small. Like 40 kids total for the ninensei class and that's counting the 2 classes, of 20 each class. : ) Like average 40 each grade or less. So definitely under 300 kids for the entire school. Way under that actually I'd say by my best guess.... the entire school probably has about 260 kids for the whole school (grades 1-6). And so yeah the student count and family count is quite small for the elementry as a whole. I mean if there were like 2 thousand kids or so there could be a problem with reserving for sures. But at our school even if you waited to the last second to get a spot, you'd still get a good or decent spot. Ha ha ha. : ) Anyway, we called the school Friday afternoon asked what time we could save a spot. The head teacher said, "sure no problem and to come right after class lets out would be fine, somewhere between 4-5pm was okay". At 4:30pm I got there. Nobody was there yet. But about 3 minutes after I parked another mom got there too. We asked if it was okay. They said yes. And so we went and saved our spots.
The boys and I saved this spot. And the woman and her daughter saved that spot over there. All I did was lay down the leisure sheet put the 4 stakes into the ground to keep the sheet down and flat. Went back to the car and laid down the table and the big umbrella lay down on the sheet unfolded and umbrella stand. It didn't take too long. I went home and made supper. Now I could kick back, relax and know at least the spot was there and we didn't have to wake up at an ungodly hour to save the spot since we did it on Friday. Phew, a load off our minds. Noboru was at work while I set up and he was happy I could handle saving our spot no problem. A load off his mind as well. : ) My girlfriend rang my door around 6:45pm Friday and said she just got back from saving their family spot and by then more then 70 spots from her best guess were already saved.
Saturday, the day of undokai. We woke up at 6am. I fed the kids and got started in on our obento for undokai. It didn't take too long. I had the chicken marinated the night before. So, it was pretty easy. Just make a salad, clean some grapes, fry up some chicken. Form some rice balls. Since our spot was saved, we didn't have to rush to the school too early. We got there around 8am. It was to start at 9am sharp. Since I lugged everything to the school the day before all Noboru had to do was open the table and open the umbrella. Good team work. LOL. : ) It looked really cloudy. The weather forecaster the night before on the news said, rain showers were a possibility but more then likely it would just be a thick cloud covered day, we don't mind cloudy days at all, we thought. And then my friend that morning at the school told me the forecast did indeed say we'd get rain for sures. : (
So many people saved their spots. No people.... just leisure sheets, ha ha ha. : ) There were lesiure sheets all around the field.
By now it was 9am. It had just started. Red team versus the white team. What color is your hat basically is the team you're on. The hats actually have 1 side red and 1 side white. : ) Branden is a red hat at his elementary school. Noah is a white hat at his yochien. : ) Anyway they brought out the Japanese flag and played the national anthem, it was really nice.
Branden is on the far right of this picture. : )
It seems right off, the 1st graders raced right away and then the 2nd graders went on right afterwards. Here's Branden racing.
Now it was sorta like a 3 legged race type race. But this is a race where 2 people slip into this band type thing and run together. The 1st graders ran with the 6th graders and the 2nd graders ran with the 5th graders.
The 1st and 2nd graders went and had a tug of war! All the 1st and 2nd grade red hats versus the 1st and 2nd grade white hats!
Noah and hubby eating. And the rain...I'll get to in a bit.
I'm eating. I had karaage, salad and potato salad.
Branden eating as much and as fast as he could. He had 2 onigiri's. Lots of chicken, and salad. Some cookies. Some grapes.
The older class played the Ponyo theme song on instruments. And the 2nd graders did their Ponyo dance. : )
It was so cute to watch.
B's really good friend in front of him wearing the Champion shirt. He was just at our house last night playing soccer with B actually. : ) And Saya-chan in the red shirt sorta in front of B but in the other row. She was the one in front of the girl in the pink shirt. : ) And "boy next door" on the far left with the lightning bolt on his red shirt. He and B like to play Pokemon DS games together. : ) : )
Now back to the weather. How was the weather at undokai? Honestly the weather was horrible. The weather the day before undokai absolutely gorgeous, the weather the day after undokai like 90 degrees F, so like a hot beautiful Summer day. Yet the day of our undokai was cold and wet. The morning it was just cloud covered. Not a drop of rain. But seriously, it seems right around 9am when undokai started is when the rain also started. And it wasn't like a light sprinkle here and there. It was like a definite medium rain. Not typhoon type rain. And not a mist either. A definite medium steady rain. It rained from 9am to about 10am. And then it stopped. It started up around noon, so it rained during lunch but this rain was more a mist around lunch and it lasted just about 20 minutes. And then it didn't rain again the rest of the day. But the temperature? It was really really cold. I was relieved I brought and packed up some extra clothes that morning and threw them into a Costco bag, a sweatshirt and a raincoat and a pair of jeans for Noah for an emergency. And he totally used and needed them. I was relieved I brought hubby a sweatshirt and myself a black cardigan because towards lunch time I saw hubby put on his sweatshirt and he thanked me and said, "you packed really well", lol, I just smiled. : ) I also packed B a gym sweatshirt which I had to finally have him put it on after the Ponyo dance because it was just THAT freezing cold. It felt like we should have been eating a nice pot of nabe for our undokai lunch instead of the lunches we all packed. Ha ha ha. And all drinking hot coffees and cocoas. It felt like mid November type Chiba weather versus September Chiba weather. It was just the craziest thing.
Look at our leisure sheet? That's how every one's leisure sheet ended up looking. And in Japan, we don't put our shoes on our sheets at all, that's a no no. : ) And we never do either. However the mud was everywhere. Everyone around us just started stepping on their own sheets because if they didn't their socks would ended up mud soaked. I held out for a long time until I finally agreed to put my shoes on. It did rain, it was REALLY cold. But if you could see these kids faces and their smiles, they honestly didn't care about the weather...not 1 iota. They were all just so thrilled it was their undokai. Their day to shine. To show us their dance routine and how fast they could run, etc. So because the kids attitudes rocked so much! I think all of us parents had a really good attitude too. Yeah it rained....so what! I'm sure everyone living in Japan will have at least 1 year of their childs schooling sports day where the weather isn't so good. So, it was our turn. Ha ha ha. What can we say. And it probably won't be our last bad weather undokai either. But we all took it in stride. So that's the postive. : )
And now it was the father's club tug of war. Hubby's in that club at the elementary school. So, we got to cheer him on.
Yup Branden was the one wearing this sweatshirt in this pic. Undokai was over in about an hour. But the weather grew even colder. I finally had no choice, but to have him put on his sweatshirt. He said..."oh mom" Ha ha ha. But I said "sorry, but I don't want you catching a cold." And funniest thing.....about 10 minutes after B was wearing one, I saw about 4 other kids starting to wear their sweatshirts too. And one even put on the matching pants, I'm seriously not kidding. Then I told B, "see now you're not the only one now." Ha ha ha. : ) But yeah, I had to...it was honestly really THAT cold that day.
Branden really stretched out this summer huh? He seems to have gotten taller and really thinned out some this summer, not that he needed to be thinned out or anything, lol. He just looks taller and leaner now, he really grew over this Summer, I can see it. Ahh he's growing up, sniff sniff. Genki is right behind B in this pic. His oldest and dearest friend.
And then it was over. From 8am to 3:45pm, it was a whole day thing. Not to mentioned we woke up at 6am. We were cold, tired and sorta ready to go home. : ) All the kids had to carry their own seats out to the field and then at the end of the day they brought them back to their classrooms. : )
And B, putting his chair away. They all had a classroom chat for about 5 minutes. Then they all were free to go home.
All the kids were given this for participating. A school notebook, and some origami paper. I laid the leisure sheet over our fence and rinsed the sheet off with water. All the mud came off right away, hung it over the fence over night to dry and clipped it so it didn't blow away. Noboru put the table into the shed since it was dry and left the umbrella out to dry on the patio until the next day as well. We stayed home all Saturday evening and night. We were sorta tired and ready to just enjoy a night of rest. We had supper and hubby showered and bathed with the boys. Our first hot relaxing bath of the season, ha ha ha. I went in afterward the guys got out. Showered and soaked. Watched TV, had some popcorn. Just sorta kicked back all night. The kids went to sleep and we stayed up watching TV a bit longer.
Next morning, Sunday it was a gorgeous and hot summery type day. What the heck? Ha ha ha. A gorgeous day. We did have a good laugh about the difference in weather between Saturday and Sunday though. The leisure sheet was dry and as good as new. Hard to believe it was a muddy mess the day before, but it really was. Anyway nice and dry to the shed it went. : ) All in all it was a pretty good undokai. 1 undokai down, 2 more to go! : )
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