Japan Fulbright Memorial Fund Trip to Japan October 2006 |
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Day 9 - Sports Festival
Today is a National Holiday in Japan that they call Sports Festival. It begins with breakfast at the hotel anywhere from 6:30 until 8:00. All they have told us is that there is only one menu item so we cannot request anything special. We either get the predetermined Western breakfast or a Japanese breakfast (which I had already ruled out due to my last experiences). I sleep in a little bit and come downstairs about 7:30 to meet up with some others.
As I'm getting on the elevator, Shawn is getting off and says to me "If you want a hot breakfast, you had better get down there at 6:30!" I wasn't quite sure what he meant but I knew it didn't mean that the breakfast was out of this world.
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Let me explain what is there...Scrambled eggs, ham, asparagus, spaghetti, salad with tuna, orange juice, milk, and yogurt. Not a bad spread except for one thing...it has been sitting out since 6:30! Basically, all the warm foods are cold and all of the cold items are warm. Nothing like a warm sip of milk to wash down some cold eggs.
Some people may be a pessimist and view this as a bad situation with the glass being half empty. I prefer to look at it a different way. This is a bad situation and the glass is completely full. There's no way I'm drinking warm milk. Last time I did, I threw up at football practice in the eighth grade.
We did find the bread and got creative...You see, we cooked the bread in the little toaster over and threw the eggs and ham inside and made a sandwich. Just like that, the eggs and ham warmed up and things were not that bad. I still didn't drink the milk.
We board the bus to head down to Soka's Sports Festival. As we got off the bus, the first thing we see is this.
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A pet monkey...that's right....a pet monkey. I haven't seen a pet monkey since this one...
It's my grand monkey...inside joke...
We headed over to the sporting events at 9:00 sharp. Basically, this event looked like a field day event at middle schools except it was a whole lot bigger. For the next two and a half hours, we would observe and participate in the Soka Sports Festival. There were many events going on that I was more than willing to participate in. Here's a list of events:
- Soccer Kick*
- Speed Gun*
- Houston (Blow Gun)*
- Strike Out (Pitching)
- Free Throws*
- Tag Rugby
- Target Bird Golf*
- Run, Jump, Field, and Athletics
- Indiaca (like badmitton without racquets)*
- Soft Volleyball
- Quoits*
- Bag Go (Kung Fu)
- Boomerang*
- Baseball
- Boxing
- New Check of Physical Strength
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Ground Golf*
The * denote things that I actually did. I was pleased with my performance because I was performing better than the majority of the other people there in the sporting events. With that said, I should mention that there were hundreds of kids and the 20 JFMF adults running around this place. Basically, we were celebrities all day long. People here don't see Americans much and go nuts if you look at them and smile. If you speak to them, they giggle and smile. If you say something to them in Japanese, they laugh at you (is my Japanese that bad?).
At the Speed Gun station, I waited in line behind 30 kids throwing a baseball and getting a display of how fast their pitch was. They averaged around 60 (no unit was given) with the max of 80. When it was my turn, I unloaded two in a row at 93 and thoroughly impressed all those little kids around me. A large gasp of "Oooooooooooooooh" could be heard after my first toss and again when I replicated it. A man came up to me and asked me if I played Major League baseball. I told him "yes". Everything else was free for the rest of the day.
*Editor's note: I actually told him "no" and laughed along with him. The dialogue of the event was altered to help build the story up a little more. Besides, if I was throwing 93, I wouldn't be a high school teacher.
At each event, you got a stamp on an official Japanese card and then turned it in for prizes. Here's what I won...
Just what I need....a metric backscratcher...
Here is a web album of pictures from the festivities
At 11:30 we left the fun and the kids and headed over to lunch at Soka City Cultural Center.
They had literature about Soka along with maps and a box meal. This box meal was probably the best box lunch I have ever had! We counted and I think there were 14 different items in there. I can't tell you what they all were but I ate about 11 of them.
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Next, we were introduced to the people that will be travelling with us whereever we go. This includes the interpreter and two other men who will split up the responsibilities. I had to introduce myself by saying "Virginia no Skip Tyler desu." Translated, it means I am Skip Tyler from Virginia. I didn't even mess it up!
After lunch, we went to the Museum of History and Folklore. This gave the background of Soka and included a lot of informative information. We were learning a bit about the culture of Soka before heading out on our city tour. Here's what I know...
Soka's traditional produce are 1) summer kimonos (called yukatas), 2) Soka Senbei (rice crackers), and 3) leather goods.
Presently, Tokyo hand-dyed yukata are well known throughout the country. The vast majority of these yukatas are produced in and around Soka.
The land surrounding Soka produces good quality rice and a plentiful amount of water and neighboring Noda, Chiba produces soy sauce. These raw ingredients help to produce the most famous brand of Japanese snacks in Japan! At present, there are more than 60 makers of senbei in Soka.
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 Look at that big cracker! Know what I'm talking about? :) |
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Finally, Soka's leather making industry has both the advantages of being close to Tokyo and plentiful water supply, enabling its development.
Before leaving, I couldn't resist this shot...
That's when they kicked me out of the museum...
We began our tour of the city with our group coordinator - Aiko Nikko. She's a very sweet yet soft spoken woman. She puts up with a lot of stuff being with this group. If you've never seen a bunch of teachers together, it's a good thing...
I'll give you an update of the differences between Buddhism and shinto soon...
We finished the tour with a formal tea ceremony. It was very unique and special to see the procedures that are done to get a cup of green tea. There is a lot of tradition involved in the process and there are lots of special rules you need to remember to make sure you don't have Aiko yelling at you!
See the tea ceremony web album
When we got back to the hotel, we decided to go out and explore Soka and the Soka train station. Our goal was to go to a baseball game in Tokyo tomorrow and we had to check out how to get there from here. We were in a small group so I was finally able to converse with some of the natives. In the past, we have 10 people or so in our group and there are some people who are more comfortable speaking Japanese than me. Therefore, they ask all the questions and I just sit back waiting to hear the answers. It was actually empowering being able to communicate with Japanese people. I think I'm going to move here...
We headed out to dinner at .... you guessed it - China Fan. It's about time I got some chinese food! The food was good and I experimented with my soft drink. I got what is called Calpis soda. It's carbonated milk. That's right...some cow with gas produced this one. It was actually very good. And, more importantly, it was cold!
Kim, me, Jeff, Holly, & Tracey before dinner
I had heard about how nice and kind the Japanese people were from other people and previous year recipients but I hadn't had that experience yet. Yeah, they've been nice but not out of the way nice. That changed tonight...We were eating dinner trying to converse with a waitress who had no idea what the word english meant. There were two gentlemen across the aisle sitting in a booth who knew a little english and helped out. We told them we were from America and they smiled and said they loved it. We nodded, thanked them, and then they left. A few minutes later, one man comes back and asks me if I knew what biru was. I'm glad I've been studying because I recall that it meant beer. I said yes and he basically said "Good, you get a big one". They went around the table and proceeded to buy everyone a beer whether they wanted one or not. We invited them to join us and talked for 15 minutes until they finished their beer. They were a father and son and shared their experiences traveling to the United States. We told them we were teachers and found out that the father was a retired professor from Tokyo University for Science. It was a lot of fun trying to speak the language. They got up and the father told us "I pay for beer only!". I guess he wanted to make sure we didn't think he was paying for our meal. It was a very kind gesture and that has really been what it is like since we got to Soka.
Special note! Kim sent them this picture in an email that evening and she received the following reply: Dear Kimberly Griego-Boruch and friendsWe recieved your E-mail and the picture. I and my son wish to you and your friends that enjoy happy trip in Japan. Good luck for yours trip ! Dr.Engg. Kinji Sato and Tsuyoshi Sato |
On our way home, we were on cloud nine because of the experience. We finally had our "Japanese experience" that everyone brags about. Now I'll be able to share mine. To celebrate, we went shopping (as you can see from the picture, the men were outnumbered). To show you the type of mood I was in, here are 2 pics...
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We are just some cool cats.....Tomorrow, it's off to meet the mayor...