Hello, everyone! Well, we are back from our States vacation and settling in nicely to Year #2. We had a wonderful, much-needed retreat while we were home and saw family and friends our hearts have been missing big time.
Oh, and sights like these weren't half bad, either:
Meanwhile, Pizza Hut Japan is offering this delightful treat for only 3,380 yen ($34.43 at today's exchange rate):
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Yep, that's shrimp, corn, mayo, and seaweed. Interested?
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Anyway, our pizza woes were assuaged by the school festivals this week. Do you remember seeing pictures from last year's festivals? We had only been here about a month at that point, so I think we were still getting over the shock of seeing tuna pancakes and legitimately horrifying haunted houses to really absorb much beyond that. Everything was a little overwhelming. This year it was nice to have a better grasp on the situation, though the haunted houses may have been just as alarming. Oh, and our Japanese has improved, so at least we could read the menus this year and opt for the regular syrup pancakes.
This adorable sight greeted festival-goers at Izumigaoka High School on Friday morning, the first day of the festival. The students love Disney and I'm pretty sure they could paper-mache in their sleep, so this makes perfect sense, really.
Every year, the juniors are charged with the task of making and selling delicious carnival goodies, and I must say, I have been nothing but impressed with their efforts. It's daggum HOT here right now (we're talking 100F + about 600% humidity) and these kids are laboring outside over hot stoves, smiles all around. Here are some of the fruits (slash carbs) of their labor:
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| The pancake menu: honey & syrup, scrambled egg, the famed tuna mayo, and finally, the pizza pancake. OH YEAH! |
The decorations and advertisements are also top-notch. They don't cut any corners when it comes to cutesy cardboard food.
Even the trash cans were adorable.
My favorite carnival game this year was the TanaCasino, named affectionately for the sponsoring class' homeroom teacher, Mr. Tanakashi. The students made their own poker chips (that's right, even the poker chips aren't store-bought), and set up three casino games in the classroom: darts, blackjack, and roulette. The dealers wore black pants with white dress shirts and homemade duct tape neckties (surprisingly classy). Lucky winners got to cash in their chips for candy at the game's end.
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I didn't win anything.
Finally, the festival wouldn't be complete without the performances. This year I watched a killer choir performance which included a rendition of the Doraemon theme song. Can you even resist the futuristic little cat robot?
But my favorite performance was the calligraphy club's. That's right, they have managed to make calligraphy a performing art in Japan. Take a look at what these six students made in a matter of four minutes while also dancing with pom-poms:
 
All right, that's all for now. As always, thanks for keeping up with our blog, and take care!
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