Saturday 3rd September was my High School’s sports day. The day was held at my base school in Shimonoseki, where I have my supervisor and I attend twice a week to teach. They take it very seriously here, with set teams, marching, flag raising and a whole host of unique sporting activities.

I wasn’t involved in many of the activities personally, they cut them from the schedule. I won’t take it personally…I mean I did even wear sports clothes, but I don’t think I look the most natural at any sporting occasion! I ran 25 meters of the relay and judged the cheerleading. Instead for the rest of the day I got to watch all of the events unfold from the perfect vantage point (as my artists impression shows I believe)!

My favourite event by far was the log / tyre scramble game. Whoever came up with that deserves all the trophies! I am not allowed to share my pictures of schools online, so the artists impression will have to do. The game consisted of teams of students running towards large log poles and tyres and having to basically fight each other to take said log / tyre back to their team. The team with the most at the end of a fierce three minutes wins.

I was not epexting the level of competition I wittnessed. Particularly the girls! Some of them were quite literally stomping on class mates to get that tyre. It was certainly a different side to my students I enjoyed watching (by this I do not mean the violence, but the competition and team work!)

What at day. One that was almost cancelled due to typhoon coming our way, thanks for holding out typhoon number 11 (let’s call this one Typhoon Tedd), I appreciate it!