Gonohe Sports Day

Sunday, September 26, 2010

Getting involved with the local community and fostering better relationships are important for any person living abroad. Most offices on base are attached to some host country office. My husband’s command has a relationship with Gonohe City. One of the events we were invited to was their area Sports Day Festival.

Most municipalities or schools celebrate sports day with a sports festival that might resemble a mini-Olympics. Yet, Japanese sports festivals are not your typical fare. While traditional events like track relays occur, other uncommon events take place to test a group’s agility and teamwork. I accompanied my husband as a spectator to cheer him on. However, I ended up participating in a few of the activities with the other spouses because not enough women from his command volunteered their Sunday to the all-day event.

Gonohe Sports Day participants

Place as many foam balls in a basket in a specified amount of time

Fishing Race

Pairs of parent and child run together and take turns fishing for a giant paper sea creature with a magnetic fishing pole.

Whirlwind

One team of four sets of four people have to sun several meters and turn around a cone, repeat this two more times one way and then back to tag in the next set of teammates.

Eel Race

First tie a handkerchief over your head, then pick up a live eel from a bucket, and dash with it the finish. Weird! It's the makings of a Japanese game show.

Wheel barrel and ball race

One team consists of five pairs. Race around several cones with the wheel barrel in hand without losing the balls.

Centipede Race

Teams of five people are tied together and run about 25m. The women's team came in DEAD LAST. This is one event in which Japanese truly kick butt. To our credit, we had absolutely no practice.

Tug of War

Major upset ... I still can't believe our guys lost this event. The men's team lost because time expired and if you notice closely, the first person's foot crossed the line. However, the women's team won!