School Festival (Day 2)

We went into the university for 9.00am, which was far too early, especially considering that they weren't ready for us. I'm not sure they even knew that we were coming. What's ironic is that they were really pinickity over the details of the things we needed, etc. In the end we managed to get clip-on mics even though we weren't expecting to. Bonus!

We set up our stall selling three sandwich types, pancakes, Victoria sponge, and Welsh rarebit. Three items for ￥200 and an extra ￥100 for a cup of tea: a pretty good deal I think, and it seemed that the customers did too. We were soon doing a roaring trade.

We were second on of the performances, following the school band who were pretty good. I think it went well. There were certainly a lot of people who had come to see us: our teachers, Kanashima-san and husband, my Japanese friends, some Taiwanese people that I recognise a twice as many that I didn't recognise. Possibly in all there were at least 40 people watching. We some good rounds of applause, especially after our rendition of "Sakura, Sakura". There were even people singing along.

Afterwards, I went a-wandering with Nozomi, Akiko, Hitomi and Humie over to the Welfare University (fukushi daigaku) as per yesterday. We watched a karaoke contest with acts ranging from good to bad as one would expect. The first song I heard, I knew and I can definately sing it better than the guy that was, even though I don't know the words. It was "Rewrite" by Asian Kung-Fu Generation and it's from one of my favourite anime: "Fullmetal Alchemist," so I enjoyed that.

I tried some different types of food, including some hashimaki and some Hawaiian food called rokomoko, which was basically a bowl of rice topped with a fried egg, a hamburger, and something akin to Worcestershire sauce. It was rather nice. I was slightly harassed into it, though. I was initially a bit thrown when they knew my name already. They then challenged me to eat it with giant arms gestures a loud English cries, which I of course had to accept.

We sat indoors so I could eat at a table whereupon another lady sitting there began to talk to me. She already knew who I was aswell, as supposedly some of our teachers had been to an English conversation class at her school and had told her about me. Not sure if I like being known or not.

We returned to the stall until 4pm whereupon it was time to pack up. We tidied up and put the tent down. We then had to spray water over because there were fireworks being let off right next to it. James, Ciarán and I watched one of the bands performing on the stage since we had nothing else to do. After a few songs they started talking about the "foreign people", which we picked up on before turning to us and asking whether we understood! Nice of them to care so much. They then proceeded to sing a song about "natto", the revolting Japanese fermented soybeans, which was hilarious since the chorus was simply this repeated over and over again.

We went for a wonder and ended up at the ￥100 shop, before heading back. We received a prize for having the second best stall of the day: ￥10,000 in gift tokens, which was nice. We didn't understand when they were calling for us so it took us a while to go up and accept our prize. Afterwards followed "Bingo de bingo" - also known as bingo! We each got two cards for ￥100 and played along, though it took a tediously long time since the "bingo master" kept repeating all the numbers that had already been called. I think he was just filling time.

To end the day, I went with Flick, Brendan and Izumi to the English Garden (of which Izumi is the head gardener) where we had a little illicit alcohol. We then watched the fireworks from the other side of the lake: a rather beautiful location for a good fireworks display. I nice way to end a long day, I think.