Sports Day for Claire-chan

On October 3rd, Claire's Yochien celebrated their Sports Day.  The second Monday of October is the National Sports Day.  In Japanese it is called Taiiku-no-hi.  It was established to commemorate the 1964 Olympic games in Tokyo and it is a day to foster healthy minds and bodies through physical activity.

Claire's event was held at the Kawashimo Elementary School.  We got there at 8:30 and it was from 9:00 - 12:00.  Unfortunately, it was raining so it was held indoors in the gymnasium, but it was very, very nice!  Mick's Saint of a secretary, Miss Mina-san, drove from her home an hour away to go to it with us, since Mick was out of town.  She would sit with the big kids and play with Gigi when I wanted to go get a picture of Claire or when it was my turn to participate in an event.

I ♥ Miss Mina-san! She even participated in the Grandparents' event!  

The entrance portion was very impressive!  You would have thought the drummers and cymbal crashers were a high school marching band, not kindergarteners.

The younger classes filed in after the drum march, lined up and sang some songs.

Claire's the cute little blonde on the right without a hat.  I brought the fedora, not the red play cap.

Claire didn't sing or dance much...well...really, if I'm to be truthful....not at all. 

She and her best bud, Ryu (pronounced Rye-oo), in front of her, are the youngest kids at the Yochien.  Ryu's Mom is Japanese, so I'm hypothesizing that he can understand a bit more than Claire and Claire hasn't caught on for lack of sheer repetition yet.  She has only been there a month!

She was happy when she was dancing with Sensei Ai 

or me (there were a few parent participation events). 

And I must say, that when I was out there dancing with her....it IS awfully overwhelming to be looking around, trying to follow, while listening to the Japanese music.  I'm very proud of my Claire Bear!

She was proud of marching around with Ryu though!

The best moment of the whole Sports Day (I'm probably a teense bit biased, but there was a collective "AHHHH!" from the crowd) was Ryu and Claire's "obstacle course" event.  The bigger kids' class had a pretty elaborate obstacle course and the bigger brothers and sisters a more complicated one still.  Claire and Ryu's event consisted of them running to the center of the gym and picking up a paper mache craft and then running to the finish line.  And while ALL of the rest of the kids were completely focused on trying to break the finish line tape first, our little Claire Bear, well....watch!

You're a SWEET little girl, Claire and SUCH a good friend!!!!!! (Oh and sorry about the frog in my throat!)

All in all, it was a super fun and very cultural day!  

Thank you Miss Mina-san for coming with us 

and thank you Kawashimo Yochien 

for such a wonderful production!!!!!!