Parents day

On Tuesday the elementary school had the students' parents over to observe classes. Most of the classes had new art put out to show them. Here are the 5th graders' still lifes.

There are by the 4th graders. I like how I can recognize some of the kids by their pictures.

These are by the 3rd graders. I don't know how they were made but the hair has yarn texture.

 That kid at the bottom is petting the heck outta those cats.

The second graders made these paper cup people and some drawings of rainbows.

The first graders had these crayon drawings.

 I'm no art critic but I'm pretty sure the top middle one of the octopus space laser battle is the best drawing ever?

 The kids and parents played ping-pong and badminton using non-regulation rackets.

 The ones who used plates and clipboards did pretty well. The ones using slippers or rice scoops, not so much.

After that, there was tug-of-war. The kids got pretty excited about dragging their parents or teachers around.

Winter meeting in Asahikawa

HAJET's winter meeting was in Asahikawa on Saturday. Usually it's further away so I guess I got lucky. I didn't need to book a hotel to go to this one. We welcomed the new president and there was some political drama.

But I was really there for the party in the evening.

 Being with a huge group of people who are all loud and rowdy is nice once in a while.

The elementary school has a Hinamatsuri display up.

Hinamatsuri (aka Doll's Day or Girl's Day) is on March 3rd. It's not a day off but the stores have pretty displays and special Japanese sweets, like these.

And here's a picture from Kat of her favourite pictionary drawing.

hungriest

Photos with friends

I got sent photos of the snow festivals from the people I was with.

Here's me with Bryan in Sapporo. He's fromm Vancouver; I met him during the classes before we left. I hadn't seen him since leaving Tokyo until the enkai on the weekend because he wasn't assigned to Hokkaido. He flew up from Tokushima to see the snow festival. Not much snow down there.

Here are photos from Shannon in Asahikawa. I went to karaoke with her, her husband, and Christoph.

 

 We met up with Michael at the festival.

For a school assignment, students were asked to write a few sentences about what they wanted to be in the future. I easily remembered what Saki wrote. It was very cute, if naive.

"I want to be a teacher.

Because I like children.

And, I like money.

Teachers can get a lot of money.

Money is amazing."

The other teacher in the class laughed and said "Can I say 'not necessarily'? I don't want to say that she's wrong."

The days have started to get noticeably longer. I could tell when I left work and the sun was still out. It hasn't snowed in a few days. There's still a lot of it around, but the sidewalks are starting to get slushy.

Asahikawa's snow sculptures

It's easy to find the main festival area. These little guys lead the way.

 Here are some Russian ones.

 This guy is cute.

 There's the snow stage. The top part is decorated with symbols of past snow festivals. I love that fat snowman under 2000.

 And here are all the snow sculptures, seen from a height.

Winnie the Pooh.

 Just a big hand. This is something I'd make.

 Anpanman doing the USA.

I always like sharks.

 The Ghibli automaton.

 A pretty accurate Olaf!

He's double-sided.

 An impressive Dragonball sculpture.

 A Smash Bros. slide.

Ridley was hiding in the back. He was just too big.

A big Asappy.

 Mario and triple D getting in on the USA dance as well.

 Big ol' hippo.

 Another bug fight.

And an ant in the back.

These two must be TV personalities or something.

Don't talk to me or my son ever again.

 Kirby standing on someone who doesn't appreciate it.

 A snow prayer room. There was a carpet inside for praying on.

You can see the stage better in these pictures. In the top left of the building there's an octopus dressed like a takoyaki chef, and on the right there's a dragon. The samurai guy in the middle is some city's mascot, and the thing with big lips at the bottom left is probably also a mascot of some sort.

 Asappy's face is down in the bottom right.

 There were several dance performances.

Lots and lots of tiny snowmen.

 A big wall with Asappy and Yukkirin.

 Here's my video of the light projection. (It's too big upload here.) I didn't record the fireworks, but they were pretty good. We were all craning our necks to see them above the stage.

After the projection, the stage stayed lit up. I managed to get another picture from the higher area.