The national obsession that is Undokai...

Undokai - or sports festival is a BIG deal in Japan, we are not talking a 50 meter dash and an egg and spoon race here, oh no, it is hours of practice, sweat and tears. And the strange thing is, most of the kids love it!

Daddy-ebi has to work one Saturday a month and unfortunately it fell on Ebi-kuns sports day, neither of them were happy - I should include myself in that! It meant I had to figure out the whole standing in the right place at the right time to get the right photos! Talk about stressful lol.

I did have a bit of a mommy fail, I checked that the camera battery was charged and ready to go but didn't notice that the memory card was almost full! Which meant I had to resort to my phone, not the best pictures ever!

There are 1400 kids in Ebi-kuns school and they split them into 5 teams. Ebi-kun was Yellow this time round. They have various games and races which can get them points for their team and this is the whole school together. They have to get the ball from one end to the other without it touching the floor. Ebi-kun isn't very tall so he's somewhere in the middle!

Can you spot Ebi-kun doing his dance (blue t-shirt), he has been getting up extra early every morning to practice!

This is the 6th graders, they practice like mad for the gymnastics display at the end. There was this big pyramid and 4 smaller ones. As the last girl was climbing to the top, the whole things started leaning to the left, there was a united gasp as EVERYONE held their breath. Then a united sigh of relief as it righted itself and the girl made it to the summit. 

This one was 8 kids wide, I think 5 deep and 8 high, it was impressive but my inner Brit was screaming 'Where is Health & Safety?' I'm not sure if it is better to be a bigger kid and stuck at the bottom with a chance to be crushed or a smaller kid with the chance of falling off the top! 

The final formation looked positively tame in comparison! Luckily it was a lot cooler than usual although I still managed to burn my neck. Ebi-kun had a great day and i think that is the main thing!