All of the sports and all of the prizes.

Well I just spent myself quite the busy weekend!

Saturday morning got started at a bright and early 8am when Yano san picked Samantha, Ken and I up from our apartments as we headed to a nearby park for the ASO Iizuka Hospital Sports Fun Day! At the park, there were a lot of tents set up around an inner ring or playing area that corresponded with each ward or section of the hospital. There were 20 different events to take place that day, ranging from running to 3 legged race to obstacle courses and big ball rolling. There was even a "get the bread off the string without using your hands" event! I picked two games to take part in that ended up being the same game twice without me realizing. My team of 5 players (the director of the hospital Tanaka incho ended up being one of the players too!) was to stand in a line and to link our feet together by tying them to two ropes on either side of us. We had to make our way like that as fast as we could to the finish. The first attempt just didn't work out. The team was uncoordinated to say the least and we dragged across the finish line at last place, yikes! The second time I pushed the team for "coordinated walking" instead. It worked out much better. :) I did manage to leave with bruises still though! For lunch we ordered in platter of things and ate buffet style, deeeeeelish. Then we played games with the big ball to amuse ourselves. We taught Yano san marco polo and we lifted two little Japanese girls on top of the ball. It was great fun. Oh! Also! The day began with a morning warm up - radio calistenics!! It was, as Samantha quite nicely put it, "the most surreal experience of my life". They play music over the radio and everyone does a series of warm ups/stretches together! It was AWESOME. I really wish we had this in Canada to start a workday.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_calisthenics
Here's a video of one I found on youtube. It's the same one that we did - sorry about the noise.

It's also a really good thing the day started at 9am. It was BLAZING hot by 11:45 and didn't slow down until we left around 3pm. Luckily I brought my spf 85 with me and huddled in safety under the shadow of the tent. Yano san wasn't so lucky...
It was also nice that everyone got a prize at the end of the event, even if you came in last place. I walked away with two small prizes as a "thanks for being here" gift. :)

Sunday, Yano san and I went to a race event nearby to my apparment. Horse racing or dog racing or even car racing isn't so popular here in Japan, but motorcycle racing is!! It was honestly too much fun. When we walked in, they handed us a slip of paper with a chance to win a prize on the inside - turns out I got lucky and won! I don't care that it was just a free pen, it was the coolest Fukuoka Hawks pen I've ever seen and I love it.
So Yano san and I picked some seats and watched the races and laughed at the names of their bikes; "The Destroyer", "Goldilocks", "Lucille", "M Y self" and my favourite, "Fats". There was even a "Lynda"....she didn't win though despite our yelling encouragement, sorry Mom.

There was also a restaurant on site that produced cheap and delicious local food. They specialized in a particular dish....called hormone. Essentially it's a mixture of organ meats cooked into a sauce served over rice. Yano san let me try some of his and it was great (I have yet to find Japanese food that I don't like). I ordered the daily special, so much food!! I left there with a major food baby, but happy none the less and with very little room to spare for an obanyaki desert. Also! Yano san was approached by a camera crew who asked if he could be filmed eating his meal to promote it's popularity in Iizuka! Amazing! Too bad I hadn't ordered it, it could have been my break into Japanese fame!

On our way out of the stadium, there was a small performance/game being played on stage. When we went to check it out, they were in the "choose members of the audience to participate" portion and yours truly got picked to participate (I'm sure it had nothing to do with me sticking out like a sore thumb, being the only blonde one and all..). The game ended up being a toy game where you stick small swords into a barrel and if the pirate hops out, you were deducted. So I won that too! As a prize, I was given a Iizuka auto hand towel and the autograph of Murata senshu, one of the motorcyclists of that day! Waddaaapp!

Tomorrow I start on a new ward - Orthopedics on Central 3rd floor, neighbor to S3F where I just was. I made sure that if anyone from S3F was to pass by that they'd wave and say hi. :)