UNDOKAI

*(oon-dough-kah-ee)* Means "sports day." Saturday was sports day for all three of my schools, but me being one person, I could only attend one of them! I joined Kusakabe's sports day, and this year I was given much more to do and help with. I felt like a real part of the group this year; very accepted, possibly needed, and able to encourage and communicate!

I was on the yellow team, so I marched in with them for opening ceremony, stretching, and later became the one of the cheerleaders in impelling our team to victory! We were definitely the loudest team, and we WON sports day!! (all the games' points added together, and we had the most points!) I was jazzed! This year, I was invited to join the 3rd and 4th graders in their traditional Japanese dance. I had never practiced this dance before, I did it cold turkey, eyeing the little girl in front of me. the crown apparently thought it was hilarious that a [big] American girl was doing these Japanese moves, because there were certainly laughs and comments from the peanut gallery. :) I didn't mind though, because I enjoyed myself SO much, and I'm so thankful for my generous teachers who gave me this experience.

The Dance...

This pose struck the crowd as funny...

below, we are "fishing," pulling nets into our boats, like Peter and Andrew in the Bible.



This part was really hard, I had no idea what to do, I just followed as best I could!

The finish! I can't get quite as low as them!

Here we have the 5-6th grades doing their gymnastics routine. Pretty amazing.

Below, the surfing pose. :)

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Sunday, Sept. 20, I had my own UNDOKAI, and ran my first ever 1/2 marathon! (to be honest, it was only 18.4K, 1600m short of a 20K-half marathon). Nevertheless, I praise the Lord that he carried me through this rugged race through the mountains. Angela Rasmussen, a friend and teacher here, and I have been planning on running this race since June, so she joined me on today's trek. The whole race was on roads, but on steep and winding, narrow mountain roads. I plugged my earphones in, cranked the Christian music, and made a worship service of this marathon. The Lord's presence and His surrounding creation reminded me that HE was/is worthy of the best performance I can give. That motivated me up the last couple hills, and past a few more girls, whom I challenged and passed! Woo!

I came in 14th out of 243 women, and 192nd out of 1273 people overall. Angela also met her time goal and was very pleased with the race, despite the incredible challenge it turned out to be. She and I came back to my "flat" (my new word for my apt, because it sounds so much cooler!), we took showers, and then dined at a lovely little cafe in downtown Yamanashi Shi; http://www.ael-market.com/. Sadly, CAMERA wo WASURECHATA!! (I forgot my camera at lunch!) but our Yamanashi-peach-mint parfaits were the perfect icing on the cake of this day. YATTA!!! (WE DID IT!!)

Pre-race...

My new running skirt and gear. New gear gives new motivation. Yay!

Sweaty, sun-burned, and satisfied with a successful finish!!


Did you know that kiwi grows on vines, a lot like grapes?! I never would have known that, unless I lived here. Cool!

I wanted to pick it and eat it, but it wasn't mine, so I just touched it. LOL.

A pic of our parfaits at lunch, uploaded from the cafe's website. Delish!

Thanks Lord, for your gifts of health, running, and surrounding creation of people and nature!