NNCT Sports Festival 2009

The annual Sports Festival was held in my college about three weeks ago.

This year, they changed the name from 運動会 (Athletic Meet) to a new name - 体育祭 (Sports Festival). I don't see any significant difference from the event on previous year because basically, it is the same thing. There are however, a few additions to this year's edition.

The college's principal, Professor Takada Koji giving his speech before the sports meet was announced opened.

The team captain for each departments giving motivations to their respective teams.

Stretching session, led by the sports committee members before the first event started.

They have been doing these steps since they are in kindergarten.

One of the new additions to this year event was the panel design contest, in which each department is required to design a huge poster-like thing on a large plywood.

All the panels were covered in blue canvas and it was revealed to everyone just before the first event started. As expected, the one with the wittiest design was the Mechanical Engineering department. I am not being biased here just because I am from that department, but seeing the panels of other departments which to me are too common and similar to each other, I thought we would win this one.

Mechanical Engineering.

Electronic Control Engineering.

Materials Engineering.

Civil Engineering.

Electrical and Electronic System Engineering.

The main men behind the panel.

Fifteen lecturers from various departments including the principal were the judges for this contest.

Oh hi! I am not the judge, just a poser haha wtf.

Another new addition was the college anthem singing contest. I bet most of us have no idea at all of the lyrics for the anthem, nevertheless, we just shouted out loudly in the parts where we knew the wordings haha.

For example, there is a part where we would go "la... la... la..." hahaha.

Mechanical Engineering department students singing the school's anthem.

My classmate, Hiroki (standing in the centre) who was in full spirit haha.

Some went online with their mobile phones to look for the lyrics lol.

It was a cold morning, that is why Shimizu's arms disappeared.

A new way to show 'peace' sign perhaps?

This would be my final Sports Festival in my college days and I thought of participating in almost every events on that day. I believe once I start my university years in several months' time, these chances would be very rare.

First event was the human-toss. They call it 人送り (hito-okuri), which literally means human delivery haha.

One, two, three, jump!

Toss him like a caterpillar.

The game is simple, each team comprising of about thirty people will line-up in a straight line facing each other and holding their hands together, making a bridge-like pathway. Five students from each grades will run and hop onto the arms and the rest of the students will toss them until the other end of the line. Once that guy has arrived at the end of the line, he will jump down, run ten meters forward and look for candy hidden underneath the flour.

The catch here is that he can only use his face to look for the candy.

He can be the next candidate to be hantu Jepun haha.

Some people was happy to pose with these white faces ghosts lol.

Running back for the next guy to continue the rally.

Once he found his candy, he will run back to the starting point for the next guy to continue the rally.

Too bad that the first guy in our team had difficulties finding his candy which made us lost more than a few minutes. However, due to the never-say-die spirit, we never gave up and we still managed to avoid being the last team to finished the event.

The final outcome haha.

Next up was the piggyback-fight or 騎馬戦 (kibasen).

Three person will carry the forth person, who has a coloured ribbon tied on his/her forehead like a piggyback ride. The main objective is to pull the ribbon off their opponents. This game requires proper strategy, and teamwork because I see some teams just attacked their opponents blindly. In the end, they find themselves surrounded by opposing teams and that spell the end of their game.

Tying the green ribbon around the chin.

Getting ready for the whistle.

Another team of ours.

Sleeping referee caught red-handed haha.

Woah, white-faced ghost also playing this game haha.

Some teams were smart that they team-up with other teams to provide more attacking options and having more people to protect them when they were attacked. As for some who were even smarter, they just stood there without moving and just watched the rest battled out. When the time was gonna end, it was only then that they started to attack the remaining teams.

I made a team with another two tall guys in my class and that made our team almost unreachable by other teams. Just imagine three six-footer carrying another guy.

Before we lift our classmate, we are just as tall as the team next to us.

But once we stood up, just look at the difference; our horse is almost one feet taller.

Lets attack!

Look at our opponent, he had to look up (pun unintended) at our horse who was lifted so high haha.

This year, Mechanical Engineering (M) department decided to team-up with Electronic Control Engineering (EC) department during this game. In the end, it worked but too bad it only worked for EC team as they finished first. As for us, we only finished a lowly forth place.

But one thing we were satisfied was the Civil Engineering team, who has been the winner for this event for the past several years running, laid out a totally wrong strategy for their team this time and they messed everything up. Their sly strategy was beaten with smart minds of M and EC team haha.

"Okay, lets see where you gonna run"

Reinforcement team had arrived haha.

Almost down but still not giving up.

The third event was tug-of-war of 綱引き (tsuna-hiki).

The Civil Engineering team.

This event is a tad different from the local version of ours because in Japan, one team can have as much as twenty people. And they do not carry up the rope until the referee blows the whistle. It was indeed harder compared to what we used to play because we will feel an instant force on our muscles once the whistle is blown.

Another thing would be the fact that there is only one round for every match, and not the best-of-three like always. In addition, if they see no team winning after a determined period of time, say thirty seconds, they will either decide the winner by looking at the team which was winning.

Posing for the camera before the war began.

Giving all out, hoping for the best.

Bring it on!

Too bad we had this team as our opponent.

They celebrated their win.

But for us, everyone were worn out after that haha. But it was great to sleep on the field in a cooling autumn afternoon.

Our class was in the mood to give all out in this event. But too bad we meet the team of the meet way too early. It was the staff team and it was near impossible for any team to beat this team. I will be honest here, they are superior to us not due to their strength, but obviously because their total-combined weight is too much for any team to match them.

Take this simple calculation for example. An extra of five kilograms for each staff would make it a total of 100 kilograms for a team of twenty people. How to win against such team-lah, right?

Final match of the tug-of war event.

Araki Sensei mocking their opponent before the match haha.

Not surprising to see who was the winner.

The staff team of 2009.

It was during this event that I learned a lesson. I told another staff in a friendly way that it is not fair for them to play against the smaller sized students. One of the lecturers overheard that and this is what he said to me.

「いいんですよ。世の中でこんな事があるんだから」 ("It's alright. These things happens in the real world")

Hurry up! Pick up your eggs (pun unintended) as soon as possible haha.

The Sports Festival stopped for lunch break, and once everyone had recharged and refueled themselves, they prepared for the forth event - 玉入れ (tama-ire), or inserting bean bags into a net.

This is, by far the simplest event of the sports meet. Thirty people stand outside a circle, in which one hundred of bean bags are scattered inside the circle with a netball-like pole in the centre circle. The objective is to insert all the bean bags into the net in the fastest time possible, using whatever technique you can think of.

Me in action with my teammates.

Hiroki throwing the final bean bag to the centre circle.

I finished the job by dunking into the net.

We applied the same strategy from the previous year, where a couple of my tall friends and I would stand in the centre, while receiving all the bean bags from other teammates and inserting them into the net.

That cause enviousness from the other teams and this year some other team came out with a new technique - piggyback technique. I doubted if that method would work, but it did and that team finished first in this event. Again, we were disappointed for not winning this event despite having an advantage over other teams.

Latest method introduced this year.

The next event was one of the highlights of the sports meet. They call it 棒倒し (bou-taoshi) or pole-tumble.

One team will be divided into two smaller teams - the attackers and the defenders. The attackers will run half-round of the track and get into the defence area of the opposition team and try to knock down their opponent's pole and at the same time, grab the flag on top of the pole. As for the defenders, their job will be to protect their pole and the flag from the attackers of the opposing team.

All were ready for the war.

Attackers running towards the opponents territory.

Here they are.

It is now up to the strength of the defenders to defend their pole and flag.

No doubt this is the roughest event of the sports meet.

Some even hugged their opponents to make sure they cannot attack the pole haha.

It is left for the players to use whatever method to win this game - hand-fist, tackle, pushing, and shoving. This event can get really fierce and out-of-control as every year, there will be cases where people are left injured after the event. Among the accidents from the past couple of years were a case in which someone broke his tooth, while in another case, one player collapsed and remained on the ground because he dislocated his shoulder.

To avoid such incidents from happening again, they stationed more staff in the field to monitor the actions by the players on their opponents. Whistle will be blown immediately if their is any actions which is against the rule. Most people weren't that happy with such tight rule because the fiery nature of this game would be gone if the referees are too strict in their judgements.

Nevertheless, there was already an accident in the very first round when a defender put his arm around his opponent's neck and he collapsed almost immediately. I bet that must hurt a lot.

The guy who was injured after being chopped down by his opponent.

The final event was the rally, where each grades will have two representatives, plus a lecturer from that department. They would run half a lap each while passing baton to the next runner. The team caption would be the anchor and he would have to complete a full lap, which means he had to cover a total distance of 300 meters.

Mechanical Engineering team built up a healthy lead halfway through the run and managed to finished first in this event. Besides this event, we finished first in pole-tumble event as well. Coincidence or not, my team win every events in which I didn't participate in.

Kurashina was the first to cross the finishing tape, as we cheered for him.

This is the consequences when you win a race for your team haha.

In the final standings, our department finished a lowly third place despite winning two out of five events. That made us felt uneasy and there was a talk among us that there might be a conspiracy to make our team ended up in third place. Even in the panel design contest, we only finished forth. Guess which panel won the first place?

That yellow unicorn team =.=

Araki Sensei, holding up the trophy for winning the tug-of-war event, but the students booed him lol.

Sorry Araki Sensei, but that was not for you haha.

That made one of my classmate showed his dissatisfaction during the prize-giving ceremony by throwing the boxes of snacks high up to the sky when he walked back to the team, much to the surprise of everyone there, including the lecturers. We were discussing among ourselves, that we are so gonna have a hard time during our next exams haha.

Hopefully, shit will never happen for the second time.

Imitating Kondo's, our class teacher's body language haha!

Mechanical Engineering 5th Year 2009.

Winning and losing is part of the game and the most important thing is, we enjoyed ourselves throughout the day.

New Header For Autumn

By now, I bet you have seen more than enough of me posing in front of a concrete factory haha.

Yes, I am referring to the header I used previously which is no longer there. I have replaced it with a new one, since it is already autumn here in Japan. Just like my two previous attempts of making new header every time a new season begins, I will continue doing this for the third time. Prior to this, I have blogged about the making of the headers for spring and summer this year. Autumn, which means there will be only one thing which will come to our minds - autumn foliage.

Trains in small city like Nagaoka.

A 12-minute journey cost 190 yen.

In small stations, there are no ticket machines. The green box is for passengers to insert their used tickets.

I returned to the maple garden I went last year for this job. Momiji-en (もみじ園) is located just three stations away from Nagaoka station. It was a sunny Saturday and I thought it was the best opportunity for me to do some shooting sessions. After packing everything necessary, I headed to the train station and took the next train which was heading to Raikoji.

A short walk of about fifteen minute from Raikoji station will take you to the entrance of Momiji-en.

The entrance of Raikoji Station.

It is just a small town in the outskirt of Nagaoka city.

Be careful of the guy pointed above lol!

I took a different route this time by not walking up the slopes which are mainly used for people who go there with their own vehicle. Instead, I hiked up the pathway according to the signboard that would lead me to the entrance of Momiji-en.

The map for the convenience of the visitors.

A brief history about the garden.

Momiji-en used to be the cottage for the Kamiya (神谷)'s squire of Mr Takahashi around 1896 (Meiji 29th). It is not a huge place; it is only a small garden with only an area of 4,000 square-feet (about half the size of a soccer pitch).

The most common species in this garden is the Japanese maple which grows in the wild on the Pacific ocean side of the northern part of Japan all the way down until the Kyushu region. Back then, Mr Takahashi who owned a business in Kyoto, transplanted this high quality breed of maple trees to this garden all the way from Kyoto.

Wooden door entrance to the garden.

A building where they perform the traditional tea ceremony inside.

My timing of visiting the garden was a tad too early, because not all the leaves of the maple trees have turned into red, orange or yellow yet. Perhaps if I go there one or two weeks later, the view would be much more magnificent, just like what I saw last year.

Anyway, I wanted to snap pictures when they turn on the spot-lights once it gets dark later that day. So, I purposely timed my schedule so that I didn't go there too early, otherwise, I would have to wait too long until it gets dark. However, I later realised that it is better to take day light pictures in the afternoon when the sun shines brightly. The pictures I took last year were so much better because I went there in the morning back then.

Not the best, but still not bad I would say.

Having a picnic under these trees should be a wonderful experience.

Visitors who took the weekend holidays to visit the garden.

Remember the terms we learned in Geography last time? They called the Malaysian forest as malar hijau.

I wonder if they call this one malar merah haha.

These trees have lived for hundreds of years.

Fallen leaves in the small stream.

Taking pictures of the foliage alone isn't enough because there was an undone job still awaiting me. After surveying the area, I finally found the perfect spot for my shooting. The leaves in the stream that flows through one section of the garden provides me with a perfect background to balance up the pictures.

I actually had to wait for some time before this area was clear from the visitors. In fact, I offered to take pictures for one family and when I returned their camera to the lady, she said to me "Yeah, taking pictures for us saves more time so that you won't have to wait too long right?"

The ideal spot for my header.

Set up everything before I started snapping away.

I just smiled to her but what she said was actually true also-lah because they like took forever to snap a photo haha.

This time, I was equipped with proper equipments compared to the last time I made the summer's header. Back then, I used the back seat of my bicycle as a make-shift tripod, which somebody said that it was a sampat (stupid) idea haha. In the end, after a few attempts, I came out with a final shot in which I edited a little bit using Picasa.

Header for autumn 2009.

Besides just using the garden as my shooting location for my header, I planned to do some pictures snapping there as well. But luck was not on my side at all. Earlier that morning, I saw the battery was fully charged but I forgot that it has been a while since I last charged it. By the time I reached the garden, the battery started to weaken already sigh.

In the end, I hardly managed to take many pictures of the garden as I would have like, which explains the dullness of the foliage pictures in this entry. I planned to revisit the garden again within this week, but it is predicted that it will rain throughout the week sigh.

Soon, the sun slowly set behind the mountain.

The lights was turned on.

Photography enthusiastic began to look for the best shots from different angle.

The sky was still rather bright.

It is during time like this I wish I have a better camera.

On my way home, I made a huge mistake that led me cursing myself until I reached home. Here is the story. I was supposed to take the 5.35 p.m. train and I cannot miss that because I would have to wait for another two-long hours for the next one, even though the journey takes only twelve minutes. On my way to the train station, I saw a bus and found out that it was heading to Nagaoka station. Without confirming how long or how much it would cost, I jumped into the bus.

It was after a while that I realised that it would take me more than forty minutes and it cost 350 yen if I take the bus. Going back by train would cost as little as 190 yen and it takes only twelve minutes. FML. I quickly pressed the button and got down, ran to the station and managed to take the 5.35 p.m. train. Even though I would pay almost the same amount in the end, but I can save almost triple of the traveling time. Thank God that in the end, I still reached home in one piece haha.

Moral of the story, never hop onto a bus without asking first lol!