Family Fun...

So today they had a big olympics day at the school where my host brother goes. He's 12 and has some developmental disabilities. He can't really talk, he can understand you and will nod in response, but he can't really speak. He also just functions on a slightly lower level than a normal 12 year old. He's a really sweet kid though and he's always running around smiling. He lives away from home at a school then comes home on the weekends and plays around the house and outside a lot.

So he lives at this big school with dorms and stuff, they have this crazy olympics obstacle course day at the school and we went to root Yumeto ( my host-bro) on. It was a scene that I never ever thought I'd ever see in Japan. It was just hundreds of people sitting around a big track in the middle of a field cheering on these kids. They divided them up by grade. The first few grades had relay races that looked a lot like what we imagine Japanese obstacle courses to look like, just this one is for kids so it's not suspended 80 feet in the air or anything.

There was first a section where they run across a balance beam, climb over a small wall, crawl through a little jungle of strings tied in various shapes and so on. Each student on the team had a block, when they got to the end they had to place their block on a stick and each student stacked theirs on the next. The last student finished the little totem pole of blocks and then used it to fight/knock down a giant picture of a monster. Crazy, right? This is for 7 year old disabled kids and I really wanted to jump in line and do it.

Eventually it all turned into a track and field thing with high jump, track relays and stuff. It was a really great thing to see so many supportive families and what not screaming for their kid. My host mom did a team one with my host brother where they put a ball at the end of a stick and the student would step on one end of the stick and launch the ball in the air and the parent would have to catch it in a basket. A catapult looking thing...

Afterwards we celebrated with Yumeto by bringing him out to a Kaitenzushi (the sushi-go-round) type of place. It was amazing. The seafood here is so good. The lack of anything to do in Kunebetsu and Hakodate is made up for by amazing seafood. I have another story involving Hikari at the olympics thing which I'll post later after dinner.

****a brief side note****
Hikari just scared me by sneaking into my room quietly with socks on her hands and then she screamed right behind me and rubbed her socks on my face... lovely.


Here's Yumeto getting embarrassed when we were cheering him on. He quickly covered his face with his hat.