新人戦 has left my nose runny

Those kanji characters denote yesterday's sports tournaments for all club sports in the area. I didn't go to school, but drove around and visited the table tennis, track and field, baseball, soccer, and kendo tournaments all over my area. I took lots of pictures but regretabbly I did not bring my camera to school today. Check back on this entry next week when I will have posted the pictures and written about them.

(updated 10/12/04)

Here are the pictures taken from 新人戦:

Table tennis tournament. The girls in red are the ones from Nakayama.


The biggest middle-school ping-pong player I've ever seen in my life! I'd put him at about 6'1" and at least 200lbs.


During long-jump warm-up.


This kid cleared 170cm. About 5'8". I don't think he's taller than 5'6".


Our girls got 1st and 2nd places for 110m hurdles. Of course, there were only 3 entrants, and the 3rd girl from Nawa couldn't even jump over the hurdles (she "hurdled" them one leg at a time).


Nakayama played against Nanbu junior high in baseball. Score at the top of 3rd: 5-0 Nanbu. Our kids were simply dominated by Matt's school. They had a man-sized pitcher and we only got on base once. They stole bases at every opportunity and our catcher could barely make the throw from home to 2nd. Even I could tell that it was a fiasco wating to happen. I left soon after.


Kendo tournament. This was taken during the boy's team matches.


Ken-girls. I guess. The girl on the left, 大西晶子(Akiko Onishi), a 2nd year, is the captain of the team and THE best girls' middle-school kendo player in Tottori. She got first place for the individual tournament on this day, small fry for a girl vying for the top spot at the Chugoku-area tournament.


These pictures were taken just seconds before Nakayama(red) scored one against Nawa. We won this game 1-0 but lost the previous one 0-1.



(end update)

I think I also caught a cold yesterday. My nose was and still is runny and I made full use of my ratty puke green sweater/nose rag yesterday. Not a good sign before the long weekend and the trip to Osaka. I got in touch with Carrie Walsh--the ex-Stanford women's soccer goalie, the Japanese major with a Fullbright to write about J-hop, my and Jung's temporary roommate in Mountain View for fall 2002, and the friend of that soccer chick in Narnia and later Terra--in Osaka. She's been here for 2 years, studying Japanese @ some university and teaching English. Though I never knew her all that well from the 2 weeks that we lived together, there was always something about her that made me instantly comfortable with her, both back in Mountain View and on the phone last night:

Carrie: I have to warn you, my apartment is small and kind of a mess...
Me: It's cool. You don't even have to clean it.
Carrie: Awesome. I don't think I will then.

It should be a fun weekend.