So Sunday was my Yosakoi performance and it was awesome (not to say that our dancing was awesome, I think slightly competent or bordering on mediocre would be a better phrase for our dancing). We did the dance in a parade form down a street and then a second time in front of the stage (where we messed up horribly, but we all had a good laugh about it). Then all the dance teams went into the middle to do a group dance 3 times. Half-way through the first time a guy pulled me up onto the stage to dance. It was really cool, because the people on the stage could see (and be seen) over all the people dancing. I would like to think that he picked me because of my amazing dancing prowess, but it was probably because I was the only gaijin in sight.

After the dancing people from my team were hanging out in a school gym nearby drinking tea and talking. It was the first time I had really gotten to know some of the people I had been dancing with for months (As shocking as this may sound, I find myself a little shy when surrounded by large groups of Japanese people who don't speak English). well they invited me to a wedding type celebration for a couple that was getting married later in the day. the couple arrived in a rickshaw and went up on the stage and threw Manju (red bean cakes) into the crowd for good luck. It was really fun but the little old ladies were rather violent and kept pushing people down to get at the cakes.


Gotta run now, but more on the wedding I attended later.