ParaPara Girls

It's school festival season in Japan, and well, I love a festival!

Recently my school was a hive of activity while the students prepared for their cultural festival. In the afternoons, after class I would walk around the campus and see boards being cut, painted and nailed together. Other students would be practicing drumming on large tyres and others dancing. The build up and the anticipation was exciting.

On the first day of the festival, a Sunday, Wayne and I rose early to make it to the taiko performance in the opening ceremony. We weren't dissapointed, the students put on an impressive show.

The rest of the morning, we wandered around, watched different shows, sampled yummy fair food and checked out the classrooms. Each homeroom had put on a different display - anything from a dominos track, a home-made rollercoaster, robotics to art.

Wayne was also on display it seems as many genki students came to meet this mystery man by my side. Excited girls asked of me "Darling, darling?" My response of this is my husband was met with giggles. The giggles got more animated when Wayne would introduce himself in his deep voice.

One group of fun girls that I teach were decked out in colourful yukata and put on a ParaPara performance. To explain parapara it's a dance done with mostly hand movements, in a set pattern. They looked so cute and I was like a proud parent.

This is my first every video, so please excuse the quality, but you can get a bit of an idea the dance from it.

Happy viewing