KTC School Festival, the Third

It's that time of year again!  Open Campuses, School Festivals, Safety Checks, and I work on three weekends during October.  Nearly had a 13 days in a row streak, but luckily didn't have to come in for the equipment check where they make sure you still have the same desk, drawers, cabinets, computer, and phone as before.

This past weekend I worked Saturday and Sunday (with Monday off) for the School Festival, which is kind of but not really working.  I just have to be on campus the entire time.  I also have to hang out in the tea room because I'm a part of the Ikebana club, amusing guests with my foreign-ness as I serve bitter green tea and red bean paste sweets.

Large tea bowl with not much tea

I chose poorly when we all grabbed our flowers wrapped in newspaper out of the flower bucket and I'm not all that pleased with my arrangement.  Last year's was a lot better, in my opinion.  Oh well.  Here is my flower arrangement:

Not the prettiest bunch of flowers

Of course, there's Taiko, dancing, and mochi making, and a cannon that puffs rice.  I wanted to get some footage of the rice-puffing cannon this year but that was not to be - it was a rather sporadic occurrence and I didn't have my camera when it was going.  I also forgot to bring my camera the first day, which was when the drummers performed, so sadly no pictures or video of the muscled Taiko musicians this year.  The students can also have fun by dressing up in "cosplay", or costume play, and walking around dressed as whatever they'd like to be dressed as.  Some of the older students wear the uniforms they no longer have to wear, one girl dressed up in a boy's uniform, and there were a few military-themed costumes, including Solid Snake from Metal Gear Solid (he walked around with a box and hid inside of it in innocuous places, jumping out at odd moments [Lee's note: you can actually do that in the game]) and this guy:

Army Dude

Every year there's a raffle put on by the alumni association.  If you purchase a 1000 yen book of tickets, you get five coupons worth 200 yen (think $2, actually closer to $2.30 now) apiece and a chance in the raffle.  That's right, you don't lose any money and get to be in the raffle.  What are the coupons good for?  Anything put on at either KTC or KIT's school festivals.  You can even buy extra coupon sheets and use them at the later festival if you want.  The student associations put on different events such as cork gun shooting for prizes and a haunted house and all the sports clubs run food stands, so there are many things to use your coupons on.  The pancakes with syrup or chocolate sauce are particularly good.  They usually sell like hotcakes (pun intended)!

Custard-filled fish cake.  Also comes in red bean paste.

I won something in the raffle this year!  I got some strong citrus juice that's supposed to be a good mixer.  We haven't tried it yet.  Maybe next year I'll get something bigger!

Supposedly this is great with Okinawan sake...never tried that either, to my knowledge