Tsukuba-Dooba-Doo

During the 2nd week in August, Katie and I walked down to the front office to buy extra towels.  Kiwa, a staff member and one of our Japanese friends, asked us "Will you be helping with the Summer Festival?  Nobody has signed up to help yet.  Can you make some food?"

We had seen posters for this in the elevators.  However, being that it was over a month away, we didn't give it much thought.  I was unprepared for the question so my social awkwardness started to bubble up inside of me...I knew that at any second I was going to transform into a red-faced, sweaty-palmed, heat-radiating moron.  In an effort to curb said awkwardness, I quickly responded "Uh...ya, of course!"  Kiwa was so excited to hear the good news, she turned around and yelled "Yata!" (I did it!) to her coworkers. Dang it.

Several weeks later I got an email from Kiwa concerning the festival with the subject line "Regarding a stool test"?!  Uhhh....wait, wait, wait.  Surely this is some sort of lost-in-translation moment, right?  They just want to sample the food people are making, right!?  Well...no such luck...We were instructed to place a sample of our excrement in the office mailbox.  They wanted to check to make sure everyone preparing/selling food didn't have any parasites, ect. that could possibly get in the food and make other people sick. I waited until the last possible moment before going through my own personal hell to obtain my stool sample because "it" couldn't touch any water.  Without giving away any details: I had to get creative, it got weird, and at that point we were VERY committed to helping out. 


We were committed to helping, but got lazy about making our own food.  We decided to simply work the 'Les Madeleines de Fred' food booth.  Those things sold like hot cakes and in no time we were out.  Being that we were free of our duties, we used our complementary food coupons to get some dinner. 


After the pros were done with their performance, the announcer asked the audience if anybody wanted to climb the ladder themselves.  I looked around and told Katie "Where is Matt?  I bet he would want to..."  Right then, the crowd parted like the Red Sea and Matt emerged with his hand raised.  I knew it!  The announcer was shocked that somebody took her up on her offer and almost had a heart attack when Matt was only half way up.  I'm sure he would have tried some sort of trick at the top, but with the announcer lady yelling "I hope you have health insurance!" he pretty much just climbed up and right back down. 

The Tsukuba MMC were very enthusiastic and got the kids to come out and dance with them.  I think it was only the 2nd time this group had performed so they were a little disorganized, but it looked like a lot of fun for the kids.  After their performance, researchers from the National Institute of Materials Science (NIMS) drummed on some taiko drums.

It was especially fun to watch because these people were just your typical foreign researchers with their PhD in Chemical Engineering, Physics, ect.  You know, your real 'Average Joe' in this neck of the woods.  From what I understand, a drumming group got some volunteer NIMS employees together and taught them a song in one evening.  An added bonus for us was that some of our friends were in the performance.

The festival finale' was a bon odori dance.  Many people joined in two huge circles and danced around for about 30 minutes.  You can see that Katie joined in as well (at least long enough for me to take a picture).

So, the festival turned out to be a blast.  Which is pretty much how this whole thing had to end up.  After all, I feel like I lost part of my soul when I gave them my stool sample.

-Seth