文化祭、続き (ぶんかさい、つづき - bunkasai, tsuzuki) - Culture Festival, continued

Having enjoyed my other school's 文化祭 over the weekend, I thought I'd make a followup to the last Culture Festival post and share some of the photos with you. This one had a different focus with less emphasis on "indoorsy" cultural activities and cafes and more on hot food; a lot of the stalls braved the darkening skies, set up their outdoor griddles and got down to some hard-core food preparation. Despite the different take on things, it was no less fun this time around - in fact, their slogan for this year was "Create Fun". Did they manage to do it? See for yourself!

お金と銀行 (おかねとぎんこう - okane to ginkou) - Money and Banks

I hardly use cash in Australia, I'll admit - aside from small purchases, I tend to just pull out my credit card or pay on EFTPOS. In Japan, bank cards are strictly for withdrawing money and credit cards are generally reserved for big purchases at international chains and major department stores. As they keep telling me here, cash is king. I've witnessed people withdrawing what must be thousands of dollars at a time; even I find myself panicking now if my wallet is down to its last $100. They say money talks, so let's see what the 円 (えん - en - yen) has to say for itself.

～放題 (～ほうだい - ～houdai) - As much as you like!

Reaching into Japan's bag of surprises today produces a little piece of paper that says "放題". It's added to a verb (or occasionally a noun), making the meaning "all you can X" or "X as much as you like". I'm sure most people would think of Japan as a conservative culture; most of what you see is small, delicate servings of food and minimalistic traditions. More and more though, a buffet culture of "放題" seems to be catching on and becoming another facet of the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde nature of Japan. The next time you see a picture of a pretty girl in a 着物 (きもの - kimono) eating 寿司 (すし - sushi), bear in mind that it might be her 26th plate.

学校の生活その3：部活動 (がっこうのせいかつその３：ぶかつどう - gakkou no seikatsu sono san: bukatsudou) - School Lifestyle 3: Club activities

部活動, used interchangeably with 部活 (ぶかつ - bukatsu), are the "clubs" or "extracurricular" activities that Japan has developed a reputation for. 部活 are a massive part of school in Japan - the club you join has a huge impact on your time at school. It seems to have an even bigger impact on your time outside school though - depending on the individual school, most clubs officially run until 6pm every day (and unofficially, sometimes much longer). If that's not enough for you, there's Saturday training and morning practice in some cases as well - one student I spoke to gets up every morning at 5am for this! Bully for him, but I'm really not sure I could be that enthusiastic.