Remember back in the day during Elementary and Junior High school when we had Track and Field day? That one day doing events like the three-legged race, spoon & egg race, 100m dash, 400m relay, long jump, water balloon toss, sack race, and tug-o-war? winning badges regardless of what place you came in? In Japan there's a similar day called Undokai - or Sports Day - with a lot of the same events.. with a Japanese twist. Their society is big on cooperation over individualism so a lot of the events are geared towards that in mind. The Junior High school kids, for example, take the three-legged race and expand to an incredible twenty-three-legged race! They also have the skip rope event where not only one or two students jump simultaneously, but up to 20 students at a time! Another event called the Canoe race had one student, the "rower", balanced with a pole walk on the backs of their teammates across the field as they raced to give him a platform to walk on. It was crazy to see all the teamwork involved. For the elementary kids there was the 100m dash and the relay races, from the standard 400m baton relay to one where they run with a pole and flag. There are a lot of events that include the parents too such as the bean bag toss, the kids vs. parents baton relay and the tug o' war. Another difference with the Sports Day in Japan are the Yosakoi dance and athletic demonstrations where groups of kids make crazy poses like handstands and human pyramids. Sports Day is a pretty big deal here and the kids spend up to three weeks before the day practicing and rehearsing with their teams. I went and watched two Undokai's, an elementary school and a junior high school, but unfortunately it rained on both of the days. The kids were genki enough to ignore the rain though and still had a lot of fun. I enjoyed watching all the crazy events had fun at the (free) enkai's they held afterwards with all the teachers and parents!