Running some early miles.
We visited Ohmitsu Elementary School first today.
The Japanese are very humble. They bow a lot in such a dignified manner.
The children played a quiz game for us.
Asking us how old the school was? About their school song, what was their school emblem? (a cherry blossom) and what car manufacturers they’d done an excursion to recently? Not Nissan, not Toyota but Honda! Their English was great!
Suhashini has a great country guessing perfomance involving a dance, fans and hand movements. She is a hard act to follow.
Learning about geography and peace!
Overall everything was joful.
The girl second from the right had been to Grahak's hometown of Perth.
We then visited Wakaba Nursery. The young children treated our team with a wonderful marching and musical performance. Playing their own instruments and making some great formations. The children have been practicing for many weeks.
Playing their own instruments and making some great formations. The band leader was great as was the key board player who kept them all in rhythm.
This performance was overloaded with cuteness.
We met Masako, a friend of (Addwitiya) Roberta Flack who helped organize all the ceremonies for today. She also kindly treated the team to lunch.
This flower is called Spider Lilly. Some runners, who were part of the Korean Peace Run, recognized it from their time in Korea.
Lunch was at a vegan restaurant before making our way to Umemura Kindergarten.
Kindergartens are a new Peace Run place of attendance for many of us but the children of Japan are more than receptive to the peace message and teach us many things even at this early age.
The children welcomed us then performed a dance they had been practicing for a long time and the runners got to dance along with them. Pushpendra our Indian runner with his Bollywood skills was by far the best. The rest of us mortal runners and dancers just did our best!
Japan just hosted the world athletic championships and these kids are still in the spirit!
We spent time with the teachers and children and said goodbye to Masako, running the last miles into to town.
Checking out some shrines on the way.
Sudasa was eager to run some final miles.
Thanks Harashita for coordinating the last four days!
