Sport Day in Maya's preschool

So there it came, the first Sport Day (or Undokai) in Maya's preschool. After a lot of effort put into the whole thing by the children, teachers and the parents there is some bad feeling left. Maybe we're not "japanese" enough to really get it.
Apparently undokais are around here for a while already and few people imagine a year without one. There are even ones for communities, usually happening at the school grounds, where everybody, from the youngest of the youngsters to the oldest grandpas and grandmas are welcomed and encouraged to participate.
Maybe, like our newly met Australian-American friend said, the bad feeling comes from the fact, that there is too much of being right than having fun (tadashiku vs tanoshiku).
Nevertheless, we went through it and we survived! (Although Kalina went down with a over 40C fever today.) And here are the pics:

Maya (red hat) running with a friend. She really doesn't get the "competition" yet and I am nowhere close to tell her about it. She waited for Sakura-chan few times on the way, and even came to the finish line first, stopped there and waved her hand telling Sakura-chan to come faster so they can cross together! I don't know if you can see that, but Maya is in no hurry during this race. And she does can run pretty fast, even uphill, when she has the "righ" motivation (i.e. mommy chasing after her).
Here's Maya and Hatchan (who was doing the grandma's part this day) carrying a huge persimmon.
Running again.

Walking in lines to the place. There was a lot of walking here and there, sitting, waiting for your turn. No surprise it took 4h to finish it! We were done by then, Kalina bored and hungry (she wanted to go there too, but she could not, and how to explain it to a 2years old in the mids of terrible twos?). Hope will be better next year.