Japan Three Day March

Higashimatsuyama is home to the biggest march in Japan. I couldn't find anything confirming this online but one of my teachers said that between 50,000-60,000 people participate every year. And this is in our own backyard! School was closed and all students and teachers as well as people who traveled from all over the world and Japan to participate walked anywhere from 1-3 days and 5-50km per day.

It was a neat experience seeing our little town get all dressed up for the event. The march started on Friday so school was canceled so we could all walk. I ended up walking with one of my English teachers and a couple other teachers from my school. They asked me a while ago how far I wanted to walk and I told them probably only 10km. My English teacher said that's all he wanted to do too but then started talking about how funny it would be to do the 20km route and have a car waiting halfway to take us back to the start. I totally thought he was kidding until we did just that. No joke! I don't even know why it was a big deal because the race is kind of based on an honor system. They give you a piece of paper and you get a sticker at the start, the midway point and the finish. There are no prizes for 1st and 2nd place etc. I guess what I'm saying is it was a very laid back event in that it really was centered on walking. It was not to benefit any event or organization (although it is an official event for some international walking association, but whatever...) And I'm really not sure why we couldn't just walk the 10km route but I had no idea how the whole thing worked and really, I'm just along for the ride.

So we stopped and got some lunch on the way home. And once I got back to the start I walked around because they had a lot of tents with food and goodies to buy but I got hounded by some 7th grade girls from another school that had an assignment to speak to a foreigner in English so I spent about 20 minutes answering questions and signing my name and taking pictures. I guess the word got around (and I was one of few foreigners that were present at the moment) because I ended up having to leave soon after that if only so I didn't have to answer the question "when's your birthday?" one more time. lol!

It was a very nice day and it was fun to see my students and teachers outside of school for sometime. I didn't take too many pictures but here's a couple:

I think it's funny that the name is actually in English （スリー　ダイ　マルチー or surii dai marchee) instead of Japanese but it's supposed to be a big international event so it makes sense. 

These are the flags representing the different prefectures of Japan.