Taiiku-Taikai

This is a huge opening ceremony for the inter-high school sports competition that will happen over the next few weeks. Every school comes from all over Iwate-ken to have a big cheering competition. All the schools line up on the stands and each has their own special cheer and dance and song. It is incredibly noisy and this year it was fairly hot too (not as hot as last year though, when people were dropping like flies with the heat). In total there were over 14,000 people in the ground. At the end, there is a massive rush onto the field and lots of people run around throwing water and generally going a bit mad.