Wine Festival

On September 19th, the Annual Kosaka Wine Festival was held in Chuo Park. The weather was a worry all day; there were a few moments of clear sky, but it was mostly cloudy. I was a bit surprised by the layout of the tents this year. Last year there was space for an extra 'guest' tent beside our own, so this year we all had to pack into the KIS tent. For the number of people we had, it really was crowded, but we had plenty of fun. I can easily say that we had more fun than any other tent in the festival. Inside our tent, we had a photo album full of pictures of KIS activities, a collection box for earthquake victims in Turkey, and we also set up the computer to show off our web page. Over the course of the day, we had a watermelon splitting competition; some JICA participants entered in the Karaoke and arm wrestling contests on the main stage. Back at the computer display, it wasn't only adults looking over the homepage, but several kids came around to have a look. The watermelon split was a big success, but I think people may have been a bit too excited: instead of just splitting the watermelon open, people seemed intent on smashing it to a pulp. After that, we were simply lounging around the tent singing and dancing. We even played hackey-sack at one point. Thanks to everyone's cooperation, we were able to rais 15,567YEN for the Turkish earthquake victims. In addition to this, KIS will be donating the profits from the Folklore concert on August 24th. The total will be divided in two, and equal sums (23,173YEN) will be given to the Red Cross funds for the earthquake victims in Taiwan and Turkey. A special thank you to everyone who helped.