Meanwhile, up at Amu Plaza, the local MBC broadcasting studio was running its semi-annual live broadcast of their "Tegetege High School" show. I hear this occasionally on the radio on Sundays. In part, it's a way for high school students to show off their talents in front of an audience, and it's also a way for the station to advertise some of their new upcoming shows. I forget what tegetege means. It's Kagoshima dialect for "silly" or "humorous", I think.
As per usual, the event is divided into two parts. The first is held on the promenade in front of the main department store, and consists of children's activities run by some of the school students. These included a small coffee kiosk (200 yen ($1.75 USD) for a 6 oz. cup of coffee), an art table for young kids, and hands-on displays of robotics kits.
Each year, the robots get a little more sophisticated. Here, we have a wireless RC soccer ball-kicker. Unfortunately, whenever someone tried to get it to kick the ball, it would just fall over.
This is a cleaner bot, which can put small objects into a tin box.
A can stacker.
And a tennis ball launcher.
The wall showing the studio personalities, the list of other guests appearing during the weekend, and the kids participating in the various events. One of the twitter hashtags is "kono rajio ga yabai." Traditionally, "yabai" means "dangerous," but lately has been used as a slang kind of form of "extreme" or "exciting." Therefore "This radio program is great."
I had to make a run up to the main post office nearby at noon on Saturday. At that point, one of the main local celebrities was warming up the audience, with a school girl MC trainee, prior to a group of three other girls showing off their skills at filleting fish.
The sign reads "The Hero is High School Student."
Most MCs I've seen are incapable of entertaining people without reading from a script.
After this, I had to go to the English school at the other end of the city for lessons, and I didn't get out at the end of the day until everything here was already finished for the night.
I got back to Amu Plaza at 3 PM on Sunday, in the middle of the rain. The rain did taper off a couple hours later, but it had a big impact in reducing the crowds at the robots and crafts tables. The main stage show in the middle of the afternoon consisted of kids singing on stage. They had presence, but still needed a LOT more practice. I wasn't really interested in recording anyone, because what I was hearing wasn't that great, and because of the copyright issues for the songs they were picking. But also, I later saw people closer to the stage holding up "no camera signs." Sigh. At least, no one accosted me about taking pictures...
There was a photo op point nearby for getting your picture taken with the MBC announcers.
An hour later, there was a different event that seemed to be an interview with this guy. I checked the schedule, and I don't know if the "Gorgeous" over his photo was supposed to be descriptive, or if that was his stage name.
I took a couple more photos before spotting the no cameras sign, and then I left to do a lot of shopping for the week. The rest of the evening was spent working on the computer.
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