2024.02.11
Azuro's coaches participated in the "34th International Snow Competition" in Uonuma City!
What is "Snow Battle"? It’s a “snowball fight”!
The concierges were looking forward to it before the season started. When I came to Echigo-Yuzawa for skiing, I saw the relevant activity introduction and found it very interesting. The word "international" was also written on it. As a Taiwanese working in Japan, I immediately What catches our attention is that snowball fights can actually last all day.
Before participating in the official competition, there is an "Eve Festival" the night before the competition. Each group can freely choose to participate. You can register to participate when registering for the competition in advance. What is the eve festival doing? It is a party where everyone eats and drinks together, introduces the groups, and communicates with each other. The organizer, the "Small Businessmen's Association", will prepare catered food, Japanese sake, beer, and various soft drinks for the participating groups to drink! There are 7 of us participating, and all members of Adoro are out. The cost per person is 2,000 yen. We will also provide you with a hot spring bathing ticket for Mianqing Hot Spring after the game the next day, which is very valuable💗
On the night of the Eve Festival , singers from Uonuma City were also invited to sing🎤. The songs they sang were full of "Japanese flavor", but also integrated with the lyrics of Yukiwasen. Two of them sang the lyrics repeatedly, which resonated with the audience. Frequent interactions, dancing together, spinning around and clapping together👏
"The land of snow, Uonuma City!"
another one
"Dudi diu, dodge, dodge, dudi, it's hit!"
Even Japanese friends said that it was very nostalgic to the Showa era party in Japan, but as one of the few foreigners, we also had a great time in this culturally different event!
The highlight of the day is the snow battle!
Start reporting at 8:00 in the morning.
We came to class earlier than we usually do. We took the expressway from Echigo-Yuzawa to Koide early in the morning. It took about an hour to drive. As soon as we arrived at the venue, we saw that the competition venue was divided into 4 preliminaries (AD). There is a stage and a food court surrounding the arena! The Ao Doulangs reported in excitedly and walked around the venue holding our team flags. The preliminaries were announced in advance. There will be at least 2 games in the preliminaries. The Ao Doulangs wanted to win but also wanted to participate. , along the way I saw the team we were playing against in the preliminaries, and She Niu’s brave enough to come up and say hello 🙋♀️, “Hi, we are Taiwanese, please be merciful!”
The Japanese team is very curious about foreigners coming to participate, and they will read our names again when they see them😆
"Azuzuro"/あうどうらぁん/
We did not use Japanese pronunciation, but registered directly with Chinese pronunciation ~
During the opening ceremony , we deliberately stood at the front and stood together with the Niigata TV program team. The opening ceremony was like participating in a long-lost school sports meeting in the morning. We first invited singers to lead everyone to sing to warm up. , hide, hide, hit...", and then continue to invite the senior officials of the International Snow Combat Tournament organizer to come out to deliver speeches, and the mayor of Uonuma City also came to deliver a speech, and the concocted beauties said, "You really want to sleep?" There are still some savages among them. What interesting information. For example, this year’s mild winter has insufficient snow and there is no snow compaction at the competition venue, so there are a lot of snow cave traps🙄
The preliminaries started. Before the game, we went to the bamboo chopsticks stall set up by Koide NPO . It was free. Everyone made their own "My Chopsticks"
The official game begins
A Japanese game, kind of like dodgeball, but with the added bonus of making snowballs and hitting!
A group of 5 people, 4 ashigaru (soldiers) and 1 general. Only the general wears a hat, snowshoes, and a traditional snow shovel to block snowball attacks.
When attacking an ashigaru, you cannot attack the face or head. When attacking a general, you cannot attack the face. Snowballs must be made into a ball before attacking.
The general competition rules are as follows:
The game lasts for 2 minutes. At the end of the game, the total score and number of eliminations of the two teams will be calculated.
A group of 5 people can be composed of boys and girls. Each boy will score 3 points, and each girl will score 5 points. If all the 5 people in the group are girls, the total score of the group will be 25 points (the highest score).
If a player is hit by a snowball, 1 point will be deducted. Once the player's points are deducted, the player will be eliminated.
If the general of the group is eliminated first, the game ends immediately and the attacking group wins.
The members of the Ao Doulang team are 1 boy and 4 girls, so our total score is 23 points!
It can be considered a team with a high total score from the beginning.
There are a total of 3 teams versus 2 games in the preliminaries, and the winning team can advance~
Tactics for Game 1: The boys look for opportunities at the beginning to rush out to attract hostile attacks, while the other girls follow up and attack the hostile ones! !
Game 2
Tactics: Defensive warfare, hide behind the wall and throw snowballs at the enemy, and wait for the enemy to attack due to time constraints! !
Ao Doulang's final record is: 1 win and 1 loss, almost promoted XD
For details, please see the short video edited by the editor below~~~
meal time
We didn’t make the cut, but we actually enjoyed the surrounding food stalls very happily. There were local food stores from Koide or Uonuma City that set up stalls, and there were also people from the youth team of the Koide Chamber of Commerce and Industry who opened their own stores selling Niigata real estate delicacies. , participating contestants can also eat all-you-can-eat Koshihikari rice from Uonuma for free. During the competition, we were actually thinking about the delicious food next to us~~~
For those of you who want to participate in the International Snow Combat Competition in Uonuma, Niigata:
1. If you are a baseball team, the ball you throw is really powerful and accurate, so it is very suitable to participate👍
2. Usually wear snow boots or snowboards and run more in the snow to practice running in the snow🏃
3. When taking Ao Doulang’s ski lessons, please practice your skills of pinching and throwing snowballs with the instructor❄️
4. Participate in the International Snow Competition, you can cosplay, and you may also win a cosplay award🥇
5. Don’t expect too much from the word “international”. The registration page is all in Japanese.
Visual inspection of the participating teams on site does not exceed 5 groups of foreigners (I think)
The official website of the 34th Uonuma International Snow Battle https://seinenbu.uonumakoide.com/yuki/index.html
Uonuma International Snow War Official Blog
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/snowball_fight_in_koide
If you are a skier or Aodou person who is interested in participating in 2025, please send a private message to Aodoulang’s official customer service.
I want to ask if we can form a team to help you sign up? (laughs😂
