Japan Exchange Day 9-10

I’ve decided to put the last two (or three in a way) days of the exchange into one entry because I’m not finding many chances to write in the blog due to all of my exam preparations.

The ninth morning of our trip was a very sad one as it would be, for most of us, the last time we would see our host families. To make matters worse it was a bloody freezing morning, probably the coldest of the entire week. We all felt pretty miserable as we waited for the bus to arrive (Japanese buses are on average less than two minutes late!!) and I was holding in the tears as Teiji gave one last moving speech to everyone. Regrettably, I sat on the wrong side of the bus to wave as we left the stop, but I’m fortunate enough to know that Emi will be visiting soon – the 1^st of January to be exact. A lot of the day was spent travelling by coach, train and the famous bullet train, which was an impressive piece of machinery. The acceleration was amazing, and I literally didn’t notice it start moving as I was lifting my suitcase into the storage unit and by the time I looked out of the window the world was speeding by. It was a rather posh way of travelling however, as we noticed the price on the ticket totalling to over a thousand pounds worth of yen.

A sad moment for all of us, despite the smiles

Our destination was Hiroshima, and after dropping off our bags at the hotel we would be staying at that night we went to a more Western-style restaurant to have lunch before catching a tram to the location of the dropping of the A-bomb. Money had been invested in the preservation of a building which was not quite wiped out by the bomb thanks to its position pretty much directly below the detonation of the bomb. There were many plaques scattered about the area explaining exactly what happened and the amount of tourists was staggering. We slowly made our way towards the museum, experiencing everything as we went. One particularly moving monument was one dedicated to a young girl who died from leukaemia from the radiation. She believed that if she could make a certain amount of paper cranes in time she would get better and survive, however she died very close to her target and this sad story has inspired everyone who comes to the place to leave a paper crane. Thousands and thousands have been left there, and the company who set it up weave them all together to make things like mosaics and coats. It was really an impressive sight. The museum dedicated to the dropping of the A-bomb was incredibly moving and really quite disturbing. Reading about all of the side-effects of the radiation and the aftermath of the bomb-dropping really made me quite angry. It’s hard to imagine how they could have even been stupid enough to drop one nuclear weapon, let alone another one when they knew what it could do.

Asse, Mipple... I see a pattern developing here

After that thoroughly sobering experience, we were given a change to raise our spirits by going into the city to look at all of the shops. After being abandoned almost instantly by Jamie and Michelle, Harri and I soon found ourselves losing the rest of the girls as well, deciding eventually to just walk up and down the main street. For some reason Harri was obsessing over finding a rubber duck for one of his friends but we never found one. After walking up and down about three times we bumped into Michelle and Jamie and made our way back to a crazy clothes shop we had visited earlier so that we could try some on. I quickly got bored and rather grumpy as the other two guys blew all of their money on some incredibly over-priced and pretty ugly looking trousers and a neck warmer for Jamie. I was completely fed up by the time half of us had met at the rendezvous point and had to wait in the freezing cold for the girls to come out of a shop which we have loads of here in Britain (Boots or something). After such an emotionally draining day I couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel and spent most of my night on the computers in the lobby speaking to my girlfriend on facebook as it was my first chance to do so throughout the whole week. Eventually we were told by Donna to go to bed so we did, but not before all gathering together in one of the rooms to all chat some more. I was the first to decide to go to sleep and made my way back to our room (mine and Harri’s) and dropped off to sleep.

The truly bizarre fashion of Japan

In the morning we set off on the bullet train back to Osaka, where we spent the day before boarding the plane back home. We spent a lot of the day at Osaka castle, which was also a museum dedicated to its history (unfortunately I can’t remember any of it.) The architecture of it was fascinating, with several tiers of big curving stone walls surrounded by a moat and the castle sitting at the very top. At the top we stopped to get a few photos and eat some food (most interestingly, some balls of batter which had octopus in the middle) before heading into the castle itself. We caught a lift directly the top to get a huge view of the entire city which was stunning. Learning-coach pointed out his primary school to us and we made our way through the castle looking at the different displays detailing the legacy of the castle and the process of it being rebuilt. Most memorably was a chance to wear some samurai-style armour and wield a sword, which was a good laugh.

Eventually we reached the bottom and made our way back to the city via train. It was much more different compared to where we had been living the whole week, crowded with people walking through the streets and high-rise buildings surrounding us. We eventually ended up in a building that literally had a Ferris wheel going straight through the middle of it. As you’ve probably guessed we got on it and got our second view of the city. It wasn’t quite as impressive as the view from the castle but it was nevertheless great fun and I got to witness a flock of birds flying around in what seemed to be almost a perfect sphere before landing on a roof and nose-diving off in perfect unison. After getting off the wheel it was almost dark and we went to what I think was the fourth restaurant of the day. Needless to say I was stuffed and unfortunately didn’t manage to finish my food. We made our way to the bus stop for the bus which would eventually take us to the airport. It was undeniably the saddest goodbye of the trip as Nobu and Taka had been with us almost the whole time we had been there. Kayleigh burst into tears as we waved goodbye out of the window of the coach and as we tried to console her, as if in a moment of hilarious fate one of us spotted a MASSIVE inflatable rubber duck in the middle of a courtyard. We didn’t even manage to get a decent photo of it because of the reflections on the window of the bus, but the irony of it had us in tears most of the journey to the airport.

One of my favourite photos from the trip

The flight back wasn’t really anything special, so I won’t bother boring you any further. All I can say is that that week was one of the best in my life and I really would love to go back to Japan at some point in my life. I would advise anyone reading to as well if they’re looking for somewhere to go and have a sizeable chunk of money. It wouldn’t be anything like a normal holiday, but it would definitely be worth it.

Japan Exchange Trip – Day 8

I realised that I haven’t really explained the cause of the Aberystwyth-Yosano Friendship Association in any of my entries so I guess now is as good a time as any. The association was started by a man named Frank Evans, who served in the Second World War. After being sent to China to help fight for the allied forces, the soldiers were overthrown in a matter of two weeks, most of them becoming POWs. The men were left idle for a year in China with nothing to do, and eventually Japan decided that they would import some of them to do manual labour. Frank Evans was one of the men picked for the job and was taken to Oeyama POW camp to work in the nearby nickel mine and smelting factories. After the dropping of the atomic bombs the prisoners were released immediately as the Japanese surrendered. As you can imagine, Frank Evans had reasons to be angry at the Japanese, however after returning home this hatred began to lessen and after meeting a Japanese tourist who worked incredibly hard to help him locate the area the camp was located with her husband, he decided that he would set up a peace promoting scheme between Aberystwyth and Yosano. This is obviously a very brief summary of Frank Evans’ story, and it is possible to find more information online.

Unfortunately every entry from day 8 onwards has to be done in hindsight (hence why this is being posted a bit late), mainly because every day was so packed that I was too tired by then to stay up for an extra hour or two to type up the events of the day. Hopefully I should be able to remember most of the things we did in enough detail to write about them. There was quite a heavy mood over most of our heads, mainly because of a mix between the dreary weather and some small tensions in the group. Unfortunately, it was probably the worst day to have bad weather, for reasons I’ll explain later in the post. We started off the day by visiting a silk-making factory(?) as we were ahead of schedule. The man inside demonstrated a silk-making machine which was impressively complex and noisy. It was pretty cool being able to see how it was made and I felt quite posh being surrounded by so many silk products. At the back of the factory/shop/thing was a small museum dedicated to the Silk Road, which gave information about all of the main different cities along the road, including lots of different ancient bits-and-bobs. We had the opportunity to buy some silk gifts at a 50% discount before we set off for the nickel smelting factory.

The view into the smelter... It was quite frightening!

The factory was another impressive location, and after a cup of green tea and a short video which gave the fundamental information about the factory we hopped in a small van and were given a small tour of the whole facility. The amount of money spent on transporting and smelting the ore was ridiculous, costing millions every day. I had the guts to ask roughly how much profit was made but the man just said some long winded response which was somehow compressed by the translator into ‘It’s a secret.’ The inside of the factory was really hot and stuffy and consisted of a massive warehouse type building with several long cylindrical rotational devises running along the length of it. The basic process was that the ore is run through the rotating tubes which are tilted at a really small angle. After reaching the end of the cylinders (which are obviously really, really hot) it comes out into a stream of water and cooled down. This is obviously a very simple explanation but I don’t know it in much more detail (sorry!) We got to all of this in action, as well as being able to look inside the main smelting thing, although we had to look through a darkened pane of glass otherwise the intense light could have damaged our eyes.

After finishing our tour around the factory we set off for Amanohashidate, which is apparently one of the three most beautiful places in Japan, but unfortunately as I said earlier the weather wasn’t great for it, which was a shame. Basically, it’s a thin strip of land that crosses the water across a large alcove-type body of water. People go up on a mountain opposite the strip and the idea is to look at it upside-down from the top of the mountain, making it look like a staircase to heaven. It was undeniably very beautiful, although I couldn’t quite see the staircase effect. We stopped for a drink in the café before having a quick browse in through the shop and a few games of air hockey before making our way back down off the mountain of some ski-lift type chairs, which were great fun!

Shame you can't see it from my point of view...

 

Oh wait, you can!

The last activity of the day was a visit to the local Iaido club. Iaido is the Japanese art of drawing the sword. I was really excited to get learning on how to cut things up, which unfortunately we never got to do. However, we did get to watch the members of the group cut stuff up, including some really thick bamboo shoots and thick rolls of this material stuff. The head of the club also showed off some of his karate skills and we were also honoured to witness the very personal activity of maintaining the sword (the sword is believed to be the spirit in Iaido so we’re not strictly speaking supposed to see it being maintained.) We all got to hold one of the men’s Katanas which, not to blow my own horn or anything, made me look really badass. We also got to give shuriken throwing a go, although it was pretty difficult to get it to stick in the target and Michelle managed to completely miss the target altogether and get it stuck in the wall which is admittedly better than anything I managed.

Born a badass..

That night was pretty emotional as it was the last night we would be spending with our host families. We went to a sushi restaurant (which was an interesting experience as I’ve never eaten sushi before) and I paid for pudding as a final ‘thank you’ present. As I was packing my bags, Emi’s mother came in holding some pretty big presents. There were loads of different gifts and I felt terrible that I hadn’t bought them anything in return other than pudding, although I had brought them all presents with me at the beginning of the trip. I was surprised to find that they had bought me a summer kimono and it sent me over the edge as I (rather embarrassingly) started crying a bit and giving them hugs. Emi and I stayed up until about two in the morning watching TV and doing work again until I finally decided I was tired enough to go to sleep.

Japan Exchange Trip – Day 7

I had another really great day today! Again, we received loads of presents – they seem to be getting more and more every day. We visited the Yosano town hall to meet with the mayor of Yosano – Ms Atsumi Ota, who was really nice although quite shy. It’s amazing how many things they have scattered about Yosano which are from Wales, from paintings to silver plates; it genuinely feels like there’s a piece of our country over here. Before meeting the mayor we all individually gave a speech to the people working at the town hall, with Teiji translating. The mayor gave us lots of presents including a map of the area and a small silk pocket-like thing which is used to hold packets of tissue. We also had a cup of green tea (the first of what I’m considering to be technically five different portions of tea today) and took some group photos with the mayor. I find myself compelled to also mention that we are now famous in the town of Yosano! It’s official! That’s right, we all got a spot in the town’s newspaper, there was a picture of us all walking down the street in our kimonos holding our umbrellas, I was pretty happy about that!

Hanging out with the Mayor because we're royalty in Japan

The next step of the trip was Migochi Elementary School where we bore witness to some of the smallest human beings I have ever seen. But that wasn’t until after spending some time in the head’s office receiving another gift (this time a post card and a small jingly trinket type thing) as well as drinking another cup of green tea (that’s two of five). The first event of our visit to the school was to have a go at some calligraphy, writing the number one in Kanji. I’ll admit it wasn’t massively exciting but it was fun nonetheless and it was pretty fun watching Jamie struggle at even the most basic brush technique. In the next class we visited we got to learn about making some simple Japanese games, one being a paper sumo game and the other being a bun bun goma, which is hard to explain – it’s basically a spinning cardboard circle on a piece of string that you have to pull. Two of the kids on my table were really confident and energetic and it was really funny trying to speak English with them. Next we went into another classroom to have some dinner and we were met by one of the cutest/funniest things I have ever seen. Half of the class were in little costumes, with masks aprons and hats and were dishing out food from a mini canteen like thing at the front of the room. Needless to say I was in tears, it was amazing! The food was better than it was in the last school, however maybe we had just adapted more to Japanese food by then? I dunno, but after finishing we had to wave goodbye to the children and head off to our next destination – Kayadani High School (which I’d already visited twice with Emi earlier in the week).

Ahahahahahaha!

Our first lesson was PE, and we basically just played badminton for about 15 minutes. Harri and I decided to teach the two guys we were playing against the running game and by the end I can safely say I was completely out of breath (I really need to get some exercise). Next we went to an English class where there were various different activities to do on each table. The first table I visited had a Japanese chess set sitting on it and I tried my hardest to something worthwhile but unsurprisingly I sucked and ended up getting destroyed. The next table was entirely girls surrounded by loads of colourful pieces of origami paper. They taught me how to make a boat which could magically change its shape without having to unfold the whole thing and refold as well as a paper balloon which you literally blow up with your mouth. Unfortunately there wasn’t enough time to visit every table and as we were leaving the girls decided to dump most of their excess origami structures in my arms, so my bag is literally swamped with them at the moment. Next we returned to the Head’s office for another mini tea ceremony (three of five) in which I got perhaps a bit too angry at Coral for not finishing her little cake thing because apparently it’s very disrespectful to do so.

The last event of the day was visiting the different after-school clubs available to the pupils. The first stop was the gym where we got to witness the third strongest weight-lifter in Japan lift 150kg before Jamie gave lifting 50kg a shot. He managed it but was swiftly beaten by a nearby girl who was also apparently a medal-winner. Club two of three was advanced calligraphy – and it was definitely advanced in comparison to the lesson earlier. I chose to do the ‘thank you’ sign with the intention of giving it to my host family that night for their generosity and I think I did pretty well, despite the fact that I took much longer than anyone else and by the end they were all just sitting there watching me in silence which was pretty unpleasant. The last club we visited was the school chorus, which again was one of the best in Japan. And they definitely deserved it, it was absolutely astounding! The teacher said that they were still practising so it wouldn’t be that great and I’m pretty sure all of our minds were blown, it was that good.

LAD!

After school I went back to Ayako’s for dinner which I think Jamie was pleased about. The starter for the night was raw crab, which we got to pull apart ourselves to get out all the meat. I also took the opportunity to try out crab brains which, despite Ayako’s protests, I found tastier than the crab meat itself. Jamie even had the guts to eat some of the crab’s lung but I wasn’t quite sure so I left it. The night was great fun although I felt a bit antisocial seeing as me and Jamie spent most of the night talking to each other instead of trying to make conversation with the hosts. Emi and her mother arrived shortly after her after-school club ended and we had the main course which was fried veg and meat and a final course where the remains were stirred into some of the most delicious soup I have ever tasted. Ayako’s brother Genta showed us his clapping which he is attempting to break the world record of. It was pretty crazy how fast he could clap but he showed us a video of the worlds fastest which was pretty discouraging but hilarious at the same time. He also showed us his juggling which I couldn’t resist joining in and I tried to encourage Jamie and Ayako to have a go too but Jamie wouldn’t even try and Ayako ended up throwing them all over the place which was fun. Unfortunately it all eventually came to an end and we returned home which is where I am right now. I need some rest now because I’m getting progressively more and more tired.

Oyasumi!

Ayako and her pet crab..... Which we ate

Japan Exchange Trip – Day 6

My feet are killing me!! We’ve had a really busy day today, but it was really good fun and a good experience too. Jamie came over in the morning as I was finishing my breakfast of roly-poly along with some rice which tasted suspiciously like the raw egg I ate last night (hmmm), although it was really good. As we waited for her mother to get ready, Emi showed us how to make a paper crane which went pretty badly (excluding hers) and afterwards we set off for the Frank Evans Memorial for Peace and Friendship. It wasn’t very far away and faced the old abandoned Nickel mine which he was forced to work in during the Second World War. The president of the Yosano-Aberystwyth friendship association read out a passage from the book Frank Evans wrote about being a POW, and as he did so I spotted a really big dragonfly flying around the monument. It sounds pretty cheesy, I know, but it had a strangely relaxing and appropriate atmosphere.

The peaceful spot of the Frank Evans Memorial for Peace and Friendship

The next stop was the town community hall to get ready for the Chirimen-street festival. This meant donning our Kimonos, Tabi and Zori and after taking a seemingly endless amount of photos and waiting for everyone to be ready; we marched out into the street. The shoes were pretty uncomfortable and were too small for pretty much all of us (they don’t even have Jamie’s shoe size in Japan), but all of us persevered for the sake of tradition and immersion. We all took part in a Parade through town, with people dressed in very extravagant costumes, spinning plates on sticks and playing a beat on the drum. Unfortunately the weather was considerably foul throughout and we had to have our umbrellas up most of the time. After the parade we walked back up the street (for the third time – ouch!) and up a large set of steps up to a temple to take part in a tea ceremony. It was a very simple process – we were given a cup of powdered green tea which we turned two and a half times before drinking and also a small cake. I later found out from Ayako (one of the hosts) that she had learned to perform tea ceremonies and in real ones you have to sit on your knees for five hours, something I struggle to hold for five minutes, if that.

We all had some free time with our host families before the kami-shibai of the night. My family and I drove to a supermarket car park to pick up Emi’s two friends – Rem and Yuka and we headed over to an aquarium in the neighbouring town. There were loads of exotic fish and we even got the see some seals doing tricks such as catching hoops thrown at them by the trainers. There was also fish food available which cost one hundred yen. We were all trying to see if we could coax a fish close enough to touch it and I was eventually nibbled on by one, which despite my expectations actually hurt a bit. After the aquarium we went to Mipple (the big multi-story shopping centre I went to earlier on in the week) to play in the arcade. Emi managed to win two small toys from the grabby machines and I played one of the shooting games with Yuka. I lasted the longest, although I died not long after she did. It was all good fun, albeit very tiring and my feet and shins still hurt from the festival.

One of these buggers bit me!

After dropping Rem and Yuka off, we headed back home and had some dinner which consisted of battered shrimp, cuttle fish and oyster as well as some strange (but tasty) battered burger-like things. The last event of the day was the “Kami-shibai” about the life of Frank Evans, which is basically a slideshow of drawings that are projected onto a whiteboard with a woman providing a voice-over. It was really quite eye-opening and a good reminder of why exactly we’re actually here in Japan, despite what some of us might think.

After we got home I had my second bath of the stay (aside from showering daily of course), and I can safely say it was the hottest bath I have ever had. I could only last a couple minutes despite it being incredibly relaxing, but as I stepped out into the changing room my body was literally steaming because of the heat. Mrs Kanaya offered me some much-needed cold water along with a box of doughnuts which were well appreciated. Tomorrow we’re having dinner with Ayako and Jamie at her house which should be fun! Ayako speaks really good English, pretty much as good as any of us, which is really impressive. We’ve all started getting into the habit of speaking broken English, even when talking to each other which is pretty funny when it happens.

I am very very tired now so I’m offffffff to bed! G’night!

Lol, Mipple

Japan Exchange Trip – Day 5

Today I spent the day with my host family (the Kanaya family), and it was really good! For breakfast we had very thick pancakes with honey and a cube of butter on top, which was really tasty. We spent the day in Fukuchiyama city, where we first visited a Japanese castle/museum which was situated on a hill towering above the rest of the city; it really was an amazing sight. The museum gave information about the Samurai of ancient Japan, including recovered Katana blades and armour as well as fractured ceramics and ancient coins. There were also tapestries which showed images of the Samurai hunting and battling. The view from the top of the castle was stunning, with windows facing in every direction offering the chance to look across the whole city. As we were leaving the castle I was given yet another gift from the woman behind the front desk, this time in the form of some postcards with pictures of the castle in different seasons on them. The people here are so generous!

Emi and I at the foot of Fukuchiyama Castle

After visiting the castle we went to a local market. I’ve been to quite a few markets and I’ve never seen one as lively as this – there were so many people there, and loads of the people selling the food were shouting out to passers-by. It was really good experience, and Emi’s parents bought me lots of different food to try, including fish-on-a-stick, soup and noodles and some kind of battered meat with sauce on top – it was all really delicious.

After this we visited loads of different supermarkets and shops and they kept insisting on buying things for me, refusing when I said I would pay them back when I exchange my money (I still haven’t had the opportunity to swap it yet). We mainly went to the one-hundred yen sections of the super-market, which is basically the Japanese equivalent of Poundland although it does have some nice things there. We also visited an old train station which had a very old Japanese train inside, although I unfortunately didn’t understand a word the guide was saying. On the way home we stopped at a small roadside restaurant and I had a crepe with fruit, cream, ice-cream and chocolate sauce which was heaven in my mouth. The owner of the restaurant was really interesting – she had a really big book collection lining the walls of the restaurant, and also showed us her garden which was really nice. It also turned out her husband paints wall-hangings which she showed us which were really impressive. As we were leaving she gave me, yup you guessed it, a present. This time it was two pieces of card which look like price tags, with Haiku poems written in Japanese on them, which I will be putting on my Kimono tomorrow during the festival.

Emi, Rem and Yuka

Tonight we ate dinner in Emi’s room, because she had some friends over – Rem Ikemoto and Yuka Arakawa (aka Ega, after a comedian she likes). They brought some sweets with them, which consisted of some hard crisp-like things with what I’m assuming were seaweed pieces on top and a packet of small biscuits made from powdered green tea which although sounding quite strange tasted really nice. After that we had dinner, and I proceeded to eat my first raw egg – yes, raw egg. We each broke an egg into a small bowl in front of us then used chopsticks to dip a mixture of beef, noodles and vegetables into it before eating. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be, in fact it was quite nice but after one and a half eggs my stomach couldn’t take it anymore and I gave up. After dinner Rem showed me and Emi how to make a frog with origami which you could press down and it would hop. Mine didn’t work very well but considering it was my first time trying origami it was pretty good! Afterwards we played a Mario game on the Wii before Emi’s friends had to leave.

Raw egg and beef.. Yum yum!

Tomorrow we are visiting the Frank Evans memorial for peace and friendship then going to the Chirimen-street festival in Kimonos, which should be fun! I’m off to bed now though because I have to get up at seven.

Arigato gozaimasu!

Sayonara!

Japanese Exchange Trip – Day 4

Today we were very busy learning different crafts and arts, as well as anticipating the upcoming welcome reception. Firstly we visited Tumulus Park, a place where six tombs were found after an earthquake around fifty years ago. When we arrived we were taken into a room where we learned to make a magatama which is a rock traditionally carved into a shape similar to the letter ‘C’. People think this is because it is the shape of a foetus, but it’s not certain. After I tried and pretty much failed to replicate a magatama (which I got to keep), we went into the park to look at the tombs. We saw one real stone coffin which contained the weapons that were buried in a separate compartment of the coffin, along with two stone replicas. It is believed that ancient Japanese kings were buried in the coffins although it is again uncertain.

'Hurin', the Japanese 'Flinn'

After Tumulus Park, we went to a nearby house to try out T-shirt pattern-dyeing. We were met by a rugged artsy-looking man who handed us some ready-made cards with our names written in Kanji (one of the three different writing types in Japan). My name is made up of three sounds in Japan – ‘hu’ ‘ri’ and ‘n’, with a letter signifying each sound. The three letters in my name translate to ‘Wealth’ (hu) ‘Great’ (ri) and ‘Woods’ (n). We then had to to cut out the letters using Stanley knives, a process which I was incredibly slow at. After cutting our names out, he showed us the technique of dyeing the t-shirts we were given and then we proceeded to dye our own name. I was again very slow at this (making things has never been a strong point with me) and I finished last.

The next stop was the local Kuydo club. Kuydo is the art of Japanese Archery, and is the oldest known martial art. We learnt about the difference between jitsu and do, with things such as ju-jitsu and kuy-jitsu being the technique and judo and kuydo being the more spiritual aspect. The process of kuydo was very complicated, consisting of six stages before actually firing the bow. Needless to say it was very difficult, although I eventually got better, hitting the target a few times until I eventually started hitting my arm with the string which hurt a lot and bruised my arm. After that I got a bit paranoid (this was after hitting my arm about six times) and kept missing from then on. The head of the dojo seemed like a pretty serious guy and kept telling me over and over to draw the bow parallel to my mouth which was a lot harder than he made it seem. I even caught my ear in the string once, which left a ringing sound for about five seconds. The head was apparently a very talented man, knowing  such things as carpentry and cooking. The latter he proved to us by making us some wisdom cakes (apparently granting wisdom) which we ate in a break from archery. The majority of us didn’t eat it; however I personally found it pretty delicious. It consisted of a rice cake and crushed soy beans, and really made me wonder how the Japanese manage to make such sweet tasting food while still keeping it pretty healthy.

Like a Boss!

After Kuydo we were taken home, although I was dropped off at Emi’s school again, and she took me inside to meet some more of her friends. One boy called Uchiwa, who I also met yesterday was really friendly and was rushing around the room desperately trying to find something to give as a gift. Eventually he found a spare fan lying around which has proved to be pretty much invaluable – Japan is so hot! On our way out of the school I was stopped by another boy who gave me a sweet which changes colour in your mouth. I can’t believe how generous everyone is here – it really makes me feel guilty that the Japanese students were essentially ignored by anyone who didn’t know them when they visited Aberystwyth, whereas everyone here is saying hi and giving me small presents.

The last event of the day was the welcoming ceremony, which I was feeling a bit nervous about because I had to read out a speech in front of everyone. An exchange student from last year, Kyozo, was there and it was a good chance to see him again. It was also a good chance to try loads of different Japanese food, as there was an open buffet although I always kept a failsafe supply of fried chicken on my plate just in case. I finally got to try sushi, which I can now say is really strong! I put way too much on my plate by accident and eventually had to say I was full simply because it was too strong for me.

The speech went well, and afterwards we all had to sing the Welsh national anthem (something I wasn’t aware of until we were actually stood in front of everyone). The look on Donna’s face as most of us told her we didn’t know the words was priceless. Luckily Coral had written the lyrics down on a sheet of paper which he held in front of us as we sang completely out of tune and out of time – good fun!

When we got home I decided I would help Emi with her maths homework on vectors – which I soon found was almost impossible because the only things which weren’t in Japanese were the numbers and the points. We eventually powered through though and I pretty much got the jist of most questions, although she probably would have finished faster without me despite saying she didn’t know how to do it.

Me and my host family, what an awesome bunch!

Tomorrow I’m spending the day with my host family, so it will hopefully be a good chance to get to know them more. I don’t have to get up until nine, which is great compared to the half six wake-up call this morning – which is why I’m incredibly tired and need to get to sleep

Goodnight!

Japanese Exchange Trip – Day 3

Konnichiwa! The house I’m staying in is very lovely. It’s not the most modern but the Kanaya family are so welcoming and the house is very traditional so I have nothing to complain about. The language barrier admittedly makes it a bit more difficult to communicate with them; however Emi is good enough at English to give rough translations. I got to see the view from my bedroom window this morning across the surrounding rice fields, which was very beautiful. The weather is also very good; it was about 25-27 degrees Celsius today.

Today we got to visit Kaya Nursery and Kaya Junior High School, both of which were excellent experiences. First we visited the Nursery, where we got to play with the kids in the playground (who were obviously very shy at first, but were soon enough playing shadow-tag with us) and then we were taken inside to experience one of the daily lessons. It was instantly clear that the Japanese education system is completely different to the UKs – these children were learning so much! In just one lesson we learnt to count to ten in English (nothing new there), Japanese and even Japanese sign language! Bearing in mind this is being taught to children from the ages three to five this is quite a significant amount. The best part is that it was no more challenging than learning anything else at that age, thanks to the playful and simple way the children were taught. I genuinely think the British education system could learn a lot from the sort of thing we saw today.

The kids warmed to us eventually despite being shy at first

Counting to ten wasn’t the only thing these kids could do, either. After the lesson we were taken to the hall where they sang and danced for us, after which they pulled out a big sheet-like thing with the rising sun on it, which they used to dance around and ended up putting balls on top and bouncing them everywhere. The grand finale of the visit was a demonstration of traditional Japanese drums, which was halfway between drums and chanting and literally made me feel like I was on a war-march. Needless to say we all had a chance to take part and all of us took that opportunity. It was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time.

Kaya Junior High School was also a brilliant experience. All of the pupils were so friendly and welcoming and never failed to wave to you as you walked past. We all received our own chopsticks as a gift from the principal of the school, which we then used to eat lunch, which consisted of fish, egg rice and potato things, miso soup and milk. Unfortunately some of the other pupils are being ridiculously reluctant to eat Japanese food, which is disappointing because it’s not really unexpected that you’re going to have to eat Japanese food if you’re coming to Japan and I just think it’s a bit rude to be fussy. Anyway, lunch was the perfect chance to hone my chopsticking skillz, albeit pretty embarrassing. After lunch we had the opportunity to go and play football (or ‘socka’ as they say it) and I unfortunately didn’t manage to score against the goalie (Jamie) during my penalty.

After lunch break we got to attend two lessons, English and Judo. In the English lesson we helped by letting the students ask us questions to which we would reply yes or no and they would fill in a table. It was strange to see someone learning a language that I’m fluent in and struggle with it in the same way that I used to with French. Judo was very fun and consisted of what appeared to be rolling around on the floor. It sounds rubbish but it was actually incredibly tiring. After school most students, if not all attend an after-school club. We got to go and see them all and experience them first hand, such as brass band, baseball, table-tennis and normal tennis. Now I thought I was pretty good at table-tennis but these kids thrashed me. I was a complete embarrassment, only managing to return one serve of the many I received.

Don't mess

After school I was picked up by Emi and her mother and unexpectedly dropped off at Emi’s school, which I will be visiting again on Monday. I was given a tour partially by Emi and also by one of the English teachers from the school. Again, everyone was really friendly and enthusiastic and trying their hardest to speak English, while I carried on struggling to speak as much Japanese as I could possibly remember. After returning to the car I was again unexpectedly taken to a massive supermarket in a neighbouring town, where Emi and I spent a lot of time walking around and eventually eating some chocolate and banana crepes.

Dinner was delicious, we had something that resembled an omelette which contained prawns, amongst various other things, which some brown sauce stuff and what looked like mayonnaise but probably wasn’t on top. After dinner I had my first ever Japanese pudding, consisting of two different balls, one covered in icing sugar (I now know this was actually a rice-cake) and the other some sort of pastry. The former contained some sort of orange fruit, but I didn’t think to ask what and the latter contained something green which I did think to ask, only to find out that they were peas (yes, peas). I’m not complaining though because it was absolutely delicious.

I also got to experience a Japanese bath for the first time and it was amazing – really hot and deep and incredibly relaxing. After my bath Emi and I must have spent about an hour coming up with a speech for me to say tomorrow at the welcoming ceremony. I felt incredibly guilty because I found out after that she would be doing homework from eleven until two in the morning and getting up at half past seven and I had just put her through what I would imagine to have been a pretty intense translation session.

Now I’m sitting in bed writing this article and suffering from jet lag so I think it’s probably time for me to go now.

Oyasumi! (good night)