Japanese Cultural Exchange



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On the 17th of September eighteen students, one principle, two staff members and three parents set off to Japan for the trip of a life time. We had an 11 hour flight, we were scheduled to leave round 11pm but that changed when the weather had a turn for the worse. A piece of roofing metal blew off the airport roof and landed on our plane which meant we were going to be delayed until all of the necessary paperwork was completed. That took about an hours time which meant we ended up leaving at about midnight. We had a very late dinner then either went to sleep or watched a movie or two. At 2 o'clock just about everyone was asleep. We woke up after having only two or three hours sleep with really sore backs but we knew we were close to Japan.

On arrival it was like a heat wave had hit us as it was 33 degrees! (a bit of a change for us) We had a big week ahead of us.

Everyone was exhausted by the end of the first day and we weren't looking forward to the walking the day after! But we had a nice relaxing dinner of Okinomayaki (a traditional Japanese dish) which everyone thought was really nice and most of us didn't even eat it all because there was so much in front of us.

After we'd finished our two days in Hiroshima, we moved to the city of Kyoto where we stayed in the youth hostel which was a bit of a change, but we all adapted really well.

Once our time in Kyoto was done, we left for Hara Mura where our host families awaited us. We had an amazing welcoming ceremony. Around 60 people were waiting to greet us, they performed items and made fantastic speeches English. We then went home with our families and spent the night in a traditional Japanese home, we would be staying here for the next 8 days. Whilst there we did loads of different activities with our hosts and we even went to school which was a big high light of my trip for me!

We then left Hara Mura for a very emotional good bye, but we were off to Tokyo. Everyone was so excited because in Tokyo we had loads of shopping streets to go to and we were also going to Disneyland. Tokyo was such an amazing city, but then we had to leave. No one really wanted to go home but we were all almost ready for our own beds and to see our families. We had a long flight ahead destined for New Zealand.