Day Thirteen

DAY THIRTEEN (06/20/08, 10:15pm)

We spent most of today at Kashima Senior High School. Once again, I was very impressed by the friendly and open welcome we received. Rather than spending the whole day at the school and wandering from class to class on our own, we were broken into smaller groups and given guided tours.

Following the tours, we had an early lunch in the cafeteria before the rush of students came and then we went to a formal tea ceremony where we were served by several students.

We also went to a special calligraphy class offered just for us. The teacher explained that there are five different styles or ways of writing the same character. Our teacher showed us the ways of writing “sky” because, as she explained, we all share the same sky whether we are in Japan or the U.S. Then we learned to mix the ink and practiced writing the character for sky in the four most popular styles.

We ended the day with another question and answer session with a few teachers and administrators, then saw a student demonstration of aikido, visited a couple other club activities,

and posed for a group shot before heading back to the hotel.

I’m quite exhausted and don’t have the energy to write much. Each day has been so incredibly full.

I had dinner with a few members in my group and took some beautiful night shots of Tanabe before turning in early for a quiet night to reflect and catch up on sleep.

Tomorrow we will all be leaving this hotel to stay with a host family for a day and a half. My host is a 26-year-old English teacher at Meiyo Junior High School named Kazumi. I met her very briefly on the day we visited Meiyo and I’m very excited to get to know her better this weekend.