Handsworth students brought their second packed suitcase to the school this morning and took the opportunity to sign each other’s trip t-shirts.
Due to renovations at the main school site, and space being limited in the temporary home of the Jr. High we have been visiting, we took the opportunity to walk to a nearby mall and give students a last chance to by souvenirs from Japan.
Many of the students found the arcade and gacha machines on the top floor and spent some time challenging each other on multiplayer games and trying to win one last Kawaī toy.
We returned to the school for final goodbyes with our host students and teachers of Inage, and took the opportunity for one last group photo and some teary goodbyes before loading the bus to head for the airport.
We are now sitting at Narita airport, awaiting our flight which departs at about 6:30pm. It’s been a fun and memorable experience – truly an adventure of a lifetime!
Monday morning, Handsworth students arrived at Inage filled with stories of their Saturday and Sunday with the homestay families. Some went on excursions to various locales, while others spent quality time with the families doing things like preparing traditional Japanese dishes.
Today was our day to experience a typical Japanese school day. Students went through a specially prepared set of classes throughout the day.
There was a craft class for the first three periods, where students practiced the arts of Aizome and Wahizome dyeing piece of washi paper and cloth placemats. The indigo dye was very strong and some students wound up with blue fingers, but the results were worth it and many of the results were spectacular.
We then moved to a different classroom to fill in a survey about our experience at Inage. This will help inform the itinerary for Handsworth groups to come after us.
Our students were joined by their host students to experience a traditional Japanese school lunch. In Japan, students collect the meal for the class, serve it for their classmates and then clean up the space at then end of the 45 minute lunch period. This was a big change for our students.
After lunch, Handsworth students joined Japanese English classes where Handsworth and Inage interacted over a few games like rock, paper scissors and simple Japanese song games led by the younger Inage students.
The final period of the day for the Handsworth students was a presentation by Amy, Jordan, Finn, Hannah and Taylor on Canada, BC, and Handsworth for the English students of Inage in grades 8, 9 & 10 followed by a question and answer period.
After school, final preparations were made for our Farewell Party, where the host families joined us for the festivities. We were treated to a slideshow of photos taken during our stay in Chiba. After the video, there were gifts exchanged and speeches made, including a farewell speech by Handsworth students Milly and Hannah. Handsworth students were pleased to receive certificates of completion for the exchange from Inage’s school Principal, Mr. Hideaki, as well. The finale of the party was the Handsworth students’ prepared dance performances. Everyone headed home with their homestay families for one final night in Japan.
Saturday and Sunday were spent with host families and many adventures were had, from visits to Disney, trips to the top of Tokyo Sky Tree (the 3rd tallest structure in the world), tours of Tokyo, Chiba and many other activities.
Here are a sampling of photos submitted by students of their weekend adventures.
Our hosts at Inage were gracious enough to organize individualized tours of Tokyo for us today. The grade 10 Inage Intercultural class spent the last few weeks researching and planning tours and were in full guide mode today.
The Handsworth teachers met some of the Handsworth students, those with younger host students, at the train station near the school and were escorted into Tokyo, by Inage staff to meet up with our guides and the rest of the Handsworth students at Tokyo station.
After a brief check-in and introductions, each Handsworth student had 5 Inage students to guide them through their tour of Tokyo, the groups were off to the first stops on their tours. While every group had a different itinerary for the day there were some groups that had similar experiences, from different cafes, toy museums, candy making workshops, the Tokyo Aquarium, Sky Tree, and many other experiences! The teachers are looking forward to hearing and reading about all of their adventures on Monday!
The groups met back up at Senso-ji Temple in Asakusa in the afternoon for a little bit of shopping before rejoining their host students for the train rides back to Chiba. The teachers and students with younger hosts joined the Inage staff for the train ride back to Inage and their waiting host students.
The weekend has arrived, and tomorrow and Sunday will be spent with host families. Handsworth students will enjoy many different activities with their homestay families, so there will be no blog post. But we’ll look forward to hearing all of their stories on Monday morning!
This morning, Handsworth students made their way to Inage High School via train, bus, bike and by foot, dressed in their formal clothing for the day. Students were filled with stories of their first homestay night with their host families. It sounded like some students had some fairly exotic first dinners with their hosts! Other students attended evening English classes where they were welcomed as teaching assistants for the evening.
We all met outside the school atrium before boarding our charter bus to begin our tour around Chiba. Our first stop was Chiba’s Natural History Museum where students explored the exhibits and some ventured further into the neighbouring ecology park. Our students know more Japanese history now than ever! Our second stop of the morning was an official function. We met with the Mayor of Chiba as ambassadors for the City of North Vancouver. Official gifts were exchanged, speeches made and commemorative photos taken. The students also had the opportunity to ask the mayor some questions about Chiba, like what the local industries are, how local politics work, what benefits Chiba has seen from being a part of hosting the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, what problems are facing the city and the mayor’s vision for the years ahead.
In the afternoon, our group headed over to the enormous AEON Mall. This mall is actually 4 malls all rolled into 1. There is Grand Mall, Family Mall, Pet Mall and Active Mall, each with a different type of store. Students grabbed lunch, shopped, and spent time fawning over the kittens and puppies in Pet Mall.
At 3pm we took the bus back to Inage school to meet our hosts and head home for another night of homestay.
Tomorrow we head to Tokyo for our tour of Japan’s capital city!
We woke to find that the sunny skies and warmer temperatures had returned. After a western style breakfast at the ryokan we set off for the train station.
Our first leg repeated the scenic trip between Takayama and Nagoya giving us the opportunity to see things we may have missed on the way up into the mountains.
We had a brief stop over in Nagoya before departing for Shinagawa Station near Tokyo. En route to Shinagawa, we were treated to views of Mt. Fuji from the windows of our train, though unfortunately the peak was covered in clouds.
In Shinagawa we were met by a couple of Inage teachers who then shepherded our group through first the Shinagawa station, and later the labyrinthine Tokyo station, as we caught two local comuter trains to Chiba, and finished with a short walk to the current site Inage Junior High School. Here we met with our homestay students, who were quite excited to see us!
We had a brief welcome ceremony where Mr. Worley, Sophia and Caleb gave greeting speeches. Then it was off to homes with the host families.
Tomorrow we begin our official visit to Chiba with an audience with Chiba’s Mayor Kamiya.
After a beautifully crafted traditional Japanese breakfast at the Ryokan, student set out in groups to explore the town by foot.
Our luck ran out weather wise this morning, we awoke to rainy skies that intensified as we prepared to depart for the day, though the rains stopped shortly after we left the ryokan and the sun even made an appearance by the afternoon.
The first stop for many was the Miyagawa morning market where vendor stalls lined the riverside street. From there it was over to the small local artisan shops where students found wood lacquerware – a local specialty. An abundance of choices were available for lunch, and some students opted to try the Hida region’s famous beef. In the afternoon our group headed, en-masse, up to Hida No Sato – a traditional Hida village, well-known for its thatched-roof houses. This village has been preserved to look the same as it would have over a hundred years ago. Here, students played games, attempted feats of strength by lifting boulders, feats of balance walking on stilts, fed the geese, and also took the opportunity to practice their performance piece in anticipation of our arrival at Inage.
We were looking forward to enjoying a natural hot water foot bath which would have felt very good on tired feet after all of the walking we have done in the last week, over 80 km in the last week, but alas the foot baths are still ‘temporarily’ closed.
Evening time brought the perfect opportunity to write in our journals before dinner. A traditional dinner again on the tatami mats, and a nightly trip to the steaming sento are just what’s required for us to wind down before bed.
Tomorrow is a full travel day as we head further north towards Tokyo, Chiba, and our friends at Inage.
This morning was an especially early start a 5:30 alarm, for a 6:15am departure.
Today’s agenda began with a visit to the island of Miyajima – home to Itsukushima Shrine, more commonly known as the Floating Torii Gate. Our train passes were also valid on the JR ferry that took us across the bay to the island. We arrived just before 8:00, well before most of the hordes of tourists that frequent the site every day. With the shrine almost to ourselves, we took the opportunity to take some group photos. Students had a about half-an-hour of free time to explore and shop their way back to the ferry terminal and our return to the hotel.
We returned to our hotel to collect our luggage from the lobby before heading over to the Hiroshima Station again to grab some train snacks before boarding the first of two Shinkansens northward. The rest of the day would be mostly train travel. We paused in Nagoya to catch lunch, and Mr. Forsyth picked up a round of Krispy Kreme donuts for everyone, and distributed them through a fun round of trivia.
Our last train of the day to Takayama was a 2.5 hour scenic ride through the mountains of Gifu. Our picturesque ride ended at about 6:45pm in the hilltop town where we were greeted by the operator of our traditional Ryokan. Our bags were picked up and we walked to the 25 minutes onward to the inn.
Our next couple of dinners and breakfasts will be traditional Japanese style, served at the Ryokan. This evening we enjoyed a local specialty – Hida Beef with an assortment of local vegetable dishes, soup, rice and fried fish. The ryokan also has a sento to bathe in which the students are enjoying tonight before settling down to write in their journals before bed. Tomorrow we explore Takayama by foot!
The fascination of an open vending machine
Mr. Forsyth’s Photo
Mr. Worley’s photo of Mr. Forsyth taking the photo
Ms. Jackson’s photo of Mr. Worley taking a photo of Mr. Forsyth taking a photo of the group.
The Shinkansen, or ‘bullet train’ is Japan’s high-speed rail network, with trains reaching speeds of up to 320 km/h. Today, our group took our first bullet train from Osaka to Hiroshima. It took us less than 90 minutes to cover a distance of 330km.
We arrived in The City of Peace just before noon where we promptly dropped our bags at the hotel and trekked over to the Hondori Shopping Arcade area for some lunch. Hondori is a huge outdoor mall area with shops and restaurants, covered by giant ceiling structures spanning across the building towers.
After lunch, it was over to the Peace Memorial park where students learned about the history of the city. Mr. Forsyth gave a brief lesson on Japan’s involvement in WWII with particular emphasis on the bombing of Hiroshima. We also discussed Sadako and the Thousand Cranes – the story of the young girl who developed leukemia from the bombing and attempted to fold a thousand cranes so her wish for health might come true. Ms. Hartwell helped our students fold their own paper cranes and then lay them at the children’s memorial in remembrance.
We were fortunate today, as many Handsworth groups before us have been, to be able to meet an in-utero survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. He shared his compelling and personal story of how the tragic event affected and continues to affect his family.
Our group wandered past the Atom Bomb Dome – the location of the epicentre of the fateful blast – and made our way to the Peace Memorial Museum. Along the way, we stopped at the Peace Bell, and Amy rang the bell on behalf of the group – to promote the growth of peace bringing an end to nuclear weapons and war.
Students were able to experience the Peace Memorial, a gut wrenching reminder of the horrors of atomic warfare, and was quite a moving experience for a number of our students. Many of them took the opportunity to journal outside in the shade about what they had seen in the museum and heard from the A-Bomb survivor, immediately after finishing the exhibits. We certainly had a lot to reflect on today.
At night, we returned to the train station area to enjoy a local specialty – okonomiyaki. Okonomiyaki is a cabbage pancake that tastes a lot better than it sounds! Tonight we return to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep. We are leaving the hotel at 615am tomorrow morning for a very full day of sightseeing and travel to Takayama!
Today was spent at Universal Studios in Osaka. We took our first rapid reserved train of the trip this morning from Kyoto to Osaka, where we changed trains to a local line to make it to Universal City. Students spent the rest of the day enjoying the rides and amusements in the park. The weather was hot and sunny, which brought out the crowds, but student’s made good use the single rider lines. Highlights include Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, and The Flying Dinosaur. It was a long day for some of the groups as they didn’t leave the park until just before the evening check-in with the chaperones. Tonight we enjoy real Western style mattresses on beds!
We are up and out of the hotel earlier tomorrow to take our first bullet train to Hiroshima!
Japan 2024 