Little Fans of Shoin Junior High School

Hey all,

Today we went to visit Shoin Junior High...I'm not going to lie...this was definitely the excursion I looked least forward to out of the whole study abroad schedule.  Not sure what to expect our group was split into several smaller groups and sent up into the mountains by bus to the school.  Interestingly enough Japanese buses have a single fare to ride to any stop.  200 yen.  No matter if you ride to one stop or 20.  Plus you pay after you get off instead of before you get on.  Another strange thing...the driver turns of the engine at EVERY prolonged stop...so all red lights and bus stops.  Weird huh??

We were brought to a lovely looking school.  A large gate stood open at the entrance way and the winding stone path took us to the main portion of the school.  We were asked to wait in the cafeteria until the lunch break had ended.  I simply couldn't get over how clean everything was!  It was simply amazing.  Soon we were taken to a classroom of 9th graders.  Let the awkwardness ensue!

The classroom was a cramped little room with a small...about 2 foot wide stage at the front of the room.  The class welcomed us by saying a few lines in english..."Hello thank you for coming, welcome to our class!" in a sort of robotic manner.  It was sweet though.  We were asked to stand up there and give a short introduction to the class.  Afterwards we randomly chose papers to decide which group we would be split up into.  Yeah...so we were separated and asked to sit at a group of 4 students and were asked to hold free conversation off of a pre-made list of questions.  It was....ugh. haha.  The kids were cute enough though I suppose.

After class the students all filled the hallways as school let out for the day.  We were all bombarded with short hellos...it sounded a lot like birds chirping.  Each student continuously said hello to each of us...it was insane.

We then we re asked to talk to a group of students who were going to New Zealand for a 2 week homestay to help them with their english.  It was....um  fun?  haha.  The teacher had the students rotate amoung us rilogakusei..and it felt a lot like a speed dating service..as in we had a few minutes to talk to each group of Shoin girls.  It was a bit hectic...but at the end we all were treated like celebs!  Everyone wanted a picture with us.  haha

Later on a few of us went to buy Shinkansen tickets for tokyo. AHHH we re going to tokyo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I AM SOO EXCITED!!  I get to see Rena too for those of you who don't know of her, we were friends since like...2nd grade.  She moved back to Japan early on in middle school but we have still kept in touch since then writing letters and checking up on fb.  But yes I havnt' seen her in forever!  This will be a reunion to remember...because the day she left I made a promise I'd make it to Japan to see her.  And here I finally i am. :)

Food of the day!
 Chop Chicken with egg and cabbage salad

An odd collection of foods...but still it was def quite good.  Again this is dining hall food!  crazy huh??  The sauce was mild but def had a bit of a kick to it.  Yummm