Take Your Daughters to Work Day

Not really.... but I did take Noelle and Kaela to my school for the morning.  

In April (when the Japanese school year begins) I started a part-time job assisting two English teachers at Fukugawa High School.  The teachers I work with have never lived in an English-speaking country, so they depend on native English speakers for help.  It's a very fun job!  Two of my classes are on an "English major" track in high school.  They study English 2-3 hours a day at school.  

The students were working on short book or movie reviews, so Noelle and Kaela demonstrated by reviewing Harry Potter and the Disney animated movie "Anastasia."  Here students are practicing in pairs.

After class, lots of excitement!

Lunchtime!  There is no cafeteria in the school - only a tiny snack counter.  Students bring bento from home and they sit in the classrooms or out in the hallway in a common area. Can you imagine someone coming into the Russell Street School cafeteria and taking pictures of your food? :).

 Heading back home on the trains... a really fun morning!

Kamakura

Kamakura is a short train ride from Tokyo, and is a popular tourist destination.

The Japanese school year starts in April, and most schools have big field trips the first week of school!

Another student group - 

Get your fortune, and if it's not to your liking, attach it here where the wind will "blow" the fortune away. 

For a small fee, display your own thoughts and wishes.

No field trip is complete without a group photo!

These brooms are traditional, and very effective!

This is what we all came here to see - the "Big Buddha"

Fruit and flower offerings to the gods.

And on our way out, how about some soft serve? 

 

Sakura at Gotemba

Last week, my good friend and fellow teacher visited from MA.  She had lived here many years ago and was anxious to visit her old "hometown" of Gotemba, a small town at the base of Mount Fuji.  We took a shinkansen (bullet train) to get there, and as we did, we noticed the weather getting milder and the altitude higher.  It felt great to get out of the big city for a day.

The main attraction in Gotemba is the Peace Park.  Lucky for us, the cherry blossoms at this higher altitude were at their peak.

"Scent of natural civilization"?

Cherry blossoms - sakura - are a very important symbol in Japanese culture. 

Cherry blossoms symbolize the transient nature of life. 

The pagoda with golden Buddha statues 

These various statues were gifts to the park from other Buddhist countries.  Are they depicting dog, or lions - what do you think?  We thought they looked like lions but later read that they are dogs. 

Finally a few moments of sunshine!

Then, more rain.  We waited a long time for a bus to take us back into town, and when the bus finally arrived and we hopped on, we couldn't help but laugh out loud, because the bus was full of sleeping school girls, all in similar uniforms, ranging in age from elementary school to middle school.  We were the only other people on the bus - it was so cute and we really got a kick out of it.

Eventually most of them woke up!  School days and commutes are long in Japan!

Alyson and I then made our way to the small clinic where her son was born years ago.  The staff was very friendly and insisted that we go upstairs to see the babies:).

And then it was time to get back to Tokyo.  With the rainy weather, we never did get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji, but it was a great day nonetheless.