Over the last two weeks, 24 kids from Newlands and Wellington College (year 10’s studying Japanese) have been hosted by seven schools in Sakai, living with host families and supported by a whole group of various organisations and the International Division of the City Council here.
Being the Coordinator of International Relations and from Wellington I got to be involved quite a bit in the exchange and really enjoyed the grass roots aspect of it. On a personal note, its thanks to two great home-stay experiences to Japan when I was 11 and 14 that I continued to study the language and am back here working today so I was really happy to be able to get involved as much as I can and make sure these kids have an amazing experience too.
I was mostly in charge of their first orientation day on the 27th of September, taking five of the Wellington College boys to Osaka Aquarium on the 4th of October and taking the whole group (24 students and 4 teachers) to Nara on the 7th of October.
Monday 27 September
They arrived on the flight most of you will arrive on if you come to visit me – the NZ97 which leaves Auckland late on a Friday night and gets in at 7:30am on Saturday morning, so it was a pretty early start for me too to meet them off the plane. They weren’t meeting their host families until 6:30 that night, so I had an 11 hour challenge to keep them awake and amused….
We went from the airport straight to Harvest Hill (which I had visited earlier in the month) and they enjoyed the grass hill slide, Ferris Wheel, and just walking around in the fresh air before we had booked into a class to make Blueberry Melon Bread from 10:30. Everyone seemed to have a pretty good time; it kept them interested, listening to some Japanese, and they got to make delicious sweet bread for lunch.
That afternoon we headed to the Sakai City Museum for a look around before our 4:30pm meeting with the Mayor. The Museum is normally closed on Mondays (as are a lot of places are in Japan) so the curator gave us a personal tour and I had to translate on the spot for the group (luckily I had been to visit the week before and was suddenly very thankful I had been working on translations of Sakai’s history for the last two weeks).
Had a good meeting with Mayor Takeyama and still had a little bit of time so went up to the 21st Floor of City Hall to have a look out over the city and a chance to piece together some of the history (as I had finished the English translations of the Japanese panels just in time). This was a good chance for the kids to take a little break, watch the sunset and settle any nerves they had about meeting their host families. That final part of the day went pretty well too (and was my fourth translating gig of the day – all very varied from Melon bread instructions, the Museum, meeting with the Mayor and Welcome Speeches) and all the kids headed off to their respective home families for the week.
Saturday 2 October
They spend the first week attending classes at their various schools so the next time I got to catch up with the kids was on the next Saturday when I went to visit Hatsushiba Ritsumeikan Junior High as I was going to be taking them to and from meeting places for the next week so needed to find out where the school actually was. This school is the only private one out of the group so they have classes on Saturday morning so I got to watch the boys participate in Kendo practice and tea ceremony.
Sunday 3 October
This was the day of Otori Danjiri, the International Division had invited a whole group of University Exchange Students to come and enjoy the festivities. Even though it was raining it was still a pretty good turnout and as usual I was there to help translate, and ensure the whole day (and communication) ran smoothly. The Otori Danjiri is different to the Nakamozu Futon Daiko Festival I was at the weekend before where they lift the danjiri up on their shoulders, this time they were pulling it through the streets with ropes. It was great to see the whole community coming together to pull it safely around the route at quite a speed – it can get a bit dangerous when turning corners…
Monday 4 October
Today I was taking five of the Wellington High School boys to Kaiyuukan (Osaka Aquarium) and for a bit of shopping around Shinsaibashi. Was at school to meet them at 8am, but by the time everyone got there, we walked to the station, train to Namba, subway to Osakako it was already 10ish. We had planned to spend a couple of hours at the aquarium (as its pretty impressive with an escalator up to the 8th floor and then you wind your way back down – the whole place is based around one central tank with two whale sharks) but the boys were already hungry by 11 (maybe they’re missing having an interval break) so we rushed through the last few floors and went to the nearby Foodcourt for lunch – they all ended up choosing Subway or KFC.
There are a few souvenir shops in Tempozan Marketplace next to the Aquarium so gave them a little bit of time for shopping there and then continued on to Shinsaibashi and took them to Don Quijote and Bic Camera before getting them back to school for 4:30pm. Unfortunately most of the host brothers had extra classes for tests they had failed so I had to wait at school with the boys until 6:30 when they were done.
Thursday 7 October
Glad the weather was beautiful today for our trip to Nara, I thought it was a perfect temperature, though a few of the kids found it quite hot but we managed to cram a lot into a short day as we were meeting at the station by the City Council at 9am and everyone (apart from my Hatsushiba boys) had to be back at school for 4pm to meet their host children. I had made some information sheets for everyone with a brief history of Nara and introducing the three main places we would be visiting – Kofuku-ji, Todai-ji and Kasuga Taisha. There aren’t many places to eat in Nara Park so everyone bought what they wanted from lunch from the convenient store and we headed to Kofuku-ji to check it out where they all enjoyed the shade of the trees.
We continued to Todai-ji to check out the Nadaimon and Daibutsu and got there just in time, because parts of Daibutsu-den were closed from 12noon. 2010 marks the 1300th anniversary of when Nara became Japan’s first capital (in 710) so they’re having a big celebration this weekend and need to set up for that. Gave the kids about half an hour to look around at all the amazing statues inside Daibutsu-den and buy any souvenirs they wanted, before it was time for lunch outside in the shade – taking care that the deer didn’t eat our lunch!
Luckily we had enough time to walk up the lantern-lined path that leads to Kasuga Taisha – nice for the kids to experience a Shinto shrine as well as Buddhist temples – which was quite a peaceful end to a busy day, before the train ride back to Sakai
Friday 8 October
Today was the kids’ last night and there was a farewell party held for them at Delicious Dining Sakai just across the road from the City Hall. There were a lot of thank you speeches, introducing all of the important people that had been involved in making the exchange a success, and one kid from each school gave a speech too. There was a cheers, some food, the Wellington group performed Pokarekareana, the National Anthem and a Haka, and lots of mingling and exchanging details which was a great note to end the two week exchange on.
Saturday 9 October
Just as I was there to meet them off their flight, I went with the students to the airport to see them off (and ended up earning 5 hours overtime in the process - which I will use when Stuart arrives next weekend – yay!) These two weeks have gone pretty quickly, but I’m sure it has gone even faster for the kids – I just hope they had a great time in Japan, and I let them know that if they keep studying, this could be the first of many trips and memories here
