Japanese Exchange November 2014

Today is the final day in Kantou Daiichi Senior High School and tonight is the final night with host families who have been incredibly kind and hospitable. All the host students could not have done more to make us feel at home.

This morning the skies were dark and we commuted into to school in torrential rain. We have been in a variety of lessons throughout the day.

Our thanks to the Japanese students who put a huge amount of planning and effort into today`s lessons.
We will say final farewells tomorrow morning before spending the day in Disneyland and then arriving back in Heathrow at 4.00pm on Friday.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us during our time in Tokyo.

These are the last photos from the 2014 Japanese Exchange.

Everyone enjoyed sharing their individual stories of the time spent with their host families over the weekend. Our deepest thanks to all the host families who made every effort to ensure our students had the most memorable experiences. For example, Lawrence and Will were driven to Mount Fuji and Peter was taken to Disney Sea World and the other students were taken to some places of outstanding beauty.Today (Tuesday) we have been in lessons until 1pm before travelling to the north part of Edogawa ward to make the glass wind chimes.

After some fun activities with the Kanto Daiichi International Club students went back to their host families.Tomorrow is the final school day. Everyone is well and looking forward to the final part of the exchange.

On Friday students enjoyed taking part in various after school club activities before spending the weekend with their host families who have planned some special visits (Lawrence, for example, went up the Sky Tree Tower on Friday evening), and arranged to meet up with each other. We will meet up again in Kantou Daiichi High School on Tuesday morning.

All students came into school in good spirits after spending their first night with host families. They had 6 lessons in school before leaving with their host students for the weekend

We left the National Youth Memorial Centre in Yoyogi at 8.45 and travelled across Tokyo by coach to Edogawa ward where we went up the Funabori Tower and visited Gyosen park before visiting Edogawa City Office to be welcomed by mayor Tada and officials from Edogawa city. After lunch in Funabori we went to the Kyoiku Plaza – an educational establishment for the community of Edogawa until 5.00pm. Ity rained heavily on the way to the Green Palace Hotel where the students met their host families at a matching ceremony. Most families live within an hour of Kanto Daiichi Senior High School and the students were taken home by car for their first night. They are now with their host families and we all meet up again tomorrow in school at 8.00am.

Today has seen students visit a kindergarten and attend a tradtional tea ceremony. The ceremony was held in a traditional Japanese house in Setagaya. We walked back to the Odakyu sen to catch the train back to the Youth Centre and had our final  dinner there at 6.00pm. Students are now in their rooms packing for tomorrows early departure to Edogawa ward city hall.

We have enjoyed a full day going out to see the Great Buddha in Kamakura in Kanagawa Prefecture by train and seeing Hachimangu shrine before returning to the heart of Tokyo for dinner in Shinjuku. We returned at 9.00pm and everyone is now preparing for the kindergarten visit tomorrow.