Japan Exchange

On the 17th of September 18 students, 1 principle, 2 staff members and 3 parents were off to Japan for the trip of a life time. We had an 11 hour flight but luckily for us we were scheduled to leave round 11pm but that changed when the weather had a bad turn for the worse, and a piece of roofing metal blew off the airport roof and landed on our plane which meant we were going to be delayed until all of the necessary paperwork has been done. That took about an hours time which meant we ended up leaving at about midnight. We had a very late dinner then either went to sleep or watched a movie or two. Then round 2 o'clock just about everyone was asleep. We woke up after having only 2 or 3 hours of sleep and really sore backs but we knew we were close to Japan.

Once arriving it was like a heat wave hitting us as it was 33 degrees! (a bit of a change for us) We had a big week ahead of us doing the most walking out of any of the groups that have been in the past.

Everyone was exhausted by the end of just the first day and we weren't looking forward to the walking the day after! But we had a nice relaxing dinner of Okinomayaki (a traditional Japanese dish) which everyone thought was really nice and most of us didn't even eat it all because there was so muchg in front of us.

After we'd finished our two days in Hiroshima, we moved to the city of Kyoto where we stayed in the youth hostel which was a bit of a change but we all adapted really well.

Once our time in Kyoto was done, we left for Hara Mura where our host familie awaited us. On that day it was also my birthday which was really nice. We had an amazing welcoming ceremony where there was about 60 people waiting to greet us they performed items and made fantastic speechs to us in english. We then went home with our families and spent the night in a traditional Japanese home, we would be staying here for the next 8 days. Whilst here we did loads of different activities with our hosts and we even went to school which was a big high light of my trip for me!

We then left Hara Mura for a very emotional good bye, but we were off to Tokyo. Everyone was soo excited because in Tokyo we had loads of shopping streets to go to and we were also going to Disneyland. Tokyo was such an amazing city, but then we had to leave. No on really wanted to go home but we were all almost ready for our own beds and to see our families. We had a long flight ahead destined for New Zealand.