It's Friday. Today we went to visit a middle
school. Our group was divided between two middle schools, so Lynette and I were
seperated this time around. Fortunately, however, Dr. Hara was part of our
group. After a very brief tour, we went to one of the English classes taught by
a former student of Dr. Hara's. We introduced ourselves and walked around the
room allowing students to ask us questions. One girl asked me if I liked
tennis, of course I said I did which made us both very happy. A few questions
later, one of the boys asked me what my favourite cheese was. Thats right
cheese. I don't know where he got that from either. My answer was pepperjack,
because for some reason I couldn't think of any other cheese. Though, I wish I
had since he had no idea what pepperjack was.
There were six of us and six rows of students. To start off we each stood in front of a row and that became our team. We played a game very similar to telephone, but using a sentence in English. I remember I was team number 5 and Bobby, who was next to me, was team 99. My team was very close to winning but of course the team with the teacher as their leader took first place. After that we got to play another game, one that I had not played before. How lucky that these students got to play games all day today. The next game was mutiny and involved cards with different activities on them. The goal was to get the most(or maybe least points) in your hand. At one point during the game, Dr. Hara one rock, paper, scissors against one of the female students. Instead of just taking a card, he looked at her hand and stuck out his tounge and laughed and choose not to take any. He probably won.
Before leaving the middle school we were offered lunch; they had already prepared us trays of food. A bun with a hamburger, a slice of cheese, a bowl of soup, milk, and a dessert. Since the hamburger was suspicious and possible had pork I traded it off for more cheese. The case was the same with the soup and dessert so I ended up with a cheese sandwich and milk for lunch. I'm not complaining it was actually pretty good. After lunch we left the school and met back with our whole group at the bus. From there we headed over to the brush factory.
The "factory" was on the second floor of this really tiny building. Amongst the three to four open rooms there was a variety of animal hairs, brushes (new and old), and caligraphy. We were given the opportunity to make our own brushes-either a traditional caligraphy brush or mini brushes that could be used as keycharms. I already had a caligraphy set so I decided to make two mini brushes, one for myself and another to give as a gift. I think I spent more time actually picking out the colors than actually making them.
After the brush factory we all got back on the bus and headed to Yoshida Castle. To be honest, the castle wasn't really much to see; it was only one standing building near the river with a small courtyard and the building was closed. It just so happened that down the parkway was Toyohashi's Art Museum. We explored the museum for a couple hours, which had its own collection of modern art and some historical artifacts.
That was the end of the group tour for that day.
Tonight when I returned to my host family's house, we quickly went over to their grandmother's they were preparing eggplants in the back of the store. When I first got there the man who I believed was their grandfather was cutting the eggplants on a stool. My host father asked if I wanted to help so I pulled up a chair and started my own cutting. I think together we probably cut up about 20 boxes of eggplants which they were going to use the next morning. I didn't mind the work; I actually enjoyed it. However, their work was far from being done for the night so they brought me back home where I spent the rest of the evening.
There were six of us and six rows of students. To start off we each stood in front of a row and that became our team. We played a game very similar to telephone, but using a sentence in English. I remember I was team number 5 and Bobby, who was next to me, was team 99. My team was very close to winning but of course the team with the teacher as their leader took first place. After that we got to play another game, one that I had not played before. How lucky that these students got to play games all day today. The next game was mutiny and involved cards with different activities on them. The goal was to get the most(or maybe least points) in your hand. At one point during the game, Dr. Hara one rock, paper, scissors against one of the female students. Instead of just taking a card, he looked at her hand and stuck out his tounge and laughed and choose not to take any. He probably won.
Before leaving the middle school we were offered lunch; they had already prepared us trays of food. A bun with a hamburger, a slice of cheese, a bowl of soup, milk, and a dessert. Since the hamburger was suspicious and possible had pork I traded it off for more cheese. The case was the same with the soup and dessert so I ended up with a cheese sandwich and milk for lunch. I'm not complaining it was actually pretty good. After lunch we left the school and met back with our whole group at the bus. From there we headed over to the brush factory.
The "factory" was on the second floor of this really tiny building. Amongst the three to four open rooms there was a variety of animal hairs, brushes (new and old), and caligraphy. We were given the opportunity to make our own brushes-either a traditional caligraphy brush or mini brushes that could be used as keycharms. I already had a caligraphy set so I decided to make two mini brushes, one for myself and another to give as a gift. I think I spent more time actually picking out the colors than actually making them.
After the brush factory we all got back on the bus and headed to Yoshida Castle. To be honest, the castle wasn't really much to see; it was only one standing building near the river with a small courtyard and the building was closed. It just so happened that down the parkway was Toyohashi's Art Museum. We explored the museum for a couple hours, which had its own collection of modern art and some historical artifacts.
That was the end of the group tour for that day.
Tonight when I returned to my host family's house, we quickly went over to their grandmother's they were preparing eggplants in the back of the store. When I first got there the man who I believed was their grandfather was cutting the eggplants on a stool. My host father asked if I wanted to help so I pulled up a chair and started my own cutting. I think together we probably cut up about 20 boxes of eggplants which they were going to use the next morning. I didn't mind the work; I actually enjoyed it. However, their work was far from being done for the night so they brought me back home where I spent the rest of the evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment