From school to Kyoto

This morning we were up bright and early to get ready to checkout from our hotel and collect the kids from school. After a late night of drinks and karaoke, it was a bit of a struggle! A beautiful sunrise helped.


I couldn't wait to see Ella and see how her overnight homestay went. 

When we got to school at 8am, all the children were just arriving, with the Australian  kids coming in dribs and drabs with their families. Ella was almost the last to arrive, but came in holding Azusa's hand and smiling. So proud of her.


I'll let her tell you about what they got up to.

At school were shown what all the different classes were doing and got to have a go at each activity. Class 5.1 did computer coding, 5.2 and 5.3 made clay food, 3.1, 3.2, 3.3, 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 had a quiz about different animals and 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3 made sling cars out of metal and plastic with rubber bands. 

Each day we had a yummy lunch cooked by the school. The first day was a chicken curry with rice and salad and the second was potato, seaweed flakes and a savoury egg custard. They were both delicious!

At the end of the second day we had to go home with our host family.

When I first got to Azusa's house we went to do some Japanese calligraphy writing, after a while of "painting" we went upstairs and played in Azusa's room. Soon after we made our own sushi for dinner, in mine I put PRAWNS (I❤Prawns 😛). Afterwards we had free time before we needed to sleep. I played on a 3DS (game console) and played a Wario game and also played with Azusa's squishy polar bear then we slept.

In the morning we had riceflakes (cornflakes made of rice) and some of last nights leftovers for breakfast (miso soup and egg custard). Azusa's mum then took some photos of us and gave them to me as a present. We then changed and went to school.

At the goodbye assembly ALL the Moreland kids were given presents from the entire school, which we will get back in Melbourne.  Some of the Japanese students were asking for our addresses so they could still talk to us and we can chat to them.

The while school assembly was held outside and was just beautiful. The entire school sang and danced and thanked the kids for coming. So lovely to see.

We were sad to leave, but glad such a good time was had by all.

After leaving school, we returned to the hotel to collect bags and then caught the bullet train to Kyoto. This took 2 1/2 hours, even with the train going almost 300km per hour! It was a beautiful clear day and we were lucky to see Mt Fuji.


By the time we got to our new accommodation, a very traditional ryokan, we were pretty exhausted. 


A quick dinner at a local sushi train, including some whale, we were ready for bed! Sweet dreams indeed!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tokyo Trick Art Museum

Image
Today was another cold and wet day, so we decided to find somewhere indoors to explore. The Tokyo Trick Art Museum came up on a search and looked like fun. The small gallery space had all sorts of trick backgrounds where you could stand or pose in certain spots to get a really fun photo. It took only about an hour to work our way through, but we had a lot of fun. There weren't many other people there, so we didn't have to compete to get a good shot. By the time we had finished, we were ready for lunch. We hadn't had any soba noodles in Japan, so found a local restaurant where this was their specialty. We each ordered a different sort - Ella had cold noodles with raw egg, daikon and leek, Clint had hot chicken curry noodles, Angus had hot duck and leek and I had cold noodles with mixed vegetables and pickles. They were each very different,  but all delicious! With full bellies, we explored th...
Read more

Day 1 - Team Lab Borderless

Image
This morning we had our first taste of a Japanese breakfast at our ryokan. As a non breakfast eater, it was actually delicious. I tried a tiny bit of a lot of things and was surprised just how much I ate and enjoyed. Miso, salmon, eggs, rice, noodles, pickles, meatbslls, corn soup and more. Ella was very happy too! We then had time to ourselves before meeting again as a group. Some of us wandered the local area and discovered a shrine, a beautiful lake and park and the crazy vending machines. My first Japanese coffee in a can was interesting to say the least! After that we all went to the train station to organise passes and tickets and then had a free afternoon.  A group of us went to the awesome Team Lab Borderless,  a digital art museum/gallery. There are no maps, no path to follow, it's completely  dark inside, other than the lighting from the displays. It's quite disorienting and hard to know of you've actually  seen everythin...
Read more

Osaka Markets

Image
Today was our last day in Osaka, but we decided to take it slowly and have a relatively quiet day. I had read about a food market not too far away with delicious cooked food, so was keen to have a look. We set out with good appetites to have a look around. There were all sorts of weird and wonderful foods on offer. Some were cooked and ready to eat, there was lots of sushi and sashimi and plenty of regular market produce to cook at home. Our first stop was an onigiri burger, which I had read about. These burgers are part sushi, part burger with nori sheets, sushi rice and a filling of fried spam, egg omlette and lettuce. You can then choose to add another meat or fish to the filling. We decided on the slow cooked miso pork. It was surprisingly delicious! Ella and Angus loved the one we bought and want to make these when we get home. Next was okonomiyaki, one of the traditional foods from Osaka. It is a type of pancake filled with shredded cabbage and then filled...
Read more