Challenge #8: True or false: Japanese students clean their own bathrooms.

Tuesday morning we went to Haramachi 1st Junior High School. They greeted us with a short assembly and made us walk on stage! That was a little scary lol. For the rest of the day we were able to freely observe the different classes and parts of their day. The biggest difference is that even in junior high school (our grades 7-9), the students keep their homerooms and the teachers move. Another difference I thought was neat is that the students all eat lunch in their classrooms with the teachers. The lunch is brought in and certain students have assigned jobs to serve the lunch. We were each picked up by a student and had lunch with a class. We had fried rice, chicken, and miso soup with all sorts of vegetables. It was a great lunch. Here's the shocker though...later in the day, the whole school stops for about 10 minutes and every student and teacher has an assigned area to clean. They take really good care of their materials and school facility!

My favorite class was the English class where the teacher asked those of us who were observing to join a group. We played the "English Olympics" lol. We had to list our favorite stuff and the kids had to do some character translations and review the concepts they had been learning. It was a lot of fun...anddddd. we won! LOL We beat the other American teacher group!

We wrapped up the day with a quick Q&A session with the teachers.

Tuesday night, we met up with the local people we had met the night before at the wonderful little Japanese restaurant. This time they recommended a sushi restaurant right around the corner. Our interpreter came with us this time so we actually got to learn a little more about them! When we got in the restaurant, we had our own little room and "Maximoto" said he had already arranged the dinner! The chef brought out a huge platter of sushi and then proceeded to bring more food about ever 10 minutes lol. Later, the local dry cleaner, Furomashi, stopped by again (we had also met him the night before) and he was all excited because he had a newspaper clipping with us in it! He pulled it out and it was our day with the Mayor! We had another great night!

On Wednesday, we visited Haramachi 2nd Elementary School. I was really looking forward to this one and was not disappointed! Their elementary is grades 1-6 and the kids were so enthusiastic to see us! Lots of good mornings and thank yous! We got to do basically the same format as yesterday. We started with a quick assembly and their brass band played for us. Yes...a brass band in elementary. They were unbelievably great! I have noticed music is a very big part of their curriculum. Again, the kids cleaned the school, bathrooms and all! We had another great lunch with the class of fish, rice, and soup. My favorite part of this day was when a little girl from Sri Lanka grabbed my hand at recess time (which I'll tell you more about in a minute!) and she RAN me across the field. We got to the playground and she played the I like, I don't like game with me and a few of her friends. She was picking up English and teaching it to the others quicker than I could find a new object to talk to about! The funniest part was when another Japanese girl came over to talk to me, my little friend "Acendi," put her arms up and pointed to the other American teachers and said something to the effect of go get your own American LOL. I had a great time with her!

I also got to sit in on a calligraphy class and do a practice. The word these two symbols represent is "building." I am still baffled by how they are able to learn all the characters. Also, they don't just learn Japanese characters, each grade level they are required to learn a certain number of Chinese characters as well. It is really amazing!

Again, we got to observe the classes cleaning and I made sure to take a picture of the boys cleaning the boys' room since I figured you all wouldn't believe me LOL.





At the end of the day, we had another Q&A session with teachers.

Dinner this evening wasn't quite the event it has been the last two nights! Two other women and wanted to do some laundry and figured we'd go to this cheap ramen noodle place. After wandering for about 45 minutes, we found our noodle place closed lol. Sooooo, we threw clothes in dryer and figured the supermarket might have something good for dinner. Well the pizza slices they bought and the rice and fish box I bought both ended up in the trash. Sooooo, we went and picked up clothes from dryer and decided on a quick pizza place next to the hotel. HA! It took us 20 minutes to order a plain cheese pizza that, when we got it, had no sauce and about 10 kinds of cheese including brie. LOL It was also about the size of a small paper plate. Needless to say, we all went to bed a little hungry lol, but after the last two nights' dinners I suppose we deserved it!