Thinking about Japan

Now that the first week of the new school year has come and gone, I can start thinking about my upcoming trip to Japan! While I'm nervous about leaving school for three weeks, I am so excited to experience the culture and education system of Japan first-hand. The program starts on October 12th with an orientation in San Francisco, California. There, I will meet the 119 other teachers and administrators who are also traveling to Japan. The next day, we all depart for Tokyo. We will spend four days together in Tokyo before we break into smaller groups and head to our Host Cities. From October 19 - 27 I will be in the city of Takeo, in the Saga Prefecture (a prefecture in Japan is kind of like a state in the United States). Takeo is a small city in the southwestern part of Japan and it's been hard to find information. I have learned that it is known for it gorgeous porcelain and I'm very excited to pick up some souvenirs! While we are there we will have different cultural experiences, including a 28 hour home stay with a host family and visits to different schools and businesses. When our time in the host city is over, we will return to Tokyo and meet up with the other members of the group who were visiting different prefectures. We will spend the last few days of the program sharing information and learning from each other. When I come back to Pennsbury I will create a multi-media travel journal to share my experience and the knowledge that I gain.

To prepare for the trip, I've started making a "To Do" list. The first thing on my list is to get "meishi", or business cards, made that I can exchange with the government officials, community leaders, and educators I meet in Japan. It is a tradition in Japan to exchange meishi and it has been recommended that one side be printed in English and the other side be printed in Japanese. A friend of mine has offered to design the cards for me and today I visited Maido, a local Japanese market and found someone who is willing to translate my card for me.

The next item on my list is to buy a gift for my host family in Takeo. The gift we bring is supposed to represent our own hometowns and schools. I've heard that t-shirts have been a favorite gift in the past, so I'm thinking of bringing a Pennsbury t-shirt and a Phillies t-shirt. In addition, Mr. Ricci gave me the great idea of bringing a Mercer tile to represent something that is unique to Bucks County. I think this will be a great gift since Takeo is known for it's ceramics as well.

The last big item on my To Do list is to figure out what to do on my only free day during the program. Some people are traveling to Kyoto, but it's about 2 1/2 hours from Tokyo and there is a lot to see, but we won't have much time to spend there. The other option is to travel to Kamakura, which also has some amazing sites and it's only 1/2 an hour outside of Tokyo. I'd love to hear some suggestions from anyone who's been to Japan!

Meanwhile, I will continue to enjoy every day I have in my classroom until I leave!