The Final 24 Hours in Japan

It was hard to believe that it was already October 29th and this amazing trip was coming to an end. I woke up early Wednesday morning and went to the restaurant on the 40th floor of the hotel. The restaurant had windows on every side that offered amazing views of Tokyo. If you sat by the windows on one side of the restaurant and it was a clear day, you could even see Mt. Fuji. That sky wasn't too clear that morning, but it was still possible to see the outline of Mt. Fuji in the distance. (The picture on the left is actually a picture I took from the airplane on our way to Fukokua.)

After breakfast, I made my way down to the meeting room to watch the other groups' presentations and learn about their Host Cities. Watching the presentations made me realize what a different experience each group had and how much we had to learn from each other. It also made me realize that as much as I had seen and done during my time in Tokyo and Takeo, there are still so many places I want to see in Japan! Each region is really different. According to the group presentations, the one thing that was the same in each region was the content of the curriculum being taught in the classrooms. In the United States, the curriculum taught in each grade and subject area is designed by individual districts and the materials used to teach the content are chosen by the districts as well. In Japan, there is a national curriculum that is decided upon by the central government and the districts have to choose from 2 or 3 textbooks that are selected by the national government as well.

The way each group chose to present the information about their Host City was as different as the cities were. Some groups sang songs, some had people playing instruments, some made iMovies, and others made Power Point presentations. Some groups even used a combination of some or all of these media! My group, the Takeo City group, decided to make a Power Point presentation. We also put together a display table with different artifacts from Takeo. We used posters that advertised the yabusame festival and the drummers that performed, the gifts that were given to us from the schools, pottery we bought in Takeo and porcelain purchased in Arita, books made by children in the elementary school, and personal mementos that reminded us of the experiences we had with our host families. To top it off, when we presented our slide show, we all wore kimono or hapi coats or yukata and the newspaper origami samurai hats the elementary school students made for us. We might have looked silly, but we had a great time! It was great to be able to share our experience with the rest of the group and give them the essence of our time in Takeo.

One of the best aspects of the day was that JFMF flew Mori-san, the member of the Takeo City School Board who worked with Laura-san to organize every aspect of our stay in Takeo, to Tokyo to see the presentations. We were able to thank Mori-san and Laura-san in-front of the whole group, to let them know how much we really appreciated everything they did.

Wednesday night JFMF had a "Good-bye Banquet" for all of the teachers and JFMF staff to celebrate the end of our trip. There were lots of speeches made, pictures taken, and business cards exchanged. Since JFMF had done an incredible job of incorporating a learning experience about Japanese culture into every aspect of our trip, they felt no need to stop our learning about Japan with the banquet. At the end of the night, we were treated to an Aikido demonstration, led by Ishiguro-san, a member of the JFMF staff in Japan and a 5th don in Aikido. Aikido doesn't focus on punching and kicking like other martial arts. Instead, they use the force of the movements of their opponents to move them away. There were 4 of Ishiguro-san's students participating in the demonstration. One of them was a Shinto priestess who was a 2nd don. She was really amazing and even though she's a girl and much smaller than her opponents, she won every match, except of course for one against Ishiguro-san!

That night we all went out on the town in Tokyo for the last time. Mori-san even came with us! The question was, what do you do in Tokyo when you only have one night left to take in Japanese culture and everything this amazing city has to offer? The answer, of course, is KARAOKE! All of the rooms in the local karaoke lounge were filled with groups of American teachers and their Japanese friends singing along to their favorite songs.

Thursday was filled everyone making their preparations to go back to the United States. Our flights all left at different times, depending on which airport we were flying into, so it was a morning filled with good-byes. Melinda and I had our final taste of Japan with a traditional Japanese breakfast in the restaurant that overlooked the beautiful garden on the hotel grounds. Afterwards, I headed out into the Akasaka district of Tokyo, where our hotel was located, to visit one last shrine. I was not going to waste one minute of my time left in Japan! I left the hotel with Lori, Jeannette, Amy, and Steve (the same ladies I went to Kyoto with) and we headed off to the Hie shrine. Even though I had seen shrines in cities at least 100 times during my stay in Japan, it still amazed me that such a beautiful, peaceful temple could be located in the heart of a bustling metropolis like Tokyo. One of the most striking things about the entrance to this shrine that was closest to our hotel was the number of torii gates that lined the steps leading to the temple grounds.

On the way to the hotel a few hours later, I don't think I fully grasped that it was time to leave Japan. Even once I was through customs at Narita airport, it didn't feel like I was leaving. Once they stamped my passport at the immigration booths, it should have hit me that my trip was over, but once I was through the gate there were opportunities to experience Japanese traditions that I had yet to encounter. Immediately on the other side of the immigration booths, there were people offering us the opportunity to create woodblock prints and dress in traditional Samurai armor. I only had about an hour and a half until I needed to board the plane, but there was no way I could pass up such an opportunity! I have always loved Japanese woodblock prints, but I never realized how they were made. There are different wood cutouts for each color ink that will appear on the print. The individual cutouts have raised areas that are inked with the desired color. Then the paper is laid on top of the cutout, face down, and pressure is applied to the back of the paper in order to transfer the ink to the print. Each time the paper is moved to a different wood block, it needs to be placed down carefully to make sure the colors and shapes appear in the appropriate places. It was so much fun to put on the samurai armor, despite the fact that it was incredibly hot in the airport. There were so many layers and different pieces, that it took two people to dress each person! Once the armor was on, they gave us a sword and told us to strike a samurai pose, so I made the angriest face I could! The people running these activities took a picture and printed it out for me to keep. I think this is one of the best souvenirs from my trip! Next thing I knew, I had ten minutes until it was time to board the plane for the 16 hour flight back to Washington, DC.

In many ways, the trip flew by so quickly and I can't believe it's over already. In other ways, it feels like I was away for a much longer time than I actually was, because I saw and learned more in those three weeks than I could ever imagine. My transition back to life in the United States has been an interesting one, but that's a story for another time!

Return to Tokyo

By Tuesday, all 158 teachers participating in the JFMF program had returned to Tokyo from their Host Cities. I was so happy to see all of the friends I made in the first week that went off to different cities, and it was incredible to hear about the different places they visited and the experiences they had. In many ways, we all had similar experiences in that we visited the same types of schools, but the characters of our Host Cities were very different. Some people visited industrial towns, some people stayed in big cities, some people traveled to the northern part of Japan, and still others visited an island (Okinawa) with a culture that is very different from the culture of the larger Japanese islands. On Wednesday I would get to hear all about the experiences each group had and what they learned in their Host Cities because each group was going to give a 15 minute presentation about the unique characteristics of the places they visited. But first, we had more to learn about schools in Japan and the Takeo group had to plan their presentation.

Tuesday morning began with a seminar on Art Education in Japan, led by the director of a Japanese toy museum who taught us how to make some traditional Japanese toys out of paper (but not origami). In the afternoon we had a Question & Answer session on Japanese Schools and Society with a professor from a university in Tokyo. This session gave us an opportunity to reflect on our visits to the schools in our Host Cities and ask any lingering questions about schooling and life in Japan. Many people had questions about the college entrance exams Japanese students need to take and the emphasis Japanese High Schools put on preparing students for these exams.

Once the seminars were over for the day, I met with the other members of the Takeo group to discuss how we were going to present Takeo City to the rest of the JFMFers. Let me tell you, 8B, this was not an easy task. First of all, you know how difficult it can be to work with a group to complete a project. In school, you are sometimes asked to work in groups of 2, 3, or 4 to accomplish different goals. In this case, all 15 of us had to work together on this presentation and all 15 of us had different ideas about how it should be done. Plus, we had to sum up an incredible week in an amazing city in only 15 minutes! In the end, we decided to divide up the responsibilities and work in 5 smaller groups, with three people in each group. Melinda, Will, and I agreed to work on the part of the presentation that described the schools we visited in Takeo.

After spending almost every waking minute with the group for the past 2 weeks, I decided to venture out on my own Tuesday night. I was determined to see the Harajuku section of Tokyo and most people had already been there. I knew which subway station I had to get to and (amazingly) I got on the correct train heading in the right direction and made it to the Omotesando station without incident. Once I exited the subway station, however, things became a little more confusing. When I walked out of the station I found myself at a huge intersection, and even though I had a map, I wasn't sure which way I needed to go. Those of you that are familiar with my sense of direction will not be surprised to learn that I did not walk towards Harajuku on my first try...or my second...or my third. On one hand, this was a little annoying because I was getting tired and hungry and I wasn't sure if I would make it to my destination before everything closed for the night. On the other hand, I did get to see areas of Tokyo that I probably wouldn't have seen otherwise. My journey took me through the high fashion district, where all of the top fashion designers like Issey Miyake, have their stores. The clothes weren't the only eye-catching designs in this area, even the architecture was amazing. The picture on the left shows the Prada store I walked by that was designed by Herzog and de Meuron from the Royal Institute of British Architects. Of course, I was wandering for so long that it was dark by the time I passed by the building!

After an hour or so, I finally decided to take a rest from walking and grab something to eat. I stopped in a 7-11 (there are 7-11's EVERYWHERE in Tokyo!) to buy a rice ball (onigiri) and took it with me to the park at the end of the road. What a great choice that was! First of all, the onigiri was really yummy. (Since I can't read Japanese, I always had to hope I was buying onigiri with something in it that I liked. Sometimes I got lucky and other times I didn't.) Second of all, there was a huge lantern sculpture in the park that was all lit up and changed colors every few minutes. It was really beautiful and I probably wouldn't have found it if I hadn't gotten lost. I sat by the lanterns and watched the colors change while I ate my onigiri.

Since there are no public trashcans in Japan (or very few), I balled up my onigiri wrapper, put it in my purse, and rounded the corner to get back to the main street and continue on my mission to find Harajuku. There was a busy train station on the corner and I had to laugh when I saw what it was called...Harajuku Station! I had finally made it! I might have taken the long way, but I was there. There is a street in Harajyuku called Takeshita Street. It is filled with little shops and stalls and some really funky clothing stores. On Sundays, lots of kids can be seen hanging out on this street wearing some really outrageous fashions. It reminded me a lot of South Street in Philadelphia, but without cars.

After browsing through the shops and stalls, I turned back and retraced my steps to find the Omotesando station and head back to the hotel. After wandering around on my own for the evening, I was looking forward to spending time with my friends again at the hotel. We all got into our yukata (Japanese pajamas) and met in Jill's room to watch the latest clips of Tina Fey imitating Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live and share stories from our week apart in our Host Cities. The night ended early because we all had to wake up early the next day to put the finishing touches on our presentations before we shared them with the group.

Making the Most of Every Minute

Well, I'm back in the states and, once again, I find myself trying to adjust to the time change. It was not easy to leave Japan knowing there were still so many things that I wanted to see and do, but I was also excited to come home and share my experiences with all of you in person! Not to mention, it was pretty thrilling to come home to a championship winning baseball team! GO PHILLIES! There is also a pretty big election taking place on Tuesday and you know I couldn't be out of the country for that! Since there are still a few more issues we need to cover before the voting begins on Tuesday, we will cover those on Monday in class and talk about my trip on Wednesday. Meanwhile, I will continue to update my blog and fill you in on my last week in Japan.

My trip did not end when I left Takeo. I still had 3 1/2 days left in Tokyo before it was time to head back to the United States and I was determined to see and do as much as possible in that time. In fact, as soon as we got off the bus at the hotel in Tokyo, I was back on a train with a few friends from my group, headed to Kamakura. Kamakura is one hour away from Tokyo by train and it was the capitol of Japan during the Heian period (1192-1333). We knew we would never get to see all of the sites in Kamakura in just a couple hours, but we figured that seeing some of Kamakura was better than not seeing any of Kamakura.

Our first stop in this historic city was the Hasedera temple. The Hasedera temple was started by the Jodo sect of Buddhism and is home to the largest wooden statue of the goddess Kan'non, the goddess of Mercy, in Japan. On the way to the Main Hall, where the Kan'non statue is housed is an area called the Jizo-do. In Buddhism, Jizo is the guardian of lost children (I've show pictures of similar shrines before, in which the statues at these shrines are wearing red "bibs"). In the Jizo-do at Hasedera, there are at least 1,000 statues of Jizo that have been dedicated by parents who lost their children. The sight of all of these statues in one place is very moving. In the same temple complex, there were winding paths that took us through lush gardens. There were Shinto shrines in every nook and cranny, with amazing views of the Pacific coastline. People from all over the world have been to Kamakura to visit these shrines and offer their prayers for peace.

There was so much to see at Hasedera that there was only enough time to visit one more temple in Kamakura. We walked (actually, we almost ran) down the street to the Daibutsu, the Great Buddha of Kamakura. The Daibutsu is dates back to 1252 and it is the second largest Buddha in Japan. Just like the Great Camphor tree in Takeo, you can only really get a true sense of the enormity of the Great Buddha when you see a picture of people standing next to it. It only stands to reason that such a big Buddha would have a great, big pair of sandals, too!

We left the Daibutsu as the sky began to get dark and went for a quick hike through the hills of Kamakura on our way back to the train station. Right before we turned back onto the main road, we came across the entrance to another shrine. Even though the shrine was closed up for the night, the gates were still open. Since we didn't know if we would ever have a chance to come back, we decided to have a look around. Somewhere in the background we could hear a waterfall, but from where we were standing, we couldn't see where it was coming from. Tucked back in the far corner, we could see a dim light. When we got closer, we could see that it was coming from the entrance to a small cave that contained a shrine. Based on what we found at the shrine, we deduced that this was the Zeniarai shrine, where worshippers come to wash their money. It is believed that money washed in this shrine will double.

There are so many more places I wanted to visit in Kamakura, but by this point all of the shrines and temples were closed, it was getting late, and I had seminars first thing the next morning. On the train back to Tokyo, I began to realize that my time in Japan was coming to an end and I was going to have to make the most of every minute I had left to even see a fraction of the things I had yet to see in this amazing country! Over the next few weeks, I will continue to update my blog and share not only what I did over the course of my last two days in Japan, but also my reflections on Japanese schools and society and how they are similar to and differnent from American schools and society.