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!