(this is a panoramic view from my window)
Hello everyone! Today was our first free day but we didn't do very much exploring. The Kansai University Middle School was throwing a cultural festival which we attended in the morning. Some universities in Japan are a part of a full school system that starts from elementary school (sometimes even pre-k) and goes into college. If you keep your grades good, you can pretty much continue through the entire system. 
We took a pretty long train ride to get to the school and then had to walk done a few streets. The school itself looked like a business office.
This is a picture of the yama (mountains) that seem to surround Osaka. The side of the building on the left of the picture is the Kansai University Middle School. It had 13 floors of classrooms!
These two are pictures taken of the city from the 13th floor. Osaka is Japan's 3rd largest city.
We then met our student 'counterparts' who ushered us into their classroom by screaming 'hello' (sounded like 'heroo') and waving their hands in our faces. But we loved their enthusiasm and they were a bunch of fun.
The 'V' is a common thing for Japanese people to do. They think it's very American. Our British students keep thinking we are saying the F word...
Sorry that she's to the side, but this is a student who showed me how to make a crane. Mine is on the right...she had to assist me a lot...
These students were performing a dance that is performed at festivals during parades. They were super cute and lots of fun. We tried to dance along but weren't very good.
Next, we attempted to play the Japanese version of tennis. I unfortuanately can't remember what this is called, but they play it on New Years.
This is what the paddle looks like and the 'ball' looks more like a shuttlecock. You could say this game is closer to badmitton than tennis.
These were our competition and in the end we all decided that we all had lost. When you lose at this game, the winnners get to paint a black circle around your eye.
Jamie and I decided to wash our circles off because everyone kepy laughing at us. But we decided to take one more picture in the Japanese fashion.
We then had to say goodbye and decided to come home to do some essential shopping at the 100 yen shop and Japanese version of Walgreens.
We then decided to try a restaurant within the mall but many of the restaurants were expensive. (I still haven't found the McD's...) We found a bakery that wasn't very expensive and got pastries like these to eat. This bakery, like many Japanese bakeries (that aren't snooty) have you take a tray and a pair of tongs and you go around the bakery and put what you want to buy on the tray. It was a lot of fun!
Well, the rest of day we plan to use for studying since the placement test is this Monday! Wish us luck and hope that we don't make a fool of America!
No comments:
Post a Comment