間もなくプログラム終了

My time in Japan is nearly at its end. I had a truly amazing year here, not just in Japan, but at Fujimura too. If I think back at my time here, I feel very grateful to everyone at Fujimura for being so welcoming and kind because it really made a difference and I was able to feel very happy working here. Of course, learning new languages is important, so I hope the students have had a good experiencing learning with me. However, even more than that, I hope this has been a good experience of cultural exchange and learning more about the world and people outside of Japan. For me, it really has been because I have learned a lot about Japan and the Japanese language, and I hope to keep learning. I will keep the memories I have of living in Japan and working at Fujimura for the rest of my life and maybe one day, I hope I will have the opportunity to come back and make more memories. Thank you very much for this year!

新大久保

I went to Shin-Okubo Station on Monday, to visit Koreatown. I was really excited because I love Korean food and was looking forward to buying some presents for Camille before she left. We both like the same music and music is always something that brings people together so I was glad to have that in common and give her a goodbye present that she’d like. I ate dakgalbi which was very cheesy and very delicious and I also tried patbingsu, similar to Kakigōri, and I really loved it a lot! It’s a great summer dessert. I also got to try that really cheesy Arirang hot dog that is pretty popular in the area and that was a really interesting experience! The past few times I have been to Shin-Okubo, I’ve only gone to the Indian store so it was cool to see more of the area. Since there’s a lot of different kinds of people there, the fashion you see and the languages you hear in passing are also really interesting, I really like how different every area of Tokyo is; I think that’s why it’s very difficult to get bored if you live here!

お別れ会と初めての映画館

This week is Camille’s last full week. It’s very sad because I, like the other students and teachers at Fujimura, have gotten pretty close to her and I think we’ll miss her a lot! Last Friday, the chorus club and some teachers had a joint farewell party for me and Camille (but I think mostly for Camille because she’s leaving very soon) and I had so much fun! It was really great to eat and play games with the students and teachers, and they also did really amazing performances so I was very impressed and touched. I always like speaking with the students so it was really nice to get the opportunity to talk with them there too. It made me think about how I will leave soon too but I will really miss the people at this school a lot so I don’t want to think about it! After that, a friend wanted to see a new marvel superhero movie so we went to Shibuya. It was the first movie I have seen in Japan because usually I don’t go to the cinema so it was pretty cool, especially to see both Japanese people and foreigners reacting to the same movie. I also noticed some of the translations with the Japanese subtitles were a bit different from the English dialogue so that was interesting to try and figure out. I want to try watch more things in Japanese so I can improve!

藤村女子とニュージーランドのスポーツ大会

On Wednesday, Fujimura had its sports day! After visiting the other school and seeing theirs, I was really excited and looking forward to Fujimura’s own sports day. I think the different types of activities and games were so interesting and fun, especially with the energy and spirit of Fujimura’s students. They were a lot different to the activities and games I was used to from my own high school but I think it was a lot more exciting! Kibasen, especially, was very different to any game played in New Zealand so I enjoyed watching it a lot. In New Zealand we had four different houses (teams) that every student is assigned when they start school, kind of like Hogwarts in Harry Potter! They were named after New Zealand trees: Kowhai (yellow), Matai (blue), Rimu (red), and Totara (green), and I was in Rimu. When we had our sports day, called Tabloids, we would compete to earn points for our house; so there would be a winner for sports day but at the end of the year all points would be counted to see who the overall winner would be. I wish our school was more like Hogwarts though! This year, at Fujimura, I was part of the blue team and I was very happy and proud of the students because… blue team won! I think it was really amazing to see, once again, how talented the students are! Although it started raining, everyone kept their spirits up and had a great time so it was nice to see both the students and teachers relaxed and having a lot of fun.

他校のスポーツ大会

Last Saturday, I was invited, by another JET Programme teacher, to visit her school for their sports day. I had never been to a sports day at a Japanese school before so I was excited to see what it would be like. It was also interesting because I have gotten used to being at an all-girls school but the other school was mixed. The boys reminded me a lot of the students at Fujimura because there was so much energy! It was really cool to see all the different activities, relays, and games the students did, but it was especially amazing to see their dance performances. I had two favourite performances. One was when some girls and their homeroom teachers all wore yukatas and danced with these wide flat hats they had made and decorated themselves. The second was the boys’ (very loud!) performance with taiko. Apparently the students had practiced a lot for sports day for a week or two before so it was nice to see it go well. At my school in New Zealand, we had two different sports days; one was called Athletics Day and the other was called Tabloids Day. Athletics Day was a little more “serious sports” but on Tabloids Day, everyone dressed up as anything they wanted, in their house colours (red, blue, green, or yellow), and we played fun games and relays to try get points for our houses! I’m looking forward to seeing how Fujimura’s sports day will be!

韓国系アメリカ人の友人来日

So far, I’ve been lucky enough to have my friends visit me and experience bits of Japan with them. On Sunday, I got to meet with my friend from LA and her sister. They are Korean but they were born in the U.S., so they took a trip to Korea for the first time and then they came to Japan, which they enjoyed a lot! It was really nice seeing her because she lives so far away from me that we can usually only talk online. We went to Meiji Shrine because they had not yet visited any temples or shrines. After that, we went to the Mori Art Museum in Roppongi. I have been there once before but this time there was a different exhibition. It was about Japanese architecture and woodwork, and it was really cool to see the model buildings; they were so detailed! There was one model of a building that was short, but it was really long, kind of like a rectangular tunnel. My friend told me to bend down so my eye was level with it and look through it, so I did! However, this other guy was doing the same thing on the other side so we ended up just staring at each other through the model of the building and then we both started laughing because it was so strange! After the museum, it became quite cold and it was raining a lot by then, so we chose to eat tonkotsu ramen which made us warm and happy, and made us forget the feeling of our wet socks and shoes!

名実ともにGW

The past week was Golden Week and I had one of my friends come to visit me from a different city in New Zealand. It was really nice because we hadn’t seen each other in quite a while so it was ironic that we managed to meet and be together on the other side of the world! She really wanted to stay in and around the Tokyo area and she’s originally from Sri Lanka so she thought it was cool to see the similarities and differences between two Asian countries. It was really fun to show her around some places I’d already been to, as well as do some new things I hadn’t done before. For example, I visited Odaiba for the first time even though it’s not so far away! It’s so interesting that Odaiba is man-made and we couldn’t believe all the things it had, especially the indoor theme parks; how does it all fit?! We also went to DisneySea which was really amazing, and we found out it’s the only one in the world! It was cool because my friend had never been to any Disneyland before so she was pretty excited (but not about waiting in the really long lines). One of the last days, we went to Enoshima and I was so happy to see the beach and the sea again! It was a really nice ending to a really nice week because as we walked back to the station alongside the sea, the sun set next to the silhouette of Fujisan, turning the sky gold; Golden Week truly lived up to its name!