When we arrived at Senri Highschool, I had no idea what this day would hold. Mr. Yamauchi led us inside where we swapped our shoes for guest slippers and had a meeting with the principal. After a short presentation, we were sent to our classrooms with guide-students. I was lucky enough to have two. They brought me to their chemistry class and gave me a small stool to sit beside one of their desks. I met an exchanged student named Patrick and it was a little comforting to know that I wasn't the only non-Japanese student in the class.... but on the other hand.... Patrick spoke very good Japanese and mine is dismally restricted to a few phrases. I introduced myself to the class and sat and watched as the teacher made a battery out of Lead, Lead Oxide, and Sulfuric acid. He attached clamps to the sheets of Pb and PbO and they powered a small fan for the remainder of class. After class let out, I was guided back to the board room and the group re-formed. We changed shoes and headed out to the field where all of the students had already assembled in block formation. These last two sentences took place in about 5 minutes so give the time period this was an incredible feat. The assembly was hot and rainy and the students showed upmost discipline. After the assembly, I met my host student Masataka Mori. We went to his home room to begin cleaning. An American student would never stand out in the rain quietly and willingly clean the school building. Needless to say, I was very impressed. We all met again for lunch, and after an opening speech, we began our workshops. Tess, Kelsey, and I chose calligraphy and the others chose origami. We also had workshops in wearing yukatas, traditional tea ceremony, and kendo. After all of our workshops we were quizzed on different aspects of Japan and had to say goodye to all of our new friends.
At the end of the school day, we all joined our host students and their families and had to part ways for the weekend. Masataka lives in Takatsuki City which is about 40 minutes away from Senri. I met his mother, father, and younger brother Takahiro and we went out to eat. The restaurant's specialty was skewered meat and vegetables that you bread at the table and deep fry right infront of your plate. I ate like a king and then impressed some of the fellow diners with my icecream swirling skills (I get more out of Chickfila than a wage). Afterwards, we saw Harry Potter and we all fell asleep at some point. We got to sleep as soon as we could seeing as we were so tired.
The next day, Masataka and his father took me to Universal Studios Japan. It was very fun and interesting, especially to see so many shows in a language I don't understand. It actually made everything more interesting than it would have been in English. We got home late again and had Kakoyaki (spell check?) which are balls of batter, octopus, and pickle fried in a waffle iron type contraption. Also we had fried pork and some delicious sliced cabbage.
The next morning, I went to a judo practice with Masataka's father. We sat and watched as they underwent a grueling workout with a 5 minute water break sometime in an estimated two hours. We picked up Takahiro and went bowling and after 4 gutterballs I got back into the rhythm and eventually started making some strikes. We met up at the house and left for the farewell dinner. It was very tough to part with them. I had a wonderful time, but spending so much time with such a happy family made me miss my own back home and I was looking forward to seeing them.
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