Tokyo Disneyland - Happy Birthday Mr Baptist!

The day for our much-anticipated visit to Disneyland finally arrived! We met at the local convenience store at 8.00am this morning to board our mini-bus for the journey to Maihama. We arrived about 9.15am and headed straight for the entrance. Disneyland is full of Halloween decorations for the month of October. Our first stop was the Guest Info Centre, to pick up a special "It's My Birthday" sticker for Mr Baptist. What a way to celebrate your birthday - at Disneyland!! After confirming our meeting place in case anyone became separated from the group, we headed for our first roller-coaster ride, Space Mountain (which also happens to be Tate-Sensei's favourite ride). The weather was sunny and quite warm, which is a good thing, but it also means that a lot of people decided to spend the day at the "Magic Kingdom". The waiting (queueing) time for Space Mountain, even at 9.30 in the morning, was 80 minutes! A couple of members of our group decided a roller-coaster ride was not for them, so they went off with one of our Japanese volunteers to do some shopping and get some "Fast Passes" for our next ride. Fast Passes enable you to jump the queue at very popular rides, but you can only get one Fast Pass every two hours or so, and there are a limited number for each ride per day.

Disneyland was so crowded today that the waiting time for the most popular rides was over two hours - we decided that was a bit too long for us! However, thanks to the Fast Pass system, we rode on Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Big Thunder Railway, Pirates of the Caribbean, It's a Small World, Star Tours and the Racing Cars. Some people managed to ride Space Mountain a second time at the end of the day, as they decided that would be more fun than shopping!

Unfortunately it became very windy towards the end of the day and into the evening, so the night-time "Electrical Light Parade" and fireworks were cancelled, but we still had a fantastic day, and it was a very tired group of students that arrived back in Sakura at 9.30pm.

Tokyo Sightseeing

After three days of having to be at school by 8.00am, we had a slightly later start today - we met at the local convenience store at 8.30am to board our minibus to Tokyo. Along with ten All Saints' group members, there were another twelve Japanese volunteers with us, to help make sure we didn't get lost in the streets of Tokyo! We also had Mr Araki, a member of the Shirogane Primary School Board, carrying his Australian flag everywhere so we had something to follow amongst the crowds.

It took about an hour and a half in the morning traffic to reach our first destination, Asakusa Kannon (Asakusa temple). We enjoyed doing some shopping along nakamise dori, a short mall filled with tiny souvenir and food shops. After taking a few photos in front of the temple, we walked back to the bus and headed for Tokyo Skytree.

Tokyo Skytree was opened just over a year ago, and is 634m tall, making it the tallest tower, and second tallest building, in the world. We travelled up to the 350m level on the world's fastest lift - it travels at about 600m per minute. The view over the city of Tokyo was spectacular. Unfortunately, it wasn't a very clear day, so we couldn't see Mt Fuji, but we could still pick out lots of other landmarks. Most of the group enjoyed an ice-cream at the Cafe Before returning to the ground floor, we were all brave enough to walk over a section of glass floor that allows you to see all the way down tot he ground. Looking straight down from that height is a bit scary! After some more shopping in the Gift Shop on the ground floor, it was back on the bus and off to a restaurant for lunch.

After lunch, we headed for Harajuku. On the way, the bus driver took us past koukyo (the Emperor's residence - Japan's equivalent of Buckingham Palace). Unfortunately is well protected by a moat and huge stone wall more than 400 years old, so you can't actually see the palace. We also drove past the Crown Prince's residence, and saw the Japanese Parliament House. Once we arrived in Harajuku, we walked along Takeshita Dori (Takeshita Street), another shopping mall. This one is full of various fashion shops. We saw a few interesting outfits on the people walking along the mall! The most popular purchase amongst our group was sunglasses.

Finally, we walked the short distance to "Kiddyland", a three storey toy shop, where we did a little more shopping before getting back on the bus for the trip home. We were able to see Tokyo lit up at night as we travelled back to Sakura.

East Sakura Junior High School - Day 2

Once again, we travelled to East Sakura Junior High School for the afternoon. Today we participated in English and Art lessons. After school, we went to the Art club and had a special lesson in sumi-e (Japanese tradiotional ink painting) from the school's art teacher, Mr Sasaki. He is famous for his art, not only in Japan, but in parts of Europe as well, so we were very lucky to have him show us how to make beautiful art using different shades of ink. After Art Club, we visited a few other clubs to see what theri activities are like - badminton club, band club, tennis club, soccer club and baseball club.

 

 

 

Sumo!

We have all been looking forward to trying out sumo (Japanese wrestling). The students have seen some photographs of the All Saints' groups that visited three years ago learning how to do sumo, and particularly liked the photographs of Mr Baptist wearing an authentic sumo belt, and taking on the school champion. There are 33 primary schools in the Sakura area, and Shirogane is the champion school, with its students being the current Year 4, Year 5 and Year 6 champions.

The two Year 6 classes hosted our sumo session during Periods 3 and 4. They started by giving us a demonstration (not only does Shirogane have the Year 6 champion, they also have the silver medallist!). Then came the challenge - who would like to take on one of the champions? Charlton was brave enough to step forward and uphold All Saints' honour, and challenged the silver medallist to a bout. It was close contest, but the Japanese student's experience helped him win the bout. Cameron put up his hand next, and took on the school champion. It was definite size mismatch, but Cam was game! He won the first bout, but in the second, the Japanese champion used his skills and strength to easily pick Cameron up and lift him out of the ring! Finally, Layne was brave enough to take on the girls' champion. After some advice from Mr Baptist on sumo technique, there were lots of "oohs" and "aahs" from the crowd, who were impressed at Layne's style. Again it was a close contest, but Layne was able to push her opponent out of the ring and get the win.

Next we tried "Thumb Sumo" - we call it "Thumb Wars" in Australia, and then "Push Sumo". In "Push Sumo" the two players stand facing each other, feet apart, legs slightly bent, and try to push each other off balance. You can only use your hands to push on the other person's hands - you can't push any other part of their body, and you can't grab their hands and pull. If your feet move from their original position (ie you lose your balance), you lose. We had great fun playing this game, and developed a few interesting techniques. To finish the session, the Japanese Year 6 teachers challenged us to an International Push Sumo competition. They chose their best eight students and one teacher to take on the eight All Saints' students and Mr Baptist. It was very close, but Japan came out on top, 5-4.

After sumo had finished, the Year 6 students held a short "Farewell Ceremony". We were presented with a gift for the school by the Principal, Mrs Konagai, then there were some speeches,and finally the Year 6 students applauded as we left the gym.