School visit, and cucumbers. Day 4!

Thursday, July 12:

Today, we woke up to rain. We walked around with umbrellas that our hotel provided in our room.

We went to the small store again, and I bought my first piece of Japanese clothing! A shirt, and a rain poncho (since I obviously needed one).

We left at 8:30 for the Agriculture High School today. We were all really looking forward to this part, so we could interact with peers. They had a welcome reception, then we toured around the farm, garden, and green house areas. We sat with the students on the bus, and had lots of time to talk with them. After asking name, grade, and age, I tried asking about their favorite classes, music, movies, and TV shows. They don't have a very strong English program, so we knew more Japanese than they did English.

Outside of the school. Rainy day in Japan!

A poster they had for us.



Touring the grounds.

Walking around and socializing! :)

I think one girl in particular thought I was much better than I really am. She talked a lot, and I only understood about 20% of it. Otherwise I just smiled and nodded. She was very kind and interesting though!

This is her! :)

There was another girl, まなみ (Manami), who walked with me and shared her umbrella. We talked a lot, and I found out that she and a few others girls share music interests with me! It was really cool to talk about something we have in common.

Manami and I! :D

We also went into the barn where they milk cows. I fed one some grass, and it licked my leg! It was funny, because I'm pretty sure someone caught it on video.

Some students in their uniforms for working!

The cow that licked me, lol.

After the tour, we went back into the school to have lunch with the students. Three boys were at our table group. One was named たかし (Takashi), and he was very kind. We had a delicious lunch with onigiri, grilled salmon, eggplant, and various other things in a plastic tray. The whole school lunch tray is called Bento.

My Bento!

After some awkward attempts at conversation, we gave them gifts and candy. I handed out some honey sticks that I bought at the farmer's market back home, and Adam gave our tablemates pixie stix. I think the pixie stix were a little too tart for them. It didn't help that they tried to eat the sugar, instead of just pouring it on their tongue. It was actually a pretty hysterical sight.

Next, Sensei gave our gifts to the teacher. We provided cookies, and a t-shirt, which one of our tablemates modeled.

Our gifts for the teachers!

The t-shirt we gave them!

I was sooo sad when we had to leave, even though we only interacted for a couple hours. Kayla got an email from one of the guys she talked with, so we're going to try and contact the rest of our new friends through him.

Kayla and her new friend! He gave her his fan!

Me and some of the girls I talked to! :)

They also gave each of us a gift before we left. It was a packet with a picture of all of us, taken earlier that day, and some origami pieces, along with instructions to how to make each one!

Our gift ♥

After the school visit, we went to a building where we watched a video about the radiation and crops in the area, and how they test for radiation. Then we visited a rice paddy and saw a couple farmers show us a method to testing the radiation. Then we moved on to a cucumber greenhouse, where 5 of us got to pick a cucumber each. We went to a tech lab, where they actually did the testing radiation, and we got to see how it worked. Then we waited for the results, which turned out to be no radiation detected! So they chopped them up, and we ate them. It was yummy. :)

The lecture/video room 

Getting a cucumber sample to test the radiation.

These were salted cucumbers, delish!

Oh yeah, did I mention? A news crew was with us all day. Apparently, they're putting a bunch of footage together to a DVD, and do a short TV episode on us. Sort of like a 60 minutes thing. I was kind of shocked, but the crew was really cool, and I think they liked us a lot!

TV crew! :)

Waving goodbye!

We also encountered some middle schoolers before we left. They use the same building that we watched the videos at. They were kind of staring at us, so we started talking to them in Japanese. They run track in the area, and they said that they had never seen that many foreigners at once! Of course, this was a small town, so it's not surprising. :)

The guys we talked to!

We finally returned to the Regina, and had my favorite dinner yet.  しゃぶしゃぶ(Shabu-Shabu), which is thin sliced ham, swished through a pan of a boiling broth of vegetables and mushrooms. The ham cooks really quickly, then you put it on your plate with soy sauce or sesame sauce. It was sooo good! I want to try and make it at home!

Shabu-Shabu~

The ham for Shabu-Shabu!

Following dinner, we went to the convenience store and found an upstairs section, called the relaxation room. We just chilled since no one else was there, and drank from our juice boxes. Tomorrow we leave Fukushima. :/