[j a p a n t r i p ' 9 8]

view of Matsuyama from a window of a tall skyscraper


In Matsuyama, i stayed at a Nitta High School student's house. My host is Sayako Nagai. Her house is quite far from the school and it takes about an hour to drive to school! Usually Sayako takes a train and then change to a bus to go to school. Her house is actually in a rural area with rice fields everywhere and is surrounded by beautiful mountains and forest. There is also a river flowing near! At night, one can hear frogs croaking. It is a really peaceful place.
Nitta High School is very different from my high school. Unlike my high school, which is a public school, Nitta High School is a private school. Like a university,it has many separate buildings. There is even a building for technical studies students! In that building's hallway, there are displays of tools such as wrenches, etc.. . :D Those student's uniforms are also different from the regular students. They have a light blue outfit. Its really a pity that i haven't explored the whole school.. .


top: the front of Nitta High School is a beautiful garden!
bottom: where students put their bicycles... no locks needed!! incredible!
The usual summer uniform of Nitta high school for boys is a short sleeve white shirt and a black pants. For girls, its a white polo shirt with a 'N' on the pocket and a grey and white criss-crossed patterned skirt. Some students like to wear loose white socks that is pulled up almost to the knee (similar to the aerobic socks). I guess it is a fashion trend in Japan. Even Sayoko wears it. I was really surprised how they keep the socks up. They have a special glue that you put on your skin to the rim of the sock to keep the sock staying up! I almost fell down when i saw Sayoko applying the glue to her socks! It is something like a glue stick.. .. Its really interesting that you can tell which students are "rebels" and leave their shirts untucked. Of course, the students don't wear sailor fuku since this school is not a public school.
I was really surprised how the school looked. The school is surrounded by a stone wall and the front has a very pretty garden. The front of the building is transparent so you can see the students walking in the hallways! How convenient it is to catch students skipping! :D In the hallway, you can look in the classrooms since the upper wall is transparent glass. To the other side, you can look outside through the glass. On the side there are some water faucets, and wooden boxes for backpacks.
Basically, the school looks almost exactly like what you see in manga!!!!@_@ In the classroom, the students have their own desk like in American elementary schools.The students just leave their stuff in their own desks! I thought it was a neat idea to have a hook on the side of the desk so that you can hang your backpack there. It seems as if that most students have bags instead of backpacks. In the front of the room, there is a big chalkboard and the teacher's desk. In the back of the room, there are hooks where you can hang your clothes.
However, this school trip wasn't just for fun.. we had to do a performance in front of the school!! (@_@..) we had about 5 different dances representing different eras.. I had to dance for about less than one minute on the stage to the music of "Zippidee doo da".. hehe.. i'm a very terrible dancer.. so thats probably why i didn't really perform much!! (-_-..).. you know, the people on this trip aren't professional dancers you know.. other than that, we had to sing the theme song of the movie "Titanic", Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On". I prefer singing than dancing.. . Anyway, we had to dance in the school gymnasium.. its very huge!!!! And i haven't saw so many students in my life.. especially watching me!! very intimidating.. especially everyone with black hair, white shirts.. .

The beginning of the celebration of the 60th year of Nitta High school. Taiko drummers are performing.. next is Sacramento high school's performance, then next is the other exchange students of China's Dailien High School's performance....
Look at the incredible audience!! what you can't see in this photo are the people sitting on the second floor balcony!!!
The week which we visit Nitta high school is also the week of their school's cultural festival. Each class prepare something for the festival!! In fact, everyone works on preparing the festival for a couple of days!! Many students stayed long after school working on their projects... Sayoko's class's project was preparing a selling ice cream stand. They had to paint some posters and such.. I also saw some students in their PE uniform carrying long pipes to prepare to set up the tents! Everyone seemed to work very hard on preparing for the festival!

TOP: Some students selling "toriyaki" or grilled chicken.. our school's "festivals" aren't anything like this!!!
BOTTOM: The school has a radio show of some sort.. i couldn't understand because people were talking Japanese!! The people on the left side are from my school (with myself being covered! ;D), and on the right side of the Chinese Dailien high school students.. They asked us what did we think about Japan!! -.- . .

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