Korakuen Garden, Seishin University, & Seishin University: June 15, 2016

Today we visited a few places. First we went to Korakuen Garden, then Seishin University, after we went to the Seishin Elementary. Here in Japan we've had to use the trains A LOT. It's wild. So we took this train with our main guide being Mr. Teacher Sensei (formal name being Matthew/Ma-shew/aka Mushroom🍄), but before that we took some taxi's. The weather was flaming hot like the Flaming Hot Cheetos. We had to pair up with a few students from Seishin High School. These students were in an advanced English class allowing them to join us on this trip, though most of them had already been to Korakuen Garden. We each had a partner as we walked along the garden. We saw a group of workers cleaning the rocks inside the rivers. They has been working there for 20 yrs already. Afterwards we continued to walk. We took many pictures as groups since I think somehow we divided into two groups. We saw some ice-cream and decided to get some. Our teachers were walking around separately in the garden so our new guide was Adeline. We took a stop to finish our ice-cream. It was a blast. Next we walked to the Okayama Castle. It was tiring being that it was hot and there were many stairs. We got to the top and gathered to take a picture. By then we had to go meet up again, so in the end we didn't see inside the castle but it was still fun.

We had to drop off the Seishin students at the train station by now. We said our sayonara's and took many pictures. It was a nice trip. After we headed for our lunch. We ate some food and finished quick since we were hungry.

It was now time to go to the University. There Mr. Sensei met up with two students who would be our tour guides. They were very kind and looked so young. They showed us around and then took us to the Elementary school. Both are located in the same area.

At the elementary school we were welcomed by many little kids. We changed our shoes to slippers and they live to their name for they kept slipping off my feet. The children took us around the classes and explained what each class was learning. The English they spoke was great! The little kids were the most adorable children EVER. They wore cute little uniforms and behaved very well. After we finished our tour they sent off with a warm goodbye.

Finally we set out to take our Japanese class at the University. We quickly ran to the stationary store which everyone seems to be obsessed about and bought a few things. We went up the flights of stairs once again. By the way our legs will look amazing by the end of this trip since we've been walking 24/7. A group of girls were our teachers. They welcomed us and we started to learn a few phrases in Japanese. We then wrote little cards to our host families which we planned to give them on our last day. Towards the end we played a game called Karata. It was a lot of fun!

That was the end of today. So far it's been a great trip. Its a joy to learn about such a different culture from our own and we have powered through everything that comes our way. Looking forward to seeing how our last few days will go!