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July 24, 2002

The Janesville Craig group reconvenes in Kyoto at the Rihga Royal Hotel after spending a wonderful week with families in Sakai (Osaka Prefecture). During their time in Kyoto, they will be accompanied by volunteer guide, Kazue Okamoto. The Hamady group returns from a fabulous experience with Hibarigaoka High School families (Kanagawa Prefecture). This group will be accompanied throughout Kyoto with volunteer guide, Fumie Sakai. The Redford group arrives after transferring to two different Shinkansen lines and travelled to Kyoto at 150 mph. These participants will not forget the hospitality they experienced at Tohoku High (Miyagi Prefecture) and with their host families! They will be guided by volunteer Yasushi Kinoshita. The Saginaw group is now thoroughly spoiled after a magnificent experience with their families in their sister city of Tokushima (Tokushima Prefecture).Ready for their final three days of exploration in the Kansai area, Ayano Fujita. Do the San Clemente students look like they just had an incredible time at their host school, Yatomi? (Aichi Prefecture).They made the short trip (40 minutes) to Kyoto via Shinkansen.

The Last Leg--Kyoto! On Tuesday, July 23rd, New Perspectives: Japan participants returned to gather as a group in Kyoto. Yesterday morning, everybody bid a fond farewell to their host families and boarded buses and trains that would whisk them back to Japan's ancient capital city and seat of high culture and learningñKyoto. It might be helpful to frame the Kyoto phase of the study tour as the third and final portion of the study tour that takes place on site in Japan. To review, the first part of the study tour took place in Tokyo, and it served as an opportunity for the students and their teachers to get acclimated to Japan. This first portion of the study tour was not merely a time to adjust to the new time zone. It was also a time to first engage the culture of Japan. Tokyo served as an excellent starting off point for the study tour. It is Japan's capital and, as the most westernized city in Japan, the culture shock some participants might have experienced was kept to a minimum. The second portion of the study tour officially came to a close yesterday. For the past eight days, NP:J participants lived with Japanese host families, tagging along with their host brother or sister to school, and getting an authentic experience in what it means to live and study in the culture of Japan. Year in and year out, this is the most highly rated aspect of the NP:J experience. The reasons for the positive response are many, but we suspect that our students learn most because of the personal interaction they experience each day, within an environment that encourages their sense of self-awareness and their ability to communicate. Leaving the homestay family is a difficult time for many an NP:J participant. It may be hard to believe, but students frequently forge strong bonds of friendship with the people who provide them with a home away from home. It is not unusual for students to begin composing "thank you" notes to their host families as soon as they arrive in Kyoto. "Domo arigato gozaimashita, Okaasan and Otousan!" (Thanks a lot, mom and dad!) Yesterday, as stated earlier, is the third and concluding segment of the study tour. Over the next two and a half days, each of the NP:J school groups will make the most of every minute they have left in Japan. They will do this by exploring Kyoto and the surrounding area. Kyoto was spared the bombing that so many other Japanese cities experienced during WWII. American academicians convinced the Allied military that Kyoto contained absolutely no sites of military significance, so many of its ancient temples and cultural and historical sites were spared. As a result, students might explore beautiful temples, like Kiyomizudera. Others will be going on a "Kyoto Walking Tour," where they will take hushed footsteps through the halls of Sanjusangendo, where the 1,001 statues of Kannon (Buddhist figure) reside in a building that is over 700 years old! If temples or museums are not your thing, than you can join the group going to Osaka Castle, or to the beautiful ancient city of Nara. We even have one group that is traveling to the city of Kobe to watch the Yomiuri Giants play the Hanshin Tigers in a game of baseballñtalk about opportunities for experiencing so many different aspects of Japanese culture! It's a beautiful, sunny day in Kyoto. Wait a minute. While that statement about the weather is true, it's not completely accurate. "Atsui desu, ne?" (It's a scorcher!) It's really hot and humid todayñtypical of Kyoto summers. You can take four showers a day here but it only takes a quick walk of 5 minutes before you are drenched with perspiration again. Humidity aside, though, the students are arriving at the Rihga Royal Hotel in high spirits, eager to drop off their luggage and get back out on the streets of Kyoto to do some exploring andñof courseñshopping! All is well here in Japan. Two and a half days of learning more about Japan lie ahead. We'll post our final article for the July tour of the NP:J newsletter later this week. Until then, thanks for stopping by and catching up on our NP:J tour.