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July 7, 2004 |
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"Yokoso!" Welcome to Japan!
Thousands of miles and several hours after departing from the United States, everone has arrived safely in Japan! The staff of The Laurasian Institution were on hand at Narita International Airport on Tuesday, July 6th, to welcome everyone to Tokyo. For most of the NP:J students, this trip represents their first time traveling such a great distance, so their cross-cultural learning experience has a bonus "class" on learning how to cope with jet lag! This is the third and final NP:J Study Tour for the summer of 2004. We have had students and teachers join us from schools located throughout the nation, and the school groups for this study tour are no exception to our customarily broadly represented geographic participation. From July 6-20, the following schools will be exploring Japan on NP:J:
As tired as everyone was, we distributed ice cold bottles of water for people to drink during the two-hour bus ride from Narita Airport to their Tokyo "home away from home," the Olympic Village. We encourage students to start oberving Japanese culture, to begin comparing their way of life in America with what they are observing through the bus windows as Tokyo unfolds before them. "Tokyo is huge!...look at the apartment buildings—how many people live in one of those?...we're driving on the left side of the road!...look! Disneyland!...wow, an indoor snow ski ramp!...sensei, my roommate fell asleep—should we wake her up?...the trucks are a lot smaller here...how much did that toll booth cost? 10 bucks!?" The students were eager to begin exploring Tokyo, but by the time we arrived at the Olympic Village, virtually everyone was ready to get checked in, take a shower (or, for the more adventourus—experience a Japanese bath, called an "ofuro" or "sento"), and hit the sack! Once the students were tucked away for the night, their teachers met with the staff of The Laurasian Institution to go over the schedule for the next few days. It's been a long day, but everyone arrived safely and soundly. The next two weeks are sure to be exciting, with many opportunities for learning about Japan. We hope you will enjoy reading our NP:J newsletter. We'll have three more issues posted on the internet during the course of the study tour. A side note to parents and friends regarding e-mails—students are able to read and respond to e-mails on 6 nights during the study tour. For this tour, we will set up our computer room on the evenings of July 6, 7, 8, 17, 18, and 19. We encourage the students to come to the computer room to read their e-mails AND to reply to them, but we do not require that they do so. So, if you send an e-mail and if you do not receive an immediate response, please understand that this is more than likely due to the fact that the students are fully engaged with exploring Japan, and have decided to devote most of their time to experiencing the culture firsthand. Our next newsletter should be posted by July 10th! See you then, and thank you for making this experience possible! |
Harvey-sensei
and the Wissahickon students are happy to finally make it to Tokyo!
The
Tarheel State of North Carolina is proudly represented by Dailey-sensei,
Ottinger-sensei, and the students from the Charlotte area.
Marina
High School is posing while they are waiting for the shuttle bus to the
Olympic Village.They still look Genki!
The
Alicia R. Chacon group is all excited about their new experiences in Nihon!
Charlotte
group is listening to TLI staff Kevin's explanation how to send e-mails
from the NPJ account in the Olympic Village computer room on arrival day.