Japan 'like second home' following class visit

Rachel: "[Visiting Japan] inspired many of us to continue our studies and reach for the place that felt like a second home to us."

The Cashmere High School Japan Trip was an amazing experience that allowed us as students to gain first-hand experience of the culture and country that we had been studying for so long.

We started off in Osaka, which is known as the ‘Nation's Kitchen’. It’s home to many of Japan’s famous street foods including: takoyaki [octopus balls], okonomiyaki [savoury pancake] and much more.

We were able to try many of these foods as well as view a performance all about the street food known as ‘Gotta’; starring Miss Crêpe and Takoyakinojo.

It was intriguing for us to learn about the culture of these street foods that we might have otherwise taken for granted. After this, we ventured into the ‘Pink Kawaii Café’, which, true to its name, was overwhelming pink and cute.

The difference between Osaka’s ancient street food culture and its very modern and eccentric style showed us how two vastly different aspects of life can mush together to make up a culture of one country.

Visiting the ‘Pink Kawaii Café’in Osaka

After Osaka, we made our way to Shiga where we visited Sutoku Preschool.

Cashmere High School has visited the school every trip since 2004. We danced, played and talked to the preschool children and confirmed our fears that their Japanese was way better than ours despite their young age. We learned that in many ways Japanese preschools are very much like our preschools in Western countries.

The traditional city of Kyoto was the next stop on our list. In Kyoto we were surrounded by many beautiful temples and traditional style buildings. We even got to stay in a traditional Japanese style inn called a ryokan, which was a truly new experience for many of us on the trip.

While staying in Kyoto, we travelled to the nearby city of Nara where we visited the famous Nara park and got to feed deer who were trained to bow to visitors.

Leaving Kyoto we travelled to Hiroshima city. This is where our group got to see the tragic effect the atomic bomb had on the city and the people of Hiroshima, even decades after the bomb was dropped.

We paid our respects by folding one thousand paper cranes and placing them at the Peace Memorial Park along with those folded by students from our sister school. We learnt about the tragedy of the war and what it meant for the Japanese to have lost it.

The city of Kurashiki is where we truly got to experience what life is like for the average person in Japan. We were taken home to live with the families of students from our sister school, Kurashiki Minami High School.

We were treated like family and long time friends rather than strangers, which really helped us feel at home.

We all tried our best to communicate with a mixture of English, Japanese and hand gestures, which fuelled our desire to learn more of the language so that we could better communicate with our new long-lasting friends and families.

Taking a cooking class at Kurashiki Minami High School

Last but not least, we went to Japan's capital city, Tokyo.

Tokyo was a whole different experience to what we had previously been introduced to in other parts of the country. It was so much busier and much more chaotic than the places we had already been too, and with many more people, it was hard not to get lost in the big city life.

We crossed the famous Shibuya crossing, which felt almost like being swallowed by an ocean of people, and walked the magical grounds of Disneyland. And of course, we couldn’t leave Japan without indulging ourselves in a night of karaoke.

Going to Japan on this school trip was an amazing way to help us better connect with a country that we had all been learning about from a far for so long. It inspired many of us to continue our studies and reach for the place that felt like a second home to us.

The Asia New Zealand Foundation provides Japan Study Grants thanks to funding from Nakashimato Co Ltd. of Japan.