Seiritsu International Education

Bryce, over the weekend, visited lots of different shopping districts with his new home stay, the Shign family, and this picture is from their time at Harajuku.

This weekend, all the students spent time with their home stay family and the activities they did ranged from having a party to going to Disney Sea (an ocean-themed Disney amusement park) to trying on kimonos.

As a sample of some of the things they did, here are some pictures that the students took.

Bryce

This is Bryce with his home stay, the Mizuno family. Bryce actually changed home stays on Sunday and is now staying with the Shign family and Jason, a Seiritsu student from Australia.

Jocelyn & Karen

Jocelyn & Karen had an action packed weekend with the Arai family, hosting a small party both Saturday and Sunday. Nicholas, Richard Sensei, and myself stopped by on Saturday and it was a night filled with food and fun. In Tokyo, the summer is filled with festivals called matsuri, in which many people wear traditional Japanese summer clothing (yukata) and there are also fireworks displays. At its peak, there is a matsuri almost everyday somewhere in and around the Tokyo area and we all watched a fireworks display (hanabi) from the Arai family's balcony.

Victor
Victor and his home stay, the Kimura family, spent all Sunday at Disney Sea which is right next door to Tokyo Disneyland. I think it goes without saying that he had a blast.

Nicholas
Aside from the party at the Arai family's house, Nicholas also got to visit Kawagoe, an area in Saitama, north of Tokyo. Kawagoe is interesting in that buildings from the Edo period (17th - 19th century) still remain, lending Kawagoe the nickname, "Little Edo", Edo being the name of old Tokyo.

Xenia, Claudia, France, & Shirlene

The big event for the 4 girls at the Hanai family's house was the chance to try on a kimono. Hanai-san is an expert in the art of kimono wearing and on Sunday, she helped all of them try one on. Other things they did include visiting a seperate matsuri (festival) and, of course, some more shopping.

With such a wide range of activities, the home stay weekend is all part of experiencing Japan as the Japanese do. So a big thank you to all the host families for giving the students a great two days! Check back soon to see what we've got in store for the latter half of the Japan Experience! 2008.

-Lawrence