Because of the Imperial succession (the change in Emperor), we will have an extra long Golden Week holiday this year. If you are not sure what Golden Week is, take a quick journey to "Google land" and learn about this annual break. But this year is a little longer than normal to help welcome the change from the Heisei era to the Reiwa era.
Our students and teachers will get some extra time to enjoy life here in this exciting country. See you in May!!
The new year has started and therefore so do all of the different programs.
Today is the first explanation meeting for the homestay program. For anyone interested in the program and considering joining it, they can come hear the talk today. There will be at least one more session. It is usually held sometime in May or June. This year the second session will be held on June 8th.
For most explanation meetings, we give the outline of the program and we show a short video taken from actual experiences. We also ask some students to talk about their experience.
There are videos on our main Japanese website taken from the actual trips. These videos are longer and show a lot more of what happens. But they do not have any footage from when the kids are with the families and/or on their own - away from the teachers. This is one reason why we get the students to come speak.
(It's the same for the international program for our visiting students. The pictures and videos only show a tiny little bit of what they experience.)
These exchanges are so valuable. They are unique experiences and can truly be life changing. It's so much fun being involved with these programs.
This was our first group visit of the school year. We expect several more throughout the year.
Yesterday we had a group from Germany visit our school. It was their first time to visit our school. They really seem to enjoy taking part in the club activity. Our club members and teachers were very happy to have them as well.
Doing this is a win-win situation for all of us. As a school and as a department, we always hope to continue the relationships with these schools in the future. And we hope that the students also find a way to make and continue the relationships with the visiting kids.
Keep in touch!!
Hi, my name is Fah. I come from Thailand. I came to Japan a few weeks ago, and I really enjoy Seiritsu high school. Everyone is kind and friendly to me, especially my classmates, they are really nice. Now, I've been here only 2 days but they ask me to hangout together after school and make some plans for Golden Week already! Yay! In addition, we just hung out together yesterday. We went to take a photo (Purikura) and eat some donuts at Mister Donut. We spent some precious time together. We talked a lot. Hence, I hope I can come back here again.
For my spring holiday, I went to Ueno in central Tokyo. It had many parks and sakura (cherry blossoms) to see there. I had lot of fun playing games with my friends and walking around Ueno and other parts of Tokyo. Overall it was a great time and a good experience.
Hi, My name is White. I come from Thailand. I will stay in Japan for 1 month and enjoy it ! I live in Sriracha Chonburi . Why I want to come to Japan ? Because Japan is very nice ! ! People is so kind and very cute. Food is very delicious but Thai food is very delicious too ! And now I study short term at Seiritsu High School. Student at Seiritz is very kind and friendly. This school is nice than my school in Thailand
我是万,今年四月份从福冈的高中转学来到东京的成立学园，现在是成立学园高二d班的学生。现在在班级担任班级委员一职。部活动还没有参加但是在之后会了解各个部团并且选择感兴趣的加入！
在成立学园已经学习了一个月的时间，在这一个月的时间里我结识了很多新朋友！我很感谢他们给予了刚来成立学园的我很多学习和生活上的帮助！在周末我们也经常会一起出去玩。
My name is Ban. In April this year, I transferred from a high school in Fukuoka, to Seiritsu in Tokyo. Now I am a student of class 2-D. I am the class commissary in charge of my class. I have not tried out any clubs yet, but i will learn about each club later and choose which one i am interested in!
I have been studying in Seiritsu for one month, during which I have made many new friends! We often go out together on weekends. I am very grateful to them for giving me a lot of help in study and life when I just came to this school!
Today I hung out with my friend in Shibuya and Harajuku. Since the two areas are close to each other, we walked from Shibuya to Harajuku while eating things on the way. We went to a animal cafe were we pet, bathed, and fed animals. They were really cute. I really miss my dog back in Virginia so I was happy to be able to hang out with some animals.
My name is Vicky Morita. I am 16 years old and a first year high school student at Seiritsu Gakuen. I am from Davis, California and I moved to Japan for family matters. I came to this school to play soccer and to improve my Japanese. I have 2 older brothers and a younger sister.
For the first week of school, I was trying to get used to all the rules at this school and making friends. Everyone in my class were really kind and friendly which helped me not be shy because at first I was scared to talk to them with my bad Japanese. We had orientation for the first 5 days of school. They toured us around the school, we did a class jump rope competition, and sang the school song with my class, which was hard to memorize but really fun. It's only been a month since I moved here and I am not completely settled in yet, but I am super excited to be at this school to make more friends, play soccer, and to improve my Japanese.
It's that time of year again. All of our students must undergo health checks. It's a wonderful system that surprises our international students. Japanese schools are not just a place of study. There is so much more involved.
And the students tend to really enjoy the day. For the most part, they can just hang out with their new friends between the various tests. And thus a new year begins.
This year was my first time seeing Cherry Blossom in Japan and it was so lovely to spend time beneath the trees. We do have cherry blossom in England but a lot people do not acknowledge the beauty of them, it was fun to see how one flower can sprout so many petals.
My two favorite places to see them were Yoyogi Park and Meguro River, even though both places were very busy it was great to see so many people out having fun. I'm sad that it's nearly over but looking forward to the sun coming out.
It's a beautiful way to symbolize the start of a new year. Now is a good time to set our goals, my goal is to do more yoga. See you around school....
Over the spring holidays I went back to Australia for 3 weeks for rehabilitation and to see my mum.
I enjoyed being back and seeing friends and getting back into football training with my old team.
My family moved house while I was back so I helped with that, which took a lot of pressure off of my parents during that time.
I have now been back for almost a month now. And i'm playing regularly now, and enjoying it all. I am looking forward to the next few months of football.
Tokyoites, are you tired of the city? Do you want to escape the concrete jungle and remind yourself that air should smell like sweet honey glazed over some fresh donuts?
Be like me and get away to Fukui, a prefecture I'm sure a god must've blessed personally. I have an inkling it's the paper goddess who resides in a nearby shrine.
The above is a traditional paper-making shop, and one of the many mikoshi the paper goddess has dedicated to her.
Now, what exactly can we do there? Is it actually that great?
The answer is: YES. For the adventurous ones, you can go scuba diving, zip lining, and skiing. Of course, all around you are onsens you can dip into after the workout. For the artistic ones, make your own Japanese washi postcards with dried flowers the locals picked themselves the year before.
You can also make a knife in Fukui's own knife village that many chiefs travel all the way to for. For the foodies, of course there are unforgettable dishes there. They have a special bowl of soba that's more al dente than other regions. I had that and then topped it off with soba ice cream! It was surprisingly delicious.
You can spend a weekend there or an entire week, but I know you'll come back with a refreshed soul and mind.
Today I went to karaoke with my friend after school. I assumed before I went that I won't be able to sing much because I don't know much songs, but we ended up singing a lot. The two hours went by really fast. We ordered some food and sang a lot of both Japanese and English songs. Most of the songs we sang were Disney songs. We ordered some food and ate while singing and talking and overall it was a good experience.
And so another new year begins!
Despite the cooler temperatures and rain, it was a very warm welcoming atmosphere at the school today.
Most of the students come in very nervous but by the end of the day most of them are smiling and leaving with (or after saying goodbye to) their new friends.
Many of these new friendships will last a lifetime! Isn't that exciting?!
Today the high school is full of cute little kids starting their new school life with our Kindergarten. It is a big challenge for a 3 year old (and for the parents, too).
We will see some of them in our English and Karate classes next month. Today is our first chance to say hello.
There are many good host family programs. At Seiritsu we use Homestay in Japan but we are now looking at this program too. It is linked with the government through AFS.
If you are thinking about possibly being a host family, there are two typical patterns: being a short term host family, or being a long term family. It is probably easier and better to start as a short term family. If so, we recommend contacting Homestay in Japan.
If you have done it before and are looking at being a long term family, how about checking out this program? It looks like it could be a fantastic opportunity.
Seiritsu Gakuen is a private co-educational high school created in 1925 and it is located in Tokyo, Japan.