Yamagata

The building for Kake High School was very impressive. It had been recently rebuilt and was a place I wish I could've attended for my high school years.
We had to take off our shoes and put on 'slippers' for walking around the school.
We started off with a welcoming ceremony where several speeches were given by multiple people from both sides. The vice-principal gave an interesting speech, it included topics about sharing and exchanging culture but expanded beyond that, and got a little philosophical.
He touched on topics about how we are weak in comparison to other animals in all ways except our brain. That we are the only 'animals' that are able to speak and communicate at the level we do. And as we have the skills for communication and relationship building, we should utilise them.

We later had our exchange of cultural performances. It started with my group (New Zealand) performing our two songs; He Honore and Tutira Mai. I had been nominated by the group to be the Kaea, which I was really excited about and proud of. However, that also meant extra nerves!
I think we did great though :) Everyone seemed to enjoy it and they even started clapping along.
(Side note: the songs are so catchy and likeable, that the other members from Group 1A kept singing them throughout the rest of the trip haha)
Fiji, the Marshall Islands and Samoa followed our performance, then Kake High School in return. I really loved their dance. The music and choreography was so cool, I wished I could be up on the stage with them, performing.
To conclude, all members of Group 1A performed a Bon Odori. We had intended to invite a few people up from the audience to join in. We were worried that it would be hard to encourage enough students to turn up, however, they were so enthusiastic that the whole school ended up joining in!

After the performances, we were split into groups with the students. We shared information and quizzed each other on our respective countries. During this time I was able to give each of the students a piece of paua shell, they seemed to like them, which made me really happy.

Later we shared lunch which gave me a chance to converse with the students and use some Japanese. I had a lot of fun getting to know the students in their native language. Sharing with them the aspects of their culture that I liked, they were so excited to learn how much I knew, it made me really happy.

Lastly, they had a few lunchtime games (similar to ones I grew up playing) which we were invited to join in. Though some were completely new, and I struggled with picking up the new words\lyrics\terminology they were using, I found it quite fun nonetheless :)

We took a photo to commemorate our visit and said our goodbyes :')Read more