Kaiyo (Marine) High School

Kaiyo (Marine) High School is my visit school- I go there twice a week and it's one stop away from Miyazu. It is a marine based school, so most of the classes deal with anything to do with the sea, from raising fish to surveying to scuba diving to tying knots to sailing! I'm sure there's a bunch more that I don't know about it, but it's awesome. It's right on the Sea of Japan and they even have their own ship that they use for student trips. Every year they go on a trip somewhere for about 10 days- last year it was Russia, the year before, Guam, and this year- to Hawaii!! I'm desperately trying to get on this trip but each person is assigned a certain duty and I have no seafaring experience to boast of. I tried using the "everyone needs to practice their English" excuse but so far it's not going so well.

Anyway, so it's Culture and Sports Festival time at all the schools. Man, it's like teambuilding to the max! Sports Day at Kaiyo was like nothing I'd ever experienced. Each grade (1, 2, and 3) were separated into teams of red, green, and white and they competed in all these events. And so after the opening ceremony, raising of the flag, and all that, there's this super analog music box sounding song that they play on the loudspeakers, and everyone, and I mean everyone, including the school principal, gets down and does the "morning exercises". It's like watching the old people doing tai chi in the park- hundreds of us all stretching for the sun and touching our toes to this random piano piece.

There were some typical games/sports such as tug of war (with a giant rope) and then with a giant bamboo (probably about 10 feet long and about 4" in diameter), relay races... and then there were some really complicated games.... too complicated to explain in the blog. Tried doing a google search and of course, was distracted for like an hour. So... back to the blog... Oh, so the day ended with a "cutter race"- kind of like a rowing race. It was sweet, sitting on the beach, hanging with the students, exchanging slang and talking about music or celebrities or whatever.

Anyway so it's a high school where only like 7% of them go onto university, so studying English is WAAAY down on their priority list. They're also the super hipster/slutty/too cool for school students who could give a ****, compared to the super smart, overachieving students at Miyazu. But, they're energetic and are pretty fun outside of the classroom!!