Blue Eyes Japan: Special Guest Post

So, my dad came to visit last week and it was really great to see him. I brought him to one of my elementary schools to meet the kids, we climbed a local mountain (Mt. Tatsugane), we went to Sendai, and even went to Matsushima... Well, basically we stayed in Miyagi prefecture and were blessed with fantastic weather which made the sightseeing all the better!

My dad (whom I will call "James") promised to write a guest-post about our experiences which I have pasted below with a few minor changes (changing names to pseudonyms). I suppose that I will call myself "Erin" for now. And so, without further ado, here is his post (with a few stray comments from me in green):

So I arrived in Tokyo during Monday afternoon rush hour (that would be called “poor planning”) and took the Shinkansen to Kurikoma-kogen. I had purchased a 3-day rail pass (to be used over any 10 day period) so the train costs were very reasonable. The trains were clean, punctual, and very fast (approaching 200 mph)! Erin met me at the station and we drove about an hour to her apartment in Minamisanriku.

On Tuesday, Erin took me to her school. Unbeknownst to me, Erin had prepared a "James Worksheet", in which her students (three classes of 5th and 6th graders) were to guess my favorite color, sports, foods, etc. After the initial awkwardness, the exercises went really well. (I noted that correct guesses were rewarded with a “James” sticker, apparently to further mock me.) Some of the guessing was pretty funny. For example, after learning that my favorite country was Panama, one student promptly placed it directly in Europe. Glad to see that American students are not alone in their geographic fog.

Part of the worksheet that the students were given.

It was very entertaining to see Erin interact with her students. She appeared completely at ease with them and the language. And they really seemed to appreciate her enthusiasm, which was contagious. At one point, she described “American football” by acting out how to throw and catch a football. Later, one of the teachers acted out “Frisbee” by tossing a disk across the room to me.
During the guessing exercises, an incorrect student guess would get a casual and teasing “Nope!” from Erin.

Lunch was interesting, or maybe lunchtime in a Japanese school is a little different than what I recall. Students eat right in their classrooms. The students line up, cafeteria-style, and get served by other students, wearing aprons and masks. Afterwards, they clean up their own plates, then literally wipe off the desks and sweep the classroom floor.

In the following days, we visited some cultural sites, and some beautiful seaside towns. The photo below is from Matsushima, which reminded me a lot of Gloucester, MA. Matsushima is a fishing village, which was not heavily damaged in the earthquake/tsunami. The offshore islands (in the background) are beautiful tourist destinations in the nice weather.

Erin at Matsushima.

The most memorable part of my visit however, was seeing the transformation which has happened over the past year. When I visited Minamisanriku in March 2012 (one year after the earthquake/tsunami), the entire town center remained covered with huge piles of debris, separated by material (metals like cars and washing machines, wooden structures, concrete rubble, car tires, etc.). This year though, there has been an obvious rebirth. There are cranes everywhere, rebuilding structures and dredging harbors. The picture below shows this happening in the background.

Cranes working by Shizugawa Harbor.

In my last night in Minamisanriku, one of Erin’s principals had us and some other colleagues over for dinner. In a touching remark at the end of the evening, he noted how inspirational it has been to have Erin (and Anne) help in fixing their “broken” town.

OK, now back to "Erin" - I'll post a few more pictures of the trip:

Beautiful Matsushima with its many sandstone(?) islands! It reminded me a bit of the "Twelve Apostles" - rocks along the Great Ocean Road near Melbourne, Australia. Though in Matsushima there were hardly any waves.