walk to school

Sooo I have been so busy going to the elementary school in Gifu for the past couple weeks that I have fallen behind terribly on blogging. Sorry. :(
So thanks to Ayako's mom, I get to sit in on a second grade class every day, learning japanese(or trying to) and helping to teach the kids english. It's really fun, and really exhausting. I don't think I could describe the experience fully in 242352345234 blog entries. I only brought my camera to school for one day, because it's kind of a hazardous environment for expensive electronics. Kids were so excited about the camera, they were all squeezing into the picture and grabbing it and I'm surprised it's still in one piece. haha. But it was worth the risk for sure.
Every day the kids from our apartment walk to school together. I think its about a 15 minute walk, but it usually takes like a half an hour because the kids have to explore every tiny detail on the way there, even though they do it every day. haha. This is a picture of one of the kids who lives in our apartment, he's hilarious. His name is Masahara-something-something. I'm really bad with names, and the fact that it's in another language doesn't help.. haha.


This is what almost all of the roads look like on our walk to school, they're two-way and super narrow. So I learned the word "car" quickly because kids would be like examining a bug in the middle of the road, so I yell "ku-re-ma!" haha. I also see all the middle school students riding their bikes to school, and there is this one kid that is always studying a book while riding his bike.


Here are some of the girls that I walk to school with and live in our apartment.

This is Koshi, He lives in our apartment and he likes soccer. He helped me a lot on the first day, as I wasn't sure how to get home and we were going the same direction.

A lot of homes on the way to school have huge vegetable gardens, and it's kind of trippy because you'd see a big vegetable farm and then a vending machine or an apartment complex.




The kids always have to balance on this thing. haha. Theyre so cute.


We cross this green bridge over a busy street and then the school comes into view. It's really huge, and this elementary school goes up to sixth grade. On the first day I came, I was walking and kids were leaning out on all the levels screaming Hellooo!! and Good Morning!!! They were so excited, and I was like a celebrity. It was crazy. haha.




Thats all for now, I'll post more about school later.