Despite it being the school holidays my daughter is supposed to be at school this morning..... studying (don't get me started on this!). However fortunately for her she is not at school, but is on a very big boat for a 5 day trip to Okinawa. It takes about 24 hours to get there and although they sleep on the boat each night they will go for day trips to different places in Okinawa - swimming, peace memorials, shopping, exchange with local children etc. It is her first official trip away without any family members, but she is far from alone... in fact she is with over 400 other students as well as about 100 support staff. She only knows one other person on the entire boat, but is really looking forward to her time away - as are we! Oita prefecture provides this opportunity to about 400 5th and 6th graders each year and it is a bit of luck if you can actually get on as the numbers who apply for it are about 4 times the number that can actually go. Hopefully she will have a great time and come home really appreciating her family more and more! It was nice to have her snuggle into bed with me at midnight last night claiming that she couldn't sleep because she was worried about not having Mum and Dad around.... a nice change from the usual "I don't want to live with this family!" comments.
One of the staff members is making a blog of the trip with regular updates - it is all in Japanese, but has some photos for anyone who wants to see what they are doing. It was great to see a picture of Emily at the table (green top at the back) with a smile on her face.... Blog address:
http://yaplog.jp/shosen/
Despite it being the school holidays my daughter is supposed to be at school this morning..... studying (don't get me started on this!). However fortunately for her she is not at school, but is on a very big boat for a 5 day trip to Okinawa. It takes about 24 hours to get there and although they sleep on the boat each night they will go for day trips to different places in Okinawa - swimming, peace memorials, shopping, exchange with local children etc. It is her first official trip away without any family members, but she is far from alone... in fact she is with over 400 other students as well as about 100 support staff. She only knows one other person on the entire boat, but is really looking forward to her time away - as are we! Oita prefecture provides this opportunity to about 400 5th and 6th graders each year and it is a bit of luck if you can actually get on as the numbers who apply for it are about 4 times the number that can actually go. Hopefully she will have a great time and come home really appreciating her family more and more! It was nice to have her snuggle into bed with me at midnight last night claiming that she couldn't sleep because she was worried about not having Mum and Dad around.... a nice change from the usual "I don't want to live with this family!" comments.
One of the staff members is making a blog of the trip with regular updates - it is all in Japanese, but has some photos for anyone who wants to see what they are doing. It was great to see a picture of Emily at the table (green top at the back) with a smile on her face.... Blog address: http://yaplog.jp/shosen/
that's really cool, i hope she has a blast!
ReplyDeleteI agree, I think it's awesome that she went! I bet she'll really have an amazing adventure and so much fun. : )
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