The first visit to my last school!

Ahhhh! The time finally arrived for my last 'first visit' to my Nanyo schools! The last visit was in January - to Urushyiama Junior High School 漆山中学校. My first term last year was quite a busy one, first visiting Yoshino JHS (the smallest Junior High in Nanyo) then on to Akayu (the biggest in Nanyo), then Miyauchi, Ringo, Okigo, Nakagawa, and then Ringo again. I don't know why I didn't go to Urushyiama first, instead of visit Ringo for a second time. It would have been a lot easier to drive to at the end of December.

Unfortunately Urushiyama Junior and Elementary School are on a hill, which doesn't make it easy to drive up, or down when the heavy snows have fallen! (Urushiyama quite aptly means 'Polished Mountain' in Japanese!) But with a bit of careful driving it wasn't too difficult. As with every school, it takes a while for the kids to warm to me - the problem is two weeks isn't often enough time to get a good relationship going, nevertheless I'm sure I will be making a bit of an impression on them! I hope!

It's a bit difficult to make out, but this is the winding hill that you have to drive up and down to and from Urushiyama Junior and Elementary High School!

Over the winter period, I've been really impressed with some of the icicles you see around the place! This one was at Urushiyama, and I'm sure it has to be the biggest icicle I've ever seen...so far!

At this school I got to do some traditional Japanese calligraphy for the first time with the second grade students! It was really cool, something I've been wanting to do for a while. We did the Kanji for 'Shooting Star' - it's quite difficult but looks so nice in the end! The receptionist at the school practices calligraphy herself, and offered to give me lessons which I hope to take up at some point!

In a desperate attempt to entertain, engage and humour the students - I often accompany my self-introduction with various silly doodles. I must have done my self-introduction 50 or so times altogether. This was one of the last times (for now) I would have to do it, so I thought I would document the significant moment!

So I've visited all seven schools now, and will be starting to make re-visits to them from this point onwards!