On Saturday 6th February three Christ College pupils, accompanied by Deputy Head Mr Simon Spencer, travelled to Japan to begin the second leg of the recently established Study Exchange Programme with the Meikei School. In January, pupils from the Meikei School arrived in the UK spending 2 weeks experiencing life at Christ College. Stefan Freeman, Jonathan Robinson and James Spencer will be sending back regular reports. Please scroll to the bottom of this report to read about their experiences.

Christ College has had links with Meikei – which is in Tsukuba City, an hour north of Tokyo - for over ten years, and has visited the school on a rugby tour in the past. This recent exchange was initiated and agreed between the Principal of Meikei School, Mr Shibata, and our Head early in 2009, and the visit by three students was the first step in the Exchange Programme.

The CCB/Meikei Exchange Group

Christ College's Deputy Head, Simon Spencer, has been in close contact with Mr Stephen Bird, the Deputy Head of the International Relations Department at Meikei School, over plans for the exchange. The exchange parties were selected and agreed, schedules confirmed, itineraries discussed, and flights booked.

The nature of the exchange was to be a small scale, but intensive exercise; each school would put forward three students for the exchange, and these would spend two weeks at the host school, with a mix of school and home-stay with their exchange partner.

From Christ College three boys from the Lower Sixth expressed keen interest in the Exchange Programme and signed up: Stefan Freeman, Jonathan Robinson, and James Spencer. Meikei School had more than thirty applicants for the three exchange places. In the end two girls, Mari Okuizumi and Kaori Takada, and one boy, Yuta Ishitsuka, were selected.

The Japanese visitors arrived at the start of this term, joining the rest of the school on the first day of the Lent Term, and joining the UK and Brecon in its coldest and snowiest spell for some years! The weather limited some of the proposed cultural activities, but could not affect the warmth of the welcome offered the Japanese visitors, or the enthusiastic and charming way the Meikei students went about integrating into the life of the school and of Orchard and de Winton Houses where they were resident.

Each of the Christ College pupils hosted their counter-parts for the weekend, too – an enterprise afflicted by the weather in most cases. Mari, Kaori, and Yuta certainly took the opportunity to develop their snowman and snowball skills, and Yuta joined the throng enjoying the winter sports on the hills above the school.

The Exchange Group with CCB's Japanese pupils

Our own Japanese students, Ayako Kato, Tomoya Kubota, Sojiro Okano, and Kanon Yasuda, made first-rate guides and interpreters; they relished showing Christ College off to their country-folk, and with Stefan, Jonathan, and James helping the visitors gain in language and cultural awareness and confidence.

The two week stay flew by, and their own accounts of their visit testified to the many memorable experiences the Meikei students had enjoyed. Yuta would happily have remained in Orchard House, and particularly enjoyed Chapel services and the conviviality of the Dining Hall. Used to class sizes of 40 or more, Kaori said how much she enjoyed the rapport between pupils and teachers in smaller classes, and described the whole experience of being at Christ College as ‘precious'. Mari, too, was struck by the differences between the two cultures and schools – in parts of the school she felt that ‘history has been kept still'. Mari was possibly the chief instigator of a legacy of origami bird-making – the Alway pupils (and several staff) appreciated learning more about Japan and especially the delicate art of paper-folding.

Stephen Bird visited briefly during the students' stay in Brecon. In a meeting with the Head and Simon Spencer all concurred that this exchange has begun extraordinarily well, and that there is every prospect of it becoming a valued part of the calendar for pupils of both our schools.

The Christ College pupils accompanied by Deputy Head Mr Simon Spencer departed for Meikei on Saturday 6th February. There was much anticipation amongst the three exchange pupils about the fortnight they have in store and the way of life they will experience both at Meikei School and during their two separate home-stays with Japanese families. Their visit will further endorse the Exchange Programme, and their memories and accounts on return will surely make interesting reading and enhance the warm ties between Meikei School and Christ College Brecon.

8th February

Stefan Freeman - To begin with, I woke up to a table of traditional Japanese breakfast food. This consisted of miso soup (broth with seaweed and tofu), a fermented bean substance called Natto and also some sweet bread. I spent the majority of the day visiting a Japanese shopping centre with my exchange host Yuta and his mother. Here I had a chance to spend some of the Yen I had brought on clothes and presents. My favourite part of the day though was going to a Ramen bar for lunch. Here, we ate huge portions of noodles in soup. In the evening my host family and I played a board game called Othello and watched an American movie. As well as this I had the chance to have some traditional Japanese food for dinner which included eating a range of foods that were cooked in a stew on the table.

Jonathan Robinson - We arrived in Narita International Airport on Sunday morning at 10am. We were warmly greeted by Stephen Bird and were instantly offered origami by airport staff at tourist information. We visited a temple in Narita. We also saw the tallest standing Bhudda in Japan. We were then taken to the school to greet our home-stay hosts. I arrived at Ryo's house and met his family. They took me to a Ramen noodle bar, and an American-style mall. I spent the rest of the day cycling around Tsukuba. That evening I was treated to some Sashimi raw tuna, shrimp, seabream and also some monkfish. I played Super Mario on the Wii and then had a Japanese style bath. My favourite part so far has been the Grape Fanta!

James Spencer - I was taken back to Sarah's home (my host) and I was greeted with a Green tea flavoured muffin ... or so they said. Tiredness struck at about 8pm and I was in bed immediately after supper. Monday was a school holiday so we did some other activities. I went to see the young children in the Kindergarten where my host's father works as an English teacher. That afternoon I went to a karaoke bar and with a top score of 64% I think I survived the experience.

10th February

Tuesday was our first day of school ... Yay! We joined an English class for the first half of the day and in the aftenoon we had some fun judging an English recitation contest. After this we were encouraged into singing a beautiful rendition of the Welsh National anthem for the second time that day. We then had a tour of the boarding house and the rest of the school. In the music school we had a little go at the xylophone. After this we went home. Joni was offered some JFC (Japan Fried Chicken) and needless to say he accepted. He has also tried his hand at shogi and won ... or so he says. James watched 'The Departed' ... in Japanese! Stef had some delicious dumplings ... it was a busy day.

12th February

James Spencer wrote: Wednesday was the our last update and since then we have been having loads of fun. It was a national holiday on Thursday. After school on Wednesday we were invited to the after-school caligraphy club where we wrote our names in Japanese Katakana. They saw our attempts and wrote them out for us instead. Following that we went to a tea-ceremony club where we had green tea and flower shaped sweets. Very enjoyable! On Wednesday evening Jon and I went to a practice session of 'soft volleyball'. Jon was embarassing (because the rules were different!) while I dominated the court... or at least tried to.
On Thursday there was no school. I went to a hip-hop dance recital, as my host's sister was performing ... it was very entertaining with a wide range of ages, from 4-30 and a lot of loud musicJon went to a shrine and threw a coin in a box... it was for good luck and good relations. It seems to have worked as Jon is very popular around school and has received numerous high-fives and enthusiastic 'hellos!'. We all met up for a three hour session of Karaoke. It was amazing. Jon and I managed to finish off all of their Grape Fanta (with unlimited refills how couldn't we?!) and as a result we were all a little hyper and over enthusiastic. This only added to the experience and we all had a great time, even with our terrible singing. After this I went home and played cards, (both Japanese games and British) while Jon and Stef went to an arcade with the expected flashing lights and clattering of coins. Then Jon went homeand 'won' at Shogi ... again!

Stefan wrote: On the 10th we spent our second day in Meikei school. So far, school has been very fun and they have managed to keep us all busy by putting us in English classes to talk to and help the students. In these classes we are asked to stand at the front of the room and introduce ourselves and answer questions. So far we have had many different and amusing questions including asking for our exact heights and weights as well as asking Jon specifically how many girlfriends he has! We foreigners or 'gaijin' as they call us are very popular in Japan as a whole so we are having no trouble making friends. After school we were taken to the tea ceremony and caligraphy clubs to try our hand at writing our own names in Japanese and setting up a traditional Japanese 'tea party'. As well as this we were given some coaching on simple Japanese words as well as Japanese text.  The next day was a national holiday in Japan so we had the day off school. This meant that we finally had the chance to wake up late as I've been waking up at 6am every morning in order to be ready to catch the school bus! Anyway, after waking up at 10.00 am I went to a big American style shopping mall with Yuta (my host)and his parents to buy some clothes. After shopping we ate some Japanese-style burgers for lunch and then went to visit a massive electronics store. The store was absolutely huge and had every gadget and gizmo imaginable (including a robotic vacuum cleaner). My favourite thing though was trying out the massive and very expensive (£4,000) massage chair which are free for use to anyone who wants to 'test' it. After the electronic shop visit Yuta and I were driven to Tsukuba City for karaoke with Jon and James as well as our hosts. We ended up staying for 3hrs and had loads of fun although the experience did confirm that I am terrible at singing. Jon on the other hand was very good and managed to impress all the hosts (and embarrass us) with his enthusiasm!

February 12
James Spencer  writes - After school on Friday we attended tennis and volleball practice. Stef couldn't play due to thumb problems, so it was left to myself and Jon to dominate the court and represent CCB. Following this display of pure skill we attended dance club. This was a self led hip-hop dance class. Any sense of achievement we had after our volleyball was completely stripped off us, we are without doubt the worst set of hip-hop students they have ever had to teach. They were very patient but we didn't come out of it with any new moves, but we did teach them a thing or two about dancing to the Mario theme!That evening I took the plunge and went to a sushi bar, there was certainly an interesting blend of flavours from shrimp to salmon roe and ginger.
February 13

Jon Robinsons writes - Saturday, and its my birthday!! The first time I`ve celebrated it outside of my home country. The day started like any other, I was a bit slow getting out of bed, so we were a bit late for class! We managed, however, to slip into the classroom just before the teacher, even with my incredibly slow paced shoe changing. My first two lessons were Society and Language. Both were very pleasant, except that I didn`t understand what was being said, as they were given in Japanese. We were caught off-gaurd when to our surprise the Japanese teacher broke flow and asked us to sing `We Will Rock You` by Queen, and then continued afterward as if nothing had happened! Then we had what was called a `Cross Cultural Tour`. This involved a group of Foreign Visitors to Japan from LDCs like Ghana, Fiji, Tonga and Pakistan, who had come to Japan in order to learn vital agricultural skills to take back to their countries. James and I were sitting in on a presentation (given by the Kai Gai class 3A) to a Ghanan called Patrick, who was a really nice guy, and he taught us as much about Ghana as we taught him about Japan. After that there were displays on Kendo, Calligraphy and a big sing song to the Charity Classic, 'We Are The World', before I was required to cause myself great embarassment by doing an accoustic version of Silent Noon (Ralph Vaughan Williams). After that I headed back to Ryo`s house (my host) for a birthday celebration, which involved being thrashed at Shogi (twice) by a Japanese student, before realising that it might not be my game, so I beat him at chess instead. Before rushing to bed, I had a birthday cake, and attempted to explain Cricket to a group of Japanese mothers, which was a sight harder than I might have originally thought!

Stefan Freeman writes - The 13th was a Saturday which meant that like Christ College, Meikei only had a half day of school. The school day was largely dominated by snow, Jon`s birthday and the Cross Culture Event. The cross culture talks are an annual event where a large group of foreigners staying in the agriculture eductation centre in Tokyo come to the school and talk to the Meikei 3rd year(4th/5th form CCB equivalent ) students. During this event James and Jon were assigned to help one of the students groups whilst I went to help another. After around 45mins of presentations by the students in my group we had the chance to ask our cross culturer, who was a farmer from Tonga, about life and traditions in his native country. After a succesful Cross culture talk the students, teachers and foreign guests all attended a tea party with the highlight being the performances that took place. The first performance was a demonstration of Kendo (Japanese stick fighting), the second was an exhibition from the calligraphy club and the third was a solo by Jon! The entire audience loved his performance and as a result Jon was given a group 'Happy Birthday' song in return. As well as this, an extremely nice Rwandan man got up and sang Jon a traditional birthday song in his native language. After the tea party the three of us as well as our hosts went out for ramen together for Jon's birthday. It was the first time James had tried ramen and he as well as the rest of us loved it.


February 14
James Spencer writes - On Sunday we drove into school to meet up and then drive to an Onsen. After a pleasent hour-long drive along the coast, giving Stef a chance to see some surfing, we arrived in the Onsen. This may require a brief explanation; a set of baths of a variety of temperatures and a steam room, and did I mention the universal lack of clothing. After our initial sense of awkwardness had worn off we had a very pleasant and relaxing experience. Once we were thoroughly relaxed　Jon dominated the board at shogi over a bowl of Udon noodles.　That evening we had a very nice supper with all our host families. A had a dish which is served with a hot plate, allowing you to cook the meat to perfection.
Stefan Freeman writes - The 14th was our first full Sunday in Japan and as a treat we were taken to a far away Onsen (traditional Japanse bath house) on the eastern coast of Japan. Before going to the baths we stopped off at the nearby beach and enjoyed a snow/sandball fight. As well as this, much to my delight there were some good waves as well as some Japanese surfers on the beach. With surfing at the front of my mind, we were driven to the Onsen. As most people have probably guessed traditional Japanese baths involve a lot of hot water and a lot of nudity. Within minutes we felt like locals and had a relaxing and exhilarating experience that consisted of spending 3 hours in hot baths inside and outside, freezing cold baths and saunas hotter than 100 degrees celcius. After bathing we enjoyed a traditional Japanese picnic-style lunch followed by someintense shogi (Japanese chess) playing by Jon and James. After a brief nap we were whisked away back to Tsukuba to have a dinner with all the hosts and host families. All in all we had a great day and I`m sure the three of us would agree that Onsen is one of the highlights of our trip so far!

February 15
James Spencer writes - On Monday morning we were given Valentines Day chocolates from a suprising number of girls. In Japan it is the custom on valentines day for girls to give chocolates to all of their friends, there is a seperate date for the boy's a month later. First period, we watched Mari, Kaori and Yuta make presentations to the entire school about their time in CCB. Before lunch we were given the chance to show our skills at volleball against each other. Stef had his thumb strapped up so he was able to play. Of our three teams Jon's came first, mine second and Stef's third (Even with his mad volleyball skills). In Japanese ettiquette lessons after lunch, Jon dominated the table with his crazy chopstick abilities.
Stefan Freeman writes - This was the first day back at school after Valentines Day so in line with Japanese custom we were all given a load of chocolate! As James has written, in the morning we went to a year group assembly where we saw Yuta, Mari and Kaori talk about there time in Christ College. As well as this we had a chance to play some volleyball in PE where a couple of us (i.e. everyone except Jon) managed not to embarass ourselves too much on the court. As well as PE we had a couple of Japanese lessons which helped to raise our standards of speaking and reading Japanese from non-existent to extremely basic! After school we were taken to table tennis (ping pong) club. Here we all had a chance to completely embarass ourselves with our lack of ping pong prowess as well as Jon being the only one to break a sweat in the entire club. After a brief stop by at the dance club to check up on the dancing additions we headed home.
Jonathan Robinsons writes - After School on Monday we went to activities -Table Tennis. They got their machine out and tried all sorts of crazy spins on us. After school I was taken to the home of my new home stay. My host is a Japanese boy called Iori. I had a Japanese chicken dish for dinner with egg soup.


February 16th
Stefan Freeman writes - Tuesday was another day of school here in Meikei. We began the day with back to back Japanese lessons which helped to shift our extremely basic understanding of Japanese to a moderately basic level. During the last lesson we sat in an English class with the oldest pupils in Meikei. Here, we had the chance to talk about our school and were even treated to a pupils interpretation of Michael Jacksons Killer dance routine. In return Jon sang his rendition of Bread of Heaven. After schoolI was taken with Jon's host Ryo to the soccer club where I thoroughly enjoyed myself. After soccer I returned to school and joined with James and Jon to see a very old yet impressive astronomy observatory. The dome contained a very large telescope as well as a rotating roof!

Jonathan Robinson writes - For breakfast I had Natto. It is made from fermented rice and is well known as an aquired taste. I haven't aquired that taste. In school we learnt more Japanese characters and began to learn some Hiragana and wrote our names in Katana. We also developed our skills in a particular field of origami called paper planes.

Feburary 17th
Stefan Freeman writes - On early Wednesday morning we experienced our first ever earthquake! I vaguely remember waking up but then falling straight back to sleep. I woke again at 6am to get ready for school and I headed for Meikei on the bus. In school we attended Physics, Maths and History. These classes were conducted in Japanese but a couple of the teachers went out of their way to prepare some English notes and History was carried out partly in English. The last two lessons were set aside for an intense art session. There, we had a private lesson in which we made our own stamps using special Japanese stones and mini chisels. The end product wasn't too impressive but we had a great time making them. After school we split up to go do different activities. James went to Jaxa (basically Japan's Nasa) to check out the Japanese space program whilst Jon went with Mari for a bit of shopping which included a visit to the ￥100 shop (Japanese equivalent to our 'pound shops'). I stayed in school and went to the soccer club for a complete session. After working up a good sweat on the pitch I was taken back to school to catch the bus. At home, I was given Ramen and Udon noodles for dinner which I managed to polish off at an impressive pace by using my improving chopstick skills.
James Spencer writes - More sushi! On Wednesday afternoon I was taken to the Japanese space agency JAXA. I saw the original rockets which Japan has sent into space. I also had a look round a life size model ofthe Japanese section of the ISS (International Space Station). After this we went out to do some shopping in a huge shopping centre and round off with some sushi. The sushi restaurant liked using wasabi... a lot of wasabi. I also completed my goal of Japan: eating salmon roe sushi. That night I played uno with Japanese numbers! Truly crazy stuff.

February 18th
Stefan Freemans writes - Today was the long awaited trip to Tokyo! After our first Japanese train ride we arrived in Tokyo directly underneath the Imperial Castle. After taking a couple of pics we headed to the Imperial Gardens to see the impressive (but dormant in winter) fauna. After the Imperial Gardens we headed to Tokyo Tower. The tower is 333m tall which is 13m taller than the Eiffel Tower and also gives a great 360 degreeview of Tokyo. From the tower we headed to eat lunch at a traditional Okonomi Yaki (Japanese savoury pancake) restaurant. After lunch we went to the popular shopping region of Asakusa where we had a chance to buy some souveniers and gifts. After an intense shopping spree we headed back to the train station for our return journey back home.

James Spencer writes - the long awaited Tokyo day! After a cold start of light snow (It had all melted by the time we returned), we set off for the train to Tokyo in Mr Bird's ancient (or retro) camper which had sat-nav which seemed slightly out of place in the classic styled camper. While we waited for the train we grabbed a hot chocolate... a white hot chocolate! After the 'rapid service' train journey we went to the Gardens of the Imperial Palace. We also viewed some of the gifts which the Emperor has received from various countries. These ranged from a diamond encrusted silver feather-shaped pen to a string doll for the children of Saipan. After this we went to Tokyo Tower to have a look the sheer size of the city of Tokyo. Jon strength tested the glass floor and he survived. We had some Okonomiyaki (Eggy pancake with shrimp and fish flakes) in a restaurant and then did a final round of souvenir shopping in the Asakusa road leading to the Sensoji Temple. Joni bought himself a pocket watch and a stick. And we all invested in Kamikaze-style headbands. This will be my last update and we look forward to seeing everyone again soon.

Reflections on Japan by Jonathan Robinson

We arrived in Japan on the 7th of February, after a 13 hour long flight. We were warmly welcomed with open arms by the English teacher, Mr. Bird, who took us around Narita, where there was a bigtemple, and we learned the ways of throwing coins into boxes. We then spent the next couple of days being shown around school, and getting used to school life. The first Thursday was a National Holiday, and we were introduced to the ancient Japanese ways of Karaoke.

Much of the rest of the week was spent tailing people around the school, sitting in on English classes mostly. Much embarassment arose when we were asked to sing the Welsh National Anthem. Stef was surprisingly entertaining, and made us all chuckle.

Saturday was my birthday, and I was told I might be having a Japanese-style party, which was something to look forward to. There was a cross cultural tour of the school for visitors from LEDCs, and James and I had a nice chat with a man from Ghana. I was then pushed onto the stage by James and Stef, and sang Silent Noon totally unaccompanied. Sunday was Bath day (Onsen) and James, Stef and I were treated to the most intense bathing experience of our lives, which we still hold as our fondest memory of our time in Japan.

Thursday was the next big day, as a trip to Tokyo was going down. Mr. Bird gave us a lift in his campervan to the train station, and got the rapid service to Tokyo. The Tokyo Tower was tall, the Emperor`s palace was glamorous and the food was fishy.

We are soon heading back, and we will dearly miss all those we have met and have got yo know. Japan has been a real highlight, and I`m sure I`ll remember it for years to come

Jonathan Robinson