2/13/16 Blog by Benton

Rain, Rain, Ramen

Today we all experienced rain in Japan! Everyone here uses umbrellas (I venture to say umbrellas aren't as popular in the rain at home) so I also used one to get to and from school. In the morning once we all made it through the rain, we met up and drove to the school's university where a speech contest was being held in a lecture hall/auditorium (there were a lot of people in the audience). There was even an umbrella dryer for our umbrellas! 

The first set of speeches were made by the Nagisa students in Japanese. Even if we didn't understand them completely, or at all in my case, we could still feel the emotion that came along with the speeches. After a short intermission, 7th and 8th grade level students memorized short stories in English and presented them to be scored on categories such as storytelling and presentation. All of them did really well! Especially since they only studied English for a short time. During the intermission between these sets of presentations, my host sister came over with a group of her friends to wave hello which was really sweet. 

After all the presentations, CGS was given a special introduction to the students in the auditorium. We were well received and after their applause faded, Jace was called upon to present his speech. Similar to the speeches given by the aforementioned students he had a focused topic, global warming. Within his speech he covered the causes of global warming, the effects (such as the sinking of island nations), and America's overall view on global warming. The thunder of applause and the compliments he received can speak for themselves, but I'll add that just like everything else he does, he did a great job!!

Since Japanese students here have a half day of school on Saturday (today was Saturday), by the time the speech contest was over and we returned to the school, it was time to go home. My host brother, Shogo, and I went to a ramen restaurant that was conveniently located near the school. When we went inside, there were other students from the school also eating lunch-it's a popular after school hangout. I can tell you that real ramen has cup noodles beat. If you ever find yourself in Japan, make sure you slurp your noodles because it is polite to do so!