1980 School Magazine

We spent all our remaining money on souvenirs and food and as we walked into the plane we all felt very sad to leave Japan (the land of the space invaders). We realized we probably wouldn't ever have such a great time as we had just had.

JAPAN TRIP 1980 On the first of May,7 girls f rom here,2 Kedron High girls, and 10 Boys Grammar grots, set off for Japan. ln the Iate afternoon we all caught a plane to Sydney. From there we went on a plane to Tokyo for t hours. Mrs Duncan, Mrs Torney, and Mr and Mrs Evans (BGS), were the four teachers who accompanied us. Our first glimpse of Japan was the top of Mt. Fuji through the clouds, early Friday morning. Our first impression of Tokyo was that of a huge, crowd- eci, smoggy city. We spent 3 days in Tokyo, where we went shopping, visited various temples and shrines, Tokyo Tower, and had our first experience with a Japanese toilet (a dish in the ground). Our spare time (the little of it that there was)was spent walking around, eating, both Japanese and Western foods, and talking to the natives (all oJ whom we towered above) and packing or unpacking. We visited various other cities from there, continually taking photos, shopping, seeing new and interesting sights, and having great fun. Over the whole trrp we travelled on every style of transport available; such as the Bullet Train, public trains, the underground, public buses, trams, jumbo buses, coaches, jumbo jets, ferries, jumbo ferry, DC 10's, cablecars, f inicular railway, ship, taxis (death rides) and our feet. Most Japanese public trains are very crowded, (you can't imagine). We had to breathe alternately, and we could lift out feet off the ground and still stay up. The trains only stopped at stations for less lhan 2 minutes, and when hundreds of people are getting on and off , it is impossible. Once some of us had to climb out the win- dows to get off the rlght stop. One day we even lost 5 of our group as they got on the wrong train and couldn't get off . Every Japanese person laughed when they looked at us. We still don't know why. At a small village, Aso, on an active volcano, we were billeted for the first time in Japanese homes. We were petrif ied as they spoke no English and we would be alone 2 nights with them, but we all had an absolutely fantastic time, apart f rom the cold and the rain. We left there load- ed with presents from the very traditional homes. Several days later we arrived at our sister school, Hirryama Gakuen Tsushima Girls High School. We had left the boys to stay at a monastery in Osaka. At Nagoya several of us met girls, f riends, who had stayed with us last year, and they invited us to stay at their homes. We were treated really well, like V.l.P.'s. We were taken out to dinner and had many side trips organized by the school. Our singing assembly was a disaster - we were asked to stop by the head English teacher half way through a song. ln Nagoya as well as in Fukuoka we ap- peared on television. (We were filmed on tours.) ln Nagoya we also had a live segment and we were in many papers. We left Nagoya with our suitcases stuJJed with even more presents. When we met the boys in Osaka again they were very jealous. From Osaka we went to Tokyo Nanta Airport where we spent 5 hours waiting for our return flight to Australia. 70