Author Archives: Michael Gakuran

Friday July 16th

Friday July 16th Flight home We had to get up at 5.00am today to catch a bus out to Narita airport – only 3 hours sleep!. Most people slept on the coach on the way though. I grabbed a croissant at the airport and some last minute presents for friends back home. I also managed […]
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Thursday July 15th

Thursday July 15th Studio Ghibli Museum & Ayako Today we set off early to meet Ayako, Sumiko (Ayako’s mother) and Hiroki (Ayako’s brother). Ayako, you may or may not remember, is my pen pal that I met in London once during the first year of Japanese, as Sumiko is a friend of Kushida-sensei’s and they […]
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Wednesday July 14th

Wednesday July 14th Tsurumine High School – Day 3 This was our final day at Tsurumine High School. Okaasan made me obento again (which was very good) and we headed off for school. I didn’t talk to as many of the students individually today as I had done the day before. After the day’s English […]
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Tuesday July 13th

Tuesday July 13th Tsurumine High School – Day 2 Today was fantastic! I got up about 7.00am, had breakfast (a couple of rolls with sausage, noodles and miso soup) and then okaasan took Takahito and me to school for 8.25am. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see otoosan at all today, although he phoned in the […]
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Monday July 12th

Monday July 12th Tsurumine High School – Day 1 A large part of the day was occupied travelling and we had an hour’s shopping time in a very large bookshop, during which I bought a Kanji dictionary and two Japanese textbooks ‘Minna no Nihongo’. I talked with Heather a little more about the gap year, […]
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Sunday July 11th

Sunday July 11th Tokyo Tower & Edo-Tokyo Museum Today was the trip to the Edo-Tokyo museum, which was interesting, and then onto Tokyo Tower. The Edo-Tokyo building was quite impressive, with a large open floor space outside and a *huge* red space-style elevator going up into the main area.
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Saturday July 10th

Saturday July 10th Nijo Palace It was raining heavily as I awoke this morning, with some flashes of lightning and thunder. Thankfully, it died down about an hour later, which meant we didn’t have to walk to the bus stop in it. Miss Kushida had graciously hired a car to take our stuff to the […]
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Friday July 9th

Friday July 9th Himeji Castle and Hiroshima We left really early today to take the Shinkansen to Himeji Castle. Heather and I translated a bit of Winnie-the-Pooh on the way there and I think it was today that my odd mind spawned the infamous monkey thumb, inspired after seeing Heather’s gorilla key ring. Coupled with […]
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