One World Day

One of the nicer touches of teaching in an international school is the international community of the kids. There is a day to celebrate this each year on 24th Jan, and the friday nearest to it is one world day at school. All throughout the week, the students can wear accessories from different areas - monday was asia and oceania, tuesday africa, wednesday europe and thursday the americas - until it all culminates in a big party on friday. Everyone wears their national costume (or colours if you don't have one) and the kids perform different acts from all over the world, then have a "parade of nations". The kids all come onto the stage in alphabetical country order and say hello in their native language. The reply is displayed behind on a screen, and the audience all shout back. There are around 50 countries represented at the school so it takes a while, but its really nice, especially seeing them all in their costumes. I took lots of photos and there will be a dvd towards the end of the year so I will try to get that.

Will had to work really hard for one world day to set up all the AV equipment and help with the music and lights etc. Unfortunately, the older kids who were hosting the event don't know who he is, so when they read out the thank-you's from a sheet they assumed it was a misprint and thanked me instead. Oops. He got a special mention later on though and it was nice for me!

Over the christmas holiday was a strange time in japan. The decorations all go up and the japanese people are really into the idea of christmas - but they all go to work on christmas day and there is no holiday until new year. So on christmas day we went out to a friends house, and all the shops were open, people were milling around, busy as ever. It was a very strange feeling. At Karens it felt very christmassy, and we had a huge dinner and a really good time (I had my nails painted by a 4 year old and came away looking like a quentin blake monster), but as we left it was rush hour and the trains were packed. It all felt a bit surreal.

On the 27th we went to Nagano prefecture to go skiing at a little resort called Nozawa Onsen. We were a long way from the lifts but there was a free bus, and there really is nothing like getting into an Onsen (natural hot bath) after a day skiing. As we arrived there was no snow at all in the village and we were worried, but just as we got to the top of the mountain it started to snow and didn't stop the whole time we were there. That meant it was cold and blinding, but we could ski ok and had fun.

We tried a red run on the last morning there, but red runs here are different to red runs in europe! We got very stuck. I came down on one leg, Will gave up and walked down, and Megans sat on her skiis like a toboggan. The food was all japanese - rice soup and fish every meal. I was the only one who managed to eat every meal, the others were all wimps and had enough. We have booked to go to Hokkaido In february for 4 days where the snow is supposed to be amazing, and there is a much bigger group going this time so I am really excited about it.

I will add some photos later.