Kurume visit

GenkiJACS received an invitation from the English language department of Kurume University. They were proposing to fetch us at school by bus and showing us around Kurume, a free lunch included. We kind of sensed that the goal was to ship in some foreign attraction and have the English students try out their language schools. But the thing still seemed kind of nice, so about 25 GenkiJACS students ended up signing up for it. We were a few less on Saturday morning at 9.30 which may have been loosely related to a wild night at Sam&Daves...

A fancy tourist bus awaited us in front of GenkiJACS and drove us to Kurume in about 30 minutes. We first met the students majoring in English on the Kurume University campus. Kathleen, one of their English profs introduced some language games that should allow the students and us gaijins to get to know each other. We were playing some sort of bingo - there were a set of questions and you had to find a match for each statement. So we walked around asking random stuff like "do you get up before 7 am?" or "are you from Fukuoka prefecture?" or "have you taken the Nishijitetsu train this morning?" and note down their name once you found a match.

After we were sitting down with the students for a Chinese bento lunch and more chatting. The students were certainly more proficient in English than the average Japanese, but their English was a bit limited. We needed to speak quite slowly, using simple language and no colloquial expressions or phrasal verbs. The two girls we were at the table with, Megumi and Akane, told us they were going to an English language school on the Philippines in August. Have never heard that you would go there for a English language stay. It's probably cheap, but is it good too?!

After we were shown around the University campus in the usual burning heat and told a little about the University's history and what subjects you can study there. No clue what you do with a degree in "international culture" for example if you have poor foreign language skills and had little exposure to foreign culture. The campus also sported a students hair salon and the usual omnipresent vending machines for softdrinks.

After we had a small tour of Kurume. We went on top of the nearby mountain and visited a shrine. Before visiting the shrine you had to wash your hands thoroughly. Next to the beautiful temple you could buy little papers with wishes written on them. You randomly draw one and then hang it up. You see these in many places. I didn't pick the best one unfortunately as the guy I was with explained. Some drew their wishes from the children's box, because these were written all in hiragana, which we can easily read. Unfortunately the wishes were stuff like "please make me pass the exam". Well, but we're at school too right now, so can't hurt.

After we went to Narita-san, a temple area with a huge statue of the goddess of mercy. We didn't have much time, but still wanted to climb the statue, hoping for a great view. It turned out to be just a strenous climb in intense heat without the reward of a great view. There were nothing but tiny windows up there - the goddess had no mercy...

Joanna and me wanted to see the small museum after. Keisuke who was with us said we needed to go back or we'd be late. I said "why don't you go back and tell the others the stupid gaijin (foreigners) have gotten lost?" He looked quite shocked and we could guess that that type of sarcasm is not very Japanese. To spare him the embarassement we went back.

After saying goodbye to the students we took the train back to Fukuoka.