I'm in Gujo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Greetings from Gujo! We left on the bullet train Monday morning and arrived in Gujo on Monday afternoon. There is no internet hook-up at our hotel, so I have just walked for 30 minutes with about 8 other Fulbright people to this internet cafe. It's a neat place - only 400 yen for 1 hour (about $4). I will not be able to post again until I am back in Tokyo.
Today we went to Gujo Hachiman Elementary School. Gujo City is a beautiful city surrounded by mountains with a stream running right through the center of town. I have many pictures to share with you. We arrived at the school 1/2 hour before school started so that we could greet the children as they came to the school. All the children wear a school hat - yellow, and they all walk to school. Gujo Hachiman is a small school - about 330 students. After the principal met with us, we were escorted into the gym and the children sang for us. It took a few minutes, but I realized that the song they were singing was, "It's a Small World After All." They sang it beautifully. We observed many different classes and then I had lunch with the 6th graders. All children eat lunch in their classroom, with their teacher. I had a large bowl of rice, beans, some kind of pork and vegetable dish and milk. There were no forks, only chopsticks, so it took me quite a while to eat! After lunch all the children get to play - they have stilts and unicycles!!!! It was pretty amazing to watch how good they all were ! After lunch, one of the girls that I sat with at lunch time, came to me and said, "present". She had drawn me a picture, I will share it with you when I get back. Love you all and miss you lots!
P.S. I was in the lobby of the hotel Sunday night when I felt the floor shake! It was an earthquake!!! The epicenter was not in Tokyo, but CNN said it was a 5 on the Richter scale! New experience!
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