Tuesday 8 July

Fortune Tree
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Today we meet in  our meeting room at 8.30am, lots of people here earlier especially Mrs Climo who arrives at 7.10 am in the morning.  Brian the teacher from Ireland who lives here in Sendai with his Japanese wife is our guide for the day. We are off to Yamadera for the day. It is a temple high up in the hills. When we got on the bus we all had to take our shoes off and put them into a plastic bag. The seats in the school bus were also covered with Tokiwagi Gakuen High School towels. After getting petrol at a service station where the attendant greets the driver and tells him where to park we were on our way to Yamadera. Lots of tunnels on this trip as well including one that is over 3km in length. Today in Sendai it was raining but when we got through the tunnels and out the other side in Yamadera it was a beautiful day, sun shining and temp in late 20`s. We then started the climb. Over 1,000 steps but once we got there the scenery was spectacular and the Temple amazing. Students tied their fortune (a piece of paper) that they got from a box onto a tree. Lots of laughing as Brian translated them into English. On the way up we meet a big group 40-50 kindergarten students with two teachers, a huge effort for little ones. Lots of water bottles later we were back at the bus. Students had 50 mins for lunch and to have a look around the shops. Then it was back off to Towiwagi. We arrived back on time at 3pm. Mr Suzki the bus driver come caretaker made sure of that. We had 30 minutes sitting around talking and then our host sisters started arriving to pick us up or to tell us what time they were meeting us. A great day!!!  Lots of tired people.

Lookout
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Excuse the photos but I can`t edit them as the software is all in Japanese, doing well to even upload them!!