Wednesday~

Today turned out to be a super fun day despite it being a normal school workday! Woke up at 7:00am, congee for breakfast, arrived at school at 8:15am. It started out as a normal morning at school, until the 3rd grade teachers invited me to join them on their school outing prep trip today! The librarian and the tea lady also came too.

So at 9:40am we set off in a teacher’s car to a history house museum near the school. It was actually also really close to where I live, and indeed when we were driving to there from the school, we used the roads which I cycle to school on! The history museum (I’ll call it a museum but I don't think that’s what it’s officially called in Japanese) was very interesting, in that it didn’t look really like a museum or anything from the outside, and it was right in the middle of a neighbourhood, hidden amongst all the houses and apartments. Inside it had 2 floors. On the 1st floor was a photo exhibition with photos showing what Takasaki city looked like 60 years ago. There was also an air-conditioned weaving room full of looms, and I got to try using the machine to do some weaving too! On the 2nd floor were rooms kept in the style of the olden days, and had a classroom, a home interior, and a showroom with all the tools they used back then. The classroom was interesting as it had 2 organs in there – playing an organ is so much fun because you have to keep pressing the pedals for the air to come out so that you can actually make sound! The showroom with the tools was interesting too, because it was basically olden-day versions of everything we use today, like washing machines, fridges, skis, skates, etc. The 3rd graders will visit sometime in October and will get to experience a variety of olden-day experiences, and the weaving as well on the 1st floor.

After that we drove to the factory where they make the famous Takasaki souvenirs, gateau rusks – Gateau Festa Harada. The factory was very new and modern, and had only been built in the last 20 years according to the librarian who lived in that area of town. The rusks that they make are made from freshly baked baguettes (they call those “French Bread” here) that are then sliced, baked till they’re crunchy like cookies, and coated with sugar. They’re very delicious! My JTE had actually bought a pack for me this morning because she found out yesterday that I hadn’t tried them before! So kind of her. The factory was huge but the accessible areas were small. We could see their factory line and it reminded me of the Shiroi Koibito factory in Sapporo that I’d been to before. We also got to taste some samples and there were free drinks (hot grapefruit juice is surprisingly good!). After that it was back to school, but we made a quick stop at a convenience store and a local たいこ焼き to buy lunch and snacks.

Back at school I had lunch, and then in the afternoon met with my JTE. We finished planning 3 weeks worth of lessons for grades 4-6 so I feel super productive. After school it was straight back home – my cold has gotten a lot better but I still want to be 100% healed before Friday’s 1st day of school!