Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Orientation Camp

In the mountainous area of Nagano prefecture our school own a study house which can accommodate about 200 students and maybe twenty teachers. The study house is located in a town called Tateshina and has a huge kitchen with a dining hall, classrooms, bedrooms, bathing facilities, and recreational areas for all the 200 students. From next week the first graders of my school will go there in two groups, the first one from Monday to Wednesday, and the second one from Wednesday to Friday. This orientation camp is for them to spend some time together and hopefully make new friends.
Every year after the first graders come back from this camp they become more uncontrollable than before because somehow they form strong alliances to do the opposite thing the teachers ask from them. I wonder how things will change after this year's orientation camp.
I'm not sure about their schedule for this year but usually they'll go to visit some sort of zoo, do a mountain hike and make either Japanese Soba noodles or butter. In the evening they'll do some recreational activities in the dining hall before going to bed. Well, going to bed doesn't mean going to sleep... they usually stay awake for a very long time preventing the tired teacher from getting their rest.
Hiking course on Kurumayama:

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