Field Trip

I don’t think I’ve written about it a lot in this blog before, but part of my job from time to time entails going on school field trips with the kids. Last Tuesday I went to the Honda Car factory, and then the amusement park with the 5th grade elementary students.

I know I’ve been complaining a lot about my job lately, but field trip day is a day where you won’t hear any whining from me. I hadn’t ridden a roller coaster in ages, and I had a blast at the amusement park. I couldn’t believe I was getting paid for it.

More fun with than ridding the roller coaster itself was riding it with my students. Going with a bunch of 5th grade students makes riding the roller coaster an entirely different experience.

For one thing they need so much prodding before they’re even willing to get on the damn thing. “Let’s go!” I said. “It’ll be fine.”

They wanted to watch it several times first, and then insisted on hearing the reports of people who had already ridden to make sure it was safe. I think 5th grade is an age where the girls are almost braver than the boys, because several of the girls were keener to ride with me than the boys were.

But as soon as we had strapped ourselves in, and the roller coaster started up the ramp, they began having second thoughts. The whole way up to the top the girls around me simply repeated over and over again “Kowai, kowai, kowai, kowai” which means, “I’m scared, I’m scared, I’m scared.” And once the roller coaster started going down, then they started screaming for their little lives.

I quite enjoyed myself, and feel like I long ago passed the point where roller coasters held any fear for me. This was somewhat debated by my students, who insisted that I looked terrified on the drop down. I maintain that they mistook excitement for fear.

Oh, yeah, and there was this car factory we went to as well. That was kind of cool I guess. I’m not a huge car person, but it was cool to see the machines put the car together. Also, seeing rows and rows of cars come off the assembly line, it hit me for the first time the huge amount of cars that must be made every day. Who buys all those cars? When you add up all the car factories in the world, there must be a huge amount of brand new cars purchased every day.

At the amusement park we got to see a special showing of the “Honda Robot” named Asimo. He is very famous because he is a human shaped robot that can walk, stand on one leg, climb stairs, and even kick a soccer ball. He is very similar to the famed Toyota robot that was on display on the world expo. Since I missed the world expo, I thought that this was a nice chance to see the main attraction.

Boy did it suck. I have no idea what the big deal is about a robot that can walk, climb up stairs, and kick a soccer ball. And after all that build up too.

The show was supposed to be 45 minutes, but ended up being only a half hour. One of the other teachers apologized to me. “That’s okay,” I said. “I don’t think I could have taken another 15 minutes.”

Aside from a really boring robot show, the only thing that kept it from being an otherwise great day was the 2-hour bus ride each way.

For whatever reason, I’ve never handled buses well. I always hated riding the bus when I was in school. I get motion sick really easily. (Why I get motion sickness in buses, but not when I’m driving, is a question I’ve always wondered. I’m sure there’s a reason).

Anyway, riding in the bus with all the students did not help my disposition. I tried to earn my pay and be friendly and play with them as much as possible, but in the end I just got a headache and retired to a seat by the window, and just zoned out for the rest of the trip. It was a long bus ride.

One of my favorite field trip stories happened either the first year or second year I was in Ajimu. I don’t remember exactly, but at any rate it was before I had this blog up and running, so I never wrote about it.

This was also with a class of 5th grade students. We went to the “African Safari Park” in between Ajimu and Beppu. It’s an interesting park because they take you on a bus ride through the animal exhibits, and you can actually feed the lions and tigers through the grates on the bus. I had done it before, but there was a lot more screaming this time around.

And then we went to see the ponies, and the kids were so excited to see the ponies, and the zookeeper was showing the kids how to brush the ponies.

Then I could hear the zookeeper explaining something, and pointing around the stable. My Japanese still wasn’t that good at that point. It sounded like the zookeeper was telling the kids how to clean the stable, but I thought “that can’t be right. They’re not going to make the kids clean out the stable on their field trip, are they? Surely they have people at the zoo who do this kind of stuff.”

Sure enough, the next thing I know the kids are shoveling shit into the wheelbarrows and cleaning out the stables. There was no complaining, and they even seemed pretty happy to do it as if this was all part of the fun. Nobody asked me to pitch in, and I didn’t volunteer. I just stood around and watched and gave encouragement to the kids.

The main problem was that the kids were so affectionate. They’re always pretty affectionate, but after they had been cleaning the stables I didn’t wanted to be hugged or touched until after they had washed their hands. So while they were cleaning, I backed away from any kid who tried to shake hands or give me a hug. After the cleaning was finished, a group of kids ran towards me, but I escaped, and told them to go wash their damn hands.

Link of the Day
Anyone who follows Japanese baseball (probably no-one outside of Japan I guess) knows that the Hanshin Tigers have finally won, breaking the long standing Curse of the Colonel.