My experience so far (by Tara)

We have been in Japan for 8 weeks and its been a whole new experience. I go to a Japanese school where they do not speak English. I like going to school because my friends try to tell whats going on but they don't know how to tell.  The bad thing is that sometimes I just sit there for two or one class trying to figure out what is going on. But overall it's very nice. Lunch is very different, in Finland you would get mashed potatoes and some sauce or salmon and potatoes. But here we have rice, seaweed, miso soup and we have fish - a lot of fish. You eat with chopsticks.  Usually I don't know what I'm eating it just tastes very good.

This is me going to school. Everyone has the same bag, I don't know why. I got the bag from school. We have to bring our own chopsticks and a lunch mat for lunch. It goes on top of your desk when you are eating. We have calligraphy and it is hard to do because everyone else has neat Kanji words but sometimes it is hard for me.

It's weird because everyone in school has the same P.E uniforms and we always put a cap on and the cap has a red side and a white side. It depends on what class you are in. Like I'm in grade 4 class 3 so we have the red side. In school they like playing tag a lot. Everyone the whole school plays tag usually or this skipping game. Even the teachers join. The teachers are good runners in tag. I got tagged thirty times by my teachers. The school has it's own big outdoor swimming pool. They teach us how to float on water if we ever fall in water.

After school we usually have to clean for almost an hour. We have our own groups and we clean different rooms. For example today I cleaned the science room with my group. It's been a nice experience so far and I am looking forward to seeing our dog when we go back to Finland. And I'm looking forward to in Japan to learn how to speak Japanese. I can say a lot of stuff already and sometimes I communicate with my friends but it's usually not that complicated stuff that you would have a conversation with your friends in Finland.