I met with some highschoolers from another prefecture! They came all the way from Nagano!!! So far…

I was approached a few days earlier about it, and it seemed like they picked totally random students. I thought they picked quite a few of us but it turned out that wasn’t the case…

There were roughly 8 of us international students, and god knows how many of these high schoolers! We each sat at a table with roughly 10 students each… I was super nervous about being alone!

Some students went up and talked to us about their school and prefecture. Their english was really good!!

Next our activity was to do origami. They gave the students a sheet with the directions for 10 different origami pieces, and we weren’t allowed to look at them. Instead, they had to somehow teach us (with our limited Japanese, and their limited English). It was a really tough, but fun experience! Only about 2 groups made all 10 origami pieces. My group got to about 8 because I suck at understanding what they were telling me haha. They didn’t know the word for quarter so they would demonstrate by fold a paper in half, and half again. They sure came up with really unconventional ways to help me figure out how I was supposed to fold it…!

At the end of it all, they made these to give to me.

So cute…!!!! I drew a little chibi on the corner of a piece of origami paper and they ended up taking it and keeping it…!!

I also saw this and took it off a table…

It’s like origami witchcraft or something…!!

The students were very sweet, but really shy as well! Out of all the students I sat with, only two consistently tried their hardest to talk to me and were very open from the get-go. When I first introduced myself and told them that I was from New York City, they were super amazed! At the end of the day, we said our respective goodbyes. It was a bit sad even though I had only known them for an hour or two. I wish I could’ve spoken with them more, or even maybe gotten their contact information.

I really wish them the best of luck in the future!