A Little More About Ashiya Gakuen

For those who are interested, here are some photos of things and places around Ashiya Gakuen (taken from their website).

 Sailor suits are one of the most common school-uniform styles. Even public schools have them. This will drastically reduce the number of clothes I pack, and ultimately save me from the "Oh god, what do I wear to impress a country full of dignified and polite people?" crisis, which will inevitably happen sooner or later. 

So much class. I'm sitting here in a sweatshirt from Barnard, Vermont, a pair of work boots and jeans. And frog earrings. Nothing that I'm wearing goes together, yet somehow in Japan, it seems that everyone there could wrap themselves in party streamers and plastic wrap and STILL they would look more presentable. Or maybe that's the French. I'm mixing up my stereotypes here.

Still. Of all the stereotypes. Class is not a bad one.

And now for the exciting part.

I posted a picture earlier of the 

school from a different angle, but basically, Ashiya Gakuen looks like a cruise liner. There is no other way to describe to you what this reminds me of architecturally. It is a giant boat.

Ah, the hallway. Nothing says JAPAN louder than cleanliness and LOOK AT THIS. LOOK AT THE CARPET.  In America, it would be covered in crumbs and footprints and little stains, but no. It doesn't even look like it's been walked on yet. And can we talk about the color scheme?? Pink and green is a fabulous combination. 

That is a computer embedded into a desk. 

There are tears of confusion and happiness coming out of my eye holes right now. Are you seeing what I'm seeing because what I am seeing is a professionally designed gymnasium. I don't even play sports but I want to be on that waxy floor. MMMMMMMMHM.

I don't get the tennis thing but apparently my host brother is captain of the tennis team at his high school (he doesn't go here) :((. Either way, their courts are in the mountains so that makes it all worthwhile.

Their school store is an actual store. Our school store is a little room only accessible by a small door and a window with metal blinds that opens for 15 minutes after school four days a week during three months out  of the year. Trojan Pride? Right. Didn't the founders of my high school know that the Trojans lost?? 

Cafeterias are not special, unless we're talking about the food court in the Native American Museum in D.C. But we're not, so this isn't special.

DAT KANJI -______-
Calligraphy is beautiful, but do NOT mess up that stroke order or it's punishable by death. In English, everyone writes however they want but in Japan, all the letters are written with the strokes in the same order and everything in its right place. Calligraphy is comparable to knitting a sweater.

The girl in the corner wants you to notice how red the seats are.

Just kidding. I have no idea what she's saying but damn if those seats aren't electrifying.

Only a language geek gets excited to stand in a room filled with books that aren't written in English. I'm not ashamed. I wear that badge proudly. 

Oh, natural light.  How inspiring thou art. Literally all of my teachers hate windows. All the light in all of my classes is artificial. Then again, KCHS was built in the 70s when architecture was dying a slow and painful death, so the needs of a student were put behind how many winding hallways they could work into the blueprints. That archway is pride-worthy.

There you have it. Ashiya Gakuen in a shiny, polished nutshell.