Wednesday morning and everyone took the "walking bus" to school.

Grade 6 children lead the bus with a large orange flag to warn

passing cars that children are on their way to school.

Everyone had had a good night's sleep and a huge breakfast-

they all had big smiles on their faces too.

At 8.30am we were given a very warm "Welcome Assembly" from

the whole Amaji school community.

We all had to stand up and introduce ourselves.

We did very well speaking in Japanese!

We were given gifts and then children from Grade 6 told us all about their school-their English was very good-and everyone sang the school song. 

When it was over we climbed onto a coach with the Grade 5 students

 for our visit to Himeji Castle.

 

Himeji Castle is one of the largest castles in Japan and dates back to the 

14th century but is currently being renovated. So we visited the Himeji 

Museum to learn all about it. First we looked at models of the castle 

-one was made entirely from glass.

We looked at the type of clothes that would have been worn inside the castle-

beautiful silk kimonos.

We studied the construction of the castle-these are the beautiful clay fish tiles that were used as ornaments on the roof. In olden times people believed that they would spout water out of their mouths in cases of fire.

There were many beautiful, portable shrines which were used during Japanese Festivals. This one needed 70 people to carry it!

We also really enjoyed the Toy Room where we learned all about Japanese toys-really old ones and more recent ones. This was our favourite!