We congregated en masse (all eight of us - two girls, five boys and Mr James Gazet) at Heathrow where, after the usual tearful goodbyes from our parents, we prepared for our ten hour flight. Once on the plane, I took part in the usual ritual of shuffling seats, ending up squashed between two of the boys (at which point, surviving the trip seemed a tall order). Having arrived at Tokyo airport, we then proceeded on a further two hour journey on a train, standing all the way. Tired, hungry and bad-tempered, we finally met with our host families. The temporary relief of finding my host father friendly and fluent in English evaporated when we parted company from the others and continued with yet another two hour train journey (standing too).
After a night of hearty introductions and delicious Japanese food, I was then told that I had to get up at five in the morning in time to leave for school. Having initially vowed never to set foot on a Japanese train again, I had the pleasure of another journey, smiling continuously and greeting my exchange's friends who appeared at every stop. It became evident that all students at Keio Shonan High School took the train to school - there was even a public bus direct from the train station to the school. The train system in Japan is much more organised than our own, but one fault I found was not so much with the system as with the commuters. They did not seem to have much respect for each other nor for their own comfort as they piled on the trains, shoving so that we were packed tightly with very little room in the carriages. Much of my time on the trains was concentrated on ensuring I received enough oxygen.
Keio Shonan High School was very modern, clean and organised. We spent a lot of time in lessons, during which we frequently had no idea about what was going on, but it appeared that although no teacher taught the class continuously, the students chose whether to listen or not. In one particular lesson, the Maths teacher ran out of the room crying because the majority of the students refused to pay attention. In another Maths lesson, the teacher rather smugly stood me up and asked me to answer one of the questions. Equally smugly, I answered the question and was greeted by a round of applause and sounds of awe. Having established my goddess status, I then received notes from all over the room asking to be my friend or whether I liked hip-hop.
The students were all surprisingly friendly and sociable in contrast with the attitudes of some of the English. They wore uniform trousers or skirts with a choice of top. It soon became obvious however that the socially acceptable dress was Ralph Lauren jumpers, preferably red. The girls also had a curious way of wearing loose white socks up to their calf muscles, the rule being that the trendier you were, the looser the socks. The fact that these socks seemed to defy the laws of physics by staying up puzzled us until we learnt that they used sock-glue!
Our social life revolved around karaoke sessions. But as we laughingly went out to our first session set to have some fun, we soon found that the Japanese took their karaoke very seriously, making what we thought to be a form of entertainment a serious hobby. Despite the English songs being restricted to Bohemian Rhapsody and the various hits of Shampoo (who?), we nevertheless showed them a thing or two with our head banging and hearty renditions.
I had never been particularly fond of sushi, so fearing I would be forced to eat raw fish for two weeks, I had armed myself with packs of Chocolate Digestives. As it turned out, I did not even have to take them out of my bag. Our hosts fed us very well, and the mother spent hours in the kitchen preparing a selection of Japanese delicacies every evening, for which I thanked her with appreciative murmurs and the only Japanese words I could think of.
We spent a weekend sight seeing - either statues of Buddha or shopping centres - as well as various day trips. Our cruel teacher refused to take us to Disneyland, though shopping in the Ginza district of Tokyo partly made up for this. On the whole, the trip turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable. The beauty of Japan and the friendliness of the Japanese made it an incredible and worthwhile experience.
Meera Arumugan (Hakluyt's)