Kyoto School Excursion Season

The month of May is a great time to experience one of the most culturally significant cities of the world - Kyoto. School groups from all over Japan know this too and you will be sharing your Kyoto discoveries with energised bright eyed kids from Japanese towns of all sizes. Their teachers arm them with a questionnaire and the students take their mission very seriously! In general Japanese school kids are somewhat shy but their sense of duty to the mission allows them to overcome their inhibitions. They are bursting with pride about their home town and in many cases compensate the visitor for their few minutes of questionnaire responses with a souvenir and information from their home town. The Kiyomizudera Temple dates back to 778 and offers wonderful views of Kyoto from the impressive Temple veranda. I visited the temple with my Japan based cousin. His name is Lincoln and he has picked up conversational Japanese over the years he has enjoyed living in Japan. We were exploring the temple complex when Lincoln started laughing and flashed a knowing smile at some nearby Japanese students. He then greeted them in Japanese and this resulted in several embarrassed giggles and red faces. I asked Lincoln what was going on and he explained that the school kids were in the process of identifying suitable survey targets. One of the girls had suggested ‘What about that one with the Big Nose!’ Our Western noses obviously appear quite impressive to the kids of Japan. We all had a good laugh before filling out the survey with our impressions of Kyoto and Japan. They were very keen to hear about our impressions and practice their English. We listened to stories about their home town and the local Yoshinogari Historical Park. We posed for photos and gave them coins from Australia before we continued to explore the Temple complex. The school kids were delighted to fulfil their mission and excitedly moved on to find their next survey targets.