High in the air with ten hours to waste, we tried to contain our excitement. Time passed and we grew more tired but still buzzing on the inside, when we finally touched down although it was almost midnight we were still ready for the adventure ahead. We all knew two weeks in a foreign country was going to be different, but none of us could get used to the extreme humidity in the air or the huge number of people. Some Subway Stations nearly had the whole of New Zealand walking through them each day! I remember thinking ‘how have we not lost anyone yet?!’ Some of us held onto each others backpacks through the stations while getting onto subways, and held hands around the malls, we never felt intimidated by the mass of people because they were all so friendly. While we were in Disneyland Tokyo I dropped all my coins, and no one even hesitated to help, the whole room flooded over to me and picked up every coin and gave it back to me. Amazingly no one took a single coin for themselves or hid a coin in their pocket. We visited many amazing places while we were in Japan including Temples, Shrines, Schools and even stayed with Japanese families for a night! We can definitely say we would go again and again! It was an amazing experience to see a different culture and their ways of life and we strongly recommend you visit another country as part of future school trips. You can learn so much more from other cultures by being there, than the internet can ever teach you.

By Hannah Hogan and Mikayla Barnes