Our two OTA Scholarship recipients, Lavnya Singh and Lizzie Gibbons, have returned from their 10 day trip to Japan where they built a strong connection with our sister school, Jissen Gakuen High School. Read about their adventure below.

Our time in Japan was an experience we will never forget.  Alongside Connor, Jack, and Ms. Rosie from MBC, we built a strong connection with our sister school, Jissen Gakuen High School.

We arrived in Japan on Thursday night, and we started our time at Jissen Gakuen on Friday morning. It was such a different experience, with the first thing being that you have to wear slippers inside the school! Jissen Gakuen school is laid out very differently compared to MGC - every single class was in the same building. Something that is also different is that everyone stays in their homeroom class; the teachers are the ones who move around to teach the students. Class time is 45 minutes, and in between class time, the students get a 10 minute break to get drinks from the massive number of vending machines in the school.

We made a slideshow to teach an English class about New Zealand and our culture. This same class is coming to New Zealand in September for 10 days, so please make sure you make them feel welcome, as they made us feel very welcome during our time in Japan. We told them about many landscapes, food in NZ, Māori culture and school life at MGC and MBC. We also taught a couple of classes the game ‘Pukana’. It was amazing to see that some students already knew how to play the game!

Jissen Gakuen school was kind enough to take us to see Mount Fuji, Japan's biggest mountain. We went with our host sisters, Ms. Rosie, Connor, Jack and their host brothers, as well as two amazing teachers from Jissen Gakuen. While at Mount Fuji, we did many things including souvenir shopping, eating an ice cream shaped like a raccoon dog and learning an old folk story about a rabbit and a raccoon. Although we didn’t get to experience Mount Fuji up close, it was still such a heartwarming experience. A fun fact about Mount Fuji is that it is only about 100 metres taller than Mount Taranaki! These mountains look so similar that sometimes in movies and TV shows, when they can’t manage to record Mount Fuji, they use Mount Taranaki instead!

One of the attractions we visited was the Sensoji Temple, where we learnt a traditional way to wash our hands. Washing your hands is a sign of respect before you go up to the Temple and pray to the Japanese Gods. We also had our fortunes read, putting 100 yen (which is approximately $1 NZD) into a box. We were then assigned a number and opened up a draw with our fortunes laid inside. Lizzie got a bad fortune, this means she had to tie her fortune onto a piece of string to let the Gods forgive her.

We went shopping at the busiest pedestrian crossing in the world, Shibuya Crossing - a crossing that can have up to 3,000 people crossing at a time!

It is safe to say that our 10 day trip in Japan was something we will never forget! We are eternally grateful for all of the support we received from our host families, MGC and MBC staff members, and the Jissen Gakuen teachers. We highly recommend you to apply for the OTA Scholarship this year!

Lavnya Singh and Lizzie Gibbons
OTA Scholarship recipients
January 2024