Goodbye Tokusa

Tokusa High School is one of my absolute favourites. The school is really far away, and is almost on the border with Shimane Prefecture. It takes about one and a half hours to get there. I am really thankful to get picked up and taken there, but it does mean I get up really early!

Ive learnt to sleep in the car on the way there, because my teacher who drives drives like a madman! Of all my 5 schools, it is the one I was most nervous about when I started, because it was so far away, and the school really is in the middle of nowhere. However, the isolated nature

means in winter its really cold and they get tons and tons of snow, and in summer, its not nearly as warm as it is down in the towns. The mountains surrounding it are really beautiful. I spent so many days in spring hanging out in a temple nearby, or wandering this pretty path that was covered with trees.

It really is one of the more beautiful places I have visited in Yamaguchi, its one of those places that you really wouldnt go without knowing specifically about it. The two English teachers there were amazing, both spoke really great English, and always helped me out with things. For several months running,

the lovely female teacher brought me her second hand English newspapers, and I loved them! It was at this school I got to play all my fun classroom games, including my quiz games, and pictionary, and a funny egg and spoon game for Easter lessons.

I came to really enjoy the long bus ride home (apart from the one time I got absolutely drenched in a typhoon), - I would just put my headphones in and watch the beautiful scenery go by. The students were really amazing too. They may not have been the smartest students academically, but they really tried, and that's so important! Their teachers worked really hard on conversational skills, and they all did great in their English speaking tests which they had every 3 months.

I remember being so pleased when they did well in those, even in those freezing classrooms, where I sat so close to the kerosene heater that I burned my legs! The class sizes were really small too, so I knew most of the students. Every time I arrived at the school, they all came up and said hello, came out of their classrooms to talk to me,

and generally were just excited to see me! The third years were some of my favourites, and I was really sad to see them graduate in April. Way back in September 2011, the sunflowers were in bloom, and they were some of the prettiest I've seen. I was so excited to see that on my very last trip, in July 2013, they were there again.