Nara and Ishigaki

This is Devon Martin reporting on behalf of all the students from South Eugene, as I am lucky enough to have computer access.
After seeing Kyoto, we spent another night in the traditional hotel, before heading off to Nara, another Japanese city. Our guide in Nara was Mr. Sada. He took us to a museum to give us an overview of Nara before the tour, in order to better bridge the language gap. Then he took us on a tour of Nara Park and the temple nearby. There ar all these tame, sacred deer that basically own the park. (I made the mistake of trying to feed them crackers.)

The temple also housed the largest indoor Buddah in the world. The thing is huge. At the back of the hall there is a supporting post with a hole in it the exact size of the Buddah`s nostril. Its said that if you can squeeze through the hole, you will have good health for a year. Several members of our group drew up a crowd by trying to get through.

After Nara, we rested for one last night at the hotel, before returning to Osaka inorder to fly down to Okinawa Airport in Naha. From there it was antoher hour flight to Ishigaki.

When we arrived in Ishigaki, our host families were lined up in the foyer of the TINY (way smaller than Eugene`s) airport. There was a sort of opening ceremony thing, and some speeches were made by the Yaeyama school principal and a few students.
After a few hours with our host families, there was an opening rooftop party that include a potluck, basketball, and general visiting.
Today was Monday, and we shadowed our ost student`s at their school day. Tomorrow we will do the same thing, but starting on Wednesday, the students have final exams. It was last speculated that we will go swimming on the ocean for osme of that time, but there is no real plan yet.

Everyone has lots of pictures, but right now it is difficultot upload them. We will post a blog and let everyone know when the pictures have been updated.

-- Devon Martin