Japanese High School: A Little Cultural Note

Everyday when I get to Mishima, rather than waltzing right through the front doors. Airi and I must go around to the back door which leads into a locker room of types (this "locker room" is for boys and girls) here you take off your outside shoes and replace them with the school slippers and you put your regular shoes and your gym clothes in the locker.

Rather than moving individually from class to class you have a homeroom class and you spend much of your time with them. Also, only a few classes do you actually leave to another classroom for. For the other classes, the teachers are the ones who rotate around. The style of the lessons are very lecture oriented. There is little to no discussion and the teachers tend to talk very quickly (I think this is in order to fit as much information as is physically possible into one hour.)

Mishima has a courtyard similar to Merit's except awesome. It is much bigger and the plant life there is gorgeous. During the lunch-hour (which really IS an hour, not the measly 30 minutes I am used to)you find many art students there.

The only unfortunate thing about Mishima is the bathrooms. It is here that I first experienced the joys of the "squatty potty" seriously...I don't even think I can describe how fun those things are... xP However, if I thought THAT was bad, I wasn't prepared to clean one. My group after school was in charge of the bathrooms so my first day at school was quite...memorable.