Michinoku Park

As part of the school's program, students from each grade have a "special day" where they get to on a field trip to different, fun places.  It gives teachers the opportunity to build relationships with students through fun activities and it also provides students with a natural environment to use their English skills.  Before we take students on these trips, we get to visit the places ahead of time so that will be familiar with it when we have students with us.  And we get to have fun with the other teachers.

Two weeks ago some of us new teachers got to visit Michinoku Park (Mee chee no koo).  It is a really awesome park located east of Sendai (about 45 minutes away) that has all kinds of neat things.  There is a flower garden, large bouncy balls covered in rope to jump on, a giant jumping donut (kind of like a moon bounce), ball pit, bouncy swings, bike go-carts, a field with giant balls (the size of children), a lake with motorboats, and an area similar to Old Economy (in Pennsylvania) with "old time" Japanese homes where students can see and participate in life as it used to be.  We had a great time exploring the park and running around like big kids.

Flower Garden

  

Kris and I on the jumping donut



It was so much fun!

 



Giant Bouncy-Balls covered in nets for jumping on 

Kris on the roller slide

Rope swing races -- Kris won!

You could swing on these bouncy-ball swings or bounce up and down on them.

On the way home we stopped for ice cream.  Ice cream here isn't cheap and the portions are certainly not American-sized.  But there are a variety of flavors.  In addition to the usual chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, coffee, etc you can also get your ice cream in flavors such as black sesame, grape, milk, green tea, rose,  EDAMAME, SOY, YAM, CORN SOUP, and more.  I stuck with sakura (cherry blossom-flavored), which is sweet and delicious).

Can you tell that my face looks a little grossed out?  That's because in attempting to get this shot, I accidentally DID lick that big plastic ice cream cone and it was NARSTY!

Kris also got to go to Manyo Park (since one of his grades will go there). It was a free park with an obstical course, playground equipment, and lawn slides.  He made a video of the lawn slides for you to enjoy.