Your Utsunomiya Bunsei Campus Guide

The view from outside my window - now the sakura have gone green, but when I came, WOW!

Well, I’ve been in Japan for a more than a month now, so by now, it’s only natural that I would know my school well. You guys, however, don’t! So, before I can update you on all my adventures so far, I need to give you the setting of this story, and that setting is Utsunomiya Bunsei Girls High School.

The Place

My class, 1-3 (Koala/Tesshi Class). They're brilliant! More on them later, though. ;D

When I first entered the gates of Bunsei, I was pretty damn impressed. Like most Japanese schools, it has the token vast athletics field (“The Ground”, often frequented by a chanting regiment of soccer club members in the morning as they jog along the entire area), pretty white buildings, a small well-kept Japanese garden out the front (a place with neatly clipped trees, where the Japanese flag is raised every morning and lowered every afternoon to the Japanese national anthem) and a whole cluster of breathtakingly beautiful sakura trees (which have, sadly, since reverted from their ‘pinkity’ to their normal green state).

The school is full of gorgeous small gardens, and even a space/patch (2nd picture) for the different classes to grow their own vegetables or flowers. I'm on the planning committee for that, but actually forgot about it until seeing the photo again... guess we've just been too busy lately!

The main building is sea shell white and, in the spring, surrounded by pink sakura blossoms. The 2nd picture shows the main path and building a little more (near the school entrance).

Surprisingly, this is a picture of the garbage area! Interesting juxtaposition with the sakura against the tin shed full of rubbish, isn't it?!

What surprised me was that they also have a pool (which I have not yet seen, but that’s my homework! It’s used by the swimming club), an area for the kendou club to practice, a small dojo for the karate club, a small private exercise room filled with equipment (for the use of the teachers, apparently… wow, talk about luxury!), a few small gyms, rooms especially made for the art and music classes, a few dozen small gardens scattered about here and there, and a larger gym/assembly hall with a small stage, where assemblies, ceremonies and gym classes are held.

Bunsei’s restraunt is also amazing, and one of my favourite places to be (because there’s deeeelicious FOOD there, of course)! I spend a lot of my time (and money) in there. There’s so much to buy there… dango (small, round traditional Japanese snacks filled with sweet azuki bean paste), mochi (which, according to wise old wiki, is a “Japanese rice cake made of glutinous rice pounded into paste and moulded into shape”, filled with a sweet melt-in-your-mouth azuki bean centre… mmmmm-!), an assortment of sweet breads and drinks which you can purchase for around 100 yen, and, surprisingly, a huge range of hot ramen, curries and udon (pricing at around 300 yen each) to choose from.

The teachers in Bunsei can all be found not in staff rooms of different faculties, but in one main “hive” of teacherly goodness, which is most convenient (but at the same time, the atmosphere is very formal – you must enter the staffroom with a “shitsureishimasu”, meaning “excuse me”, but literally, “I’m being rude”) and there’s a certain lack of that “heeey we’re all pals here hangin’ in the same faculty, sharing lollies and high-fiving each other” smaller staffroom feel, if you know what I mean. It’s like everyone in the collective faculties Japanese staffroom means srs professional business.

So, what’s my classroom like?

There's a map, and two flags! :'D Plastic koalas are also abound!

In contrast to the staffroom, my classroom has a very homely feel. I suppose, because my classroom is home to the students of the Ryugakusei ‘Exchange Student Course’ (studying a more intense English-focused course in preparation for their one year exchange to Adelaide, Australia, next January) it is decorated with Australian memorabilia, from the homely (Aussie flags and a large map of Australia adorning the back of the classroom) to the sweet (clip on koalas, everywhere!) to the tacky (did someone say cardboard didgeridoos?). In a way, it’s certainly “natsukashii” (nostalgic) and, in a strange way, very comforting.

The hallway outside our classroom, and the signs outside our class welcoming you in (in English, of course - we're the English Class! :D). The Hello Kitty sign certainly sets the atmosphere for our class - light-hearted!

As you can see, everyone sits separately on different desks. You enter the classroom using the sliding doors (often with a big “ohayooouu gozaiiimaaaasu”, “good morning!” in the morning).Everyone will greet you with a big smile, of course.

Here’s the front of the room, where the teacher dictates their lecture to the students. The front of the classroom is also peppered with notes of all kinds that I have yet to learn to read (漢字があまりよめないから) and our class timetables, which I check often. Beyond the blackboard being a place of education, it's also the place for entertainment and hilarity with our しりとりshiritori games and countless まんがmanga renditions of our homeroom teacher, Tesshi.

Our second home-room teacher, Tesshi (teacher in 2nd pic), looking bemusedly at his mangaself (1st pic).

Well, there's more to post (about people, especially) but that's all for tonight. I've run out of juice! Please forgive any strange stuff happening with the post layout or fonts... this computer is a little hard to use without a mouse and has a life of it's own all the time, doing its own thing. Blogging takes forever!

Anyway, thank you for reading! I will get around to doing some individual emails and letters soon!

- Lucie ルーシー