Hi Room 5. Konnichiwa means hello in Japanese. I have already learnt that because everyone around here has already said hello to me as soon as I arrived. In Japan you must greet everyone at work with "Ohayo gozaimasu" which means good morning. It is rude to go past someone and not greet them. You must especially take care to say it to the Deputy Principals and Principal as they are the boss of you and it is extremely rude to not speak to them.

I can hear all the sounds that the Japanese people make when they speak to me because Japanese has nearly the same sounds as Maori. That is great eh!!! But I don't understand it much.

I am now sitting here at Mrs Luke's desk which is in a group of eight. She is part of the Seitobu which is the group of teachers which looks after student welfare. They make sure of discipline and school uniform and contact parents when the student has done something wrong. There are about twenty people in the group because it is such a big job. They also organise festivals and any major school event.

I had a long ride over here to Japan. It took about ten hours to get to Osaka and then I had to be checked by Japanese officials because of the war in Iraq and the SARS outbreak. They have to make sure that all packages are safe so they open them all and check the contents. I didn't mind them opening the package as it was really hot in there. Then it took about 45 minutes to get down to Kochi which is on Shikoku Island.

It is warmer down here than in Osaka. Shikoku is where many surfers come because of the beaches. However, it takes about two hours to get to the beach and the beach is only one hundred kilometres away. But in Japan the speed limit is very low so it takes a long time to get there.

Well, I am going to figure out who to stay with first. I will try and write you every day and I will start taking pictures with my camera.

(This is a photo of Osaka, taken in the street.)

Before I go I have some questions:

How long do I stay here for?

What kinds of things do you want me to find?

Do you want to learn some Japanese?

Please make sure that you send me some questions as I would love to answer them.

Catch you later Room 5,

Otsukaresama (that means thanks for your hard work, you say it when you are leaving your job)

Eddie.