Japanese Capstone Blog 2022: March 18th

Pearl Harbor National Memorial:

Our Japanese guide, Sayuri, gave us a tour of the Pearl Harbor National Memorial. Due to recent lifting of museum closures due to COVID, our group wasn’t able to get USS Arizona and USS Missouri tickets, still we got to visit the site and two exhibition rooms. At “Road to War”, we learned what happened in Japan and the United States before the attack on Pearl Harbor. We learned how the Japanese army attacked Pearl Harbor at “Attack” exhibition room. We saw torpedoes actually used by the Japanese navy and models of the USS Arizona Memorial and a model of the sunken battleship Arizona. We also saw a paper crane made by a Japanese girl, Sadako Sasaki, who was aHiroshima Atomic bomb victim. Visiting this memorial and learning war history made us pray for world peace….

Diamondhead Hike:

As our final activity, we hiked up Diamond Head trail, it is an extinct volcano with an altitude of 760ft, which was formed by the eruption of a volcano about 300,000 years ago, and has a crater in the center. A diamond head with a distinctive shape that emerges from the sea. The original name is “Lēʻahi”, which means the forehead (lae) of the tuna (ʻahi) as it is visible from Waikiki. The origin of the name is that the English people misunderstood the minerals found near the crater in the 19th century as diamonds.Diamond Head also has a history of being a surveillance base for the US Navy in the early 1900s. The trail looks steep, it is steep, 5th graders were flying to the top and enjoyed 360 view of Oahu island.

Taka sensei “This scenery shows your student’s future. Of course, they will definitely experience some bitter times at the next stage. But I truly wish they could have a bright future like this Honolulu ocean.”

Closing Ceremony:

After Diamond Head hiking, we gathered and made a circle for the closing ceremony. Each of us shared our capstone experience reflection as “thorn” (negative or challenge), “bud” (something looking forward), “rose” (highlight). There were full of positive responses. Even their thorns were something like too much food.

Taka sensei:

“Thank you for everything you all did for this capstone. It is too good to be true that we all got satisfied with this trip. We all created this Capstone together. It is not just because we are on a tropical island. The Capstone this year would be one of the most memorable trips for me because the students, parents, faculties, and the coordinator were all on the same page to make this trip valuable.”

One of thank you gifts for Taka sensei, he was happy to receive a hawaii t-shirt with messages from students and parents.

Mahalo!!

Smilies, smilies, smilies all the time, these faces pretty much telling how amazing this capstone trip has been. So hard to believe this is over, yet, this is another beginning of our new journey!

Wait, the capstone is not over without our final mission! Bury Taka sensei in the sand!