British Hills

This week I went on a school trip with my second year students to a place called "British Hills". Believe it or not there is a British village on a mountain in Fukushima! It was all built about 13 years ago and exists both as a school, hotel and tourist attraction. For the kids it was a chance to practice fun and useful English and enjoy the cultural experience, which was quite significant considering this place is more British than Britain itself!

The village has several tudor-style houses, a kind of stately home, a pub and a shop called "Ye Shoppe" (!). The whole place apparently cost about £60m back in 1993, not surprising considering every single material down to the door-locks was imported. The British builders had to join forces with a Japanese company to make the stone buildings earthquake-proof. The result is a place that feels like an amazing film set (and is often used as such). The activities were great, the students made scones and ate them with their "afternoon tea", they did "British sports", orienteering (while being careful to avoid the not-so-British bears), calligraphy and fun English classes. In the evenings we hung out in the pub and played darts and dominoes. By the second day students who I'd never even heard mutter a word of English were now all getting involved and discussing the weather with me. I got to know all of them really well and have become quite attached to them all. On the last day I took a few groups of them to the tea-rooms for cake. They all had an amazing time, and although they didn't sleep the whole time they were away, they came back beaming with enthusiasm. I was exhausted but thrilled with the amount of job satisfaction I'd gained. I've also made friends with a few of the English teachers up there so may go back to the pub every now and again!

Tea and Scones

Calligraphy