And so the research begins…

Today, like every morning at the Academy, we started off with Radio Taiso, a Japanese exercise routine where we stretch our bodies and minds before starting the day. During our core language classes, the beginner class started off with reviewing the hiragana we learned yesterday with a fun game that came with a candy reward. We continued learning more rows of hiragana, and learned how to say the days of the week, numbers 1-12, and the months of the year in Japanese. We also learned about the different seasonal festivals in Japan. The intermediate class learned adjectives and how to ask questions in Japanese. The advanced class got to learn more about each other with self-introductions in Japanese and were rewarded with a fake 10,000 yen bill. We then learned about how Valentine’s day is celebrated in Japan, as well as learning the many verbs for giving and receiving. 

In the afternoon, we took trips to the library to see Randolph-Macon College’s collection of Japanese woodblock prints, including original prints from the 18th century. 
An exciting part of today is that we started research on our chihou projects. We were given computer time to research our chosen regions, including things like famous places, products, history, festivals, and mascots.