fun and very interesting exchange program. Japan and the U.S found themselves sharing cultures and students. A group of 12 kids from Felix Varela Senior High was chosen to go to Japan for three weeks.

They traveled to the Land of the Rising Sun and explored three of its major cities; Kyoto, Japan’s oldest city; the metropolitan city of Osaka, where they found the Osaka Yo-Castle; and last but not least the city of Kagoshima.

Not only were the students able to travel around the country, but they stayed with host families and even went to the Japanese schools.

The educational system over there is really different to the one we know. Japanese students have to take an acceptance test to go to public school and according to the score they get, they are assigned to their level schools.

Also, Japanese students have to clean the entire school after class. The school the exchange program students attended is called Gyoku Ryu and it only has about 1500 students that have to attend Kendo, Judo and calligraphy classes, along with a tea ceremony.

Vanessa Escoto (12) was one of the students that had the opportunity to experience Japanese education one-on-one.

“It’s really different; although there are more kids in the classroom, they show more respect to their teachers than we do,” she said.

Not only was the educational barrier hard enough to trespass, but they also encountered a new challenge: language. Not all the exchange students that had the opportunity to go to Japan knew how to speak perfect Japanese, but they managed to overcome this obstacle by using English-Japanese dictionaries and sign language. The students proved that there are no barriers strong enough to stop them from having fun and experiencing new adventures.

Vanessa Escoto described her experience in a few simple words, “Over there, it’s peace.”

Here in Miami, in the middle of the hot and humid summer, Japanese students that came to live with their American host families for three weeks were having a blast.

Although not able to go to summer school, or any type of schooling at all; they did not let that ruin their experience. The host families and the sponsors of the program had prepared different activities to keep them entertained and show the foreigners what Miami is all about. They surely left the U.S with a tan.

The Japanese teacher at Felix Varela, Mrs. Takako Berlin, better known by her students as Matsui-Sensei, was thrilled at making this opportunity available for her students.

She said that it would be done every year as part of the Kagoshima - Miami sister city exchange program and that all well behaved students had the opportunity to go.

This was clearly an amazing experience for all students involved, both Japanese and American students were asking for more. Vanessa Escoto had so much fun that she started working to save up the money to go again after graduation to visit the friends she left in Japan.

Every year, students will have the opportunity of participating in this wonderful adventure. Two worlds collided this past summer yet they managed to fuse together and leave their differences aside to embrace each others people in an overwhelming cultural exchange.