“I really love Japan. We are so excited to have had this event. This was so wonderful and great. We hope they enjoyed it as much as they did,” said Vinni Orsini, MHS Student Council president. “I’m glad that they came and visited our school. We’re so proud to have been able to share our culture with them,” added MHS Student Council vice president Audrey Ada.
“The students are doing the campus tour because they wanted to see our campus. After the tour they are going to come back here [MHS Gym] and there are a few classes that are going to come and do some activities with them. The Japanese students have prepared some Japanese activities to share, like Japanese games and our students have prepared some things for them too. They’re going to interact with each other closely,” said MHS principal Cherlyn Cabrera.
She said this is the second time the Japanese students have visited MHS. “We do this every year with our sister schools. But they [Ueda] are not one of them but we really like having them with us here. The students enjoy meeting people their age from other countries.”
Joseph Reichmann, a teacher from Ueda Nishi High School, was one of the organizers of the trip. “After the exchange we are going back to Japan.
The students really enjoyed the trip. What we’ve done already was go to Banzai Cliff to pay respects to those who died in World War II on this island.
Yesterday they did various water sports and nature hikes and things like that.”
He added, “We’d like to thank everyone who has been involved in this exchange. For many of our students, this is the first time that they’ve left Japan so this is a really huge event for them. We are very, very thankful to the Marianas High School and Saipan for giving them such a warm welcome.”
The Japanese students left the island yesterday afternoon.
