Puffy pink and white blooms blossomed from the brown trunks, symbolizing the transitory life of nature and the commencing of the cherry blossom festival. With such beauty and promises of a new life, they only bloom for the little time of two weeks, a grand part in Japan’s culture, and one of the many things PPCHS students will witness when on the Japan Trip over spring break. “It’s an opportunity,” Mr. Bertrand, the sponsor, recounts, opening it to students and giving them a new land to discover.
Destinations consist of Tokyo, Yokohama, Hiroshima, and Osaka, which are all filled with Japanese culture and new experiences to encounter. Mr. Bertrand explains how it’s an opportunity to “step outside the country, step into a whole different place, see the sights, the sounds, fully embrace the culture, and discover things for yourself.” Acquiring a handful of students who were intrigued by the trip and were accepted on this grand-scale experience, the sponsor emphasizes to take advantage of the opportunity—it may be the only chance students get to go past the country’s borders together.
Participating PPCHS students and chaperones will be traveling on foot or through the bullet train with many, yet not enough, days to witness all the sights that were once only plastered on their screens. When in Mr. Bertrand’s class, hearing him teach geography, his students can create their own interpretations of the trip and the culture itself. From the moment the students exit the airport, they will hit the ground running in multiple activities.
Attentively listening to the places they’ll explore, students have been looking forward to visiting a place known as the Sega Arcades. Found in Tokyo, traveling along the city’s buildings stands six arcades within a two block radius, five stories high. The arcade machines entrance students like senior Pedro Villarroel, who awaits “all parts of [Japanese] culture firsthand” and is excited to experience larger artifacts than those in America.
Regardless of all the world’s countries with their own unique attributes, Japan was the most desirable not only for its culture, but for its shows and peaks of their life within the USA. “[Students] watch these cartoons and play [these] games. They want to embrace it on a larger scale,” Mr. Bertrand explains. He lists off places like conventions and restaurants that have made students exposed to the culture, and want to see it feet away in Japan themselves.
Despite its enjoyment with students, the trip itself has also brought some into a new perspective of life. Mr. Bertrand remembers a student from 2019, who was “trying to figure himself out and what he wanted to do, or where he wanted to go. During the trip and meeting with like-minded people that were interested in things that he was interested in, he made friends, lifelong friends.” It became a moment engraved in Mr. Bertrand’s heart, his smile widening at the memory and thankfulness for the moment he granted his student. Every few years, Bertrand receives a wholesome email from the same student, thanking him for constructing the trip that helped the student at a lost time.
Students sign up to adventure the world around them, awaiting the sights, visuals, and learning of Japanese traditions. With the trip just weeks away, they look forward to booming into a new country as the blossoms bloom beside them.
