2007 UK Trip Report
A total of 25 Fukuoka Women's University students came with us to the UK this summer: 21 third-year English major students, three second-year English major students, and one third-year student from the Japanese department.
After a long journey from Fukuoka to York, via Bangkok and London, we arrived at Halifax College (part of York University) and quickly settled into our shared houses. These were very comfortable and the students enjoyed shopping at the supermarket together so that they could cook their own dinners, which was much cheaper than eating out in restaurants.
For the first two weeks we were joined by six British students: Anna, Ellen, Gemma, James, Mike, and Vicky. They were all studying English Literature at York University and were similar in age to the Fukuoka Women's University students. The York students taught English to our students and they also learned a lot about Japan. Over the course of the two weeks, the British and Japanese students talked about all kinds of things and became great friends.
In their free time, the students enjoyed exploring the wonderful city of York and at the weekends, they visited some other places, including Leeds, Durham, Scarborough, Whitby, Castle Howard, and the North York Moors Railway ("Harry Potter's train").
We said goodbye to York and the British students and travelled by coach down towards Nottingham, staying for two nights at Sherwood Forest Youth Hostel. It was only a small youth hostel so we had the place to ourselves, which was very comfortable. We looked around Sherwood Forest, home of Robin Hood, and visited the Major Oak, which is said to be over 800 years old. On our second day there, we had a day trip to Newstead Abbey (Lord Byron's ancestral home) and also visited Nottingham Castle in the middle of Nottingham City.
The next stage of our trip was to travel across the country to Stratford-upon-Avon, dropping in at the impressive Warwick Castle on the way. Famous as the birthplace of William Shakespeare, Stratford is a beautiful city with a lot of historic houses to visit. The students saw just about everything there was to see! Stratford Youth Hostel was in a big old Georgian Manor House just outside the town - it was certainly a beautiful building and we enjoyed playing pool (billiards) in the lounge, but the showers left a lot to be desired!
Our final destination was the stunningly beautiful ancient university city of Oxford. We visited several of the university's colleges, including Christchurch college, where we were lucky enough to see inside the great hall, which had a starring role in the Harry Potter movies as the dining room at Hogwart's School. This was also the college at which Lewis Carroll (Charles Dodgson), the author of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, taught mathematics. For our last two nights in the UK, we stayed at Oxford Youth Hostel, which was more like a hotel than a youth hostel, with excellent bedrooms and facilities. One thing we all enjoyed was that the walls of the youth hostel corridors were covered in posters and information about all of Oxford's various famous authors and other people.
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Schedule
| 25 Aug | Departed Fukuoka |
| 26 Aug | London; Coach to York |
| 27 Aug | York University: lessons |
| 28 Aug | York University: lessons |
| 29 Aug | York University: lessons |
| 30 Aug | York University: lessons |
| 31 Aug | York University: lessons |
| 01 Sep | Free time |
| 02 Sep | Free time |
| 03 Sep | York University: lessons |
| 04 Sep | York University: lessons |
| 05 Sep | York University: lessons |
| 06 Sep | York University: lessons |
| 07 Sep | York University: lessons |
| 08 Sep | Free time |
| 09 Sep | Coach to Nottingham |
| 10 Sep | Nottingham |
| 11 Sep | Coach to Stratford |
| 12 Sep | Stratford |
| 13 Sep | Stratford |
| 14 Sep | Coach to Oxford |
| 15 Sep | Oxford |
| 16 Sep | Departed UK |
| 17 Sep | Stopover in Bangkok |
| 18 Sep | Arrived Fukuoka |
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