Mr. Timothy Belt is the Art teacher at Stony Lane School.

He has been awarded a Fulbright Memorial Fund Scholarship to visit Japan for 3 weeks. The following pages will display his photos and other information he is sending back to the children at Stony Lane School.

Please be patient while the photographs load.
All photographs and text are the sole property of Timothy R. Belt. Written permission is required for any and all use. E-mail for permission to timothy_belt@nksd.net.

Day 1

Good Morning Boys and Girls,

My first day in Japan was very exciting! First of all, we left San Francisco, California at about 10:45 am Monday morning. Our plane flight took approximately 11 hours. During this time, we crossed the International Date Line, so that we actually arrived on Tuesday afternoon. It was very strange to have lost a day. When we arrived in Tokyo, Japan, it was dark. Tokyo is a very colorful city with lots of bright signs. It is also very clean and safe at night. It is quiet, too, unlike many of our American cities. People rarely honk their horns.

Once we arrived at the hotel, we freshened up, then went to a reception for all of the Fulbright recipients. There were two performers. One played a Koto, an ancient stringed instrument a little like a small guitar or a lute. The other played a shakuhachi, or bamboo flute. From there, 4 of us went out to dinner with an elderly gentleman, Tom-san, who had once received a Fulbright scholarship to study in America for a year. When we got to the restaurant, we had to remove our shoes and enter in our stocking feet. He took us to a small restaurant where only chicken was served, sometimes cooked and sometimes only steamed on the outside. The Japanese are very clean and careful when preparing food. The dinner was wonderful and the conversation was great, too!

Finally we all walked back to the hotel along the top of what once served as the walls along the mote of an ancient castle. Very tired, but happy, we all went back to our hotel rooms to rest up for tomorrow, a very full day.
ENJOY THE PICTURES!

All of the best,

Mr. Belt