Michael's School

Today we visited Michael's school. It's the same school that Mio went to. Mio took me by there about 9 1/2 years ago. I did not recognize the school. Neither did she. It has been completely remodeled. It is quite a nice school. It is 3 stories high and looks about the size of my high school. They have about 500 students there.

The school was very nice inside. They have a huge 2 1/2 story high gym that is bigger than my high school gym. They have a huge soccer/playground area. They have lots of climbing toys for the kids. They have a cement and wire cage area outside with rabbits, guinea pigs and birds that serve as school pets. They have a pool for PE classes.

The materials used to build the school were cement, tile, steel and wood. The school has been rebuilt to last a long time. It was really beautiful. They don't appear to have any money problems like the schools in Oregon. They have PE, art, music, math specialties, home-economics, and all the regular classes. It's a very traditional, well-balanced education like when Mio and I were children, before all the budget cut nightmares. They even have after school programs like Karate. They teach the same Karate that Michael was learning in Portland. The cost is 50 cents per class. It's a group class, but it should do until we can find a Karate gym.

The walk to school was about 12-15 minutes from home. There are lots of landmarks for Michael to follow. There is a central school route that neighborhood kids take once they are off of the side streets. It is well marked with signs, road painting and green/white colored guard rails.

The picture of the outside of the school is the 2 classroom/admin sections of the school. The gym is a third building attached to the right building that you see in the picture and is much wider than either of the other 2 buildings.