Local students bring back a lifetime of memories from Japan

There are common threads for what members of southwest Oklahoma’s student delegation to Japan are going to remember about their summer trip.

It was clean. The views were stunning. The people were friendly and always ready to help.

Fourteen students and adults were part of that 10-day trip, an educational excursion that blended sights, sounds, history and culture to give students a well-rounded view of another part of the world. That’s what Pam Mindemann and Kelly Akard intended, as they led high school students from Elgin, Fort Cobb and Lawton to Japan to see things ranging from the beloved Nara Deer Park, to the hard lessons memorialized at Hiroshima, to the sights and sounds of Tokyo.

As with all trips taken through Explorica, Mindemann had a goal in mind: giving students a frame of reference when they hear the mention of a specific country. She said while you can read about other countries or see them on television, she wants students to actually experience what would otherwise be a speck on a map. So years from now when one of her students hears hears something about Japan, they can say “I was there,” she said.

Alyssa Palmer-Cardoza said she enrolled for the trip because she wanted to see Japan. It wasn’t her first out-of-country excursion with Mindemann: Palmer-Cardoza was part of the local student delegation that visited Spain, Portugal and Morocco in Summer 2023, so she already knew the quality of the experience. This trip surpassed her expectations, she said, adding the most striking memory of her trip is something almost everyone else in her group echoed: trash is almost non-existent.

“I liked the cleanliness,” she said.

Akard agreed, saying Tokyo was so clean, she remembers only a few instances of seeing trash on the ground.

“I saw three pieces of trash in two days,” she said.

What brought Drake Mansker along on the trip? He smiled when one of his traveling companions said he spoke a little bit of Japanese.

“It’s not too hard to learn,” he said.

Students and adults brought a variety of memories back from their 10 days.

“The food was amazing,” Jennica Williams said of the local cuisine served in every venue. “You didn’t feel any bad effects after eating it.”

Williams and others noted something else in Japanese cuisine that varied dramatically from American food: there was little sugar. Williams said she was taken with that lack of sweetness, adding she developed a special liking for the ice cream.

“It was so light and creamy. All I wanted was ice cream,” she said.

And food portions, while filling, were much smaller than what is served in American restaurants, Mindemann said, explaining while food was similar to what you would see here, it was served in healthier portions.

Students also were almost unanimous in their affection for the Nara Deer Park, where deer are protected and have a quaint way of interacting with visitors: they bow, after you feed them a biscuit or when you bow to them, several said as they pulled out their cellphones to show videos of the experience. There was one holdout in the crowd of affection.

“They hated me,” Mansker said, explaining one head-butted him (Mindemann said the deer, confident in their protected status, can be pushy when they want something).

Hiroshima was an important experience that brought complex emotions.

“It’s very hard,” Akard said of the visit to a monument built to mark the destruction of the city that, along with Nagasaki, ended Japanese involvement in World War II.

Akard said students wanted to know why the Japanese don’t hate Americans, but the Japanese themselves made it clear they did not hold animosity because they understood the emperor would not have surrendered otherwise. Students said they also learned it was weather patterns that saved Tokyo — the original target — at the expense of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Shae’tiel Saupitty said the entire experience was great, from trying the food to staying in a traditional hotel and experiencing traditional Japanese customs.

“I loved it all,” she said.

Other observations:

It was very quiet, Mindemann said. “There was no talking on the trains,” she said. “You could tell the Americans.”

Mount Fuji is wonderful, but is only visible about 30 percent of the year, students said.

Everyone was well-dressed, “put together,” Williams said.

Akard said she loved the interaction with the people, remembering young children would come up to the tour group and ask if they might practice their English with them.