Thursday saw an early start before breakfast.  We took the subway from the hotel to the main station in Kyoto to catch the Bullet Train to Tokyo which was very fast and smooth.  We ate our packed breakfasts (sandwiches sliced into ‘soldiers’) on the train.  There was also tea and coffee available on the train. ­The girl selling this turned and bowed to us every time she left the carriage, you wouldn’t get that on Midland Mainline!

Once we arrived at Tokyo we were met by our hosts for the day who took us to the schools we were to visit.  I went to St Paul’s High School  - it was very interesting to see a Japanese school, in many ways very little different to schools in the UK, if anything the students were a bit noisier.  

The younger boys visited St Paul's Rikkyo Boys Prep School in Tokyo (a private school). We were placed in the school dining hall with a large number of very excited eight to nine year olds who had made us all name cards with a personalised message inside. Lunch consisted of half a pint of milk, delicious soup, a meat sandwich and a piece of persimmon. The children were happy to answer simple questions in English.

We then moved onto a music and dance lesson where the two teachers had specially dressed up for us in typical Japanese clothes.  Forty two little six year olds trooped in wearing white shorts with their names embroidered on the back pocket and also on their bags.  Each boy knew which line he belonged to and promptly stood to attention when the lesson started.  It was obvious from their sheer enthusiasm that this was a popular lesson and the children sang beautifully.  Watching them took me back two years to a Christian run charity school in Lahore.  The headmaster of this school described his children as 'rubies from the rubble' as they were essentially beggar children who had been selected by the charity to get a better start in life. These 'rubies' shone with the same infectious love of learning that the Japanese children did, yet the two groups were from such different social backgrounds. The common link?  Music. The reason our children are here!