notes from June 24, 2008, during Payton's trip to Japan

Tuesday, June 24th, we (the Payton group of 20 students, 3 teachers, and 1 parent) visited Osaka City Hall to present our banner, the one commemorating the 35th year of the Chicago-Osaka Sister City relationship. We participated in a formal ceremony, all of us seated on chairs with gold upholstery, facing various officials, particularly Mr. Hashimoto, Mr. Fujita, and Ms. Yuushi, who are in charge of international relations and international education. Mr. Fujita made a speech in Japanese, Principal Mr. Inaba made a speech, in Japanese and then I made a much shorter speech in Japanese. Then we sang the Osaka City song, displayed the banner, and shouted "Yamato (one of the old names for Japan) tanoshii," which means, "We are enjoying Japan," or "Japan is fun." The city hall officials sang along with us and laughed and clapped when we were finished. Each student then received a medallion from the officials. One of the Osaka City H.S. teachers accompanying us filmed this ceremony, along with our visit to Osaka Castle and our lunch at Dotombori. Mr. Tanaka then allowed Mr. Leventhal to download it into his laptop.