The following is my essay that I wrote as an assignment for an English school AEON:
Topic: School trips
Style: Casual
I like travelling, but I am not a fan of school trip in general. The biggest reason is cost. The average amount of a school trip in junior high schools in Japan is around 63,000 Yen ($600), while that a high school trip is around 100,000 Yen ($910). They are rather fair amount of money, and in public schools, there are some students who cannot join a school trip because their parents cannot afford it.
Secondly, it is almost annoying for me to see many students in the same uniform (usually all black) in some famous sight-seeing spots. Students are not soldiers, so I do not understand why schools train them to act in the same way even outside the schools.
Such students who experienced school trips, may choose packaged tours when they want to visit foreign countries even after they started to work. I have many experiences of travelling in foreign countries both on business and in private, but I have never ever used such package tours. Planning and arranging a trip is one of the essential parts of a travel, IMHO. For example, when I travelled to Italy in May in 2018, I first tried to book the flights by comparing charges of different flight companies. Then I booked an opera at the theater Scala in Milan, which was the biggest purpose of the trip. I also booked tours to some famous museums in Italy. Then I booked inland transportation, both a flight and trains. I booked trains at the TRENITALLIA’s site. Finally, I booked hotels on the Internet using a service of called booking.com. All these tasks are important parts of a travel for me, and I do not want to leave them to others.
Travelling in a big group may lessen the chance to communicate with local people and to use local languages.
I would like to suggest schools in Japan to adopt a new way of travelling for their students: to let their students travel alone. The budget for the trip is predetermined. Students must select some appropriate ways of transportation within the budget by themselves. They also select the destinations by themselves as well. After they have finished their travels, they should write a report for the trip they planned by themselves. In a Japanese saying, it goes that “let your lovely child travel”.
原子力潜水艦シービュー号の”The Mechanical Man”を観ました。この回またもネルソン提督の登場無し。ワシントンで大統領との秘密会議に参加しているから、ということですが、おそらく病気だったのかあるいはシービュー号の荒唐無稽路線に嫌気が差してきたのか。また、この回嬉しいのは、狂ったアンドロイド役に、タイムトンネルのトニー役のリチャード･ダレンがゲストスターとして出ていることです。これでタイムトンネルの俳優は3人目です。でもそのアンドロイドの「回路（？）」がご覧のようにとてもチャチ。このアンドロイドは写真の左側の博士に作られたものですが、サブテラニウム113という海底から取り出した新元素のエネルギーの力でパワーを強大化させ、色んな能力（電撃発射とかテレパシーまで）を身につけ、クレーン艦長以下を翻弄します。このサブテラニウム113の発掘のため、ドリルでマントル層に達する穴を開けてしまったため、世界各地で火山が活性化し、ベスビオ火山や富士山までが噴火し始めたというニュースが伝えられます。最後はアンドロイドを作った博士が、アンドロイドがサブテラニウム113からエネルギーを得る際に必要なサングラスを壊してなんとかアンドロイドを倒します。
原子力潜水艦シービュー号の”The Menfish”を観ました。タイトル通り、今回は半魚人です。既に「両生類人間」と言うのはありましたが、今回のは人間の脳の一部を魚に入れて、何かの放射線みたいなのを当てると半魚人に変化するというものです。問題はその脳を採取する人間で、場合によっては死んでしまいますが、開発した博士はマッドサイエンティストで、勝手に犠牲者を捕まえて実験しています。
60年代のSFドラマというと、アーウィン･アレンだけではなく、これは絶対に外せない、ということで、スタートレックのオリジナルシリーズのブルーレイを購入。