Photo/Illutration An overview of the Makimuku ruins (Provided by the Sakurai City board of education in Nara Prefecture)

On my recent holiday in Nara Prefecture, I came across a big crowd of schoolchildren in line.

"Raise your hands if you're excited," a teacher asked the junior high school pupils headed to Todaiji temple. To my pleasant surprise, many hands shot up at once.

Around this time last year, Nara Park and its surroundings must have looked quite desolate.

A Japan School Excursion Association survey found that around 50 percent of junior high schools and 60 percent of senior high schools canceled their school trips last year, according to the Nov. 9 issue of The Asahi Shimbun.

As for schools that did not cancel, they must have weighed their choices very carefully, as evidenced by the top 10 destinations.

Probably because they decided to avoid major cities, Tokyo didn't make the list, while Yamanashi Prefecture rose in the rankings. That was new.

Overall, however, Kyoto and Nara continued to do well.

In fact, my trip to Nara was like a school excursion. I brought along a copy of an ancient Japanese history primer.

My main purpose was to visit the Makimuku ruins in a corner of a residential area. Walking around the ruins, I thought about the politics of the ancient times.

In her book "Sontaku Shimasen" (I do not speculate), literary critic Minako Saito notes that she used to have no interest in the "Kojiki" (Records of Ancient Matters) and other ancient works.

But she started reading them, she explains, "Simply because I got a chance to visit Izumo and Takachiho, but very definitely not because I became aware of my 'Japaneseness' and felt sort of guilty about not having read them."

She goes on to note that visiting the mythical village of Izumo won't mean a thing unless you go with some background knowledge.

It's not a bad idea to plan an "adult trip" around reading books related to your destination, rather than just go sightseeing.

Of course, if a high school student goes on a school excursion and that sparks an interest in learning, I would totally respect that.

I say this as an adult who, as a teenager, was too silly to learn anything from school trips.

--The Asahi Shimbun, Nov. 11

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Vox Populi, Vox Dei is a popular daily column that takes up a wide range of topics, including culture, arts and social trends and developments. Written by veteran Asahi Shimbun writers, the column provides useful perspectives on and insights into contemporary Japan and its culture.

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