High School Students Create English Signs (February 9) The train station closest to the Alpine skiing venues in the town of Yamanouchi features hand-made English signs made by tenth and eleventh graders attending Nakano Nishi High School in neighboring Nakano City. Roughly 80 students in the school's English program created the signs to help overseas Olympic visitors find their way around. The signs have been placed at Nagano Dentetsu's Yudanaka Station and nearby bus stops. The signs were made with the help of Monique Lauzon, a Canadian working in the Yamanouchi town office. She and the students visited the train station and bus stops to determine what signs would be needed where. The Yamanouchi government provided paper, styrofoam, and plywood, which the students used to create signs over their winter vacations and during after-school hours. At Yudanaka Station, around 20 students put up approximately 40 signs identifying where the bathroom, exit, slopes for wheelchairs, and other facilities can be found. Some of the signs are quite simple, consisting of a single word and an arrow, while others explain the additional train fares that must be paid for those who want to use the express. "Until we got the signs, we'd been communicating with the increased number of foreign visitors through written notes," explains stationmaster Tadashi Tanaka. "But that takes a lot of time, so we're really grateful to have the signs."

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