Small places, great stories!

Chicken Soba

World Campus – Japan participants arrived at the train station in Abiko. The highlight of this day was our lunch and the story that goes with it. We went to eat to a standing soba place. You order your food and then you stand there to eat it. This little place is located in between the train racks. Take a look 🙂 http://www.360cities.net/image/yayoi-ken-the-standing-up-eating-noodle-shop-japan#0.00,0.00,70.0

Once the trains started to transport people from and into Abiko, there were people selling Bento Boxes (Lunch Boxes) to the users but with the improvement of the train systems in Japan, they decided to create a very small business to serve awesome, inexpensive food for the users of the trains.

During the Bento Boxes time, there was a handicap young man who liked drawing pictures, he used to work at this place. Kiyoshi Yamashita was his name and he was asked to design the package of the bento boxes to sell. Design that now has a very high price because he became a very famous artist in Japan. That makes the standing soba places at the Abiko Train Station even a more exciting place to not only eat but to learn about Abiko’s history!

Aloha at the beach!

Host Brother at the beach

Continuing with our stay in Mito, this time we had a host family day and my host family took me to the beach, some other friends from World Campus – Japan also joined us there. It was an amazing day, sunny and hot. The water was just beautiful and a lot of people were there.

Of course, as always in Japan, you always find things that you never imagined to find at places. This day at the beach we joined a Hula class. Yes, Hula. A group from Japan teaches small, simple dances to everyone who wants to join and all of us decided to join their class. As i said, “you always find things you never imagined to find”… there was a Viking. A Viking, dancing and enjoying his hula class. He was so funny and his energy was so good to have around.

On days like this I thank my life for the random opportunities I’ve had and for the chance to be part of World Campus – Japan, a program that not only teaches you about the “normal” aspects of the japanese culture but also gives you the chance to see things like i saw and experience that day at the beach.