World Campus International Blog » Abiko City

Regarding March 11, 2011 Japanese Earthquake

Thomas Greve — Sat, 12 Mar 2011 13:40:08 +0000

March 12, 2011

Dear Friends of World Campus International,

The shocking earthquake hitting the north-east part of Japan has caused massive destruction to the region. Currently, the Japanese national and local governments are working to assess the degree of damage.

Though there are areas of Japan that have been severely affected, all of our partner communities seem to have avoided tragedy. Currently, we do plan to facilitate the World Campus – Japan program from June 23 thru August 30.

Because the damages are reported in the northern region of Japan, and our community partners are located in central to western Japan, we are confident that our summer program will not be affected by the earthquake.

We have already contacted several community partners who are hosting our summer program and confirmed that they are OK and not severely or at all affected by these tragic events. We will continue to reach out to the rest of our community partners and communicate to you via this website any updated information.

Thank you for your understanding.

Hiro Nishimura
Chairman and CEO
World Campus International, Inc.

Update: Message from CEO, Hiro Nishimura on March 17, 2011

Update 2: Message from CEO, Hiro Nishimura on April 06, 2011 – Regarding New 2011 World Campus – Japan Program plan

Thomas Greve — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 22:07:25 +0000

Hot summer festival!

Thomas Greve — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:42:40 +0000

Hot summer day in Abiko Japan. The day of Kappa Festival right by the Abiko Train Station. This day was one of the last days of the World Campus – Japan Summer 2010 Tour and it was as busy or more busy than the first day.

Before i go into telling you what we did that day I have to explain what the Kappa Festival is right? or at least explain what a Kappa is, so here is the explanation: Kappa is a water creature, it looks like a very interesting combination of a frog with a chicken pick and a plate on his head.

The Kappa Festival has become one of the most important celebrations of the City of Abiko, they have everything from music performances which we were part of, food everywhere, there is of course a parade which we participated in and then it ends with a very cultural celebration at a park with bamboo candles everywhere, which we had the opportunity to help set up.

So, as you read, the Kappa Festival is just a celebration of life. World Campus – Japan participants not only had the chance to participate in it as a performers but we also helped with all the set up of the festival.

It was a great experience to see how people work all year long to plan this day, they also work really hard on the day of the festival to make sure everything happens as planned.

People ate, enjoyed each other’s company and celebrated the Kappa with a great Abiko spirit, which is now more than ever, a very international spirit.

Thomas Greve — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 22:07:40 +0000

Much more than hot water.

Thomas Greve — Tue, 05 Oct 2010 08:21:56 +0000

This was forsure a very cultural learning day in World Campus – Japan. We went from rehearsing our on performance for the Kappa Festival (which we will talk about on the next few posts) to learning a very traditional dance to hula classes. But the highlight of the day was… The Tea Ceremony!

For those of you that never heard about this Ceremony, here is a little explanation about it:

“The tea ceremony is a very special event in Japanese culture. The host spends days going over every detail to make sure that the ceremony will be perfect. There are various styles of tea ceremonies and it is recognized that every human encounter is a singular occasion that will never recur again in exactly the same way, and so every aspect of the tea ceremony is savored. The ceremony takes place in a room called the chashitsu. This room is designed and designated only for this ceremony”

The participants of World Campus – Japan had the opportunity to dress up with yukatas and learn about this very traditional way of serving tea that goes above and behond warming up the water and adding tea.

Thomas Greve — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 22:07:19 +0000

What if the world were an apple?

Thomas Greve — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 22:07:21 +0000

The Earth seems like such a large place, will we ever have too many people for Earth to produce the things we need to survive? How about the plants and animals that live here? Is there enough for all of us? How much of the Earth is actually available to produce the food we need and to clean up our wastes? What’s your guess; 100% of the surface, 50%, less?

Using an apple to represent the Earth; cut the Earth into four pieces. Now throw out three of the pieces that represent the oceans. Oceans make up 75% of the Earth’s surface area.

Slice the remaining piece of Earth in half and throw out one piece representing lands, such as deserts, that are inhospitable.

Slice whats left into four sections and throw out three of them. These represent areas that are too cold, too steep, or too rocky to produce food.

Peel the skin off of the remaining slice of the apple ad keep it, throw out the rest. This small amount of skin represents the Earth’s crust, the area that has enough topsoil to produce the food on which we all depend.

The Earth doesn’t seem quite as big anymore does it? Natural resources are limited and must be used wisely so that all of us can live on this small piece of Earth.

For more information on this subject go to:

http://www.easternct.edu/sustainenergy/education/documents/FootprintCommittmentandCalculator.pdf

Thomas Greve — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 22:07:16 +0000

What am i doing?

Thomas Greve — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 22:07:56 +0000

On this day we had the opportunity to learn a lot about the environment. As always in World Campus – Japan, the experience turned out to be way different than we expected. In the morning we were told we were going to learn about Yatsu. Yatsu is a place where different species of plants and insects live and its being preserved by an environmental group in the city of Abiko. We walked through the Yatsu and observed the area.

Once we got back we created different types of collages with material that we collected at the Yatsu and talked about each of them with our team. Then we played a fun trivia game to win points for our teams, the questions had of course an environmental focus.

We for sure learned things that we never expected to know, like the fact that a Styrofoam cup takes 400 years to decompose while an orange peel takes only six months. We also learned fun things like the fact that an average child uses 6000 diapers through his lifetime. who would have known.

After all that it was time to do something more serious and an activity that was going to make us think about what we do every day to preserve or damage the environment. We took a test that tells you exactly how many worlds you need to sustain your lifestyle, and as we know, we only have one world! Check out this link, take the test and start thinking about what you do to yourself and to the environment every day.

http://www.easternct.edu/sustainenergy/education/documents/FootprintCommittmentandCalculator.pdf

We finish the environmental day with a very visual activity that we will talk about on the next post. Very interesting to know that if we think of the earth as an apple we would be doing less things to damage it.

Thomas Greve — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:07:16 +0000

Small places, great stories!

Thomas Greve — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 19:28:14 +0000

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!

Spring & Summer ’09 Slide Shows published

Thomas Greve — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 14:05:26 +0000

The Spring & Summer Slide Shows of most of our partner cities are now available on the “Konichiwa from Japan”-section of our Website. Please take a look!!!

Looking back at the Spring 2009 Tour

Thomas Greve — Sun, 17 May 2009 15:42:00 +0000

Mission Accomplished.

Sanmon wo dareba nihon zo chatsumi-uta
Coming out of the temple gate, the song the tea pickers, It is Japan!

March 9^th, the new day I arrived in Suita city, first time I breathed in Nihon’s air, fresh and brand new. The spring fragrance smelled so smooth and even though it was a bit chilly, I could feel something great would happen soon. Yeah, that day was our arrival day for WCJ Spring Tour 2009. I was looking forward to meeting with the other participants, the staff, Hiro and Hideto! Yeah, can’t believe I am back again after the last summer.

Suita city was the first city of this tour. Suita is a modern city with most of its citizen commuting to other big cities for work. Teenagers, the young generation have become the city’s symbol. The Local organizing committee (LOC) and Kansai University DUCKS were big components of this city’s success. They helped us a lot, gave us support, as well as shared nice moments, and great friendships. Everything always starts with Thank-you event (Arigato Evento) prep, because the show is a crucial part of the WCI program. Even at the beginning, we faced some obstacles and difficulties with singing and dancing Japanese songs and dances, but we overcame all of that. We had such a great time in Suita city. We had a great show at the ABC festival, visited the famous Banpakuen Park, experienced traditional Japanese culture including Naginata, Sumo, and Shamisen. We also interacted with university students and got know more about Suita city. And Universal Studios Japan was unforgettable to explore!

Uda city, our second city was quite different from the former city. Uda city, as a part of Nara prefecture has a lot of natural resources, great environment, and nice food! Yeah, Uda is imprinted on our minds as a city with bunches of ‘oishii‘ (delicious) food. Arrival day was awesome; they greeted us with a wonderful party, starting with traditional Japanese dances, a game for matching us with host families, and fantastic food! We explored about how the people live in balance with the beautiful nature, beginning with a walk rally. Then we toured the famous Muro and Todaiji temples which gave us a lot of insight about Japanese religion. We also dwelled deeper into Japanese culture by taking part in a tea ceremony & experiencing the majesty of Japanese swords. Our stay was made the more perfect with an emotional visit with senior citizens and a phenomenal Buddhist temple party!

March 22^nd, Sunday morning, it was a bit rainy, as if the realm knew we would be separated soon. Yeah, that day was our good bye time with the local people and also with the participants who were going back to their home countries ( Eric, Lily, Shoko, Shihoko, and Herbling ). Every piece of our hearts cried and we couldn’t stop hugging each others. Even though we stayed together only for two weeks, we felt we are engaged as one big family, one circle, and one great group! For rest of us who were still continuing to the second tour, we got three days off, where we had our freedom to explore more of Japan.

March 26^th, Abiko city was our next city. Located near Tokyo, it is known for all the people who commute to Tokyo for study, work, or other reasons. Even though this city is next to a huge metropolitan city, there is a big difference between the two. Abiko keeps its natural resources properly. They, recycle, take care of the water, and are aware of many environmental issues. New people, new city, new session, new environment, that’s WCI. We can learn how to make adjustment in every single place we are. It’s the most basic and important thing we need to have to become a global citizen. Yep, we started again. The head of the LOC was so hilarious, the “Boss” as we called her ! The kappa dance, potluck party, o-hanami, and even the Hawaiian dance were so unforgettable!

Haru tatsu ya shizuka ni tsuru no ippo yori
Spring begins, Quietly, From the stork’s one pace

What comes to mind when you hear Toyota? Yep, Toyota is the biggest automotive company, not only in Japan but throughout the world. Toyota city is the city where Toyota company has its headquarters and we were lucky to be part of this vibrant city. Toyota city: a great community, huge plants, nice people, and high tech facilities. Even though it’s a modern city, that didn’t mean we couldn’t get our culture experience. Our arrival coincided with the cherry blossoms that were blooming perfectly. O Hanami with kimonos, what a wonderful moment! It was the first and last time for us to enjoy sakura dressed up in kimonos. Yuhuuuu

Hito koishi hitomoshi goro wo sakura chiru
My heart is full of yearning, The candles being lit, Cherry blossoms falling

Second session wrapped up. A time for saying GOOD BYE again. Every meeting has a consequence… GOOD BYE in the end. How can we express our feelings? It is hard to say goodbye to everyone who got along with you for those weeks. But it’s the reality, we can’t make any bargains or fight it. Good Bye Toyota , Good Bye Daniel, Kaho, Birgit, Jaime, Selly, Elitha, Mustafa, Nao & Amar. We then faced the next and the last session in Spring Tour 2009 in Kyushu. Kyushu Island is famous for the beautiful nature, nice weather, authentic food, and great people.

Omura was our first city in the last spring program. Yohanes and I arrived before the others and were picked up by the extravagant Up With Omura CEO, Mr. Okuma. He is a unique and great local person who supported our tour. Our theme in this city was peace and conflict as we focused on what happened in Nagasaki city 63 years ago. It gave us an overwhelming feeling when the survivor told us his real experience struggling against death. Tremendous emotions mixed in my heart; sadness, yearning, loathing, and bewilderment, everything came in at the same time. From that precious experience we could reflect about what happened and keep sharing love amongst our families, friends, lovers, and everyone. Stop violence and respect others, keep living in peace with each other. That is one of worthy lessons we learned. Besides that, we trained ourselves in Kyudo, the traditional archery sport from ancient times, and Shorinji Kempo, a martial art. We ate champon, a traditional noodle dish of the area. We were also part of the Fureai event, which was a big event where many handicapped people came together and had fun with each other. The best moment was when we interacted with them. We didn’t feel like we had any differences. All of us are same, we are human being with some minus and plus things.

Finally, we encountered the last city of this tour. Kumamoto city with its many budding resources; farming, stockbreeding, plantations, and so on. As we learned before, a disease attacked Minamata city more than 50 years ago, but they rebuilt and there is almost no more scars left. One more special thing is the Cradle of Stork of Jikei hospital. It is a unique operation of hospital which is helping unwanted babies. Yep, that was my first time to hear of this kind of hospital. Many emotions erupted in my mind, how glorious their aim is. Moving from the heartfelt topic, we had a lot of fun in that great city. Yuhuuuuu we had the PURPLE PEOPLE! They were volunteer workers from the local community. We had Mrs. Maeda, the nicest LOC CEO. We explored Kumamoto castle in unique way , relished the beautiful Mt. Aso, tried “basashi“, the unusual savory horse meat, and even had a party in a Izakaya restaurant!

Everything always can’t be perfect. Every meeting has a consequence; separation. It can’t be avoided. While my heart wants to keep all of them alongside with me, that is impossible. Good Bye is final challenge before we go. Time for the real Good Bye is coming; everyone has goes back to reality, their original lives and activities. Yep, GOOD BYE DON’T PANIC, but I am PANICking now. I miss everyone already; every single thing always reminds me of our efforts, our togetherness, our laughs, our smiles, our sadness, our team building, and even our hard times. Thank you for everything, all of you will be in my heart forever. I will keep you as my treasure of my life. I’m sure we will meet again someday, somehow

Ganbarre Nippon, Ganbarre Gaijin!!

Amanda Soeprobo (Indonesia)

Goodbye, Don’t Panic

Thomas Greve — Sat, 02 May 2009 05:00:06 +0000

Time flies by like the shinkansen. It is difficult to put into words the journey we just completed. We laughed, we cried, we shared, we learned, we argued, we loved, and we became a family during these incredible six weeks.

It was very much like living in a dream. Dressing up as sumo wrestlers. Examining genuine katanas. Trying traditional Japanese archery. Being moved by the story of an atomic bomb survivor. Taking part in tea ceremonies. Having a picnic under a soft pink sea of cherry blossoms whilst dressed in kimonos. Asking difficult questions at Toyota Company. Visiting mayors and dignitaries. Performing Japanese songs in front of over 600 people. Relaxing in a cat café. Savoring Kobe beef and raw horse. Building relationships with Japanese families in different cities. Making new international friends. Becoming a family. All those experiences seem so surreal right now, but we did all that and so much more.

Now the tour is over but the incredible experiences and deep relationships remain. We all went our separate ways but don’t panic. Goodbyes are difficult and the physical distance between everyone is far but we all have facebook and email! It is very easy to slip back into your old lives and routines, so please make an effort and stay in touch with your World Campus – Japan family. Thank you everyone for a great tour!

一期一会 (ichigo, ichie), One moment, one meeting. All of us meeting and traveling in Japan during those two months was a once in a lifetime opportunity. It was serendipitous and as is it was perfect. Goodbye, thanks for all the fish! Don’t panic!

Graceful Reflection of Abiko

Thomas Greve — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 05:00:25 +0000

Grace Dance Video

Japan is awesome! Last week we were in Abiko, a friendly city just outside of Tokyo. Abiko is a great city composed of green parks, open spaces, and friendly people. Everyone was very welcoming and eager to share their culture as we shared ours. Kudos to Tanaka San (a.k.a. Boss) for organizing super-fun activities! A warm thank you to the volunteers and families who made our stay in Abiko most memorable. And a shout out to the Suzuki family, my host family!

Everyday in Abiko was so much fun! We played soccer with local teams, explored nature with caring citizens, and danced with traditional performers. The latter is one of my favorite Abiko memories. I got to wear a really cool mask and costume just like the three other performers. The rhythmic beat of the drum and soulful sound of the flute guided my steps; the melodic fusion energized my body to dance. As corny as it sounds, I felt ‘one with the music.’ It was so much fun!

Another treasured memory was dancing Abiko’s traditional dance (Kappa) with everyone after a successful Arigato Evento! Among us were different generations, different stories … yet the same hands, the same smiles. In a circle we were one as we danced our last dance, the dance of generations past.

Grace Cornejo (Canada)