2011 August, 6th – 12th: In Toyota, I was hosted by an awesome family, and that was the Michiyamas family. On the first day, my host mother and sister took me to a ‘’KAMISHIBAI” exhibition place. There were a lot of kamishibai’s tools and instructions to let you know how to play “KAMISHIBAI”. “KAMISHIBAI” is a device to tell stories. You use a square box which has doors you can open to insert paper illustrations and pull it out when you are telling the story. I was very lucky to have this experience. I played kamishibai before kids, and they really enjoyed my performance. I felt very happy about that. Because my host mother is a professional teacher of kamishibai, so she taught me a lot of techniques. It makes me know more about kamishibai.
After we experienced kamishibai, we went to the Toyota Municipal Museum of Art. There they had an exhibition of a famous painter from Holland, named Johannes Vermeer. His paintings are very elegant and realistic. We had a wonderful afternoon enjoying and appreciating every painting there.
On 8th August, my host sister took me to Nagashima Spa Land, an amusement park that has the longest roller coaster in Japan. And my host sister and I are both crazy-loving ride on roller coaster! So, we rode every roller coaster as much as possible. There are totally seven roller coasters, we rode not only once but also twice for a tallest roller coaster. It was very exciting for me to have such a great experience in Japan. In Taiwan, we don’t have these kinds of roller coasters. It was really impressive and a lot of fun. We really had a wonderful time there.
(“Umi” Yi-Ting Cheng from Taiwan)
