World Campus International Blog

Uda City is a beautiful place with truly amazing nature around it, around us. Rice fields, rivers, mountains, etc. Green everywhere you look, soft sounds at night, refreshing air in the morning and wonderful, super fresh smell of nature.

In the morning we had the chance to go on a scavenger hunt. We got to not only see all the trees around us but also we got to breath pure air and smell fresh wood. More than 1000 trees through our nature walk / scavenger hunt, a very refreshing experience. On the same day (I have to say that Uda was a City with a full schedule) we had the opportunity to experience three different ways to make art. We worked with bamboo to make little crabs, we also learned about tie die and about kirigami (The art of cutting paper), this last one by a very important artist in the area, who was also a host dad. He has been practicing this art for the last 30 years receiving awards in places like France.

Pretty nice to be able to learn from the best of the best!

Our visit in Uda City, was as always full of surprises. We arrived about an hour before the scheduled time which it was nice after such a log travel day. Perfect time to rest, get refreshed and get ready to meet our new host families.

From the start we understood very quickly that using our senses was something we were going to do a lot in this city, touch, smell, sight, taste and hearing. Uda City was the City of the senses and if you keep reading the next four articles you will also understand why we decided to give this City a theme like that.

Our next post will be about smell… very interesting.

Back to the first night in Uda City… the host pick up was not the exception of the week, in fact, thats when we realized the LOC (Local Organizing Committee), had a lot of fun and interesting plans for our stay.

To start with the theme of the City, Senses, that night we had to Touch, to be able to find our host families… The host families had a box with objects inside, we had to put our hand in, without being able to see, to be able to match ourselves with the right host family. It was intersting, funny, scary, slimy and sometimes even furry.

Uda City, a great small Japanese Town with amazing places, people, food and very rich culture. World Campus – Japan experienced ALL in just one week and we were force to use our senses very consciously, something we, as people, normally don’t do.