Friday, July 6, 2012

Day 6


Konichiwa everyone. I hope parents and friends aren’t worrying too much about us. We’re doing great, but the week has pasted by so quickly. We’ve returned back to Tokyo, but we all miss staying at Ibaraki, Tohoku. The experience from the past three days was eye-opening, inspirational, and amazing. We’ve gained so much knowledge relating to the tsunami and earthquake. The traditional inn, ryokan was also a new experience for most of us. The manager and the staff  were very nice and polite. They always greeted us with heartwarming smiles and bows. We were all very fortunate to have stayed at such a wonderful place. On Thursday we went to the beach to clean up garbage. The beach clean up was so great even though it was windy and hot, it was nice knowing that we were making a difference and helping out the Japanese people. When cleaning up the beach, a boy about the same age as us came to help. After a while, we realized that he wasn’t one of us. He was just a normal Japanese boy who decided to lend us a hand. Like the staff and manager at the hotel, he was very caring.

After heading back to Tokyo, we ate lunch at a conference room in Tokyo, where later on we met U.S ambassador to Japan, Mr. Roos. He was very generous to take time out of his day to answer our questions about the disaster, his job, and anything else we wanted to know. He was the one who contacted president Obama about the disasters in Japan. He was inspirational and funny. He also grew up in San Francisco and attended Lowell high school. We were all disappointed because Lowell is our biggest rivalry. Mr. Roos decided to take a picture with us and said that he would put it on his twitter account.


After Mr. Roos talked with us, we were told that we were going to make a small presentation about our overall thoughts of the experience we had in Tohoku and what the most important thing was. We said that bonding was the most important thing we learned throughout this experience. Bonding and friendship can raise the hopes of others and aid those who are in need the most. Even though we are so far apart we are always connected and close. At the beginning of this trip, most of us didn’t know each other, but gradually we all became friends. We all made a bond, a connection with each other. We also made bonds with the staff, locals, victims of the tsunami and earthquake, and with the other students in the Kizuna Project from other schools.

Later on we discussed the Dos and Don’ts in a host family, host school, and in public. We also created small skits about the Dos and Don’ts. Once the meeting was done, we went to a restaurant named Kirara and ate dinner. Lastly we were supposed to go to Shibuya, but it started to rain and we ended up postponing it until tomorrow. The trip to Shibuya was not part of the Kizuna project schedule, but Morikawa Sensei and Mrs. Saunders wanted to reward us for our hard work these past few days in Tohoku. Going to Shibuya is a nice reward, but getting to know, connect, and bond with the Japanese people from Tohoku was a reward in itself. Until next time, this was Shirry Tan and Moira Vinnett. 

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