My host dad, who is an elementary schoolteacher, taught me the name of a Japanese citric the second day I arrived to the country. We have been gradually converting that word into a growing inside joke. I’ll tell you why.

The word is ‘decopon’, and that first time I pronounced it nasally exaggerating the last syllable a lot…That night, my host parents and me laughed about it and repeated the word quite a few times. More loudly each time.

The next day, my host dad told me (in his nice but broken English) he had told his class about me and about my ‘decopon’ pronunciation. His whole third-grade class found it hilarious…So did I. Embarrassing but in a really funny way.

Then, at night when we went to buy dinner groceries, I could tell he was telling the salesman about the story, because of the way he was talking and looking at me and also because he ended the story with a loud ‘DECOPOOOON’. He then wanted me to say it. I just laughed and got red, but didn’t repeat the word.

Today was our Host Family Day and we went to a river, then to downtown Nagasaki. We had an incredible time! We had lunch at a restaurant, hung out at an awesome four-floor stationery store, went to a Shinto shrine, and also went to the ‘Spectacles Bridge’ and took a lot of pictures.

To finish our Nagasaki day, we went to the Historical Museum, and looked at the exhibition.

The last part of the exhibition was about Elephants, sponsored by a local chain of grocery stores that features an Elephant in its logo.

You can definitely appreciate that Elephants were an important animal in Japanese society before, and you can enjoy the changes in art in the different sculptures and paintings, featuring, of course, elephants.

There were a few paintings and miniature sculptures that had really funny faces and expressions painted on them. I pointed at one, and said: ‘Decopon face!’

We started laughing very loudly inside the entirely quiet room, and had to cover our mouths and look to different ways to be able to stop.

Good thing we were almost finished with the exhibition because the rest of it, practically all we could see, were decopon faces…

It is so amazing how no matter how different our mother tongues are, and how different our backgrounds are, we somehow have a very similar sense of humor, similar feelings and ways to connect…

We have been having such a perfect time, sharing random things and laughing about random situations…I have even learned about Japanese onomatopoeia with them!

I am super grateful for all we have shared in these few days, no matter how much guessing there has been in between! I am lucky to be in this family this week.

I will definitely say goodbye to them with an enormous hug, a happy heart, and my funniest decopon face.

Paulina Meza, México

The first session we visited Kaiaze junior high school. All of the World Campus Participants/Staff split up and joined different teams to play dodge ball with the kids. These were not only kids from Kaiaze junior high school, but also from a Japanese school for deaf children. It was so much fun!

When we first joined our teams I found my way over to a small group of girls and talked to them a bit. I made a friend, Maho, and she was just so sweet. She would introduce me to her other friends and they’d all talk to me a little in Japanese, but since my Japanese isn’t all that great, I couldn’t talk to them too easily. When our first game actually started, I was usually with Maho, and her friends would come and go too. They found the World Campus guys on the opposite team scary and would always comment to me when one of the guys got the ball “Ah, hayai!” (he’s so fast!), “kowaii!” (scary!), or “tsuyoi!” (strong!). Maho’s best friend would just run behind us and duck down behind us – I felt so included.

Later in the day we got to plant rice in a paddy near the school. We all wore high socks that our host family had given us, and walked right into the paddy! There was such deep mud that you’d make a sucking noise when you pulled your foot out to take another step. All of the kids were laughing at the noises. When we lined up to plant our seedlings, I found Maho and her friends! We got to be together the whole time, and she helped me figure out how many to plant at a time and how to stir the mud so that it would be a good place to plant them.

I was so happy that I had been able to be with her again. It was really fun, and I’m really happy that I got the opportunity to plant rice seedlings while interacting with the kids as if really being part of Japanese society.

Kristen LaMier – Amerika

Today was our first activity day! We spent the morning meeting with the Mayor of Omura, followed by an intense dodgeball game with junior high students. For lunch we ate traditional Omura Sushi and Japanese Somen. In the afternoon we were getting muddy planting rice with junior high students and finally wrapped the day up by spending time with very young children at a pre-school. Whew! It seems like everyone is very tired but had an amazing day.

In more detail, our morning with Takashi Matsumoto (Mayor of Omura) was spent at the City Hall. In contrast to our sweaty dance gear from the day before, staff and participants dressed ‘to the nines’ with semi-formal attire-suits for the men and business wear for the ladies. Formally greeted with bows by his staff, we filed in to the Mayor’s conference room for the morning meeting.

Takashi Matsumoto has been in office since April of 1987. Because of his 25 years of experience, he has great insight into what being a Mayor is like and how Omura has progressed through the years. Standing up as a sign of respect, Matsumoto entered the room and introduced himself. The Mayor briefly described his position in office and each World Campus Japan participant gave a brief self-introduction. Matsumoto expressed his love for Omura. He commented on the city’s natural beauty and his hopes for the future. He also discussed his passion for leading and creating continuous improvement. Quite inspiring! We then were allowed to ask questions about Matsumoto, Omura, Japan or life in general. It was wonderful for him to take time to meet with us and I am pretty sure he appreciated our interest in Omura!

Today was the very first day of the World Campus Japan program 2012. We’re going to make it the best one yet. I think we’ll gain some amazing friendships and experiences this year, here in Japan. We are now in Omura, which is located near Nagasaki. This session is focused on experiencing the school life in Japan. We will visit some elementary schools and some high schools.

This morning we got to meet all the people that are participating in the first session. In the first session we have a diverse group with people from Canada, the Netherlands, the United States, etc. Today we started with meeting each other and played some games to get to know each other. It was a lot of fun and everyone is really excited to get started with the first session. After that, we started to practice for the upcoming Arigato-event. This event allows us to say “thank you for everything” to our host families by singing, dancing and playing games. We did a lot of singing and dancing in the afternoon. In the end we all were exhausted, but we had a lot of fun. Tomorrow is another day of new experiences.

The adventure has begun, we are all here to have the time of our lives. It’s on!

Iris Spruit – the Netherlands