Date of Activity: July 30^th

While the new participants where practicing for the Arigato event, the veterans where going to Tama center to do a scavenger hunt. We formed two groups to let it be a challenge. And a challenge it was! The staff really made an effort for the challenges. The first challenge for our group was doing the Macarena in a public place. While dancing with red faces, people where already looking weird at us, but we had fun. After this we had to do things like: make a jumping photo, take a weird photo with the police, find out in which year Tama-station was established, make a guy wear a dress and much more. So it was educational, (we got to learn about the Tama center), embarrassing, fun and we got to know each other better as well!

(Nicole Tolman, the Netherlands)

Date of Activity: July 29^th

Since my family noticed that I am in love with studio Ghibli they had a little surprise for me. My host mother bought tickets for the Ghibli museum, which was sold out as usual, through an auction. When I heard the news I was jumping around of happiness.

The museum is at the edge of a beautiful park which could have been a setting for one of the movies from Ghibli. Unfortunately it’s not allowed to take pictures inside the museum, but we could make some nice pictures from the outside.

The museum is crowded with people especially kids running around. And that’s the entire idea of the museum; it’s a place where children can run around freely and play in a huge fluffy cat bus, or learn in a very playful way how animation works. Also there are some rooms for the grown up which show the original paintings and drawings from several movies, as well as storyboards.

In the museum there is a small cinema in which short animation movies are shown which you can only see when visiting the museum, so that is pretty special. And of course you cannot leave the museum without being to the roof where a garden is, and in between the garden there is a life size Laputa robot of which you can take pictures.

To end the day we went to a shopping mall in Nakano were a lot of dump stores are with tons and tons of manga and anime goodies. It was a great day and I enjoyed every second spending in the museum and the shopping mall.

(Ellery Oosterberg, the Netherlands)

Date of Activity: July 28^th

Today the new participants had an orientation about the session and the program in general while the returning participants had time to explore Tama. Afterwards we all had lunch together before moving to Tama Bousai center. At this facility, you can experience different disaster simulators and learn how to prepare in case one occurs. We were separated into two groups, rotated doing three activities. My group started with watching a movie in a small movie theatre. It told the story of the Earthquake and tsunami of March 11^th. It was interesting not only to learn about the immediate effects of the disaster, but also of the aftereffects. It appears that the news reports in our countries give a somewhat limited image of what really happened and how dire the situation was for the Japanese people. A lot of people were deeply touched by the footage.

Then we experienced an earthquake simulator. It was basically a platform designed to look like a small Japanese kitchen. An employee from the facility taught us how to react when an earthquake hits – crawl under the table and hold the table legs so that your hands wouldn’t be crushed by objects falling down, etc. Since we knew it wasn’t real, it felt more like a theme park attraction than an actual earthquake. However, it was a good experience to know what it feels like and have a clue what to do in case an earthquake occurs.

The last activity our groups did was to learn how to escape from a smoky room in a burning building (no worries – although the smoke was thick, it wasn’t dangerous, and it smelled like candy for some reason). The smoky room was built as a maze, so we had to follow the exit signs to find our way out. Also, there were built in sensors in the walls, so if we didn’t crawl, they would register us, and we would lose points. A guy from the facility told us that in a real situation, instead of loosing points, we would get smoke in our lungs and die faster. So I was relieved to find out that no one in our group lost any points! Also, I feel more prepared in case of an emergency, so I’m happy I got the chance to visit the Tama Bousai center today.

(Torunn Olsen, Norway)

Date of activity: July 27^th

Tormented by heat we started our first day of session four.

For me, this is the 3rd time to visit Tama city, Tokyo. The LOC welcomed me with love as they did previous time. This is one of the reasons why I consider this city to be the number 1 city of all cities we visit with World Campus International. I like Tama so much! This day I reunited with friends whom I met several years ago in World Campus Japan as well as people I met in session 2 and 3. We also welcomed our new friends and host families. It would soon be time for the matching ceremony with the host families. Everyone seemed very exited.

Each city has a different way to meet a host family. In Tama, each person got a sheet of paper, with their host families’ names written on it in Japanese characters on the front and their phonetic reading on the back. After a short self-introduction everyone called their host family’s name as written on the back of the paper. We were a bit nervous, but all host families welcomed us with a big smile! This always makes me feel very happy. We also enjoyed a shishimai performance accompanied by music, which is typical for Japanese summer festivals.

In Japan, we believe that this dance is a bringer of good luck because it purifies the devil. Therefore I believe that this dance was a great start for the week to come in Tama. The adventure, namely session 4, has just started today. I wonder what kind of wonderful things are yet to happen in Tama city, Tokyo, the city that I have come to love…

Rie – Japan