Hot summer day in Abiko Japan. The day of Kappa Festival right by the Abiko Train Station. This day was one of the last days of the World Campus – Japan Summer 2010 Tour and it was as busy or more busy than the first day.

Before i go into telling you what we did that day I have to explain what the Kappa Festival is right? or at least explain what a Kappa is, so here is the explanation: Kappa is a water creature, it looks like a very interesting combination of a frog with a chicken pick and a plate on his head.

The Kappa Festival has become one of the most important celebrations of the City of Abiko, they have everything from music performances which we were part of, food everywhere, there is of course a parade which we participated in and then it ends with a very cultural celebration at a park with bamboo candles everywhere, which we had the opportunity to help set up.

So, as you read, the Kappa Festival is just a celebration of life. World Campus – Japan participants not only had the chance to participate in it as a performers but we also helped with all the set up of the festival.

It was a great experience to see how people work all year long to plan this day, they also work really hard on the day of the festival to make sure everything happens as planned.

People ate, enjoyed each other’s company and celebrated the Kappa with a great Abiko spirit, which is now more than ever, a very international spirit.

This was forsure a very cultural learning day in World Campus – Japan. We went from rehearsing our on performance for the Kappa Festival (which we will talk about on the next few posts) to learning a very traditional dance to hula classes. But the highlight of the day was… The Tea Ceremony!

For those of you that never heard about this Ceremony, here is a little explanation about it:

“The tea ceremony is a very special event in Japanese culture. The host spends days going over every detail to make sure that the ceremony will be perfect. There are various styles of tea ceremonies and it is recognized that every human encounter is a singular occasion that will never recur again in exactly the same way, and so every aspect of the tea ceremony is savored. The ceremony takes place in a room called the chashitsu. This room is designed and designated only for this ceremony”

The participants of World Campus – Japan had the opportunity to dress up with yukatas and learn about this very traditional way of serving tea that goes above and behond warming up the water and adding tea.