Category Archives: City Life

City Life, City Theme Activities, Isa City

Playing golf with some members of the local community of Isa, Kagoshima

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The World Campus Japan program is unique as it offers the chance to experience the Japanese culture from an array of perspectives, through several, differing, perhaps unconventional activities. Among them, on June the 16th, we got to play golf with some members of the local community of Isa.

After a morning spent planting rice in the countryside of the city, we headed towards the local Golf Park, where a group of elderly people awaited, ready to meet us with their equipment in hand. We were divided into couples, and each was then assigned to two ‘buddies’ chosen among the community. In my case, I had the honor of meeting Ichiro-san and Tetsuko-san, who started asking questions right away, showing interest in my teammate and I.

I deeply appreciated how hard they tried to explain the game rules in both Japanese and a little English. Eventually, we managed to successfully initiate the game. They were real professionals (Ichiro-san started 8 years ago and Tetsuko-san around 30!), and seeing them play was a deeply humbling experience (I am myself really not a golf champion, and I was at that moment very aware of it).

Once we were done, we took the usual group picture and we hugged goodbye. Ichiro-san got me and my teammate some candies to thank us for spending our afternoon playing with them. Before leaving, I had the chance to talk to him for a bit, he asked where I come from, what I am doing in Japan, while I asked him more about his life as a professor in Tokyo. Then, we promised each other that we would meet again someday.

Such experiences make you aware of how much kindness strangers can treat you with and show how no matter the age or the cultural background, people will always find a way to communicate with and understand each other.

Allesandra from Italy

Abiko City, City Life, City Theme Activities, Community Partners

An interactive experience in Abiko City

Ken with his host family

By Ken, Participant of session 3, from Norway

The day started off with our host families dropping us off at Kinrin Center. We were visited by Mr. Junichiro Hoshino, the mayor of Abiko City! We were taught about Abiko city’s culture and history, like its famous bird museum, literary masters, Tone River, and its annual fireworks festival! We were even visited by the town’s mascot: Unakichi-San. Much of the history of Abiko City is actually represented in Unakichi-San! He is an old gentleman, referring to the old literary masters in Abiko, and an eel, an allusion to how eel caught in Tone River was considered to be the best, fetching the most handsome price.

Later on, we were able to experience traditional Japanese street performances firsthand, everything including the refined and elegant “kappore” (かっぽれ), to the mesmerizing and grand “Nankin Tamasudare” (南京玉すだれ), an art that is said to have been developed during the Edo Period (1603-1867), rooted in Buddhist tradition. “Nankin Tamasudare” uses loosely woven bamboo sticks to create extraordinary shapes by twisting, folding and extending the sticks to create interesting shapes! After the performance, we were even taught how to use the sticks, finishing with us trying to do the performance too.

Lastly, we learned how to create Mickey Mouse through Balloon Art! I personally struggled with the balloons, as they kept popping haphazardly, scaring me half to death, however, everyone eventually managed to successfully build it, resulting in a satisfying conclusion.

It’s definitely an experience that I, along with the host families and WCI, will remember!

City Life, City Theme Activities, Community Partners, Isehara City

Oyama Hike, Shrine Visit, and City Hall Seminars 2023

Henry Carries the Pilgrims' Wooden Blade
Henry Carries the Pilgrims’ Wooden Blade

By Henry, Participant of Session 2, from Norway

Today might be one of the most exciting and tiring days so far in session 2. It started off with us visiting the most known part of Isehara, Mt. Oyama. I decided to make the smart choice and take the cable car to the shrine we were visiting, Oyama Afuri, rather than taking the 45-minute hike up the mountain in the 30+ degree weather (While we were waiting for the ones who chose to hike, we got ice cream, but we were told to keep that a secret to prevent them from getting jealous, so shhh). At the shrine, we got to experience a Shinto ceremony, and we learnt a lot about Shintoism and the history of the shrines on Mt. Oyama. For lunch we stopped at a ryokan not too far from the Oyama cable car, where we got served tofu prepared in a vast variety of ways. I’m not usually a massive fan of tofu, but the expertise and variety made the dish an experience, and a delicious one at that.

Discussions with the City Hall Officers
Discussions with the City Hall Officers

After our excursion to Oyama, we went to city hall, where we met with city officials. Together we watched two of our counsellors give presentations on the livability of cities in the Netherlands and Joensuu, a city in Finland. The most interesting part of the visit however, was after the presentations, when we got split into groups and got to properly introduce ourselves to some of the city officials. We were all a bit shy at first, but quickly opened up to each other, before we all shared what our favorite aspect of our own cities were. We participants got to learn about Isehara, and the city officials got ideas on how to improve the livability of a city from all around the world.

At the end of the day, we got to try out replicas of samurai armor. This was the highlight of the day in my opinion. With a katana being part of the outfit, we got some absolutely amazing photos, and some great laughs with friends as we did cool and silly poses. It was a chill and fun way to cap off a great first activity day in a new city.

City Life, Ueda City

Ueda School Visit 2023

Sara waving goodbye to the students

By Sara, Participant of Session 2, From USA

Today we visited several schools in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture. While visiting Daisan Junior High School, we were met with such an extreme amount of kindness and energy from the students! The students made us feel welcomed into their school through their excitement and made conversations feel natural even through the language barrier. The students were also very knowledgeable on the topics we were given and showed that they had put lots of time into preparing for our discussion. It truly was an amazing experience as it was my first time visiting a school outside of the United States. I hope that we left as good of an impression on them as they left on us and that World Campus is invited to visit again in the future!

City Life

Ninja Experience 2023

By Lizzie, Participant of Session 1,2, and 3, from USA

This week we did a ninja experience in Akame. Akame was historically the place for Iga Ninjas to train. For that reason, there’s a place for tourists to experience ninja training. We each chose our own ninja uniform and set off for training.

Each activity imitated the skills needed to break into a fortress or attack an enemy. For example, we started with the wall climb. Though some of us may have gracefully jumped over the 3 increasingly tall walls, I certainly did not. Afterwards we did an activity where we balanced our bodies horizontally on a rope and pulled ourselves along. Being smaller definitely helped with this activity.

Then we moved onto skills for attacking enemies: shuriken throwing and blowdart blowing. Though none of us had the accuracy of a ninja, it was easy enough for most to hit the board. It was quite satisfying to hit the target.

Last was the infamous river crossing. I had heard a lot about this activity and how hard it was, but for some reason believed I would be successful. To complete the activity, you needed to balance your feet on two round floats and pull yourself to the other side with a rope. I was very much humbled when I couldn’t even get on the floats without falling into the river. In the end only one person was able to make it across. Even with our failure, we each received a scroll confirming us as ninjas.

We spent the remainder of the day enjoying the nearby beautiful Akame 48 falls. This day was a fan-favorite among the group members.