When I stepped out of the car there were a lot of children walking to school, however they all got somewhat distracted when they saw us huge foreigners in the parking lot.

We then all went to the library where we had our morning meeting with a giggling Megan leading the meeting. My first class was music with Juuso, Aileen and Nicole. The class started off with the students singing a song which i believe was the school song but it soon went over to origami. After another similar music lesson with another class we had caligraphy with the 3rd graders. We drew the kanji for earth, and I think that japanese kaligraphy is a lot harder than it looks… We then had swimming class but there was no chloride in the pool so it it tasted a bit funny… After a somewhat stressful lunch for my part due to students being very active even while eating, we went to the sports hall in order to prepare for the arigato event dances we wanted to show the students. The students were overjoyed and sang/danced along to some of the songs better known to the younger generation. We ended the event by dancing the macarena with all the students and playing “Oh! Alele!”.

The day was overall a great success and at the end of the day a student wanted all of our autographs.

Isak Oden (Sweden)

Day of activity: June 29^th 2014

On Sunday I went with my host family to Beppu, a town known for its hot springs. We went to eight hot springs, which were all different and had different colors; one was cobalt blue another was red and another white, it was really beautiful to see! Our lunch consisted of vegetables and meat that were cooked in the steam of a hot spring. It was a special experience and a really good lunch! After we returned home and ate dinner, my host mom let me play on her violin and we also played together, she on piano and I on violin. It was so awesome and it made me very happy!

Iris (The Netherlands)

Day of activity: June 28^th 2014

After the morning meeting everyone is eager to have the first activity of the day. We meet up with local kids and a lot of host families did also bring their host kids to. Two of my host kids, Goten and Mone, are also there as the host father Takamitsu did bring them with me to the meeting place the Miike community centre.

The LOC and some people from the community centre introduce us to the games the kids play there twice a month; most games are popular in rain the season (Tsuyu). Karuta, Origami, Takeuma and Otedama ohajiki Ayatori.

My host kids did play catch and run and with balloons and did juggling with small balls. I was invited to do some Origami a Crane and Kabuto (Samurai Helmet).
After that we had a lunch break, we had yummy curry rice.

In the afternoon we had a lecture about the history of Omuta, that it was a coal mine town and very important to the development of modern Japan since the edo period. The 4 local people explaining about it did focus in relationship and community building and not so much on the facts when did what happen.

They were also very interested if someone did come from a country where mining was important so I did speak up and told them about Luxembourg how it was also a country which got developed because we had some iron mines and that my grandfather did work in an iron mine but had to retire early due to dust lungs.

We did also sing 3 songs together that were songs that were written to uplift the spirits of the miners from this town. They told us we should visit the Coal Museum or some of the sites if we have time, which I will do when it is host family day is my host family lives 1 minute away from one of the mining sites, I can see the site from the house which is quite cool.

It was interesting to hear them telling so much about the city and being passionate about its history.

Daniel (Luxembourg)