Aloha at the beach!
Continuing with our stay in Mito, this time we had a host family day and my host family took me to the beach, some other friends from World Campus – Japan also joined us there. It was an amazing day, sunny and hot. The water was just beautiful and a lot of people were there.
Of course, as always in Japan, you always find things that you never imagined to find at places. This day at the beach we joined a Hula class. Yes, Hula. A group from Japan teaches small, simple dances to everyone who wants to join and all of us decided to join their class. As i said, “you always find things you never imagined to find”… there was a Viking. A Viking, dancing and enjoying his hula class. He was so funny and his energy was so good to have around.
On days like this I thank my life for the random opportunities I’ve had and for the chance to be part of World Campus – Japan, a program that not only teaches you about the “normal” aspects of the japanese culture but also gives you the chance to see things like i saw and experience that day at the beach.
Young spirits
In World Campus – Japan, the majority of the participants that travel are between 18 and 30 years old, even when our program doesn’t have age limit. With many young people around you all the time, you might think that you will get the best spirit and energy in the world, and sometimes is not like that at all, and i am about to tell you why.
On the day we went to visit Suzuran-en, we knew we were going to visit grandmas and grandpas from Japan, because Suzuran-en is an elderly home but the visit was completely different than we expected it to be.
Around 55 people with an age average of 88 years old taught us that day that age is not important to have energy and hope for the future. This residents spend their time doing many different activities guided by an amazing group of staff members that are not only there because is their daily job, but because is their passion. Their director inspires them to become better people every day and to care for the residents of the center.
On this amazing day we did activities like calligraphy, flower arranging, singing, dancing and many other activities. At the end of the day the residents did a performance for us with so much energy that the place was filled with a huge positive feeling.
We met, on this day, a women who is 106 years old and is still living and enjoying every minute of her life, she is still learning, admiring and getting excited for the small things in life and that was for sure a life lesson. We realized that sometimes we don’t have the energy to live 100% but we do have the opportunity to fix things and become better people for us and for others. They don’t have too much time but they for sure live every minute as it was the best minute of their lives.
