Hello Kitty from Kinugawa

Hello, everyone~!

First of all, I've literally enjoyed looking at the picutures on agu2007.blogspot.com. Though I'm not the one who is there with you guys this year, reading the blog of AGU 2007 and the blogs of the participants makes me feel as if I were there again! ^^ Meanwhile, I visited agu2006.blogspot.com as well. As I started remembering what we did last year, I imagined you guys take the same steps that I took. ^^

Well, as you can guess from the title, today I'm going to talk about the souvenir I've bought while I was on the trip to Kinugawa several days ago. Do you remember that I added the post about the souvenir I got from Eriko, which was a kind of key ring of Hello Kitty? I've got another version of it, and I'd like to show you the picture! The first picture that you can see on the left side tells you that this is the version of Kinugawa Onsen (Do you remember what "ONSEN" means? It means hot springs which are Kinugawa is famous for.), and that you can get this only in Tochigi prefecture. Now, here she comes!

Don't you think it's kawaii(cute)~?
I think she is definitely enjoying to take a bath in Onsen with monkeys! I did almost the same things except for the encounter with monkeys. Hahaha.

I hope you enjoy taking a look at the new member of my Hello Kitty's collection!

That's all for today.
I'm looking forward to paticipating the online chat with the participants of AGU 2007!

Until then, Sayonara! ^^

The Trip to Kinugawa! Part 2

Hello, everyone~!

As I said on the previous post, I'm going to talk about the trip I took to Kinugawa! So here we go!

On the second day, the first thing I did was "Line-kudari" which would be translated into boat tour. I've experienced this at a different place in Japan before, so it was the second time for me. But I felt that this time was a different one, and I enjoyed boarding the boat with my friends! The picture on the left side gives you an idea of what it's like to be a passenger of "Line-kudari". Though I showed you the picture, I don't think it'll help you see the way I want you to... :( So, it sounds like it's time for me to use Youtube to share what I saw with you, right?

After boarding the boat, we got on the bus to go to the station to ride a cable car! By riding a cable car, we could visit the observation deck at the top and the place where the monkeys the Japanese deer have lived in. I just didn't know why they were there, and I was surprised how much they've got used to humans who constantly stand surrounding them! They desperately reached out their hands for the foods given by tourists! The video I put on below will show you how it's done!

After witnessing the monkeys being fed by humans, we went back to the hotel to do discussions about the topics we chose. What we talked about was that how you would accomplish a certain mission as a Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteer with keeping cultural conflicts from happening. In addition to that topic, we also talked about how you would promote the relationship between the company which introduces child labor as way to reduce costs and the children who are employed by the company. The topics like these might look like something we don't need to care about so seriously, but they actually require a lot of cultural understandings that help you imagine how the people from different cultural backgrounds feel about what you do to them. I enjoyed talking about these topics with the members of the seminar because though everyone was given the same tasks, everyone had different opinions about them. So it was really interesting!

After that, we enjoyed eating dinner! You can see the picture of the dinner I had on the second day on the previous post. ^^ We went outside to do something fun, it was Hanabi(fireworks)!

I hope you're now feeling that you are one of the participants of this camp! Hahaha~. ^^ At least, I think it'll tell you how much fun I had!

As always, I put the picture I took on the trip on bubbleshare!
I hope you enjoy taking a look at them. ^^

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Alright, that's all for today!

By the way, I hope I'll be able to join the online chat today!
See you soon~. ^^

The Trip to Kinugawa! Part 1

Hello, everyone~!

I went to Kinugawa from August 5th to August 7th to participate the summer camp of the seminar I've belonged to! Some of you might not be familiar with the seminar because the way we are given the class is different from the US's. We usually choose a seminar that each of the students in my department is interested in when we are sophomore, and he/she belongs to a seminar to learn about a field he/she wants to study, and to write your own thesis at last. So, I'll attend the seminar once a week for 2 years, junior and senior. As you can see, it's important for me to try getting along with other members of the seminar! That's why we went on this trip!

Well, have you heard of Kinugawa Onsen? It belongs to Tochigi prefecture, and it takes about 2 hours to go there from Asakusa. (It's a part of Tokyo.) It's famous for hot springs, and what I've wanted for this trip was "Kimochi-ii Ofuro"(Awesome hot springs) and "Oisii Gohan" (Yummy meals), so I got everything I wanted! Yaaaay! The picture on the left side was the entrance of Asakusa station, where the trip began.

After being on the train for about 2 hours, we arrived at the hotel finally! The first thing I saw when I entered the entrance of the hotel was a number of "omen" (This is not the name of the movie, it means "mask".) hanging on the wall! If you enlarge the picture on the right side, You can see Mickey Mouse, Daisy, Hello Kitty, Doraemon, Anpanman, and so on.

As I said, the reasons why we decided to go on a trip were to get to know each other, and more importantly, to do something that related to the field we've learned about: Communication! So, we watched a movie called "Crash" which was awarded with the Oscar for Best Motion Picture of the year at the 78 th Academy Awards ceremony. It's dealt with cultural conflicts between different races, but at the same time, it's also encouraged us to keep having hope for the people who lives in this world that is so diverse. I've seen it before, but I always find it interesting to listen to what others think about the movie I saw because it makes me realize that there are many different ways to look at things.

After watching the movie, we ate dinner! There were so many different kinds of foods on the table that I just couldn't decide what to eat at first. ^^ I decided to put all of the dinners' pictures here! So, please enjoy looking at the foods I really enjoyed! I hope they will help you imagine how they taste like... yum yum! I'm sorry if you're hungry now, hehehe. ^^

After the dinner, I guess this was one of the most important parts of the trip! It's time for OFURO! (Hot Springs!) Yaaaay! You might think it's just having a bath, but it's not! Some of you have read the previous post which I talked about going to a public bath near my house with a friend of mine, and as you can see from that, I love taking a bath!! So I was glad to be able to enjoy Onsen(hot spring) there! Yeah, I really was!!

I guess I should stop writing about the first day here.
I'm going to continue talking about the trip on the next post, so please look forward to it! ^^