Report for ( ) KIZUNA (bond) Project/Program Full Schedule 1st December 2012 I arrived at Quality Hotel Shah Alam

m around 10:00 a.m. I registered at the AFS counter and obtained my Pre-Departure Orientation Camp name tag. I proceeded to the larger ballroom to attend the Parents Briefing. After the Parents Briefing which was about the do and donts of this project, there was a small tea break. After the break, all of us went to the smaller ballroom where we attended the previous Selection Camp. We had our ice breaking session with the other KIZUNA participants and the AFS volunteers as well. We were supposed to say our name and our favorite thing to do.

After that, we had a few group discussions about our program such as discussing about the AFS slogan, generalization and stereotyping. One of our activities was to split us into 3 different groups and each of the group was given a characteristic about a new race. Ours was called Aqila and our culture was to be always happy and cheerful. When opposite sexes meet each other, we must say baby, baby, baby 3 times. If your partner has long hair, you must turn around once. We must complete a task which was making an aeroplane to see which groups could fly the furthest. We met the other groups who were called Hajime which were proud and had royal blood and Kali Padi which had different customs when talking to people.

After that, we had another discussion which was called the Iceberg Theory. The tip of the ice-berg was the obvious actions that we can see in a culture whereas the one underneath was the true cultures. Example of the tip is food and example of the bottom was the punctuality. It is known that experience of the culture only shows the underneath of the iceberg.

After we were given room keys, we proceeded to have our dinner. Of course, we had lunch between the sessions.

2nd December 2012 We went down to have breakfast and met the others. We proceed to take our bags from our rooms. After that, we had a series of group activities. The first was lining up according to our age without speaking. After that, our task was to form small groups. Each member had to be carried in any way around the ballroom once. Next, all of us had to form human pyramids, but we all decided to form one big human pyramid. Then, we had to make a balloon tower. At first, we used the air conditioner to stabilize the structure but ended up using cellophane tape to stick to the ceiling. All of these tasks had a time limit and the remaining time left after each task is transferred to the next. Our last activity was the KIZUNA task. All of us had to form the word KIZUNA using our whole body. After the activity, we had a photo session with the volunteers and made the KIZUNA word again. The camp officially ended around 1 p.m. and lunch was not provided. We were given AFS Malaysia shirts, badges and luggage tags too.

Some of the participants went home or went to their families as all of us had to be at KLIA at 8:30 p.m. sharp. We reached KLIA at 8:00 p.m. and proceeded into the departure hall.

After our passports and e-tickets were distributed by Suyin, one of the AFS Malaysia volunteers, we were told to meet up in front of the International Departure gate at 9:00 p.m. Then, we were split into two major groups and a few minor groups captained by the two Educators, Mr Koo Boon Chin and Puan Anisah. Before entering the gate, we said our goodbyes and proceeded through the Immigration Counter. We then sit the Aerotrain to the International terminal and went to our departure gate. Soon, we boarded the JAL flight at 11:05 p.m., which was flight JL724 that lasted for 6 hours from Kuala Lumpur to Tokyo, Japan.

3rd December 2012 Upon our landing, we had reached Narita International Airport () at 5:55 a.m (Malaysia Time). We set our time one hour in advance to Japan Time (+7 GMT). Once we exited the plane, we were escorted by a lady from AFS Japan. Then, we went through the Immigration Counter and retrieved our bags, which were easy to identity due to our yellow AFS luggage tags. Then, we went to the Arrival Hall and were escorted through the airport. We went up a floor to place our luggage at a waiting area. After that, we were given our name tags that specified our name, country of origin, our place of visit at the Thoku Region () and our host familys place. We were also given new luggage tags that matched our name tags. The colours of the tags were based on the place of visit at the Tohoku Region. Some of us with the red tag with their host families situated at Hokkaido left earlier for saki City via Shinkansen () also known as the Bullet Train. We were given an hour to relax and walk around the airport. Along the way, we met participants from AFS Thailand, AFS India and AFS Indonesia.

Around 9:00 a.m., we left the airport and headed to Odaiba (), Tokyo () to have lunch. We were guided by Yasuko-san, another lady from AFS Japan. She was very friendly and always made us laugh. Along the way, we had a few Japanese lessons and a tour guide around Tokyo, specifically Rainbow Bridge (), Tokyo Tower () and Tokyo Sky Tree ( ). She can speak a little Malay because apparently, she went to work at Indonesia for 3 years. Once we reached Odaiba around 10:00 a.m., we went to Decks Tokyo Beach () which had an amusement park (Joypolis) and many shops. We had Chinese Buffet for lunch, together with a part of AFS Australia (their group of 200+ participants all around Australia was too large), AFS Laos, AFS Cambodia and many more. We had a photo session outside the buffet, having a view of Rainbow Bridge and downtown Tokyo.

After lunch, we continued our journey to the Nakagawa Water Reclamation Center ( ) in Tokyo. We were with AFS Thailand and AFS Cambodia. We shared our bus with AFS Cambodia.

The objective of this visit was to show us how water is recycled efficiently in Tokyo. After that, we had a tour around the area from part to part, starting from the primary sedimentation tank to the chlorination tank.

After the visit, we left the Nakagawa Water Reclamation Center at 4:30 p.m. and went to Marroad International Hotel Narita () to attend a short orientation. By 6:00 p.m., it was already dark. We went to our hotel, which was Hotel Nikko Narita ( ). I was assigned to a hotel room with Choy and Jazbir. After placing our luggage, we went down for dinner, which was an international buffet. We were informed of our schedule on the next day and all of us returned to our rooms.

4th December 2012 After breakfast, we had a photo session and all of us were escorted by Yasuko-san to the National Olympic Memorial Youth Centre (NYC) by bus.

Upon arrival, we went to the hall which had many seats. Our seats were divided according to our place of visit and thus, AFS Malaysia was divided. All of the KIZUNA Project participants from Australia, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, India, New Zealand and Timor-Leste were there. Then, I went to the seats where the place of visit was Ten-Ei Village () of Fukushima Prefecture (), the place where I was assigned to. The orientation at NYC was about our stay in the disaster-affected area. After the orientation, the Ten-Ei Village group went out of the hall. We were then split into more groups according to our host familys area. Mine was Yamaguchi Prefecture (). Our chapter was Pannee Srisang from Thailand and we had an ice breaking session in front of the auditorium. My new group consisted of 12 members including the chapter. I made new friends with Jonasz Pedryc (Australia), Ashlie Kha (Australia), Blake Wright (Australia), Nicole Ching Ruo Fan (Singapore), Ainee Setthamalinee (Thailand), Ameria Beale (New Zealand), Chhai Roth (Cambodia), Ellie Head (Australia) and of course not excluding Jonathan Buranda (Indonesia). After the session, all of us went to Harajuku () for Western Buffet lunch.

At Harajuku, I made more friends with Novita Tjandramulia (Australia) and Tipgamol Gamoltip (Thailand) which she preferred to be called Nahm. After lunch, we went to Tokyo Station () which is a railway station to go to Ten-Ei Village via Shinkansen Nasuno ().

The whole trip took around 2 hours. The Shinkansen was very puntual and all 98 of us had to enter the train within 2 minutes. During the trip, we could see sceneries of cities and forests whizzing by as we were travelling up to 300 km/h. We also passed by Mt. Fuji ().

We reached Shin-Shirakawa Station () at 4:46 p.m. and went to British Hills ( ) by bus.

We were guided by a person from the Japan International Cooperation Center (JICE). After a short orientation about our schedule, we were given our room keys. We were excited to see snowfall. I shared my room with Jonasz, Jonathan and Ben Hillier (Australia). After placing our luggage, we went to the Dining Hall to have our dinner. There is where I met Gabrielle Ting (Australia) and Chacha

Tedja (Australia). After dinner, we went back to our rooms. There was Wi-Fi so I contacted my family and friends.

5th December 2012 We woke up early and had our temperature check. After breakfast at the Dining Hall, we went to the Yumoto Community Room by bus. We experienced local culture such as making rice dumplings, Tsukimi dango () that can be eaten as a dessert or used as a decoration.

After that, we had a guided walking tour around the Yumoto () region. The place was quiet and peaceful. We went up a hill and saw a Buddha temple and a Shinto () shrine. I learned how to pray at a Shinto shrine by ringing the bell, tossing a coin as offering, bowing once, clapping twice, closing the eyes to make a wish and bowing once again to end. We also passed by an onsen ().

After the visit, we had lunch which was the rice dumplings. At 12:30 p.m., we moved to the Koryu Sokushin Center to visit the Tohoku Region victims. The victims were from kuma (), a town famous for its cherry blossoms located within the 20km radius of the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant () which was destroyed in a nuclear disaster during the Thoku disaster. They shared their stories and their experiences with us. After the photo session, we returned to the hotel.

After dinner, a few of us which were Chacha, Gabrielle, Jonathan and Luthfan Anshar Lubis (Indonesia) had a group chat about our cultures. We also had short game sessions.

6th December 2012 After having breakfast, we went to Bunkano Mori Ten-Ei by bus. We had our lecture about the safety management of farm products in Ten-Ei Village. After that, we went to a local shop to buy vegetables for radiation testing. We walked to another part of the research center to obverse the radiation testing experiment.

After that, we travelled to the Health Pia for lunch. We experienced making O-nigiri (), which are Japanese rice balls. We used top quality rice which was famous in Ten-Ei Village, salmon, curry corn, seasoned seaweed, salmon and Nori () to shape and wrap the rice ball.

In the end, we went back to the hotel by bus and gathered at one of the halls in British Hills. We were separated into our teams according to our country of origin. Our task was to design a rice packet that can be used to abolish harmful rumours about the farm products.

After dinner, Jonathan, Chacha, Gabrielle, Joevannie Canete Jr. (Philippines) and I went to the Pub which was not far away from the Dining Hall. We had more game sessions there and we met other participants too. It was freezing outside. We had to pack our bags into two, which were the bag that we were going to bring to the host family and our actual luggage that will be sent back to Tokyo.

7th December 2012 After breakfast, we had a short photo session.

We said our goodbyes as we were going to split into our small groups which were travelling to different prefectures. We boarded the Shinkansen at 9:30 a.m. and travelled to Tokyo. After reaching Tokyo Station, we sat on the same bus as the participants who had travelled from Itako City () of Ibaraki Prefecture (). I met Haziq on the way.

We travelled to Haneda Airport () and had lunch. After that, we were given half an hour to walk around the airport. After that, we checked in and boarded the plane to Yamaguchi-Ube Airport () in order to travel to Shimonoseki () of Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Once we arrived at the airport, we travelled to the centre of Shimonoseki by bus. We were given pamphlets and travel guides about Shimonoseki on the bus. It was an hours journey. At the bus station, we met with our host families. The group divided from there as I followed my host father, Mr Ryoji Matsui ( ). We travelled to Mr Ryojis house located at Kawatana (). I met my host mother, Madam Keiko Matsui ( ). After dinner, I explored the traditional Japanese house.

After my bath, I met one of my host brothers, Mr Yojiro Matsui ( ).

At that time, my host parents told me that a 7.5-Magnitude earthquake happened at Miyagi Prefecture around the evening. Thankfully, all of the KIZUNA participants were safe. After having a small chat, my host mother set up a futon and a small heater for me to sleep. After I gave my gifts, I went to bed early.

8th December 2012 I woke up early to have breakfast with my host family. We visited a Shinto Shrine and walked down a path to the sea coast.

After that, we visited Tsunoshima Island () through the Tsunoshima-hashi Bridge () to visit the Tsunoshima Lighthouse (). Along the way, I could see rough waves as we stopped by a pit stop that had food stalls and a supermarket. Unfortunately, the lighthouse was closed. We also saw a rock which was tied together with a grass rope, part of the Shimenawa matsuri, a traditional ritual carried out on the shore of Shimonoseki in hope of good catch and safety at sea.

After that, we visited Mr Sakunosuke Matsuis family, which was my eldest host brother. My host family showed me around the house too. For lunch, we returned home and ate Yakisoba () which was fried noodles in sauce. After lunch, my host parents brought me to explore the backyard and the outdoor area of the house. They had a backyard garden and Mr Ryoji had a study room filled with Japanese litereature, english movies and books.

After resting, Sakus family came and visit. We had dinner and we chatted about our lifestyles. I also had a chance to play Reversi with Sakus daughter and sons. I taught them some Malaysian games such as Batu Seremban as well.

Mr Ryoji was playing Shogi () which is Japanese chess with one of Sakus sons. After our photo session, we said our goodbyes. I also exchanged stamps with Madam Keiko.

9th December 2012 After breakfast, we went to visit another Shinto shrine, which was Akama Shrine (). I bought a few Omamori () which were Japanese amulets. My host mother also gifted me a study amulet.

Next, we went to a park next to the Kanmonkyo Bridge () that had a monument of the duel between Miyamoto Musashi ( ) and Sasaki Kojir ( ).

Madam Keiko and I walked through the Kanmon Roadway Tunnel () for pedestrians to get to Kitakyushu () whereas Mr Ryoji drove the car to pick us up on the other side. After we walked through the tunnel, Mr Ryoji picked us up as we went to Daiso (), a 105 shop in Kitakyushu.

I bought up to 4000 worth of items from Daiso and we went for lunch at a nearby sushi restaurant.

After that, we went back to Shimonoseki, stopping by at the bridge to take photos. We travelled to Kawatana Onsen () and had our bath there. It was very awkward due to the public nudity but the experiece was worth it.

After dinner, my host parents showed me their Kimono and Yukata collection. My host mother had 100+ kimonos in her collection. I also tried on my host fathers kimono. My host mother also gave me a make-up box and Japanese cloth for my family.

10th December 2012 I followed Mr Ryoji to Shimonoseki Minami High School () to attend my day of school in Japan. After arriving, I met my group in the Principals office. Mr Ryoji is the principal of this school. Class monitors and assistant monitors came to the office and guided us one by one. I was guided to Class 1-4 () by Yuko and another student. Students had to change into slippers as shoes were not allowed in the school territory. My class was on the highest floor, which was the 4th floor (3rd floor in Malaysia).

Class started at 9 a.m. Each period lasted for 50 minutes and followed by a 10 minutes break. Before class started, the form teacher introduced us to the class. I was in the same class as Ainee.

My first class was Physical Education. I was guided by the male students to the changing room as the classroom was used by the females. After that, we went to the gymnasium which was a multipurpose hall similar to my school. After warm-ups, our Physical Education teacher told us to sit at a corner as we do not need to do any vigorous exercise. An AFS Japan chapter came to ask us how was our stay with our host families.

After Physical Education, we were escorted not to our class but to a Calligraphy class. We saw a few of our group there too. After that, we had a calligraphy session with the vice principal of the school. He taught us how to write calligraphy. I could do well as I had written calligraphy before.

Next, we returned to our class to collect our lunch boxes, bento () which were prepared by our host families. Mr Ryoji personally prepared my lunch. It was Life Sciences. The class was about calculating the Nutritional Values of our bento. The class lasted for 2 hours with a break in between. After that, we returned to the class to have our lunch. Some of the students pushed their wooden tables together to form a bigger table. I went around the school after my lunch to look at the lifestyle of Japanese students. It was similar to Malaysian schools.

After reccess, we had Oral Communication (O.C.E.) which was in English. We helped the students read out the examples clearly. They were fasinated as we could speak very fluent English. The students translated Japanese into English in this activity.

Next, we had Japanese Litereature. Ainee and I were given an English translated Japanese poem that was used in the class. The poem was Aruhito. After the classes, the students helped to clean the school. They also rearraged their tables as ordered by the teacher.

We were guided by the English Language Society and formed groups to explore the school. The students have their corriculum activities everyday after school. Some of the noticable sports were Table Tennis, Badminton, Netball, Tennis, Archery and Gymnastics.

We also saw an orchestra in performance.

Next, we went to a Japanese tea ceremony session with one of the elders. We enjoyed the dessert and the green tea, ocha (). It was very unique as they brewed the tea with art. Even the style of serving the tea and dessert is included in the ceremony.

We said our goodbyes after the ceremony. I returned home and had dinner. I packed my bags started to prepare my speech. Yojiro left a present for me too.

11th December 2012 Early morning, I said my goodbyes to Madam Keiko. My host father sent me to the Shimonoseki Athletics Stadium to meet up with my group. After saying my goodbyes to our host families, we went to Kitakyushu Airport () by van.

We boarded a flight to Haneda Airport and we waited for the other participants in the bus. I met Haziq and Aiesya. After that, all of us made our way to the NYC. It was filled with KIZUNA participants that were sharing their experiences non-stop. I grouped up with AFS Malaysia and we were glad to see each other again. I met up with Gabrielle, Nahm and Joevannie but not Chacha. I had to leave early because I was supposed to give a speech on stage. As the orientation began, each of us from different countries went up the stage and had our seats. Each of us represesnted our country and gave our speech during the evaluation session. All of the participants cheered non-stop after every speech. This was followed by a short speech by Mr Yuzo Takeda. We had a large photo session after the orientation and we said our goodbyes to the friends we made during these past 10 days.

After the orientation, we went to our hotel which was Hotel Nikko Narita and had dinner there. After listening to our schedule for the next day, we went back to our rooms.

12th December 2012 After having breakfast, we managed to send AFS Indonesia and AFS Singapore off. Their flight was earlier than ours. I managed to say my goodbyes to Nicole and Jonathan. After our photo session, we made our way to Narita International Airport and left Tokyo on flight JL723 at 11:30 a.m. Meanwhile, we had many photo sessions too.

After reaching Kuala Lumpur at 6:30 p.m. (Malaysia Time), we cleared through the Immigration Counter and picked up our luggage. After meeting with Billy and Suyin at the Arrival Hall, we said our final goodbyes and officially disbanded.