Memories of Japan

by: Courtney Mayes

During my visit to Barrie's sister city Murayama in Yamagata, Japan I had many great memories to behold and remember. Some of these include the trip to the Coming of Age ceremony, which had amazing costumes, music, and choreography. The tour of City Hall was really breathtaking and made me, and probably everyone else as well, feel very welcome to have over eighty people awaiting our arrival to greet us. It was really neat to meet Mayor Sato. He and his wife are very kind and I would love to meet them again. I thought that it was very cool to meet a mayor from all the way across the world.

I also liked the Higashizawa Rose Park and International House. The roses were all over the place and it was just so beautiful, peaceful, and it smelt so fresh. It was really neat to see a whole room about Barrie from all away across the world. The only words that could come out of my mouth were, WOW! The Mogami River Boat trip was very, very beautiful. The little waterfalls all over the river, the many colours of green, the birds from overhead, the perfect portrait of the river with the mountains in behind was just amazingly breathtaking. The sight seeing in Japan was spectacular. . I have never seen a place with so many highlights before in my life. It was just so pretty. I also liked the trip to Denshokan because we got to get a taste of the culture of the Japanese. I really liked the part where we got to make our own soba noodles to eat, and then when we got to play the watermelon smashing game. My most favourite part of being at Denshokan was when we got to write our names in Japanese and learn what they meant. That was a lot of fun and I was always interested in that sort of activity since I was little. The fireworks display was a lot of fun with many colours. Nick and I had a lot of fun comparing the size of Barrie s fireworks to Murayama's.

I had a lot of fun with my home stay family too. The Kamimura family was very hyper, kind and sweet. They took me to many places such as the fireworks display and the rotating sushi bar. I got to meet other extended family and watch home videos. We also went to the library, to the one hundred yen store, to a Japanese pasta restaurant and many other places.

The Tokunai dance was also a whole bunch of fun, even just to participate was wonderful. It was cool to see how many people came out to this event. When we visited the Nishigo Junior High School, the children were beautiful singers and very bright. At the Tateoka High School they are very busy and hard school workers because they are devoted to success. One of my last memories and a very good one is the trip to the Zazen Meditation Session because it was one of the very best cultural experiences and it was really relaxing.The temples were beautifully decorated and I felt really special to go and see the formal Temple priests in the special room that not many of the public can go and see.

This was a very fun and educational experience to travel across the world to learn about a totally different culture. I had a lot of fun and I liked to get to bond with the group. I would recommend this experience to many other people who are interested because it is so much fun. The trip of the 2001 delegation to Murayama, Japan is going to be one of my lifetime memories.