JASC
Pre-departure
Hawaii
Hiroshima/Miyajima
Kyoto pt.2
Sapporo
Tokyo
The Journey Home
We landed at Kansai International Airport fairly late at night so I couldn't see anything. This was a disappointment, mainly because I didn't know that Kansai airport was a man-made island out in Osaka Bay, and all I could see was darkness. I'm sure it would have been a different matter if we landed during the day though. One thing that I have to say about the airport is that it is really cool.
Once we got to the main terminal, Miwako and Joe greeted us. I was so tired at this point I couldn't tell heads from tails so I'm surprised I remembered that much. We all boarded a bus, and we headed out to Kyoto. I can't remember when we got there, but as we pulled into a parking lot, we were greeted by the Japanese delegates, who were kind enough to help us move our luggage to our lodgings. While in Kyoto we would be staying at Ritsumeikan University, in some dorms that are normally reserved for international students, at least I think that's what it was. The dorm was more like a hotel in the lobby and hallway areas, but once I stepped into the actual room I was surprised to see that there were 8 bunks. When I thought about the size of the room I compared it to the room I had at SHU. I'd say that it was about 1.5 times the size of that, but had 5 more people in it. But I must say that the beds we slept on were surprisingly comfortable.
After I stirred from my jet-lagged
induced coma some time the next day, I was
introduced to some of my roommates. To be honest I can't remember who was in
my room, but if I had done this earlier I probably would have remembered. I
hadn't seen any of Kyoto during the day so this was my first opportunity; I
took a quick peek out the partially smoked glass and saw the tiled rooftops
of some Kyoto houses. I thought it was kind of cool to be so close to a
residential area. Since everybody had not had the opportunity to meet each
other, we had some time set aside to get to know everybody. We also had to
put on a little skit for the Japanese delegates to portray some things about
American culture. We ended up doing a sexiest man alive type of skit with a
dance routine at the end, it ended up being very silly, but I must say that
it was kind of fun. In case you were wondering, some of us guys did
imitations. Larry did Ricky Martin, John did his Bill Clinton impersonation
(Courtney played the role of Hilary and Tamar was Monica, what can I say it
was funny), I did my Austin Powers (with the aid of some borrowed sunglasses
from Dre), and did a spastic little dance while spouting out the usual catch
phrases. It was all very silly.While in Kyoto our major purpose was to have meetings with our table members and hash out what we were going to be doing. We took some field trips and discussed some of the issues of the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security of
1960,
and since my knowledge of the Treaty was limited to what I did for the table
paper everything was new and interesting. It was most interesting to hear
the Japanese delegates stand points
on the issue, but that would take a while to get around to. Aside from our
regular visit to Lawson's, we didn't have much free time while in Kyoto, but
I was able to squeeze in a quick trip to Kinkakuji.
A few of us American delegates happened to
go to the
temple the
same time as Junior High School field trip, so the temple was swarming with
what seemed like thousands of people (although it was most likely hundreds).
One cool thing that happened was that some junior high students interviewed
us in English.We would have a bit more free time in Kyoto after a little sojourn to Hiroshima, but first came the trip to both Miyajima and Hiroshima.
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