Off and on since 1985, the webmaster has facilitated group study visits of young Japanese students, usually accompanied by a professor, in Leyte. This activity, lasting a week at most, was originally proposed by Dr. Noboru Iwamura, who came with the first group of students in February 1985. Dr. Iwamura is a survivor of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945, former Japanese Christian missionary doctor to Nepal, former professor of the International Center for Medical Research at the Kobe University School of Medicine in Kobe, Japan, first recipient of the Rotary International Award for World Understanding in 1981, and 1993 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for International Understanding.

Since 1996, the annual visitors every spring vacation in March have been students of political science or international relations of the Tokyo International University (T.I.U.) in Kawagoe, Saitama, Japan. Each group of four to six students was accompanied by Professor Tomoe Shitaba, of the T.I.U.'s School of International Relations. Through his seminar courses and field visits, Prof. Shitaba hopes to train a young generation of Japanese "global citizens" who are committed to world peace and understanding.

In this site, we present end-of-visit reports written by the Japanese student participants themselves. The English slightly edited for clarity, these reports were composed in a matter of hours, overnight at most, before the participants left Leyte. Being such, they are largely impressionistic. But a Filipino or Leyteño reading them could get fresh insights about his milieu from a different perspective.