AFS International Camp 2013 @Ohira (Juzo Nogami)

Hi, everyone. What are you going to do this summer? Do you have any plan?

Recently, I'm working at AFS as a volunteer and I want to talk about AFS International Camp, today. 

First, I want to talk about what AFS is. AFS (American Field Service) is one of the biggest volunteering groups in the world. And it has a exchange student program and basically it is only for high school students. I used this exchange program to go to USA when I was a high school student. I had a wonderful time at over there and that's why I decided to work at AFS. I really want high school students to go to foreign countries. The reason is I want them to broaden their international horizons. If you are interesting in this volunteering group, you should check it out at the website here. Or, you can ask me!! 

Next, I will talk about AFS International Camp 2013 Ohira. This camp will be held on August 5th till 8th. About a hundred Japanese high school students and 30 exchange students are going to participate in this camp. And, the exchange students came from many countries. For example, Thailand, Indonesia, Brazil, Peru, Cost Rica, Norway, Germany, USA and so on. 

At the camp orientation for exchange students

This camp has a lot of activities. For example, a recreation, a campfire, discussions and so on. Through this activities, the students are able to feel the international things and the activities will make them more interested in foreign countries. If you want to watch a video, you should go to a facebook page here. The video is from last year. 

Now, I'm very exciting to go there and I can't wait to see the high school students and exchange students!! 

Hisashi Kato #01 Gekidan Shiki (One of the most famous theatrical company in Japan!)

This time I would like to introduce my favorite theatrical company called "Gekidan Shiki"

                                                      Picture from Lion King

Gekidan Shiki was founded in 1953 and this year, 2013 is their 60th anniversary.

Even if you have never heard of them, I’m sure that you know, Lion King, Phantom of the Opera, Cats, MAMMAMIA, Wicked etc… those famous Broadway musicals are available in Japan. Those famous musicals are translated into Japanese and performed by Gekidan Shiki.

Picture from Phantom of the Opera "Masquerade"

I personally love musical, especially Broadway musicals, so I became huge fan of them since 2007and I’m their family club member since then.

This summer, I’m going to go to appreciate two musicals. One is “Yume kara sameta yume” （夢から醒めた夢）

This is their original musical story. You can see the story line from here if you are interested (but it’s in Japanese) and other is “Sound of Music”  

   What I love about Gekidan Shiki is first of all, diction. They use special method of diction, which is so called Vowel method. When they speak, they emphasize every single vowel words so that you can hear what they said clearly. Second of all, since it’s shown in Japanese, you can feel different impression from story.

 

As for the latest show, Little Mermaid from Disney has been played, you can watch the introduction video clip from here.

                                                Video clip of Little Mermaid

                                 

This show has been running really good and even fan club member can’t get ticket, but it must be really great show, so by any chance you get to see this show, you must go! It’s really premium ticket!

 

Gekidan Shiki has many more great shows and there are about 5 production has been played in Tokyo, so if you got time, please go see their performance, you are going to love it!  

If you want to know more about Gekidan Shiki or want to know recommendation of which show to go, please ask me anytime!!! haha

6th grade class "mini" reunion (Kenichiro Ikari)

It is always nice to see old friends. This summer, since most of my Japanese School's (which I went when I was used to live in America) 6th grade class members were living at Tokyo, and our Teacher was having a vacation at Tokyo, we planned to have a class reunion. But it was a "mini" reunion, because there were only half of the class due to the scheduling issue.

Lots of my classmates came back to Japan after graduating elementary school (6th grade, like in Japan), so it had been about 6 years at the longest. It was funny how some people changed. I thought 6 years were not that long of time, but when I saw them changed, I thought I'm getting old. I also thought I didn't change since then, but everybody said that I did.

Who actually didn't change was our Teacher. She is about 60 years old, and she is still teaching in same school. She was married to American man, but he passed out after few years after we graduated her class. I used to talk about our pet dogs and books back then, and we did talk about it that day too. I felt something nostalgic that time.

We went to Odaiba, where there is a festival called "Odaiba Boukenou" around Fuji television building. We went up the building, and saw lots of things. It was near ocean, so the view from the building was great! Our teacher got excited because it was about 10 years since last time she came to Japan, and it was her first time going up the Fuji television building. After that, we went to see Tokyo Sky Tree. It was really huge, but we didn't have chance to go up of it.

Me and My teacher

What makes you feel like "I want to go back to elementary school (or middle/high school)"? Mine was this day. I really felt that "we came back together".

Glee! (Maria Yaka)

I want to recommend my favorite drama, ‘Glee’ I suppose that some of you have already watched it.

Glee is an American musical comedy-drama television series by FOX TV made in USA. It focuses on the William McKinley High School glee club which is called ‘New Directions’ The member of this club is called 'Loser' in the school because they are not cool. As they aim to be a champion of USA glee club, members increases little by little.
They practice hard to be a champion while its members deal with relationships, sexuality, and social issues and so on. In season 4, some characters graduated from high school and struggle in adult world. Casting is Matthew Morrison Jane Lynch Dianna Agron, Chris Colfer, Kevin McHale, Lea Michele, Cory Monteith and so on. They are all talented and characteristic.

Cast of Glee!

I think there are two reasons why Glee attract people all over the world. First, ‘MUSIC’  In the drama, they cover a lot of famous, popular music such as Britney spears, Madonna, Beatles, Queen. They also sing songs from musicals ,for example, West Side Story, Grease. Moreover, arrangements, singing, voices are sometimes better than original ones. It releases some soundtrack CDs. In addition, they give concerts around the world. Also the music matches to the storyline.
Another advantage of this drama is ‘STORY’. The characters face many difficulties. I watching how they overcome these difficulties, this drama teaches us some important things about life, friendship, love. It's heartwarming. I won’t tell what it is in here!

You can check the schedule of air time on FOX ,NHK. But I recommend to watch it from the beginning, season one.  It is now making season 5 in USA. However, Cory Monteith, who played important role in the drama, died suddenly on July 13. Due to his death, FOX decided to put off making following episodes.

goodbye Cory Monteith....

 

Why don’t you watch this drama in this summer vacation?

Hot spring near my hometown ( Shinya Uchida )

 I would like to write about hot spring that is a particular Japanese symbol. The reason why I choose the title is that I go to a hot spring, Niiza city in Saitama prefecture, near my house(my house is Tokyo, near Saitama) once a week with my father. I have three points that I love to go there.
 First, the hot spring has several types of bathwater and the hot water includes good things for our body which are kinds of iron that make our skin smooth and keep temperature warm as iron does not go away it. That's why the hot spring water was a little bit red.
 Secondly, taking a sauna is the best for me to relax. When I go into a sauna, I am in a swear so much. It seems like practicing baseball in high summer. In my point, we can have time to do something like an exercise in the sauna and maintain our health.
 Lastly, I always enjoy talking with my father in the bathroom. Tpoics that I and my father have are everything. For instance, my university's life, my friends, his work, the weather, Japanese pro baseball, soccer, News, my mother and sister,  and my future's work. All things are not special, but I think the time to spend with my family is so essential because probably I will not stay in Tokyo next year due to my work. Recently, a man, who was my baseball coach when I was in elementary school, told me that you should have time to be with your family before you start a job. When you start the job, you don't have enough time to spend with them, so I want to spend as much time with them as possible. Going to the hot spring with him is a sort of "family activity" for me.

  How about going kinds of hot spring? You can get relax if you go there.

http://www.niizaonsen.com/

This website is about Niiza hot spring, please watch the web and analyse the advantages of it.

Light Shadow and Color(Yuka Sakurai)

      This year, I have attended to many movie classes. At there, in one class, I have learned the importance of light and shadow. This will deepen movies impression, and this can also be said to drawings, paintings, pictures and scenery. Some people have a problem that they cannot see the scenery three-dimensionally if there were no shadow in the scenery.
      I understand this, but what about color? If there were only light and shadow, it would be only white, gray, and black, and that must be a boring world. I was not taught the importance of color in the movie classes, but it seems to me that color have essensial meaning in this world.  If you always wear black clothes and living in a room with black wall without many light, can you be happy or be a kind person? It seems difficult for me. Therefore, I really think color have a very powerful meaning connected to our mind.
     We use "iro" in Japanese as some romance. There is a statistics that people who wear colored clothes are more likely to have partner than those who wears only black and white. Also some people says that they can know peoples character by knowing the color that they prefer. Men those who wear pink is said to have confidence. Moreover, some people says that color have a special power to cure peoples illness. For example, some hospital's walls are pink or green to reduce patients fear and pain. White is said to be bright but it sometimes stresses our mind.
     I think that light and shadow are also important and  deeply related to color. It is strange that we all have different skin color,and also various hair color. Most Japanese are kind of people who have both light and shadow in our bodies because our  hair is black which expresses shadow and we have yellow skin, which can be said as light. Many white blond women says they cannot get out without putting mascara because their eyelash is also blond so their face looks flat because there are no black, shadow part. So they make shadow with make up.
     Thinking of color, there is no end, and it seems to be very interesting for me.I want to know more about them. Thank you for reading my blog.
  

Mai.T #1 【The Harry Potter Exhibition】

On 11th July, I went to the Harry Potter Exhibition in Roppongi and had great fun. I have been a big fan of Harry Potter ever since I read the first book in junior school and have watched all of the films too!
I went with 4 other friends from my club, Ongaku-aikoukai after we finished all our classses.

 

 



 It was a Thursday so there weren't as many people as I expected. I heard that tickets for some of the dates have already sold out, and was worried that the place would be crowded. I won't give away so much about what was inside the museum in case there is anyone who is going to visit over the holidays! Saturdays and Sunadays seemed to be very crowded, so I advise you to go during weekdays and maybe before August would be better. Get information about tickets here.

The picture on the bottom right is something I bought at the museum shop. It's "Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans"! This is a box of jelly beans that comes out in the story, and is famous among Harry Potter fans for its disgusting flavours; earthworm, dirt, soap, rotten egg, vomit and so on. I used to have fun tricking my friends into eating them back in London. They are not sold in Japan so I haven't eaten them for a very long time but the taste of them were just as disgusting as I remembered them to be. They are sold for 500yen if anybody is interested!

They had English voice guides in the museum telling stories about how the movies were made and where each of the exhibits were used. I was with my friends so I decided not to get the guides that day but I am planning to go there again with my sister who also loves Harry Potter. Hopefully I will listen to the guides then to hear secrets about the movie.

I recommend every Harry Potter fan to visit during the holidays!