The 7th Okinawa Youth Exchange Program
2012 July 7th（Sat）～ July 19th（Thu）13 Days
IACE TRAVEL has been organizing the Okinawa Youth Exchange Program since 2006. For those of you who are mathematically challenged, like me, that’s 7 years. I was a tour escort for this year’s program and went to Okinawa, Kyoto and Osaka with 4 students. Although the students were from different states, different schools, and of different ages (18, 16, 13); they all had some things in common. Their moms are all Japanese and their dads are all American. Since the kids had common backgrounds, they got along very well soon after they met.
One of the main points of this tour is that:
“You can go to a Japanese Jr. high/high school in their school uniform “! One of the most iconic features of Japanese students (seen in movies, anime, & manga) is the school uniform. The tour participants received a custom-made school uniform just for them, and then they actually went to Okinawa Konan Jr. /Sr. high school. In addition, participants had the opportunity for an authentic home stay with a host brother/sister that also went to the same school. It's a Japanese fan’s dream come true!
While there they also learned a lot about Okinawan culture from their host family during their home stay.
We went sightseeing every day, visited local shopping streets, museums and even an aquarium. We also went to the beach! It was soooooo beautiful!
The color of the ocean was just incredible!
After leaving Okinawa, we went to Kyoto which is one of the oldest cities in Japan. It’s full of history, temples, and shrines. It was an interesting experience when we rode trains & buses with the local Japanese passengers. Everyone felt like a Sardines. We had a great opportunity to enjoy a Japanese summer festival in Kyoto, the “Gion Matsuri “. It’s one of the biggest festivals in Japan and there were so many people and food vendors! We loved the food & drink!
In Osaka, we made more friends from the ECC Language School and went to karaoke together! There were many recent songs in English with actual music videos. We really enjoyed singing to them! Although it was the first time for most of the students from the U.S. to sing in a Japanese style karaoke box, it seemed like they had a blast!
Every one of us had such a great time and every moment we had was precious and valuable.
We had many different experiences and made many friends in Japan! We would like to thank everyone
for making this tour a success and hope to see each other again in the future!
Orange County Branch Yumiko Miyamoto
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