Amazing Japan

Finally have the time to sit down and blog about Japan.

The group of 4 of us met at the airport at 11 p.m on the night of 1st December, ready to plunge in an unknown world on our own. Although 3 out of 4 of us were already seasoned travellers, we kept discussing about the type of clothing to pack etc. As usual at the airport, everyone else's family was there with them except me. I am kinda used to it. In addition, though I was supposed to travel for 23 days, my luggage was unusually smaller than everyone else.!

After check-in, we proceeded to rehearse once for our presentation but perhaps it was too late into the night, none of us were processing whatever that we were mumbling about and it was pretty much of a disaster. Thus, we decided to rehearse once more the next morning.

SIA is definitely one of the best airlines around this world. The comfort, the service, plus the food! Nonetheless, I was quite disappointed with the in-flight entertainment and leg room. Perhaps the A380 that I took on the Sydney-Singapore leg really altered my expectations of SIA. The screen and leg room on the A380 was simply incredible!

Upon touching down in Osaka, we were immediately impressed by the Japanese way of life and efficiency. Every procedure was very well relayed to tourists even though you didn't understand Japanese. The queue at the immigration counter was also well-organised. Once we exit to the departure hall, the people at Kwansei Gakuin University was right there waiting for us. It was one of their administrative staff and a graduate student who picked us up. With their limited command of the English language, communication did break down occasionally but they were so meticulous and sincere in helping us arrange everything that we could find no reason to be petty over communication.

They showed us the brochure of the workshop and it was then that we realise how grand and important this workshop is to the whole university. So immediately after I boarded the shuttle bus to Osaka city, I took out my laptop and started memorising all the points. They reserved rooms for us in their sports center, which is a student's hostel. The Japanese are so cultured that I earnestly rate them as high-class Asians. Before you enter the lobby of the hostel, you have to change into the slippers, absolutely no shoes allowed. But we weren't aware of it so we wore our shoes right into the lobby and the graduate student hastily reminded us.!

Shortly after we placed our bags in the room, we were brought to the KG university by foot to meet the professor who invited us, for lunch. The professor carried no airs at all and I salute his politeness and humbleness. He could speak English well and he had been to Singapore thus we had a lot to converse. :)

After lunch, we headed straight to the lecture rooms for the workshop. One word - Distinguished. Our group was second in line so we had some time to have a good feel of how the presentation should be conducted and also, the expectations of us. Before we even start our presentation, all the Japanese students in the room started to remind us to go really slow because their English wasn't very bright and it would be difficult for them to keep up with our pace of presentation.

Kim started the ball rolling and I thought her speed was commendable. It could be attributed to her nervousness too cause her hands were trembling very badly as she held the pointer. Gabriel was next in line and his pace was definitely the slowest among the 4 of us. By the time I started my presentation, the number of puzzled faces in the room was already uncountable. As usual, I just can't go slow when I present. So I entered the presentation at half my usual speed but still 2 times faster than the 2 of them before me. Kim started to whisper, "Ginnelle, slow down!" and I started to pause after every 3-4 words. Kelvin was last to go and I am certain by the time he started to talk about the learning points in a crisis, no one was listening already, except the professors!

When we ended our presentation, one of the professors actually tried to save us from embarrassment by saying that this is the normal speed in Singapore. He said that because one of the professors before him mentioned that he thought our presentation was a bit too technical and too fast for the audience to follow. We received numerous positive comments from the professors though. When we went back to our seats, the group of Japanese students behind us (they actually visited Singapore in early Nov this year) commented that we spoke too fast and they weren't following. :(

The whole workshop lasted for around 4 hours before we headed for the reception at around 6.30 p.m. These Japanese students are simply fabulous! Everything was arranged fine right till the details. There were a lot of speeches being made but they were all in Japanese so we didn't understand. Instead, the 4 of us just gathered among ourselves and chit chat about how slack and tired we were.

They had malt beer, orange juice and wulong tea for us to do their Japanese way of "Gan Bei". They had to wait till everyone in the ballroom was done before the toasts. Many a times, Kelvin and I thought it was time to bottoms up and we nearly finished one whole glass of beer. We took home one important lesson from this trip though. If you think Singaporeans are Kiasu, and that is unique to our culture, then you are SOOOO WRONG!! It was a buffet that was being arranged and the Japanese students actually told us that once the bottoms up ceremony finishes, we have to "RUSH" to the food! And I thought Singaporeans was kiasu! We totally lost out to them. In fact, I felt so embarrassed that I didn't take much. I merely stood there and wait for them to get the food that was being shared among the members at the table. :)

We were extremely lucky because our group was voted as the best presentation for the English session. Extremely taken aback! When Kelvin and I went on stage to receive our scroll and prize, our faces were burning hot! Everyone gathered, applause loudly but we had no idea about what was going on at all because the announcement had been made in Japanese. We merely followed the hand signals, have the photos taken and immediately rush back to our tables. However, that was not the grand prize. The grand prize was won by a Japanese group in another presentation room. Yet, shortly after everyone had their stomach fills, it was time for pictures among the students. I likened us to wax figurines in Madam Tussuad's wax museum because people, known and unknown to us, started to pose and take pictures with us.!

By the time the reception ended, we were all worn out and dried of our energy. To add bitter icing to the cake, Kim and I were in formal skirts and heels, with no leggings and we had to walk back to the hostel which was 20 minutes away. It was definitely Stockholm deja vu for us. But we felt so happy about the whole event that the cold failed to put up the flames that were already burning in us. And once again, I had my fair share of the malt beer, whisky, and alcoholic drinks. :) lol!

I really love Japan and the reception by the KG university students. Awesome!

---- Next post on Day 2-----