Wednesday, 10th September, 2008 will be the day of the beginning~

For T.k, it'll be a day her age has the number "2" infront because that they is the day she turned 20 years old~ Tanjoubi Omedettou~ [sorry no present]

and the other is the day that I've finally met Japanese student face to face~!!!

To make story short, Yesterday was the day when students from Rakuno Gakuen University Hokkaido came to UBD. There are a total of 8 students [5 girls and 3 boys] and their Lecturer. They are from the Department of Regional Environmental.

The names of the student are: [Girls] Sanada Kanae, Yamamoto Mai, Shizukuishi Ayako, Fujiwara Hiromi and Yonaiyama Asami. [Boys] Tashiro Takuya, Fujiwara Hidehiro and Saito Masaya.
The lecturer and Head of the Ddepartment: Prof. Morikawa Jun


...The Day Starts...

When wednesday come, I've determined not to let anything bring my spirit down. I know I know, its not such a big deal..but for me it is. My classes on wednesday are only LC at 8-10am and Japanese class at 1-2pm. But beacuse of the arrival of the Japanese delegates at 1pm, the Japanese class was mixed with other group at 11-12am.

At 12pm, Farhana, Faisal, Ren Foo, Hadi and I went to ICTC to collect our UBD card and those that already have thier card, sat at the lobby to surf while waiting for 1pm. Because they were a briefing at the Chancellor Hall for the Japanese and a short presentation from UBD's Japanese Speech contest winners and also from the Japanese students.

Me and Faisal were waiting for Farhana finished her Zohor prayer before going to chancellor Hall and we were running late..it was around 1.10pm when we arrived at the Hall and met with Minako-sensei and Bucho. She urge us to get to the Senate from quickly and that was when we noticed the mini-van that carries the Japanese stops infront the Hall's step and they were starting to step out. The three of us went to the lift quickly to go to the first floor.

When we enter the Senate room, a lot people was there already and we taken our seat at the side row...[imagine a national conference room]. Not a lot of people attanded the briefing because only those in the BJFA [Brunei-Japan Friendship Association] UBD Chapter and those taking Japanese Language as elective were the one that were informed about the incoming delegation. Not long after that, the delegates were seen entering and Prof. Morikawa greet us with a bow and a "Konnichiwa" which we all happily responded.

Once they taken their seat and everyone settled down, a presentation about UBD education system and what UBD has to offer to the world by Datin Rosnah. After that, a short presentation about Brunei was done by four of our seniors that either have won Japanese speech contest, studied in Japan or both. After that, Prof. Morikawa spoke about what he experiences in Brunei and also surprised about the presentation done by the four student saying that their Japanese was good and that they'll have no problem living in Japan. After his speech, it was the Japanese student to make their own presentation about Japan in English and the presenter was Nakamatsu Takuya.

Here is abit more about the briefing/meeting

Anyway, after the briefing, they were a bit of questions and answers sessions. After that the delegates were mingling with the BJFA and were being sorted into 2 groups for the tour around UBD campus. Me, Farhana and Faisal were planning to joinned the tour group, so we went to the front to join. The one that are not joining [because they dont want a big group for the tour] was asked to wait at CLT 1.1 room for more mingling session.

Group I: Kanae, Hidehiro, Ayako, Hiromi and Asami
Group II: Takuya, Mai, Masaya and Prof. Morikawa.

The three of us joined the group two. The three of us was just hanging around behind because we were just tagging along and not the one incharged with the tour because we're just freshman and imagined our surprise when Prof. Morikawa joined in our conversation!! [Especially Far because Prof. talked to her first]. For our group, the tour starts from the Admin, then to ICTC, Library, ETC, FOS, Cafe, SHBIE, FASS then back to CLT.

The four of us [Me, Far, Faisal and Morikawa-san] was always at the very back of the group because we were so engrossed with our conversation with Morikawa-san that we walked very slow XD [me being the translator for Fai and Far when Morikawa-san lapse to Japanese]. While we were talking, we also explain each building to Morikawa-san because we were far from the tour guide so he didn't catch the names of the bulding.

We talked about A LOT of thing with Morikawa-san. He is VERY friendly and I'm glad to have known and speak with him [apparantly he's also famous among the Environmental group]. The talked mostly about Brunei, UBD, Hokkaido, the food prices in the UBD, about environment, Morikawa-san faculty and about Rakuno, about his experience teaching in South Africa and about his upcoming book about whales which is written in English and he said he was planning to donate the book to UBD library [which I cant wait to read] he said the book was expected to be realese end of this year around christmas [not sure].

Imagine how happy I was when he said that my Japanese was very good considering I'm just in the Elementary Japanese class ^^ and he gave ME his business card~ I'm glad to know him!!