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It was good, though many people couldn’t finish their food.

Apparently the night before, Danielle discovered wifi and everyone stayed up late. So after breakfast, we camped at the lobby to use the wifi. We could only use it for 15 minutes twice every 24 hours, though.

Before meeting the mayor at the City Hall, we stopped at a mini park to see the bridge connecting Ibaraki and Chiba. The bridge that connects Tokyo and Chiba is near Disneyland. The lighting was beautiful and the wind was really nice.

   
   

We took a photo outside the city hall, which they printed for each of us later. We have the softcopy too, now.

We went up to the government council chamber and learnt about their government in the prefecture. Of course, we took photos first.


The mayor is elected, and he chooses his ministers for each department, and they have to retire as civil servants when they become ministers. But if the mayor isn’t re-elected, the ministers will no longer be the ministers and cannot get a government job. They get higher pay and status, but no security. Civilians can sit in for the quarterly meetings as well.

Credits to the CIS

Then we went to the mayor’s office to meet the mayor! He was really nice, and talked to us a lot about Choshi as well as Singapore - he has a sister here. He told us about how he thought Singapore is really admirable for being multi-racial and multi-religious, since Japan is quite homogeneous and most of them are Shintoists.

We saw a painting of the biggest lighthouse, which was also printed on the Head Secretary’s shirt. We didn't go there, though :(

We tried their speciality, a “soggy” rice cake, nuresenbei (ぬれせんべい). Normally rice cake is hard and crunchy, but Choshi’s rice cake is made from shoyu sauce, their local speciality, and is moist and chewy. It’s not bad.

Li Xuan's experience of the City Hall visit:

Today the first thing we do is to visit the City Hall where the City Administration are conducted. They welcomed us hospitably. We went to the area where meetings are normally held to discuss issues related to the city. There is a second level, for citizens to listen this meeting to ensure the transparency of their decision. On the first level is where the members sit. Positions are appointed by the mayor. Members in important positions get higher pay, but there isn’t a guarantee for their jobs. There are also seats for those without a position, and their names are carved on a piece of wood on the table. The more senior will be allocated behind to make it easier for them to see the juniors. Then, we proceed to the mayor office and of course we met the mayor. He share about the city and he has a sister living in Singapore. We share about our culture. He asked us whether we eat porridge. Lastly, both of us present our present to show our appreciation. There was also a cameraman following us.

Then we headed back to the Chiba Institute of Science for a Japanese lesson.


They actually hung the Singapore flag as well. According to Mr Hazen, they do this when schools from other countries come to visit.


   

We were split into two groups, beginner and intermediate. I’m not really sure why they put me in the intermediate class, I couldn’t really keep up. But it was fun!

   
Kinoshita-sensei couldn't really speak much English and I can’t really speak much Japanese so Eugenia had to translate. 辛苦你了! At one point he also wrote my name on the board...

We then went to another room - a meeting room, I think - for lunch. It was a bento, and the serving size was really big.


I couldn’t finish it :/ We had to throw away unfinished food. I felt like I was doing something horrible (which I was). As we ate, the other half of the group told us about their class, which was taught by Hiraki-sensei. I think it was quite fun, they learnt introductions and basic Japanese nouns, like “ninjin” for carrot.

Can you spot the rainbow? (credits:me)

The kindergarten is amazing, and the playground looks really fun! They had cute Japanese characters all around as well.

The children were all cute and they even made these paper chains for all of us.

   

They sang for us too! Then we went to the next room and folded origami, which turned out to be a complicated aeroplane.


Here's Danielle's take on the kindergarten visit:

On the 10 October, the group visited a temple and kindergarten in Chiba. The visit stated with the Kindergarten. It felt really great entering the kindergarten. First of all because I like children a lot. The visit kicked off with a brief introduction of the kindergarten, next we got a warm welcome from one of the classes and they each gave us paper garlands, which I would assume they made themselves. Next up, we went into the next class and this was when we really got to interact with the children. We got a change to learn how to make origami planes, and I made sure that the children around me were my teachers, rather than the actual teacher at the front. As I wanted to interact with the children more. They were really friendly and encouraging, even though there was a language barrier. After that, we were to leave the kindergarten, I was a little upset to leave that quickly. Thinking that the visit has ended, little did I think of, all the children, from all the different classes were standing there to say goodbye to us. That made the visit end with a good closure.

They all loved Danielle. I must say that I’m slightly jealous, because I also like kids a lot.

As we left, we saw some kids who had hats on. They were preparing to go on an outing.


We also heard a class sing a song! They were adorable. Also apparently Kristopher got called an “oji-san” by the kids, which means “uncle.” It’s unusual in Japan because they will usually call young adults “onii-san” or “onee-san,” which means “older brother” and “older sister” respectively. I guess it was because he was wearing a formal long-sleeved shirt and tie for the meeting with the mayor.

Credits: me

We had only half an hour at the kindergarten so after we dragged out our farewell, we rushed to the shrine, which was just outside. I think that’s pretty cool. We saw a really old wisteria tree and graves near the temple.



The paper sakura were for their old founders/benefactors, I think. On the day that they died, lots of sakura fell, so that’s the significance of the sakura.

We spent more time at the next temple we went to. There’s the main shrine for prayers, and one at the side for their ancestors, and another for the deity of children. When asked, our guide told us that it was because of the kindergarten nearby. Neat. We heard some kindergarten kids walking around in the yard as well. There is an area in the middle of the temple for monks to pray, barricaded by some barriers so others will not go in. When Kristopher asked them if they had a zen garden, they brought us to see it! I’m not sure if it’s common practice or out of obligation as the Japanese are really giving. As the monk slid the door open, we saw a cat!

Credits: me

It was literally posing for us for about a minute - changing positions every few seconds. Hilarious. There was also a dog in the zen garden. I wonder if they get along.

credits: me

When we had our fill of the zen garden - which was really zen, by the way - we were brought to see their charms. On the way I saw some calligraphy done by the monks. I bought two for general good luck. It was so cool, almost out of an anime.

credits: me

After the half hour at the temple, we left for a tour of the school.

   

I’m not really sure what happened here, to be honest. The school - just one department, actually - is really big. I know we went to the garden and saw some plants that were destroyed by the recent typhoon. We also went to this cosmetics department and had our skin moisture levels analysed. Surprisingly, the boys had the highest moisture levels! The highest of whom was Gabriel.

My skin's moisture level. (credits: me)

But what I remember most is going to the rooftop and thinking that I had lost my wallet. It ruined a bit of the experience for me, the anxiety. But Eugenia and Lynn had a mini photoshoot up there. Everyone was taking pictures, the lighting was really good.

Credits to Lynn

Some boys that we saw came up as well and we took some photos with them. I don't have the pictures, though.

We went all the way down again and took a jumpshot at this pretty road in the university. The sky was clear, too.

We tried our best... (Credits to Gabriel)

Credits to Kristopher.

We left for the life saviour club, in which Eugenia lost five years of her life and Mr Ng did a funny thing. One member won third for a national life saviour competition and did a live demonstration for us on Eugenia.

Credits: me

Credits to Kristopher

The school tour took up some time, so it was somewhat late and quite dark when we left to meet our cooking buddies for cooking class. We also met two international students, Jack and Sarah. They’ve been here for quite a while.

Credits to Mr Ng using Lynn's camera

Akane, Rika, Eugenia, Lynn and I were team omurice!

Credits to Rika

We took the longest in the grocery shop because we were buying our own stuff >< I bought chocolate, matcha powder and some other stuff. Eugenia bought the last packet of Pokémon bread!! It’s actually really just chocolate croissant and Pokémon stickers in a Pokémon packet.

Credits: me

We had a bit of a language barrier, though, because our Japanese/English skills respectively weren’t up to par. I think Lynn and Eugenia has lots of fun.

Here's Ren Hann's experience with grocery shopping in team stew!

On the second night in Choshi, we were to meet with several Japanese students from CIS to cook dinner with. I was really looking forward to the meeting as I would like to learn more about Japan from the students themselves. Meeting with the students was a fresh experience as we had not until that point had much communication with the locals, mostly only through the local teachers. They were very welcoming and seemed very interested in chatting with us on the long bus ride to get groceries. I was worried that due to the language barrier communicating with each other may be an issue; however, they were very accommodating by trying their best to explain in English whenever I could not understand. Upon arrival at the supermarket, we split into groups to cook different dishes and proceeded to purchase the groceries needed. My group was to be making stew for dinner, so we bought the stew base, vegetables and meat.

Team Stew! (Credits to Gabriel)

We then went back to a cooking lab! It was kinda dusty so we cleaned everything we used.

Credits to Gabriel

Credits to Mr Ng

We were all really hungry, but still couldn't finish the food! I felt terrible. The food was good, though. We had egg salad, oyakodon, takoyaki, stew, and of course, our omurice.

Credits to Gabriel

When we were done, we took a group photo and left on the bus.

Credits to Gabriel

On the bus, it suddenly hit us that we wouldn't be seeing the Japanese students we met today anymore. I was really sad, but when we dropped some students off, Akane cried! :( We did exchange LINE - I'm still messaging her now - but it's not the same.

Ren Hann's thoughts to end off this post:

At first, I was rather concerned due to not having much cooking experience but it turned out well in the end and I enjoyed cooking together with the students. I also managed to taste other delicious dishes made by the other groups such as takoyaki, oyako don and okonomiyaki. Although the time spent was short, I really treasured the brief interaction with the students.