Konnichwa!

Last year, 10 scholarships were offered by AFS NZ to 10 high school students from Porirua to go on the AFS JENESYS Programme. I was also awarded a scholarship to attend the programme accompanying the students. My name is Sarah MacArthur and I work as a Solicitor in the NZFSA legal team. I currently spend a lot of my free time volunteering for this awesome organisation

JENESYS stands for Japan-East Asia Network of Exchange for Students and Youth Programme and is an exchange programme involving over 600 students and 60 adults spending two weeks in Japan experiencing their culture and way of life. Participants are invited from 7 countries within the Asia-Pacific community - Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, India and the Philippines. The programme is fully funded by the Japanese Government and is run by AFS Japan.

We left in the early hours of the morning of 3rd December from Auckland airport for Tokyo, Japan. We initially spent our first day in Narita having orientation sessions to help us with our stay. Our first study tour was to Kyoto in which we were visited numerous temple sites.

Our next study tour took us to Hiroshima visiting such exquisite sites as Miyajima Island and the Peace Memorial Park. Next, we were split in two groups, with some of us remaining in Hiroshima, and the rest of us travelling back to Tokyo.

Over the next 5 days we stayed with home stay families in various parts of Japan. I was fortunate enough to stay in Joetsu (in the Niigata province) with my Japanese Mama and Papa! During our stay we visited a couple of schools, spent a night in a traditional Japanese Hotel (and yes we did Onsei – the traditional Japanese public bathing! lol), and spent time bonding with our host families.

After our home stay we all returned to Kanagawa, visiting a few sites and had final orientation sessions. We left Japan from the Narita Airport and arrived back to New Zealand on the 18th of December 2009.

It was definitely a trip of a lifetime and I returned in total awe of Japan and their rich history and culture. The food was unbelievable and their hospitality was second to none; and most importantly I’ll cherish all the friendships I’ve made with people from not only Japan, but from all the other countries involved. I’d like to thank AFS NZ, AFS Japan and the Japanese Government for the great opportunity to attend such a life changing programme.

Arigato Gozaimasu