Tottori DIAD Conference 2015

Image from Tottori International Fan Club and Furusato Ambassador

Every year the Tottori DIAD (that's Department of International Affairs Division) co-hosts a conference with Tottori College in Kurayoshi. Nearly all the JETs and CIRs attend the conference. The purpose is international exchange and interaction with the students of the college, who put on most of the conference. It also means free transportation for us JETs to and from the college and a day off of the usual office routine!

I left on the 7am train from Chizu to arrive in Tottori-shi by 8am. I grabbed some freshly baked bread from the bakery in the station and then hopped on the bus with all the other JETs and CIRs based in Eastern Tottori. It was maybe an hour and a half to drive to Kurayoshi.

We got to the college fairly early, so we had a chance to peruse the convenience store and chat with each other. Also to find out what sessions I was a part of, since I had completely forgotten. There were a bunch of possibilities, but we each only did 2 sessions. There was tea ceremony, calligraphy, koto, taiko, flower arranging, umbrella dance, zenidaiko, postcard painting, and cooking.

We began with an opening ceremony from 10:00 - 10:15 am. Then we had 15 minutes to get organized and find the places where our first sessions were. The first session was from 10:30 - 11:30. I was in cooking with 10 other JETs. We divided into groups of 3 with one Japanese student to help us. I was with R and D, so we had great fun. We made sakura mochi, crepe style. We got to each taste one and then the rest were saved for snack time later in the day.

The second session was from 11:45 - 12:45. I had flower arranging with 5 other people. At the end we had a chance to say which person's arrangement we liked the best, and 3 people chose mine! To be honest, though, I had a lot of help from the Japanese students!

My kado [flower arranging] creation.

After that we had clean up time until 12:55. Then lunch started at 1:00 and ran until 1:30. We sat with the people from session 2. One of the ALTs taught us a magic trick, which was fun and helped really break the ice.

From 1:40 to 2:00 we watched a presentation of some of the morning activities other people did. We watched the umbrella dance and zenidaiko. We also took a bunch of group photos.

From 2:00 - 3:00 we had our last session. We had the choice of ultimate frisbee or hula. I chose hula. It was a bit awkward, but lots of fun. We were supposed to pair up with a Japanese student, but we ran out, so I was with another ALT, T. At the end we divided into 2 groups and presented the dance to each other.

Next, from 3:10 to 3:50 we had a snack/chat time as well as a quiz game. It was all in Japanese and kind of obscure questions though, so I couldn't participate much. However, I ended up in a group with a bunch of fluent CIRs, so we ended up winning! (Well, along with 2 other teams). So I was able to pick a prize and got a little thermos.

Lastly we had the closing ceremony from 3:50 to 4:00 and a quick cleanup time. Then we hopped on the bus back to Tottori-shi!

I was completely exhausted by the end of the day, but it was lots of fun! I am actually looking forward to doing this again next year and hopefully trying out some of the other sessions.