Japanese Visit

In early August of 2001 we had two Japanese students stay with us for a few days. Yuika Sakai and Tomoko Yamada are from the Matsukawa Village in Eastern Japan (I think that this is the link to the village web Site but not reading Japanese I am not sure) and had come with several other students to St Albans as part of a visit organised by David Osborne.

Various activities were undertaken with the students. Bowling was a good laugh but sometimes it is difficult not to drop the ball.
We had a treat one day with the girls cooking us breakfast. It took them about an hour and was very different from an English breakfast. The issue for Melanie was getting to grips with the chopsticks which they had brought from Japan for us.
We had a morning at the Didcot railway center which Tony finds very interesting but perhaps not so interesting for everyone else?
On Saturday afternoon we went to a model village at Beaconsfield. The village is very well maintained and is well worth a visit.
On out last day the group put on a show for us with dancing, music. They also performed a 'tea ceremony' to which we were invited to join in. The students also drew our names in one of their three written languages. The signatures at the bottom of this page have been generated from these. The display was done at the Rose Gardens in St Albans which has close links with the Japanese visits, having grown and named a rose after the Japanese village. 20 of these roses have been sent to Japan and are growing in the village and school.
Lastly the girls dressed up Melanie in a Kimono