Semi-Sensei, Day 3: Sendai and Tome

Most of today was spent exchanging with the students of Tohoku University.  It was a very enjoyable day as the Ottawa/Carleton/Toronto students got to hang out with Tohoku students who are headed to Canada next month. 

First, we got briefed about Tohoku University, and then each group of Canadian students briefed the Japanese students about their schools.  I was most impressed by all of the presentations--their students were sharp, and so were ours.
 

Notice the typo?

Toronto undergrads

Munk

Carleton

 

Our guides and a tea house in the international student centre

Each group was split into seven, so that seven new groups were formed with two Tohoku tour guides and a couple of students from each Canadian university.  I was assigned to hang out with group one.  We got a tour of campus and we peppered our guides with questions and... it snowed.  Sorry, we brought winter with us.

Group 1 rocked mightily

 After the tour and lunch, the seven groups went through five of seven stations, each presenting a different element of Japanese culture:  origami, castles, festivals/dialects, convenience goods, toilets (yep!), tea/flower arranging,  and food.  The guys teaching origami were so good, I was able to make this:
 

Twas a minor miracle, given how bad I am at all artistic endeavors.

My fave was the personal convenience table, as we learned about some cool pens, smarter ringed binders, and more.  These two students were terrific at presenting all these smart things that should exist in North America.  However, my enthusiasm wanted when they demonstrated a paper stapler--that essentially rips the paper and folds it back to staple a few pages.  Better than the way students do it by hand but inferior to other fastening technologies.

The toilet table was a bit hit.  This graph shows the expansion of spray seats (bidet-ish devices built into the toilet seats) in Japan, now at 80% or so.










We then had a closing ceremony where I had to speechify as the, um, sensei.  After that, we had an hour drive to Tome, a rural town where the kids would be staying in the homes of Japanese families. Nervous at first, the smiles grew quickly as the students met their hosts.  







For me and the guides, we went off to a nearby hotel.  We grabbed dinner which included this really cool carafe of sake.  Yum.















And yeah, I couldn't resist taking a pic of sunset.

 Another great today in Japan.  Great food, many insights were exchanged, and, some tasty sake.