Reflection of Tokyo

Tokyo was the city where we started with our study tour. To me it's a very big city and comparable with other huge cities around the world. Only the people are different. For me it was the first time to visit a country in Asia and it has been a pleasure. The beginning was a bit scary for me, how will I cope in a country where I don't speak the language, don't know anyone and where I have never been before. I have been doing a lot of travelling around the world but I never went to a country yet where I could not read or speak with people. But once should be the first time and in the end it all worked out very well.

On day one I finally met all my classmates, we have been mailing around through the internet but now we will really meet each other. Next to this, I have to do my first presentation directly when we start in the hotellobby! It all went well as my topic, the book "The Toyota way" is one of my favorite business books. I hope I was not too enthousiastic and too boring, but it's allways hard to be the first.......

After the introduction, my first presentation and orientation we went to do some sightseeing at the Asakusa Sensoji, Japan's oldest Buddist temple for ordinary people. It was my first visit to a temple so quite impressive. We all got a fortune here, but for one student this was no fun as he got a bad fortune. Luckily for him, he could leave his fortune behind so the monks of this temple could prey for good luck for him.

From the temple we walked to the Kotokoi bridge where there is a monument remembering the bombing of World War II as there were a lot of people killed on this spot. It seemed like a forgotten place, this monument is not even on the tourist maps while it is a very important place in the history of Japan.

We ended the first day at The Toyota Showcase, my second topic of my research. This is a kind of Disneyland for adults. Here are cars from the past, the present and the future. Very nice to see and to visit as this is the biggest all over the world.

The second day of our trip was very impressive. We started at the Yasukini Shrine and Yushukan. The museum was very Japan and militarism focussed with a lot of numbers and data in my opinion.

In the afternoon we visited a member of the Japanese parliament, counseler Fujita. This visit was arranged by Yumi, a very impressive woman who strives for World Peace. Both were very nice people and it was a great opportunity to talk with them and discuss various topics.

On our last day in Tokyo we went to the Kyoritsu University, a university for women only. Here we had another meeting with Yumi, to discuss more about Global Peace but we also attended a class. During this class we introduced ourselves and the students were allowed to ask questions to us. For the students this was really strange as they normally are not used to asking questions, they just have to make notes and study. The questions varied from very simple to very deep.