Oshima 2017 Day 2

2nd October 2017, Monday.

Hi everyone!

It is Day 2 of our trip! The morning started early with us having our breakfast at the school's restaurant!

Breakfast!

After breakfast, we went back to our guest house to change into our uniforms/boiler suits and headed for the Training Ship Oshima Maru (T.S Oshima Maru) for our pre-departure shipboard familiarisation. This includes Abandon Ship Drill, Passage Planning for the deck cadets, as well as Engine Room Familiarisation for the engineers. 

From Left to Right: Salihin, Taka, Sharif and Yu

Deck Cadets carrying out Passage Planning

Chartwork

Receiving Instructions from 1st Engineer

Passage Planning conducted by Chief Officer

Engine Cadets!

SMA Engineers

Engine Room familiarisation ongoing

After the pre-departure preparation, we went back to the school's restaurant for lunch:

Lunch!

After lunch, we had to go back to the guest house to prepare our cultural costumes because we were joining the Japanese girls' English class together with all their classmates! During which, the SMA students gave a cultural presentation regarding Singapore's unique culture of different races and practices!

Start of Cultural Presentation

SMA and Oshima boys!

Group Photo

Darwis with his Japanese friends

SMA girls with the Japanese girls

Nani with her Japanese counterparts

Rifhan sharing a part of his traditional costume with his new friend

Benjamin who blends in well with the Japanese 

Calista the flower amongst the thorns

Rachel the flower amongst the thorns

Captain Raj with the class

Sharif together with the girls

Salihin with the class

Capt. Raj with Ms Yorika (English teacher)

The cultural presentation was a huge success considering we put a lot of effort and days of preparation for it! We were glad that it went smoothly and that the Japanese students enjoyed our presence in the classroom :) 

Afterwards, we changed back into our uniforms/formal clothing to attend a Laser Cutting workshop conducted in the school!

We made keychains that were done with a laser cutting machine

Darwis trying out sand blasting to smoothen out the keychain's edges

Afterwards, we proceeded to attend a Tea Ceremony that was held by the school's Tea Ceremony Club! We also had the chance to participate in tea making ourselves! 

Authentic Matcha Green Tea made from Green Tea powder

Sweet dessert to go with the bitterness of the tea

Tea Ceremony ongoing

Us trying to make the tea as well

Group photo with the Tea Ceremony Club girls!

The tea ceremony's purpose in the olden times revealed to be used for cleansing and purification purposes. The Samurais often participated in such tea ceremonies as well. 

After our 'cleansing' that we enjoyed a lot, we proceeded to a Welcome Dinner reception that was held in a cafeteria in the school. The Welcome Dinner included exchange of formalities and gifts, as well as the gift of Oshima College's caps! 

Dr. John Park handing the cap over to Capt. Raj

Dr. John Park (L) and Capt. Raj (R)

Group Photo!

From L to R: Yuzuki, Sharif and Sarina

From L to R: Yu, Benjamin and Shin

From L to R: Yuki, Nani and Taka

From L to R: Yuki, Benjamin and Taka

After the welcome dinner, there was an impromptu arrangement for us to play badminton with the Japanese students in the indoor sports hall! However, we failed to take any photos that day because it was a short-lived activity. The Japanese students had to return to their dormitories for roll call at 8pm. 

After they returned, we visited the convenience store 'Popular' again to purchase more food and snacks to munch on in our guest house! 

That's all for Day 2! 

Oshima 2017 Day 1

30th September - 1st October 2017, Saturday - Sunday.

Hello guys!

Today is the first day of Oshima! We gathered at Changi Airport Terminal 2 at 8.30pm on 30th September.

@ Changi Airport Boarding Area

We took 2 flights to reach Iwakuni Domestic Airport. The first flight was an international flight from Singapore to Haneda International Airport, followed by another domestic flight from Haneda to Iwakuni. During the 4 hour transit, we explored Haneda International Airport and also caught up with our sleep! (Also, Darwis had his first ever Starbucks in 19 years of his life!)

Transit Flight!

During the ~1.5h transit flight, most of us were knocked out and slept throughout the flight! However, we were all glad to arrive safely at Iwakuni Airport and we were excited to meet our Japanese counterparts!

@ Iwakuni Airport with our Japanese friends :)

We then took a bus that kickstarted our sightseeing in Japan! The bus took us to visit Kintaikyo Bridge, which is a famous sightseeing stop for both tourists and locals. In the bus, we played a simple Japanese game called 'Takoyaki' with everyone! 

Takoyaki game with everyone

Bonding with our Japanese friends!

Arrival @ our first sightseeing spot!

Famous Kintaikyo Bridge

On Kintaikyo Bridge

Cable Car ride

We took a cable car upwards into the mountains and skylines!

After alighting the cable car, we hiked up the little 'forest' which led us to a beautiful castle that is situated at the top of the hike! Inside the castle is a museum of ancient artifacts and Japanese history including the past emperors and Samurai fighters. 

Our mini hike!

Inside the Museum :)

Group photo taken atop of the hike

Capt. Raj together with Dr. John Park

View from atop the mountain!!

View from the castle

The Castle!

View from the cable car

Nani (right) together with her buddy, Yuzuki (left) 

Nani & Yuzuki together with Darwis (right) and his buddy, Koki (left)

Afterwards, we went back down the mountain and came across a Japanese stall selling famously known soft-serve ice cream! Of course, we had to get it :)

Soft serve ice cream

Ice cream in the cold weather of Japan

The day ended when we returned by bus back to Oshima College, where we ate dinner at the school's restaurant. After dinner, we had a mini briefing at the PC Room of the college, where Mr John Park introduced formally to us our buddies and also familiarised with us the timetable for the next few days in Oshima. 

We were also invited to the Guest House, where we stayed in! 

After settling down, we visited the convenience store called 'Popular' which was a 10-minute walk away from the school. They sold many unique food that we were all very excited about!

Shishamo

Gyoza

Ready-to-eat bento!

Ready-to-eat chicken wing!

'Oden' from the convenience store!!!

With our goods, we went back to the guest house to eat together and chit-chat the night away! We also knocked out pretty soon afterwards due to our tiredness.. Hahaha.

That's all for day 1!

Last Official Meeting

Hi everyone!

This week, on Tuesday, we had our last official meeting together with Capt. Raj to go through some final important matters and confirm any doubts that anyone had.

Before the meeting at 3pm however, we students met up earlier at about 1pm to practice our dance again and teach Salihin and Nani the moves as they were absent the previous time. We practiced for a good 1 hour and 45 minutes before heading to Block T19 to meet up with Capt. Raj.

During the meeting, the following agenda was followed:

We presented our PowerPoint slides to Capt. Raj and he gave some constructive feedback and ideas to further improve the quality and efficiency of the slides.

We then performed our dance item as well with the music, where we gathered some pointers for improvements too.

We checked the cameras that Salihin and Nani brought, and confirmed who was going to bring the laptops for the trip (Rifhan).

This will be the 2nd last blog post for the pre-trip, as tomorrow the team will be meeting up again for a final rehearsal of the dance as well as do some shopping for essentials for the trip (such as souvenirs etc.).

For the food money, it was advised that we changed SGD $150 minimally for the food expenses. Any other amount above it can then be used for our other expenses.

A packing list was also given to us such that we are clear of what to bring.

In addition, we also allocated day leaders for all the 7 days in Japan:
Day 1: Sharif
Day 2: Salihin
Day 3: Benjamin
Day 4: Nani and Calista
Day 5: Darwis
Day 6: Rachel
Day 7: Rifhan
The day leaders would be in charge of ensuring everyone's safety and well being, and generally making sure that the day goes smoothly and well!

Last but not the least, I then gave out the Oshima shirts that everyone was very excited about!!

Everyone tried their shirts excitedly and afterwards, we clarified any other questions that some of us might have, before ending the meeting short and sweetly.

Dance Performance

Hi everyone!

This week, our team met up to learn a choreograph of dance taught to us by our DNS friend, Afrina, who is very experienced in the dance performances in freshmen orientation camps as well as some basic Chinese, Malay and Indian dances.

Before Afrina arrived, some of us brought a soccer ball as well as a frisbee, hence, we played a little with the equipment and managed to have a lot of fun! We played at the basement of the sports arena, which is located right outside the squash courts.

Eventually, after our choreographer cum teacher arrived, we got moving! Here are some pictures of us in action:

We incorporated a short segment which comprises of Malay, Indian and Chinese dances as well, just to showcase a little of what they look like to our Japanese friends.

The upcoming week, we will be meeting up again to practice our dance. In the following week, we will be meeting up with Capt. Raj to finalize all matters regarding the Oshima trip!

1 month to Oshima

Hello!

It is officially about a month to the day we depart from Singapore to Oshima.

Our team met up this week to complete the presentation that we will be presenting about when we are there. Our theme for the presentation would be about Singapore's diverse races and cultural practices, including the different types of traditional food, festivals and costumes the different races have. We managed to do up the presentation on google slides where everyone could edit and view it simultaneously. During the presentation itself, we would all be wearing our own traditional costumes to give a visual guide to the Japanese students regarding the different traditional costumes available for the various races. At the end of the presentation slides, we emphasized on how the various races come together to form a "Rojak", depicting how Singapore functions as ONE with the many different races that forms our unique identity.

Presentation preparation

Furthermore, there has been an update regarding the shirt that we will be customizing! The new design is attached as follows:

Front

Back

We have finally sent the final copy to a T-shirt printing company that we found! All that is left for now is to wait for the shirts to arrive :-)

Last but not least, we have also came up with a list of simple Japanese phrases that we can use when we are over there to facilitate simple conversations with the Japanese students. Hopefully, they would be able to understand us and maybe even guide us to better improve on our Japanese language!

All that is left for now would be to polish up our dance performance, as well as practice our badminton skills, which we will be focusing on in the next few meetings to come ;)

Preparation

Hello! 

This week, our Oshima team had a meeting on Wednesday after school, at one of the rooms located in the SP Library. Rifhan managed to help us book the room at 4pm. The room consists of whiteboard-material walls which allowed us to write on, as well as a monitor screen to allow for connection with a laptop screen so that everyone is able to view the same laptop! Very convenient. 

During the discussion, we made progress regarding the shirt's design, our powerpoint presentation slides, video making and came up with the songs for our dance item. 

For our presentation, we have decided the flow of it to be as follows:

Presentation Layout

Our main topic would be regarding Singapore's culture which consists of the different races. We would be donning on our own traditional costumes during the presentation as well to showcase them to our Japanese friends.

Dance Performance

 We have decided on 2 songs for our dance performance - Sukiyaki and 24K Magic. The reason we chose Sukiyaki is because it is a popular song among the Japanese students, as heard from our friends who went for the MEL Camp with several Japanese friends. We also came up with a uniformed dress code which is the SMA's blue coloured top + long pants. Our actual choreography would only start after our ESTs/Exams, during the holidays.

Videography Details

 For our video compilation, we came up with the idea of having every one of us to be in charge for the vlog on a day to day basis. For example, on day 1, one of us will be the one to record ourselves narrating like a vlogger. On day 2, another person will be appointed to do it. At the end of the trip, everyone's faces and voices would at least be heard and remembered in the video! The rest of the content of the video (pictures + other footages) would be compiled with everyone's help in capturing any kinds of beautiful content.

Our Shirt Design

 Unfortunately, we have yet to come up with the back's design for our shirt because it was getting pretty late. The front has been confirmed and we will continue to decide on the back's design this coming Wednesday!

Afterwards, we left the library and saw that the T11 square had a ribena booth for the Poly50 event! They gave out free ribena drinks to everyone (regardless of whether you were involved in Poly50!!!!!!). Hence, we went to check the booth out and of course had our fair share of ribena drinks as well :-) Unfortunately, some of us left after the meeting and did not join us at the ribena booth!

Post Holiday Discussions

Hello!
School has started yet again after the 3-weeks term break in June. We had our proper discussion started on the 2nd week of school, meeting up after lessons to sit down and brainstorm ideas. We tackled mainly on our games/sports as well as our performance. In addition, we also managed to come up with our shirt design too.

For sports/games, we consulted Huzaini, who went for the Oshima trip last year in 2016. We asked him for insights regarding the facilities at the institute and what equipment would be provided for use there. Through this, we managed to brainstorm some activities that would be feasible to carry out when we are there.

Consulting Huzaini (far right).

Ideas that we brainstormed.

For the shirt design, we had to incorporate SMA's 60th anniversary onto the shirt. We thought about how to go about doing this as well as what to add in onto the shirt to make it unique and interesting. We also decided to go with dry-fit for its material. Here is a photo of the proposed idea:

For our performance, we have decided on putting up a dance over singing a song. Nani is the overall in-charge of the performance and she has proposed the idea of using some dances that she knows from camps. We will soon begin to choreograph and practice it to perfection!