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Last day in Tokyo...Sayonara!!

Next morning had to wake up early to catch my flight back to Malaysia. Spend another 1 hour repacking my luggage. Only slept at 2am. I had to literary sit on my check-in luggage to close it! hahahaha

Zhou had to leave at 6:30am (flight is at 10:30am) and I had to leave at 7am(Flight at 11:30am). It was nice of the boys to wake up early to send us off.

Bye bye brothers! Dun forget to sent me air tickets to go to your countries! hahaha
The travel agency arranged for taxi to bring a few of us to the TCAT terminal and from there we catch the Limousine bus to Narita airport.

Met this lady from Antigua and Barbuda. er... can't remember her name but she's also from the same course as Jocelyn, Nurse Management. Somehow both of them talks to me in a very motherly way... guess all nurses are like that! hahaha Amazing that her luggage is not overweight since her course is 3 months!

My last meal in Japan....beef Udon. And I did some last minute shopping at the duty free shops. The souvenirs (snacks & chocolate) are cheaper here than if you buy from outside.

2 other JICA participants on the same flight as me. Azni and er....Hairunuda something. I'm really bad with names... I know Azni becoz sometimes I talk to him at TIC and only met the lady at the airport. Both of them are here for some police training course. We check-in our luggages together and of course it was overweight but we didn't get fine.... hahaha Finally we boarded our plane.... SAYONARA Japan. Dunno if I will ever come back again but had a great experience here. Thank you tax paying citizens of Japan for sponsoring my trip! hahahahaha

JAL is a good airline... doesn't have the 'smell' that will cause me to vomit. And the movies are excellent. Arrived in KL around 5:50pm. Hello again "Boleh" land.....

Evaluation & Farewell Party 31st July

Finally... last day of the program..... was doing my packing for the entire morning.....Not easy... I had to weight & reweight & reweight my luggage. In the afternoon we had an evaluation of the training courses. Mostly ok but one of the comments I made was that the reading materials especially on the Laws and Support for PWDs in Japan should be given to us before we come over so we can do some pre-reading first. And most of us think that the time given for the project plan workshop by Ms Sarajean was not enough.

The boys looking so serious during evaluation!

Sato san, Sadaie san & Keiko san at the evaluation

Sadaie san showing the certificate that we will be getting AFTER we submit over progress report on our Project Plan in February next year. After evaluation, we had a closing ceremony. The boys choose me to represent them to give a speech. I didn't agree and told them it's an "autocratic" democracy just like Malaysia's government but they insisted on me. Dun know why they choose me since I'm such a shy person and not very good at giving speech.... ;) Anyway I said ok but the boys have to write the speech for me! hahaha actually a good deal.....

The Deputy Director of JICA TIC giving her speech

MY turn to give the speech.... Did not trip or anything.....phew!!hahaha

The whole team that was involved in our program...well almost all of them are here.

We called ourselves the "Decent Team" hahaha since this is the first year they renamed the course to "Decent Work for PWDs". I think this is the first time Nerand is smiling in a photo. I had to remind him to smile.

Farewell Party time! Quite a number of invited guest came. Some of our lecturers also came and Mr & Mrs Machida san (we visited their home at Atsugi City) also came. We had food, fellowship and some singing. I also showed a video of our past 6 weeks activities to them. They really enjoyed the video... they should.. took me 2 nights to compiled it! hahahah

Both Indra and my host families also came for the party. Nice to see them again...

After the farewell party. Asahi san took us out for a farewell dinner. We went to one of the drinking restuarant near Hatagaya.

We had beer, sashimi, noodles and other stuff and just laugh & laugh and talk.... I'm going to miss these people......

We had one last farewell song in the streets before saying "sayonara"

With Matsuura san, our coordinator cum interpreter for the past 7 weeks. She must be so relieve that it's finally over! hahahaha

We said our goodbyes and the boys & I headed back to TIC. I went to say goodbye to Jocelyn who is from Micronesia and Latifa. Jocelyn is here for Nursing Management course and will be leaving on the 2nd August and Latifa is leaving on the 8th August. It was nice to know them.... different field, different culture, different background.

This is Jocelyn. Went to her room to say bye bye. She was also packing.

The boys were very happy when I told them that I will open a bottle of sake for our last night since my luggage is overweight. So all of us squeeze into Zhou's room (he's leaving early the next day so had to do his packing) and and had our last drinking session. I'm going to miss drinking with the boys.

Last lecture, Tokyo tower and party time!

Our second last day in Japan....one last lecture on JICA programs on Disabilities and JOCV (Japanese Overseas Cooperation Volunteers)

ah.....can't remember his name... this guy is from JICA headquarters, telling us about JICA programs

Keiko....nakal yeah? Taking me taking her picture.

Oto san working in JOCV...telling us about the JOCV program and how to apply for JOCV if we need their services.

Keiko.....can't wait to get rid of Kiran & us!

Last discussion on the meaning of "Decent Work". This is what we came out with after 6 weeks of studying on decent employment for PWDs.
What is Decent Work?

• Own choices-PWDs gets to choose their own career
  
• Recognition & Appreciated
• Equality in wages, gender, opportunity
• Dignity
• Security – financial & social
• Humanity
• Responsibility
• Interdependent
• Personal development
• Accessibility environment
  
• Socialization – to be in an inclusive society

Had some time after our discussion so Nerand and I went of to Shinjuku to do some last minute shopping and then head off to Tokyo Tower.

820 yen to go up to the middle part. We stayed for 2 hours there so we can catch the night view too. Was worth the wait. Still remembered the first day I met Nerand. Talked to him on the street without knowing that we were in the same course.

Tokyo Tower

My last "Sukiya" meal. Beef & Eel bowl with Miso soup and tofu. 950 yen. Cheap compare to KL price.
The Sukiya shop near TIC. Been having my dinners there for the last few days since I'm sick of the food at TIC. Easy to order.... go in sit at the counter, point out what you want at the menu and just nod your head! hahahaha Most of the staff there understands a bit of english.....
Second last day so we have a "mini" party at Kiran's room....His room is big for the wheelchair users so usually we hang out there. Bought our laptops there and exchange our photos and of course drinking beer. Japanese beers are cheap and nice!

My brothers for the past 7 weeks! Going to miss you guys! Kampai!

Project Plan Presentation-29th July

Finally.....after 2 weeks of preparing our Project plan, we had a presentation on last wednesday.

Asahi san, the course leader of the planning commitee doing an introduction before our presentation.

Sadaie san and Sato san from JICA came to see our presentation

Ogawa san (R) who is one of the planning committee member for this course and a few JSRPD staff also came.
Nerand is first. He's project is called "Building Bridges". He wants to implement a Job coach support system for his students who will be working in the open employment after graduating from the special school

Indra's turn. His project is approaching companies to hire PWDs. Currently his database got 400 over members.

Next is Kiran. HIs project is called "Move to Change" He wants to establish a wheelchair workshop in Nepal. Of course the PWDs themselves will be building the wheelchairs.
Zhou's turn. His project is Training of trainers. To better equip the trainers to train PWDs to have the necessary skills to work.
Finally it's my turn. My project is called "Sweet Voices". Renovating & expanding the bakery section in United Voice.

Phew...finally it's over... all of us can relax a bit! For the final comments most of them said it's only the beginnning. We have to go back to our respective country and implement the project plan. Have to submit a progress report in 6 months time so we can get our certificate..... work! work! work!

Tokyo Disneyland

Last Saturday I went to the Matrix....... er I mean Tokyo Disneyland. It's a saturday. It's school holidays. Do I need to tell you how many people were there? Had no choice... my last weekend in Japan. So off I go early in the morning..... Ticket fees-5800 yen about RM200 which is quite resonable.

Entrance

World Bazaar where you spend a lot of money there buying souvenirs. I think the profit does not come from the entrance ticket fees. It comes from a lot of crazy people buying souvenirs.

Queued up for 2 hours just to get into this ride....Buzz Lightyear. Lesson learnt- when they put there 130 waiting time I thot it was 1 and a half hours. I was wrong...It meant 130 minutes to wait!

Roger Rabbit ride.

It's a Small World Ride. Didn't go for this ride as I've been to the same one at Euro Disney.
Daytime Parade. One of the highlights in Disneyland. The last time I was at Euro Disney I was so caught up in catching most of the rides I missed this parade so this time I make sure I was there to watch it.

Video of the parade.

This is the amount of prams park outside one of the rides.... can you imagine how many babies/children were there?

Space Mountain.... one ride you must not miss...One of my favourite rides...Peter Pan. I remember taking both this rides at Euro Disney and I dun mind taking it again.....

For most of the rides be prepare to queue up at least 30 mintues for it. As I was queueing up for one of the rides I was just thinking that all this things here are fake.....it's like I going into the Matrix. But I felt happy taking the rides....took my mind off the Project Plan. So maybe it's good to be in the Matrix once a while....you just need to know when to get out! ngahahahahahah