Aug.04

Today was a very exciting and eventful day.  After having breakfast it was time for a lecture. The title for today’s lecture was “Our Planet Earth and Energy” which was taken by Mr. Hajime Kiyuna. I found the lecture very informative and innovative. Firstly Mr. Hajime took a weather balloon and made a roughly scaled model of the earth with it with was scaled down to 10,000,000 times having a diameter of about 130cm. After the model was ready sir asked us various questions like how big would be the Mount Everest if it was scaled down for that model we made, everybody started a discussion on it among their groups and came up with various answers. At last the answer came out to be 1mm!!! Everyone was amused. Sir told that this was why the surface of the earth looked flat from outer space as and even the highest peak on earth was a miniature thing when compared to the whole earth. Sir then repeated this scaling down for the oceans and atmosphere and then told us that even though we think that the water in the oceans and the air in the atmosphere is nearly infinite, but in reality it is very less. Then after a little break the lecture resumed, now sir told us about energy using various experiments showing the pressure exerted by gasses. These experiments though being simple in performing turned out to be very informative and interesting. Overall the lecture was very virtuous.

After the lecture it was the time for Haari. All of us with great excitement started out from our accommodation in the busses to Nanjo city. Even while the trip we were mesmerized by the magnificent beauty of Okinawa. On reaching when the briefing was done we all were ready to row. As most of us were doing this for the first time some teams lost balance some even fell but in the end everyone was able to have a lot of fun. Along with being fun this activity also helped increase the co-ordination between the groups. After all the races were done it was the time for results and the tutors took away the prize. After the amazing experience we said goodbye to Nanjo city and headed back to Itoman.

Back after the fun but tiring activity all the people had a lovely dinner and after that the participants and youth leaders headed to the lecture room for the Katayabira talk. This talk was conducted specially by the youth leaders for helping the participants solve any problems they had. The youth leaders divided themselves into four groups namely – Friendship, Homesickness, Communication and cultural differences. The participants could go to the specific groups according to their problems and the youth leaders tried to help them in any way as possible. Youth leaders told the participants about similar problems they faced during their time as a participant and told about the ways how they were able to cope up with them. These views helped the participants a lot and all their sad faces during the talk turned into smiling ones till the end of the talk. In my opinion this interaction would surely lead to better program for all of us.

This day has raised my expectations of AYDPO 2013 and I am sure the rest of the program would be as good as this day too or even better !!!! .

Sayonara !!

Sidhant Kohli

ID: G6-4
Name: Kohli Sidhant
Country: India