98. Away for the Observation Tour

At Naha Airport on departure.

Kaneshiro san, our big daddy kept counting our number and checking time.

Breakfast Wagon at our accomodation in Osaka, Osaka International Center (OSIC). Many of us like this system, Breakfast Buffet.

At the entrance of National Museum of Ethnology, Osaka.

Lecture given by Prof. Dr. Murayama at the museum.

Avei(Samoa) looks happy to find artifacts from his country.

At the entrance of Osaka International Center.

With Mr. and Mrs. Adachi, Director at Kyoto International Culture Foundation. Not only the impressive leture on digital archive, we were also treated by traditional Japanese green tea and beautiful sweets.

Kiyomizu Temple, Kyoto.

The entrance of our accomodation in Tokyo, Tokyo International Center. We were lucky to be welcomed by Sakura, cherry blossoms.

In front of National Institute of Multimedia Education, NIME.

Studio in NIME.

Damaris, Helen and Punjabi selecting icecream at Baskin Robbins, Chiba.

A globe model at Miraikan (National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation).

NHK (Nippon Hoso Kyokai), public broadcasting station of Japan.

In Studio Park at NHK, Fatima(Pakistan) volunteered to be a news caster.

On a loooong escalarot in Tokyo. Mainly in stations, we took many of those.

97. One more birthday in Osaka!

Though there is only two birthdays with the current training group, this one is a bit different from the ordinary ones: Birthday party during the observation tour!

This is the birthday girl, Helen Villaver, from the Philippines.

March 25 was the first day of the tour, and we moved from Okinawa to Osaka.
After the long journey, we checked in our accomodation, OSIC (Osaka International Center). At dinner, we offerred a birthday party to Helen.

Thanks to the Internet, I could search a very good patisserie or Konditrei near the station. Aren't they beautiful?

From the left, Oak (Thailand), Punjabi (Saudi Arabia) and Abbas (Bahrain) helped me select and buy those beautiful and delicious cakes. Thanks.

96. Blog information from your brother in Mexico

This is Fernando Cortina Cardea, one of ex-participants of MTEC, from Mexico. He was here at this time of last year, just as same as Shima in the article #90.

He wrote me an e-mail to invite me to his blog.
Fortunately :D he wrote it in English, so I think I should announce this on this blog.

His blog is:
the digital space of fernando http://fernandocortina.blogspot.com

Please visit him, and leave some comments.
He has been practicing his action plan, indeed.

And I also look forward to the info from you.

95. Here is Dr. Tokumura! ...sooner

In the struggle of mountainous daily routine works, you may feel that you never be rewarded. But the news like this lighten up such worry of us.

Tokumura san, one of your MTEC instructors, will be soon entitled as Dr. Tokumura.
His long efforts will have a wonderful fruit soon.


I am very happy with the news, and proud of having such colleague like him.
I want you to join us in celebrating him and his family.

94. No birthdays?? Yes, here is a birthday boy!

Unlike the other MTEC courses, we have not had any birthday parties since we started the present course in January. But finally(?), we are goint to celebrate one on this weekend.
This is for Abbas from Bahrain.
According to him, the birthday celebration is different from what we usually have here in Okinawa.

In Bahrain, the birthday is very quiet. They read the holly book of Koran, and the birthday person states his/her future plan in the age.
When I heard of it, the very famiar word in MTEC came into my mind: Action Plan. The birthday person states his/her action plan of the age, doesn't he/she?
If it is like that, we need Tokumura san as the evaluator :D

We offerred Abbas our type of gathering after the class today. I hope he liked our way of celebration.

Coincidently, it was International Women's Day. We do not have this day to celebrate, but sometimes the participants give us e-mails for the day. Abbas brought us flower. How nice the birthday person today! Thanks.

93. Blog recovered. Hoo!

Dear everyone,
Sorry for inconvenience, but the blog is under control now.

There was some mistake or misoperation while I, mtec-hq, was upgrading from Blogger beta to Blogger.
It took several hours for me to before recover and updreage.

So, now, we are in the new version of Blogger!

92. Notice from MTEC-HQ

Dear viewer of MTEC Blog,
We cannot access MTEC Blog due to the unknown error.
We are trying to fix the problem, so please wait for a while.

MTEC-HQ