Day 4 (March 14th) - Opening Ceremony and Practice Session
After the second practice sessions, we left the Crystal ballroom heading to the rooms for the cultural activities. The first one we entered was about Aikido. We were taught how to escape from the grip of an enemy in a couple of positions. We arrived in the room a little bit late that we missed the story about the history and basics of Aikido.
We then moved to the Matsukaze (CyberCafe) room for the Zen meditation session. Our mentor was a Buddhist (Zen) monk, teaching us about how to meditate. It was not so different with other meditation methods I learned sometimes in the past. We were suggested to do the meditation for about ten minutes a day for a refreshment of mind.
The next room we went into was showing Japanese animes. The animes have gone quite sophisticated, some with 3D animations and high details. No wonder, because we all know about the Final Fantasy games and movies by Square Enix which was made in Japan (as many successful games titles are).
The last one was the Shodo (Japanese calligraphy) lesson. I was able to write several Chinese characters, and I found that Japanese writing was quite similar. It was interesting though, as I never tried to write with a brush and ink. The characters in Japanese Kanji have approximately the same meaning in Chinese, and the stroke-order was the same as well. I asked about the meaning of my Chinese name in Japanese, and found that the meaning is exactly the same in Japanese.
Mr. Raymondus Kosala and Ms. Yenlina went to the Origami lesson as well, and took some pictures of these ladies in kimono.
Our day was closed with a dinner and a visit to the CyberCafe.
I had a chess game with Felix which ended with a draw (even though he had a queen and several other pieces and I had only a king). I went to sleep earlier hoping for the best condition on the next day.
-Kurniady
(All photos are copyrighted, please ask for permission before reproducing)
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waw.. nice posts (day 1 - 5)..
it’s been a long time (well, not so long), how are you ?
don’t have much to say really..
good luck with the next competitions

ps. i’m pretty sure the instruments shown (which you forgot the name) are called shamisen.
三線 (さんしん - sanshin). itu nama “gitar”nya.
setelah dicari2 more info, 三味線 (しゃみせん-shamisen) lebih tepat.
aaaaaa. shamiseeeeeen…. hiks…