Events in Sendai at the beginning of Autumn

Although the temperature still gets up to around 30 degrees in the afternoon every day, autumn is beginning to appear for sure. Some people have been wearing long-sleeve clothes since the evenings are becoming cooler these days, and outside events can be seen more often from the end of August.

FGL Summer School 2013, VISIT US!

 Tohoku University’s summer school, “Future Global Leadership Program, Tohoku University Summer School 2013: VISIT US!” was held From August 5 to 7. It was a three-day program for high school teachers and prospective students, and nine high schools from six countries (Indonesia, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Singapore and Thailand) participated in this event.

The First Ikebana Experience

Ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) is one of the essential and authentic Japanese traditions. On a rainy morning, 23 foreign students, visiting Tohoku University for a short program called TUJP, experienced Ikebana for the first time in their lives.

The teacher on that day was Prof. Ying Chen of the Graduate School of Engineering. In the past, Prof. Chen studied Sogetsuryu Ikebana, which is one school of ikebana, in Tokyo. She chose flowers such as lilies and balloon flowers, and branches with small leaves.

The most enjoyable part of Ikebana is to cut some of the branches and arrange the flowers according to your own sense of beauty. The students worked in pairs, and actively discussed how to complete their arrangements. Their cooperation bore fruit.

In the end, the room was decorated with twelve gorgeous flower pots. At the end of the lesson, everyone looked very satisfied and some became kind of sad at not being able to take the flowers back to where they are staying now.