A Visual Journey of Our Special Summer Company Trip to Nagatoro
This year’s summer is extraordinarily hot and very humid and we have unknowingly picked probably one of the hottest days for this special trip.
A Little about Me
I am Kenny from Malaysia. I am working in a team called Relationship Development Office and our goal is to bring the people in our company closer together.
The Purpose
The idea of this trip came from our Human Resource team:
- To provide an opportunity for our global members to practice speaking only Japanese for an entire day while going on a trip with our lovely Japanese members and an extremely energetic Japanese teacher.
- Also, a quality bonding time for everyone.
The Locale
- Nagatoro, a small but scenic town (population 8,000) deep in the mountains of western Saitama Prefecture, northwest of Tokyo, Japan.
It is a popular spot for Tokyo day trippers looking for hiking, river boat tours and wild water sports in largely unspoiled nature.
The People
- We had a mixed bag of people from various different teams (and different countries as well) in our company.
Now that you’ve briefed, let’s begin our journey!
1. Bus Ride from Tokyo to Nagatoro
The trip started with an unexpectedly long, 4-hour bus ride due to traffic jam on the highway to our destination. Thanks to our Japanese teacher, Shimizu-sensei along with other Japanese members in our company who were continuously prompting questions and conversation topics for us, the learners were able to learn new Japanese words, practice our speaking and listening skills and also learn more about each other.
I was truly impressed by Shimizu-sensei’s pure passion and interests for people and how she was able to easily create engaging interactions even when there are language barriers and moreover, with people she just met. It is easy to see why she chose to become a teacher.
2. River Boat Tour at Nagatoro
After the long bus ride, we didn’t waste any time getting onto the boat right after we arrived at the river. The boat ride was calm mostly and quite thrilling at some parts of the river with fast streams. We had conflicting feelings wanting the boat tour to be longer to enjoy this refreshing feelings but also wanting it to be shorter to avoid getting heatstroke and sunburn.
More pictures.
After we docked, we got to explore some local stores.
We took another short bus ride to arrive at our next destination, a BBQ restaurant.
3. BBQ Lunch
Juicy Meat + Fresh Vegetables +Icy Drinks = 100% Stamina Recovery!
After the delicious meal, we encountered this beautiful mountain scenery and this cute little goat while walking back to our bus. On to our next destination!
4. Local Farmer’s Market
We arrived at a local farmer’s market with cool &modern exteriors, which was quite a contrast to the surrounding nature aesthetics.
After buying a bunch of souvenirs and local goods, we got back onto our bus and begun our bus trip going back to Tokyo. It was a relatively shorter bus trip (about 2 hours) heading back because there was no traffic jam. Again, we were spending more quality time together, improving our language skills and filling the bus with laughters pretty much the whole ride.
A Closing Thought
I do believe this trip was a great success, thanks to the great effort of our Human Resource Team.
Not only us, the learners were able to gain a confidence boost in our Japanese skills, knowing that we could survive an entire day with only Japanese, but also for everyone to spend valuable bonding time together to learn more about each other and to build meaningful relationships by sharing memorable experiences that were only made possible by this special trip.
