For Students
Student Life
QUBES are on the move! Here we will share our fun and exciting activities we had both on and off campus. Keep your eye on our exploration of study life in Japan.
Tags: Community Engagement Conference Internship Others Student life Fieldtrip Company Visit Cultural Exchange News
[15.10.15]
Off to Iki island
Voluntourism – Iki Island
In this age of rising pollution and climate change, we as future leaders play an important role in contributing as much as possible, in order to conserve the earth and its bounty of resources. Keeping this in mind, a group of students along with Mika Tamura sensei, visited Iki Island as a part of a Voluntourism activity. As the name suggests, Voluntourism is all about volunteering, with an added pleasure of tourism. The main purpose of the visit was to clean up the beaches in the island of Iki, which is a part of Nagasaki prefecture, and also to indulge in the beauty of the scenic island. More than a 100 students from Nagasaki, Saga and Fukuoka, along with local high school students from Iki took part in the two-day program.
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Day 1
Setting off a ferry from the Hakata Bay on a beautiful sunny morning, we were looking forward to this voluntourism activity, as for most of us, it was the very first time. The two-hour ferry ride to Iki was a pleasant one, and the concerned authorities, at the Iki port, received us. Our next destination was the place where we were supposed to be staying. After a briefing on the purpose of the trip, the students were divided into several groups and each group was assigned a particular beach to tend to. Each group was handed with white, blue and yellow bags for collecting garbage form the beaches and categorizing them into burnable waste, cans and glasses respectively. The two hour long cleanup was an interesting experience as we collected a range of garbage, from noodle packets to chemical containers. What more, we even found an old beat up refrigerator on the beach! The amount of garbage on the beach was a little alarming and quite a lot of it came from South Korea and also China. After collecting all the garbage and segregating them into different bags, we returned to our staying place.
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The clean up activity was followed by a walk to the famous Saru-Iwa, also known as Monkey Rock. As the name suggests, the huge rock is shaped as a monkey’s head. The little walk led us to a beautiful sunset, and without doubt, a million selfies followed too! The evening concluded with a lip-smacking barbeque party of fresh seafood and local Iki pork meat. It was a really good opportunity to meet other Japanese students of our own age and share this experience together.
Day 2
After a hearty breakfast, we set off to the workshop center were students from different universities presented about the issue of ocean garbage, marine ecosystem, with a focus on how to deal with such issues. Representing Kyushu University IUPE, we made a presentation titled ‘Marine Litter and Marine Ecosystem’ in English. Free discussion followed the presentation, with questions being answered by officials and students coming up with innovative and creative ideas to handle the garbage issue. After this, we stopped at the most clean and pretty looking beach called Tsutsukihama for lunch. We were like a bunch of happy kids unleashed on the beach and soaked in all the beauty.
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We also made a quick stop at the omiyage place to take back home with us, a piece of Iki. Sea urchins were all the rage there! We also had just enough time to visit a shrine on top of a hillock by crossing the low tide area. On the way back to the port to board our ferry, though tired, we tried to take in as much as possible of the beautiful sights around us. Our farewell was an unforgettable sight, wherein we had colorful ties connecting us from the ferry to the people in the island waving to us. Iki is the kind of the place that one would fall in love with at first sight. The kind of place you would vow to return back to.
In this age of rising pollution and climate change, we as future leaders play an important role in contributing as much as possible, in order to conserve the earth and its bounty of resources. Keeping this in mind, a group of students along with Mika Tamura sensei, visited Iki Island as a part of a Voluntourism activity. As the name suggests, Voluntourism is all about volunteering, with an added pleasure of tourism. The main purpose of the visit was to clean up the beaches in the island of Iki, which is a part of Nagasaki prefecture, and also to indulge in the beauty of the scenic island. More than a 100 students from Nagasaki, Saga and Fukuoka, along with local high school students from Iki took part in the two-day program.
Day 1
Setting off a ferry from the Hakata Bay on a beautiful sunny morning, we were looking forward to this voluntourism activity, as for most of us, it was the very first time. The two-hour ferry ride to Iki was a pleasant one, and the concerned authorities, at the Iki port, received us. Our next destination was the place where we were supposed to be staying. After a briefing on the purpose of the trip, the students were divided into several groups and each group was assigned a particular beach to tend to. Each group was handed with white, blue and yellow bags for collecting garbage form the beaches and categorizing them into burnable waste, cans and glasses respectively. The two hour long cleanup was an interesting experience as we collected a range of garbage, from noodle packets to chemical containers. What more, we even found an old beat up refrigerator on the beach! The amount of garbage on the beach was a little alarming and quite a lot of it came from South Korea and also China. After collecting all the garbage and segregating them into different bags, we returned to our staying place.
The clean up activity was followed by a walk to the famous Saru-Iwa, also known as Monkey Rock. As the name suggests, the huge rock is shaped as a monkey’s head. The little walk led us to a beautiful sunset, and without doubt, a million selfies followed too! The evening concluded with a lip-smacking barbeque party of fresh seafood and local Iki pork meat. It was a really good opportunity to meet other Japanese students of our own age and share this experience together.
Day 2
After a hearty breakfast, we set off to the workshop center were students from different universities presented about the issue of ocean garbage, marine ecosystem, with a focus on how to deal with such issues. Representing Kyushu University IUPE, we made a presentation titled ‘Marine Litter and Marine Ecosystem’ in English. Free discussion followed the presentation, with questions being answered by officials and students coming up with innovative and creative ideas to handle the garbage issue. After this, we stopped at the most clean and pretty looking beach called Tsutsukihama for lunch. We were like a bunch of happy kids unleashed on the beach and soaked in all the beauty.
We also made a quick stop at the omiyage place to take back home with us, a piece of Iki. Sea urchins were all the rage there! We also had just enough time to visit a shrine on top of a hillock by crossing the low tide area. On the way back to the port to board our ferry, though tired, we tried to take in as much as possible of the beautiful sights around us. Our farewell was an unforgettable sight, wherein we had colorful ties connecting us from the ferry to the people in the island waving to us. Iki is the kind of the place that one would fall in love with at first sight. The kind of place you would vow to return back to.
From Students
