There will be a Food Expo held at Index Osaka during the Golden Week holiday. This food festival is called 'UTAGE', and I am one of the members who will help some eazy works there as a volunteering staff. Utage's image-character is 'Foopie'. Foopie is a kewpie of food, and it is really cute! Foopie has a lot of friends, and you can see those characters' moving on its site. At Utage, there will be a lot of events which are all about foods from around the world! You can try German beer, noodles of various Asian countries, good products from everywhere in Japan, etc.etc. There will be also a huge display of pottery, an ice-carving, showing of different kitchen's stuff. My position is 'Food Circus Area'. At the Food Circus Area, there will be lots of events, like if you put 100yen in a box, later you can taste speciall dinner. The menu is different everyday, but for example, there will be Okonomiyaki! This Food Expo is held every four year, like an Olympic Games, and this time, they expect that more than 600,000 people will visit during the Golden Week! They also said that they will have visiters from abroad too, so I hope I have a chance to talk with someone in English. Utage is held by the aim of letting people realize the fun of enjoying food customs. They also express 'Clean & Safety'. If you wash your hands very well, you can get a tatto sticker of Foopie! There will be real circus people, dancing performances, face-painting services etc!

Do you like foods? Do you enjoy eating? Do you know any special cuisine? Let's meet up at this Utage, and enjoy ourselves^^. Hummm, I love food!

Long time no blog, everyone, but I am glad that I still have readers for my posts. I certainly continue posting as some others do. Today! I went to Rapport Hirakata to play with handicapped children. It was my first experience to spend time with handicapped people, so I was excited before I went. I was not too nervous because I was with Nao.H.

This activity is held about once a month, and one child's mother & brother mainly plan what to do each time. This activity is called 'Kirara'. At Kirara, each child's mother is there with us, and there were lots more volunteering people, so activities and helping children were not very difficult for me. I made a new friend, 'Koji'. She is one of those volunteering people. Koji has already visited Kirara some time before, so I could ask some questions to her^^. Kirara was started from 10:00 and finished at 15:00.

We were put into some groups, and mainly took care of one child. I was in a group with Koji, and Koji and I took care of a girl. The girl came with her mother who is very nice and cheerful. Our girl cannot sit still, so she usually lies down on her blanky, but when we played sugoroku-game, we supported her body so that she could keep sitting position. We sang a song at the biginning, and introduced each other. Then we went to Viorune(spelling?) for window shopping. Koji and I pushed our girl's buggy. We went up to level5, and looked at lots of fancy goods like kind of soap which has little toy in it, candles, cushions etc, etc. Koji was especially excited to all those stuff! Mothers cooked lunch for all of us, and we ate rice, miso soup, tofu meals, and some other meals. Our girl's mother said she would help her daughter eat, so I and Koji had our lunch. There were our girl & her mother & Koji & I at the same table. The lunch was lovely, and we went back up to Japanese style room. Then we started sugoroku game. Our team stopped at the cards which said 'sing a song', 'tell your aim for this beginning year', 'do a gesture', 'tell sth you recommend to people' etc, etc. I was embarresed when we had to sing, and it was a bit tiring to keep supporting our girl's body, but playing with everyone there was fun, and it was quite an experience. I guess Nao's team finished the sugoroku game at the first, and we finished.

After the sugoroku game, volunteering people wrote comment on a notebook to each child's mother, and we said good-bye to each other. I did not write many words because I couldn't know how I could make it sentences after being there all day. Kirara's activity is quite easier than I imagined, but I know there are more difficult activities when I try other activities. I did not confuse what to do today, as our girl seemed feel quite good, and she is very calm. I still worry what if when I meet a child who is not so easy to look after, but today I was glad when our girl smiled, and her mother is a very friendly, talkative person, and I could meet a good and very pretty friend, Koji. I will go Kirara one more day again tomorow, so I hope that I can speak to children and people there more than I did today. This experience encourages me to try more various volunteering activities, so I will look for more of those, and look forward to meeting more people at various places.