Another experience to remember... Japan

Another 5 days and another country, this time it was the amazing Japan! I feel like the luckiest person alive to be able to go through this experience and share it with you all :).

5 days, 4 cities, a couple of bullet trains, more subways and trains than I can count, more vending machines used than I have ever used in a 5 day period before, and all in all a fantastic experience.

I started my trip in Japan by visiting the West Region of Japan, visiting both Osaka and Kyoto. On my first evening I attended my first LC meeting in a long time, attending the meeting of the KGLC. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of talking about the @XP in the context of both the individual and the organisation, and was amazed that for many it was their first presentations that they had ever had entirely in English. Thank you so much KGLC for your hospitality! While in the west region I also had the fantastic experience to got to an Old Boys (alumni) meeting for the Kansai region. I was so awesome to see that the region had a network of alumni spanning decades of generations in AIESEC. It is definately an alumni network to be proud of as one of the founding countries of AIESEC in the Asia Pacific.

From there I moved on to Central Japan, and met the LCs of Nagoya as their stakeholders hub evening, and also stayed up to the early hours of the morning interacting with the members and incoming interns of the area, before hoping on a train bound for Tokyo for two days of meetings and fun with MC, LCPs, the Board chair and other members in the region.

It is so amazing to be able to not only visit all the countries in the AP, but continue the experience of visiting regions that never get the opportunity to be visited by AI. Many times it is in these regions that AIESEC has the greatest potential to grow, and that those short conversations can have the largest impact. I would like to thank my good friend Satoshi (MCP Japan) without whom I would have been lost. He traveled with me every step of the way, as we talked about the different regions of Japan and his vision and plans for the country. And by the way Satoshi has the most amazing ability. He can sleep standing up on the subway, a great way to use travel time effeciently to catch up on missed sleep!

And it seems like no country visit is complete without some type of food challenge, and Japan was no different. 20 minutes, a huge bowl of rice, meat and vegetables, and if you finish it all you get some of your money back. After failing miserably in the last food challenge in Korea, I was determine to finish, and got it all down within around 13 minutes. Very satisfying, but I am sure my pal Ceek from Korea would have downed in it less than 10 minutes for sure!

Thank you Japan for my third visit, and a truly amazing experience. What I realised about Japan is that it is a top 10 exchange country, with so much more room to grow. I wish the very best for the adventures ahead for the current team, and the newly elected MCP Shingo and his team that he will be selecting now.

And now I am off to Hong Kong! So to the countries of AP, see you soon in your country!