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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2009-02-26, Page 6PAGE 6. THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2009.When Brussels-arearesident Darby Alcorn heardshe was heading to Japanthrough the Lions Youth Exchange, she pledged to try everything and be open to anything. This is what made her trip worthwhile, she says now. Japan was Alcorn’s second choice out of three, her first was Korea and her third was Ireland. Japan was available, so for a month last summer, Alcorn spent time in some of the world’s most scenic land. She visited temples, castles, Japan’s famed entertainment district, Kyoto, Hiroshima, a baseball game, Universal Studios Japan and and a three- storey tall statue of Buddha. Initially, however, Alcorn said she found Japan intimidating. Before even officially entering the country, she was photographed and fingerprinted, as all foreigners are. Visitors are also required to list an address where they will be staying. Alcorn could not provide this, as she did not yet know where she would be staying, so getting through Japanese customs, she said, was not as easy as it could have been. Upon entering the country, Alcorn was greeted by six businessmen, all wearing suits and was immediately escorted to a Lions meeting. In Japan, she said, Lions are often very powerful businessmen, CEOs of companies, etc. She soon found herself in a private, upper-floor restaurant with a large sushi spread. “Japan is really hot and the custom is that you take off your shoes when you’re inside,” she said. “So my first experience in Japan was the Lions meeting that smelled like warming fish and feet.” However, once she was placed with her first of threehost families, she began toexperience the finer points ofJapan, finding the languagebarrier to be not a large issueat all.“I learned a lot about communication on this trip. People in Japan are very curious, but they’re also very reserved and very shy,” she said. “I really learned that a smile knows no language though. Smiling opened a lot of doors for me there.” Alcorn said one of the strangest parts of the trip was the feeling of being tall that she is not used to. At 5’2” Alcorn is considered shorter, however, she said she was taller than most of the people she encountered in Japan. One of the more touching experiences Alcorn had in Japan, she said, was when she visited Hiroshima. Speaking to an English- speaking Japanese girl, roughly her age, when she was there, Alcorn inquired about the Japanese equivalent of Remembrance Day. She responded, however, by saying, “Not really. We were the bad guys, so we really have nothing to celebrate.” The Japanese, however, do observe a moment of silence at the time the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima. There were also many festivals that Alcorn attended. Each one was very elaborate and well-decorated. The festivals and celebrations were filled with hundreds of people, she said, all very outgoing, which is different from her day-to-dayexperiences there. “For the most part everyonewas pretty reserved overthere, with the exception ofthese festivals, or when theywere singing karaoke,” she said. The food, however, was largely sushi-based. Having promised herself she would try everything, she put up with the food she didn’t like. “I learned early in the trip to not ask what I was eating. I ate a lot of sushi and traditional Japanese food that I still don’t quite know what it was,” she said. Alcorn said she had not travelled too much before this trip, heading only to New York City and Costa Rica. It was her host families and the Lions that made the trip exciting and helped her to navigate in a country where English is not a widely- spoken language. The first family she stayed with consisted of two parents along with three children who were all around her age, which was 18 at the time. However, over time, Alcorn found the families that she stayed with grew older and more traditional each week. The second family she stayed with knew very little English and the last family was simply an older couple who knew no English. Alcorn closed out her trip at the Lions International Youth Camp for 10 days before returning to her first host family for a few days before her flight back to Canada. It was her open mind, however, that made the trip great, she said. “I had a lot of good times. If I didn’t go into this trip with an open mind, I would have been miserable. There were a lot of things that were weird and that I didn’t understand, but I just played it down and told myself it wasn’t a big deal and it turned out to be a great experience,” she said. Brussels student visits Japan through Lions Health Canada Advisory on RetroFoam Insulation Health Canada was recently advised that RetroFoam has been installed in a limited number of homes in Ontario. This product is prohibited for sale in Canada. Health Canada is informing consumers that RetroFoam insulation is a urea formaldehyde-based thermal insulation, a type of insulation that has been prohibited for sale in Canada under the Hazardous Products Act since December 1980, as it may release formaldehyde gas into indoor air. Health Canada issued a “cease and desist” letter to RetroFoam of Canada Incorporated, the Canadian importer of the insulation, to stop all importation and sale of RetroFoam in Canada. Health Canada also instructed Enerliv, the Canadian distributor of RetroFoam, to stop all sale, advertisement and further installations of the product and to call back any unused product. As a result of Health Canada’s actions, RetroFoam is no longer available for sale or installation in Canada. Health Canada will be communicating with affected homeowners to provide further details on how they can obtain Government support for having their indoor air quality tested. For more information call 1-800-443-0395 www.healthcanada.gc.ca I M P O R T A N T N O T I C E By Shawn LoughlinThe Citizen Samurai masters Brussels-area student Darby Alcorn, above, was fortunate enough to witness a samurai demonstration during her time in Japan thanks to the Lions Exchange. Alcorn was staying at a hostel that was used during the 2002 World Cup, where the demonstration took place. During her trip with the Lions Exchange, Alcorn saw much of what Japan had to offer, including visiting Kyoto, Hiroshima and this, the Himeji Castle, left. The castle, built in 1333, was overhauled in 1580 and remains largely-untouched since that major expansion. (Courtesy photo) Potting in the work Brussels-area student Darby Alcorn recently participated in the Lions Exchange program which sent her to Japan for approximately one month. She spent her time there wisely, seeing the sights, attending a baseball game and eventually getting her hands dirty, making some pottery with her host uncle, Mr. Den. (Courtesy photo)