This weekend I went to a small town called Aso with my lab professor. 2 years ago, a team from his lab were one of the 2 winner teams of a community house for elderies competition, comissioned by the hospital. They started building it this year, and we were invited to participate in the final stages of its construction. The final project being a mix of the two winning teams, the Korean team especially joined us, coming all the way from Seoul! Only 2 members of the original Japanese could join. There were in addition 2 Chinese, 1 Dominican and 1 Indonesian students aside from me. We were a pretty international group you can say!
Once on site, after a 2 hours-drive from Fukuoka, we were divided into two teams: The footbath team and the gardening team. I was part of the latter. Being too many for what that actually has to be done, most of the time half of us were standing around watching the other half working.
^ Yes, that is going to be a footbath. How awesome is that.
I have my doubts about the grass being actually able to grow, but we were told to place the grass tiles with a gap in between which are then filled with sand. Weird.
In the evening after the first day of hard work, we went to relax at a really small onsen in the hospital (hot spring/public bath), then dinner and get-together at a local izakaya (gastropub). This small weekend trip was really fun, and I met awesome people!
Aso being in the Kumamoto prefecture, which was hit by an earthquake in June, we also saw the aftermath of the disaster. Roads had been somewhat patched up, many houses were still in their collapsed and abandoned state. At one point there was an 1 meter level difference passing right through the road!
We were also able to visit a site of temperary housings for people who had lost their homes during the disaster. It looks kinda depressing right? Temporary housings will coincidentally be the subject of my project class this semester, it was interesting to have a first preview. I will be back in Kumamoto later this week with the Studio to look more into the housings.