Closing Ceremony and Day in Osaka

We had the pleasure of attending the International Geographic Congress opening ceremony at the Kyoto International Convention Centre on Monday morning - this is the place the Kyoto Protocol was signed and a huge venue.

In attendance were also the Prince and Princess of Japan so we security was very tight and we were unable to take photos in the venue. The Prince spoke to the group of his own involvement with Geography and his research into domestic chickens.

The students who won gold medal from the iGeo were presented with these - so that was pretty special.

After the ceremony it was time to say goodbye and head on our way with Team UK to Osaka. We caught the Bullet Train from Kyoto to Osaka - was pretty fast and we made it in 15 minutes. Such an amazing way to travel in Japan!

After finding our Hotel we needed some rest time before we headed into Osaka to meet Team UK for dinner and a shop around. The kids had a great time playing arcade games in this awesome city.

Isaac with his Silver Medal :)

Extra seat in the aisle is a great way for the team to sit together

Photos from in Osaka 

And the results are in

We had the closing ceremony last night for the iGeo which was a chance for the competition to reflect on what had happened via a video, thank our Japanese hosts and award the medals.

Well done to Isaac who gained a silver medal - a fantastic effort and we are very proud of the whole team.

Excursion Day and Steve's Bday

Today we headed off with 1/2 of the iGeo countries to visit the Enryakuji Temple complex in the mountainous area of Mt Hiei. We walked for about 3 hours in the mountain area (mostly down hill) and saw some amazing temples along the way before stopping for lunch 

Back Seat Bandits

Happy Bday to Steve in his 'bird day' Tshirt ;)

Max checks out the view

After lunch at a restaurant on the mountain we headed to the edge of Lake Biwa - one of the worlds largest fresh water lakes with an area of 674 sq km. We had a lecture about the history of the are before spending some time exploring the museum + aquarium

Touring Kyoto in the hot hot sun

Saturday afternoon we had time with some local students and our guide was called Zena - she took the team to the Golden Temple and then took the students around central Kyoto for the afternoon. Here are some pics of our adventure

iGeo - Kyoto Update

Sorry we have not had much time to blog lately but wanted to give you some pics of what we have been up to around Kyoto.  On Thursday the students were in the field so Steve and I spent some time in the Kyoto centre.

Well protected fruit at the local supermarket

Snack shop in central Kyoto

 These are from the market streets in the city centre - you can get anything you want here from traditional food and drinks to socks and teapots.

Tsukemono Shop - traditional pickles  - you serve them with steamed rice as a small side dish

There are many fish sellers - these ones were cooked and ready to take home

 In the evening we took the students from NZ, UK and The Netherlands to the city centre to check it out after the days work.

 Friday afternoon the students were doing a workshop and Steve was doing his turn at marking so I explored a very very hot city along the river and found this amazing traditional street

On Friday afternoon after the written fieldwork test there was an origami workshop for the students who worked as a team and created these masterpieces

Max and Isaac at the Origami Workshop 

Last night we had the poster presentations - this is a non-competition part of the iGeo but students and Team Leaders are given four stickers to share with the teams they think have done the best job on their countries geographic poster on the theme - traditional wisdom to modern knowledge. We look at fishing methods in NZ

Britt and Isaac doing an awesome job sharing our poster