Coinciding with 8th hoshiZora Forum event at March 2011, they also welcomed 5 Japanese guests whom visit Yogyakarta from March 4 -8, 2011.
Two of the the guests, Kak Seitaka Yoshida and Kak Noriko Utsunomiya are hoshiZhora Education Tour (HET) participants. HET is a based education tour activity which has been created by hoshiZora that enable its participants to enjoy the tourism experiences while experiencing the education system in Yogyakarta at the same time. HET’s main objective is to introduce yet to support Yogyakarta’s tourism, and to open the eyes of the world due to Indonesia’s educational condition, also to introduce foreign cultures, mostly Japanese culture, to Yoyakarta’s students.
Three other guests are Kak Vicky Maki Honda, Kak Mika Yamasaki and Kak Tomoko Aoki. Kak Vicky and Kak Mika are working for Nippon Foundation, a Japan private nonprofit organization which is ranged on philanthropic mission in many countries among the world through some areas, such as education, social welfare, and society health. Nippon Foundation is one of hoshiZora’s partners which giving a lot of support toward hoshiZora’s activities, and this time, their arrival’s objective is to directly observe both hoshiZora’s progress and “Adik Bintang’s” progress in Yogyakarta. While Kak Tomoki Aoki, is a private donator whom fully supports hoshiZora’s activities.
Their main objective of Yogyakarta’s visit was actually participating on 8th hoshiZora’s Forum. Kak Seitaka, Kak Noriko, Kak Vicky, Kak Mika and Kak Aoki were very enthusiastic meeting the entire hoshiZora’s “Adik Bintang” whom also participating on hoshiZora Forum, Sunday, March 6, 2011 yet participating in the whole hoshiZira Forum’s activities.
All the “Kakak Bintang” whom participating were also facilitated to met and spent their times with their “Adik Bintang.” Kak Seitaka, for example, he took Dik Ridho, his “Adik Bintang” to spent two nights at the hotel, and to asked his ‘Adik Bintang” to go along with his activities in Yogyakarta for 2 days, while Kak Vicky was invited to visit her “Adik Bintang’s” house, Dik Restu Priawan.
During their visit to Yogyakarta, all the guests were also invited to enjoy the main tourism objects in Yogyakarta, such as Borobudur temple and Malioboro. They were also introduced to Javanese culture and tradition such as batik painting, gamelan, traditional Javanese dance and also leather puppets. They also experienced how to plant padi, how to plough the field, how to make clay arts, and they also had the opportunity to ride “andong” (four-wheeled carriage drawn by two horses which is common in Central Java) around the village. All the guests were also invited to visit Mt. Merapi while visiting hoshiZora’s “Adik Bintang” who became the victims of Mt. Merapi’s eruption at the victims’ shelters and evacuation camps. Despite of visiting the evacuation camps and victims’ shelters directly, they also had the opportunity to talk directly to those evacuees of Mt. Merapi’s eruption whom still managed to stay in the evacuation camps.
All those Japanese guests were also sharing their knowledge by volunteering themselves to teach Japanese language, and also to introduce Japanese cultures (Japanese writing, Origami, and Japanese traditional games) at SMP 1 Bantul. In this school all these guests also given the opportunities to know about Javanese culture, in which they were invited to play gamelan and to paint batik.
On their last day of visit, they were facilitated to met and talked to some of the sleepers in Yogyakarta, and they also had the opportunity to ride “andong” around Malioboro and at the end of their tour they went to Taman Pintar Yogyakarta.
