Was invited by my Japanese sensei to help out at Aomori city and handed down leaflets to those that alighted from the cruise. Like usual, I was clueless what I was supposed to do. Annually the huge cruise Diamond Princess will arrive a day in Aomori Harbour and we were to hand out leaflets and get them interested in Japanese style bento (Lunch box) making session. They could make their own onigiri (rice balls) and select the various dishes, had their name written in calligraphy and a picture of them with their bento.
We went to harbour and started handing out the flyers, after a while we realised all of them had their lunch on the cruise and majority were Japanese. We were targeting non Japanese actually. It was a tough job, the wind was strong and sands often got in our eyes or face. You also have to face rejections most of the time but since I used to work in customer service/sales, I am quite used to it even though I do not like it. Once in a while when I encounter Tawainese tourists and spoke to them in Chinese, they asked me for directions and tourist attractions details but I had no idea! Just referred them to the information desk and translated for them lol! They were praising my chinese..... hehe of course!
My sensei's friend (the overall in charge) was impressed with my proactive approach since the rest of us were too shy and meek to approach the tourists like me. We were targeting 30 but only 8 came :( Oh well we tried our best! My sensei commented it was the toughest volunteer work she had ever done lol! Usually its not that hard haha!
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| The bento making experience flyer |
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| all the us to hand out flyers |
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| The Japanese lady in white is a well known chef that often appeared on TV and she has a cafe in Hachinohe. |
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| Glad to see there's customers! was worried none appeared after standing in wind, sun, sand for 2 ++ hours! |
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