Japan is one of the leading nations in maritime sector. On September 10 to 17, 2006, a group of 27 students of WMU Sasakawa Fellowship, Class of 2007 have been given the opportunity to visit Japan. The Japan Field Trip involved visits and observation tours to Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, The Nippon Foundation, Port and Airport Research Institute, Maritime Disaster Prevention Center, National Institute For Sea Training ("The Seiun Maru" and "The Nippon Maru" training vessel), Namura Shipbuilding, Nippon Steel Corporation Yawata Works, Port of Hakata, Himeji Castle and Akaishi Kaikiyo Bridge. The visits and the tours gave a lot of knowledge, experiences and good exposures to the students in term of seafarers education training, maritime emergency response in pollution prevention, shipping in Japan, shipbuilding, port and harbour in Japan, maritime research and culture of Japan.

　

 Besides the knowledge, experiences and exposures in maritime sector, I also have the opportunity to know the culture and the people of Japan. From my observation, good values such as honesty, respectful, punctuality, hardworking and creativity have become the culture of people of Japan. These values are important to ensure the harmony and prosperity of the nation.

　

 Japan is located in the area of "Ring Fire of the Pacific" which exposure to volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunami. In 1995, the Kobe area in Japan had a major earthquake that caused a lot of loss of life and intense damaged in property. A visit to the area during the field trip shown no sign of effect of the earthquake. This show how fast the recovery of the earthquake. I admired the will power of the Japanese to face the obstacles in their life. These will power and good values of the Japanese lead to Japan as one of the world major economic.

　

 Good preservation of historic place such as Himeji Castle had led the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO to designate the castle as the World Cultural Heritage Site. The beauty of the castle with Japan traditional wooden architecture has the sentiment value to the people of Japan and the future generation. As a whole, the Japan Field Trip was very fruitful to WMU Sasakawa Fellowship, Class of 2007 and also gave a good impression of Japan and sweet memories to the students.

　

　

　

 In a life, every body may have many own experiences which can be magnificence or gloomy one. Similarly, I as one component of the human society have had many events in my life. Among them, I can say that Japan field study trip (9^th to 17^th September, 2006) was one of my unforgettable and brilliance experience up to the present time. What do I mean by that?

　

 First of all, I would like to say is that, we, altogether 26 students form WMU, class 2006, from 14 countries, were awarded as WMU Sasakawa fellowship by Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, Chairman of The Nippon Foundation, Japan, through the Ocean Policy Research Foundation which is one of his finger. As the fellowship of Sasakawa, we were arranged to have field study trip as the previous students to Japan.

　

 While we were in Japan, we had the opportunity to visit many places and learnt a lot, especially for me who have less experience about the practical maritime affaires. We had visited many palaces and seen many activities as described bellow.

　

 First of all, we visited Museum of Maritime Science situated at the Tokyo Port from we can learn such as, ship history, marine developments, maritime transportation, sailing the seas- ship handling simulation, sea-bottom promenade and Ayumi Go Lssei Ocean-floor house. Then we had orientation at the conference room of that museum at the very first day that we arrived in Tokyo.

　

 Then on the later days, we had the chance to learn about such as, Seafarers Administration, Maritime education and training for seafarers, Mariners law and related training in the Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) and also had a valuable speech form the Director-General, Maritime Bureau, MLIT-Japan. Of course. We were invited to visit Mr. Yohei Sasakawa who gave us an important speech about the trip and the related matters. There we were allowed to introduce ourselves and expressed our sincere thanks to him and related personals. After that a grand and unforgettable reception ceremony were arranged for us accompanied with many auspicious guests form various associated maritime divisions including the ambassadors of the students' countries. It was an extremely perfect arrangement and we were very proud to be Sasakawa fellowship.

　

 Later days, we had a tour on board of Nippon Maru and Seiun Maru including a tour of the Tokyo Part. There we learnt about their training for seafarers. It was very attracted to me because those are the first time for me to learn practically. So the trip was very valuable for me. In addition, we had been to Fukuoka by air and had to visit Namura Shipbuilding Company. It was a very big shipbuilding dock and we saw several ships being built. Some were nearly finished, some were still at the beginning and the one we visited is a big container ship, 80 percent finished and it would be on sea test within a few days.

　

 After that, we had a chance to visit Nippon Steel Corporation Yawata Works and we saw a big furnish for malting the iron and clay for iron bars which are then for further processing to plates for using in ship building and export. We also visited the Maritime Disaster Prevention Center at a small island in Futtsu city to where we had to take a small board. It is one of the biggest center in the world and we could practically see the trainers were being trained with the really big fire. Moreover we were also been to Maritime Disaster Prevention Center, Yokosuka Training Centeer in Yokosuka city where we saw oil spill control, recovery and shorelines clean-up equipments.

　

 Finally, we had a very nice cruse ship which took us a tour around the port of Hakata which is the Fukuoka City's gateway to the world, from where we could see various port activities around the ports such cargo handling, loading and unloading, very beautiful surrounding scenes and very good feeling of sailing by that cruse ship. In addition, at the last day, we were lucky to see the Himeji Castle which is one of the world cultural heritages. It was unbelievable to see that at the older days, people could build such a big, high and splendorous building. It is actually that seeing is believing.

　

 In conclusion, I would like to say that for the whole trip, it was a marvellous one and we have learnt a lot theoretically and practically with regarding to maritime affairs, because along the whole trip we were accompany by Mr. Eisuke Kudo, Head of the Secretariat, Friends of WMU, Japan, the Ocean Policy Research Foundation and Mr. Shinichi Ichikawa, Friends of WMU, Japan Secretariat, Maritime Technology Department, the Ocean Policy Research Foundation. Besides them, there were other personals and staff, man and woman, together with us along the trip. There was always a tour guide for us to explain the general knowledge about the places and helped us if something is necessary while we were in Japan. We also had a very splendid hotel to stay in and had very nice and delicious Japanese foods and other choices to serve. We had excellent transportation accesses and small pocket money for some lunches and dinners. Therefore, what else I can say more about the imperfect things during this trip, only one thing I can say is "it is too good to believe for other people who do not have such an experience" . Only, "seeing is believing".

　

 The World Maritime University (WMU) is the only learning institution, as far as I know, that provides under its curriculum the opportunity for its students to travel to a foreign country. Further, based on the impressions of my colleagues who graduated from WMU, it is also plus factor if you are studying under the sponsorship of the Ocean Policy Research Foundation (OPRE) of Japan or simply under the Sasakawa Fellowship. For being one, you have the great chance to visit Japan on a field study trip.

　

 WMU has been earmarking on its school year schedule a particular week for the Japan trip. While Sasakawa Fellowship students are away, the other students left in Mälmo, Sweden have a week of rest. But, for me, while we are given this rare chance, I have the responsibility tucked with me during the trip and that is not to get lost off track of my other academic requirements left behind.

　

 The Japan field study is a combination of learning its various cultures. We were closely exposed to their way of life and cherished traditions, their disciplined work ethics, the sophisticated land and air transport system, their cultural heritage and most of all their initiatives in the maritime affairs, ranging from shipbuilding to seafarer training. I look forward to our daily scheduled activities having in mind the chance to learn on another very important idea. The schedule may be considered tight but it has a purpose. And this is all geared towards the aim of maximizing every time and effort to learn more about Japan. The best part of the trip is meeting personally the visionary behind the concept of the Sasakawa Fellowship and he is no less than, Mr. Yohei Sasakawa of The Nippon Foundation.

　

 The chance to visit a foreign country is always an exciting activity. Although I have had the chance to visit other countries in the past, however, those were limited to purely official or business trips. Such trips do not afford the chance for in-depth learning about the country visited. There are other field studies in other countries lined up for us in WMU, but, I have the impression that this is a travel that will last a lifetime.