The Bamboo Shoots
A local newsletter quarterly issued
Yamato Takada Lismore Sister City Association,Nara,Japan
Spring・Summer Issue,2017

No.171
Contact：
Yamato Takada Lismore Sister City Association
TEL：0745-22-1101
http://www.city.yamatotakada.nara.jp/lismore/

We do hope The Bamboo Shoots born out of the soil of Yamato-Takada will grow up and act as a go-between for the citizens in Lismore and in Yamato-Takada

International Exchange Awards
On May 8th (Mon.) the 11th International ExchangeAward Ceremony was held by the Council of Local
Authorities for International Relations in the Ministry ofInternal Affairs and Communications. As Yamato Takada
City and the Yamato Takada・Lismore Sister CityFriendship Association have been working on the various
exchanges between the two cities since 1963 and thecontinual efforts so far had been highly evaluated, theInternational Exchange Awards have come to be given tothem.Mr. Masakatsu Yoshida, mayor, and Mr. Yoshikiyo
Wakimoto, president of the association, were willing toattend the award ceremony in Tokyo.

Fund-Raising for Floodin Lismore City
Heavy rainfalls and strong winds raged in Lismore
city, Australia, at the end of March this year and theycaused serious damage to the city and the greaterparts of it were very much damaged by flooding.In
order to have visitors and local citizens raise funds forthe disposal and removal of piles of debris all overLismore, ‘The Yamato Takada・Lismore Sister City

Friendship Association’ set up the donation boxes here
and there in the Katashio Shopping Districts when
‘Okage-Matsuri in spring’ or ‘Thank-you Festival inspring’ took place there on April 30. It goes without
saying that many of the visitors and local citizens
showed their cooperative attitudes to the fund-raising
activities and donated money one after another.
The donated money is expected to be taken directly toLismore city by the exchange students this summer.

Exchange Students to Lismore Announced
The exhange students this year were decided, including Mr. Fukuoka, an English teacher of Takada-nishi Junior Highschool, who is in charge of the students. They are expected to stay at Lismore for 12 days from July 28 to August 9.
I had always been interested
in overseas trips, so I decided
to apply for this exchange
student project. This is myfirst time to go abroad, so I
really feel nervous before thetrip, but as this is a goodchance for me to have avariety of experience, I will
try to talk to local citizens inChihiro Takagi
Lismore and get along withthem in friendship. Yamato
Takada city has a lot of uniquely appealing points, so I
will tell them to Lismore people and at the same time I
want to learn about Lismore as much as possible. By
doing so I would like to play an important role as an
exchange student.

Ryuichi Morishima

I am very happy to have agood opportunity to visit
Lismore this time, buthonestly, I feel uneasy
whether I can tell local people
properly what I want to say in
English. I know, however, thatas a member of the exchange
students I must tell them a lot
about things attractive that

Yamato Takada city has.
Furthermore, I would like tomake great progress with English and get a goodcommunicative competence during my stay in Lismore.

I made an application for thisexchange student project as I
wanted to learn the differenceof culture between the twocountries, Japan and Australia.
During the two-week homestay
in Lismore, I must think bymyself, act on my own initiativeand increase communication
with my host family. I have aRin Koyanagi
lot of worries about my firsttime overseas stay,but I will
spend the two weeks effectively trying everything
without being afraid of failure.

The reason why I applied for thisexchange program was that I
wanted to experience a different
culture, and also I had a dream that
I wanted to get a job of a guide forforeign visitors to Japan. Throughthis homestay program I want tomake good progress with English tocarry out my hope in the future.

I have a lot of worries about studying
abroad but I will enjoy home-stayingand try my best to make this program
successful together with our attendant teacher and the fivestudents.

Hikari Shinomoto

I had known well about thisexchange program and I had wanted
to tell Australian people about
Takada city since I was an elementary
pupil. It took me a lot of courage toapply for this project. I thought thiswas the last chance in my highschool life and I didn’ t want to missthis opportunity.
I am anxious about my first visit
Haruki Yoshimura abroad and how to spend two weeks
in Lismore, but now that I havebecome an exchange student, I willpull out all the stops to act as an exchange student. I willtell Lismore people much about Takada’ s charm and good
points and at the same time I will learn as much aboutAustralia.

Akira Fukuoka(teacher)I hear that Yamato Takada city has
been a sister city with Lismore formore than fifty years. So I wantedto act as a bridge between us anddeepen our exchanges. That’s why I
decided to be an attendant teacher
in this program. I hope we know
more about each other, we share ourcultures, and I myself support theexchange students to be stimulated
by a lot of experiences there.