Challenge Week: Japan

For the last week (thus explaining my absence), I was assigned by my school to partake in something called "Challenge Week". For many other IB students, this would be classed as "Project Week", a week in which students have to plan their own CAS project in order to fulfill the requirements of CAS. If I have not mentioned before CAS stands for Creativity, Action, Service.

Our Challenge Week had to incorporate two of these three concepts. For my group of 6, we decided to do creativity and action which if some people fail to realise is the same objectives as a holiday. The only difference that we had was the budget that we had to deal with. The budget disallowed us from going into a five star hotel and eat at the restaurants that I would normally eat with my family. Instead, I got to experience the life of a college student going on holiday with his own funds. The only difference is is that these funds were given by his parents and not generated from his own savings. 

Ironically, many of our third world country offers were shot down by our supervisors but Japan was given the immediate nod for our Challenge Week destination. Something very intriguing but I guess I shouldn't question good fortune. 

Of course, this is not to say that our Challenge Week adventure was not not a challenge. We focused intensely on action and as a result planned to clock over 150 kilometers of walking on the trip, 50 kilometers of it was made on a trek on a mountain called Mount Takao as well as a trek from Mount Jinba to Mount Takao, a feat that was both tiring and brought along a marvelous sight which was well worth it. We had arranged for a tour guide to show us around the area. The owner of the firm was a man called Richard, a very wonderful and kind young man who was very intrigued upon finding 6 small 16 to 18 year olds when he expected people who were a little bit... older. According to him we were his youngest group as a whole, and that's a title that I will hold up very proudly for the rest of my days. That is, of course, until one of you readers younger than me decide to beat the record. 

Here's a photo of my group and the man of the march, Richard. 

The firm that he belongs to is called My Tokyo Guide, and you can find him at: http://www.mytokyoguide.com/ 

Highly recommended of course. 

I have just arrived, and already the duties of a 17 year old Singaporean calls me somewhere else. I shall write till here at the moment, but I hope to tell you a little more about our adventure in the future!

Cheers,

Matthew Tan