Scout Youth Forum, Tokyo - 11th Oct 07

Finally after a seven-hours air flight, we finally arrived in Narita International Airport in Tokyo at 7.30am. It was a tiring ride as most of us didn't manage to sleep much, partly due to the seat position and also due to the 'Ohayo Gozaimasu' by the SIA girl for your breakfast at 4.30am in the morning after you try to sleep at 4am.

Much to my expectation, it was another 2 hours bus ride to Shinjuku Station before we hoped on another 10-15 minutes taxi ride to the National Olympics Youth Centre. After registration at the reception, we 'bunk in' with the Scouts from Brunei and Malaysia in a room. We had to wait till 3pm to collect our room keys. Soon after Scouts from Thailand, Bhutan and Indonesia also arrived and then went for our first lunch. It was good food - Japanese style, with a salad bar!

While waiting for the clock to strike 3, we decided to play some games and pulled the other Scouts along. We had such a good laugh and fun. Without knowing, time flew real quick and we collected our keys and off we went to find our rooms. Each of us got ourselves a nice, small and cosy room. After settling down and wash up, we went for our dinner. Another great meal!

It was 'Get to know each other' time then! Scouts from a total of 24 countries gathered in the forum hall and was welcomed by the Chairman of YAMG. We were then given a piece of paper each, with many boxes and a title each. It stated titles like, 'Can recite the 3 of the millennium declaration goals', 'Is a Rover', 'Is a Scout leader' etc. We are to go around and interact with all the other Scouts and find out who fits the bill of the title and write their name in the box. At the end of the session, I was surprised that I was actually one of the three fastest to submit the completed sheet! And I received a WSJ 2007 bag from Mari Nakano. Fun indeed. But it's not over. We then had to arrange ourselves in the order of our birth date. Imagine almost 100 people shuffling around!

At the end of the fun session, we were spilt into our discussion groups and started to get to know each other. My group consisted of the facilitator, Maiya (Nepal), James (Australia), Hiro (Japan), Yuki (Japan), Sahyidah (Brunei), Rulie (Indonesia), Ning (Thailand), Kamal (Malaysia), Ling (Hong Kong) and Noorjahan (Afghanistan). After the story of the thousand cranes and mission of folding it before the forum ends, the day was closed with an update of the following day's programme. A long, tiring but eventful first day!