Midpoint: RENKEI weekend

The weekend provided a great time where each of the participants could explore the city (or the country!) to their hearts content. Many of the Japanese students spent some of the weekend in London or at Stone Henge. I (Caroline) met up with Jasmine and Giovanni to have a quick exploration of the St. Paul's festival. It was amazing, there were so many people in the streets and squares, drinking, dancing, and generally having a great time together. People must have came from all around Bristol to attend, it really shows what life and soul the city has!

Giovanni and Jasmine relaxing in a square at St. Paul's festival.

One of the many outside parties/clubs.

On Sunday, my boyfriend James visited from Southampton (urged by my claims of "Bristol is amazing! You have to visit and meet all of the awesome RENKEI people!"), and so James, Ruth, Taka, Jasmine and myself headed to the beautiful historic city of Bath. There we bumped into Toshi, and met up with Jill for a bite to eat in a shaded garden of a cafe. We then went to explore the famous Roman baths, next to the cathedral. Everything was so interesting and impressive, and combining the ancient history with the amazing weather and the "holiday spirit", it felt more like Rome or Athens than anywhere in the UK. However the UK it was, so I can add Bath to one of my favourite cities, along with Bristol.

Bath Abbey - one of my favourite pictures, but it could be improved by adding any of our very-good-looking RENKEI people!

Ruth, Taka, myself, and Jasmine at the Roman Baths.

We all met back up on Sunday evening for a reunion buffet at the hotel, where we could share our tales of adventure (and celebrate the tennis scores, go Andy!). However, a lot of people headed to bed early, to recover from our action-packed weekend, and prepare for our even-more-action-packed week ahead!

Fun and games and hard work too!

The latest 3 days of the RENKEI program have been crazy! We have covered so much in such a short period of time. Tuesday and Wednesday were spent with VOX Coaching's Pete and Matt, who guided us through teamworking, spontaneity, networking with others (especially those of a higher "status") and generally presenting oneself. I think everyone in the program, participants, organisers and guests alike agree than Matt and Pete done a fantastic job of relaxing everyone and really bringing joy and fun into some really challenging concepts.

We have been trying to capture the experience as much as we can, but most of the time we are too busy having fun and get too involved in the moment and forget about pictures! However we have made a special effort as we want to be able to show everyone what RENKEI is all about, so here are some pictures!

Pete talks us though the VOX workshop, on a rare occasion when we are sitting, as most of our time was spent on out feet, being active, and using our bodies for communication.

A freeze-frame of a short scenario, built up person-by-person without any prior communication. Can you guess what this one is? Answer: The prodigal son returning, of course! (with the added welcome by the family dog!)

Can you guess this one? Answer: A bank robbery! You can see Dom being a keen getaway driver, prematurely making his exit (to a tip for RENKEI people, we know who not to take on a bank robbery!)

A lovely meal in Goldbrick House hotel!

Workshops on presentations skills and entrepreneurship were held in Bristol University.

Katie as part of a presentation on poster presentation skills!

One team were very enthusiastic about poster presentation aesthetics! You can see the VOX training had a large effect on our confidence in using our bodies in presentations! 

A few people after a midnight walk across the river from out hotel, and a spontaneous RENKEI picture.

RENKEI Commences!

Today was the first official start of the RENKEI Program! Katie and myself (and all the other participants and organisers) have been waiting for this day for months and it has finally arrived!

Yesterday all of the participants arrived from all over the UK and Japan. We met for an informal introduction and reception in the hotel, however most of the Japanese students were suffering from extreme jet lag, and everyone wanted to be refreshed for the next day, so we all had an early night (after a quick trip to the pub, of course!).

This morning we met in the hotel and walked to the beautiful Bristol University campus together, taking in the sights and sounds of the city as we went. The day consisted of many introductions and interesting discussions, including overviews of Bristol city, Kyoto city, the concept of sustainability, and working together across interdisciplinary (and international) fields. And of course, we had the opportunity to have many personal introductions with people involved with the RENKEI programs as organisers, guest speakers, and the participants (which included a quick-fire "speed networking" session, which was exhausting, but helped showcase the vast diversity across the participants. There seems to be students from almost every field across academia, in addition to people of many different nationalities from across the world. So there are so many new exciting views and opinions in this program.

Participation in encouraged through using post-it notes to share ideas and questions.

Professional relationships and the diverse experience and input are not the only promising factors, as already the group has started to form keen friendships. The UK students are trying to be as accommodating as possible, by introducing as many features of British culture as possible (including pubs!), and the Japan students are taking the chance to explore and absorb as much as they can in their time here. Tonight we had an exchange of Japanese and British drinking games, which is cultural co-operation at its finest if you ask me!

Anyway tomorrow will be another busy day, so I am going to try to get to sleep, and hopefully we will update again soon! おやすみ!!