City building??

Today after work I attended my first lecture on まちづくり. This would be translated as city building, or more correctly city development. This was the event that I had signed up for a few weeks ago and everyone in my office completely freaked out about. They tried to talk me out of it, thinking I had made a mistake...

It was nice because I got to stay after my normal time with my coworkers and we talked about the inauguration and I got to feel less like an outsider. Plus I really wanted them to see that I am interested in getting more involved.

I am actually really glad I attended this lecture. It was a little difficult because the presenter spoke very fast (probably like I do in English), but I did my best to keep up. It was a presentation on tourism in Kameoka.

Kameoka is a small town to the west of Kyoto. Foreigners don't actually make their way out here all that often, though sometimes for our river ride. Most of our tourists are older Japanese people.

This presentation was all about how to improve the tourism business in Kameoka, focusing on research about current trends. The trends used to be on bus tourism but have shifted to individuals traveling with friends, family, or lovers. However, Kameoka is not well organized for individual travelers, who tend to decide what they want to do once they arrive. The bus schedules and maps are difficult to find, nothing is well labeled, etc, so without a tour guide, people miss out on most of the city. Also, most people travel to Kameoka, and other little towns, to sample famous food.

It sounds boring, but when I was sitting there listening, I kept getting more and more ideas. By the end of the hour and a half speech I had filled nearly 3 sheets of papers with my own ideas for how to encourage foreign tourism to Kameoka and things that I can do to make an impact on the city. How I could help get the necessary information to the foreigners BEFORE they visit so they WILL visit.

The best part was that I sat between my boss's boss (Mori butyou) and another higher up in my office (fukusanji), who were watching me as I was taking notes. They didn't really talk to me about it, but it was nice to know that they knew I was paying attention. My notes were actually mostly in English because I write faster in English .