Day 2

Saturday 25^th July 2015

Today we spent most of our time in the air flying to Japan. We stopped off in Seoul, South Korea for around 2 or 3 hours so it was just enough time to have a wander around the huge airport. Before we went off around the airport we took the first, of many to come I’m sure, BeKeHaBu unit photos. After having a wander around we met up with our leaders in the relaxing lounge area, where there was reclining chairs for you to nap in and massage chairs which were very popular with my unit. There was also free Wi-Fi which for some reason seemed very over loaded, I’m sure my unit had nothing to do with that aha. We eventually made our way to the boarding gate to find out our plane was delayed again! Argh! However, it ended up only being delayed by half an hour or so. We were soon in the air again.

After another interesting Korean plane meal and a 2-and-a-half-hour plane flight, we finally landed in the land of the rising sun and many adventures for our unit and all the other scouts who would be there for the World Scout Jamboree.

As we arrived late in the evening by the time we had got to the place we we’re staying, which just so happened to be the National Olympics Memorial Youth Centre, we were all exhausted. Luckily the Youth Centre was only an hour away from the airport. On the bus journey, we got out the BeKeHaBu playlist and sang along to some of the songs we had all chosen together. Tokyo was quite cool when we arrived so we did not expect the following day to be that much dramatically warmer. We would be mistaken… very mistaken.

Before we left the airport, the toilet was something on everyone’s mind. There’s only a certain amount of times you can use the airplane loo. Now we all knew that we would have to be open minded about experiencing new things… but… having to use a squat toilet less than 5 minutes after arriving in Japan took us all by a bit of surprise (Personally I actually preferred them by the end of the trip as they seem more hygienic).

After the hour journey to the Youth Hostel, we stood around for a while whilst our leaders sorted out the room. The temperature was quite warm so we didn’t really mind but we were all very tired and in need of a shower. This brings me onto another Japanese custom we were thrown into straight away. Once we had all found our rooms, my friend Mimi and I decided to have a shower. We were not expecting all the showers in the hostel to be communal… or for swimwear to be prohibited in them. Being pretty close we thought what the heck and got on with it and honestly it’s really not as bad as you think it would be.

After an eventful shower, we all hit the deck and dreamt of the amazing adventures that would await us tomorrow.

Oooooooooooh Exciting News!!!

How on earth has it been 3 months since I got back from Japan and I haven't posted anything on my blog you ask! Well that's because I'm working on something special.

Ooooooooooooooooooooh!

Yes oooh! Over the Jamboree I attempted to keep a diary which was difficult to say the least. First my phone died, then my iPod died, then by battery pack died and then I had nowhere to charge anything! So over the past three months amongst doing school work I have typing from memory and by looking at my photos my Jamboree diary in as much detail as possible.

Why you as?

Well because I was inspired to promote the Jamboree and how when all 155 countries were in one place together there was complete peace and unity. I mean that was the theme of the Jamboree Wa "a Spirit of Unity".

One of my favourite photos from the Jamboree

Over the next week or so my blog we be getting redesigned and I will hope to start releasing in order my dairy entries from my Jamboree experience.

I also hope to eventually turn my diary into a book of some kind talking about the Jamboree, Scouts and how I was inspired.

Keep an eye on my Twitter and Facebook for updates and if you check my blog you'll see the gradual redesign of its look.

Where Has The Time Gone!?

Happy New Year!!! (I know that's way over due) I cannot believe November was the last time I posted! Oh dear oh dear oh dear! I'm so sorry but I've been extraordinarily busy with school work and finishing off fundraising.

So to up date you guys, I've managed to complete my fundraising to cover the cost of my journey to the World Scout Jamboree (just over £2,000). So now I am trying to gather some money to buy some equipment for myself and my unit, but more on that later.

In December my unit had a meeting where we learnt some Japanese and gave each other our secret Santa presents. I gave Ed a chocolate Santa, which said Merry Christmas Ed and I received light up Santa earrings. We also ran a fundraising stall at a local school fete to raise money for our unit. Here are some photo's from the weekend!

 

 

More recently our unit had a weekend where we focused on working in our patrols which we will be in for the actual Jamboree, exciting! We went dragon boating at Longridge (my local water activity centre) which was great fun! Instead of talking for ages about what we did here are some photos to sum up the weekend.

 

 

 

One of the most hard but cool things we did over the weekend was write the name of our unit 'BeKeHaBu' with lights. This took more attempts than I can remember but the final result is amazing!!!

The weekend was great fun and our next one is a monopoly run in April, which should be great fun.

Now as I mentioned earlier, I have finished my fundraising to pay for the set cost of the Jamboree, however there is still some equipment I would like to buy not only to benefit myself but my Jamboree unit too. One major thing that could be quite difficult to do in the middle of a Jamboree site is washing clothes. When researching this, I came across a magnificent invention called a Scrubba bag. This bag is especially designed to be light weight and wash your clothes to a washing machine quality. Instead of explaining here's a video on what its about and what is does.

I have set up a GoFundMe page to try and raise funds to buy one of these bags for my once in a life time trip. If you have any money you could possibly donate at the top right of my page there is a GoFundMe button. Any donations are welcomed whether its 1p or £5 every donation helps.

Keep your eyes open for more posts and feel free to drop a comment below or ask me any questions.

News! News! News!

So I believe that the last I blogged was September!!! And in that gap a whole lot of fun stuff has happened. My unit had out second training weekend at Gilwell Scout Activity Centre which is  the HQ for scouting across the UK. There we prepared for the Jamboree and took part in the JOTI/JOTA event. For more information go here: http://jotajoti.info/ and we released our first unit newsletter!

Since it has been a while since the second training weekend and I did a review of it in the newspaper I am not going to a whole post on it as the newsletter is much more exciting. PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! Read it. You won't be disappointed!

Get it here at:

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/#folders/0Bxp4p8V3wJzeVWhGQ2ZTdXN0OUU/0Bxp4p8V3wJzeWXVyVjJTbm95c00/0Bxp4p8V3wJzeQWhjUUcwYXY0QWs

Also please check out my other blog for my BeKeHaBu books which is explained on this blog:

http://bekehabuadventure.blogspot.co.uk/

I know this post has been a bit of an advertisement but your  views give me motivation to keep on going and show that people care about what us scouts do.

Thanks and the next post will probably be after my next training weekend in early December!