On January 25th, 2018, I saw some snow on the street and it was very cold. Even the weather was not great, Ms. Sonam had smiles on her face and enjoyed her day.
The Sun came out from between the clouds occasionally and the sunlight was hitting the snow.
She was excited to see replicas of real dinosaurs, and she was also surprised to hear its howling.
After watching the replicas of dinosaurs, we went to see a planetarium show in a building called Happiring near Fukui station. It was the first time to see the planetarium show and she was amazed to see it. She said that it was so much fun and beautiful.
She said that since she arrived in Japan, it had brought her endless surprises.
Stay tuned for our next blog about Ms. Sonam’s stay in Fukui.
In our previous blog, we have introduced that Ms. Sonam Choki who is the image girl of Bhutan Museum Fukui and she appears in its poster came to Fukui from Bhutan. She stayed in Fukui City from January 20th, 2018 for about one month.
She was only 14 years old when the photograph that has been used for Bhutan Museum Fukui poster was taken. She is now 23 years old.
On January 23rd, 2018, Genji Nosaka, the former president of Bhutan Museum Fukui and Ms. Sonam Choki visited NHK in Fukui (Japan Broadcasting Corporation, Fukui Station). Since there is NHK World broadcasting in Bhutan, she’s seen their TV programs and familiar with NHK.
Mr. Hiroya Okado, the director of Fukui Station showed us around in the studio. We had always watched their news and TV programs as TV viewers but not as broadcasters in the studio. It was interesting for us to experience what is behind the camera and what they do in the studio. According to Mr. Okado, when a program is on the air, there are usually only a few people working in the studio. Other staff check the program, check the sound and so on in a different room.
Ms. Erika Morishita, a television broadcaster who has cheerful attitude showed us how the program would be shown on the TV. It seemed very strange to see what we usually see at home in the studio. Ms. Sonam Choki was very interested in the TV camera which she had seen for the first time ever.
I’m sure you have seen at least one or two breaking news on TV.
Ms. Morishita showed us how they usually broadcast when a breaking news happen. An example script that she showed us looked as it needs to be read calmly, seriously and clearly.
At this moment, none of us knew that they would had to report many breaking heavy snow news 2 weeks later.
Mr. Nosaka and Ms. Sonam Choki had such a great experience seeing the studio, and learning about the TV company and their programs.
In our previous blog, as we introduced that Sonam Choki, who is the image girl of Bhutan Museum Fukui and she appears in its poster, came to Fukui from Bhutan. She stayed in Fukui City from January 20th, 2018 for about one month.
She was only 14 years old when the photograph that has been used for Bhutan Museum Fukui poster was taken. She is now 23 years old.
On the second day of her stay in Fukui, we had lunch at a Japanese restaurant “Hanako no Ie” (Ie means a house in Japanese) that serves homemade Japanese food.
It was a pretty big lunch. For their special 500 yen lunch meal, we had miso soup, rice, pickles, boiled vegetables, a fried croquette (frying mashed potato ball) and salad.
*their lunch menu changes everyday.
According to the cook/owner of the restaurant, her recommendation is the fried croquette. It is made with pumpkin, potatoes, and onions. I had it and it was very delicious that the outside of the fried coquette was crispy and inside of it was very soft and hot.
I asked Ms. Sonam, what she liked the best. She said that she enjoyed the croquette and she was also amazed by the miso soup as well. The cook spent time and effort making the soup from scratch. The miso soup broth was made from boiled-dried fish and it was very delicious.
After we had lunch, we went to an animation store called “animate” which is a large chain of anime stores in Japan. They sell everything from anime, games, manga and anime related goods such as manga, figures, posters, stationery goods and much more.
In Bhutan, anime, “NARUTO” and “ONE PIECE” are very popular. Ms. Sonam likes them as well so she bought an ONE PIECE keychain and a pen.
As soon as we stepped out from animate, it started snowing hard and we did not have umbrellas. We decided to head to a 100 yen shop around the station.
She said that there aren’t any stores in Bhutan like 100 yen stores in Japan. It was very new and interesting for her so she kept walking and looking around in the store. Since she is a college student, she likes stationery supplies. She bought vocabulary cards to memorize Japanese vocabularies and an umbrella.
100 Japanese Yen is about 57 Bhutan Ngultrum.
On the way back to Bhutan Museum, we saw snow falling in large flakes. In Bhutan, it does snow sometimes but it does not snow as much as it does in Japan. And top of that, she’s never seen such large snowflakes, so she was amazed by the snow.
Stay tuned for our next blog about Ms. Sonam’s stay in Fukui.
A photographer from Ono City, Fukui visited Bhutan and met a girl there and it was 9 years ago.
They said goodbye without asking each other’s information. They both had no idea who they were and where they lived, and many years went by.
After 9 years later, miraculously, they finally saw each other again on January 22nd, 2018.
9years ago, a photographer, Munekazu Matta saw a group of Bhutanese children by chance while he was visiting Bhutan. The children were on their way going home from their school. All of the children in the group were very cute but there was a girl who caught Mr. Matta’s eyes the most. That girl was Sonam Choki. She was only 14years old at that time and she was a student of Middle Secondary School in BUMTHANG.
Mr. Matta took photographs of Ms. Sonam and her friends. And one of the photographs that he took that day, was used for Bhutan Museum’s poster.
According to Mr. Matta, as Bhutan Museum was founded in 2012, many people said “who is this girl?” but no one knew who she was. They tried looking for her, but they could not find her. Many years went by again.
Finally, last year, the founder of the museum, Genji Nosaka contacted Bhutan to find her.
The secretary of the king of Bhutan said that it would not be that difficult for them to find her because there are only two types of school uniforms in Bhutan. The clothing that Ms. Sonam was wearing in the photograph above was one of the school uniforms. They helped Mr. Nosaka finding her.
And finally, the day had come.
As Ms. Sonam’s sister was checking one of Bhutan related Facebook pages randomly, she saw a photograph of her sister, Ms. Sonam. And with the photograph, it said that “do you know her? We are looking for this girl”.
Ms. Sonam contacted the secretary and told her that it was her who was in the photograph. And then, she was invited to the palace. After that, as you can imagine, it brought endless surprises.
Finally, on January 20th, 2018, Ms. Sonam was invited to Fukui.
And then…
Though they never thought they would see each other again, miraculously, they did!
Stay tuned for our upcoming blogs about Ms.Sonam’s stay in Fukui.
