Today we headed home after all of our hard work leading toward a wonderful final concert, and then celebrating with a final banquet and closing ceremony.

We loaded our gear into a truck and loaded ourselves into a bus. After a long ride through traffic and some pit stops, we finally arrived at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. With the bells, it’s always an ordeal getting through airports. Luckily, we allowed plenty of time.

Despite a bit of a delay taking off (just before 2 relatively minor earthquakes hit the Tokyo area), we endured a 13+ hour flight before landing safely at JFK Airport.

We then boarded our bus and arrived at Emanuel Lutheran around 10:30 pm to find many friends and loved ones waiting to welcome us home.

It was certainly a memorable trip. We loved absorbing Japanese culture, while gaining a better appreciation for our own. Clearly the theme of the trip was bringing peace to the world through music. That message was especially poignant in Japan, where the memories of war still echo almost everywhere we went.

Now we look forward to the next symposium in Aberdeen, Scotland in 2026!

Hello everyone to the last blog post of our Japan trip!

We started, as usual, with breakfast at the hotel! Unfortunately, I ate my breakfast before I could take a  picture but I have Sam’s breakfast below!!

We then headed out to the venue and did a quick run through of each piece, lasting around 2 hours. We took a short break and started a dress rehearsal of the entire concert. George, Sam, Jordan, and Noreen had a blast changing parts for a simpler piece part of the symposium. Noreen and Jordan were carrying the choir with their eighth note beats on the mallets and George killed it with the four-in-handing looking like a natural. We had some chuckles during practice! 

A bento box lunch was served and some free time to change into concert clothes was allowed. People were lining up to get into the venue fairly early to get good seats! The concert began at 2pm sharp and featured some Mirai choirs, symposium choirs who decided instead of workshops they wanted to ring. After the concert, we broke down the tables at a professional rate I will say. 

We then rolled all the bells back to the hotel and started to get ready for the gala! 

Buses were provided for us to go to the hotel venue. The closing ceremony consisted of food, lots of thanks and clapping. We had a grand dinner including salad, hors d’oeuvres, smoked salmon rolls, meat plates, shrimp, beef steak, assorted sushi and raspberry mousse. 

Unfortunately, I was extremely excited to eat everything however I managed to snap a shot of the sushi plate! The dessert was specially designed as a bell by one of the chefs at the hotel. The food was scrumptious and the service was out of this world! 

The closing ceremony was a great affair! The highlight of the night was Arthur Syin, the symposium translator, was awarded an international laureate for his hard work in translating and collaborating. 

Finally, we would like to thank a core member of our handbell program, Scott Munson, for not only administrating and posting this blog but for being a strong and steady figure in our KPC music program. During the difficult time of finding a new music director, Scott stepped in and graciously took over the handbell responsibilities. We are incredibly grateful for the knowledge and time that he dedicated to the handbell program that has thrived for decades. He will continue to grow our handbell program with the Junior ringers! 

BUT WAIT!!!! We would have not been able to travel to Japan and organize ourselves without Eiko and Sarah’s hard work and strategic planning! People have no idea how much coordinating, organizing, planning and grit that goes into a trip across the globe. We have had a wonderful time all because of them! The combination of their language fluency and preparation skills. We all give a huge thanks to their hand work for this 21st handbell symposium. 

And….. That is all for the KCR adventures in Japan! Thank you for following the blog and supporting these musical experiences! See you in Aberdeen 2024!!!!! 

George & Sasha

Today was our penultimate day at the symposium center on this trip. It started as usual, with a 3-hour morning rehearsal. Today, we fit seven pieces into that time slot instead of six, as the schedule was adjusted for the evening’s concert. 

Today’s lunch was accompanied by a performance called the ‘Bell Smile Lunchtime Concert’. The team consisted of intellectually and emotionally challenged ringers from Oyama City. 

After lunch and a shortened afternoon rehearsal, we had the opportunity to enter the Hamamatsu City Museum of Musical Instruments either before or after our workshop. The museum trip replaced what is normally a free hour, so the afternoon was especially busy. 

However, we were able to rest for the remainder of the day and enjoy the ‘Ring the Future’ international concert. We got to watch the Kanto Gakuin choir, whom we played with at the friendship concert, represent Japan. 

There was also communal bento dinner at eight. It was the first dinner of the symposium where all attendees shared dinner. It served as a celebration of our practice and the coming concert.

The day was a collection of tying up loose ends and enjoying performances to prepare the finale of the symposium.

Andrew & Dante

This morning, we woke up ate breakfast, then left to play even more bells. We had fun ringing all together. We learned how to make music even more musically. For lunch today, there was beef bento boxes, and a three rice vegan (actually vegetarian) meal. After I ate my beef bento box, I went to the family mart across the street and got an amazing Hagen Daz matcha ice cream. The matcha ice cream here is so much better than the one at home! Everyone had either free time afterwards, or a workshop. The workshops consisted of finger weaving (from Canada), playing Ghibli festival music (Japan), mastering mallet technique (USA) and many other options. I went to one where we learned something called “Tsumami Zaiku”. This is when you make something out of fabric with special folds and stitches. We learned to make a flower.

Jordan went to a workshop on preventing handbell injuries. It was very interesting to learn from a physical therapist as to how we can better warm up and stretch before playing. She says that she will run a stretching session tomorrow morning before our solo practice! After that, we had another few songs of practice. It is very fun and one of my favourite parts of symposiums to learn under different conducting styles. We are refining our music and improving our musicality for our final concert. Then, we had the absolute best time listening to the second solo concert. One of the best choirs in the world blessed our ears with an insane rendition of an overture. It is a good reminder that while we are good, we always have room to grow and improve. For dinner, we were on our own. It is very easy to pick up a quick meal from a local konbini— we constantly comment how in America we would never eat from a gas station, but from here the food is great and delicious! We are looking forward to a great day tomorrow that starts early and ends late. Another day in beautiful Hamamatsu— surrounded by amazing musicians and musicality.

Aria & Jordan

We started our first official day of the symposium with an early morning start. We ate breakfast quickly, because we only had 20 minutes to set up before the first piece of the symposium. Much to our dismay, the morning was packed with playing after playing, with one 10 minute break.

As the afternoon fell upon us, lunch relieved our hunger and fatigue. Lunch was provided by the symposium, and there were a couple options. Most consisted of rice, some greenery, and a protein. Most days we will be provided with lunch and this is a great place for us to mingle with the other ringers. Even though most people traded their gifts last night, people were still eager to trade during off time. Lunch was also a fantastic transition into our interactive workshops that were individually picked. 

After lunch, everybody went to the workshop that they had signed up for. Mine (Sam) was about Singapore, its history, and their bell programs there. Their cost of living is very high, and you have to bid for a license to be able to even buy a car, which can cost almost $70,000! Only about 10% of Singapore owns a car because of the cost and scarcity. Fun fact, Singapore is hosting the 2028 handbell symposium. This will be great for anyone going because Singapore has some great places to visit, and even better food. Everyone who grows up there also learns 2 languages: English, and whatever their “mother tongue” is. Your mother tongue is whatever language is spoken by your race, since most everybody there is Chinese, Malay, or Indian, and they want to keep everyone knowing whatever language is spoken in their country of origin.

For me (Issac), I learned all about Korean Culture and played many famous folk songs and hymns from all around Korea. It was a beautiful learning experience and I was fortunate enough to not only expand my understanding of the music, but the people as well. 

After workshops it was back to mass ringing. But this rehearsal was almost half as short, and had a lot more fun songs in my opinion. After the rehearsal, there was the first solo concert, with 14 different songs. Then we were all free to go and get dinner by ourselves or with others to end our day.

Sam & Isaac

For the first day of non-touring in Japan, we were able to sleep in! It was very nice since it was the first and the last time we will be able to sleep in during this trip. Some people in our group woke up earlier and decided to get up for breakfast in the hotel. However some people, like myself, slept in as much as possible and didn’t make it to have breakfast at the hotel before they stopped serving people. I woke up and started getting ready and then a bunch of us met in the lobby to go out and go shopping and explore Hamamatsu for the first time. Conveniently, there is a large “mall” across the street from our hotel with many stores, places to eat and just a nice area to walk around in.

We all started by going into Loft which was very big and many of us bought a couple things. After that London and I split off and we went into Uniqlo, which led us to many other stores in that area. We went and looked at a bunch of the restaurants on the food level and stopped to have a little brunch at Starbucks since it was the easiest place to grab some food quickly.

After walking around for a while we walked back to the hotel and went into our own rooms for a little before getting a text telling everyone to meet at the building where the symposium is taking place. That building also happens to be right across the street from our hotel so it was an easy walk over there after finding out where to go. We all gathered in the rehearsal room and walked in to find gifts for us on our chairs at our spots. Everyone received a nice bag with many things inside, including our lanyard with our name and the workshops we will attending, a little bag with a pin and the tickets we will need for the lunch’s and dinners they are providing and a couple booklets with information. Everyone then started setting up the pads for the tables, and we all made sure the pads and table clothes were laid out perfectly, especially because we are in the front rows. After setting everything up we had a quick meeting so that Eiko, Sarah and Scott could let us know what we were doing for the rest of the day and a couple things about tomorrow too. We then all split off and were able to leave.

Many people went across the street and went into a Family Mart to buy some snacks and then we walked back to the hotel.

We all rested at the hotel until we had to be back at the venue for the opening ceremony which started at 6pm. Takasu-sensei, who is the director of Kanto Gakuin and directed the massed ringing piece at the Friendship Concert, gave the opening remarks. Arthur Syin translated, reprising his role as the Japanese translator at the Australia symposium. There was then a procession of flags for all of the handbell guilds that make up the International Handbell Committee (IHC) followed by each chapter’s president ringing the Opening Bell to officially mark the start of the Symposium. Jun-ichi Ozawa, the president of Handbell Ringers of Japan, and Tim Willets, the director of the IHC both gave speeches before the Grace Handbell Choir of Japan played a piece. After that, Taka-sensei gave his closing remarks before Arthur announced the beginning of “Fun Night”.

This was an opportunity for the ringers to go around to other choirs and individuals from different countries, or even the same country as themselves, and trade pins and other goodies as well as get to know each other. One of the main reasons for having these symposiums is the connection everyone experiences, and this was just one way for us to do that. The IHC also provided food trucks from local vendors so there was plenty of food and drinks to go around. While we were eating, Sasha, Sam and I (Julia) met two ringers from Tokyo named Yuki and Sae. We all chatted about KCR/ER1’s tour of Japan and talked about some differences between Japan and New York, one of which was the lack of jaywalking in Japan. After we finished eating, Sasha and I moved on and met Hailee and Judy from Hong Kong. We learned that it was their first time at a symposium as we exchanged goodies. They actually found us later in the night to exchange social media handles. Both of us met many more people and exchanged many more pins and by the end of the night, everyone had a nice haul.

This is my name tag with the pins I got today plus some extra things, but some people had even more stuff. The night ended with a mini concert by a Traditional Japanese Drumming choir. They were amazing and it was very cool to see, as most of us haven’t seen anything like that before. I was told that the last time the International Handbell Symposium was held in Japan in 1998, there was a drumming concert similar to what we experienced tonight, but not many people from our choir were there for that, so it was a good experience for the rest of us.

Click here for a short video of the drummers (video by Noreen).

Eventually everyone started trickling back to the hotel for some much needed rest in anticipation for our first massed ringing rehearsal tomorrow morning.

Brie & Julia

Today was a hybrid day. In the morning, we visited the Hiroshima Peace Park and Museum. This site is centered around the blast site of the bomb that was dropped on August 6, 1945 (79th anniversary was recently observed). Click here for our reflections.

The morning marked the end of our official tour. We then took 2 bullet trains (Shinkansen) to the site of the symposium, Hamamatsu.

After making our way to our hotel, where we’ll set up camp for the next week, we found our luggage, and made our way to our end of tour dinner.

We had a wonderful time celebrating the past week and are now ready for the symposium week ahead. We told the kids to enjoy their morning off tomorrow, because starting Monday afternoon we are off to the races!

This morning we gathered in the hotel lobby for 9am after eating the breakfast that was provided for us. It was very good and there were many different options like miso, soup, rice, bread, croissants, and different types of fish. This is what our breakfast set up looked like.

After breakfast, we took a short walk to the subway station where we took a very modern looking subway which was a short ride and then we took about a 30 minute ride on the train to the ferry which took us to Miyajima.

The ferry ride was short, but we had a very good view of both the mainland of Japan and the island. It was nice on the ferry to get a good breeze after being outside in the brutal heat.

After the ferry ride, we all walked together to the entrance of the shrine. The shrine was very cool because it was built over water. because of this, we got a nice photo with everyone!

Also, check out this cool picture Crawford took!

After walking through the shrine, we had free time so people split up. I (London) went to the Miyajima aquarium, which was very cool. It wasn’t very different from an aquarium that I’d visit in America except there were some interesting fish that I wouldn’t see.

After the aquarium, we walked along the street with lots of shops and we ended up at probably the most expensive lunch place you would find in Japan. However, it was worth it because the food was very, very good.

Brie, Dante, Aria and I (Chloe) went to an area with a lot of street food and had kara age, Japanese fried chicken. We walked up the street for a while; it was packed with dozens of shops.

We wandered into a Japanese jewelry shop and bought a few souvenirs, and then we decided to take the ropeway up to the top of the mountain. We had to hike up to the the start of the ropeway, which took about 15 minutes. Then we entered the first gondola lift, which was about 15 or 20 minutes long. The second lift was about 5 minutes and took us to the top, where we had a short walk to the very top of the observatory, where you could see around an entire side of the island and across the water to Hiroshima. The view was incredible.

After getting back to the bottom, we had to rush to get back to our meeting point in time, but we still stopped for some matcha ice cream. At our meeting point we all sang ‘happy birthday’ to Sasha America-style (joyfully loud), and then we took the ferry and two trains back to our hotel in Hiroshima.

Chloe & London