"Beautiful nature" impresses Japanese visitor

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 299, 11 August 1989, Page 5

"Beautiful nature" impresses Japanese visitor

Skiing was the best part of Kazuya Okada's Ruapehu stay but the cold was the worst.

Kazuya is a 20 yearold exchange student from Kyoto, near Osaka in Japan who was a guest of Sharon and Jim Reed, his New Zealand "mother and father". He is visiting New Zealand as part of the Lions student exchange programme. His home is in the warmer, southern part

of Japan and he had skied just a few times before his Turoa experience. He left the Reed's Makaranui home for Methven and from there will travel to Papakura for a short stay. Highlights of his stay here were a ride in "Father's" helicopter

(Jim Reed is a pilot for Wanganui Aero Works), visits to Lake Taupo and the Waiouru Army Museum. Kazuya hunts through the dictionary to find the words to describe his experience of riding a farm bike on Tony Punch's property. Despite being an accomplished road-bike rider the word he finds is "fearful"! Jim says Kazuya had never ridden

off the tar-seal before. He did enjoy riding a four wheeler however. Other rural type activities he saw were crutching and pig slaughtering. Kazuya did not reach for the dictionary to describe those activities! Taupo was of interest to Kazuya as he lives on the shores of Lake Biwa - Japan's biggest lake. He was impressed at how clean Taupo's

water is, as Lake Biwa is polluted from the densely populated areas around it. He enjoyed tasting New Zealand beer here, saying it was better the Japanese, and served the Reeds saki in the traditional manner, which invloves heating the spirit.