Every year, 10 students are given the opportunity to visit a university abroad by the “short visit program” organized by the faculty of science. This year, the university of Louis Pasteur (ULP), France, was the host university. ULP is located in Strasbourg and especially famous in the fields of science. Lots of excellent students and researchers gather from all over the world.

Throughout this visit, every one of us gained a fruitful experience and a new point of view. It was a wonderful opportunity to get acquainted with so many talented researchers in the facilities of ULP and students from the universities. Our wonderful memory is beyond description, but here, we are going to recall the events one by one and try our best to report what impressed us so much….

Student list

Strasbourg is the capital city of the department of Bas-Rhin in the region of Alsace. You can cross the border between Germany just by 15 minutes' bus ride. The size of the city is very desirable, not too big and not too small. People are keeping a comfortable distance to each other. At the center of the town is a main cathedral, majestic and solemn, on the shore of the beautiful river Ill.

The main transportation in Strasbourg is “Tram”. Tram is like a mixture of a bus and a train. It runs on the street along with cars but its figure or the system of the ticket is quite like that of a train. It seems like ‘The modern runs through the traditional.’

People in Strasbourg were very kind and heart-warming. They were helpful to us when we were at troubles on the street, in a supermarket, on the bus, everywhere. We definitely liked the town and its people so much, that afterwards when we moved to Paris and felt that Paris is a city with bigger distance between people, we missed Strasbourg really much and knew how it was great to stay in that town.

First, we stayed in Strasbourg for 5 days (plus 1 night at the beginning) and then moved to Paris and stayed there for 2 days. The weather in Strasbourg was beautiful and very comfortable, while we experienced stormy and awful weather in Paris.

On Tuesday, we were welcome by students of the University of Louis Pasteur, the university of Marc Bloch, and the university of Robert Schuman at the Maison Universitaire France-Japon. This was a terrific welcoming lunch party. We talked a lot and laughed a lot with them having delicious wine and a tidbit.

For the first 3 days, all of us made a visit together. But on Friday, we broke up into 3 groups to visit facilities of our own interest. And on Saturday, we had a whole day free. Some went to Germany, some to Switzerland, while some stayed in Strasbourg and enjoyed the city as much as they want. In the daytime we are devoted ourselves for the academic and cultural activities, visiting museums or researching facilities. We were pretty much impressed to see the systematic equipments and the arrangement of the laboratory. However, what impressed us most was to listen to the Japanese researchers who make unbelievably huge effort to become the part of the facility and recognized as important. At night, we enjoyed company with students, staff or teachers having mini party. We had dinner parties, once with Philippe, the tutor and his mates and once with students and staff at the Alsacian restaurant, Le Gurtlerhoft. We also held a party just by ourselves and got to know each other better.

In Paris, we visited famous sceneries or museums. On Monday afternoon students of Biology and Biochemistry visited the Facility of Louis Pasteur. Dr. Hiroko Nakatani who formerly belonged to Prof. Sakano's laboratory guided us.

We'd like to show big thanks and love to Michele Debay, head of the international relations office and Michele Magnier, supportive staff of the international relations office. They took a lot of effort and trouble to make our stay as enjoyable, meaningful and comfortable as possible. Thanks to them, we were really satisfied with all the programs and events they organized for us. We feel the biggest appreciation towards them.

And the unforgettable---Philippe. Philippe Tanovan was our guide and he spent most of the time together for us. He is a student of University of Marc Bloch and majors in Japanese. So he can speak Japanese very fluently and that kept us free from any trouble otherwise. He loves Japan. He's got a wonderful and humorous personality, so we became friends with him really quickly. We invited him, his family and friends to our home party which was held at Ms. Gosho's room. That was one of the best memories for us.

Everyone had a fabulous moment with people in Strasbourg talking about studies, thoughts about life, relationship with boyfriend and girlfriend….etc. Sometimes we were surprised to know the gap between them and us, but to my impression, we felt sympathy and similarity towards them in most cases. We still get in touch with them by e-mail. We wish our friendship last for a long time.