Nelson Izu-shi Friendship Society
2024 Exchange Visits
Building Sister City Friendships
The Nelson Izu-shi Friendship Society promotes the sister city relationship between Nelson and Izu-shi and encourages friendships between the people of our two communities through exchange visits.
2024 Exchange Visits
Building Sister City Friendships
The Nelson Izu-shi Friendship Society promotes the sister city relationship between Nelson and Izu-shi and encourages friendships between the people of our two communities through exchange visits.
Exchange Visit to Izu-shi Spring 2024
Seventeen members of the Nelson Izu-shi Friendship Society recently enjoyed a six-day visit to our sister city of Izu-shi in Japan.
Shown here at the Ryusenji Temple with host families and new friends, our group visited the 2020 Olympic track cycling and mountain biking sites, toured the new Izu-shi fire hall and incinerator, learned how to make paper, practiced calligraphy at the Shuzenji Temple, and created our own ikebana flower arrangements.
We enjoyed a delicious shiitake mushroom barbecue lunch. We learned how Izu-shi’s wasabi is grown and even tried wasabi with ice cream! Most popular with the kids in our group were the vending machines offering a variety of never seen before (hot and cold) treats!
We were warmly welcomed by Mayor Kikuchi, Council Chair Aoki, and Education Superintendent Suzuki as well as by Izu-shi Association for Foreign Relations President Hiroyoshi Suzuki and Exchange Coordinator Atsumi Kurosu. City Hall and IAFR staff and volunteers were very helpful throughout our stay. Their friendly presence made our daily activities most enjoyable. We all particularly appreciated the very professional skills of our translator and local teacher Jungo-san.
The most special parts of our stay and our Izu-shi stories, however, were the friendships we developed with our host families. In just a few days, we became “part of the family” and through our personal experiences gained a new understanding of living in a Japanese home and community.
A mountain-sized“Arigatou Gozaimashita / Thank You” goes out to everyone involved in making our time in Izu-shi so special. You have touched our hearts!
Funded entirely by the participants, our stay in Japan included a few days in Tokyo, Mishima, and Nagoya and was followed by individual travel afterwards.
An expected return sister city exchange group visit in August was unfortunately cancelled due to the lack of applicants. We are now looking forward to our next exchanges in March and August 2026!
