Take. A. Bow. We’ve done it! We have managed to walk nearly 12,000,000 steps which lands us nicely at our last stopping point of our journey today, Japan. Congratulations to every individual who took part, it really would not be possible without your collective efforts. Did you know between you all, around 300,000 calories have been burned, plenty of new friends have been made, excellent interaction with our event has taken place, hours of fun have been had and all whilst you’ve improved your health and wellbeing. Wow!
Japan, home of the rising sun, is a world where tradition and technology meet in such a vibrant culture. Birthplace of the Walkman, designed to provide music while you walk, run or jog. Many years on, it now seems a primitive device that helped ignite our current mobile technology craze.
Formed of many islands such as Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu, with the main island Honshu approximately 140 miles or 280,000 steps wide at the widest point and, 810 miles or 1,620,000 steps long. This means our Big Bang Global Step Challenge today not only took us to Japan, but this number of steps could see us walk up and down Japan 7 times. Along the way we could stare in amazement at Mount Fuji, Japan’s tallest mountain. With its famous conic shape, it is visible from the most populated city in the world, Tokyo. The mountain is 4600 steps high and has been made more famous with its iconic roads, the home and birthplace of the car drifting craze.
Car crazes aside, let’s visit our last placement students at Nippon University, pictured below.
Staffordshire University is developing an exciting exchange program with Nippon Sport Science University (NSSU), a prestigious sports institute in Japan. This will enable students to experience and understand how different cultures operate in a setting that boasts several Olympic gold medallists among its graduates. Andrew Wood, Lecturer in Sport Psychology, is helping to co-ordinate the visit. He said: “It is one of the most prestigious sports universities and understanding how they train and develop athletes using sports science support, coaching, therapy and all those disciplines will be really valuable”
It also helps in enabling our students, from a range of sports degrees, to experience new opportunities as Abbie Truman mentions “I’ve not really travelled far before so I’m excited to see what’s out there. To experience different culture and learn how they live compared to back in England will be really interesting. It’s been good to get to know the other students on the trip – we are all sharing the same experience.”
The world is out there for you to experience, this connection between Staffs Uni and Nippon is just one of many, and many more to come, that really could take you to where you want to go, to become who you want to be.
Blog written by Staffordshire University placement students: Adam Olivier Level 5 BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science; Kaliya Rostron Level 5 BSc (Hons) Biomedical Science; Steven Lloyd-Jones Level 5 BSc (Hons) Biology