Oita Scavenger Hunt

Find a cute dog and take a picture with it

The JET community in Oita is full of opportunities. For one thing, AJET (Association for Japan Teaching and Exchange) provides many opportunities for socializing and getting to know other ALTs in the area. In August, we had the AJET beach party and stone buddha viewing with fire festival, and in October we had a scavenger hunt. The rules for teams were that you had to have about four people in a group, with a theme. Our group's theme was "blue." Simple yet effective! We all just wore blue. I was coming straight from work to Oita city, so luckily my work outfit matched the theme!

Then, there was a set of scavenger hunt items we had to find around Oita city. Most of them were confined to the downtown area, so we didn't have to go far. Some of the items required a picture, and some required a video. The aim of the game was to get all the items, or at least the most out of all the teams. Throughout the night, the organizer of the scavenger hunt sent messages through the Line app offering additional time-based challenges. One of those included having an all-English conversation with Japanese people and awarding them candy for completing the conversation - and catching it on video. Sadly, I don't have the video here. Anyway, although we tried hard, we still didn't win. That's ok though, we had fun trying! Below are some of the photos we took, along with the scavenger hunt item they corresponded to.

Best "Engrish" you can find

"How did we all fit in there?"

Human pyramid - with a few honorary members we met on the street

Hidden in plain sight - although E was a little too hidden. There are three of us in this picture - can you spot us all?

Nap time

Out-of-prefecture license plate. This one is Fukuoka prefecture

Group purikura (print club, sticker photos)

Reflection in a non-mirror

Crash someone's dinner party

Storm the castle (Oita castle) (we also counted this one as "mission impossible")