Ever since I was a child I have been fascinated with Japan's culture and I have watched more anime than I can count. The opportunity of visiting this country via this exchange program was really amazing and made me appreciate Japan even more.

My plan has always been to study/work in Japan. I even applied to the MEXT program, but due to the pandemic I had to abandon the process. This has not changed the way I feel about the possibility of living in Japan though, and I have ever since started to learn the language. I felt great using the notebooks I bought on my visit in 2019 to practice writing, and I have spent so many hours reading a few blogs that taught me the basics of the language. To this day, I can't look at any Hiragana/Katakana text without trying to read and finding the meaning. I have so many loving memories of the exchange program. About having lunch with our buddies at the high school we visited, about finding the big Gundam statue and even washing our hands at the temples we visited in respect.

One experience that was specially marked in my memory was how amazed I felt about visiting JAMSTEC and about how much I wanted to just stay in the country and start to work with marine exploration. We were able to look at an open submarine on our visit and the level of complexity of its structure was fabulous. I'm so grateful to have had this opportunity on my visit. Even to this day, I'm still following the agency on social media and liking their findings.

When I heard from my colleagues about the possibility of revisiting the country, I was really amazed and wanted to jump right at the opportunity. Visiting Japan was one of the best experiences of my life and I would really love to be able to not only experience this again, but establish a connection that can highly benefit both Brazil and Japan.

Best regards and どうもありがとうございます!