Harmony is peace at work. Anything we do carries the footprints of the state of our mind or consciousness. When our mind becomes clear and translucent, our offering will carry on these qualities and thus we can create more harmonious world.

Among the hard-working organizers of the Japanese World Harmony Run there is Karel, who does not have a Japanese outlook but is most probably a Japanese soul and whom you would find either on the running field or on the phone and fax arranging meetings with media; he is probably working almost as hard as Harashita from Tokyo.

Ceremony in front of Gifu station

One such meeting was held in Gifu in front of the main railway station, where the national TV NHK took shots and interviewed Harashita. We held a short starting ceremony at 9 am, reading out the encouraging messages from the mayors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and singing the World Harmony Run song.

Japanese national television filming the start from Gifu

As the traffic in Japan is very busy and the towns spill over into something like a chain of cities, one gets an unending series of opportunities to greet the open-hearted and responsive Japanese.

Tomorrow, if you are by chance in Nagoya, you will find a report on the World Harmony Run in Mainichi newspaper by the reporter who stopped us at Biwajima Sports Center on the way to Nagoya.

After entering Nagoya city, we found out that we had some time so we rested a bit in Mizuho Park. Three boys looked at us curiously and when they knew there are runners from Mongolia, they started sumo wrestling with them and everybody was quite excited by the meeting.

The naughty boys playing in Mizuho Park

A beautiful evening event took place in Yomei after-school in Mizuho ward of Nagoya city, where elementary school kids greeted us with a special greeting used in their group before every meeting they hold. The meaning of the greeting is to strengthen the good qualities in the kids, and it sounds very cool: “Deryah Doeryah!”.

Is this harmony? Yes!

The kids always love running with the torch

Then we all very powerfully made the world hear that "harmony begins with us", meaning each one of us, and to come to yin for the yang we silenced ourselves to make a wish for harmony.

The active kids in Yomei after-school

Then, while having a snack, we exchanged drawings for harmony for drawings from Czech children. We were amazed at how many gifted kids there are in the group.

Exchanging pictures of Czech and Japanese children

Having such a good time, we reluctantly took our leave to go to our accommodation in Okazaki. The Youth House there is well known to us because we have stayed there several times to do meet and arrange the Japanese World Harmony Run. The place is large and clean, the staff is kind, so we like it. It was here that we met teachers from Yomei after-school for the first time.

Distance: 62 km

Team Members:
Erdenebaatar (Mongolia), Erik (Slovakia), Gunarashi, Harashita, Jarmila (Czech), Jyotirmala, Karel (Czech), Nakanaga, Ombo (Mongolia), Pramiti, Tsogo (Mongolia), Vikshanam (Mongolia)

Gallery: See more images!