When Bill offered the opportunity to write for the RisingSunOfNihon, I wondered what, from all my 10 years in Japan, I could talk about. In all that time, my fondest memories were from my first three months when I was here as a tourist, and had the opportunity to do some traveling around Japan.

I had the good fortune to stay with a Japanese family, and they helped me plan my sightseeing tour of the country. One place I was very keen to visit was Hiroshima, and in particular, the Peace Memorial Park. Knowing this, my homestay family showed me a video of Sadako Sasaki, a young girl who was diagnosed with leukemia after the atomic bomb fell. The story of Sadako folding 1,000 paper cranes in the hope of getting well, and the statue later built in her name, is overwhelming. I feverishly set about learning how to fold my own paper cranes for my visit to the Children's Peace Memorial, so I could lay my little token of goodwill alongside the thousands of colorful, origami cranes donated by people all over the world.

Did this inspire me to develop my origami skills further? After ten years, you'd think I'd be a paper folding pro by now. Unfortunately, despite memorizing the 25 moves it takes to make a crane, it's now long forgotten, and I'm reduced to making 5-fold penguins from wet towels at my local izakaya. Still, that's nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, the art of wet towel "oshibori" folding is still a relatively unknown skill, and is sure to impress your friends when you're out on the town.

There are many stories I could share from a decade in Japan, but it's a little more fun to teach you how to make a croissant or Godzilla from a wet hand towel instead. I even encourage you to show off your creation. At the very least, you're sure to make someone smile.

See Nick's video tutorials on making origami with wet hand towels on his site, OshiboriArt.com

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A few Wikipedia links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiroshima_Peace_Memorial_Park and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sadako_Sasaki if you want,

More about Nick - 

Japan Social Bookmarking | Oshibori Art | ESL Kids | ESL Writing Wizard | Dolch Words | Math Worksheet Wizard | Teach Kids How | Blog 

Thanks Nick!! 

Boy, do I miss oshiboris here in the states.