Back to New York Sunday August 18.

The Emanuel Handbell Ringers together with Katonah Celebration Ringers attended 21st World Handbell Symposium in Hamamatsu Japan returnd to NY safe and sound. Thanks to the HRJ/ Kinki Nippon Turist who organized the activities before the Symposium including the Friendship Concert in Yokohama in Kanto Gakuin University, the group luckily escaped 3 natural disaster threats which came part of Japan, namely 1) Flush Flood in Kanto area which caused Shinkansen schedule partial delay, luckily the group escaped to to the next destination Kyoto ahead of the incident, 2) Retalively major earthquake in Kyushu causing concern regarding the major quake in western part of Japan, again luckily the group was in Hiroshima area facing Inland Sea, 3) threat of major typhoon #7 which skirted Tokyo and north just ahead of the group's return. The Shinkansen was completelly stopped between Tokyo and Osaka for a day on Friday causing major difficulty in rebooking return flights for overseas visitors. Luckily again the group was bussed from Hamamatsu to Haneda airport directly in time for the scheduled departure on Sunday 18th. In the past Symposium ringers returned with a T-shirt inprinted with " We survived Sympoium in ......" The ringers can this time claim " we survived 3 natural threats and the Symposium ! Actually they survived one more natural threat, tropical like high temperature almost everyday during the stay; one hundred degree Fahrenheit there while in Westchester we enjoyed relatively cool days. Thank you parents, chaperons and numerous supporters for giving young ringers an experience of a life time in Japan,