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Christchurch citizens are invited to join a Citizen's Delegation to Kurashiki, Japan to celebrate the 35th Anniversary of our special sister city relationship the weekend of 18-19 October in Kurashiki.
Mayor Bob Parker will lead a Civic Delegation from Christchurch to the official celebrations and a Christchurch student exchange delegation will also be in Kurashiki for the weekend celebration.
See full details of the Citizen's Delegation Tour, which has a unique homestay option for 3 nights and will include a day trip to Hiroshima Peace Park and a stop off at Universal Studios in Osaka.
Over the next few weeks Mayor Bob Parker will be leading a delegation of Canterbury business and education leaders to China to strengthen existing ties and form new partnerships in the vast and rapidly growing Chinese market.
Keep up with the Mayor's travels in our sister city Gansu, the home of Rewi Alley, and a friendship city relationship with Wuhan.
Read the media releases.
The University of Canterbury will host a training programme for high ranking Government officials from Gansu province, China, in September.
Gansu Government officials announced the new pilot training programme during a visit to Christchurch's sister province, Gansu this week by Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker and a delegation including representatives of the University of Canterbury.
Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker yesterday (14 April) visited Lanzhou City University, which with a roll of 17,000 students, has evolved from a small school founded in 1942 by Rewi Alley, one of Christchurch's most famous sons and a legend in China.
Mayor Parker and his delegation will now return to Beijing, having been there last week, when NZ became the first developed country to sign a comprehensive FTA with China on Monday, 7 April.
Lincoln University and Canterbury University will give presentations at one of the two Beijing conferences the delegation will attend - one of doing business in China and the second on bringing products from science to market, Later this week the delegation will visit Wuhan, which has a Friendship Relationship with Christchurch. See the full media release and photo.A handful of Christchurch photographers are celebrating life on the other side of the camera, as their entries to the 2007 Kurashiki Sister City Photomural Competition were returned to their home city last week and exhibited at the Christchurch Polytechnic of Information Technology (CPIT).
The local works of art were among the winning 60 out of 700 entries, selected from the 2007 Kurashiki Sister City Photomural Competition in Japan.
Over thirty entries by Christchurch photographers were sent by the Christchurch Kurashiki Sister City Committee, to Japan for the annual competition. Five of these talented photographers submitted winning artwork and are now reaping their rewards, with their work hanging on display in the Rakaia Centre of the Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT) over the next four months.
A group of 22 Linwood College students and 3 of their teachers are about to leave on the College's fourth exchange visit to Twynham School in Christchurch, Dorset in England, where they will be hosted by the members of Twynham School who visited New Zealand in 2007. There are two major tours planned along with participation in the Christchurch Wine and Food Festival where Canterbury has a stand . There will be over 50,000 visitors to this festival so it will be a good test of the students customer service skills.
Read more of the group's plans.
On Friday February 22, 10 students and two teachers will leave Christchurch bound for Songpa-Gu as the reciprocal sister city homestay exchange. The students will be hosted by families from the Songpa-Gu area in an exchange organised by Songpa-Gu Office, and will spend 10 days soaking in the atmosphere of one of Korea's most exciting cities. This is the first time that this exchange has occurred and follows on from a very successful inaugural visit by children from Songpa-Gu last year.
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