Gift-giving exchange

Dunedin Mayor Jules Radich receives a thumbs-up from Otaru Mayor Toshiya Hazama during a gift-giving exchange at the Dunedin Botanic Garden yesterday.

Mr Radich met Mr Hazama in the garden to trade gifts and plant a Japanese snowbell to celebrate 45 years of the sister city partnership.

In the gift-giving exchange, Mr Radich presented a set of ukutangi, and commented Mr Hazama would "have great fun learning to play these".

A carved wood block with the Dunedin Railway Station was presented to the Otaru New Zealand Society president Fumiyuki Saijo who, in turn, gifted a coloured wood block print.

Mr Hazama gifted Dunedin a glass vase to symbolise a tree, to go along with the Japanese snowbell that was planted in the Otari Teien section at the Dunedin Botanic Garden.