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Blogs from Kumamoto, Japan, Asia - page 2
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March 26th 2010
Our next destination was Kumamoto which is about a four hours train trip from Hiroshima. Kumamoto is the capital city of Kumamoto-ken, located on the island of Kyushu and home to a great traditional Japanese fortified castle. Unfortunately we did not have much time to explore Kumamoto as our prime destination was Mt. Aso, about 1 hour by train from Kumamoto. As I am studying geology in my spare time and always been fascinated by volcanoes, this was a fantastic opportunity to see volcanic activities in action! Kyushu is dominated by volcanic activities with several volcanoes and volcano complexes and is home of one of the world's greatest active caldera volcano, Mt. Aso, created by four big eruptions 90000-300000 years ago. The dimensions of the volcano complex is fantastic - the caldera is so large (24 ... read more
July 6th 2009
So I've less than a month left in Japan. I'm starting to throw stuff away, pack things up, send last letters to people, and party even harder than usual (which has been catching up to me). We're at the end of the rainy season right about now, I'd say, though Mother Nature sure did dump a lot of water on us. One day we got more than three inches. Three inches! I didn't even try to go outside that day, even though I had classes. I wasn't about to go out in the pouring rain, get drenched on the way to school, be pissed in class, then have to walk home. Oh well, my teachers understood. We have had our nice days the past month, and I've been to Amakusa, a beach-town a few hours away ... read more
June 2nd 2009
I bought my plane ticket back home the other day. I'm leaving the dorm on the 29th of July, spending the rest of that day and that night in Fukuoka, then flying out of that airport at around noon on the 30th. Then to Narita in Tokyo, then to Seattle. From there, I have about a seven hour wait until I get on a plane to Helena. My parents and I were playing around with the idea of them driving from Montana to pick me up, but in the end we got a cheap flight, which will save them 20 hours in the car, me 10 hours in the car and I'll get home that much quicker, so I can unpack, see everyone and eat American food quickly. I've been writing up a to-do list since ... read more
April 5th 2009
Over Spring Break (which is equivalent to Summer Break in America for uni students) I traveled to Hiroshima and nearby Miyajima on my own, and then to Tokyo with a dorm mate of mine. I'd suggest going to the former, and staying away from the latter. Hiroshima was a cool town. Not too big, at about 1.3 million or something, and not too small. Downtown was readily accessible by foot, and all the major touristy things (the castle, the atomic bomb museum, art galleries, etc.) weren't horribly far away. I got around the city by foot over a few days just fine. Met a lot of cool people, both in the hostel I stayed in and out at restaurants and bars, of both Japanese and foreign nationalities. Needless to say, as an American I felt it ... read more
February 8th 2009
I've been on Spring Break since about the 19th of last month, and I don't start school until April 8th. The last few weeks have been ages coming and going, a big difference between the seemingly speedy passage of the days of school last semester. I haven't been doing much lately at all...staying up really late, becoming nocturnal, partying less than during the semester, playing a lot more video games (I love Diablo II) and reading quite a bit. I've also been exploring vigorously on my bike, riding for two or more hours in one direction starting from my dorm and seeing what I can find. I've seen some amazing places - a secluded, dilapidated shrine built before WWII in the middle of an upper-class residential district; a mountaintop flattened for use in agriculture, on top ... read more
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January 14th 2009
So. It's been about two months since I last updated. Oops. Good thing that I talk to most of the people who read this on a regular enough basis that a blog really isn't necessary anyway. Suppose this is mostly a place to dump photos. I do however have some interesting stories. I went to Osaka and Kyoto over Winter Break with Rory and two of his Aussie friends that came to see us and travel in Japan, travelled around that area for about a week then came back to the good ol' Kumamoto. Osaka was alright. It's a big city, and whenever you go to a big city you can't expect people to be very helpful or polite, which is exactly what we found out. We took a day trip to Himeji to see the ... read more
December 31st 2008
Oguni All I had was a name and a phone number given to me by Yukari in Hiroshima. I did not book the accommodation myself and I didn't give any credit card details, so the whole thing was being done on word. And I don't even know what they look like, but since I am likely to be the only Westerner with a backpack hanging around the bus station it should work out fine. I'd said I wanted to visit Kyūshū to get away from the cities and because it was a good 10 degrees warmer than the opposite end of the country, Hokkaidō, which is cold enough to have played host to the Winter Olympics twice before. So Yukari spent an hour between the internet and the telephone, and booked me 2 nights in ... read more
November 11th 2008
So I haven't updated in ages, but that's alright. That means I've been busy, and being busy is much better than being bored. Also, please forgive any bad English in this and future entries - I'm focusing so much on Japanese that I'm forgetting English little by little. Things have been going pretty damn well here in Japan. My classes are difficult, but I'm learning a lot in a rather quick manner. I'm beginning to understand more and more of what's said to me, no matter what the context or conversation topic might be. I'm still having trouble speaking Japanese quickly - too many English speakers in the dorm = too much English spoken in general = I'm still thinking in English. Oh well. A lot of interesting things have happened lately: the school had both ... read more
Turning Japanese, we think we're turning Japanese, we really think so!!!
Published: November 7th 2008Asia » Japan » Kumamoto » Kumamoto
October 24th 2008
Konnichiwa from Japan! Docked into a new world or that's how it feels being in Japan so far. We almost don't want to go into too much detail we think everyone should come and experience this country for themselves and part of the excitement is experiencing everything that's different. However, for those who will not be visiting in the near future here is some more info (skip to next paragraph if planning a future trip!). Everywhere is spotlessly clean and we mean clean, they have the shiniest fire engines, lorries and white vans ever to be seen; people are courteous and polite even when getting on/off the metro, everyone waits until the last person has stepped off before getting on and queues merge in an orderly manner when boarding; any techno geeks would love it here, ... read more
September 29th 2008
So you remember when I said that I didn't think I get stared at too hard? Well, I lied. Here's a story: I went downtown yesterday with John and Spencer (both from Montana) to look for some awesome shirts. (I found one, by the way. It's the most wicked awesome Daft Punk shirt I've ever seen. 28 bucks, but well worth it.) I decided that since we were going downtown, why not wear my "looking for a Japanese girlfriend" shirt? Seemed like a good idea to me. My gods was it a good idea. Literally 90% of the people we passed by walking down Shimatori (one of the main shopping district streets), which would mean around five hundred to a thousand people, saw my shirt and either laughed out loud or giggled excitedly to their friends. ... read more
