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May 21st 2009

Published: May 21st 2009

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Drew Up

747- Our Magic Carpet to South Korea

The day of May 19, 2009 officially marks the day that my first foreign trip began. As I write this first entry, it is May 21. There has been an excessive and unending venture to come here. We left at approximately 5 pm from Bridgewater State College and worked our way to New York's JFK Airport. As soon as we entered JFK, we were taking our seats that would comfort us for the next 14 hours.
Our connecting flight to Seoul, South Korea, was Asiana Airlines, a Korean airline that serves hundreds of countries. The group was stunned when, in the darkness of the distant runway, looked out upon a Boeing 767. The plane, of course was extremely large and held nearly 400 passengers.
Movies and music kept us entertained but the never- ending thrill of knowing that we were travelling to a foreign country, consumed each one of us. I could not help but entertain myself for hours looking out the small window. The trail of our flight left Northwest up into Canada. We veared North making our way up Canada's icy and remote deserts. I was in awe at seeing snow- covered mountains consistently dot the landscape below. Pictures

Over Northern Canada

cannot do any justice to this majestic place. Subsequently, we flew over Alaska, over the Bering Strait, over the harsh landscape of Russia, slowly down to Seoul, South Korea. To hear the plane make a landing that we thought would never come, implored a sense that we were living reality. After strict security and customs officials, we were cleared to wait for 6 more hours until we would be making our last leg of the arrival to Japan.
Upon landing in Japan and finally being able to leave the airport, the air we breathed refreshed us as we saw a new world to our eyes. The tour bus pulled up to take us to the center of Osaka and to our hotel. I must be frank and say it was not exactly how I pictured it to be. As we sped down the foreign highway, all that was in sight was the permanence of industrialization. On either side of our bus, factories, high- rises, fields of iron smokestacks, and the eventual commercial section of Osaka, took the place of stroll gardens and prolific temples. Osaka is the second largest city in Japan and from a source, also one of the

Canada cont...

top cities economically wise. There's no mistaking that this area is an industrialized and commercialized place that Japan relies heavily on to be a successful nation as it is. The pictures I took really show a glimpse into my first reaction of Osaka. But, on a grander scale, the shopping is one of the main attractions of this city. There are underground plazas; Osaka Station being one where restaurants and retail stores dominate the economy.
There is so much more to say and so much more that will be said on my adventure here, but one thing that I find very intriguing and interesting is that at many of the restaurants in these shopping plazas, the facade of the restaurant has "plastic" representations of its cuisines. This helps the consumer to know exactly what they're getting. The pictures explain it all. And lastly, I took pictures of the vending machines because, this is a fact too, there are millions of vending machines in Osaka alone. These vending machines serve a variety of sodas, waters, liquers, cigarrettes and even food. They're everywhere and deserve to be told about. This is my first day here in Japan, and so far it is