The next morning I boarded an Indian Airlines plane and took off for Srinigar, Kashmir. I enjoyed a beautiful one hour flight over the Himalayan Mountains before meeting one of the houseboat owners, Hanif at the airport. As he loaded up my backpack onto his jeep he informed me of the strike that occured in town due to three girls getting raped and murdered the night before. "The whole city is closed and we dont know how long it will last" he said as we passed a 'Welcome to Paradise' sign on the shoulder of the road. It didnt seem like [View Full Entry]

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!ndia! What a mysterious and intriguing subcontinent! For so long I have heard stories and testimonials describing this place- shocking, challenging, colorful, dirty, intense, flavorful, INCREDIBLE were just some of the words used by others about this mysterious travel destination. Therefore, I had to capitalize on the opportunity to take a nice long vacation to this exotic land. After watching the news of record breaking heat of 50C (130F) in Delhi several weeks prior in Seoul and a long flight from Korea that involved sleeping on the airport bench for several hours in Bangkok- I made [View Full Entry]

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After a delicious traditional Korean Christmas dinner of kim-chi-guk, pa-jeon and ho-bak-juk (see pics) cooked by yours truly and some appropriately festive reggaeton and hip hop music provided by my friends and myself- it was time to set off on a very memorable journey that I will never forget. Christmas in Korea is very different from back home- which often consists of family time, gift exchanges and big tasty turkey dinners. Not so in Korea, where this holiday is commonly spent with friends and a night out on the town- or in my case- a night out in my box sized [View Full Entry]

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After getting off the train at the very crowded Tokyo station, I was caught up in intense feelings of excitement and before finding a place to stay for the night I felt like to had to go explore the city for a bit. I ended up walking around for about 2-3 hours with my backpack on in Hinjuku and saw a festival that included many traditional dances and mountains of street food. I made my way through a park and checked out one of the old shrines in the middle of the city for a bit and took everything in for [View Full Entry]

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My first impressions of Japan were nothing but positive. The first thing I noticed was the cleanliness of Hakata- at least the section of the city I saw. The bus driver was very helpful in showing me how to make change with the fancy yen fare machine even though we could not communicate with spoken words. Wow, another surprise, everyone drives on the other side of the street- one more thing to be cautious about when crossing the street. I successfully board the shinkansen bullet train which takes me to Osaka (or halfway to Tokyo- my first destination). Wow, how impressive- [View Full Entry]

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Japan Rail Pass- check! Train and boat tickets- check! Passport- check! Most importantly, waking up at 5:00AM after three hours of sleep and a night of partying on a Seoul Friday night- check! For my week of summer vacation I spontaneously decided to check out Japan. As a result of working 13 hour days at our school due to summer intensive periods (this is when Korean kids get vacation from their regular school, which means they have more time to attend additional classes at private institutions like the one I work for) I was unable to do much preparation for this [View Full Entry]

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Mud Festival!!?? What is that all about?? You mean they are going to ship in liters upon liters of mud to a Korean beach for a big dirty party?? Sounds like a once in a lifetime opportunity! Without hesitation I knew I had to venture out of Seoul for the first time to Boryeong to check out this festival that so many people were raving about. After taking a three hour train ride and having an interesting conversation with a Filipino guy about his take on life in Korea, I made it to the quaint beach town of 100,000. As I [View Full Entry]

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The First Few Days I'm on my own in Seoul and all know how to say is An-nyeong-ha-se-yo! I thought for sure after a 12 hour delay at the airport in Atlanta and arriving at 5AM I would be on my own and have to figure things out for myself once I arrived. After retrieving my backpack (thats right all I took was my backpack and a small carry on) I see a sign waiting for me- GEORGE BALAREZO. Incredible!! The shuttle driver waited a full 12 hours for me in his van curbside just to take me to my apartment. [View Full Entry]

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We departed Granada and said goodbye to Veronica and Achim and wished them well on their trip back to Europe after traveling all over the world for nine months. It was hard to say goodbye as we had experienced so much together in such a short amount of time and not knowing when we would see each other again, but they were extremely tired from such a long trip and looking forward to going home and resting up. We went to Esteli to do some volunteer work at Hope Clinic (A medical clinic based out of Ypsilanti, Michigan) Esteli, Nicaragua branch. [View Full Entry]

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We made our way back to Granada and met up with Achim and Veronica- my friends that traveled together with me in Guatemala, El Salvador and now Nicaragua. It was so great to see them again as we were trying to meet up for several days now but kept missing each other by like a day (they even stayed in the knat infested playa Santo Domingo and slept at Hospedaje Gloriana the night after we left- trying to track us down). It was great to be able to see them again so they could finally meet Michelle and hang out for [View Full Entry]

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