Laura Suzuki
Caught the travel bug when I was 15, completing two exchanges in Japan by the time I was finished with high school. After taking up a year's study of university in the UK and bouncing around Europe, I returned to the US more anxious than ever to finish my degrees and get back on the open road. I discovered the wonderful world of Working Holiday visas, first returning to the UK to do some editorial work for an up and coming fitness and lifestyle website. A few months after my UK visa expired, I traveled to Sydney, Australia on another work and holiday visa, staying down under for nearly two years; enjoying the sand, sun, surf and carefree attitude of the Aussies. I waited tables, interned at Australia's leading dance music website, worked for the country's largest non-profit work and travel organization, covered music festivals and gigs as a reviewer, and generally lived it up on Bondi Beach. I found time to backpack through China and Hong Kong for a month as well, which was one of the best travel experiences I've to date. I returned home from Australia to regroup, reconnect, and save save save - which pretty much brings me up to where I have landed now - teaching English at MEK Preschool in the beautiful surrounds of Shizuoka, Japan. The world is well and truly at my feet, and I'm loving every minute of it.Laura Suzuki
Travel Blog Posts
May 17th 2012
I. I'm not lost...I'm...discovering! A few months ago, something de-magnetized the strip in my passport, which now annoyingly ceases to scan. Now imagine that the same thing happened to me, still in the womb...I'm convinced that somehow, the polarity got switched. So it's not that I don't have a sense of direction, it's just that it's completely and utterly wrong, every time. But really, you always find stuff when you get lost. Don't believe me? Look at the "great" explorers of history...Columbus...Magellan...Vespuccio...think these idiots had a clue where they were going? Hell no they didn't! Maybe women are bad drivers, but we all know men never ask directions! For one girl on a rented motorbike with a dwindling amount of fuel, the result of getting lost during a mission to find the secluded spots of Bali...was, ... read more
April 27th 2012
Writing to you tonight from Ubud, a lovely city in the southeast of Bali that celebrates everything about this island's quite charming culture. Though a lot of the culture here is basically a set-up for tourists, which admittedly makes it slightly less charming, I have to say that the accessibility of the whole affair is very...convenient (what can I say, we Americans sure do love convenience almost as much as we love cheap fizzy drinks in ridiculously large bottles!). Although comparing Indonesia and Philippines is like apples and oranges, the most striking difference is the pushiness of everyone in this country who is trying to make a buck (or several thousand rupiah, 9,000 or so of which equals one US dollar. Hello inflation!) off of the tourists. You constantly have to have your wits about you, ... read more
April 14th 2012
Breathe. Slow internet will not get the better of me....I will not smash the computer screen... Photos uploaded painfully slow, but uploaded. Check. Everything I typed somehow erased by the graze of a keyboard button...twice...check. Here I go. Philippines. Things I will always remember: 1. Love ballads: everywhere you go...originals, good covers, BADDDD covers, people singing karaoke, usually badly, anywhere and everywhere...and Adele. I heard Philippines was a place that went crazy for love songs, so when Adele came along, I think the whole country said a collective hallelujah. 2. Roosters. Crowing...in the morning...inthe evening...in the afternoon...2 AM, 5 AM...they don't know what damn time it is and they don't care either. Although so far I haven't been attacked by any overly agressive ones, which happened to me once on a farm in Lancaster. ... read more
January 22nd 2012
What a New Year for the books. I guess you could say I doubled down on holidays this year, which is to say I celebrated twice over, each time with the same gusto, gluttony and bad music, but with slightly different decorations. When Christmas was done and dusted, I got myself on a night bus to see my Osaka "family" for the Japanese New Year お正月. I know the ugly images you must be getting when I say "night bus" - and you're not wrong. This time, however, those of us getting a crappy 5 hours "sleep" in the reclining seat of a highway bus had the last laugh. I arrived crabby and sleep-deprived to footage on the news of unhappy Japanese, home for the holidays, pouring out of bullet trains running at 150 percent capacity. ... read more
December 5th 2011
The lights are up, the familiar jingles are on loop everywhere, and everyone is rushing to put in their order for a fabulously small, expensive and cream-filled Christmas cake クリスマスケーキ. (In Japan, anyway. The whole Christmas cake thing strikes me as slightly odd, but then again I'm in favor of anything that might help seal the quiet death of the traditional fruit and nut disappointment some try to pass off as cake). All of these parties, these cheese logs, these bottles of wine, the acceptability of eating chocolate every day because the wrapper has a Christmas tree on it...well, it all has me thinking about the one who is behind it all. Santa? Christ? Charlie Brown? Religion doesn't really factor into my Christmases; they're more about pretty lights, the people I care about, cheesy music and ... read more
November 28th 2011
I'm a firm believer that you're only as young as you feel...but inevitably I find myself falling into the same trap as everyone else: measuring my achievements, my disappointments, my wins and my losses by the years of my life. Although, bit by bit, each passing year seems to chisel away the significance my birthday once held, I still found myself laying awake last night, thinking. Thinking about my life up until this very point, right now, and everything that might come after. Warning, before you continue reading; the following is more introspective and sentimental than my usual posts. Where have I been? I should count myself as lucky; I've been a lot of places. I've swam in the Gulf of Thailand, I've joined the young and beautiful on Bondi Beach - I've even lived surrounded ... read more
November 24th 2011
This month I have been spending my time laying off the wine, being a good little ecotourist and almost giving myself gut rot from overconsumption of local mandarin oranges. The sobriety thing is because I decided to join the "Sovember" bandwagon, which is really just something made up by those of us who were too lazy to do Ocsober a month earlier. (Ocsober is an Australian initiative, where young people in particular are encouraged to give up the drink in the name of charity.) Unfortunately the only charity that will benefit from my Sovember is Laura, Inc.. I just wanted to prove that I could do it. To be honest, it hasn't been that hard. I think the fact that Shizuoka isn't exactly laden with temptation has helped. And so I've been making the most of ... read more
November 12th 2011
Drove to the Fuji Five Lakes District today to check out the fall colors (紅葉 "koyo"), unknowingly joining the hordes of people who had the same idea. It took us about 20 minutes to realize that, in the bumper to bumper traffic along the single lane bridge crossing Lake Kawaguchi 河口湖, we would be much better off walking. I shouldn't be surprised by things like this anymore. I should have expected the crowds. What a rookie error to forget that A). seasonal concepts have long been a part of the Japanese culture - think Haiku for starters - aka Japanese go ga-ga for this stuff, B). nothing says photo op like an Autumnal Mt. Fuji, and no one loves a photo op more than the Japanese, and finally C). Japanese people are willing to wait nearly ... read more
Izu, my favorite place in Japan... 大好きな伊豆半島
Published: October 31st 2011Asia » Japan » Shizuoka » Izu
October 31st 2011
Couldn't have spent the long weekend better than road-tripping around Izu Peninsula (伊豆半島); surrounded by stunning views, pulling over to lunch at adorable roadside cafes, splashing in the sea and ending each day with a nice hot onsen 温泉 (hot springs, a Japanese institution). While it was typhooning in Tokyo, the sun was shining over all of Izu, and spirits were high as we headed to the peninsula's Pacific side. Fun little fact: the east coas, Jogasaki, 城ヶ崎 is a popular spot in Japan for film shoots, particularly suicides! After a mini hike and some lunch, we crammed ourselves back into the very small, very loud (just as well seeing as the radio's broken), very old and and quite slow car (which I still love, because it's like the little engine that could, it never quits! ... read more
October 21st 2011
Pausing for a moment during my daily, frantic, last-minute toothbrushing, I looked into the mirror, dripping white foam everywhere, and thought, "what's happened to you?" My once-treasured MAC makeup collection lying lonely and unused next to the sink...miniskirts shoved in the back of the dresser drawer, heels gathering dust in the closet... Jeezus. I'm a preschool teacher. When you're chasing after a wild bunch of 5 year olds all the time, managing all of the blood, tears and snot that makes up your day, you are presented with the (somewhat sad) realization that there is now little need for stillettos, purple eyeshadow and making sure your ass looks good. I guess somewhere along the line practicality caught up with me (practical...what an awful thing to be!) So when lovely Kazumi, friend and indispensable Shizuoka guide, rang ... read more
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