So after my whirlwind tour of Taipei; which will be continued later, Amy and I headed out to Keelung. Keelung is a port city and it's a cheap hour train ride outside of Taipei. The college student at the Information Desk in Taipei booked us a room and then wrote down the address in chinese so that we could tell a taxi where we needed to go. Not speaking any Chinese was pretty difficult on this trip. I haven't been to a place where I didn't speak the language for a while now, so it was interesting and sometimes frustratingly funny [View Full Entry]

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So, I finally have some time to write about my awesome vacation to Taiwan! The last month has been crazy busy at work and I haven't had that much time to actually sit and get stuff done. Here we go! Sunday So on Sunday, July 27 my friend and I started out adventure by missing our train to Narita. I was running down the platform and watched as our train left the station. It was an express and would have taken only a hour but we were lucky and a local came only 10 minutes later. After the long almost 2 [View Full Entry]

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I finally made it to Zao-san! Zao is one of the top national parks in Tohoku and I am so glad that I got there! Zao-san is a sleeping volcano that has a beautiful crater lake that is said to have 5 different colors. The Japanese characters mean "5 color lake" I believe. The easiest way to get there is by car because the buses that run from Sendai and Yamagata Station run on an odd schedule and only stay for an hour (in the case of the bus from Sendai. With a car you can stay or move on up [View Full Entry]

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When one thinks of Japan what do we think about? Ninjas, anime, comic books, and samurai of course. In modern Japan there isn't much in the way of Samurai anymore. Sure there are the splash of them in pop-culture and video games but they aren't much of anywhere else in my wonderings. Up in Tohoku you find a lot of history along with some pop-culture thrown into the mix. Kakunodate is the samurai spot in Tohoku. This old castle town has the most well preserved samurai houses that are lined behind beautiful black painted wooden fences. They are mostly free attractions [View Full Entry]

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This weekend was Tokubetsu Kenshu and Sendai Amity was sent to Tokyo Disneyland as a reward for making "spirits". Basically it means we were given a free vacation and trip to Disneyland in exchange for losing our weekend and having to sit through a rather long and boring meeting. It's also suppose to be a bonding trip for your school. It'll give us more things to talk about than just our students. I had never been to Disneyland before. I was really excited to be going and to be going for free no less! Made the trip well worth it. We [View Full Entry]

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I didn't even wake up to my alarm this morning. Instead I was wide awake @ 8:15am and just got my butt out of bed and started getting ready for a good days work or hiking and then relaxing in an onsen. I got a shinkansen to Furukawa and then rode out to Naruko Onsen station. It took about a hour and 20 minutes and around ¥2000 to be dropped off and after a few minutes walking around and orientating myself. The reason I wanted to come was to go hiking along the 4km trail along the Naruko Gorge. I had [View Full Entry]

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Earlier this week, one of my JTs asked me, "Are you going to the Aoba Matsuri?" Which I responded with a, "Is that what all the flags are around the city?" Needless to say, the Aoba Matsuri is a big event in Sendai. My JT told me that the Aoba Matsuri is to celebrate Date Masamune, I believe. There is also a special dance that is performed. The Aoba Matsuri webpage says, Sendai Suzume Odori Contest(Yoi) It is said that stonecutters danced Suzume Odori (a dance with gestures of sparrows ) at a celebration for building Ao [View Full Entry]

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Day 1 After two great nights in Hakodate my parents and I headed out on the 3 hour journey to Sapporo. Hokkaido doesn't have a shinkansen system so all the trains are super express. We passed by many places that I would love to visit but will have to wait until another holiday vacation. It was rather odd to be in Sapporo without all the snow that was there the last time I was there. After we got to the station we headed into the depths of Sapporo station to find some lunch. Sapporo station has an additional basement that is [View Full Entry]

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Today was at a much more leisurely pace than yesterday. Breakfast was complimentary through the hotel and included 4 types of onigiri, rice balls, miso soup and drink. Mom and Dad were up early and walked around the Asaichi Morning Market. I hear they saw giant crabs and got some apples and bananas. I was still sleeping at this time. Jet lag is always such a joy. After I got up we headed out to find the Foreigners Cemetery. We had a bit of a miss adventure getting to the bus. The bus worker told me that the stop was close [View Full Entry]

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Well, we left Sendai at 8:37 this morning. I got myself out of bed by 6:45 and had everything ready to go and meet my parents at the meeting place. I grabbed some food from 711 before walking down to the station. They had been up for a while in Starbucks and we just met, chatted, got a last drink and headed up to our shinkansen. My parents have the Japan Rail pass. This means that they prepaid for the pass and just pick up the tickets where ever they are going. There are numerous levels of passes, the highest being [View Full Entry]

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