Today is the first time I have been able to visit an actual Japanese School! Kaori and Midori invited me to visit their old High school which is about 30-40 minutes bike ride away from home. I didn’t know what think besides anime and movies I saw about Japan, so I had a typical stereotype mind set. As we arrived I was impressed to see that Japanese schools have Elementary, junior high, and high school next to one another. This makes finding and placing your “son or daughter” in a school trouble-free. Kaori told me a few tid bits about how it’s a “Christian school” with nuns and teachers at the same location. I know in USA, we separate Church from State but sometimes there are schools that practice both school and religion at the same ... read more

The day was bright and refreshing and so was my outlook for the trip to Kobe. Kaori mentioned to me that today is Chinese New Years and the only way to celebrate is by going to China town located in Kobe. We also planned on stopping by the school I would be attending in March called Kwansei Gakuin University. So we had some pretty fun adventures planned for the day. On our way to Kobe Kaori stopped in a store at the Umeda underground shopping mall to pick up some cheaper tickets. This small shop sells discounted tickets to anything from movies, concerts and rail tickets this store had it all. Normally if we were to purchase our tickets at the station it would cost ¥850, however we purchased ours for ¥760. It may not seem ... read more

Today was all about shopping and Both Kaori and I were able to shop around at both Insa-dong and Myeong-dong. After a few days of looking around and checking different activities it was time to get some souvenirs for our friends and family. We started at Insa-dong because it was highly recommended by some online guides and by the books we looked at. The train ride was a synch and finding Insa-dong was simple and easy. First part I would like to mention is that Insa-dong is smaller than Myeong-dong, but, Insa-dong has a lot more traditional Korean souvenirs and locally made items for sale. The street stretched for about 1.5 miles and both sides are packed with vendors, stores, food, and people. Some of the local stores had reasonably priced foods and cloths for sale, ... read more

Editors Note: I want to make it clear to all readers that before you read this, the opinions and comments expressed are solely my own, and they are not to be given serious thought as extensive critiquing. In lighter terms this is just my point of view and some observations that I found about the DMZ and JSA Tour. I am very fortunate and very lucky to be on such a tour and hope that people can go see the DMZ and JSA for themselves to formulate their own opinion. Today is finally the day we get to go to DMZ and JSA. For those of you who may not know what those are, the DMZ or “demilitarized zone” is the 4 kilometer “buffer zone” between North and South Korea, two kilometers for each side. The ... read more

Dear readers, I have not had as much time as I would like to write and post new blogs for people to see and experience. I apologize for not having a steady week or daily pattern to each new blog. I have been working on making this both a memorable and exciting experience for you the reader. With that in mind, upon review of some of the older blogs, I saw some major spelling and grammar errors and I believe I can do these better justice . I thought to myself "is this really the best I can do?" and no it is not. I went back and changed several old blogs by reworking the words and descriptors for the stories. Hopefully I can shed new light on these stories and give you the reader a ... read more