Willie J
Willie J Inman Joined: August 12th 2008
Logged in: September 15th 2010
Logged in: September 15th 2010
Willie J.
Travel Blog Posts
At the top of KL
Sorry for the long delay in entries..... I am back in Atlanta but I am currently in the process of writing about the last few months abroad in Japan. So after hanging out with my friend Yeecha and her family in Penang I headed back south to Kuala Lumpur (KL) which is the capital city of Malaysia. I guess my first thoughts about this city date back to when I saw Entrapment with Catherine Zeta Jones and Sean Connery. It was a great movie in which I saw the Petronas Towers for the first time. I had always dreamed of seeing them in real life, they really are the true landmark of KL. My first day in KL was spent walking around and taking in the city. I found a decent hotel to stay at for ... read more
Snake Temple
3/16/2009 (Monday) So after nearly a week in Siem Reap, Cambodia I headed to Malaysia where I would first visit my friend Yee Chea and her family in Pulau Penang which is an island just off the Northeast coast of Malaysia. I booked my ticket on AirAsia.com as it was the cheapest airline to fly out of Cambodia. If you ever fly out of Cambodia beware though! Every entry and exit requires visitors to pay a $25 fee to leave and enter the country. There is no fee to enter or leave the country by bus (not sure by boat) but there is a visa fee of course which is $25 also. The flight itself cost around $70 and I booked it online while I was in Thailand about a week before perhaps. The flight was ... read more
Cambodian Landscape
Ok so it has been quite some time since my last entry. I still have Malaysia, Singapore, and Hong Kong to write about so stay tuned in the coming weeks for many updates on my travels in Asia! Sorry for the delay...I haven't been stuck in Thailand for the past 3 months just a little busy here in Japan :) Tuesday, March 10 - Monday, March 16 So after a weekend at the beach and a night back in Bangkok I took a bus to Siem Reap, Cambodia. Now many people may not know this place but it is most famous for the Angkor Wat and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider which was filmed there in 1999 starring Angelina Jolie. I met the bus at 7:30 in the morning but we ended up leaving later than planned ... read more
Ko Samet
Saturday, March 7 So after a bustling week in Thailand me and my friend Dan (New Jersey) headed for the beach. My friend Tisha's aunt owns a place on one of the beaches on the island but we couldn't get a room for our first night there so we had to just hope that we would get a place. Our bus would leave at 8:30 so we had to get up at around 7:00. Apparently my friend had too many drinks from the night before so he was a little sick and hard to wake up so we were running a little late but got there in time to buy our tickets though. Just before boarding the bus however I witnessed an interesting thing at 8:00. The loud speaker sounded in the station and everyone stopped ... read more
Now Boarding for Bangkok
March 2/2009 Thailand, what more do I need to say...... So my break from school started back in February and pretty much over the past year I have been planning a trip to mainland Asia and it was quite surreal that I was actually going to do it! I booked my ticket through a Japanese student travel agency called Skygate.com and paid only about $631.00 for a roundtrip ticket to Bangkok and back to Osaka from Singapore. My journey started on the morning of March 2nd as I had an 11AM flight to Hong Kong to catch a connection to Bangkok. It turns out that my first flight would stop in Taipei and then head off to Hong Kong. It was a long day of flights for me and I touched down in Bangkok around 8PM ... read more
On the train to Kobe
I apologize for the delay in this blog entry : 0 2/6/2009 So me and my friends Ukyun (Korean), Jennie (American), and Katsutoshi (Japanese) headed to Kobe in search of a new pillow for my bed...haha...well that was the primary reason I wanted to go to Ikea in Kobe and I also wanted to remind my self of the Ikea in Atlanta in which I use to frequent. We ended up taking the Hankyu line instead of the famous and expensive JR line. The trip there and back was around 1200 Yen converts to about $12.80. The train ride was smooth and we made it to the station without getting lost. There was free shuttle bus to Ikea waiting there just for us....and all the other people going to Ikea...haha...so we hoped on and took the ... read more
Boarding the Bus to Nagano
After then end of the tests, essays, group meetings, and everything that is routine...... Japanese students do what any other students some parts of the world would do...they go on vacation! So as I mentioned in one of my previous blogs, I joined a volleyball club here at Ritsumeikan that meets once a week just to play volleyball and hang out. When I heard that there was going to be a group snowboard trip of course I did not hesitate to join! Being a true southerner from Atlanta I have never snowboarded, skied or for that matter seen huge amounts of snow in my lifetime thus far so I was a little excited and scared at the same time. The cost of the trip was 17,000 Yen ( $185 USD--that exchange rate just keeps falling :( ... read more
Food!
So I know it has been quite some time since my last entry but I have been quite isogashi (BUSY) with tests, papers, and parties of course! In Japan the university school year works a little bit different than America. The Fall semester begins in September and ends at the end of January and Spring semester begins in April and ends at the end of July. So I know you are thinking....wow...alot of time off! Well you are right...I have a spring break from February until April....so alot of free time ahead of me. :) The main difference about the end of the semester here in Japan at Ritsumeikan compared to my school back home is that finals week last for about three weeks instead of just one which is what I get at GSU. The ... read more
Watching Japanese TV
7,000 miles away from any familiar American New Year's traditions....I began my Japanese New Year celebration with friends here at my dormitory. We all ate dinner together and huddled around the television to watch the New Year's special live from Tokyo which featured Japan's most famous music, film, and sports stars. This is pretty similar to the American TV show Rockin New Year's Eve with Dick Clark but it is filmed inside of a large concert hall in Tokyo and of course broadcast in Japanese. I was pretty excited to see my favorite Japanese artist Koda Kumi on TV as well as a Japanese group called Perfume...which has more of Techno house feel to it. Around 10:30 some people from the other dormitory joined us before we headed down to the temple to ring the bell ... read more
Christmas Tree
To those of you who are wondering.....Christmas is a little different in Japan! Christmas week began for me with the usual routine of school.....YES I had class the week of Christmas and even on Christmas day. I was a little upset by this but relieved at the same time because most of my professors canceled class anyway because the majority of foreigners probably would not have shown up anyway. I had to goto one class on Christmas Eve but I skipped the Tea Ceremony class on Christmas day...( I figured it was pretty much the only time I could use the excuse of a religious holiday since most Christian holidays are observed in America) Christmas day itself was quite quiet for me as I spent most of it at my dorm calling people and thinking about ... read more
