April Huddleston
Hey everyone! This is my new "Adventures in Japan" page. I know I've been slacking on the last one so I'll try to do better with this one. Enjoy!apehudd
Love,
April
Travel Blog Posts
May 19th 2005
India was at the top of my list of where I wanted to travel outside of Japan. So...I finally made it. Myself and 6 friends took on a small part of India (Rajasthan) for about 2 weeks in March. India is huge....2 weeks doesn't even come close to the amount of time you'd need to spend there to see and experience it all. We arrived in Delhi around 3am and headed out early the next day to start the journey. We decided to hire our own personal van and driver because it saved time and money in the long run. The downside to this was that these companies have "friends" all over the touristy cities. That means that they always want to take you to certain restuarants, hotels, or shops where they will get commission. Our ... read more
December 7th 2004
Hello friends and family! Well, once again I have traveled outside the “Land of the Rising Sun” to explore a little more of Asia. Last month, I spent a week or so in China. I was mostly in Beijing, but I did travel outside of the city a bit to check out some stuff nearby. Beijing is an awesome city. It has tons of culture, shopping, and good food. It is really clean and beautiful and very quaint. It’s a great place for the upcoming 2008 summer Olympics. So we checked out the big touristy stuff…Forbidden Palace, Tiananmen Square, Great Wall of China, Mao Zedong Mausoleum, saw an acrobatic show, ate some duck, etc… It was all really cool, but you don’t want to read about that so I’ll jut post pictures and tell you about ... read more
October 23rd 2004
is what our travel guide taught us on my trip in Kyushu. It's the only thing she said in um...english the entire time. And she talked the ENTIRE TIME on her beloved microphone, which was about 8 hours...even if everyone was asleep. I have no idea what she was saying for most of it, but I can only guess that she was pointing out various, exciting attractions like Circle Ks and another store I saw called "Hello Green Every." So, yes. I went to Kyushu, which is a different island (south) from where I live. It was a trip with the mayor's office and board of education office and we went to Kuramoto, Nagasaki, Saga, and Fukuoka prefectures. Mostly, they look like the other parts of Japan that I've seen, but with palm trees. But I ... read more
September 29th 2004
It’s a busy time to be a Japanese student or teacher. The late summer, early fall days are filled with activities. The elementary schools just had their sports festivals. They are kind of like a field day, but bigger and more of a production. It is also on the weekend so that parents can come and watch. The kids do dances, acrobatics, team sport games, and the regular field day events such as running and tug-of-war. Everything is set to music, which is really funny because the songs they choose make the kids seem like little mice scampering around. The school is split into two teams; red and white and every game or race winner gets points for his or her team. The teachers get really into it too. They are on one team or the ... read more
September 6th 2004
I learned (that)… 1.Language is important, but you can get by using gestures, facial expressions, and tone. 2.To let lots of things go unsaid (for obvious reasons), and be ok with that. 3.How to be a minority and deal with stereotypes against myself. 4.The comfort of not having to ever lock my door because the history of any crime in Hiyoshi is and always has been, zero. 5.How to embarrass myself quite frequently. 6.How to be respectful and polite by completely different and opposite (of what I am used to) rules. 7.How America is seen in the eyes of other foreigners. 8.Culture shock is a very real thing. 9.How to eat everything raw! 10.How to drive on the left. 11.How to use the ATM and conduct business in Japanese. 12.Japan isn’t about robots, sushi everyday, ... read more
September 5th 2004
Hi, Last night was the big Hiyoshi Village Festival (as big as a village of less than 3,000 can hold). I was asked to take part in the dancing and parade festivities. There are these really long, thin logs from some sort of pine tree that are carried down the street. But they just can't be simply carried...like everything in Japanese society, there is a certain and proper way to do it. The young men have to bounce up in down in a dancing kind of way and two women must rest their hands on the moving log. I don't really think that they have a purpose except maybe to be eye candy. Anyway, my job was the eye candy part. Also, older men have these loudspeaker megaphones and they sing traditional Japanese festival songs while ... read more
August 22nd 2004
Sawadee Krap/Ka! The Huddleston family recently visited Japan. It was a lot of fun, but we decided that we needed a vacation afterwards. So…we went to Thailand! Spencer has a friend from high school who lives in Bangkok so we were able to stay at her family’s VIP guest penthouse (no really, that was the name of the floor). Other floors had a gym, massage parlor, travel agency, and a foreign luxury car dealership. The building was all family owned and operated, so we got the red carpet treatment. Bangkok was definitely an experience. We couldn’t believe how different it was from Japan, while it was only a few hours away. There are definite, obvious social classes in Thailand. On the streets, there were many poor and homeless people who were selling anything they could find ... read more
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