My free weekends in Japan are rapidly coming to an end. I have a list of things that I want to see and do before I move on, so I'm taking all opportunities to do so. This weekend, Dana, Jenn, Ellie and I drove to Shikoku, which is one of the four main islands of Japan (south of me). To get there you have to cross a series of ridiculously expensive bridges...it helped that there were four of us in the car. Our destination was the Iya Valley in Tokushima Prefecture. A popular spot for Japanese people to visit, so we [View Full Entry]

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It was a very cultural day in Japan...one of the most exciting events I've attended this year. I went to a small town in the northern part of Hiroshima prefecture to plant rice as it used to be done. As I'm sure everyone is aware, rice is an extremely important staple in the Japanese diet. It used to be planted by hand, however this method has been taken over by machines. Now the only rice that is planted by hand is for ceremonial purposes. Today the ceremony was to start off the planting season. The town invited about 15 foreigners to [View Full Entry]

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The Carps are the Hiroshima baseball team. Team colours: red and white. Team logo: "All In". This weekend I had the opportunity to go to a game in Hiroshima city to see the Carps play the Nippon Hams from Hokkaido. The Carps won! I am a fan of baseball, so I enjoyed watching the game. However the highlight of the day was to see how enthusiastic the fans get at the games! Everyone, and I mean ev-er-y-one dresses in Carps paraphernalia, or at least red and white. We're talking shirts, hats, towels, horns, ballons, bags, drinking glasses.....I had a red t-shirt, [View Full Entry]

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On our last day in Beijing we packed in a couple most top sites, the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace. It was another national holiday, so the crowds were huge again. A highlight of the day however, was watching the people around us. We passed so many interesting characters: a husband and wife singing opera on the lakeshore, a man painting Chinese characters on the ground with a mop and water, and the many people that continued to take our pictures. One family who was out on the lake in a paddle boat came over to the shore to [View Full Entry]

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I climbed the Great Wall of China! I can't believe it! What an absolutely amazing day it was....I was in awe the entire time. It was a difficult climb at times, but I think I was too dumbstruck by the beauty and coolness of it all to notice any pain! Our hostel offered a trip to the section of the Wall called Simatai, built during the Ming Dynasty. It is the furthest section away from Beijing, and we had a three hour drive ahead of us. We left at 6:40a.m. with water, snacks and sleepy heads. Although the early wakeup was [View Full Entry]

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We joined about 1.5 million other visitors on a Chinese national holiday to explore the Forbidden City in Beijing. It was a blistering hot and insanely busy day, but despite it all, it was still fascinating to see. Still, at times I was confused as to what people were really more interested in seeing, the Forbidden City or a group of foreign people. Today we became the subjects of so many family photos I couldn't even begin to count them! It started out innocently (or so I thought)...a mother saw me comment on her daughter's cool holiday hat, and then asked [View Full Entry]

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In the land of national holidays, i.e. Japan, there are three days off in the first week of May. These days make up Golden Week. With a few extra days of holiday leave, I had a week to enjoy yet another Asian adventure. I spent my Golden Week on a whirlwind tour of Beijing and Shanghai with my friends Jennifer, Julie and Ellie. It took a day of travel to get from Hiroshima to Beijing. We flew first to Shanghai, and transferred planes to Beijing. When we got to the airport, there was a nice man (Martin) waiting for us to [View Full Entry]

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Spring has sprung in Japan...and it's beautiful! (Apparently the nice, moderate weather doesn't last too long, so I have to enjoy it before it gets hot.) It's cherry blossom time, and it's a big deal in Japan. Hanami parites are cherry blossom viewing parties, where family, friends or co-workers gather on large blue tarps under the trees and enjoy looking at the blossoms while having a picnic of beer, sake and snacks. These parties were in full force this weekend, not mention everything else cherry blossom related: food at the grocery flavoured with cherry blossom fillings, cherry bl [View Full Entry]

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Sumo, Japan's traditional (and national?) sport is OH SO exciting! On Saturday a bus of English teachers from Hiroshima prefecture drove to Osaka to watch the second last day of a two week tournament. We managed to catch about 5 hours of matches between the best wrestlers. The fights go on all day from 9a.m., and get better as the day progresses. At the beginning I was too excited to sit down, so I started to wander. I found myself in the stairwell with some sumo men warming up, getting dressed and just hanging out. I was a little shocked to [View Full Entry]

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We chose a good day to travel on the bullet train, because it never stopped raining! From Kyoto we had to venture to Osaka to pick up everyone's train passes. We were a little late after breakfast and had to run up an enormous flight of stairs to catch our train on time. I flew up the stairs first with a suitcase, dropped it on the platform, and then ran back down to grab another....all the while flailing my arms at the conductor to wait for the five crazy foreigners! I'm sure it was an amusing sight for the locals! We [View Full Entry]

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