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<title>Travel Blog | scott41679</title>
<link>http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/scott41679/</link>
<description>Travel adventures in journals and photos from scott41679</description>
<language>en-us</language>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 20:30:06 +0000</pubDate>
<lastBuildDate>Wed, 22 May 2013 20:30:06 +0000</lastBuildDate><item>
                    <title>Walking in the Clouds</title>
                    <description>Now for the main event my ascent up Mt. Fuji.  After enduring a day in which my nerves prevented me from eating much of anything at 600 in the evening my friend Lou and I climbed into the bus that would take us to our destiny.  This was not a normal bus ride but one that would take us half way up Fuji before depositing us at the Fifth Station some 6000 feet from the base.  The wind was whip</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Shizuoka/Mt-Fuji/blog-102164.html</link>
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                    <title>What is Japanese Culture</title>
                    <description>First a little background  Sri Lanka formerly known as Ceylon is a small island off the southeast coast of India.  Its people are mostly Buddhist but also Hindu and Muslim they mostly plant tea or make apparel to earn a living. The Singhalese mostly Buddhist and the Tamils mostly Hindu had been engaged onandoff in a civil war until last year.  During the conflict the Tigers a Tamil gue</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102163.html</link>
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                    <title>Sri Lanka</title>
                    <description>First a little background  Sri Lanka formerly known as Ceylon is a small island off the southeast coast of India.  Its people are mostly Buddhist but also Hindu and Muslim they mostly plant tea or make apparel to earn a living. The Singhalese mostly Buddhist and the Tamils mostly Hindu had been engaged onandoff in a civil war until last year.  During the conflict the Tigers a Tamil gue</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Sri-Lanka/blog-102162.html</link>
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                    <title>The Most Expensive City in the World</title>
                    <description>Hey everyone.  I know its been a while but things have been quiet in Tamagawatown.    The endless winter marked not by snow but interminable rain seems finally to be drawing to a cease and the season of cherry blossoms and rice field plantings about to begin.   When the weather warms I plan to ride my bike to even my most distant schools seven miles away.Meanwhile time continues to move sl</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Tokyo/blog-102161.html</link>
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                    <title>Ascent of Wonder</title>
                    <description>As I sit on my tatami floor in my room warmed by the kerosene heater beside me I shake off the cold and remember my latest escapades this time in China the most populous country on Earth.   I got a cold virus towards the end of my journey in the Middle Kingdom and was more than a little anxious to return to the land of verdant rice fields and endless mountains.  Still I look back with fondne</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/Great-Wall-of-China/blog-102160.html</link>
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                    <title>Here Comes the Bride</title>
                    <description>.  An exception to the rule was last weekend when I attended a Japanese wedding for the first time.  Come to think of it it was my first wedding anywhere yet another thing that I have done for the first time ten thousand miles from home.  The bride was the office worker at my school and the groom the social studies teacher at my friends so we were invited by the umbrella of our respective s</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102159.html</link>
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                    <title>A Bit More Ordinary</title>
                    <description>I suppose it is an inevitable result of extending my stay to a second year most things I participate in these days I have done before.  It doesnt make them less interesting but it does remove the novelty factor.  These days I strive to make more of an impact at my job.  I am directing a performance of Aladdin with my 8th graders at this years school cultural festival but I am given exactl</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102158.html</link>
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                    <title>How to Build a Fire</title>
                    <description>Things have been pretty quiet lately just hanging out in the capital of the prefecture with American and Japanese friends and working on my calligraphy sword fighting and pottery making skills the latter two of which need a lot of work.  I have sent out my graduate school applications and now I have nothing to do but sit back and relax and wait for the results from Princeton GW Tufts John H</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102157.html</link>
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                    <title>A Training Expedition</title>
                    <description>In one of the peculiarities of the Japanese system is the singular oddity known as the kenshu ryoko literally translated as training trip although that couldnt be farther from the truth.  Lest anyone be deceived this brief journey into the known but exotic of Japan doesnt have the slightest hint of education or job development.   It is simply a time for all the teachers of a school t</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102156.html</link>
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                    <title>Relicensed to Drive</title>
                    <description>In early July I received an ominous fax from the bureaucracy of the JET Program five weeks after the fact stating rather concisely that effect one week later my international drivers license would be null and void and could not be renewed.   In an effort to catch Japanese people who go to America to get an international license and renew it indefinitely the Japanese government decided to limit t</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102155.html</link>
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                    <title>Has it Been a Year Already</title>
                    <description>Nearly a year has passed quicker than I ever imagined possible and after a brief interlude at home I return to embark on a second year of adventures. The first year it goes without saying was a time of first some could only have only happened in Japan others were universal.  I bought my first car lived by myself for the first time drank sake had a fulltime job visited a leprosy village</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102154.html</link>
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                    <title>Relatives Pay a Visit</title>
                    <description>The other day the barbarian horde wielding gleaming swords and powerful clubs descended on my tranquil village.  The villagers did what they could to mitigate the onslaught but despite their best efforts a horrific bloodbath ensured and the casualties still being discovered numbered in the hundreds.  The survivors set upon themselves the grim task of collecting the body parts intermingled amo</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102152.html</link>
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                    <title>Their Hearts and Minds</title>
                    <description> Nearly a year has now passed since I touched down to rice field central last August expecting civilization and finding nothing but rice.   The few who live here who have not yet been swept over to the dark side of overflowing cities rampant waves of technology and exquisite shoebox living have had a lot to teach me about Japan.  I am of course officially known and unofficially referred to </description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102150.html</link>
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                    <title>Kindness of Strangers</title>
                    <description> There and back again.  This time the there included three of the most famous cities of Japan Kobe a modern city by the sea Osaka a cosmopolitan wonderland and the cultural heartland of the Japanese nation Kyoto.  It felt good to leave my farming village and head for the great world beyond if only for the weekend.  I admit that I was a bit envious of those English teachers who dwell i</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Kyoto/blog-102149.html</link>
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                    <title>Bits and Pieces</title>
                    <description>First of all yesterday the Board of Education treated me to a birthday celebration for my birthday a couple of weeks prior.   The BOE asked me what kind of toppings I like on pizza and told me to show up on foot at 600.  I arrived a bit early to find a table filled with pizza Kentucky Fried Chicken and chicken teriyaki as well as a chocolate birthday cake emblazoned with Scott Congratulatio</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102148.html</link>
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                    <title>Enter the Police State</title>
                    <description>Hey guys.  The title of my latest adventure may sound a bit ominous but it is not as far from the truth as you might think.  Surely the profession of armed guard must number among the most popular in South Korea.  Combined with 2year obligatory military service for all men I got the impression that there is neither back alley nor grand boulevard without a cop watching your back or perhaps eye</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/South-Korea/Seoul/blog-102146.html</link>
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                    <title>Finale and Prelude</title>
                    <description>      It seems a bit bizarre to be writing about endings in March but I am in Japan and that is when they happen here.  Perhaps it is their hyperawareness of the seasons that inspires them to place the most auspicious of events just prior to the coming of spring and the cherry blossoms.   From nursery schools to university March is the universal month for valedictories and tearyeyed moms luggin</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102145.html</link>
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                    <title>Surviving the Winter</title>
                    <description> I write this at the beginning of March with the harshest of the winter season come and gone.  Here in the southern part of Japan with a latitude roughly equivalent to Atlanta Georgia temperatures rarely dip below freezing and snow tends to melt long before it hits the ground.    If that is the case what is the cause for complaint  The climate here is certainly milder than anything I have exp</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102144.html</link>
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                    <title>Into Higher Gear</title>
                    <description>I passed the halfyear mark being here in Japan a couple of weeks ago and I marked the occasion with a pretty momentous change.   I decided to follow in the footsteps of nearly all the JETs who live in the boonies of Japan and purchase an automobile.   On the advice of a friend I came upon a used car dealer with impeccable English who had the perfect car for me.   It was a white Mitsubishi Minic</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Japan/Yamaguchi/blog-102142.html</link>
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                    <title>Of Pasts and Futures</title>
                    <description>I came to Vietnam expecting it to be a communist country replete with propagandaladen billboards signs the government was watching your every move a populace fearful of badmouthing the authorities for fear of the ultimate consequence.  Instead the neon signs tempted passersby with advertisements for Coca Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken.  Except for a handful of uniformed soldiers scurrying ab</description>
                    <link>http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Vietnam/Southeast/Ho-Chi-Minh-City/blog-102141.html</link>
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