Last month (April 16-17) CIEE students who have been here since fall semester got to visit Kyoto for the weekend. Kyoto was Japan's capital for over 1000 years. The emperor resided here from 794 until 1868 when the capital was moved to Tokyo. The city is known for being a symbol of traditional Japanese culture and important historical sites. We left on Saturday morning and took the shinkansen to Kyoto station, about 2 1/2 hours. After dropping luggage at a hot...

A summary of the month and a half I spent in Tokunoshima volunteering on a farm before the earthquake: Every morning at 7:30 I rode a bike into the main part of town where I met a farmer named Fuku-san. I'd get in the front seat of his truck, and he'd drive down the road to pick up his 93 year old mother. Now sandwiched between the door and obāsan, we would drive about 15 minutes into the hills to one of Fuku-san's fields. Fuku-san grows potatoes and sugarcan...

Alright, so...where to begin. Last I wrote, I was headed for an island south of Japan to work on a farm during interim break. I worked like a dog, came home hurting most days, but overall was having a great experience. I need to fast forward past all of that for right now to address the obvious. It's been little over 3 weeks since a 9.0 magnitude earthquake (first 8.8, changed to 8.9, now apparently 9.0) struck off the coast of Miyagi-ken in north Japan, the...

As long as I'm awake, thought I would update. I realize I've been neglecting my blogging commitments. I've been extremely busy with finals and papers for school and really haven't done a lot worth informing the public about. Now the first semester is over. It went by quick, and it's still hard for me to take a step back and gauge where I am now. I know my Japanese has improved a great deal, but then that's not saying much since I was starting from square one. B...

Missed a chance to blog about my New Year last weekend mainly due to a stomach bug. Last weekend, the host family took us on an overnight trip to Nikkō, a city about 80 miles north of Tokyo. The city is situated in the mountains and brings in a lot of tourism for its many scenic waterfalls and trails. Day 1 involved visiting the shrines and temples of Nikkō, which there are a lot of. Not only that, but they're some of the prettiest looking buildings you can v...