Kyoto, you have my heart. Debussy, my ears.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Akita

August 3-5 2007 I am now in northern Japan, in Akita prefecture. It is very different from Tokyo, and a welcomed change. Everything up here is lush and green as well. The hillsides are dotted with rice fields, and fog covered mountains loom around every turn. This is what they call “inaka” in Japanese, meaning “countryside.” Most of the Japanese delegates had not even been up here, so it has been a new experience for us all! I just arrived back at Akita International University (which is brand new I might add. The dorms we are staying in were finished literally days ago and they are eco-friendly and beautiful!) from 2 nights of homestays with local families. I stayed with the Nakajima’s, who live in Happo-cho (Happo town), a quaint seaside village surrounded by the Shirakami mountains (World Heritage site). Until yesterday I could barely see the scenery, except for an angry and mean looking coastline. This, of course, was due to the typhoon that followed us up north! I was a littl...
Want more?

Goodbye Tokyo!

August 2, 2007 Today was chock full of military madness! We spent most of the day at Yokosuka base, south of Tokyo. It is pretty much the central HQ of the US navy in Japan. I had never really been to a big navy base, and I was surprised at the sheer size of things. Being that my conference is actually a big deal, we were greeted by the Admiral of the entire Japan fleet, Jim something. He is in charge of something like 12 bases over 9 time zones and 52 million sq miles of ocean!! Pretty huge. The US Ambassador to Japan, Amb. Schieffer, also joined us. He was very nice as well, but reminded me far too much of a mini Dick Cheney, considering all the neo-con rhetoric that came out of his mouth (democracy this, war spending that, etc.) It was a big change from our previous adventures, and some of the delegates were upset that we spent an entire day looking at military stuff. By that I mean we were reminded by the Navy about how powerful the US is and how great they are. I am impressed by w...
Want more?