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| In Japan, building relationships means everything. People must trust you in order to work with you or make a business deal with you. If it wasn’t for the relationship that Dr. Stapp has built with Ei-Chain (left) over the past 20 years, there would be no JSAP program. She is our middleman. Stapp keeps in touch with her year round to help schedule meetings with CEOs and buy tickets to special events. On top of that, she’s a great woman to be able to call “mom” in Japan. One day, she stopped in the middle of work to help me make a reservation for a distillery tour because I obviously could not call and speak to them about the reservations in Japanese. No questions asked; she was always quick to help out. |
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| This is the most famous torii gate in all of Japan, nestled in the water just off of Miyajima Island. It is said that torii gates outside of temples set this world apart from the spiritual world, and once you pass through the gate, you are cleansed and prepared to visit the spirits. This gate sits in front of the entire island of Miyajima because at one point in time, the entire island was considered holy. Very few religious figures ever inhabited the island, and to keep it pure, people would be removed from the island before passing on. Now, the island is open for inhabitats and tourism. |
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| I promise that I am not kidding
when I say that this deer turned and smiled at the camera for a selfie. In
Japan, deer aren’t seen as a nuisance. They aren’t hunted, and as far as I saw, they aren’t served as food. They just meander freely in parks and temples, begging for food and posing for photos. |
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Yes, that is real gold; solid
sheets of gold. This temple, Kinkakuji, was constructed in the 1300s as a way
for a Shogun to
prove his power and wealth. It is one of many temples and
shrines that we got to see while in Japan. This one is a stand out for obvious
reasons, though, like the GOLD. Japan is actually such a safe country that this
temple is often left unguarded. It wasn’t until recently that the groundkeepers
installed a few security cameras, but there are no security guards to be found
anywhere.
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| From left to right: Tofu, sesame seed, red bean past, strawberry, green tea, and vanilla, because who doesn’t like a big ‘ol scoop of tofu to go with their bean paste ice cream, right? In Japan, they flavor everything differently. From green tea Kit-Kats to melon soda and everything in between, I suggest a sniff test before biting into anything unknown. |
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| The true meaning of study abroad illustrated in one photo. We must study each other’s cultures to learn, accept, and understand. After seeing Hiroshima, I reflected on the lifelong friends that I made in Japan and the number of people just like them that must have been lost in the war. It was hard to fathom and made me feel very ill. The Japanese are kind, caring, and generous. We need more people like that in the world, not less. |
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| This 7th level Kendo expert has special permission from the government to carry this sharpened Katana. Japan is a safe country, and ordinary citizens don’t carry weapons of any form. In fact, most law enforcement officers are unarmed, but it’s not like there are many law enforcement officers walking around, anyways. In five whole weeks, I saw 3 police officers. |
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The game pictured here is much
like pin the tail on the donkey, except it is played with a blank portrait and
facial features are placed on top. The students at Hibi Elementary made
portraits to resemble the members of our study abroad group to play with us. We
spent a day doing a cultural exchange with the students of Hibi, and it was one
of my favorite days on the program. The students in Japan are well disciplined
and intelligent. At lunch, they served each other their meals and cleaned up
after themselves. There was no one there picking up after them. Lessons like
that should be taught to students here in America.
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| This is a photo I took of the skyline from less than a mile off of the coast of Japan. Why is it so gray? It’s not rain. It’s not even clouds. It’s not a problem with my lense, either. Nope, this is Chinese pollution that has drifted across the ocean to western Japan. This is just one of the many spillover costs of high, unregulated levels of pollution from Chinese manufacturing. It was hard to see and even harder to breath in western Japan. |
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| When we visited northern Japan, we stopped in Otaru, famous for blown glass and music boxes. Our big surprise for the day? We got to blow our own glass at a professional studio. I’m pretty sure the artist I worked with was disappointed in my abilities, but I’ll give myself a pass on this one. I did much better on pottery day. We all got to choose our own glass color, texture, and type of bowl or drinking glass. I made a purple crackled whiskey glass. |
