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My Moment of Zen (with a Zen Master)

During our tour of Japan we got to meet with two different Buddhist monks, each representing different branches of Buddhism within Japan. These meetings were interesting on several different levels. I studied Eastern philosophies and religions a lot when I...

Japan – some final reflections

I have been pondering our recent experiences in Japan to try and put my finger on exactly what bothered me about our Japan trip. Generally, we had a good trip, but it didn’t really live up to our expectations and …

Ah, Kyoto!

Our tour was supposed to avoid cities and focus on “culture”, etc., but Japan is not some third world country. Everywhere you go you see a bustling atmosphere, lots of office buildings, stores and restaurants. Let me tell you, the …

A Fukushima Refugee Tale

One thing that was interesting in Kanazawa is when we got to meet with a Fukushima refugee couple. They currently live in Kanazawa and have a restaurant where we had lunch. (It was a vegan restaurant. I’m probably the only …

Mentally, All Our Bags Are Packed

Wow, the time has flown by! Too busy doing the tour to take time to blog. It can’t be helped. It seems to be that every time we travel, I am forced to blog about the trip mostly after we …

Gomen’nasai!

That’s Japanese for “sorry!” I left my PC in my bag while we went to the mountains and then had issues posting via my smartphone. Pilot error, of course. I’ll write more later. We’re off to see the garden again, …

2018-11-05 Day One and Two in Tokyo!

We arrived yesterday afternoon with a – thankfully – rather uninteresting flight. Actually, the one thing interesting about this United flight is that we experienced some of the worst airplane food we’ve had in some years. The food was almost …

T-1 days and Waiting!

Only a few hours to go until we leave for Japan! I tried to schedule a Lyft for 4:45am, but didn’t get any takes, so we’re going to the airport by ordinary taxi. Oh, well. My last post left on …

T – 4 Days and Counting!

We’re getting down to the finer details for our upcoming trip to Japan – making sure our camera SD cards are empty and the camera lenses are clean; charging all our electronic devices; making sure we have the proper cables; …

T-6 days and counting!

Wow, time is flying! Par for the course for all our other Overseas Adventure (OAT) Tours, as the date for our trip grows closer we’ve now had a chance to talk to our country guide, Hiroshi Ninigawa, and have received …