Category: All Posts

  • Influential Minds Part 2

    This post is about our meeting with Takayuki Mori. I wrote part one about my impressions of our meeting with Hiroaki Koide, it loosely ties into this writing, and can be found here. A disclaimer at the beginning of this writing that my facts are from memory, and it was a very long day at…

  • Aightowa-An Inspiration in Living Sustainably

                Our first full day in Kyoto we took a trip to visit Professor Armstrong’s host parents from her time as a student in the city.  The visit to Aightowa (the name of their property) turned out to be my favorite event of our tour of Japan.  Morisan Sensei has…

  • Spark that ignites a new passion for Japan?

    I have to be completely honest, before this trip I had no real interest in visiting Japan or Asia at all for that matter.  At Bucknell I study Biology and Spanish.  The majority of my cultural and traveling experiences have revolved around Spanish speaking countries and my proficiency with the language.  If you had given…

  • Food!

    One of the key aspects of a culture is its customs with food. Luckily we had PLENTY of opportunity to try all sorts of culturally typical Japanese foods. ” “Parent and Child” Chicken and Egg over rice with Soba Noodles A typical japanese fast food breakfast – Miso, rice with raw egg, beef and tea!…

  • “Americans” in Japan

      On Thursday we visited Lake Biwa in the Shiga Prefecture – an ancient lake that is estimated 1 million years old that is also the largest lake in all of Japan.  We were fortunate enough to have Dr. Katsuki Nakal, a research biologist and curator as a guide thru the tour.      …

  • Sustainability

    Does ability to fluently speak a language mean that you will not have any troubles and misunderstandings communicating with people from a culture where this language is native? Neither of us can really speak Japanese yet, but even without knowing Japanese perfectly, we clearly understand now that the answer is no. Cultural Sustainability I have…

  • JR and High-Speed Rail Sustainability – January 13, 2013

    The morning after our return to the east coast, I met and spoke with a former train conductor. We talked about my trip and, inevitably, the conversation drifted toward the railways. It was actually kind of surprising how much he knew about the train system in Japan. I suppose this can be attributed to how…

  • More Nuclear Energy Problems – January 11, 2013

    In the shinkansen, a news banner at the front of the train car said that a crack was found in the nuclear reactor of one the 54 nuclear energy facilities in Japan. Fortunately, this reactor had already been shut down as of the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, but was one of the facilities that…

  • I Like Turtles – January 7, 2013

    Today at the temple, there were peaceful pools of water filled with koi and carp-like fish. It was serene and beautiful. But then, I saw a turtle. Back at school, I do research on turtle locomotion and turtle shell mechanical properties, so I naturally I am a freak for anything related to turtles. I noticed…

  • Space – January 6, 2013

    Japan and America have very different ideas of space usage. In America, we have a bigger landmass, so there isn’t as much pressure to fit in (literally). However, in Japan things are different. When we first arrived at the Kinuya Hotel, we noticed that the doors were very small. As we entered our rooms, I…