Reflections
Working on the Natural Disaster Management project with Nanzan students I have come to appreciate the difficulties that come with dealing with natural disasters. Simply having relief is not good...
View ArticleO matsuri da!
A flurry of bright colors, the beat of drums, the screech of flutes, the chatter of the crowd and the yell of street vendors calling customers, that was my first experience at a Japanese festival....
View ArticleTrue sense of community
Traveling to Minamisanriku I had not realized how great the destruction was from the earthquake until I got there. Although we had read and discussed the earthquake so many times in class it was not...
View ArticleBoso trip
Boso is a nice place. The beaches there looked like the scenes in the film Battle Royal. On the beach, however, Nicole hurt her head. The cut was pretty much scary with lots of blood. Because I took...
View ArticleReinforced and Challenged Perceptions of group presentations
I think I was generally aware of the pros and cons of government vs community aid ( which was our topic) but I also was extremely interested in the first hand accounts at the groups portrayed so well...
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Boso Peninsula
One of my favorite parts of this trip had to be this section of the Boso Peninsula. I thought that this area was an amazing example of a coastal area, as well as that of geology in action. I spent a...
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Trip Conclusions
Wow, I can’t believe it has been a month since I came to Japan. It went too quickly in short- I am still having trouble consolidating the entire experience- it feels as though the last month has...
View ArticleWendy 130618
This is the end of the trip. A month was supposed to be long, but so many things happened that I felt the day I got out of the plane and saw all the signs in Japanese and didn’t know which way to go at...
View ArticleThoughts after a visit to Matsushima
Our group visited one of the devastated area after 3/11 earthquakes named Matsushima. Matsushima is a very beautiful and majestic area but right after the disaster, the area was in chaos. Many people...
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A Pen in the Kanto Memorial Museum
In the Kanto Memorial Museum, there was a glass case full of smaller artifacts that people might have been carrying on them at the time of the fire. There were watches, glasses, hair clippers, and...
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Geological museum in Tsukuba
Rocks donated to the museum from all over the world Geological museum in Tsukuba was one of the fascinating places among many of our field trips. Despite the simplicity of the front view of the...
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Minamisanriku, disaster zone reflections
The owner of the hotel, a survivor of the tsunami and earthquake told us her story. It was moving, and inspiring. 感動した。。she did so much to save hundreds, maybe even thousands of lives. That was only...
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Devastation and resilience in Minamisanriku
As we left the Tokyo bay and Tsukuba and headed north to Miyagi Prefecture I saw an abrupt change in landscapes. From the bustling cities to the slower countryside. From the high rise buildings to the...
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The Great Hanshin Earthquake and a reflection on my own city
I am from just outside of Buenos Aires, capital city of Argentina, in a city that is part of the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires (AMBA). Nothing much really happens in terms of natural disasters....
View ArticleReflection on Murakami’s “The Super-Frog Saves Tokyo” and the Kobe EQ
In his story Murakami uses the character of Frog as a wake-up call for Japanese citizens to a life style that is not conducive to anything valuable, representing the average citizen in the character of...
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The end of a beautiful journey
This is my last blog and my realization of how much I learned and experienced in just a month in Japan. The end of this journey has come and I am both saddened and happy at the same time. Saddened...
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Minamisanriku and the future
Our two days spent in Minamisanriku were incredible, and I feel like all of the class discussions and field trips were leading up to actually seeing the disaster area first-hand and hearing the stories...
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