100 Things We’ve Learned in 100 Days

Posted by on Dec 23, 2011 in Ishikawa, Travel Volunteer Journey | 22 Comments
100 Things We’ve Learned in 100 Days

1. While it’s probably true all around the world, breasts are literally worshipped in Japan – the Jison-in temple in Wakayama is covered in boobs. 2. If you tell a Japanese person something unexpected, an involuntary noise will escape from them: “Eiiiiiiigghh!” If you tell them something truly extraordinary, it will become deeper and longer: ...

Spectres, Blue and Dancing Too

Posted by on Nov 13, 2011 in Tokushima, Travel Volunteer Journey | 3 Comments
Spectres, Blue and Dancing Too

Truth be told, Tokushima prefecture offers us little we’ve not seen before. That might sound incredibly negative, but bear with me while I explain. We started today by visiting Aizumicho, a government-endorsed indigo dyeing studio and museum. The technique was imported from China around 800 years ago, and Tokushima has made itself the Japanese home ...

50 Things We’ve Learned in 50 Days

Posted by on Nov 3, 2011 in Travel Volunteer Journey, Wakayama | 5 Comments
50 Things We’ve Learned in 50 Days

Today was unfortunately a bit of a wash out in Wakayama prefecture. The seasonal gloom made pictures pretty hard and created a strangely flat feeling to mark what has been an amazing 50 days so far. So rather than try to scrape butter over too much bread with what happened today, we thought we’d bring ...

The Akita News

Posted by on Sep 19, 2011 in Akita, Travel Volunteer Journey | 4 Comments
The Akita News

The Demon Drunk There’s a case to argue that parents in the west are getting too soft. Katy and I grew up well after corporal punishment was outlawed in schools the UK, and people said life was getting too easy for kids then. I’ve heard horror stories about schools being told not to use red ...

Day One – Toyama

Posted by on Sep 15, 2011 in Toyama, Travel Volunteer Journey | 7 Comments
Day One – Toyama

There was part of me that thought we might get an easy start to life as travel volunteers. That part – the fool – was completely wrong. Between jet-lag interrupting our sleep (again) and the possible consumption of one sake too many the night before, the start of our real journey crashed in on us ...