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: ...

Back to the Wild

Posted by on Dec 6, 2011 in Oita, Travel Volunteer Journey | 2 Comments
Back to the Wild

Travelling as native English speakers we’ve found our mother tongues getting progressively worse. A sentence like: “Mum and dad’s garden became bigger over the years,” can devolve to something clunky like: “The garden of my mother and father has become more big.” It’s part of making yourself more understood, but when you suddenly bump into ...

The Living Island – Part Two

Posted by on Nov 30, 2011 in Kagoshima, Travel Volunteer Journey | 3 Comments
The Living Island – Part Two

“Sleeping is giving in, so lift those heavy eyelids,” so sing Arcade Fire, but this morning if it had been up to us – or more specifically: me – we would definitely have raised the white flag. In my humble opinion, 5am starts are not conducive to a good morning, especially when the blog is ...

The Living Island – Part One

Posted by on Nov 29, 2011 in Kagoshima, Travel Volunteer Journey | 2 Comments
The Living Island – Part One

“Write about what you know,” they say. No one’s above doing that – Hemingway did it; so did Tolstoy and Joyce. Hell, at one time or another, most of the good old boys cannibalised their own lives for their art, and it turns out that Studio Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki has done it too. Given ...

The Children of the Volcano

Posted by on Nov 27, 2011 in Kumamoto, Travel Volunteer Journey | No Comments
The Children of the Volcano

Approximately 92,800 years ago: homo sapiens and Neanderthals coexist; Mammoths walk the Earth; people still use CDs; and the island of Kyushu is being ripped asunder by the eruption of Mount Aso. It had already been exploding on and off for two hundred thousand years, but this was the big one: the mountain unleashed such ...