The Memphis Wedding

Only about a week late, but I’ve finally gotten all the pictures off my camera from my cousin Rebekah’s wedding in Memphis two weekends ago. I’ve only been to Memphis twice before, once before I was really old enough to have very clear memories (I’m told we visited Mud Island, and it was very hot), [...]

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The Great Japan/China Trip: Kunming

At the end of our two days in Lijiang, K. and I were finally getting on a plane to Kunming, the city where our spring study abroad students are based. We landed and successfully got in a cab to our hotel, using the piece of paper my boss had written the name of the hotel [...]

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The Great Japan/China Trip: Lijiang

Whoops, falling behind again. I feel like I should at least have all of this trip record done before the Olympics start, though. An arbitrary deadline, yes, but I’ve got other stuff I’d like to blog about, too, so it’s time to try to wrap this up.
K. and I got up at 5am to fly [...]

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Japan Rail Pass Fabulosity

I’m guest posting today over at Less Than a Shoestring about why tourists going to Japan should consider getting a Japan Rail Pass: Save Money and Travel Freely with a Japan Rail Pass. Go check it out, and peruse all of Hilary’s other excellent budget travel advice.

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The Great Japan/China Trip: Beijing, Part 2

On our fourth day in Beijing, the main activity of the day for K. and I was a trip to the Great Wall. The host university provided us with a driver, which meant a lot less hassle with cabs. (I forgot to mention the lesson learned while leaving the Summer Palace: don’t take the black [...]

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The Great Japan/China Trip: Beijing, Part 1

On Day 7 of the trip, I made use of my jetlag superpowers once more to heroically get up at 5:30am without enormous effort, in order to check out of the hotel, take a cab back to Tokyo Station, take the Narita Express back to the airport, and get back on an international plane after [...]

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The Great Japan/China Trip: Tokyo, Day 2

On our second full day in Tokyo, I met my boss and her family in the hotel lobby at 9am to get started on seeing as much as possible. First, we did as all tourists must do, and went to view the Imperial Palace, conveniently located only a few blocks from Tokyo Station. Although I’ve [...]

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English Education on the Train

As a brief break from my trip log, I would like to report (and complain about) an ad I saw on the train in Tokyo. First, some background for those of you who haven’t been spending any time on the Yamanote line recently: Above the doors in all the train cars, there are two small [...]

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The Great Japan/China Trip: Tokyo, Day 1

Our first full day in Tokyo wasn’t very action-packed for me, since I was waiting at the hotel for Kamiyama-sensei and Tomo to come, but that was a nice change after feeling like I needed to be doing something ever since we had landed at the airport. When I woke up that morning, I decided [...]

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The Great Japan/China Trip: Kyoto, Part 2

The second day in Kyoto was probably my favorite day in Japan. My boss said she felt confident enough about figuring out how to get around Kyoto now, and her husband was back with them, having discharged his talk duties the day before, so I was free to wander around by myself for the day. [...]

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