I could talk about all the places I’ve visited while living in Tokyo, but for this post, I have decided to stay on campus and address my life at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
The school is a language school. In Japanese it is called 東京外国語大学; The literal translation is Tokyo foreign language university. The school teaches more than 20 different languages, and since the school is a language school, I’m not sure that math or science is even taught here.
Hello again, San Diego State! This is my last blog since I will soon return to San Diego after a full academic year of living in Singapore. In this post I will show you my last trip before heading home to conclude the great year abroad I’ve had.
The reason I chose Asia as my study abroad destination in the first place was to visit Japan. It was one of those bucket list destinations that I had to fulfill. I waited until my spring break in Singapore so I could see the famous East Asian cherry blossom trees in full bloom. Well, the wait was worth it because this past spring I got to visit Japan for a whole week.
食べ物、食品、食堂、レストラン。
All of these words have one thing in common; they are all related to food. Food is an important part of any culture, so it seems appropriate to discuss my experience with the food here in Japan.
My last supper in America was leftover food I had from The Cheesecake Factory. Eleven and a half hours later, my world of food had changed completely.
It has been about a month since I arrived here and I can’t believe it has been that long. I must admit that I miss my parents, my friends and my school.
Despite the nostalgia, I could not be happier about finally accomplishing my dream of studying in South Korea. I am loving my experience so far and I am anxious to keep learning and discovering more about this beautiful country.
At SDSU, I had never taken a proactive role to be part of the campus community — not because I didn’t care or want to, but because of other responsibilities. However, to make the most of my experience in Korea, I decided to be part of a club where I could feel involved and establish friendships with Korean students.
Continue reading “Making New Friends — and Making a Difference — in Korea”
There are things in life that all of the reading, videos and frantic Googling cannot prepare you for. My experience providing emergency relief and humanitarian aid for newly-arrived refugees in Uganda was one of them.
I am currently residing in the Kyangwali Refugee Settlement, where I spend my weekdays as an intern under the Humanitarian Aid sector for Action Africa Help (AAH), a non-governmental organization that supports communities in conflict and post-conflict situations (e.g. refugees and internally displaced people).
“The issues you will see here started long before you came and will continue long after you are gone.” This was one of the first things one of my intern supervisors at AAH told me when I reached the settlement.
Continue reading “The Paradox of Being a U.S. Intern in a Ugandan Refugee Settlement”
There is so much I have experienced and learned in just my first few days of living in Tokyo, but I would first like to mention that this whole trip was made possible mainly through the funding I received from the Gilman Scholarship.
Anyway, now that I am here, I would like to give an organized mess of my initial thoughts of being in this country. Having never traveled or left home before, my thoughts and feelings may be a little sporadic.
Here goes:
My homestay families, in Kampala and Kapchorwa, have taught me far more about Uganda than any textbook or lecture ever could. For six weeks, I will be residing in Kampala, the capital and largest city of Uganda. For one week, I conducted a rapid rural appraisal and rural homestay in Kapchorwa, near the Kenyan border in eastern Uganda. Despite the social and economic differences of these two regions, my experiences engaging with local families have reinforced some of the lessons.
Continue reading “What My Homestays Taught Me About Uganda and Myself”
As a study abroad student examining the social, economic and political development of East Africa, the streets have become my educator and tourism in Uganda has become the lesson plan.
I have witnessed the unfolding of tourism as a development strategy by living and attending school in the capital and largest city in Uganda — Kampala. And I have seen how tourism has a double-edged sword.
Continue reading “Tourism as a Development Tool in Uganda: The Good and the Bad”
I am sitting on a covered rooftop balcony in Rome, Italy reading “Search Inside Yourself” by Chade-Meng Tan, an exploration of the benefits of mindfulness and self-awareness. Tan explains the phenomenon he calls “Expensive Food Meditation,” where people tend to appreciate expensive food more and take their time. He argues that if we treated every meal as we treat expensive meals, we would be much more satisfied and happy.
When I reflected on this, I realized this is how people treat foreign countries versus their own countries. What we become familiar with, what we believe to be mundane and everyday, becomes gray in our minds. When places are new, fresh and expensive to get to, those are the places about which we appreciate every little detail.
I, myself, am guilty of this. Yet being abroad has made me realize how lucky I am to live in a place as great as San Diego.
As a recovering Yelp addict, I used to always want to know where the best spots were, what was trending, what people enjoyed. In San Diego, I visited new restaurants, museums, installations, photo spots. I compared my experiences to those I found on Instagram, Pinterest, Yelp, Facebook. Then I realized I always went in with higher expectations than I should. If the place lived up to the hype, I was happy, but not overjoyed. If it didn’t, I was annoyed at the business’s lack of what I considered follow-through.
We visited Florence with no previous research and (history buffs cover your ears) simply walked towards the tallest pointy things. Was our experience any less because we didn’t see the real David or climb the inside of the Duomo? In my opinion, no.
The global experience, as told by SDSU students 