There’s so much I haven’t covered…and I guess that’s for a reason. I don’t want to spoil the experience for those considering studying in Thailand. Thailand is a place to have to visit and experience because it is hard to describe/explain. Four the past 4 months I reflected daily.I haven’t been blogging often because I wanted to fully immerse myself in the culture without losing focus. But now I’m available to answer all questions. On my journey I’ve learned so much about myself and ways of dealing with people different from me. I came back to America a different person; my views on life have change completely. I’m happy I had the opportunity…at first I was nervous to leave my comfort zone but I must admit the experience was worth it. I had the opportunity to visit countries surrounding Thailand … Cambodia and Myanmar known as Burma. I made some wonderful friends. My first time abroad made realize how much I love to travel…It’s my new passion

For those considering study abroad…Go for it what do you have to lose. Absolute nothing but there’s so much to learn

* If you have question you would like to ask feel free to email me at N01473566@@hawkmail.newpaltz.edu

Special thanks to The Center for International Program, Carlton Rounds,  Clara Kelly- EOP advisor and Pamela Vivanco.

but Japan is a close second.

With Thanksgiving past and Christmas right around the corner, I am realizing that this is my first holiday season away from home. I recently thought for the very first time since being here “Yeah, I would like to be home right now.” I certainly feel a little homesick and miss my family very much, but being the optimist that I am, I try and put a positive spin on it.

Instead of being sad that I am not able to be with my family this year, I am instead thankful that I have such an amazing family to even miss this much. I know plenty of people who are away from home and never even seem to miss it at all. I take my feelings of homesickness as a testament to how lucky I am to have such a wonderful and loving family. My parents allowing me the opportunity to come here is something that I will never really be able to truly express my gratitude for. (Mom, maybe now I know a little more how you felt that one summer in Vermont.) I am incredibly lucky to have such amazing people in my life, and I can not wait to see them again!

The last few weeks have been quite eventful here in Tokyo. I joined another frisbee team, went to another tournament at fuji (Where the 2 best frisbee players from the States happened to be, awesome), hiked up a beautiful mountain, went to the Tokyo Motor show, and made some awesome new friends. My time here seems to be flying by, but I am determined to make the most of it!

My best friend Brian from New York is coming to visit me in 2 weeks!!! By best friend I mean the kind of friend who would come all the way to Japan to visit you. Again, I have the most amazing people in my life.

If this isn’t nice, what is?

My mother just wrote me asking me to hurry up and write another blog. She asked for an astute observation of Japanese culture. Instead I will share a weird story about Japanese culture. This past weekend I went to a frisbee tournament right near Mt. Fuji. There was a really nice view of the mountain right from the fields where we were playing. The entire team stayed at a Ryokan, which is a traditional Japanese kind of hotel. They have roll out beds and serve amazing meals for breakfast and dinner. The weird part of the story has to do with the bathing situation at this Ryokan, where they had a Sento.

A Sento is a large communal bath. It is essential a giant hot tub, with showers along the outer rim. I went down to take a shower and when I got there I was not alone. I essentially showered with a 70 year old man and about five 8-year old boys. To Japanese people a Sento is great place to go and relax, they are completely normal. The whole experience was pretty weird to me at first, but after a while I just accepted it as another cultural experience here in Japan!

I volunteer in two of the many placements in available through The International Partnership for Service Learning and Leadership program. My placements are The Healing Family Foundation and Kawila Anukul School. I have learned so much about children and adults with intellectual disabilities. At the Kawila Anukul School I teach Basic English to children with Autism and Down syndrome; and also work close with an occupational therapist to learn more about the disorders. At The Healing Family Foundation I teach Basic English and also engage in many art projects with the Artists. (The members of the organization are very talented and skilled, so they call themselves Artists). At first I was nervous about teaching English, I had no experience. Over time I realized that it didn’t matter and the students are eager learn any English and value your efforts for teaching them. Honestly, that is why I enjoy volunteering abroad. I’m making a difference in other lives 

The "Artist" taught me how to weave a scarf. They are very Talented

Well it is mid semester break… One week off what should I do? Explore Southern Thailand Check out the pics below

The Goldern Triangle use to be one of Asia’s Opium producing areas. It is called the Goldern triangle because it where three country border meet, but divided by the Mekong river. The countries are; Thailand, Burma and Laos. On this trip I visited the Hall of Opium which was created by the Royal family. It is a museum combines the history of opium and educates people on the dangers of illegal drugs. From there we visited the oldest Buddhist temple in the Northern region of Thailand. Overall the trip was great… Check out the pictures below

A few weeks ago the director of the Southeast Asian program at Payap University planned a trip to Mae Salong & Golden Triangle. The trip was quite an eye-opening experience. I was unsure if I wanted to blog about this experience. Decided I will because I felt it would be best to bring awareness to the social issues of Thailand and Burma. (Burma is one of Thailand’s bordering countries). We visited a few Organizations that strived to improve the lives of the Burmese people living along the Thai-Burma border. The organizations focused on Human Rights and Healthcare. With my own two eyes I saw children suffering from deadly illness and men with missing legs because they accidentally stepped on a land mind. The issues are as real as the eye can see and should not be ignored. The trip was emotionally exhausting. I’ve never been to close to death. By the end of the excursion to Mae Salong I had one question: How can we as students help better the lives of those less fortunate in Southeast Asia? Advice from a professor if interested in helping you can … educate yourself about the issues; write about the issues to raise awareness, Donate time and money. There are many ways you can help.

…Until next time

I want to start this blog by telling the story of “Taxi Lady.”   It was Thursday night around 6:30 and I was on my way home from school.  When I arrived to Shinjuku station I found out that the only three trains that run to my home neighborhood, Ogikubo, were all stopped.  The announcements were in Japanese so all I could make out was that the trains were stopped due to a passenger injury for an undetermined amount of time.  This usually would not be a big deal and I would just wait around until they started running again, but on this particular day I was in a hurry.  I was going to Osaka that night by bus, so I had to hurry home and grab my stuff and get to the bus stop.   After waiting around for a while near one of the trains a heard a woman ask a worker about Ogikubo.  I couldn’t understand the entire conversation but after it ended the women hurried off, and I followed her.  I stopped her and asked if she spoke any English.  She must have thought I was hitting on her because she quickly said no and sped up.  I stopped her again and explained in very broken Japanese my situation and asked if I could follow her.  I thought she new some route that I was unaware of.  She then told me she was going to take a taxi and asked if I would like to go with her.  We had a very nice conversation in the Taxi.  She spoke a little English so I tried speaking mostly Japanese, but supplemented with English when I had to.  I made it home with just enough time to spare to make it to my bus.  I call her taxi lady because I can not for the life of me remember her name (A problem I have with almost every Japanese person I meet.) I was so amazed that she was so willing to help a complete stranger, a foreigner at that.  That kind of genuine kindness is very rare in today’s world.  The entire event put me in a great mood for the next few days.  It was great way to start my trip to Osaka.

Osaka is one of Japan’s largest cities.  I went with my friend Aileen from SUNY Purchase and our mutual Japanese friend, Tomohiro.  Aileen really wanted to go because her favorite Japanese musician had a concert that weekend.  I went along because I was interested in checking out the city.  We only stayed for 2 days, but went around a lot of the city.  The two coolest places we went were the Osaka castle and an observation tower.  Rather then write about them I will just post pictures.

The concert we went to was actual very cool.  It was a Japanese Guitar player who’s name is Miyavi.  He is insanely good at guitar.  Here is  a link to him playing one of his songs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yShY9tyrc8c

His stage presence was awesome.  It was a really great show.

I was pretty busy with midterms and papers last week, but now they are all finished.  School here is pretty easy so I did well on everything.  Like I said before the classes are for Japanese students with English as a second language, so the work is not very intensive, not that I am complaining.

To any Burns family reading this, my host mother bought me some shirts the other day that completely reminded me of shirts my Nannie would buy me.  Shirts I would never normally wear, but of course I told her they were nice.  I wear them around the house and when I go to practice, just to make her happy.

I have two big shout-outs to make to end tonight’s blog.  First is my sister Kyra,  I love you and miss you.  I hope getting your teeth pulled wasn’t too bad!  Second is my brother Justin and my soon to be sister-in law Shannon.  They just got engaged!!!   I am so excited for you two.  Love you both.

That’s all for now.  Frisbee post coming soon..

The waterfall is my favorite place go. It takes an hour from campus to get to Nam Tok (waterfall) Buatong. It is also known as the “sticky waterfall”, it is located in Chiang Mai’s National Park. This is not your typical waterfall. You can climb up, run down and splash around. I love this place. When I’m there I spend hours sitting reflecting on my experience studying abroad in Chiang Mai.

Day 2 started off about the same as Saturday. Small cleats, and familiar drills. The big difference here is that almost all of the drills are done with some sort of a mark. It just gives the entire drill a much more realistic feel. I was out-throwing almost everyone during the hucking drills, with the exception of 1 or 2 guys. The captains seemed pleased with my throws, which will hopefully lead to a good amount of playing time for the upcoming tournament.

After drills we went back in to the zone D practice for the freshman. This time I was put as the left side handle and we shredded the freshman even worse then before. They run a strange 4 person cup with 2 wings and 1 deep. All it takes is 1 or 2 swings from the handlers to open a giant hole in the middle of the field. I wanted to recommend a more traditional 3 person cup, but did not know how to say it in Japanese. Oh well. Next we ran a bunch of Offensive and Defense sets for a while. Even though it was nothing too exciting, it was a good opportunity to get more flow going with the team. We ended practice with a 30 minute scrimmage within our own team. By the end my toes were killing me but I still played pretty well, helping my team win by 3 or 4. Seriously though, my toe is purple right now.

I was impressed with how solid the team was for being made up of only freshmen and sophomores. Though it was easy to distinguish between the 2, the freshman were still quite good in my opinion. Every single freshman on the team can throw. A lot of them probably have better throws then some of the upper classmen on GUNX. A lot of these kids are just plain fast. I definitely would not consider myself slow, but some of these guys I simply can not keep up with. I think if I continue to play my consistent style of Ultimate I will be able to get a good amount of playing time as a big thrower for the team. The team’s play style is short and conservative, with quick give and go type passes. But if any of these fast guys want to get out and run, I will gladly throw it to them. Now that I bought some cleats that are not size 9 I think I will do even more work at the next practice.

Some words of wisdom from the far east for my GUNX back home:

Drills with a mark are just way better.

A beautifully executed cut is completely meaningless if it is timed wrong. Continuation cuts are Awesome.

The most basic aspect of this game is throwing. Everyone MUST have the basics down and game ready.

This last one I’m not to sure how I feel about so I want to hear feedback…against a zone, when the stall count is in the upper half (5 or above) the poppers will crash the cup and then continue to go directly behind the handler as another dump option. (This seems to work well when everyone on the team can throw)

After practice some of the guys and I went to get ramen for lunch. They are a funny  group of guys, from what I could understand of what they were saying. None of them speak much English so I think the team will really help my Japanese improve.

Alright that’s all for the first weekend of practice. I look forward to seeing what the rest of the semester has in store as far as Ultimate goes. I am going to Osaka this weekend with some friends, so look for pictures and a post about that soon!