Vacation in Boston

I just got back from my 9-day vacation to Boston. I had a wonderful time visiting my family and friends. Here are a few highlights and pictures.

I flew from Osaka to Boston with a brief stop in San Francisco. I was lucky enough to be able to sit with a friend of mine who I rarely get to see. We had no idea we were on the same flights until we saw each other at the airport! Unfortunately the air on the plane dried out my sinuses so badly that I had a sinus infection for four days afterward.

While in Boston I went on several dates with Eddie, went to a birthday party at Jillian’s for one of my college friends, spent time with my parents, dined with several friends all over Boston, visited friends and Professors at Wellesley, went shopping, watched many movies and tv shows, and celebrated Cinco De Mayo with Mary, Matt, and friends. I enjoyed several bagel sandwiches, subs, cheeseburgers, tubs of movie theater popcorn, and Mexican dishes, all of which just aren’t the same or non-existent in Japan. Here we are in the Boston Common:



Only once did I accidentally bow to sometime as a thank you. I didn’t really experience culture shock, but I did notice two things that I wasn’t expecting to stand out so much. First, there were SO many people talking on their cell phones in Boston. That may sound like I’m stating the obvious, but cell phones are rarely spoken on in Japan and I guess I hadn’t realized it was that big of a difference. My mom noticed no one was actually talking on there phones when she visited. Cell phones are mainly used for email, internet, games, and music in Japan. The phone plans kind of induce this though. I pay about $45 a month and that gives me 24 free minutes PER MONTH to use, but nearly unlimited email and internet use.

Anyways, I also saw a lot of kanji (Chinese character) tattoos in Boston. I always thought those were silly for Caucasians to have, but now that I could read some of them I found them pretty entertaining. I’m not sure if any of the people I saw studied Chinese or Japanese, but I guess it’s similar to Japanese people wearing shirts with English sayings (some very controversial) that they don’t understand. It just looks cool.

My trip back was pretty horrendous. I spent a total of 24 hours sitting on a plane. There were five hours worth of delays between a “security problem” in San Francisco, a broken plane blocking the runway in Osaka, and spur-of-the-moment refueling in Kobe. I had to flat out sprint through the San Francisco airport to make my connection too. Once I was finally able to get off the plane in Osaka, I had already missed the last bus to Naruto, so I stayed in a hotel and had to go to work late the next day. Somehow I got through this with very little cash and no battery left in my phone!

The vacation was totally worth it though!

I was able to take this vacation because of “Golden Week” in Japan. You can look that up on Wikipedia if you’d like. I’m copping out of explaining that one because I wasn’t here to experience it and because I have to get going in an hour to go pick up Mary and Matt at the airport in Osaka! They’ll be here for two weeks.