Author Archives: Jean Nguyen

It wasn’t until August 7 that we finally pulled the trigger on purchasing tickets back to San Francisco.  We had literally been stalking united.com every morning and evening for at least a week until the desired seats became available (direct … Continue reading →

We left Kyoto on Friday morning en route to Yokohama, Japan’s second largest city by population.  Yokohama is not an exciting city by any means, but our sole purpose of visiting was to meet my former host family Koji and Erisa Kawaguchi … Continue reading →

From 794 to 1868, the historical and cultural city of Kyoto was the capital of Japan and residence of the Emperor.  Throughout this millennium an innumerous amount of palaces, castles, shrines, and temples were built for emperors, monks, shoguns, and … Continue reading →

When we arrived in Hiroshima the late afternoon of August 2, I spent a bit more time researching about possible activities within Hiroshima other than the Peace Memorial Park. I quickly discovered the Mazda Museum; apparently Mazda was founded and … Continue reading →

If Hiroshima is on the list of destinations in Japan, then Miyajima must be next on that list. Albeit touristy with not only Japanese flag-waving tour group leaders but also Chinese flag-waving tour group leaders, the variety of activities and beauty of the island … Continue reading →

Hands down–this will be my least favorite post.  I’m not a military or war buff.  I even hate reading about it. I put off this post for a bit because I knew it wouldn’t be fun to write. However, despite … Continue reading →

Our culture shock from Myanmar quickly wore off within the first few days in Hong Kong, so by the time we departed in the wee hours of the morning from Chungking Mansions for Tokyo, we were pretty damn stoked. On … Continue reading →