Month: May 2018

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Little World

It’s not like Madurodam or Miniworld Rotterdam (both in the Netherlands). Little World in Inuyama, Aichi, Japan (officially called The Little World Museum of Man) consists of full-size replica buildings from all over the world and offers authentic foods from the regions represented.  We went last weekend and had a great time.

You can walk the entire circuit (I believe it’s just over 2 km) or you can buy an all-day ticket for the bus, which runs every ten minutes.  At 500 yen for adults and 300 yen for kids, that’s a bargain.  They also have an authentic Tuk Tuk from Bangkok which you can ride using the bus ticket!  We took several trips on the bus and Tuk Tuk.

On one trip, we had beer and sausage in a Gasthof in ‘Germany’, walked over to ‘Italy’ for a pizza and pasta lunch, then went to ‘France’ for some wine and cheese.  Then we jumped on the bus and went to ‘Africa’.  From there we rode to ‘Nepal’ and ‘India’, then walked over to ‘Turkey’ for some Turkish ice cream.

From the middle of March to the middle of June there is a ‘Russian Circus’ act in, well, ‘Russia’, of course.  The acrobatic  acts were surprisingly good and the clowns were super entertaining.

Little World is less than an hour’s drive from Nagoya and is a great day trip for a family.  My kids had a great time, got their novelty passports stamped at every location and got a free souvenir at the end of the day.  I highly recommend it.

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My Dad did something amazing!

First of all, it’s important to know that my family is not rich. We never have been. At least by American standards.

My Dad saved his money for many years. A little bit from every paycheck. He didn’t tell anyone about it, but he had a plan.

About two years ago, Dad told me that instead of taking the kids to North Carolina (which we try to do once a year), we should start making plans to go to South Africa. I was shocked. He said that all we needed was to come up with airfare for our family to and from Johannesburg. He had arranged and paid for a ten-day private safari in South Africa for my family (four people), my sister’s family (four people) and my parents. Of course, we went.  At the beginning of August we were in South Africa.

It was amazing! The private reserve/lodge where we stayed has a maximum capacity of ten people. We had a beautiful private lodge and their staff all to ourselves for one week. We had four professional hunters to guide us every day. After seven days of hunting and photographing, they took us to Pilanesburg national park for another three-day (photography-only) safari.

It was such an unbelievable, charming, beautiful, unforgettable experience.

Thank you, Dad.

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First impressions of South Korea

In no particular order…

* Traffic laws are optional.  I would not want to drive there.  Every taxi ride was an adventure.  Every time I saw an ambulance, I figured it was going to or coming from a traffic accident.  Surprisingly, we didn’t see a single accident.

* People are friendly, but personal space is non-existent.  Especially on the subway.  Even if it’s not terribly crowded, it was not unusual to have people really close and for them to have body contact throughout the ride. Also, even more so than in Japan, the old ladies will not hesitate to shove you out of the way if you are in their path.

* Almost everything is cheap. (Maybe I’ve lived in urban Japan for too long.)
Everything from food to taxi rides is incredibly inexpensive.  Starbucks was the exception to this rule.  (I collect the travel mugs from different cities worldwide.)

* The written language, Hangul, is the most logical written language I have ever experienced.  Sejong the Great had it created in the mid 1440’s, but it wasn’t adopted officially until 1946, when Korea regained its independence from Japanese rule.  Sejong the Great ordered its creation in order to do away with illiteracy among the common people. The alphabet consists of 14 consonants and 10 vowels.  They fit together to make the sounds used in the spoken language.  We visited the Hangul Museum in Seoul.  It is conveniently located next to the National Museum.  They are both worth a visit if you go to Seoul.