The OC and off to Tokyo!

Other pictures of my stay in Orange County. Angels game was awesome! Last pic is the Albert Pujols.

Laguna Beach is so beautiful!

Cool sunset from backyard of Mike and Holly's (my cousins).

The Newport Temple!






















Leaving California and the US for a while, one last shot of the view from Mike and Holly's backyard.





On the bus to LAX. Some dude just had to sit right next to me when there were 9 other seats available. Decided on the way I am not shaving for a long time because my new travel shaver took only 25 minutes to shave my face. That's it, 25 minutes! Not a good purchase from Traveling Trav on that one.








Lastly, it is so hard to believe I am on my way to LAX to fly on Malaysian Airlines to take a 10 hour and 45 minute flight to Tokyo. It is surreal to say the least. That flight better have some good free movies, decent grub and no chunky people sitting next to me. What could be weirdest is my flight leaves LAX at 4:45pm pacific time. It will arrive in Tokyo at 8:30pm local time. Never crossed the International Date Line so interested to see how I'll adapt to losing almost an entire day and having two nights in a row.

When I first started really thinking about going on a big trip I decided I was going to do it out of LA after the Angels game and staying with my cousins. I first chose Japan as my destination. It was only later I decided to keep going around the world. Why Japan? I think the people are fascinating. So much more discipline than other cultures it seems. Extremely kind and respectful.

A wrench was thrown into the gears when I read the book Unbroken (one I highly recommend to everyone). I didn't realize they pretty much had concentration camps in Japan and how awful and brutal the Japanese were to their enemies and Americans. The book honestly changed my life. And my natural thoughts were to resent the Japanese for a few days. If you read it you'll probably understand how I felt because it is horrible what they did to American POW's. I knew it was only a few and to not judge the entire country but I thought deeply for days as to how mean humans could actually be. Let alone these kind and humble looking Japanese. Luckily I had an amazing experience to help me. When I went to Houston and did a tour of the NASA center, 3 girls from Tokyo had flown in for the tour. We all shared a bus together afterwards as well for an hour or two. I asked them what is taught and what most Japanese people believe about World War 2 and Japan's previous desires to conquer the world. They were humble and even a little emotional and said their country has flipped a 180 and believes war is horrible and avoids it now. That said they are ashamed of world war 2 times. My previous inhibitions regarding Japanese people showed through. I do think they are a unique and gifted people and I'm thrilled to go there today!!

Next stop... Tokyo Japan


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone