When I first arrived at the Osaka airport, I had 18 hours before I was scheduled to be picked up I arrived at night and had a 24 hour flight so naturally I was tired, I was told to go to a capsule hotel by one of the professors at Shiga University when I emailed them that I would be in the airport for a long period of time. I looked up images on Google and honestly I was a bit spectacle because it looked like a sightly bigger dog kennel. But I was tired and wanted to lay down I found a capsule hotel in the airport. I have to say it was very comfortable I was surprised when I looked up and seen a plasma screen TV up on the wall they also provided a shirt and shorts to sleep in and slippers to walk around in. The showers  included full size face wash, body wash and shampoo it was nothing like the small travel-size shampoos and body washes that the hotels in the United States offer. I really enjoyed my stay!

A week ago I had the pleasure of visiting Hikone-jo Castle. The castle was home to the Ii family who were pilars of the Edo Shogunate government. The castle was built using materials from Mt. Hikone also known as Konki castle. One of the unique features of the castle is the way the stone walls were built using Koto rhyolites. While at the museum we saw robes worn to tea ceremonies, samurai gear and swords. We also visited the garden and the souvenir shop.

I'm a foodie and I have to say that Japan has the best ice cream and sushi, I haven't eaten a food I didn't enjoy, I will post later with more dept about the food here in a later post and also the ramen you buy from grocery stores in Japan is every college student dream! One of my favorite grocery stores in Japan is called Valor. The 5th picture is a picture of the food in the cafeteria at the university I attend in Japan.

Hey Everyone,

I don't know about everyone else, but I am still sleeping a lot more than I did prior to the trip.  It hasn't been unusual for me to sleep until twelve on weekends.  I am sure part of it is jetlag and part of it is exhaustion from the trip.  Anyways, I wanted to touch base about some thing I learned in China.

The first is that the lack of health standards with food and beverage locations is far different than what we experience here.  Amazingly, I did not get sick at all while I was over there.  To my best recollection, I don't think anyone had any issues with the food.  The main reason for this is most likely due to our ages.  Everyone that was there was in a healthy immune state in respect to age.  However, elderly people and younger people would not have faired the same.  This is a common characteristic and needs to be taken into account in future travels.  Also, everyone seemed to be healthy prior to and during the trip other than Addison's migraine, which is not an influential condition to the immune system.  Another reason for our sustained health is probably just dumb luck.

If I had run into these forms of food and beverage vendors in the United States, I would have gone screeching for the door.  Maybe not in college or with enough alcohol in my system but any other time of course.  I think a major reason my reaction was not the same in China was due to the sense of relaxation associated with a vacation to another country.  Also, it probably was due to the regular existence of these forms of vendors, and the presence of so many other people frequenting these locations play.  In the United States, these types of shops are few and far between, which prevents them from normalizing to the same extent they were in China.

I don't know if anyone noticed, but I did not see any postings for health department standards and ratings in any of these locations.  I am sure the lack of visibility to this form of generally accepted scoring lowers consumer standards immensely.  In the United States, if I see a rating lower than a ninety, I begin to get skeptical about the food service standards.  Part of this is due to my background in food service and knowing the amount of violations it takes to get these scores.  If most people actually knew how much a restaurant can get away with because of a lazy health inspector, it would make them cringe.  Given what I know about standards over here, I really do wonder what went on in China's food and beverage vendors.

If anyone is interested in learning more about the food safety standards for Chinese Vendors see below:

https://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/enewsletter/china-an-overview-of-the-new-food-safety-law/ 

Thanks to everyone for an amazing trip.  I can't wait for the Galapagos Islands.

Jason Alpert

Years ago an anime called Case Closed aired in the United States, this particular anime is very special to me because it's the first anime I watched as a child and is also the anime that got me interested in Japan. Sadly they stopped airing episodes in the United States, but new episodes are still airing in Japan, you can imagine my excitement when I walked into a uniform store for kids and saw this!