Natalie, Madison, & Isabel-Expedition Club Members
Natalie - I love traveling because I feel like I get a better understanding of the world around me. I like making connections with people from different places. It's a really cool feeling to know you have experienced all these different cultural aspects like food, and dances, and religion, and art. It's not the tourist's perspective but the perspective of the people who actually live in Ichikawa. We'll understand what has meaning to them, and not just what tourist would want to go to. The things that they want to show us are probably more culturally enriching and important.
Isabel - These people are welcoming us Americans into their homes. They're bringing us into their homes and their lives—pretty special things. You want to take that in, notice that these people are giving you a chance to learn about their lives and family and food.
Natalie - It's an honor. They're giving us a unique experience in Japan.
Madison - We went to a nursing home, which I thought would be kind of boring but they had amazing nursing homes. They have fun there. … I saw a couple things differently: how we treat out elders. They keep their elders in their houses and we kind of shun them in a way.
It shows us how much our society depends on computers, cause we email them back the same day and then it takes them a couple weeks to write back. We have facebook and youtube and everything, and so we spend a lot of our time on computers. They go outside and play games and stuff. I think we've become more distant from other people
Only have a little time on the computer everyday. It was different. It was cool to go off my computer for a little bit.
Natalie - It's cleansing. It's like a technology fast. I've heard sugar's a drug. Facebook's a drug. Social networking is addictive.
Isabel - I'm gonna go on facebook less than 5 times a day.
