The international organization known as Rotary promotes travel each year, that all men aged between 26 and 40, male and female, and from all backgrounds know - - because it is a Rotary-funded study, six weeks on board, and everyone can apply, should a part of this important life experience. If you are in that age group - you could enjoy the kind of experience that is described in my notes in this article, too. Learn more about the program to www.Rotary.org and look for GSE --Group Study Exchange - and contact your local Rotary Club for more information.

Our adventure continues:

22. April - Friday:

The best part about going, so many Rotary clubs is traveling around the prefecture (as our "State") and to see so much from place to place - and today we are headed - Antonio, Harry and I with Kenji in his Land Rover - to Buzen West Rotary Club - which is an hour's drive brings and is located about 1 (if the island is a clock) on the coast.We are located in the beautiful vast country, as we have to drive there - lakes and mountains, and not as I thought that Japan would be urged. But Japanese think that America looks like LA - and I'm afraid that before this trip, I thought that looked like Tokyo, Japan (Harry said that too). Buzen The club reminds me of the old Japanese landscape, and we are serving a very traditional (but spicer) rice and curry lunch (yumm - let's say). I spoke - and show the questions that men are curious about the womenin Rotary - someone asked what happened after our Supreme Court decision to let women into Rotary.

Close by was the Tsuiki Japan Air Force Self Defense Base - and Antonio was very enthused to be privileged to what we saw there. We entered the base (spooky to think of Japanese air attacks) - and got a briefing of the history of the base (that it was occupied by the U.S. for a period of time and then returned to the Japanese) and the types of operations and kinds of planes that were on the Basis. We went outside on the tarmac, where they had pulled three fighters for us to see - an F-1, F-2 and F-16 (first time I had ever seen a fighter aircraft in the vicinity and was interested to hear that Japanese and Americans together the most technologically advanced aircraft). A pilot for each of these planes was very nice to explain to us his plane and his skills - a pilot said that he had a wife and two children, and the airplane, his "girlfriend" - it was funny wasto hear him tell this. Antonio was surprised that the F-16 could pull 9 g's - sounded like a wild ride to me. The pilots were young and thin - because Antonio said that helped them to withstand the g-force - and that they wore special suits to keep the pilots' blood pumping while they were soaring in the sky. We were invited to the top of the control tower (apparently a rare opportunity) and we could see out over the whole base - including lots of the three types of planes that we had been introduced earlier. There were series of layers - like a movie when, if they were all ready to take off. I enjoyed the expansive lushes coast and mountains, we could see - and hope that these planes will never be used. We stopped at the PX - and then said goodbye to our kind hosts. Kenji from a bar-b-que for us later at his home in the evening (Japanese style - and I mean everything is sliced very thin) - and invited a few friends fun - and I hated it,miss the late night fun, but went to bed early.

23. April - Saturday:

Hurray - we are now headed for Yufuin - I read about this knowledge come from before we go to Japan and am delighted that our hosts contain this "away" - it is the "Lake-Tahoe-Wonderul spot" as we would to enjoy in California - and it is amazing that a visit here, I think we are at the same time, "are so different and so much the same" in what we like and what we do. It turns out that the people we met in manythe various Rotary Clubs have second (usually larger) homes in Yufuin. We sold the house Kenji - and the Tanaka's because they have a house there too. It feels like always in my SUV and called for a withdrawal Tahoe - only it is the famous hot springs in Japan.

But first - we stop at the wine shop - Kenji is a certified wine instructor, we learn - and he wants us to serve California wines for the party tonight (lots of parties with our hosts) - and he saysThey serve not to give him a party when he to America (he likes California wines is much better) - he is happy joke. Ridge and Opus One are favorites of him - and we leave the store with wine, chocolate, champagne - and away you go, because the other team members are waiting for us on the road. Yufuin Buzen is over, along the coast and then a steady increase in quality in the mountains. There are big mountains here - and three hours later, when the island is a clock - we are at 3 on the dial.We arrive at the crest of the hill and overlooks the beautiful city Yufuin - where everyone wants to come, says Kenji. It's bigger than I thought - and so we continue on the main street - it is the Carmel / Aspen from Japan - fun little shops that you would like to dead with Japanese artifacts. Kenji is a popular lunch spot in the eye - the restaurant, Sadonoya - and the rest of the team is there. We sit at a long table on the floor - and they bring roasting hot charcoal pots for us toChicken and sprouts on - with Blackberry wine that is produced in Yufuin (and beer). I offered to the America that "buys lunch" - but the five GSE hosts would not hear of it - I have $ 100 so far been spent on this trip. It's a good feeling in Yufuin - stepped back and relaxed - very Japanese - I see the Japanese forms in the trees and flowers, so characteristic of Japanese art. A great deal here. We walk around the narrow market streets, surrounded by beautiful mountains, andEnjoy Nurukawa stop at Hot Springs for an afternoon - the hot springs are all different and that is a small, where you can spend the night if you are visiting. I'm happy because Teiko and Hiroshi joined us too.

Kenji is the house up the hill - and is a beautiful house in the mountains, as one that we know. It is a white box, stone, with a porch on the front - and if you step out onto the porch, there is a magnificent view of the mountain chain. The girls are here to stay - and the boys in a housebelow. Kenji has dinner reservations at 6pm in the not-easy-to-get-in restaurant in the city of Kame-no-i, and it's beautiful in a back room in a garden, with about twenty of us. Hyoguchi Mika (Mika) - Grading, Finishing School owners, Ryoichi Hanechi - classification, insurance, Masayuki Sugino - Senior Living Management, Tomoi Kondou - Real Estate and bakery - and Takayuki Fujimoto, architect - the GSE Inbound Committee are all there. The conversation is lively - dinner isvery Japanese, with plates, which I do not know, (including a small fish) - and it amazes me that champagne, beer, red wine, white wine - all served the same dinner.

Here, too - you might think that the evening over here - but more came. Seiho Ryu us for dinner - a "father," Kenji - and he is a very famous artist in Japan - try $ 100,000 for one of his paintings - and wonderful work. We went back to his house - and he signed a book on his paintings for all of us - andVisiting his house was a pleasure all to themselves. She went into the house (took the shoes, of course) and in a large room (kitchen and living room) with a large, heavy Japanese tables and benches filled on one side and his studio, on the other - but spanning the entire back of the house length windows that look you gave a gasp views of the city scape of grand mountains, foliage of the hillside - and delicate bamboo trees far left - as if you were sitting on the flight. Itwas easy to understand, has been postponed as Mr Dou, to paint - I would - with the magnificence of this majestic place on earth. He is known for his representation of the delicate cherry blossoms and the trees known - in the color and stroke, the Japanese said. I would like to have some of his works - only a small cost of $ 10,000. We went downstairs, where three of his large paintings hang if - (an intense cherry blossoms, one of the view from his living room view, this was the U.S. $ 100,000one), and one of the MT. Fuji - all with a radical paint and gold leaf. Kimiyoshi, Kenji friend, played the piano for us as well as we handle all types of songs and we were singing. It was 1PM, before we headed home, bowed several times, and thank Mr. Ryu.

This article is a series - so read on - and for many days to follow in our wonderful adventure!