Sean Sakamoto gives a tour of Gujo Hachiman, a secluded town nestled in the mountains of Gifu Prefucture, Japan. Such an inimitable place and people.
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Tag Archives: Travel
The Cost of High Anxiety About Flying
We understand other countries and other peoples best by seeing them; to see them, we must travel; to travel, in any concision of time, we must fly.
The risk of a terrorist disruption of a flight is infinitesimal, but public perception of that risk can be outsized and emotional … understandably so. Terrorists, like bogeymen, are frightening even when they don’t exist; and when they do appear in broad daylight, citizens who learn that the government failed to shield them from menace feel vulnerable and outraged.
When I was a child in Indiana, about to head to France to live with a French family for a month — my first foreign trip — something happened that nearly kept that journey from taking place. On May 25, 1979, a few weeks before my plane was to leave Chicago for Paris, a DC-10 took off from O’Hare, then crashed and exploded, killing all 271 people on board and 2 more on the ground.
I didn’t know this at the time, but my grandmother was horrified that my parents went ahead with my trip after the accident. She told them they were sending a little girl to her death (I was just out of elementary school); and though my mother wept with guilt in secret, she protected me from their discord, determined that I have the experience I’d anticipated for two years, a reward for assiduous language study. That summer abroad was the single most formative experience of my young life.
Since 9/11/2001, or since 12/22/2001 (when Richard Reid attempted to blow up a Boeing 767 between Paris and Miami by detonating his sneakers), how many grandmothers, how many parents, how many people of whatever age, sex, or familial connection, have avoided air travel out of fear, or cautioned their friends and relatives against it? The risks of air travel continue to be minuscule, even during the War on Terror era, while the advantages of exploring other countries remain precious and inarguable.
Prague in Winter
Mind blowing movie of a cold winter day in Prague.
more about “Prague in Winter“, posted with vodpod
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