Students travel to Japan, help recovery efforts

by Chris Owen on

Travel to Japan was disrupted last year when a devastating earthquake and tsunami hit Japan on March 11. The disaster brought an alarming death toll, fear of nuclear explosion and travel alerts cancelling hundreds of flights and stranding tens of thousands of travelers. But that disaster also elicited enormous response from people all over the world who pledged their help to the affected area. As we approach the one-year anniversary of the tragedy, recovery is well under way but there is a lot of work to be done. One of the organizations helping in the effort has students traveling to Japan for an immersive foreign travel experience like no other.

People to People Ambassador Group will be sending over 100 students to Japan in July for the first time since the devastation. These students were so committed to traveling to Japan that they’ve waited a full year to be able to make this trip.

People to People’s Spirit of Japan program puts student ambassadors in the heart of Japan, on an immersive itinerary that provides an immersion in a rural Japanese community where students will work at local schools and farms in the ravaged Tohoku area. The idea is to lend a hand to a host community, providing much needed help doing everything from assisting farmers in clearing their fields to teaching local students English. Working side by side with local citizens during a home stay with a Japanese family is part of the experience as participants offer up close and personal time with those actually affected by the natural disaster.

It is all part of People to People’s mission to get students involved and raise their global awareness with immersive experiential learning through travel.”In our interconnected world, we cannot be isolated-our decisions have an impact on other people, sometimes even those who live half a world away. Global citizens are people who accept a responsibility to others in their local and global community,” says People to People on its website.

Conditions in the affected area were so bad last year that it was unsafe for People to People groups to travel there. Both Narita (NRT) and Haneda airports (HND) which handle international and domestic flights for Tokyo were closed; leaving 14,000 passengers stranded. Sendai airport (SDJ), 300 kilometers to the north, was virtually destroyed by the tsunami.

Many travelers around the world felt the effect of Japan’s airport failures combined with a huge increase in demand for flights into Japan that had a cascading effect on travel. Airports from Canada to London saw delayed flights as the U.S. issued a travel alert urging U.S. citizens to avoid tourism and non-essential travel to Japan.

Here, some of the survivors look back-



Image provided by People to People

Volunteers needed to explore Atlantis

by Sean McLachlan on


Want to spend next summer excavating the lost ruins of Atlantis? Well, you can! There are only two catches–it may not be Atlantis, and you won’t get to ride in a UFO.

Wide-eyed crystal clutchers need not apply. This is real science and is far more interesting than New Age fantasy.

Archaeologists excavating the once-lost ancient city of Helike in Greece, are looking for volunteers this summer. The city is located in the Peloponnese, the peninsula in southwestern Greece that’s home to Corinth and Sparta. Inhabited from the Bronze Age onwards, it was thought lost after a massive earthquake in the winter of 373/372 B.C. supposedly sloughed it into the sea. All that was left were a few vague stories and the occasional statue trawled up in fishermen’s nets.

Some scholars theorize Helike’s demise may have led to the legend of Atlantis, the famous lost kingdom that also sank into the sea. Others claim a more likely inspiration for Atlantis was Thera, also known as Santorini, an Aegean island that experienced a massive volcanic explosion in the mid second millennium BC that blew away most of its land and may have disrupted the nearby Minoan civilization.

In 2000 and 2001, a Greek team found Helike and discovered that it hadn’t sunk into the sea, but rather got submerged under an inland lagoon that later silted over. Not nearly as romantic, but nostalgia’s loss is our gain. Evidence of over three thousand years of habitation have been found. Intriguingly, excavators found a settlement dating to c.2600-2300 BC that may also have been submerged after an earthquake.

The city was dedicated to Poseidon Helikonios, god of the sea and the earthquakes. The citizens even put the god on their coinage. Considering that their entire city was destroyed by an earthquake and water, it appears their faith was misplaced.

Volunteers are needed for this summer’s excavations. You don’t need any prior experience and you’ll be trained in archaeological tasks like excavation, mapping, and lab work. If you’d rather dig somewhere else, there are hundreds of archaeological excavations around the world needing your help this summer. This list of links will get your started in your search.

Photos courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Check the Helike Project website for more photos of this amazing site.

Video from inside the Washington Monument during the earthquake

by Kraig Becker on

Yesterday, the National Park Service released video from inside of the Washington Monument showing just how much the structure shook during that 5.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the East Coast last month. Startled visitors and park rangers appear uncertain of what to do at first, then begin to calmly and orderly move down the building, with one ranger in the lead and another staying behind to ensure that everyone gets out safely. As the video continues, debris begins to fall, obscuring the view to a degree, and giving an indication of the amount of a damage suffered to the interior.

The Park Service says that the monument is structurally sound, although it is unclear at this time when it will reopen. A team of engineers will begin a comprehensive inspection of the obelisk today by repelling down the side of the structure. That will take about five days to complete, but the overall assessment won’t be finished until sometime later in October. From there, renovations will get underway, while the building also undergoes its annual preparation for winter as well.


Hawaii back in business, just how much uncertain

by Chris Owen on

After last week’s tsunami event and resulting disruptions kept tourists, hotels and a cruise ship from normal island life, Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie declared all “back in business” after a tour of the Big island and Maui.

“We can come back quick,” Abercrombie said during a day-long inspection of the islands adding “We’re back in business. I don’t want information getting out to the mainland that we’re not open for business or that Hawaii is shut off.”
Hotels are open and have plenty of tourists. Norwegian Cruise Line’s Pride of America returned after canceling last week’s call in Kailua-Kona on the island’s the west coast. Flights in and out of the islands are posting few delays. Still, while tourism is back in full swing, just how much there will be is uncertain.

Ongoing disruption of all things normal in Japan is a big concern in Hawaii. Japan is second only to the U.S. mainland in the number of visitors each year.

“It’s a safe and wonderful place to visit. If all goes well, and that remains to be seen of course, but if all goes well we do think we can come through this in a matter or weeks and not months,” said Lt. Governor Brian Schatz,


“In California, too, right now, we’re seeing some cancelations. But at the same time when people start to realize there isn’t much of a danger in coming to Hawaii, we may see the snap back in tourism,” said University of Hawaii at Manoa Economics professor Sumner LaCroix to KITV.com

Sprint, AT&T, Verizon and others offer free phone calls to Japan

by Scott Carmichael on

These phone companies are currently offering free calls from the United States to Japan to help get in touch with friends and family:

As many phone circuits are pretty heavily congested in Japan, try and keep calls as short as possible, or use online tools like Facebook or Twitter instead.

Know of any other phone companies offering free calls? Leave a comment below!

[Photo: AP Photo/David Guttenfelder]