Thursday 15 January 2015

Mentor + Outcome Of Project

I havent mentioned much about my mentor for this project. I chose my mentor to be my sister because she has a lot of experience in travelling. She has been to the congo, and this past summer backpacked around europe with her close friends. Soon she is going to Honduras with a couple other nurses and engineers with an outreach program. It was fun having her by my side along this project because it was cool to hear about her own experiences in where she has gone.

Overall, I really enjoyed my passion project this year. I love learning about places and different cultures around the world, so I think it was a good fit for me. Not only was it fun, but it was quite time consuming during class periods on passion project day, which was a good thing. I look forward to presenting what I learnt + discovered this year through my project.

Friday 9 January 2015

"Wherever you go becomes apart of you somehow."
   -Anita Desai

Here are some verses that I have found in the bible that somewhat relate to traveling.

Psalm 91:11- "For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways."

Psalm 139:9-10- "If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me."

Psalm 119:105- "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path."

Proverbs 3:23- "Then you will walk on your way securely, and your foot will not stumble."

In my last blog post I didnt get a chance to include photos of Costa Rica, so I decided to add some now :)

Thursday 18 December 2014

~COSTA RICA~

"Costa Rica is a vibrant country full of incredible natural beauty where you can explore waterfalls, jungles, volcanoes, and find plenty of wildlife. A photographers dream location."

Costa Rica is found in Central America and lies between Panama to the south and Nicaragua to the north. It has a narrow Pacific coastal region including Cocos Island. An interesting fact about this country is that Columbus explored it in 1502. Their official language is spanish but many people speak english as well. 

Religion Statistics: Evangelical 14%, Roman Catholic 76%, other protesetant 1%, none 4%

Less known interesting facts about the country:

In Costa Rica, men refer themselves to Ticos and women refer themselves as Ticas.

Most people of the land respect it and they are known to be a very eco- green countries, 25% of the land remains protected.

They are the hummingbird captial, inhabiting over 52 different species of the bird.

10% of the worlds butterflies live in Costa Rica.

The country is bordered by both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

***Best time to visit is from december to April.

Costa Rica is very diverse. One day you can explore remote beaches, or pristine cloud forests, giant volcanoes and extreme wildlife. It is looked upon as one of the beautiful places in the world.


Friday 12 December 2014

More Japan ---- significance to the cherry blossom tree

Japan has upon thousands upon thousands of cherry blossom trees. Cherry blossom trees symbolize the beauty of life and fragility to Japan. They have an old tradition where they have a flower viewing day each year where people hold feasts under the blooming cherry blossom trees. I think it would be pretty sweet to be out there when this event happens!

~JAPAN~

For a long time I have always been interested in Japan, i don't actually know why but it just seems like a cool place to travel to. I got some information from my mom because she went to Japan for a couple months after high school. Its been really neat learning about the ways of their unique culture that they display to the world.

Japan faces the pacific ocean along the entire eastern and southern coastline. The korean penninsula is closest to Japan. To the north and west are the Sea of Okhotsk, Sea of Japan, and the East China Sea. Earthquakes are common occurences from day to day. Another eye catching fact is that they have up to 1,500 volcanoes! It is commonly known that in Japaneese culture they orient their lives towards the ocean, like its a part of them.


Japan has become a highly urbanized society. Japan is growing in population because of their economic development, they are very up to date.

I wanted to highlight on their Religion(s). A big chunk of the population believes in Shinito. Shinito is a term for a system of Gods and beliefs about the relationship between the natural enviroment, the people of the land, and the state. Shinito teaches that Japan is uniquely the land of the gods. This type of religion has no scripture involved whatsoever. Buddhism also played an influence since it was introduced into Japan from Korea and China in the sixth century A.D. Ever since Shinito and Buddhism has existed in Japan they have influenced one another greatly. In the sixteenth century Japans religious life has also been influenced by christianity. When christianity was first introduced people had to hide their faith and be "hidden christians." It was a very intense time in history because a lot of people hid themselves in isolation. In 1870, the ban on christianity was lifted and everyone had a sense of freedom. Today only 1% of Japan consider themselves to be christians, it seems quite little but it is said that there are a lot of political leaders, and people that take part in that, that are christians they just don't like to admit it.

Tuesday 2 December 2014

~GREECE~

One of the many places I would like to visit at some point in my life is Greece. I have heard from friends and family that the pictures you see online of Greece (Deep blue skies and ocean, artistic white looking buildings, mountains off in the distance), is EXACTLY how it looks in person which tells me that Greece would be a prime place to travel to.


ABOUT/FACTS:
The land of the Greece is bordered by Albania, Macedonia, Turkey and the Cretan Seas. This beautiful country is known to have many islands. Over time 170 islands have been inhabited but still 2,000 more islands remain and are yet to be discovered! The weather out there is very HOT and there winters are rainy/cold (not freezing though). The currency is euro.



FOOD:
The typical greek diet on a daily basis includes grapes, cheese, lamb, olives, grains, fish and vegetables.  As a tourist you may have lots of greek salad, and their famous gyros (flat bread stuffed with vegetables, lamb or chicken, and sauce).

RELIGION:
Around 98% of the population are Orthodox Christians.

PLACES TO VISIT:
-Acropolis of Athens
-Acropolis Museum
-Parthenon
-Panathenaic Stadium
-National Garden in Athens


Both my parents, and my sister Holly (my mentor), have been to Greece and seen some of the places I've listed above. Its been neat to hear their perspective on what its actually like out there. One of my sisters highlights was visiting the Panathenaic Stadium because she got to sit on one of the actual podiums.