Fukuoka, Japan

I boarded a loooong flight from San Francisco to Osaka/Kansai Japan, and then on to Fukuoka. 11 hours, my longest flight ever. This is a big city of 1.5 million on the southernmost island of Japan, Kyushu. At the time I remember thinking that it was kind of the Japanese version of Miami. Although, at the time I had never been to Miami so what did I know.
Japan is some serious culture shock for someone who hasn't traveled much. Lots of lights, and traffic, and the signs are in indecipherable characters.

It was hot and rainy most days, but I got to visit some nice beaches.

I was in Fukuoka for the World University Games. I was running the Steeple, and this was my second US team, my first being only the week before when I was in England! Lots of travel this month.

I stayed in the well equipped athletes village with the rest of the team. The Japanese put on a great meet. They had lots of cultural events, taiko drumming, sumo exhibitions, origami. Just kidding on the last one. My friends Dan and Scott and I met the three Japanese girls pictured above and hung out with them one day. They invited us back to the apartment that one of them lived in with her family. It was neat to see how people live in Japan. The place had all the same amenities that any American apartment would have, except it was really, really small. The dining room table was only a foot off the ground, and everyone sat on the floor on mats. The whole two bedroom apartment couldn't have been more than 400 square feet. These were not poor people, this is just the tightly packed lifestyle the Japanese accept. Across from the apartment was a beautiful, serene Buddhist shrine in a small park. It didn't seem like a bad life, just a life in miniature.

Amsterdam, Netherlands

After riding a bus across the English Channel and the length of Belgium and half of Holland, I arrived in Amsterdam. Amsterdam can legitimately be called a "Venice of the North" as it has canals throughout the city.

Amsterdam is probably most famous for legalized marijuana and it's legal red-light district; perhaps explaining it's city symbol of XXX. You see these shields everywhere in town.

I think I really enjoyed Amsterdam, though it was several years ago now, and I recall being very tired from the bus ride, and that it rained a lot for the 24 hours I was there.

Oostend, Belgium

I took a bus from London, which came to Dover and then drove onto a boat, which then chugged adross the English Channel, disembarked at the port of Oostende, Belgium and drove off across the Belgian countryside to the Netherlands border. The whole journey took place at night, so this is what I saw of Belgium.

Dublin and Killarney, Ireland

In the summer of 1992 I travelled to Ireland and England as part of a combined Dartmouth and Brown University Track trip. In Ireland we raced a meet at Trinity College in Dublin. The above photos are from outside their track facility and clubhouse. Coach Lananna had informed us there would be absolutely no alcohol on this trip as it was strictly forbidden on school sponsored trips. We were greatly relieved to find out this was mere lip service when our Irish hosts rolled out a half dozen kegs of Guinness on our first afternoon in the country! The rest of this two week long trip is a haze of being a 19 year old in a for off land of Guinness and Strongbow cider and antique cherry wood lined pubs.

After our time in Dublin, we took a bus ride around the scenic Ring of Kerry. Ireland sure is green. I can't claim to have taken the above picture. I was a novice at using a camera, and after taking two whole rolls of film in Ireland, I discovered that I had hit the wrong button when loading the film and had actually rewound all the film. I got zero pictures.