Travel Agency Spotlight
It’s a fact that many Hawaii residents travel to Las Vegas multiple times a year, spending thousands of dollars on each trip—but Gene Miyake, vice president of Non-Stop Travel, invites people to use some of that Las Vegas money and try something new. “You can have a completely different experience somewhere else. Why settle for the miniature Eiffel tower, when you can go see the real thing? Why go to the Luxor for the pyramids? Let’s go to Egypt and see the real pyramids. Let’s go see the real Japan.” With an ever-growing lineup of about 200 tours to locations all over the world, Non-Stop Travel has firmly established itself as the go-to travel agency for many people in Hawaii. However, Miyake explains that the company is not satisfied with just doing the same old things. They are always looking for new ways for people to experience the world. For
By Ashley Insong
example, Miyake notes that visitors can now experience traditional New Year’s celebrations in Japan and Korea via their new series of New Year’s-centered tours. This series includes four separate tours to Japan and one to Korea. One of the highlights of these tours is hatsumode, a Japanese tradition in which people go to visit a shrine or temple during the first week of the new year to wish for good luck. “In Japan, as soon as the clock strikes midnight—[it’s time for] hatsumode—although our tours don’t go at 12 midnight. We wake up in the morning, have our buffet breakfast, and at the appropriate time, head to the shrine to pay our respects,” Miyake explained. As for the New Year’s tour in Korea, travelers get the option to do a temple visit and eat vegetarian monastic food. Some of Non-Stop Travel’s top tours to Japan take travelers to Hokkaido, where travelers can, for example, go to a restaurant where travelers get to see live
Nihongo Corner
痛い (Itai) Meaning: painful, sore
An adjective used to express pain (typically of the physical kind).
Imagine yourself in Tokyo, waiting at the platform for the train that will take you to work, when all of a sudden a loud cry startles you: “Itai!” You turn around to see a female high school student on the ground, the skin on her knees all scraped up. She must have had quite a tumble! The train pulls up and you shuffle on, and in the jumble of morning commuters, someone steps on your toes. Ouch! Or maybe you should say… “Itai!”
crabs steamed to perfection. The hanasaki (blooming flower) crab is a crab that turns very red after being cooked. Another highlight of these tours is going to Lake Akan, where travelers can do ice pond fishing for smelt. Afterward, they take their catch to a restaurant near the lake, where it is deep-fried into warm and delicious tempura. Best of all, Miyake says that because these are group tours, the aloha spirit is naturally carried on throughout their trips. “If you have a cough on the bus, from everywhere on the bus, you’ll get cough drops and li hing mui coming from every way to you at your seat. You don’t even have to stand up,” Miyake explained. Before each tour’s departure date, NonStop Travel invites its clients to lunch, where everyone gets the chance to meet and get to know each other. Most people get comfortable after discovering that they went to the same high school or have connections to the same people. “From that lunch to the end of the tour, everyone becomes like one big ohana.” By Daniel Legare
Itai is the Japanese word used to express pain. It is most often blurted out when a sudden spike of physical pain shoots through someone, such as when we get scratched by a cat, stub our toes, or bump our heads. In other words, it can be thought of being the Japanese counterpart to “ouch.” However, itai is not only an exclamation, but also a word that can be used to indicate parts of your body that are experiencing pain. For instance, if you wanted to say “My back hurts,” you would say “Koshi ga itai.” The same goes for asking a question: “Does it hurt?” would simply be “Itai desu ka?” This does not translate to “Does it ouch?” It is also important to note that itai is most often used to express physical pain. Emotions like grief, guilt, and depression are more associated with descriptors such as kanashii (sad) and tsurai (emotionally painful). So if a friend were to ask you
how you are doing a few days after you had broken up with someone, and you say “itai” while holding your chest, your friend will most likely understand that you’re still dealing with a broken heart, but they may also consider the possibility that you might be having literal chest pains. Just like in English, there are different variations to the word itai. While in English you might hear “Ouchy!” or “Ow!” or the “hissss” we make while sucking in air, itai can also be expressed as I-TEH, i-ta-ta-ta, ittaaaaaah and even sometimes just a blunt ~teh, depending on the level of pain. Children will often exaggerate the end of the word by stretching it out to “itaaiiii” the same way they do in English: “aaaooowww!” So the next time you’re in Japan and you prick your finger, let out a hearty “Itai!” and maybe someone will come to see if you’re okay and offer you a BandAid!
About the Author Born in a small Canadian town, Daniel Legare has always had a taste for adventure. As a globe-trotter who loves to discover, he has lived in many countries such as Japan, New Zealand, and India. He is currently working as a manager in an international Japanese kindergarten and is looking to move into writing and translation as a career.
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