Personal history of the World Traveler


Masaaki, the World Traveler, was born on June 19, 1969 in Chiba, Japan.
As he was raised as the only male in the family with two sisters and many female cousins,Masaaki was naturally educated to be "the man" of the house to somewhat an excessive extent!

From his early childhood Masaaki developed a great love for baseball and played in a local baseball team called the "Little Giants" during his days at elementary school.
Upon entering junior-high school, he joined a basketball club to explore his athletic talentsin a different field.

One day at the age of 13, Masaaki saw a long-haired young man playing "Smoke on the water"with an electric guitar in a shop selling musical instruments. The heavy sound electrified him.
This was Masaaki's first encounter with Hard Rock and he immediately began to play the electric guitar. At about the same time in his life, Masaaki's travelling history began.
He cycled from Chiba to Karuizawa in Japan; a distance of about 200km, in two days.
He then made a grand tour of the Chiba peninsula; a distance of about 400km; in four days, spending the nights in train stations or in open fields. He also travelled extensively through Japan by train and took up photography as a hobby.

In 1985 he was admitted to Keio High school. For the next three years, his extra-curricular activities included being captain of the Karate club as well as the lead guitarist in a Hard Rock band.

His dedication to Karate went so far as to be incorporated into his daily life.
Whenever he travelled on a train, he would watch the railroad tracks outside so as to improve the accuracy of his vision. On the street, he would pass others and imagine how he would fight each one of them. Unfortunately he lost a bout in the semi-final of a provincial Karate competition and was unable to attain the level of competition which he desired. However, Masaaki remained undeterred by this loss and used the discipline of Karate to adopt perseverance, endurance and flexibility in his life.

He then decided to switch his bicycle for a motorcycle and made his first journey overseas; a 7-day stay in Saipan. He travelled to Saipan by ship.

Upon graduating from Keio High School in 1988, he held a live concert in the Shibuya Epicurus in Tokyo with his band to celebrate his graduation.

He then undertook his second journey overseas, this time to the United States of America.
During this trip he visited Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Aspen and New York, all in the space of 6 weeks.

Upon returning to Japan he entered Keio University to obtain a degree in Business and Commerce. During his studies at Keio, he spent a vast amount of time studying English and reading a variety of books. His rebellious spirit made him start to harbour doubts about the traditional values embedded in Japanese society and he began to look for other avenues, which he could explore on a more global scale.

During this time at Keio, Masaaki tried not only to be strong and kind to others, but also to be sceptical about his own actions by learning philosophy and psychology. He also worked as an assistant to the secretary of a member of the House of Representatives at the National Diet. This allowed him to experience first hand, the realities underlying the Japanese political system.

In the summer of 1989, Masaaki spent two months in Geneva, Switzerland to study French at the University of Geneva. This was his first real encounter with non-Japanese people and allowed him to build some long-lasting friendships. In the summer of 1990 Masaaki spent two months in southern France to follow up the study of the French language, which he had begun in Geneva.

In the spring of 1991, Masaaki spent a month in Los Angeles to study English and in the summer of the same year, he entered the University of Pennsylvania where he studied political science and international relations. In addition, he studied international management at the renowned Wharton school. During this time in the USA, he also started snowboarding in Colorado.

In 1992 Masaaki returned to Japan. He started sailing in Chiba and during the summer he spent ten days cycling through Hokkaido in the north of Japan.

In 1993 Masaaki graduated from Keio University and started working for an American investment bank, Merrill Lynch, in Tokyo. After spending three months on the Analyst training program at the Merrill Lynch headquarters in New York, he was assigned to their Fixed Income Sales division in Tokyo. Six months later he was assigned to the Fixed Income Derivative trading division and began his trading career as a trader of interest rate swaps. He devoted his time at Merrill Lynch to understanding the complexity of the world financial markets by analysing both the world of politics and that of finance at the same time.

The "intellectual gambling" on the world market that he engaged in as a trader kept him busy for a while. However, every weekend he was either surfing on the beach or snowboarding in the mountains. During his vacations, he went scuba diving in Australia, on the Great Barrier, in the Red Sea in Egypt and in the Maldives. He became so tanned from his travels that few people could make out his true nationality.

In April 1994 Masaaki moved to London to work for Merrill Lynch UK. He traded Yen swaps as well swaps denominated in some other European currencies. While he was in London, he travelled to Switzerland, France, Holland, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Morocco and New York.

In October 1994 Masaaki returned to Japan to continue working for Merrill Lynch in Tokyo.
Around this time, he seriously began to question the true merit of the industry in which he found himself. It became clear to him that if he were going to succeed in the world of finance he would have to have an enormous fixation on money. The ultimate goal of capitalism was after all to make money out of money!
eAm I selling my soul to the devil?f he asked himself.

On one of his vacations, he went horseback riding in Colorado. He then drove from Los Angeles to Costa Rica through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua all in the space of two weeks. He also went snowboarding in France via Moscow.

Back in Japan, he successfully climbed Mt. Fuji and snowboarded down from the summit.
On another occasion he also tried to mountain bike down from the summit with some of his friends. Unfortunately a huge typhoon hit them at the top of the mountain and they were literally "blown away" whilst attempting their descent. In 1996, he managed to complete his first full marathon in Honolulu, Hawaii. He broke his ribs when he fell on a rock while he was snowboarding in France.

In April 1998, Masaaki resigned from Merrill Lynch. In order to attain the ultimate freedom he longed for, he travelled to Valdez in Alaska to try his hand at heli-snowboarding. He experienced a state of Nirvana. Something was definitely beginning to change inside this Japanese world traveller.

After his trip to Alaska he journeyed to Hawaii for a bit of camping, trekking and scuba diving.
In June, he loaded his car with a few dozens books and a surfboard and travelled through Japan. In September of 1998, he set out on his global tour.

Travelling through Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Indonesia, Myanmar and Bangladesh,Masaaki finally arrived in India in December of 1998. Whilst travelling in India, he also visited Nepal and Bhutan. As part of his travels, he visited Pune in the west of India. Here, he began to meditate at the eOshof meditation resort.

In April 2000, Masaaki went to Chile to study Spanish. During his time in Chile he also travelled through different parts of the country and practised Tae-kwon-do.

In September 2000 he returned to India to continue practising meditation. During this time Masaaki realised that the most effective method of understanding the world around him was to first understand his own inner-self. In order to develop a closer affinity with his own inner feelings, he felt a strong need to be by himself. This was the eAwakening of the Inner Journeyf.

In March 2001, Masaaki spent two months in Ladakh, in the north of India. He relished his solitude in the Himalayas.

After travelling to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran, he planned to go to Syria. However, he arrived in Tehran shortly before the terrorist act of e9/11f and due to the political uncertainty clouding over the world at that time, he decided to travel to Turkey instead. Upon arriving in Istanbul he continued his travels through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria and ultimately arrived in Switzerland.

In December 2001, he spent three weeks in Morocco. In January of 2002 he returned to Switzerland and went to France via Germany. In March of 2002, Masaaki began to study French in Paris at Alliance Francaise.

In summer 2002 he travelled to Sweden, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Holland and Belgium and then returned to Paris to continue his study of the French language.

In March 2003, he returned to Japan to help some of his friends develop an idea for an internet start-up.

In September 2004, he went to London to study anthropology at London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

In October 2005, he completed his study (Master of Science in Social Anthropology) and left for Africa.

After traveling to Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Congo,Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, Togo, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania, Western Sahara, Moroccothe in one year, he traveled to South America.

In September 2006, he went to Argentina via Mexico, Venezuela and Panama to learn Spanish in Buenos Aires.

In March 2007, he went to Brazil to learn Brazilian Ju-Jitsu at BTT (Brazilian Top Team) in Rio de Janeiro.

In September 2007, he went back to Buenos Aires and started learning "Tango Argentina".

In March 2008, after traveling to Chile, Easter Island, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Galapagos islands, Colombia, Panama, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and the US, he returned to Japan.


Countries visited so far:
POQ
Countries he is planning to visit: Central Asia, Middle East

The world is big, but nothing is too big for the World Traveler!




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