My name is Therese Cacek and I am an art teacher at Holdingford Elementary School in Minnesota.

I am honored to have been chosen to represent Minnesota in Japan in the Fulbright Memorial Fund Teacher program.

The primary goal of the FMF is to increase understanding between the peoples of Japan and the United States.

I have created this Web site to share my Japan travel with students, teachers and parents.

Background Information

In October of 2003, elementary Art teacher, Therese Cacek, departed for Tokyo, Japan as a participant in the Fulbright Memorial Fund (FMF) Teacher Program. She was selected from a national pool of over 2,500 applicants by a panel of educators to earn this honor. This program allows distinguished primary and secondary school teachers in the U.S. to travel to Japan for three weeks in an effort to promote greater intercultural understanding between the two nations.

The 200 educators began their visit in Tokyo, where they received a practical orientation on Japanese life and culture and meet with Japanese government officials and educators. They then traveled in groups of 20 to prefectures (states) outside of Tokyo where they had direct contact with Japanese teachers and students. She visited primary and secondary schools as well as a teachers' college. Ms. Cacek was in Shizuoka, Shizuoka during her stay in Japan. She visited cultural sites and local industries in addition to a home stay with a Japanese family.

The program is sponsored by the Government of Japan and was launched to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the U.S. government Fulbright Program, which has enabled more than 6,000 Japanese citizens to study in the U.S. on Fulbright fellowships for graduate education and research.

Itinerary

Click on date links (if available) to read logs.
Click on small pictures to see larger versions.
The cities which are linked provide information on the individual cities that I will visit.
10/5–10/6 San Francisco, CA
Tokyo, Japan
10/11–10/12 Kyoto and Hiroshima, Japan
10/13–10/18 Shizuoka City, Japan
10/18–10/19 Shizuoka City, Japan—Home stay
10/19–10/20 Ryokan (Japanese Inn), Shizuoka City, Japan
10/21–10/24 Tokyo, Japan
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San Francisco: October 5 & 6
Two hundred (200) teachers and administrators met in San Francisco on the Pacific Ocean coast on Sunday afternoon October 5, 2003.

I met three teachers at the Minneapolis Airport (two were from Minnesota and one was from Wisconsin) and from there we flew to Denver. At Denver several more Fulbright recipients gathered and finally everyone came together in San Francisco. It seemed like a small trickle that began when I left my home on Sunday morning and grew into a river that arrived at the ocean that evening. After several speakers and a meal together on Sunday evening we divided into two groups and flew out of San Francisco on Monday October 6. The United flight we took was the largest plane I had ever been in! It seemed like a large ocean liner with over 400 passengers—not one seat was open.

I dined together with several fellow teachers who will be with me when I visit Shizuoka City, Shizuoka. (Shizuoka is called a prefecture which is comparable to a state in our country.)
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On the evening of October 7 we were greeted by Japanese college students and former Fulbright scholars from Japan. Some of the gentlemen that met groups had been in the United States to study in the 1960s. (Something of interest—the same day that we left San Francisco on Oct. 6 we arrived in Japan on Oct. 7—we crossed the international date line—does that mean I time traveled?)
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