On Aug. 18, a group of eight from the U.H. Ethnobiology Society’s Hawaii Xplorers Program successfully hiked a 13,680 feet to the peak of Mauna Loa, considered the largest mountain (in circumference) on the planet.

How things have changed since last September, and an update on my fundraiser.

These exchanges will help this family long after we are gone.

In Hawaii, even if you're in a higher place, please don't think that a tsunami will never come.

After volunteering at Hamaguri Hama, we headed to the Rakuten baseball stadium in Sendai to watch a professional game between the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles and the Chiba Lotte Marines.

Both the Japanese and Hawaii cultures are connected to the ocean and land, and understand that there must be a balance in order to achieve sustainability.

This afternoon, as part of the Tomodachi program, the Punahou Intermediate baseball team is being matched up against a local Ishinomaki team.

I'm learning a lot about baseball on this trip and it's fascinating to see and learn the differences between Japanese teams and American teams.

Two years and four months later, the landscape looks improved since my last visit to the devastated areas in September.