My WorldJourney
Masayo Goto,
International
PoliticalAnalyst
The Sahara
Desert,Galapagos
Islands, North
Korea, andAfghanistan arecommondestinations forher. She has
been to top of
the earth, theNorth Pole, andthe bottom of
the earth, theSouth Pole.
This is a storyof her solitaryworld journey...
sometimes
dressed in a
traditional
costume.

She transformed into a Bedouin
woman. She enjoys her trip in a
local costume.

She went
to theNorth Polewith aRussianIcebreaker.
On her way
back, shecame
across a
Kursk
RussiansubmarineStanding over the equator in EcuadorIn 2003, she finally reached the South Pole

Bamiyan ruin heavily destroyed by the Tablian
Nowadays, we can go
anywhere in the world if
we have money and time.
But, how many Japanesepeople have ever been toNorth Korea, conflict zones
in the Middle East and all
the way to the North andSouth Poles? Masayo Gotois one of such a few
Japanese people. She wasawarded a Ph.D degree inInternational Relations andInternational Politics atuniversity in Sydney, andworks for a foreign mission
in Japan. She determined
to become an international
person at the age of 12 and13, and went to the US forstudy. After she came backto Japan, she worked for a
foreign company in Japanand then she studied
International Relations andInternational Politics inAustralia while working asinterpreter. Australia is amulticultural society andpeople love traveling, sowhen she was in Australia,
she realized that there areso many nations, races andcultures in the world.

In 1993 she traveled toIndia and had a private
audience with Mother
Teresa and Saibaba. This isthe beginning of her world
journey and traveled morethan 90 countries in thepast ten years. Her stories
and encounters are asmany as the number oftrips she has made. For
instance, in 1996, shereached the North Pole forthe first time. I paid
approximately 2 million yen(US$18,000) for the trip to
the North Pole in Sydney,using all my savings. But, theairfare from Sydney to
Alaska was not included inthe cost. I did not know what
to do, but the managing
director of the travel agency
said I pay for your airfare. It
is important for a person likeyou who is pursuing studies
to see the world from top ofthe earth. He thensupported my trip.'

Automatic rifles are the necessities in Yemen

In Lake Titicaca, she had a ride in a reed boat

Off course,
she visited
North Korea.
She went tosee a great
event
Arirang(MassGymnasticand ArtisticPerformance)
in 2002.
With truck drivers, in Islamabad

Dived into the sea, with beautiful corals in SaipanIn 2003, she became the 461st person to reach the South Pole counting
from 1988 when the South Pole was opened to tourists. When I
reached the South Pole, I was very surprised to see NHK crew standing
with high vision cameras in front of my Cessna plane. It was also a bigsurprise for them to see a Japanese person in front of them. Quite a few
people may have seen her reaching the South Pole on the NHK TV
program.
In April this year, she visited Afghanistan crossing the boarder from
Pakistan and then stood at the front of Bamiyan ruin. It is often said tobe dangerous to travel to Afghanistan (by crossing the boarder from
Pakistan by car), but I made inquiries a number of times to authorities ofboth countries, developed a plan very carefully and decided not to use ataxi when crossing the boarder and to have a solider with me when crossing
tribal areas. I have no intention to criticize a hostage crisis in Iraq, but it is
a commonsense of the world to make every possible effort to avoid risks
and dangers of our own. Her next destinations are to see the Titanic thatsank to the bottom of the sea and to fly through the stratosphere (the suborbital flight) to see the earth.

She completely transformed into Jinghis Khan

With a famous cactus, Galapagos Islands

Beautiful nomadic wedding dress

Private audience with Mother Teresa and Saibaba

In front of Shew Dagon Pagoda
Yangon, Myanmar