50 Is the life of teenagers in stressful?

I honestly thought that the life of Hungarian high-school students is really stressful, but I’ve just seen a video about Japanese teenagers, which changed my mind completely. In Japan these children are known as the 7-11 kids, because they get up at 7, go to school, leave school at about 5, following which they go to cramming school, where they study until 8. This means they have to study in a highly competitive, exhausting environment. They don’t even have time to have a decent meal, they just grab a bite to eat on the way home or to the cramming school. They are under a lot of pressure to succeed both from home and school. At  the age of 15 they have a series of rigorous exams, which 80% of the students fail. This creates a lot of suppressed pressure in teenagers, who have no free time to nourish their emotions or pursue some hobbies. This lies at the heart of the problems with Japanese kids.

51 What’s the best travelling experience you’ve had?

It’s hard to say, really. I’ve been abroad several times, but I still have to choose a biking tour I was on last summer around Lake Velence (Lake Balaton etc.). The weather was just perfect – warm but not overwhelmingly hot (except for a few days when it was absolutely sweltering). There were also occasional showers to cool us down. I was actually glad that we were on this biking tour as we always had something to do even if the weather was bad. I’m not really one for the bike, so it was my first real encounter with the wide and comfortable bike lanes around the lake, with courteous – sometimes even downright friendly – drivers in towns. There was also the idyllic countryside to keep us entertained. The best part was that biking freed me up to eat as much as I wanted to. It was a holiday and work-out in one.