But from April 4 to May 1, he toured South Korea, Japan, Guam and Hawaii as a photojournalist with a professional troupe that entertained at American military bases. It gave him more than a snapshot glimpse of a bigger landscape.

“For me, it was an experience I just couldn't pass up I'd definitely do it again,” said Kline, a 1996 Tulpehocken High School graduate who originally had plans to become an electrician.

That practical goal was sidetracked, however, when Kline, who always loved drawing and sculpture, decided to follow a variation of his artistic muse and enroll in photography and graphic design courses at Reading Area Community College and Albright College.

He also worked for several years as an apprentice in photography studios before opening his own, KCK Photo and Design in 2003.

While creating a Web site last year for a client, International Championship Wrestling, based in St. Louis, Kline was offered the assignment of photographically documenting the wrestlers' Asian trip for the Armed Forces Entertainment and Morale, Welfare and Recreation.

“I accumulated 30 hours of flight in 30 days,” Kline said of his whirlwind tour, which began with a 15-hour flight from Philadelphia to Atlanta to Seoul, South Korea.

Kline and his girlfriend, Beckie Ringler, 31, of Ontelaunee Township, spent 12 days in South Korea with 10 wrestlers and support personnel, traveling by bus through nine towns and cities with a taciturn Korean bus driver simply known as Mr. Tae.

For Kline, Mr. Tae embodied Korean qualities of quietness and politeness to the point of impassivity.

“Actually, I think he was miserable with our group because of our constant talking and inquisitiveness,” Kline said.

Mr. Tae apparently had trouble warming up to one outgoing wrestler in particular, Glenn Gilberti known as Disco Inferno, whose friendly chatter prompted Mr. Tae to characterize him as someone “who talks too much, like a little girl.”

Unable to bridge a cultural gap with Mr. Tae, a perplexed Gilberti, wanting only to befriend a stranger but teased by his fellow wrestlers about Mr. Tae not liking him, could only repeat “What did I do?” Kline said.

“Unlike in our country, direct eye contact is often considered rude in Korea,” Kline said. “Pats on the head to children or adults also may be considered insulting. It appears conformity is more valued than individuality, so there are no public displays of emotion.

“It was a little funny seeing loud, angry wrestlers in performance trying to arouse reactions from Korean guests on one side of a wrestling ring (reactions that seemed second nature to Americans and their families on the other side) and getting absolutely blank stares in return.”

While the cultural divides may have been highlighted in an amusing way at ringside, Kline also had the opportunity to visit a demilitarized zone on the North and South Korea border where sentries from both sides, yards apart and binoculars always handy, eyed each other constantly and coldly.

“The soldiers are always on guard, always looking at each other, you can just feel the tension,” Kline said.

While in Korea, Kline said, his group would travel to a new city most every day.

“Sometimes we'd go three hours one way to put on a show for a military base and then back to the hotel late at night,” he said.

Kline said his party spent only half the time in Japan that they did in Korea, but flew everywhere there and visited another nine cities.

“In Japan, every day was a different flight,” he said. “My ears were closed the entire time.”

But, fortunately, Kline's eyes weren't.

He absorbed as much as he could, especially whatever passed as fruitful connections between people, mostly curious or happy fans greeting wrestlers in Japan, Guam and Hawaii.

“The people in Japan were polite, but you got the sense, in most cases, that they knew English but didn't go out of their way to try to speak it,” Kline said. “There were no English signs in airports, for instance. In Korea, a little more effort was made to communicate in English.”

Guam, the U.S. island territory, was a tropical tourist paradise in Kline's view, much warmer that chilly South Korea and Japan in April, The territory boasted a friendly international mix of natives, Americans, Japanese, Koreans and Filipinos, all apparently used to the mingling of cultures on an island.

“We only spent four days there, but two of them were devoted to rest and relaxation and enjoying the beach,” he said. “Guam was the most beautiful place I ever saw.

“The sky was a deep blue while puffy

clouds hung low to the land. The white beaches never had more than 20 people on the busiest of days,

and the water was clearer than my memories (of the coastal water) in Mexico.”

Hawaii was a combination of the familiar and exotic for Kline, the commercialism of Honolulu, the memorial at Pearl Harbor to a tragic past and the busy beach at Waikiki on Oahu. All that was juxtaposed against military bases with remote beaches where only dogs frolicked in Lihue on the island of Kauai.

“We visited elementary schools there (Hawaii) for fundraisers,” he said. “The children were always so excited to see us.”

Kline tried to capture much of it in pictures; he will probably keep more of it in his memory. He feels there are rewards to meeting people in other places, even if in the process he learned that some differences may not be bridged.

Kline has already been contacted for another tour, one that will set him along the Mediterranean Sea.