Queen's University, a publicly funded institution in the U.K., spent tens of thousands of pounds to travel to Japan:

The trip was to confer an honorary doctorate on Daisaku Ikeda, president of Soka Gakkai International (SGI), a lay Buddhist group....

The amount of money spent on the trip is oddly high:

The Belfast Telegraph calculated that the cheapest flights to Tokyo, according to a travel website, would cost just under £500.

This would mean flights would have cost at least £7,000.

Queen's confirmed the delegation stayed at the Keio Plaza Hotel in Toyko with a basic room costing around £142 per night. This would work out at just under £2,000 per night for the university group.

Wow, that's costly. The cost to Queen's University's credibility is even higher. Full story.