Spring is here in South Korea!!
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Japan Trip 2012
This is a little overdue but I have a great excuse! I just moved to a new branch at my academy and it's been a super crazed week or so.
Onto adventures!!!
Day 1/2: It has begun!
Nick and I went to Japan for my birthday weekend. It was a fantastic. We took an early morning bus to Busan to catch our flight. That trip was uneventful as usual. We eventually got into Narita airport, the only international airport near Tokyo. We bought JP train cards and hopped on the NEX which is a fast train into the city. I must say the first few times into the train stations leave you wondering how there are THAT many people in Tokyo. After a few times the train stations gets easier to navigate. Tokyo is very tourist friendly and has many English signs to direct you to where you actually need to go.
We made it to our area, Uneo, and then couldn’t find our hostel to save our lives. Eventually a very nice Japanese woman stopped and pointed back the way we had come and said, “see bikes, turn,” and made a hand gesture left. Not the best directions but we thanked her and low and behold it was true. See a ton of bikes and turn down what we had assumed was an alley. Nope it was the entrance to the hostel, which was tucked in behind the other main street buildings. Our hostel was amazing and I would recommend it to anyone visiting Tokyo, Oak Hotel. Our room was two bunk beds and a tiny private bathroom. We splurged a little to get a private room. It was small but very comfy. The staff was very nice and they tried to help us all the time.
The first day out was crazy. We walked SO much that I thought my feet were going to fall off! Since we didn’t understand how to take anything other than the green JP line we just walked and walked and walked. First we went to Sensoji 浅草寺, Sensōji, also known as Asakusa Kannon Temple). It’s a HUGE temple with the most amazing paper lanterns I have ever seen. There were also Koi fish and really cool Buddha statues. Afterwards we kept walking until we saw the strangest buildings. These are the Sky Tree, and the Asahi Beer Hall(the gold sneeze). We kept walking until we were right next to the Sky Tree. It’s the world’s tallest broadcasting tower. It’s extremely tall. You can see it anywhere in the city. After a ton of more walking we decided we were hungry. Surprisingly this need is hard to satisfy in Tokyo. Since we can’t read Japanese we had to rely on places with picture menus in our budget. This was something we found to be almost impossible. But then we saw the most amazing thing, a food ticket vending machine. It has pictures of the food as well as prices. Just put in your yen press the button, get a ticket and give it to the cook. It saved our stomachs! We both got Ramen, real ramen. It was delicious.
More walking brought us to the Imperial Palace, which, because we overslept, we did not get to tour that morning. It was closed but it was still fun to walk around. There was also a fountain park right next to it.
Day 3: Uneo/ Metro
We started off in Uneo and went adventuring into the park. We got to see another temple (shrine?) and a very cool street performer. We wandered around then went into the Tokyo Museum. The museum was very cool and had a ton to look at. We saw old paintings, block prints, pottery and swords. It was fantastic to see everything from Japan’s history. After the museum we got hungry…vending machines to the rescue! This time I got Bubble Tea, which is black sweet tea with tapioca balls at the bottom. It’s delicious. After a satisfying lunch Nick and I went in search of the busiest intersection in all of Tokyo! Found it, and we were not disappointed. There were throngs of people, going in every direction. It was so weird to be in it. After wandering in that area we made our way to a small park near Harajuku. It was a nice quiet stroll after such chaos in the city. Finally we made back into the city and went to the Metro Building. We were very luck, we got there just as the sun was setting and I snagged a picture of Mt. Fuji! You can’t see it during the day, only at sunset.
Day 4: Harajuku / Meiji Shrine
Harajuku is an Anime lover’s dream. There are tons of people and many of them are dressed in odd ways. Some wear eccentric colors and patterns while other where something called Lolita. Lolita is a form of style that makes one appear to be doll like, or innocent. There are however many forms of this from pink/pretty, to Goth and Steampunk.
Again, we walked around more and then eventually went into… a REAL restaurant. We had our first Sake, grilled noodles and kimchi, yes kimchi. It was delicious. We wandered around some more and then went home for a well-deserved rest.
Day 5: Goodbye Japan
On our last day Nick and I had a horrible realization. We hadn’t bought a single thing! While getting around and eating had been expensive we hadn’t actually bought anything to bring home. So we went back up to the Temple. There was a large amount of tourist shops right behind it. We spent almost all the money we had left, stocking up on sake containers, gifts, lanterns and pretty sake glasses. We got back to the hostel and then stuffed our carry-ons with all of our new purchases. We only barely got them closed. Eventually we made it back to Narita where we met a very nice couple from Korea (military, US/Germany). Myriam has more masters and teacher certificates than I can imagine, she was from Germany. We had an amazing talk about education and how to best serve students with disabilities and fast track students. It was nice to talk the lingo. Unfortunately for Nick and her husband, we did all the talking (you’re surprised I’m sure). We eventually got home safely at 1:30am, just in time to pass out. It was a fantastic trip!!!
Monday, February 13, 2012
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Travel
Back to writing! Not much has happened over the last month or so. I've hung out with good friends, Kyung Jun, Dan, Campbell and Nick a lot. Robert has come back from the States and it's been great to see him again.
Nick, Dan and I went bowling the other day. Dan kicked our buts! Nick had never been, what he called, "big ball bowling" before so that was pretty funny. I haven't been doing anything outside the city because I'm trying to save money for my next big trips, Japan and Thailand/Cambodia. Once Japan is done then I'll start planning my next trips for around May/June. I'm thinking China and maybe Malaysia.
My friend from high school (NMH) came to visit from Iksan. We had a blast. We joined up withSeth, Camille and a new friend named Tiger (well his Korean name translates to Tiger). We went downtown and when to a few bars and then even dancing. That's right I said dancing. It was great. We were in a club named Frog and it was packed! I mean you can barely move kind of dancing. It was fun none the less though.
Next week is my birthday so I'm super pumped up for that. I'm actually going to be flying to Japan on my birthday! Nick and I have our bus/KTX tickets booked so now all we have to do is actually get to the bus station for our 7am bus. It's going to be painful! In Tokyo we have our hostel booked. We're playing most of our weekend by ear since we're not sure how to navigate the city all that well. It's HUGE so we're going to have small ideas and see where they take us. The only thing that's planned is a tour of the Imperial Palace. We had to apply for that so hopefully it'll be worth it. We also want to go to Harajuku where Lolita is popular Lolita is a cutesy fashion that resembles doll like innocence. Yeah they really do dress like this. I'm excited to see it!!
After Japan we have Thailand and Cambodia. Below is our itinerary for that huge trip! I'm so excited. We're going to Siem Reap where we can see Angkor Wat. We're staying in a hostel run by Canadians who are awesome, already. They're going to help us get a taxi for the day (costs about $30 for three days of driving, it's crazy. Then they're going to help us get a bus/train to Thailand. In Thailand we're first going to Bangkok and staying there for three days. Then it's off to Bottle Beach on Koh Phangan for basically five days before heading home. I'm planning on hiking, scuba diving (or at least snorkeling), riding elephants and getting pampered. Nick and I also have the 26th off since it'll take us the majority of the 26 to get back to Daegu. I'll be posting a long blog about Japan when I get back! Don't worry Nick and I are registered with the US-Gov about where're we're going just in case.
Sunday, January 1, 2012
SNOW!
I've been super bad this month. Things are crazy at work and I've been lazy to boot. There are major changes about the happen at my school. Long story short my job will change into a "floater" at the end of February. My branch will go from eight foreign teachers to four. Steven already left and so did Angie. Angie and Steven were replaced by Jessica (returning from USA) and Scott. Scott is leaving for another job so Nick will take his place, and not be a floater. Sean is leaving with me and we're already down one teacher because they didn't replace Jessica when she left to go to USA. So at the end of February Sean, Scott and I will leave Siji.
That means that I'll be a supply teacher, aka a substitute. It'll be interesting but also frustrating. I'm also still staying until the end of July so my end date won't change. I still get to keep my apt. and other such things. I do get a slight pay bump though! So that'll be nice. It'll be some nice bonus for my trips.
Speaking of which I've decided to go to Japan in February for my birthday and then to Thailand
in March. I think that I'll go to one more place maybe Malaysia or China in April but I'm not sure. I am of course going on these trips with my friend Nick who's a wicked good travel buddy.
Christmas was a blur and so was New Years. Both were relaxed with a few friends, good food and wine. I can't believe it's 2012 already! ALSO......
We finally got snow here in Daegu! I spent the afternoon with Nick running about in it.
It was a ton of fun. We made snowmen and drew pictures in the snow. Afterwards we met up with two friends, Campbell (Gyeonghun Lee) and Daeseo Koo. Fun times were had.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Seoul 2011
This weekend was a whirl wind of awesome. Nick, Campbell and I left for Seoul on Saturday morning. The KTX was a ton of fun and relaxing. When we got to Seoul we managed to find our way to our hostel Fully Guest House. It was a great hostel the bed were good, short (perfect for me but not so good if you're tall) and korean style hard. We then found SUBWAY! I was so excited and Campbell had never had it before.
After we went to two palaces. They were fantastic. The structures were often remade because of fire and or the Japanese occupation. We ran around and met a lot of people from all over the place. That night we tried to find Mexican food...found it....they were closed. We were not impressed. Got mediocre Italian instead. We decided to just go home and get an early start. We wound up talking until about 2:30am.
The next morning we woke up and got going at the reasonable hour of 10. We found the market we wanted to go to and then FINALLY got Mexican food for lunch. It wasn't as spicy as I would have liked but it was good enough. We also did a bit of shopping at the big stores, well Nick did, Sorry Korea I'm not a size 8. We got over to the train station with plenty of time...especially since Campbell got the time wrong by about an hour and a half. Luckily it was later and not earlier. So we ran around the shopping center at the train station and got coffee. All in all, it was a great trip one that I would like to repeat in the future.
Monday, November 7, 2011
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