Previously La Dolce Vita, which documented my time spent living in Perugia, Italy, Restless Seoul will be my way of sharing my experiences in South Korea. Enjoy!
First off, I'm excited for Game of Thrones starting soon. Also, my timehop was on point:
"The Lannisters send their regards."
This week was largely uneventful, except that my children were batshit crazy and I have never had so many students crying in my classes as I did this week. Seriously, I think I had at least one in every grade. Some of these kids are really cute but holy shit kids can be assholes. Whether it was hitting each other, a long standing feud of hiding each other's things blowing up in the subject teacher classes, competitive students losing their cool, bullying, not doing their work AGAIN, the dust, the food, or whatever else was in the air, these kids could not stop crying. Geez. It was rough. Thankfully as the native teacher, I just kind of have to keep running class while they deal with the students.
The teachers had open classes on Wednesday, which means the parents could come watch a class and evaluate the teacher. Thankfully, I took part in no classes. No parents came for So Jung's class, and 2 came to Grace/Eun Hye's class and they didn't tell her much to improve. Everyone was relieved when it was over.
Lunch was SO BAD on Friday that we ate ramen instead, then got a pizza. I cannot begin to describe what is on this pizza but it was so good.
It was also a sad few days for So Jung, as her little brother left for the military on Thursday, and she was sick all week. I felt really bad for her. I brought in a twix egg for her on Thursday, and she looked at it sadly and told me her brother would have really liked that. She had to say goodbye to him in the morning before school and he'll be in the military for like 2 years, and she has no other siblings. He's also apparently good at beat boxing and is very loud in their house, so So Jung thinks it will be really quiet and sad at home. Our 6th graders were also monsters that day (a stolen pencil case resulted in a lot of crying and no games or fun for class), and I had to spend quite a bit of the afternoon talking So Jung down from thinking it was somehow her fault or that she snapped because of her home situation. She's also in grad school, so she has a lot of stress in her life. I love her to death and it hurts me to see her hurting, but we managed to have some laughs since Korea doesn't do holiday shaped candy. She found it fascinating and took one home to show her parents since she can't show her brother. I hope they can carry on well without him! They're such a lovely family.
Speaking of lovely family, Tina and I hung out like literally all weekend and it was glorious. Friday brought us out to Gangnam to meet with friends on that side of the city, and we met some of the new spring intakes to EPIK. It's always fun to see old and new friends, but man were we tired when we finally got home. It takes a long time to get to and from Gangnam, but it's so worth it.
Saturday was awesome. We saw Cinderella, which was every bit as wonderful as I hoped it would be. Richard Madden was a perfect prince, to the point where some of my thoughts were inappropriate for the number of children in the audience. I'm pretty sure we were the only ones without kids there but whatever.
Lily James was flawless as Cinerdella, and Cate Blanchett killed it as the evil stepmother.
They did such a good job updating it! I had a few problems with the movie, but they detracted none percent from my enjoyment. I do still wonder why the shoes didn't disappear at midnight, but alas. I will suspend my disbelief because fairy tale is amazing and the movie was awesome.
I'm definitely going to try to live one of the messages of the movie: Have courage, and be kind.
We went to the Sicilian restaurant Tina and I had tried before when the movie was finished, and it was awesome. Ciuri Ciuri, you are amazing. It's also not ludicrously overpriced for the food, which is great for real Italian food in Seoul. The owners are from Italy and it's awesome. 10/10 would recommend. Will go again soon.
After some wandering in Hongdae, Tina and I headed to my apartment and watched the finale of The Challenge, MTV's trashy reality show that I adore.
On Sunday we relaxed and watched Running Man, an awesome variety show, and eventually went out to Sinchon to meet Janell for some tacos. Yum! What a delicious weekend!
I got tres tacos at Dos Tacos this time.
Nachossss
We discussed many important issues, such as the ludicrousness of SM and their shameless money-making scheme that is EXO. Seriously, their new album is going to have 20 different packagings. There are 10 members in the group, and they album will come out in Korean and Chinese (Korean in gold and Chinese in silver GUESS WHICH MARKET THEY VALUE MORE), and each member will have a cover for each languages. OH and if you buy them all, they make the album title/concept picture for EXODUS (the album name). Genius, especially if they add like a "if you buy the album you get a chance for a fanmeet" thing, since I am positive people will buy all 20 of the album. Fans be crazy. I'm glad I got into this when I was 22 not 14, because I could see this being unhealthy.
I think Kpop groups and their woes are similar to the pain felt by all the One Directioners when Zayn left. Good for you, Zayn. Live your life.
Another issue is the dating scandal of Lee Min Ho, a popular actor, and Miss A's Suzy, who is a few years younger than him. JYP's (Suzy's company) stocks actually dropped when the news came out, and my coworkers were all freaking out about it for days. Dating is considered a scandal here, which I think has a lot of really weird implications and connotations. Whatever. I'll never get used to it.
Anyway, my 6th graders are on a field trip til Thursday, so I only have one class on Tuesday and one on Wednesday, which makes this an easy week for me! Yay! Hopefully I can study some Korean and watch some tv and relax once I get some of next week's lesson's figured out. So far I've been able to keep up on my lessons. Here's to hoping that trend continues.
Until next week, here's this awesome Cinderella stuff:
Lavender's Blue (Dilly Dilly) is such a sweet song! I've had it stuck in my head all day.
Just, all the yes.
For the sake of having a picture of me in my blog, here is me with a cupcake. Thanks, Tina!
Next weekend we're off to Jinhae for the cherry blossom festival and to Busan for fun, so hopefully it's beautiful and doesn't rain!!
Hey all! Another week flew by, and here I am at another blog post.
I've had kind of an emotional week with a lot of really high highs and some pretty low lows. I topped it off with a Sunday where I slept til 1 PM for reasons, and then watched two really good but hella sad movies.
First, The Last Five Years:
Based on the musical, this movie charts a couple, Cathy and Jaime, throughout their relationship of five years. Except it's really sad, and you know how things work out right from the beginning. Here's the first song:
If you have a penchant for reading things without watching the videos posted, here's a quick summary: The first song is called "Still Hurting." Sung by Cathy, it's at the end of the relationship. See, the gimmick of the show is that Cathy sings the story through from the end of their relationship back to the beginning. Jaime starts at the beginning and sings through to the end of the relationship. They only time they sing together is in the middle of the show during the proposal.
So right from the get-go you know how the story ends. It's a really interesting dynamic. I got a little lost in the middle of the movie because I couldn't remember who was singing and what part of the relationship they were in, so I was like "wait, are they married yet? Is this going more towards Happy Beginning Cathy or Sad End Jaime?"
Also, Jaime is a successful author and Cathy a struggling actress. It's really hard to root for Jaime because he comes off as kind of a jerk in the whole thing since we see Cathy upset first. and Cathy seems pretty supportive of Jaime throughout the movie while he seems a bit narcissistic. Really, his first song is about how much him hooking up with Cathy would piss off his Jewish mother. So I got really invested in Cathy and had a hard time watching Jaime's story progress towards the sad conclusion while Cathy's went back to their blindly happy beginnings. Still, I would totally recommend this to anyone who likes musicals. Especially when Cathy is singing an audition song and it gets totally meta.
Anyway, I spent another good part of my Sunday watching another awesome movie, Big Hero 6, and crying through 90% of it.
No joke. This was like halfway through the movie. Don't worry, I cleaned up after.
I should have known those sneaky bastards at Disney would make me cry. But the robot learning to fist bump is probably one of my favorite things ever. If you're not an emotional wreck like me, this movie would be great to watch and would probably make you upset but not enough to use half a box of tissues! Also it is hilarious and wonderful, so go watch it! My kids at school are obsessed with it too, so I can now relate to some of the kidlets a bit more. Yay!
The yellow dust has been particularly bad this week, so I've taken to wearing a mask. I seem to get pretty sick from the dust probably due in no small part to my allergies and also the fact that the levels are almost toxic...
I feel like I'm in Mortal Combat. FINISH HIM.
So that's been fun to deal with. Stay healthy, everyone!
Back to the beginning of the week, MONDAY WAS MY BIRTHDAY WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
School lunch knew what was up. Mandu in my soup and duck with honey mustard sauce. MY FAVORITE LUNCH THINGS.
I met up with Tina in Hongdae after work since this is the first birthday since senior year of high school that we could spend together. We went to our favorite Italian restaurant. It has pasta in a bread bowl. A lot of Koreans get is but don't eat the bowl? Tina and I devoured the pizza and the bowl and the pasta NOM NOM NOM.
Lovely.
Birthday dinner!!!
We got to hang out and be with each other on our birthday, which is something I should never take for granted again. It was really fun to celebrate in Seoul!
So Jung gave me a coupon for 1+1 Starbucks drinks, so we wandered around Hongdae while all the pasta settled, then we went to cash in on that deal.
Cherry Blossom drinks. Thanks, So Jung!
Thanks for celebrating with me, Tina! Let's do it again next year!
Birthday festivities continued throughout the week. On Monday, my coworkers had wished me a happy birthday here and there, but on Tuesday they surprised me with a cake and a celebration!
Chocolate cake YUM.
It was so cute! They were actually really obvious about it, but since they were always talking in Korean I was only mildly suspicious, so it came as a complete shock when they brought out the cake and sang to me. It was then delicious. It was difficult to eat because everyone always remembers the cake but not to bring forks and plates, so we had to eat with plastic gloves. It was funny.
They also got me some cards and all signed them in their adorable English. They were actually passing these around to So Jung at lunch right in front of my face because it's hard to gather all of us together since everyone teaches in different rooms and whatnot, but again I was totally oblivious. I joked about how I must be the easiest person in the office to surprise, to which everyone agreed.
I was really touched by the thoughts of my coworkers. They're great. *gets emotional again*
They're so cute!
I cannot adequately express how much I love my coworkers.
Aside from birthday things, I had a not great start of the week. Korean class is hard. It was still a week til payday, so it's always a loooooong stretch for the last bit. Coming down from birthday highs was hard.
I don't remember why I took a picture of this, but class is tough sometimes. Though sometimes it astounds me that what were once just lines on a paper now actually hold meaning to me. Languages are weird, man.
But then things got better! I had more birthday celebrating to do!!!
At our staff dinner for school, we discovered that Young Eun, one of the music teachers, and I had birthdays pretty close to one another. We were going to celebrate last week, but a lot of the younger teachers were busy so we moved it to this week. Since Tina and I share a birthday, So Jung figured it would be okay to invite her along. It worked out well since Tina had a staff dinner last Friday and wouldn't have been able to make it.
So this week we went out to Mad for Garlic and Tina came down to my neck of the woods to meet all the coworkers I talk about all the time.
So Jung and one of the other teachers disappeared for like half an hour, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. So Jung got me ANOTHER cake!
We lit the candles and sang in Korean for Young Eun, then So Jung relit the candles and we sang in English. "Happy Birthday dear Christina and Francesca" was quite long so it came out as "Happy Birthday jsklfsknd;oshdc;siodkncsio;dnsiod;nsoik!!!!!!!!!!!"
So Jung being a darling and lighting the candles again. I love her.
Birthday Joy.
Make a wish!
Awwwwww.
Seriously, I have the best coworkers. The cake was hella good. How good was it? HELLA. It was strawberries and some kind of yogurt frosting from Paris Croissant. I will totally get it again.
After dinner we went out for coffee, and one of the more fun things of the evening was that Tina is really impressive with her Korean skills. She was translating for me for a lot of the night, and could hold up conversations with them for much longer than I could. My coworkers were really impressed, especially with her pronunciation. You go, Tina! My Korean coworkers lamented that they've been studying English for 20+ years or whatever and Tina is so good in less than 2, which I will not comment on as it leads into my feelings on the education system, but it was humorous. Seriously, the looks on their faces when she would say something in Korean or respond to something in the conversation were priceless. I suppose since they're used to me being with them and I don't speak very much Korean, and the previous native teacher was a vile human and I hate him for making So Jung have a hard time while she had to teach with him hem hem where was I??? Oh yes. Tina's level of Korean is impressive to these Koreans who haven't really worked with foreigners too much. I mean, it's impressive all around, but to be complimented by people you don't know (unlike being complimented by Young Ah, who is really good friends with Tina so it can be like oh you're just saying that) is pretty great.
After all of the usual "twin" comments were spent and the revelry was had, Tina and I headed home to watch trashy tv and ended up doing laundry because I spilled wine all over my bed.
I shower at night and put my hair up so it dries really curly. Tina is copying my epic levels of "hair on top of head"ness while we watch Hell's Kitchen and The Challenge.
Saturday brought another day of toxic dust, but nothing could ruin my mood or my excitement.
I met So Jung's family!
They had invited me over like as soon as I met So Jung, but we all decided it would be nice to wait until I was a little more settled before I went over. They don't speak much English and I still don't speak too much Korean, but it was nice.
So I got to meet So Jung's parents and her younger brother! Woo!
It was a bit imperative that I go this weekend if I wanted to meet all of her family, because So Jung's younger brother is enlisting for his mandatory military service on like Thursday.
They were all so cute! Her mom made me ddeobokki, the spicy rice cake dish that I like (at So Jung's insistence), bulgogi. chapjae, salad, broccoli, and (of course) kimchi. It was delicious! They were surprised that I like ddeokbokki (when i tell my students they flip out and say ISN'T IT TOO SPICY??? FOREIGNERS DON'T LIKE SPICY FOOD THOUGH), and her parents were afraid that I was uncomfortable since they don't speak much English. Literally every day of my week I am surrounded by people not speaking English, so it was totally fine, but still.
Look at the cute family. So Jung says her dad looks like a turtle.
Her younger brother is adorable. And he's really cute. Alas, too bad about the military timing. Also he's only 22, and I am not ready to be a noona at 24 (although it is freaking adorable to hear a grown-ish man whine to his noona when she's teasing him about something. Remember, noona is what boys call their older sisters, which I love. I love the Korean familial names, though I think it's a bit odd when it transitions to dating). He wanted to ask me a lot of things, but he hadn't really had much experience talking to foreigners. Shocking.
I feel like a part of the family!
For a while he brought out a TEPS (a test of English proficiency) and was asking me questions about it. He would ask in terms of grammar though, and sometimes it was hard for me to explain what was the right answer since I don't know all the grammar terms, I just know what's right. I gave some examples of the reverse in Korean, and he was like OH WOW KOREAN IS HARD ENGLISH IS BETTER, which So Jung has also said to me when I show her my Korean homework.
Finally, we decided that I was done being and English teacher on my day off, and I headed out, but not before saying my farewells to her lovely family and being thanked for being good to So Jung. Her mom really appreciates that I'm not that terrible jerk that makes my blood boil, and I assured her that I'm really the lucky one who gets to work with a great teacher like So Jung. Seriously, I'm so lucky to have her in my life.
Before I left, So Jung gave me a present because the universe decided to show me once again how lucky I am to have landed here:
Yes that is Super Junior's album "Sorry, Sorry."
Super Junior's "Sorry, Sorry" album was really the one that catapulted them to superstardom, and So Jung gave me her copy. She used to really like Donghae, who is my current bias (sorry, sorry, Kyuhyun!), further proving that she and I are soulmates and I love her so much.
Although, to be fair, who can resist that face??
It took me like an hour to get home and I was exhausted from the language barrier, the dust, and the excitement of the evening.
Then I got to settle down for the previously described Sunday. I continue to be astounded and blessed by whatever forces in the universe allowed me to work at my school and to meet such wonderful people. The world really is a magical place.
I'm having an off week so far, but here's to things looking up! I hope I can focus on all of these things that are making me happy and fight off the negativity and anxiety that often threatens my happiness. Send some good vibes my way!
Here's one last picture from our birthday walk! Please note how we are not wearing winter coats and it's glorious.
It has been a busy couple of weeks with the stress of a new school year, and nothing as exciting as my trip to Japan happened so I'm a bit slow on my blog. Also last week I had dinner with a friend on Sunday night, which is my prime blogging time, and then was busy a lot so here I am now blogging to catch up on the last two weeks.
For fun just so everyone knows the struggle of my life:
Some mornings I wake up and my hair does this.
I shower at night and put my hair up and finish drying it in the morning since it takes too long to dry and I don't want to get up any earlier to let it dry, but there are a lot of variables that go into how it looks. How much product I use. How long after I showered did I put the product in. How long before I put my hair up. What's the air temp in my apartment. Did I toss and turn a lot or sleep straight. What part of the moon cycle is it. You know, that sort of thing.
So some mornings I have to struggle and tame it to look like this:
BAM. And some of my 6th grade girls told me I was beautiful.
Sometimes mornings are hard.
If you want to listen to one of my new favorite songs while you read, here is the wonderfully relaxing song from the drama I just finished, Kill Me, Heal Me:
I really liked Kill Me, Heal Me as a drama, but I found it a bit flashy and overhyped. Ji Sung, who is singing this song, is actually amazing and it's worth watching for his acting. This song breaks my heart though. In the show, Ji Sung has a bunch of different personalities because of a disorder, and when they start going away it's really sad. Watching him play all of the different personalities was a treat. A lot of the other plots in the drama were convoluted and like whhhaaaa???? but he was awesome. I did cry when one of my favorite personalities left. I prefer Hyde, Jekyll, Me, which deals with a similar concept, and has Hyun Bin, but still. Both are excellent.
Anyway, school started up again last week. I'm so happy that So Jung is still in grad school so she gets to be my 5th/6th coteacher again!!! Yay! It was really nice to be able to know what we were doing and look like a unified team in front of the new 6th graders, who had both of us last year. When I told them I would be coteaching with So Jung for all three of their classes (in 5th grade I only saw them 1 of 3 times), the excited looks on some of their faces were priceless. So cute!
I have a new coteacher for 3rd/4th grade, and she's great too! Her English name is Grace, and she's a little bit older than the other coteachers I've had thus far. She also got some certification in teaching English in English, which is great. She's really nice and was more nervous than I was about starting at the new school and meeting the students. She worked at a much bigger school before, so it's stressful for her now because she has to teach a bunch more subjects besides English to get all of her hours. Like she teaches social studies and some other class which includes woodworking (???) along with English, so when we coteach (for 3rd/4th grade I see them 1 of 2 times), I am entirely in charge of the lesson from beginning to end. It's a little daunting since all my other coteachers work on the lessons together or we split the lesson 50/50, but I make a lesson plan for her and we do message about it back and forth to make sure we're both sure about it.
I'm still teaching third grade, a thought which at first made me really excited but is now exhausting. This is the first time they have subject teachers, so they're a bit wild and unmanageable. Also, some of them have some English background if they went to hagwons, but many of them are fresh into English. It's really hard for me to simplify any more than I do, and I rely on my coteacher a lot. I just hope they calm down a bit and we can do some serious learning! I hope my coteacher knows I'm working hard and that we can work well together! We can do it!
On Friday last week, we had a staff dinner to welcome the new teachers. It was really fun! I got asked on 4 separate occasions if my hair is real. I forgot that it would come up again as I met new teachers. We went to a different restaurant than our normal one, which was nice. Both places are delicious so it was great. Grace came and sat with me since I'm the one she knows the most at the school, which is a shockingly weird position for me to be in. She also told me she was worried about fitting in, and at her old school there were so many teachers that they didn't get to know each other all that well. I feel like the system must be difficult and if you have to constantly switch schools that feeling will never go away. And I know a thing or two about feeling like I don't fit in at school, so I was happy to be a crutch. Since she has kids, she didn't stay long.
The rest of us were out until about 10 something, and we only stopped because one of the teachers fell asleep at the bar.
I got to sit with the young teachers, as always, and we had a blast. The highlight was discovering that Moon Jung, one of the 4th grade teachers, had also gone to the same Maid Cafe as I had in Tokyo. The exact same one. We shared our pictures and experiences and now we decided that I am Moon Jung's American soulmate. I also got to impress with my Korean comprehension and my ability to speak a sentence. All those classes are paying off. Also I may have inadvertently gotten all of the young teachers to try to set me up on blind dates with their friends. woo! When I finally got home, I got to have a long chat with So Jung on KakaoTalk as she made her way home (like an hour away) and she said she was lucky to have me as a coteacher. I cannot express how mutual the feeling is. I have no idea what I did to deserve my luck with my coworkers and situation, but thanks, Universe. Thank you so much.
One of the music teachers had her bday on March 13th, so we're going out to celebrate hers and mine next weekend. How lucky am I that my Korean coworkers want to have anything to do with me outside of school? I also get to show off Tina to them, which will be awesome and I am SO looking forward to it.
Speaking of birthdays, Saturday night was spent in Itaewon to celebrate some friends birthdays. We totally took over the bar and some Koreans were even taking pictures of us because of how large and ahem loud our group can be. I don't usually go to Itaewon because I live so close to Hongdae and it's a bit inconvenient to get to for me, but it was so much fun! I'd love to spend more time there and see more of the lifestyle in a different part of Seoul.
Monday night led me out to Hongdae again so that I could try some adventurous eating. This time on the menu? Chicken feet. Tina's coteacher Young Ah and her former coteacher Hae In and us twins went to get them. Tina's been cajoled to try them by Young Ah since like she got here, so it finally happened.
At first it looks normal enough.
I must admit, it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, We did get the boneless kind, so while they still had the 3 talons and foot shape-ish, it wasn't like an actual foot we had to tear apart. It was a bit spicy. but pretty good. The texture was weird. Chewy but that weird crunchy bit from all the joints. Overall, I don't get why you wouldn't just eat normal chicken.
But then you're like "Oh that is a foot."
It really was fun to try though. I will probably not go seek them out again on my own, but it was an experience.
Look at us smiling like we're not about to eat feet.
After our eventful dinner, Young Ah took us to a fortune teller because YOLO. She sat with me and translated while Hae In translated to Tina. Here's what we remember if you're interested:
Judging by my birthday and time, and the lines on my hands, I'm supposed to be pretty lucky. Fame and money sorts of things. I work hard and am smart, and I should go/stay abroad, I have high self confidence, I'm supposed to meet someone next year. People who stay around me are supposed to be lucky too. I apparently have a good energy. Hae In remembers it being similar to what was told to tina before, so it's a good sign.
Friendly reminder that I look like this in the morning. So basically, LINE UP FELLAS AMIRITE???
I love fortune things. I don't care how silly some people think they are, I believe in this kind of stuff and I think it's fun. It was really fun to hear and to have Young Ah get so excited to tell me things. I hope I can keep putting good energy into the universe so I can get good vibes back!!
The rest of the week was a blur of planning for lessons and teaching, plus finishing Kill Me, Heal Me, and having some intense episodes of Hyde, Jekyll, Me. And The Challenge, the shitty MTV reality show I refuse to stop watching.
Along came Saturday, 3/14. Pi Day! Here it's white day too, which occurs a month after Valentine's day. On V-day, girls give chocolate to the guys. On White Day, guys get the girls candy or whatever, so yeah. I got hella gifts.
Just kidding. Those "Choco Bean" things taste like straight up aspartame too.
I got a sucker from one of my 6th grade girls, 2 suckers from a couple of visiting 6th grade girls, and the bottle of Choco beans from the Japanese guy in my Korean class. Don't worry, he gave them to my teacher too, and to Tina since everyone knows about us and the third person in my class didn't show up, so he had an extra. Great haul.
Anyway, Saturday night we decided to celebrate mine and Tina's fourth 21st birthday since we don't ever get to do that together.
First we started off at easily our favorite restaurant in Seoul, as evidenced by the frequency with which we attend it: Gusto Taco. Tina and I met up with Sarah, Janell, and Lauren to begin the shenanigans.
Seriously, it's hella good. How good is it? HELLA.
Happy Hour Margaritas are half price, so though there were only 5 of us we decided the only responsible thing to do was to get an even number.
The margaritas are a bit strong so I took no pictures of the food, which is probably a crime to my generation.
After a delicious dinner we made our way to Mike's Cabin in Hongdae, a bar that I knew about from a reunion party and that I thought would be big enough to hold all of our friends from both our intakes.
It was so much fun! We all got to meet new people and reconnect with old friends. We learned that asking someone for a rubber in Australia means you're asking for an eraser. We found out that some of Tina's friends live in the same building in Gangnam as some of my friends. We had ice cream cake. We went to a noraebang and beasted out a stunning rendition of Part of Your World among other songs. We danced and ate and drank and chatted and had so much fun! It was definitely up there with birthday celebrations.
Here's to hoping 24 is as good to me as 23 was! And here's to more pictures!
Lace Twins!
NoraeBANGIN'
The cutest ice cream cake
We lookin' so fly and are 'bouts to eat some CAKE
NOM NOM NOM
And this is easily my favorite picture of the evening. Tina is good at catching these moments.
All in all, it was an incredible weekend and birthday celebration, and it's not even my birthday yet! I'm so glad that my life journey has brought me here so that I can experience such joys like I have in the past couple of months. I'm so glad I finally got to spend my birthday with Tina again, and it just feels so awesome to have her with me on this amazing adventure.
Man am I getting all mushy. Like that ice cream cake after we went to town on it. Yum.
In Kpop news, I'm obsessed with this song and performance:
God bless the people who record some of these things. I hope you did not interrupt anyone else's viewing experience while doing so.
It's called "Out of Control" by Xia, and let me tell you his arms and hips are out of control. His real name is Kim Junsu, and I liked him because I heard him first doing Dracula. He's formerly of the group TVXQ, but is now in the group JYJ. He and 2 other members of the 5 member TVXQ sued SM Entertainment based on how ludicrously unfair their contracts and treatment were, and the legal battle went on for like 3 years. TVXQ is still a duo, and JYJ performs too, but SM has basically made it so that JYJ and its members can't perform on any of the major networks or the network can get sued or something like that, which is really part of the music culture here. It's all really convoluted to me, but also supremely interesting. JYJ and its members are still insanely popular without it, and XIa/Junsu's album "Flower" is doing really well.
And of course, my love Donghae and subunit partner Eunhyuk released an album and I fucking love it. Here's "Growing Pains."
Man, what a good weekend. I'm so stoked to celebrate my birthday tomorrow too. Here's to many more great weekends and birthdays!
Hello all! It's been a long time and so much has happened since my last update. I apologize. I got caught up in some vacation laziness and Korean dramas. I did catch up on several TV shows, so there's that. Now, the many events of the last few weeks. I know I won't be able to cover it all since I waited so long to blog, but here's a long overview of the last few weeks.
Before my epic adventures in Japan, I had to finish out the school year. Our semesters are different here than in the USA, so school ends in February and the new year starts in March.
Friday the 13th was graduation, and I had to say goodbye to the most wonderful group of 6th graders I could have ever asked to work with for my first semester here. Before the ceremony, the class that is right next to my classroom was all in my classroom so they could surprise Seul, their teacher. While they were using my room, they left me and So Jung a bunch of notes and a poster wishing us well.
I'm not crying, you're crying...
I honestly wasn't expecting much since I was only here for a semester, but man do I love these kids.
I cannot express how much I love those students. I watched them all graduate and it was fun and beautiful and difficult. I get attached really easily, and these kids were awesome and fun to work with. I hope my other students continue to be awesome.
After graduation it was quite a flurry of people leaving and fun. For our best 6th grade class on our last day we made "nutella crepes"
the boys got a little crazy.
The girls were artists. They had a lot of fun.
Anyway, we had a lot of nutella, bananas, and tortillas left over, so So Jung and Su Hyeon and I were making them for the subject teachers. It was fun! Then So Jung had to leave to go on a retreat with the 6th grade teachers, so I had lunch with the 5th grade teachers and got to present my ingenious food craft to them. Honestly they kept telling me how great it was and how wonderful of a cook I was, and I was like uhhhh it's nutella on a tortilla with some bananas and marshmallows. I mean, it was pretty delicious.
After lunch, I left early to prepare for the trip. I had already pretty much packed, but I had a lot of little things to take care of.
I got some ddeokbokki from the stand near my apartment to bring over to Tina's. The buses are stupid and it took like almost an hour and a half to get there, but it was okay. Little did I know that our travels would not always be smooth.
Sarah, Tina and I slept at Tina's apartment since she's really close to the airport railroad. "Slept" is a loose term because 3 girls getting ready to go to Japan for the first time eating a Tiramisu cake before an early flight means that we did not sleep much. We thought it would be fine, which it was, but oh man did we need our strength.
Our flight was at 8:40, and we got to the airport a bit before 7. The only way we could have gotten there earlier was by taxi or by the very early bus that we weren't familiar with, so we made the best decision for us.
Unfortunately, that was the day the Incheon, voted "Nicest airport in the world," decided to not be nice to us. It was SOOOOOOO crowded. We were checked in about an hour before our flight, but the lines to get through security were insane.
Long story short, it was a nightmare. We had to take a little tram to our terminal and then our gate was at the end of said terminal. With a lot of sprinting and rushing through all of the immigration checkpoints, basically shoving Koreans out of the way because of their annoying propensity to spread out over everything and be in the way, yelling "excuse me" and more sprinting as the flight attendant unhelpfully says "hurry your flight leaves soon," we made it to our gate. Late, but there, nonetheless.
The rest of the flight was pretty good. We couldn't eat breakfast as we had planned since our airport adventure was such a close call, so no motion sickness medicine for Tina and rumbly tummies for all of us. The descent into Tokyo was nauseating, but we managed without incident.
WE WERE FINALLY IN TOKYO!!!
Almost.
Everyone had warned us that the Japanese level of English is not good and that we would have trouble. Strictly speaking, this is not true. We found the people to be helpful and wonderful, and able to communicate really well. The signs, however, not so much. Very confusing. They would point in one direction then disappear when you needed to continue. After some struggles finding out train, we made it! After having lunch, of course, we were on out way.
The train seats were so bouncy and comfortable. It felt like a couch, not a subway bench. This proved to be true of all of the subways. SO comfortable and more spacious than Seoul. And when people piled in or shoved into you, which rarely happened, they actually apologized, something we aren't used to in Korea.
Seriously, Japan is like the Canada of Asia. They apologize for everything, they're super nice, and really polite. It was awesome. And even though we got a lot of attention for being foreigners, it felt different than in Korea. Japan is a different kind of foreigner friendly (in that they are really friendly) but surprisingly anti-foreigner too. While we were on the train from the airport, a man about to go down the stairs looked into the train, saw us, stopped for a few seconds to stare at each of us individually, then went on his way. The word for foreigner in Japanese is "Gaijin," and I think we heard it exactly 0 times while we were in Japan. In Korea, the word for foreigner, "waygookin" is such a joke because we hear it so much. I was in the elevator of my building and a mother and son were talking about me in these terms. Or we hear it in places where there are lots of foreigners and it shouldn't be a surprise to see us. In Japan, it felt less obvious that we were foreigners. People stared at us or said things about us, sure, but no one was as blatant as Korea. I suppose some of it might have to do with us living in Korea and desiring to be accepted as residents while we were only visiting Japan that it grates on us to be called out in Korea, but it also feels a lot more welcoming to not have the word thrown at you all over the place. We get it, we're foreigners. Ya think? We couldn't tell.
Our Hostel was amazing. it was in Asakusa, which had a lot of good connection points to the areas in the city we wanted to see. We wandered around our area a bit once we finally got to our destination in Tokyo. We got some food on the temple grounds of Sensō-ji, and made our way over to the Skytree.
The Tokyo Skytree, where you can be in the tallest tower in the world and see so far!
Unfortunately, the skytree had delays of up to 3 hours due to high winds, and we were too winded ourselves to wait that long. We made our way through the temple and shopping area near our hostel and then settled on Denny's for dinner. By settled I mean we excitedly and animatedly chose to eat there despite it having no similarities to American Denny's beyond the name. We split a stack of pancakes for dessert that we ate in an impressive 2 minutes.
DENNY'S OMG NOM NOM NOM
After our exhausting journey, we decided to chill at the hostel and plan the rest of our days. Our hostel had a bar and gave us a free tasting of sake and plum wine, both of which are excellent. We settled in with some strange snacks too, like vending machine french fries, pizza chips that legitimately had cheese on them, and other delicacies. Japan's snack game is really strong.
I do declare, the snacks here are stupendous. Indubitably.
The next day we got off to an early start by fueling our bodies with traditional Japanese Meiji era Mcdonalds. We make a point to try the fast food places in any country we go to because they are so different. Korean options are limited, but Japan gave us a taste of joy we had thought only existed in the USA:
THE MCGRIDDLE THE HOLY GRAIL OF BREAKFAST SANDWICHES
I know. You're like "You went all the way to Japan for a McGriddle?" It's only been 6 months since I've been in the USA and have had one, but for Tina and Sarah, it's been three times that long. And some things from home just hit you. So we had them like 3 times that week and I am not the least bit ashamed.
Anyway, after our fuel we made our way out to see the Imperial Gardens.
Lovely Tokyo Station. And that girl who looks like me.
This introduces us to two of our major travel problems of Japan.
First, the subway. Here, Seoul is superior to Japan. In Tokyo, the different lines are owned by different companies, so it's hard to get around. It's confusing. At one stop you can have several different lines, but they are all at different stations. So if you have to go from the silver line to the red line, you might have to wander for like a mile outside to find the other line. Also, the rates change based on distance, which is not unusual, but these ones jump up a lot. The cheapest was about $1.50 for like one stop, but it was sometimes like $3 to go not super far. In Seoul you can get across town and back for about that much. We were able to avoid this problem in Osaka with a day pass and in Kyoto by using a day pass with the bus, but man did we miss this part of the subway from Korea. Though the overall etiquette and space and comfort was much better in Japan, the confusion and cost was a big factor.
The second confusing travel problem: maps. In Japan, they orient all of the maps from which direction you're facing. Doesn't sound that confusing? Well when you are in the subways station and you figure out which exit won't leave you miles from your destination, and you look at your map, you think you know where to go. But then with some twisting stairs, when you get to the next map conveniently located by the exit, the orientation is all different because you turned corners. You were supposed to go up and left, but now it looks right? Oh. Let's look for street signs. Nope. Even the gridded system of Tokyo (Seoul has no grid system because of the different times it was built and the fact that there are actual mountains in the city, so no one has a concept of a "block" for directions so we though Tokyo would be easier) became confusing without a lot of good indicators as to where you were or where you had to go. And when you're used to always orienting yourself based on North, suddenly having to switch to orient everything in the direction you were facing was quite confusing. We managed, but it took us longer to find places than we were anticipating sometimes.
Anyway, we made it to the Imperial Gardens, which were stunning. Seoul doesn't have great air quality or much greenery, and Tokyo seemed like a breath of fresh air for our yellow-dusted lungs.
"I know my bamboo. Well, I know when I'm looking at bamboo."
Nature and City. Beautiful.
Tina marveling at Japan's so strong snack game. This Ice cream sandwich was a cone, chocolate, then vanilla ice cream.
"The Orchard." I'm sure this was quite impressive back in the day.
Caves and cameras.
When I have a palace, it shall also have a serene river garden.
After trekking around the gardens and seeing signs of life and spring, we marveled at how beautiful this must be in the warmer seasons. And how impressive and wonderful it would have been before skyscrapers. And how lovely Tokyo is.
We made our way back to Tokyo Station for something that we have been eating for years but we had never truly tasted: Ramen!
We went to Ramen Street, which is where a bunch of famous ramen stands have shops in the station. We stopped at one where you had to pay in a machine outside then give the guys your tickets, then wait for your food. Almost no interaction with waiters, which is fun for us to not have to pantomime for an hour!
Oh my god you have no idea how good it was. I wish I could eat it every day. This kind. I am aware that I could quite cheaply eat ramen every day.
Tina is full of ramen joy.
After filling our bellies with ramen, we headed to the Tokyo National Museum for some history and browsing. Unfortunately I am lacking in pictures from this part of the trip, but here are some shamelessly stolen from Tina:
Looks like it would go nice with the Iron Throne. Unfortunately we didn't find out what it was for.
Dat bow doooooeeee
Kimono!!
We mostly looked at the beautiful kimonos and the cool weapons and armor that the museum had. Seriously, it astounds me to think about how these things are made and worn and preserved.
Afterwords we continued our culinary tour of Japan by getting sushi with one of Sarah's Ithaca friends who grew up in Tokyo and also happened to be there the same time we were!
I avoided all seaweed kinds, but there are so many delicious other kinds!
If you had told 14 year old me that I would be eating sushi in Tokyo someday, I would have called you crazy. Yet, it happened!
We got some drinks and such. It was fun! Sarah's fluent friend joked "oh this must just look like squiggles to you!" Yes. Weirdly, English menus weren't too much of a thing, and it was hard since of the three of us traveling, not one of us had a basic handle on the language. It was difficult, but an interesting experience.
After dinner and drinks we made our way back to our hostel to prepare for our final day in Tokyo.
Day Three proved to be long but fruitful.
We got up early and hit up Mcdonalds again. This showed us another issue of Japan: They're still really cash based. Mcdonalds didn't take credit cards. This proved to be quite a difficulty, but also an interesting way to make us budget, throughout the trip.
We made our way to the Skytree really early and waited for like 15 minutes to get our tickets rather than 3 hours. It was awesome! We had a great view of the city and everything!
We couldn't make it out to Mt. Fuji, but we got to see it!
I hate elevators to taking one up to the top of the second tallest building in the world was not fun, but it was worth it for the view!
They had a glass floor panel which was dizzyingly cool.
Twins on top of the world!
After the tower, we decided to see some other famous Tokyo haunts. We made our way to Shibuya to see some dramatic street fashion, and some cool landmarks!
Here's that famous dog Hachiko, who came to the station to wait for his owner even after he died.
The statue was hard to find because it was rather small and again with the maps being confusing, but still. It was cool! In Shibuya there's also the giant crosswalk where like 3000 people cross every time the light changes, made famous in America in the movie Lost in Translation.
Walking. As people do.
We made our way to Akihabara, known as Akiba, which made the 14 year old anime/manga lover in me super stoked. It's the otaku capital of Tokyo, so anything anime/manga related is here. We even found some Final Fantasy stuff, but we haven't played in so long that we are unfamiliar with the new developments, and the old ones we loved aren't super popular anymore. Alas.
Look how fun it is!
It was here that we stopped by the @home cafe, which is a Maid Cafe. This is a thing I had seen in mangas and heard about but wasn't sure it actually existed. It totally does. The girls are dressed up adorably as maids and they act super cute and welcoming the whole time, even referring to us as "my princess." I suffered a lot of embarrassment at the cafe because it was awkward, but oh man was it fun! The maids were so cute and nice to us and all of them spoke English really well! It was so adorable, and a lot of them were curious about us as foreigners there. Plus this dude sitting next to us looked like he was straight out of an anime.
They had a lot of rules to protect the girls and the cafe. No touching them. No taking pictures of anything except the food and drinks, and you could get a set where you got a snapshot of the maid. Also there was someone watching the whole time to make sure things ran appropriately. The customers seemed respectful and kind (not shocking in Japan, honestly) so it was pretty cool. This was one of the most bizzare but fun things we did in Japan!
My picture with our maid. So embarrassing but so cute.
They called us up on a stage where a bunch of the guy customers were sitting to get the pictures, but they all participated too so it wasn't too weird. We got to pick our ears and our pose, and it was sweet. I felt bad because our names are long and difficult, but they did a good job when they had to talk to us in English. Note that my name is spelled wrong in the picture: this is totally cool. In Japanese they don't really have double consonant sounds, so having the "sca" at the end of my name is problematic. Even in Korean, my name is Peu (no f sound) rahn chae seu kka if you pronounce it out. So in Japanese it's along the same lines where they use a vowel as a spacer. I thought it was adorable.
Our maids were super sweet and patient with us. They do little artwork on the drinks and the food.
Ours drew Totoro on out omurice.
LOOK AT HOW CUTE IT IS.
It was all delicious too. Normally I expect the food to be shit but it wasn't. It was an expensive experience but it was pretty awesome? Would I do it again...? Yes. Absolutely.
After we had that experience, we went back to our hostel, but first we revisited Sensō-ji at night. It was so pretty!
So bright and beautiful.
Things here look so pretty lit up at night.
Exploring.
You could also try to get a fortune from the temple. You shook a jar, got a stick, and had to match the symbol. I got a bad fortune :(
So you ask the gods for better luck and tie your bad fortune away. While looking like a vampire in my case.
Twice. Two bad fortunes. I tied them up and prayed reeeeeeeeeally hard, then got one that said "Good fortune in the future" but sounded not great. Oh well! It was fun.
Temples and Skytrees.
We gathered our things and headed for the bus station to continue our journey.
If you rearrange the letters of the capitol, Tokyo, you get the former capitol, Kyoto. That was where our journey took us next.
We took an overnight bus, which may or may not have been a good decision.
The bus pickup was in a parking lot and there was not very much helpful direction, but we made it onto our bus and it turned out fine. Tina and I took motion sickness pills not for the intended purpose but because they make you really drowsy. Despite dropping my phone a million times, it helped and I had a mostly unconscious trip to Kyoto, where we arrived at about 7 AM.
After changing and kind of making ourselves presentable in the restroom, we got some $5 all day bus passes and headed out to see the city.
Saw this little thing everywhere,
I love the old and new combination.
Kyoto was much... shorter that Tokyo, It was really pretty and cool to see! Also they drive on the left in Japan and it was confusing. Also in the Kansai area (Osaka and Kyoto) you get on the bus in the middle and off on the front, which sucks. It's not fun.
Anyway, here are more things I saw on the bus ride around:
hehehe
I wonder what they think KFC stands for here. Also creepy Colonel Sanders...
I love these!
We got off the bus and had to walk a bit to Ryōan-ji, a place with a zen garden. On our way up we found some interesting stuff:
Apparently a temple statue graveyard. Cool but creepy.
I love all the signs.
Inside the grounds but not at the garden.
What a cool forest path!
Don't drink the water.
We felt like Kyoto was a bit of a tourist trap. We had to be careful with our cash since we had no way to get more (neither our korean bank cards nor our credit cards would get us cash) and this temple grounds cost us $5 to get into. In Seoul, things are like $2. And we had researched a lot but nothing told us we would have to spend our precious cash on such things. Still, we went and it was worth it. It was so peaceful and nice.
The actual zen garden part.
I found the nature a bit more zen.
We cute.
Next we made our way up to the Golden Pavilion, which we also had to pay to see and then the path only allowed you to walk through the grounds, which ended up being pretty fun.
Our cool tickets.
I have no idea how it was made or is preserved, but it's pretty cool.
I mean, it is a stunning structure. It stands out so brilliantly against the nature around it. I always marvel at how these things are made and maintained. We didn't have the means or tie to get to the Silver Pavilion, but it would have been awesome too.
How pretty!
Our trek through the grounds was pretty fun too. There were all sorts of cool things.
Throw a coin in and get a wish!
There was one of the coin things later and I got it in one shot. I wished for an excellent trip in Japan and I totally got it.
Not surprisingly the journey ended with a temple. The candles were interesting:
This was where we encountered one of the more ludicrous things in our trip: paying for toilet paper. At this point we were annoyed at the cash crisis and then the bathrooms were a bit gross, and we were joking about having to pay for the toilet paper but in reality we were supposed to pay for it. Thankfully we are a group of runny-nosed girls, so we always had tissues and hand sanitizer on us. It pays to be prepared.
Not impressed.
Our tourist trap feelings intensified as we ventured to Gion, the geisha area, and failed to find a single restaurant that would accept our credit cards. We had cash, but for $10 a plate it would have sapped us a lot to eat. So we ended up chowing on the awesome convenience store food that Japan has, and made our last stop in Kyoto, Kiyomizu-dera. It was up a huge hill and our tired legs almost didn't make it, but I'm glad that they lasted!
Lots of stores and shopping, along with places to rent a kimono!
You could rent kimonos! We saw a ton of people in them and we thought it was weird or a special weekend, and we finally asked a group of lovely young women who claimed they spoke no English but explained really nicely that it was a fun thing to do with friends. I suppose it would be a really fun way to explore these temples!
I loved when couples did it. The shoes look uncomfortable though.
So pretty!
We trekked up the hill and got rewarded with an amazing view of the city!
We noticed that the color scheme was similar to that of the palaces.
We browsed the souvenir shops and found some that took our cards, and got some awesome trinkets and whatnot.
We got into Osaka late and decided to get dinner then plan. The next day we took a trip out to Nara, where the only thing we knew was "there are deer."
Seriously where all the deer at
The English is awesome and hilarious.
It didn't take long before we wandered into the deer park. A helpful information woman thought we were from Spain and gave us a map and told us it would take like 4 hours to see all the things in Nara. It's actually a pretty legit town with things other than deer, but the deer were a highlight.
Nara was probably my favorite place because it combined like everything I liked about Japan. Animals, nice people, calmness, awesome history and shrines, and clean fresh air with the green space. It was awesome.
Selfies with der.
Making animal friends.
Funny sign. Side eye to Korea....
On the steps of the temple!
Like churches in Italy, there are temples and shrines everywhere in Japan.
The deer were cute but hella aggressive.
They were like cats too. They would rub up on you to get you to give them food.
Making friends.
Here we are at this national treasure and all we care about is feeding some crackers to some deer.
Beware of deer nipping at your shoes, pants, coat, bags, and maps.
More selfies with deer.
A helpful sign.
The deer were so cute! And friendly. Some were really aggressive though. When feeding them, one actually snatched our map! It wasn't huge deal since Nara is pretty straightforward. but it was hilarious.
And I thought the orientation changing was hard enough....
Seriously they would eat anything. You'd think the entire tourism of the area wasn't based on feeding them.
FENCE? OKAY THAT SOUNDS GOOD.
We walked through the main shopping area up to the temple, but the temple was expensive and we were a bit templed out at that point, so we headed back through the hoards of deer back down to the train station. We got a delightful surprise:
THIS DEER THOUGHT HE WAS PEOPLE.
LOOK AT HIM WAITING AT THE CROSSWALK LIKE A HUMAN.
Not pictured: the deer actually crossing the street when the light turned green. I didn't take a picture because I was squealing and jumping around like an idiot because I was so excited.
Nara was awesome. 10/10 would tell anyone going to Japan to spare a few hours to go. It was so much fun!
Our last stop was Osaka, which also turned out to be awesome. I missed Korea while I was in Japan, but Japan was seriously awesome. I could see myself living there too, but their language is hella difficult to learn to read and write. At least Korean is easier in those respects.
When in Japan, try Chinese food!
After our stint in Nara in the morning and afternoon, we had the evening in Osaka. We decided to spend it at the Umeda Sky Building. We thought about going up during the day, but since we don't know much about Osaka or the layout we decided a sunset trip would be nice. It was so great!
Osaka at sunset.
Sometimes I wonder what I did to deserve such adventure where I get to see such beautiful things.
We got there right at sunset and went outside to the observation deck before retreating inside for coffee and snacks until it was sufficiently dark. Then we ventured up again!
The pathway was all lit up at night. Wahhh!!
I love seeing cities at night. Osaka was so pretty too. Really this trip was unreal in its beauty. I'm so happy writing about it now and I will cherish my memories forever.
I would love this view forever.
After sitting up there for quite a long time resting our tired legs, we descended back to where normal humans exist.
The cool fountain outside.
Lovely ladies!
We headed back to our hostel to prepare for our last and one of our longest days of adventuring in Japan.
Our first stop on our final day was Osaka Castle, which looks less like a castle that I'm used to and more like a giant mansion. It was really cool though! The gold and green details were great and it never ceases to amaze me to see these old important buildings in the middle of cities.
Castle selfies!
At this point there's not much more to say. We saw the castle. It was awesome.
Looks like spring a little bit!
After wandering around the castle grounds, we decided against going inside the museum as we had a more important endeavor: the Owl Cafe!!
You get an hour slot. They explain the rules and take your drink order. Pet with the back of your hand for big owls, finger for little owls. Show the owl your hand first. Don't worry if it poops on you. Only the staff can move the owls.
We seriously just got to hang out with owls for an hour. It was awesome.
LOOK AT HIS CUTE LITTLE OWL FACE.
Twins.
This owl was crazy and had a penchant for jumping on heads.
Me and the chillest owl.
Hahaha I love it.
You ever had an owl on you head?
So cool.
On the left, the spazziest owl. On the right, the chillest.
Cute!
Here I am with my parliament of owls.
Having so many owls is distressing. Or they realized my Hogwarts letter was late so they sent all the owls.
I cannot describe the experience better than this picture can.
The big guy.
Bonding.
After our awesome stint at the owl cafe, we headed to Namba and Amerikamura, some fun shopping areas in Osaka. We ate some Okonomiyaki, which is like a savory Japanese "pancake" and a famous food in Osaka. It was awesome.
Okonomiyaki
We then hung out and went shopping, and we blew the last of our cash on an arcade where we played games and won cool little things.
Not won, this Pikachu.
This famous billboard thing in Namba.
With some difficulty we also did a Purikura booth, which is where you take cutesy pictures then put a million designs and things on it in like 3 minutes. It's awesome.
Purikura!
After we blew all of our remaining cash, we headed back to our hostel area and got one last meal before heading out. What did we get? Korean food. We were homesick. The restaurant had neither a Korean nor and English menu, but we just said the names in Korean and we got the correct food so it clearly worked out fine.
Bibimbap!
Ddeokbokki in Japan is not as good as in Korea.
Basically a kimchi pancake. I can't remember the name.
After our final little errands and stops, we made our way to the airport. Our flight was again really early, so we opted to sleep in the airport. After sleeping on a bus, we figured why not sleep in an airport?
At least the airport had blankets you could borrow, and a 7/11 for all of our needs. We bought some of the weird flavored kit kats and other things. I was up for most of the night since I am a terrible sleeper anyway, but it was fine. I can check that off my bucket list so now when someone's like why don't you just sleep at the airport I can say "I would prefer not to." (Points for the literary reference!)
Tina sleeping.
We made it home tired but without incident. I hardly remember coming back. The flight attendant had to wake me up every time we had to do something like get our immigration papers. After a long journey, we made it back to Tina's apartment where we slept for the afternoon before getting on with our lives.
Japan was amazing, awesome, difficult, frustrating, incredible, tiring, and fantastic. I'm so glad I got to go, and that I had some cool people to share it with. There's so much more there I want to see, and it made me motivated to see more in Korea as well.
Remind me never to leave so much to blog at once!
Now some of my other favorite pictures throughout the trip:
We did those capsule machines and got fraternal twin Sailor Moons.
And why not end with what started it all? Our flight to Japan.
After an amazing trip and a week of recovering (not so much relaxing because of a lot of incidents) and catching up on Kill Me, Heal Me, Hyde, Jekyll, Me, Agent Carter, and Fresh Off the Boat, I'm looking forward to starting the school year with all my new students! The subject teachers are largely the same. I have a new 3/4 coteacher (Su Hyeon is a 2nd grade homeroom teacher wahhhh but I'll still see her a lot) and So Jung is my 5th/6th coteacher!! I'm excited to continue my journey with my supportive coworkers. And I can't wait to give them the presents I got!
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