Jeju - Korean Style

Hello everyone,
Our Chuseok holiday is now wrapping up. We'd planned to go to Jeju-do (the 'Hawaii of Korea' simply because it's an island) but had trouble getting plane or boat or train tickets so my co-teacher found a Korean travel/tour package for us. All the itineraries and everything with the tour was in Korean (because it's a tour for Koreans) so we weren't really sure what to expect or what we would see.

We caught our plane to Jeju on Tuesday at around 4:40 pm after a flight delay due to rain and windy weather. We were kind of disappointed that the trip didn't have an earlier flight, but there was nothing we could do about it. We got on the tour bus and we were in a group of about 15 Koreans. There were families as well as old people, but we were the only 20-somethings I think. We were off to a late start because of the flight delay so we stopped at dinner first, at what my internet-assisted translation told me was called "overturned clay pot." I suspect the translation wasn't perfect. After dinner, the "evening city tour" began and we drove around Jeju city, the capital of the island and the most urban city. We saw some nice sites on the coast including "dragonhead rock" which is a rock unsurprisingly shaped like a dragon's head, although Ali had trouble seeing it. It was at this time that someone on our tour group approached us and said that he spoke some English and we could ask him questions if we needed help. This turned out being very valuable because no one else spoke a word so we wouldn't have known what time to meet people without him. Dragonhead.

Afterwards we went to our hotel. For some strange reason I still don't understand why, everyone on the tour was staying at different hotels. Our hotel was pretty nice. Korea does seem to do hotels well; often, the rooms are big and prices are usually no more than $80 a night. The night with the tour group was over, but we had read about a place called Jeju Love Land in our guide book, and it seemed like we wouldn't be going there on the tour. So we called a cab and made our way down there. It's a park filled with partially nude statues to very nude statutes, which was very surprising to see in Korea, given their conservative stance towards that kind of stuff. It was also a weird to see Korean families and their little kids posing for pictures with large penis statues. One of the more family friendly statues.

The next day we had to be outside by 8:10 am for the tour bus. Our first stop was "Psyche World" and the "Queens House," two places not mentioned in our tour book. The Queen's House was kind of a museum of jewels and other Queen-related items. Most of the jewels were clearly plastic replicas of the crown jewels and many were clearly unlike the Queen's like bejeweled Hello Kitty statues. Quite bizarre. "Psyche World" is a museum said to have the largest collection of butterflies in the world. It had some interesting sights such as large dead beetles re-enacting various events throughout history. Both places were okay, but weren't things we would have chosen if we'd planned the trip ourselves. Just like the one the Queen rode in... right?

Fooling people into thinking there's a swing there.

Our next stop was "Jeju Circus World." I hadn't been to the circus in ages and it was actually pretty impressive. There were many acrobatic performances that defied physics as well as an unbelievable site of 5 motorcycles are riding around the inside of a sphere somehow not crashing into each other. Ali ended up falling asleep for part of it so clearly she wasn't as awestruck as me but it was pretty cool.

After a buffet Korean lunch, we went to what I translated earlier as "Mushroom Farm Experience". Now this has to be one of the most bizarre experiences on the trip. We drove up to a greenhouse and a person showed us around the tour house speaking Korean. Then we went into a room where and sat down for like 15 minutes while this guy talked about mushrooms, I think. He was holding one while he talked and this was a mushroom farm so that's what led me to that conclusion. And then we went to another room and sat in this room with all these boxes of mushroom powder. It was like a seminar or an infomercial that you would watch on TV with someone excitingly telling you the virtues of their product. After the speech, they went around with clipboards trying to get you to buy some. Luckily, that's one of the benefits of being a foreigner: salesperson immunity. No one ever bothers us trying to sell stuff like they do to other Koreans. Strangely, no one else seemed to find the situation odd. I wonder if this is normal in Korean tour vacations and sitting through seminars is as regular as going to the beach.

Afterwards, we went to the other side of the island to the 2nd biggest city called Seogwipo, and got on a ferry that showed around the part of the coast. It was a actually really good. I always enjoy ferries and seeing the more natural side of Jeju was nice. Once we docked, we walked over across a bridge to a small island called Saeseom and went on a nice walk around the perimeter of the island. One of the sights on the cruise.

These statues called "harabang" (I think) are located all over the island.They are very symbollic of Jeju.

Then our bus stopped along a park where we followed this long walking path along the coastline. Jeju was created by an underwater volcanic eruption so the coastlines and beaches are filled with black hardened lava and protuding rocks, which gives it a unique flavor. This one giant rock in particular came with an interesting story. When the Mongols invaded centuries ago, the story goes that the Koreans dressed this large rock up to look like a war general. The Mongols thought it was a Korean general the size of a giant and decided to all kill themselves.

Yep... if that rock was wearing a shirt and had a face drawn on, I would definitely lose my will to live.

The tour was over for the day but the group decided to go out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant. The dinner wasn't included in the price we paid so we declined because it was only 5pm and neither of us were hungry. The English speaking tourist told us the bus driver would take us to our hotel. The bus driver came out, spoke Korean, and then went back in the restaurant. After 5 minutes he came out with another guy and told us that he would take us to our hotel. Thinking it was a taxi at first, we were surprised to see it was just some guy with a car. He drove us back and we still have no idea what happened. We can just imagine our driver yelling inside the restaurant, "Does anyone want to drive these 2 waygooks to their hotel?" It was certainily bizarre to say the least. We just relaxed that night in our room. Other things we wanted to do on the island including a teddy bear museum and these lava tubes but both were closed by 6 so we didn't have time for them after the tour.

The next day, which was our third and last, we first went to a souvenir and crafts store. We wanted to get something souvenir-esque, but didn't want to spend too much money, so I settled for Jeju cactus chocolates, a curious name given the lack of cacti around here. Our next stop was elephant land, another circus-like show with elephants as the main performers. It was a good show as the elephants were cute and performed a number of tricks such as bowling, playing basketball, and taking bananas from the audience. Later, we stopped at a ranch where we could ride a pony. We didn't do it because they didn't let you 'ride' so much as let a guy walking pull the horse in a slow circle.

The elephants taking eating bananas, peels and all.

Then we went to a folk village where there was some nice relics of Korean folk homes but we had to sit in another seminar-type thing, albeit, a much shorter one. After lunch, we went to ilchulbong, which is in our tour book as one of the best things to see in the entire country and it was a beautiful sight. Ilchulbong, is an odd-looking mountain with a large crater on top, located on the eastern most tip on Jeju. It is supposed to be a fantastic place to watch the sunrise. However, we couldn't climb to the top because our tour bus was only there for 20 min.
The peak we should've climbed.

Afterwards, we got on a ferry to go to Udo island, a much smaller island in the north east end, also called "Cow Island" due to it's shape from an arieal view. This provided some nice scenic views as the whole island is very rural with mostly farms and low stone walls dividing the land. We stopped at a peak and had time to climb to the top for a good view. Still on the island, we went to where the diving Grannies are located. In the 50's, there was a tax loophole where women weren't taxed on income but men were. So many wives in this village did the work of diving underwater, without breathing apparatuses, and collecting sea urchins and other fish. This became quite a big deal in a country that viewed women as inferior to men and the Government tried to ban the practice. It also didn't help that they wore loose white cotton which made the government make it illegal for men to watch them. 50 years later, now in their 70's, these women still work by diving into the water and swimming for shellfish. We just missed their actual work by minutes, and the area is now a tourist hotbed.
A view from Udo Island.

A statue of the famous diving grannies.

The rest of the day, we just had 1 or 2 stops at different small beaches where we just soaked our feet.


We were on a plane by 8 o'clock and back home in a few hours.

Overall, we liked Jeju and thought it had plenty to do for a 3 day break, but we didn't do all of those things on our tour. Some things could have been skipped and replaced but it was good overall. There were 3 things we didn't get to do in Jeju, which we would've loved to: climb Ilchulbong for sunrise, tour the world's largest underground lava tubes, and go to the Teddy bear musuem where teddy bears reenact events from that last century and "even the most skeptical come away impressed," according to the guide book. Ali went back to work on Friday and I'm not back until Monday. Ali also went to a training course on Saturday and I just hung out. It's been a nice break though, and now our next big thing is in 2 weekends when we go to the Busan film festival.

Hope you are all well,
Ali and Jesse

Hi everyone!

Happy Chuseok! Chuseok is Thanksgiving in Korea and it is where they thank their ancestors for all the blessings they've had in the year. Everyone gives gifts at Chuseok and the gifts are usually very practical things. Originally it was things like flour or eggs to help with all the Chuseok cooking but now the most common gifts are tuna, oil, and SPAM. My principal gave me a giant gift box with about 15 cans of tuna and five cans of spam. It is a very weird gift but when in Rome, I guess.

We haven't done too many exciting things this week. My school had a really rough week because we had two parent's days. The theme was 'Airport' so the kids rotated through six different rooms with their parents. I was in the Country Briefing Room so I had to show a Powerpoint about their destination country, teach them to say hello in a bunch of different countries, let them try on traditional clothes from around the world and teach them a traditional 'folk dance' which I had to make up on the spot. They seemed to have a lot of fun but it's always stressful around ECC when parents come. Then, on Friday, all the kids had a big Chuseok party where they all wore their hanboks (traditional Korean outfits) and got to cook seopyong (these gross little rice cakes with sesame seeds that everyone eats at Chuseok), make origami cushions, and play by the river. It was really hot out so the kids were all sweating to death in their hanboks but they still had fun.

Friday night my manager Reggie's parents were visiting so all the foreign and Korean teachers went out with them for bulgogi (a kind of boiled meat in a sauce) and it was lots of fun because Jesse and I were sitting with my Korean teachers and I don't get to hang out with them too much outside of work. They all have English names so they thought it was only fair to give Jesse and I Korean names. I am Gil Ha Eun and and Jesse is Ha Tae Won. All Korean names have three syllables.

After bulgogi, Jesse and I took my two new colleagues for a tour of downtown Uijeongbu. The two new teachers are from Michigan and Northern Ireland and they've had a busy first few weeks. Unfortunately, on our tour of downtown on a Friday night, all the American military was out and they were being so obnoxious and annoying. The whole downtown swarms with them and they even have their own military police that stand outside all the clubs in full military garb, to get involved whenever they get too out of hand.

After that, we met the Korean teachers for a drink and had fun talking with them outside of school, although I felt bad that they all had to speak English all night.

On Saturday, I went in to Seoul to meet another friend's parents. My friend Jenn from Busan had her mom and aunt visiting so my friend Marijke and I met them for dinner by Seoul Tower and toured around Seoul with them for awhile.

Anyway, tomorrow (Monday) I'm on holiday but Jesse is working and then, on Tuesday, we're headed to Jeju Island, which should be great. We'll let you know how that all goes.

Love,
Ali and Jesse

I'll leave you with some photos and videos of my kindi kids on their Chuseok party:



The kids walking down to the river.




This video is of my Newton class saying hello to Canada and just playing around.

Flights and Farewells

Hello everyone,
So we haven't posted a new entry for a few weeks now and that's because we haven't really done anything new and exciting over here during that time. That's soon to change as our Chuseok Jeju island trip approaches, but we thought we would check in now and let you know what we've been up to so you don't think we've just been watching paint dry this whole time.

Two weekends ago, six of our friends were all leaving for home so it was a weekend full of goodbye parties. On the Friday night the party was an Ajima-Ajashi theme. That means people were supposed to dress up like old Korean women and men in their very distinctive style of dress. Old Korean women wear lots of floral, MC Hammer style pants, giant sun visors, long gloves, and often aprons. Korean men are less distinctive but often wear arm warmers, hiking gear, and similar stuff to old men in Canada with socks pulled up to their knees, collared t-shirts, etc. Anyway, lots of people didn't really dress up because they were afraid of offending everyone. Ali and I just bought sun visors in a half-hearted costume attempt.

We all went for galbi (a huge group of us) and then went to a bar downtown which is one of the only bars that permits US military so it was, consequently, jammed with military guys. Not the most fun ever.


Here's a big group shot of us and our friends outside the galbi restaurant.

The next day we were supposed to have a goodbye party on the roof of one of our friend's apartments but, because monsoon season was delayed this year, it was pouring. Instead, people rented out a huge hotel room for the goodbye party. It was lots of fun with tons of great food but then the hotel staff started freaking out seeing all the waygooks (foreigners) coming past the front desk so we moved to our friend's apartment and had lots of fun anyway, but it was really sad saying goodbye to our friends.

Last week, Ali went to Canada for her cousin's wedding, leaving me here to fend for myself. Since Ali saw most of the people that read this blog, there's no need to go into much detail on her trip.
The day she was leaving was slightly exciting because we both saw our first typhoon. It petered out by mid-morning but it was just crazy strong winds and rain. Apparently five people died from it in Seoul. There was lots of damage to be seen and Ali's morning classes were canceled. Pretty exciting and thankfully her flights weren't delayed because of it.
While she was gone, I had to make appearances to represent the Ali-Jesse image so we wouldn't be forgotten. I went out with Ali's coworkers for a Korean dinner and had a funny encounter. Outside the restaurant, a mother and child were walking by when the mother stopped and said "English teacher?" It turned out I taught her daughter (1 of 350 kids I teach so it's hard to remember them all). I was expecting to say a quick "hi" but the mother wanted me to have a conversation with her daughter (so I guess she could see the English she's learned). The only problem was the daughter was very shy and was clinging to her mom's leg. I said "how are you?" to her and she answered while still hiding behind her mom. The mother then said to me, "She wants to ask you question." She then grabbed her daughter's arm and pushed her towards me. "You ask teacher question now." The girl in her most timid voice says, "How are you?" I said, "I'm fine. Thanks for asking. Are you going to dinner now?" That must've too much for because she was back hiding behind her mom. Then the mom yanks her arm again to push her towards me to talk. It went like this for about a minute. The parents really want to see their children use English with a foreigner. Not sure if the mother thinks I'm a bad teacher though, given how little confidence her daughter had with me.

Later in the evening, we went to a norae-bang (karaoke) because there was a couple of new people with us who hadn't been yet, so that was fun.

The next day I went to a baseball game with everyone, taking advantage of Ali's absence since our opinions on baseball differ greatly. I have fun at baseball games but this one was very hot even though it started at 5pm. The heat has been bad for awhile now and only recently has shown signs of slowing down in exchange for warm damp days.

This weekend Ali had to work on Saturday to compensate for the extra day she gets off at Chuseok. She didn't get home until 8 on Saturday so we didn't do anything. Tomorrow, Sunday, we will probably just relax around Uijeongbu because Ali is still getting over her jet-lag and it's only a one-day weekend for her.

Anyway, it's only one more week until Chuseok so we'll let you know how that goes.

Talk to you soon,

Ali and Jesse

Lotte World

Well after a few weeks of saving money and taking it easy after our Japan trip we finally have a day trip worth writing a little about. The week leading up to weekend was okay. My summer camp is winding down as it was its last full week. And Ali had an okay, uneventful work week. One milestone we did accomplish this week was order a pizza over the phone in Korean. That's right. We're one step closer to totally conquering the language barrier. Ordering a pizza was a bit of an ordeal though. We know enough Korean to know that a "Cheese Pizza" is "Chi-jeu Pi-ja." The hard part is saying our address though. Korean addresses are quite different than North American addresses as you essentially saying a neighborhood and a building number. It was a bit of a struggle but, between our limited Korean and thier limited English, we finally figured it out.

The weekend got off to a bad start for me as I was sick for the first time in months. Ali and I had been sick for the first 3 months it seemed while our bodies adjusted to the Korean colds that our kids were spitting on us, but since then, we had the good fortune of being healthy. However, on Thursday I woke up and with a sore throat - bummer.

Before the weekend, there was a plan to go to Busan (Korea's 2nd biggest city located on the coast in the southern part of the country); a lot of our friends were going there and I had never been but Ali had. However, there was another group of people not going to Busan, instead opting to go Lotte World, an amusement park in Seoul. So we skipped Busan for the weekend and decided to be kids again.

Friday night was quiet as we just stayed home. Saturday, we headed down to Lotte World to meet our friends, Mallory and Dave, there. Lotte World is actually quite popular despite our lack of knowledge about it before coming to Korea. It's one of the world's most visited places, I would imagine due to its great location around central Seoul. Lotte World isn't your average amusement park; a better description would be to call it a large entertainment complex that contains: an indoor amusement park, an outdoor amusement park, skating rink, a shopping mall, a hotel, a folk museum and many restaurants. It's also in the Guinness world records as being the largest indoor amusement park in the world.


A view of the indoor park.


The trip there only took about 70 minutes by subway. The park is connected directly to the subway so you never have to go outside, which is a big positive for many hot-weather-and-sun fearing Koreans. We were impressed with what we first saw: a large mall-like building with a roller coaster going around the perimeter and hot air balloons going around overhead. Mallory had been there before so she served as our tour guide. We went outside first to Magic Island, a man-made island with some roller coasters and other attractions. Our first view going outside is a large castle that looks like it was stolen from the Disney logo. I'm a bit surprised Disney hasn't sued yet. Anyway, we made our way to a roller coaster, followed by the "Gyro Drop," a "Drop Zone" kind of ride that Wonderland has. We did about 5 or 6 rides outside including Bumper cars, which I made everyone do. The lines weren't that bad outside. And the park is very small compared to Wonderland and Disney World but it's very compact. There's not much space between rides and they know how to utilize all the space by having roller coasters go around the island through other attractions. After a few hours outside we went back inside.



The lotte world castle that is in no way similar to the Disney castle.

Inside, all the rides had hour long waits no matter where we went. So we decided to kill some time by getting some food. Maybe half an hour later at dusk, all the waits for inside lines were substantially smaller. We tried a few of them out and had fun, although, our insistence on going on rides that dangled you upside-down wasn't the best idea after eating bulgogi burgers and hotdogs. After an hour or two, we decided to go back outside to try out some of the rides under the night lights but were disheartened to see long line ups. It turns out that most Koreans stay inside during the daytime, but once the sun sets they all go to the outside park. Koreans really don't like the sun it seems. When Ali told her Korean co-worker she was going to Lotte World this weekend, her reaction was, "But it will be hot!"

We ended up leaving around 9:30. We never did see any of the other things in Lotte World such as the mall or folk museum. Lotte World ended up being lots of fun and despite its small size compared to the amusements parks we know, there was lots to do.

On Sunday, we just took it easy. Ali and I went downtown for a short bit and she bought some new clothes. I only have 2 days left in camp and then I'll be back to regular school. Next weekend sees about 5 people leaving. Ali and I are quickly losing our rookie status and are about to become the Uijeongbu veterans just in time for the 2nd half of our stay.

Insa-dong and Inflatable Hammers

Hi everyone!

How's it going? We haven't been up to much since Japan because we've been trying to save money. Last weekend we took a day trip into Insa-dong and did a little bit of shopping. We saw one of Seoul's '100 best sites' according to some book Jesse got called Ssamzeigal. It's kind of like a mall that is a square with a winding staircase around the inside. On the top there is a big garden and coffee shops and it's pretty cool.

We went to a bookstore that sells some English books - mainly only the big bestsellers and got some books and, at night, we saw Toy Story 3.
This week we went out on Friday to one of Seoul's hip areas called Apujeong. It's the 'fashion mecca' of Seoul with it's own version of Rodeo drive in LA. We wandered around for awhile and got dinner at a nice Italian place called Mad For Garlic, which was amazing. Then we met our friends at a Thai bar called Monkey Beach. It's run by Koreans who travelled to Thailand and really liked the vibe there. They played great music and lots of our friends were there. One of the owners walked around in a Chucky mask and challenged people to Rock, Paper, Scissors (Bai, Kai, Bo). If you lost, he got to smash you on the head with an inflatable hammer. Jesse played him and won.
There was talk that this weekend we may see a typhoon but we didn't. On Saturday night, though, Jesse and I were walking home from dinner and the rain was absolutely torrential. Our umbrellas were utterly useless and rain was shooting 6 feet out of rain gutters. When we got home, the rain was so awesome that we changed into better rain clothes and went for a walk down by the river to see the flooding and raging water. It was really exciting and thunder and lightning went on all night long.
The rainy season didn't really live up to expectations this year. Normally it rains torrentially like it did on Saturday for 10 days without stop and the river floods like crazy but this year it wasn't so bad. It has, however, been insanely hot and humid. I thought I knew humidity before I got here but I didn't. Without having the air conditioner on at all times, clothes never dry on the line, even dry clothes start to grow mold, and mold grows all over your walls because everything is soaked. Everyone arrives to school absolutely drenched in sweat - it's not pretty. I've heard September has the best weather of the year so we're all looking forward to that.
We found out some good news this week. In September, there is a national holiday called Chuseok which is basically the Korean version of thanksgiving. In Korea, whatever day the holiday falls, that's the day you get off so, if it's on a weekend, you don't get the Monday or Friday off, which is a bit of a bummer. In fact, today (Sunday) is Independence day, but it doesn't make a difference. This year, Chuseok, a 3-day holiday, falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. My school is giving me the Monday off as well for a 6-day break but Jesse's school is giving him the Friday off. So, we can't make any plans to see another country since we only have 3 days off together but we are planning on going to Jeju island which many call Korea's Hawaii. From what I've seen, it's nothing compared to Hawaii but it is much more beautiful than the rest of Korea with beautiful beaches and mountains and snorkelling, so that should ber really fun.

Anyway, that's all we've been up to lately. Jesse's only got two more weeks of his summer camp and then the students are back to school. I will be back in Canada, just for the weekend at the beginning of September for my cousin's wedding, which is also very exciting.

We hope all is well on the home front. Miss you all!
Ali

JAPAN!

Hi everyone!

So we just got back from an amazing week in Japan. We tried to pack as much as possible into six short days and it was fantastic. We want to tell you about all the great stuff we did but hopefully we are able to keep it brief. Ali will write about our time in Kyoto and Jesse will talk about Tokyo.

Wednesday:
Jesse had the day off on Wednesday so he ran errands and figured out a lot of the logistics while I worked. When I finished work at 7, we grabbed our bags and headed into Seoul because we wanted to sleep near the airport because we were flying out early. We had dinner and got a motel right by the airport called SkyGrande. The owner came to the airport and picked us up and then dropped us off there again the next morning. It was pretty nice for only $40 and we got a good sleep.



Thursday:
We woke up early and got to the airport around 6:30, had breakfast, and flew out at 8:30. The flight to Japan is only an hour and twenty minutes so it was nice and easy. We landed in Kansai airport and got right on the train from there to Kyoto, about 40 minutes away. We arrived at Kyoto station, a huge glass building with amazing architechture, and had lunch there at an Italian restaurant because we were a bit overwhelmed by many of the Japanese places because you had to choose your meal first from a vending machine (all in Japanese) and it would give you a ticket which you would then exchange for food - it was all a little much for me.

It was pouring rain all day Thursday but that couldn't dampen our spirits. We checked into our hotel, the Sunroute, right near Kyoto station, and then headed out to do some sightseeing.
The first stop on our itinerary was one of the three most iconic sights in Japan: The Golden Pavillion（the others being Mt. Fuji and the Great Buddha). We took the bus and found the temple pretty easily. The Golden Pavillion (also known as Kinkaku-ji) is one of Japan's best-known sights. It was absolutely stunning, even in the rain, and was a great way to start the trip.




After the Golden Pavillion, we walked through beautiful back streets of Kyoto to visit the Funaoka Onsen. Onsens are just like Jimjilbongs in Korea in that they are public bathouses. Our Japan guidebook insisted that you must visit an onsen while in Japan and this was said to be Kyoto's best. It took some time to find it and my shoe broke on the cobblestones so I walked barefoot most of the way so it was a relief to get out of the rain and into hot tubs, saunas, cold baths, and outdoor baths. We had a very relaxing few hours and then met up again and went back to the hotel.

We read about a district of Kyoto called Ponto-cho, which apparently has some really good nightlife so we went to a bar there called A-bar and had some Japanese food and sake. Then we walked around the narrow back streets, all lit with lanterns and along the river. It was a really beautiful area of town and we had fun exploring.



Friday:

On Friday we woke up early, had breakfast in a cafe in our hotel, and headed to the train station. It was beautiful, sunny, and hot and we got our tickets to a place called Kameoka. From there we walked to a dock and bought tickets for the Hozo-Gawa river cruise to an area in Kyoto called Arashiyama.
The boat was a little wooden boat, paddled/pushed by three men. We spent an hour and a half winding our way through rapids, forest, and beautiful mountains. We saw some very cool birds and absolutely stunning scenery.





When we arrived at Arashiyama, we headed straight to Tenryu-ji temple with a lovely Zen garden. Tenryu-ji is one of the major temples of the Rinzai school of Zen.




The gardens around the temple were beautiful also but the real highlight was the bamboo grove just outside the gates. It was cool and shady among the bamboo and so eerie. It was absolutely beautiful.




After the bamboo grove, we wanted to see some other stuff in the area so we started in the direction we thought we were supposed to go but ended up getting a bit lost in these back streets through a neighbourhood of beautiful houses, which we imagined to be the 'cottage country' of Kyoto. It ended up being a really lovely detour and we eventually came out on the main streets again.

Our next stop was a Japanese monkey sanctuary. The only downside is that it was at the top of a small mountain and it was sweltering hot and blazingly sunny. By the time we got to the top, we were both drenched with sweat but it was so worth it. Japanese monkeys are the ones with the red butts and faces and they were everywhere. They were sitting on the hiking trail, in all the trees and all over the place. At the top of the mountain you could see a gorgeous view of Kyoto and could also go into this 'cage' of sorts, through which you could feed the monkeys. We bought peanuts and chesnuts and the monkeys would snatch them out of our hands with their tiny claws. It was really cute and lots of fun.






After that we took a long bus ride back to our hotel, sent some postcards, and relaxed. For dinner we went to a sushi place with a conveyor belt of sushi dishes going around the restaurant. You could make special requests or grab anything you wanted and it was only $1.30 a plate. It was really delicious and lots of fun.



Saturday:

On Saturday we got up early again and had breakfast in our hotel cafe again. Again, we went to the train station, this time headed for Nara, a city about 40 minutes from Kyoto. The first thing we saw getting off the train, and one of the most exciting things ever, was that there were deer EVERYWHERE.



You could buy little crackers to feed them and they were fine, for the most part, with being petted and photographed. It was a bit of a mob scene if you got the food out though. The deer would swarm, headbutting you, biting your clothes, and snatching crackers out of your hands. It was so much fun, I could have played with them all day.



Fortunately, while we were doing our Nara sightseeing, the deer were everywhere so I didn't have to leave them while we went exploring.
The first thing we saw was a 5-storey pagoda, the second tallest in Japan, called Kofuku-ji.



It was very cool and, from there, we followed a walking tour outlined in our Lonely Planet book that took about 4 hours total. The next stop on the tour was Isuien - a beautiful garden with ponds and landscaping that was very Zen and calm.



From there we went to Nandai-mon, the main gate of the Todai-ji temple. This gate has two giant wooden statues of Nio guardians that are some of the finest wooden statues in the world (I'm told, I have no idea in actuality but they were really cool).



From these impressive front gates, we went to the main attraction of Nara, the Todai-ji temple. It's another of Japan's three most iconic sights because it houses the Great Buddha. The building itself is the largest wooden building in the world and is really amazing.



Inside there is the massive Giant Buddha, which is so awe-inspiring that I can understand why people have such a religious experience there. The Buddha is more than 16m high and is made of 437 tonnes of bronze and 130kg of gold. The Giant Buddha has two littler Buddhas on either side and, together, there are absolutely amazing.



That was the most famous thing to see in Nara but, after that we saw Nigatsu-do Hall where we climbed up pretty high but got some beautiful views of the city.
We stopped for lunch at a little shop called Kasugano and we both had tempura and noodles in broth. It was really good but the tempura got a little soggy. Jesse ordered a drink which was described on the English menu as 'ginger drink' but the waitress said 'not ginger'. After he got it, the waitress came back with a description of what it was that she had obviously had to look up and the description was 'arrowroot starch gruel'. It was a thick gelatinous and burning hot concoction but he seemed to enjoy it.

After lunch we spent some time feeding and playing with the deer. We finished the walking tour which led us through some beautiul wooden paths, lined with ancient stone lanterns and we saw more shrines and temples. By the end of the day we were pretty hot, exhausted, and starting to get a little templed-out.

We took the train by to Kyoto and Jesse really wanted to see one more temple that was not that far from our house. I was a little crabby but grudgingly went and we had to climb a massive hill for a long time to get there. In the end, I'm really glad Jesse forced me to go because it was the second best temple we saw, next to the Golden Pavillion. It is called Kiyomizu-dera and is really high up above the city. Before we entered, we did this 'walk' which is supposed to represent entering a womb. It was totally bizarre. You had to hold a bannister and walk in the absolute pitch dark. You kept smashing into the person in front of you and the bannister twisted and turned so, if you let go, you were totally lost. After ages of curving in the dark, you saw a dim light and a round wooden stone whih you were supposed to spin and make a wish. We both forgot to do that though. It was really crazy.
After that we saw the actual temple, which was amazing. It had a huge balcony overlooking the city and we washed off our sweaty faces in the natural springs.



After that we took a long and scenic walk back to our hotel and, both being way too exhausted to head out again, just ordered pizza (which is ridiculously expensive in Japan - not worth it).

Sunday:

So Sunday marked our last day in Kyoto and first day in Tokyo. We got up at about 7:30 and ate a breakfast buffet at the hotel. The buffet was a hybrid of Western and Japanese food which was interesting. I'm not sure if I'd ever had rice at eight in the morning but I wouldn't mind doing it again. After the breakfast, Ali and I ventured into Gion, an old-fashioned neighbourhood in Kyoto with thin cobblestone alleyways and traditional Japanese houses. We had read about a place that would turn you into a Geisha with the full make-up and costume. I'd thought that would be a great photo oppportunity for Ali so I told her we should do it. They also could make men into Geishas but it was a bit on the pricey side.

We arrived at the place twenty minutes early - our Japanese map navigating skills improving by the day - and Ali went inside while I waited at the doorway. Even though this place had a write up in the lonely planet guide book - a book we saw many foreign people carrying in a variety of languages over our week in Japan - I still had the idea that this would be something not a lot of tourists do, partly due to the apparent small scope of the neighbourhood and the thoughts that most tourists seek out places and buildings to look at. But while I waited, more and more tourists (Japanese and foreign) kept arriving, including a father who was paying for his 4 daughters to be transformed.

First she got her face painted white and her eyebrows and lips painted as well. She was then fitted with a kimono, which has many layers and weighs as much as hockey equipment, she says. Then she had her wig put on, also really heavy, and that was it - she was transformed.




When Ali finally emerged I was surprised at how good it looked. There she was, a non-Japanese person looking like a Geisha. I came inside and the lady who worked there asked us what kind of photo we wanted. We just took the simplest one because we could take our own photos for the low low price of zero yen.

We had originally discussed going to a park that was mentioned in the guide book as one of the best 30 features of Japan but we decided that we didn't want to short-change Tokyo too much. So we went to the train station to get on the skinkansen - a train that reaches 300 k/h - bound for Tokyo.

Being at the train station, you can't help but notice all the different trains and tracks. It's staggering how many stations and tracks are across this country; you can get from one end of the country to the other in hours and at any time of day. Here we are going a distance of 400 km and there were trains going there every 15 minutes like it was a simple bus route. Not to mention all the choices of what kind of train you want, contingent on how much you're willing to pay and how fast you want to get there. We ended up going on the fastest train avaiable with the fewest stops since, after all, when in rome, do as the Japanese commuters do.

The train felt like a plane with the way the seating was structured. It was only 2.5 hours and was fairly comfortable.

Similar to Kyoto, the guidebook had divided Tokyo into sections so we had tried planning on seeing a few attractions in each section. We started with the Imperial Palace Gardens in the Tokyo station section. After leaving the station, it felt like we might not have been in Tokyo; our idea of Tokyo consisted of the popular images associated with the city: impossibly high skyscrapers, neon lights and hundreds of people all jammed together at every intersection, but we didn't see any of this. Instead, we saw something maybe reminiscent of Toronto. We made our way to the Imperial Gardens and were a little underwhelmed at first; it was a beautiful park with great architecture but we were coming from a city with the country's best shrines and temples while Tokyo isn't a city known for representing ancient Japan. Nevertheless, we stuck it out and wandered through the park for awhile before we eventually found a beautiful large garden with a nice waterfall that was different than some of the ones we'd seen in Kyoto.

Afterwards, we decided to check into our place we'd booked for the night, the "Kinshicho capsule hotel." Ali and I wanted to get the full Tokyo experience so what better way to capture that than by sleeping in a glorified drawer. The capsule was actually much more spacious than I had imagined. There was a tv and a clock inside and plenty of leg room. The place also featured a spa room complete with a sauna, cold bath and hot tub.



After checking in, we went to the Ueno area of Tokyo, which was supposed to have a big street market and a really nice park. For dinner, we stopped at the Tempura restaurant located in the subway station. Although there are restaurants in Japan where you can get a variety of food, themed restaurants are very common in Japan. For example, there are ramen restaurants, sushi restaurants, and tempura restaurants (plus a few more I can't think of) and you really can only get varieties of those foods there. I guess when large groups go out, they must all have the same craving? Anyway, it's actually kind of cool because you can usually count on really good food since the restaurant specializes in that one particular dish.

Once in Ueno we went shopping in the street market - does 1 shirt and a pair of socks count as shopping? - then headed over to the park, Ueno-Koen. This park "is not Tokyo's sexiest but packs the biggest cultural punch" according to the guide book since the park was filled with 5 or 6 musuems all over it. Unfortunately, it was past 5 so all the musuems were closed so all we were left with was an unsexy park. Nevertheless, the guide book highlighted this park as one of Japan's 30 best features because there's art everywhere including the sewer manholes. Since most of this art was currently behind locked museum doors all we were left with were the manholes.



I must say. They are prettier than Kyoto's manholes.

After getting our fill of manholes, we headed over to a temple in the Akasaka area. I know, we had already seen the best temples in Kyoto but this one was special since it was open 24 hours a day and seeing a lit-up temple at night qualified as something new. So went to Senso-ji temple and were pleased by what we saw. There were 2 scary looking statues that were the God of thunder and the God of wind, a long path to the temple highlighted by various souvenir stores, and finally the temple itself including a tall lit-up pagoda. The temple wasn't large in the exploring and discovering sense, but the night time visuals were certainly eye-pleasing.

We made our way back to the capsule hotel and went our separate ways. I had a great sleep in the capsule and found it very comfortable. I did expect something more futuristic though with a front load washing machine kind of door rather than a curtain, but perhaps those are more prevalent in downtown Tokyo rather than the outskirts, which was where we were situated.

Monday:

We woke up at around 7 to get our first full Tokyo day started. After grabbing a quick Starbucks breakfast we headed to Shinjuku, an area more representative of the previously mentioned images associated with Tokyo. We were on the subway during the morning rush hour and while it was jam packed with people, we didn't witness the professional subway pushers we'd heard about. Our first stop in Shinjuku was Kabukachio, the red-light district of Tokyo. It was early in the morning so the sleaze factor wasn't at it's peak. It was actually a lot tamer than you might expect.

Walking around Tokyo, we were becoming increasingly sweaty; the temperature felt as if it were in the 40's and the humidity was unbearable. Our next stop was going to be the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Offices (city hall) in Shinjuku, and knowing we could go inside for a bit made us want to get there even quicker. So we followed the highest skyscrapers and eventually came across some very impressive architecture. Both towers offer an observatory floor where you can overlook the Tokyo skyline. On a clear day you can even see Mt. Fuji, one of the world's tallest mountains, but today was not a clear day. However, the view was great and there was a cafe that we could relax in for awhile.

Our next stop was the Shibuya area, a trendy shopping district that might be called Tokyo's fifth avenue. The crossing in front of the subway station there is famous because all 5 walking lights leading to different streets turn green at the same time so the crossing just becomes filled with people. It was only 3 o'clock when we went so we didn't see thousands of people flood the road but we did see quite a bit. We walked around the back streets a bit and stopped for lunch. We decided to go to an art gallery of some sort mentioned in the book, but we couldn't find it. Like Korea, there's very few street signs in Tokyo it seems. You can easily walk the wrong way for a good 20 minutes before realizing it.



Bothered by the heat, and not sure what to do, we decided to head to Roppongi, the night life district of Tokyo, a little earlier than anticipated. Our plan was to end up there and see a Beatles cover band and sleep at a manga kissa, a Japanese cyber cafe but with makeshift beds. We decided to go to the Manga Kissa an hour before the show and we were quite impressed with what we found. First of all, the cubicles are very private and everyone is quiet so it kind of feels like a library, despite the fact that most people there are playing video games. You can take magazines to read, DVD's to watch and even browse through their collection of thousands of Magna (Japanese comics) if that's your thing. Comics are very popular here even with the girls. And the drinks! They offer free drinks from coke to flavored milks to a variety of teas and coffees to slushies to soft serve ice cream all with unlimited refills.

We had made our plans for that night in advance when looking through the guide book, we found a place called the "Cavern Club" - bonus points if you know the signifigance of that name - where "4 Japanese mopheads perform Beatles covers that sound eerily like the real thing." So we reserved a table the night before and headed out there that evening. Before we were even seated we saw the chart displaying the $20 cover charge and rules about no dancing or acting unruly. Clearly this was a bar for the more older crowd which was fine by us. After deciding which $10 dollar drink to buy - after all this was the most expensive city in the world - and which overpriced food to get, the band came on. They played songs spanning different time periods of the Beatles catalogue plus a few Paul McCartney songs and like any dedicated cover band, they played a lot of the less popular songs like "Old Brown Show" "Goodbye" "Act naturally" and "Martha, my dear." They spoke Japanese in between songs - and were very funny judging by the frequent laughter of the audience - but 3 of the 4 members sang the songs in convincing British accents. Ali and I stayed for about three hours (1 and a half of which they played) before calling it a night.



We went back to the Manga Kissa, got private cubicles and went to bed watching movies on the computers. It wasn't the most comfortable sleep but all the free tea and coffee you wanted in the morning helped quite a bit.



For our last day in Japan, we had to be at the airport by three o'clock so we figured we probably had to begin making our way there around 1:30. So we decided to make it a light day by just going to the island of Odaiba in Tokyo Bay. It was a man-made island that was supposed to have some great views of unique buildings, a smaller replica of the Statue of Liberty (huh?) and an onsen made up to look like an old fashioned Edo-era town. We decided to head to the onsen first since that sounded the most interesting. On our way down though, we saw plenty of the bizarre architecture previously mentioned.




When we got to the onsen, we were given Yakutas, a Japanese bath robe, that we could choose ourself. There was also a sign saying no tattoos and no Yakuza (Japanese mafia) members allowed, which was a bit funny but I guess you might as well be honest about your prejudices. The "edo-era town" atmosphere of this onsen was fantastic though. Everyone, men and women, walked around the area in their yakutas. There were a variety of restaurants and souvenir shops. The onsen also featured more than the sauna and hot tub rooms that usually come with the territory; there was an outside foot bath area, relaxation rooms, and an outdoor hot tub. The foot bath area was mixed gender so Ali and I went there. It was a very nice outdoor area looking like some of the beautiful Japanese gardens we had seen. The pools of water for our feet had rocks on the bottom that were supposed to stimulate our feet but we just found them to be painful for the most part. There were some gentler areas however.


We then went to Dr. Fish, which is very popular in Korea as well. Basically you put your feet in a pool filled with some sort of carp that specialize in eating the dead skin off your feet. As soon as we put our feet in the pool we squirmed and giggled because the fish just swarm your feet and tickle them with their mouths. After a few minutes we got used to it and it was very relaxing.


After a sushi lunch where the woman kept questioning whether we actually wanted 36 pieces of sushi - apparently they don't each much in Japan compared to us gluttonous North Americans - we headed to our separate bathing areas. The onsen here was much nicer than the one we stayed at in Kyoto mostly due to the bigger size of the room and a larger outdoor bathing area where you could get some sun and see the low flying airplanes leaving and arriving from the airport.

After relaxing for most of the day, our trip had finally come to an end. We made our way for the airport and took the barely 2 hour flight from Tokyo to Seoul. The 6 days went by pretty fast but we had a lot of fun in Japan. Despite the short duration of the vacation, we felt we really saw the 3 cities of Kyoto, Nara and Tokyo in depth. I wouldn't say we've seen most of Japan since there are other popular places such as the islands of Okinawa, Hiroshima, and Mount Fugi that many tourists go to but we're glad we chose the cities we went to. Japan ended up being very different from Korea in a lot of ways so it was a great vacation destination. We would definitely recommend to anyone vacationing to consider Kyoto.

Unfortunately, it's back to work now in a city that doesn't feature golden pavillions, bamboo forests, and giant Buddha statues, but I'm sure we'll manage.

Love,
Ali and Jesse