In Which Lyn Proves Her Uncle (and Father) Right

Or What I Did For Summer Vacation.

Sorry! This is two weeks later than I meant it to be. For once I have a small excuse (not a fully strong one though). Last week my Saba (my mother's father) passed and it's been rather difficult to deal with all alone, away from my family. However, I am dealing as well as I can .

Sad news aside, I'll get to the fun stuff. Now, as I mentioned before I went to Japan for five days to visit a college friend, Hanako Aoki. I've never been off the main island of Japan so this was very exciting for me. Also exciting was the ferry I took. It went so fast it literally lifted out of the water a few meters. We weren't allowed outside on deck because it was going so fast. On a normal ferry the trip is 13 hours, on the Beetle with the hydrofoil it was only 3 hours. I met two new friends on the trip over, one from outside of Gwangju about an hour and the other from Daegu (near Busan). Both of whom made plans to climb Mt. Fuji. They had hiking and winter gear. Once we got into Fukuoka port and through customs I used my awesome observation skills I got from my daddy to totally miss seeing my friend standing in front of me. She was worried it was because she'd changed, I had to reassure her I'm just that observant. Anyway, a quick train and bus ride later we arrived at her hometown an hour later. Her family was amazing. My limited Japanese with Hanako's amazing translating abilities made communication fairly easy. My Japanese improved throughout the trip. Her family had planned out some amazing things for us to do. On the first day we went to an amusement park with awesome roller coasters (I only managed one of the big ones, this green one, before I got heat-sick because it was too hot outside and couldn't handle any other ones. Lame). On the second day her mom took us to make Japanese style pottery, and then we went to this neat little Soba restaurant. Soba is a Japanese noodle made from a kind of wheat. The couple who own the restaurant grown the plant, grind it by hand, and make the noodles themselves. Everything was from the plant, even the tea and dessert. It was delicious. The third day was amazing. We went to see her older brother's rugby game. Then we went to a traditional hotel and hot spring. We spent the night there. We met her aunt and uncle and they treated us to a delicious dinner (too much food for me...I did manage to try everything). The hot spring was an interesting experience for me, though not as embarrassing as I thought it would be. The room we stayed in was so cool. Very traditional, and I got to try on a Kimono (I ate dinner in it, it made me feel very special), and after mentioning I wanted to buy it, her father bought it for me. I was surprised and happy. Her family was incredible for the entire trip and really made me feel like part of the family. We stayed the night at the hot springs and then the next day her uncle took us around the Yamaguchi prefecture. He's a pretty big travel agent (I think) there so we got to see a lot of things that we may not have been able to without him. We ate more delicious food, saw some pretty awesome sights (all my pictures are up on facebook). Then we took a bullet train through the mountains back to where she lives (which I forgot the name of, again). After a delicious final dinner, and some presents, I went to bed for the last time on the futon. I really had a great time and plan on visiting her family again, they were amazing. I know I overused that word. Sorry.

Upon my return came a very hectic time. I arrived at my apartment in Bongseon Dong at 5:20 PM, my friend who was helping me move (he's amazing and has a truck) arrived at 5:45 PM and thus began my frantic move. I finally got to my new apartment in Shinchang and all the boxes and suitcases by, like 8:30 PM. I was exhausted. I rearranged a little bit and then passed out. I will cover my new teaching in my next blog entry (hopefully tomorrow, it's getting late so I don't think there'll be a double post tonight). After my first week and a half we had a three day weekend. For that weekend I went with my Korean friend Hye In, to Busan, the port city I had left from to get to Japan. I didn't have time to sight see then, so this trip was for that.

We were there for Saturday and Sunday. Most of the sight seeing happened on Saturday and we ended up wearing ourselves out. First we went to a temple that was right on the water. It was gorgeous! I forgot the name (I left my notebook that I wrote it in at school), but it was gorgeous. It was so hot we made our way straight to Haewondae Beach, the most famous beach in Korea, or so I've been told. It was ridiculous crowded, it didn't feel like Korea really at all because of all the foreigners. They had this cool system where we gave them some money and we got a bracelet that had a barcode on it that worked as money so we didn't have to carry around wallets. It was nifty. We got an inner tube and while I frolicked in the waves Hye-In rode the tube. I towed her back to where we were sitting after we drifted. Then we switched places a couple times. It was wicked fun. However, all the swimming and the waves ended up wearing us out. So after a trip to the aquarium (which was awesome, HAMMERHEAD SHARKS <3 and sad because of the small tanks) and seeing the nifty fish car they had outside, we headed to the Jimjilbang for the night. the Jjimjilbang is similar to the Hot Springs in Japan. However instead of natural water, it is normal water. That came out wrong, but I think you can understand what I mean. There's a place for people to sleep. It was an interesting experience, but not too weird. When we woke up on Sunday we were still physically exhausted. We shopped a little bit and then headed home. The whole trip was a cool experience.

All in all my summer vacation was pretty awesome. In my next entry I will cover my first month at ELC (my new school) and my trip this weekend. I hope I wake up for it. Stupid insomnia ;)

~Lyn