The Vice Principal caught me in the hallway the day before I left and handed me back the invitation as well as an envelope with cash as a wedding gift for Brady and Eli. She's the coolest. And I'm keeping the invitation on my fridge like a real adult. If real adults can have doll fridges.
Then it was off to home:
The view from our front yard.
I got in late but my parents had no complaints. And my sisters waited up to literally smother me. Either out of love or pent up rage, I don't even know.
It was really good to be home, even if it was super brief. My family is the bomb and it's so hard to be away from them and miss out on all their hilarity. I got to spend a good amount of time goofing off with my brother and sisters and my good friend Cho - who's basically a sister too. Got to reunite with cousins, Tony, his wife Julianne, and Lindsey, and even got to meet Tony and Julianne's new baby Blake who initiated me with loads of spit-up. It's okay though, I still like him. And chilling with the parents. It was the first time my siblings have all been together in over a year, which is just unfathomable:
And the wedding was beautiful. My new sister-in-law, Eli, has great style and is way down-to-earth so the wedding was simple and perfect:
The groom.
Leaving the reception
Tomfoolery
It was a bummer to leave so soon but I'm glad I got a chance to see the family before starting another year in Korea.
After the states, I went back to Korea to finish up the semester. We had a teacher field trip the last day and I saw my first Korean movie in theater with the other teachers. It was a film called 암살 (Amsal - "Assassination", a very useful word to add to my Korean vocabulary). And luckily I'd looked up what it was about beforehand or I would have been very very lost. As it was, I actually understood a lot more of it than I'd thought I would. The other teachers were really concerned about me being lost but I told them I liked the movie. I give it an 8/10. Good visuals, cinematography was a'ight. Storywise... things happened and people reacted to them. I really can't say. It didn't help that some of it was in Japanese. But it was good. We also went bowling and I did surprisingly well, I usually suck at bowling so I'm glad I magically gained some talent just for this. And we ate some of the best Chinese food I've ever had. I've never been to a fancy Chinese restaurant before and this place was FAN-CY! Anyway, back on topic...
Next up was Japan. My dad served an LDS mission in Tokyo South (mostly Yokohama) so it was cool to see the area he served around. I was hoping to see more of his area but I wasn't there long enough to really do any thorough exploring.
I went with my friend Brittney and we met up with our friends, Veronica and Merinda for a day in Harajuku.
I arrived Saturday afternoon
and my first experience on the train was....yeeeeesh. The Seoul subway has really spoiled me with how easy it is to navigate. The Tokyo subway on the other hand was insane. Each line is owned by a different company so you constantly have to buy new tickets with every transfer. I had to learn all this the hard way. I also discovered that some trains are "express" and make fewer stops, so it may be identical to the train you need and then shoot straight past your stop. I found this out after going 30 minutes past my stop on my way to the Air BNB where I was staying. And I was doing so well up until that point :/ Oh and the maps only sometimes have English on them.
View of Mt. Fuji
and my first experience on the train was....yeeeeesh. The Seoul subway has really spoiled me with how easy it is to navigate. The Tokyo subway on the other hand was insane. Each line is owned by a different company so you constantly have to buy new tickets with every transfer. I had to learn all this the hard way. I also discovered that some trains are "express" and make fewer stops, so it may be identical to the train you need and then shoot straight past your stop. I found this out after going 30 minutes past my stop on my way to the Air BNB where I was staying. And I was doing so well up until that point :/ Oh and the maps only sometimes have English on them.
So I made it to the Air BNB way later than I thought. A nice Japanese guy helped me figure out the train when he caught me staring vacantly at the map. That's something I discovered about Japanese people vs. Koreans. Koreans are really kind but they're also shy - especially when it comes to talking to English speakers. I often have a hard time getting help because of this. Especially with older Koreans who just wave me off even if I speak Korean to them. (This isn't always the case, I've met some very friendly Koreans just not as often). But in comparison, people in Japan were really open and would come right up to me in the subway and ask if I needed help. It was awesome. This also meant that people sometimes came up to me speaking rapid Japanese. Luckily, Brittney could speak some Japanese or I wouldn't have been able to function.
The first day in Tokyo was rough. After the train fiasco, I was eager to get to the BNB, unload my stuff and relax a bit before maybe meeting up with my friends. Instead, I arrived to find the house empty and all the rooms locked. I knocked on a few of the doors and accidentally woke up an Israeli couple staying in one of the rooms (lucky they were there though). The Kedana's turned out to be some of the nicest people and kind of adopted me for the next few days. Anytime I passed their room, they'd insist I chat for a while and update them on my trip. They were in Tokyo for a few days and then renting a van, which they'd be sleeping in and using to tour all over the country. When I asked them if it would be difficult to drive on the other side of the road they just shrugged and said "We will find out tomorrow." I want to be them when I grow up. They told me a lot of visitors had been having trouble getting into their rooms because the BNB owners rarely stopped by and didn't really manage the place. But they helped me get in touch with the whoever was running things (though the person we contacted wasn't very helpful and it involved me, as the English speaker, trying to type out every word of Mr. Kedana's angry rant to send to the owner). They also gave me some candy from Israel to make me feel better about being stuck camping out in the kitchen until I could get into a room:
It turns out some French ladies were staying in my room and hadn't checked out. I finally called the owner and he told me to throw out their stuff since they should have left at 2 that day. I tried to tell him I was really uncomfortable with that but he just insisted it wasn't his problem it was THEIR problem. I asked if any of his employees could stop by and he told me he didn't want to bother them with it either. He also insisted I change the beds ( there were clean sheets in the kitchen but not enough to fully change the beds). The whole situation was really uncomfortable. I spent so long trying to get it sorted out that I couldn't meet my friends and had to grab convenience store food since I didn't want to be away from the BNB too long in case anything changed (on the bright side, Japanese convenience store food is actually really good). Finally, around midnight I decided to take the French girls' things out into the hall, since I could only picture them arriving in the wee hours of the morning banging on the door and demanding their things and I really wanted to sleep.
Of course 30 minutes later, they arrived looking really confused. For some reason I had pictured a couple party girls but they were actually a mother and daughter and very sweet. I immediately felt horrible for taking all their stuff out of the room and tried to insist they take one of the beds and we'd all cram in for the night. It turns out someone had told them they could stay an extra day but they'd meant in the kitchen, which had zero room for sleeping. In the end, they stayed in the Kedana's room since it was bigger. Luckily all the people staying in the BNB were really courteous and kind of looked out for each other. It made up for the lack of maintenance.
Brittney arrived later that night and the next day we headed out for Harajuku, the shopping district. Harajuku was full of overpriced stores and girls strutting around and posing in elaborate outfits. We definitely saw a lot of interesting things there. The heat was insane though and we dipped into every cafe we passed just to get out of it.
At one point, we found a really cool art gallery and met a guy who makes clocks out of found objects. I bought a little music box at the shop that scrolls through little comic strips and plays music to go with them.
We also found this sweet collector's store:
And I crushed it at pinball:
The figures in there were pretty amazing and looked just like the actors. They had the coolest toys too. We found some light-sabers that made noise when you swing or clash them. We had a bit of fun with them until I whacked a Darth Vader display and we had to quietly rush away.
We also visited this temple:
and walked around the nearby garden:
We finished the night off with sushi and then Veronica and Merinda left for Kyoto.
The next day was just me and Britt. We had a list of random things we wanted to see and hit just about everything.
First was the Buddhist temple:
followed by some ramen (I think my food list was longer than my must-see list):
I picked up a few Japanese phrases along the way but it was frustrating not knowing the language. This is the first country I've been to where I don't speak at least a little bit of the language. Even in the Philippines, English was one of their main languages. I constantly had to lean on Brittney to translate silly things like "do you want a drink with that?".
I wish I could've gotten pictures of some of the people we saw on the trains. Korea's style is different but it's all very mild-mannered and conformist. But Japanese style has such a wide spectrum. We saw Gothic Lolitas, a hairy guy in a pink wig with a pink girl's jacket and a beanie, and I'm pretty sure I saw a ghost. A guy got on the subway my first day in a black kimono with white piecey hair, white eyes (colored contacts... I assume...), and giant double-gages in both ears. I think he was wearing a little makeup too. He also walked really strange and stiffly either because of his clogs or because he was deliberately trying to skeeve me out. But to be honest, I really admired all the individuality I was seeing. People did not seem afraid to make bold statements.
Our next stop was the Anime district.
I think partially out of curiosity. We'd both had our anime phases back in the day but neither of us are really into it anymore so we gawked for a bit before realizing there wasn't much there for us. We even got surveyed by some students working on a map for tourists and when they asked why we came to that district, we honestly didn't know. We just vaguely said shopping and they told us we were in the wrong district if we weren't Anime "Otakus". We did play some crane games in one of the many arcades though and then wandered into a Maid Cafe:
So, Tokyo has all sorts of themed cafes and restaurants. Like robot restaurants, Pikachu Cafes, all sorts of things. So for some reason I had it in my head that the Maid Cafe would be cute and quirky and not... slightly creepy and uncomfortable. It wasn't so bad. The waitresses all dress in these elaborate maid outfits and wear colored contacts and have big anime hair and the place is all decked out to be nauseatingly adorable. The menu items are all made up to look like cute fluffy animals and the walls are lined with plushes. The melon sodas were also ON POINT. But once we got seated and looked around, we realized we were the only girls in there. The rest of the clientele were kind of.. unsavory-looking dudes. And they were all sitting in corners or along the walls while me and Britt sat right in the center. We also noticed the maids seemed eager to talk with us (despite my blank stares and Britt's slightly limited Japanese). We thought at first it was because we were foreigners but then realized it might be because we were the only people there not trying to hit on them. The girls kept coming up to us with different plushes and trying to start up conversations about "Pom Pom Purin" and what animes we liked. "Do you like Yuki-Kun or Kyo-Kun?" and then endless declarations of "Ah, Kawaii!" It was fun once we got over the awkwardness of the whole situation. In the end, we grabbed a photo with one of the girls and went on our way. It was an experience.
We finished off the day at a giant mall while trying to find the Pokemon Center (which, it turns out, was INSIDE the mall the whole time while we were getting distracted by other shops).
We found a Hello Kitty shop, Disney Store, and a Ghibli store. The Ghibli store was awesome. I was tempted by so many little Miyazaki-style knick-knacks but in the end walked out with this li'l guy:
Eventually we did make it to the Pokemon Center and it was everything I dreamed it would be:
I think my entire childhood came flooding back and I found myself going berserk over Vaporeon beanie-babies and Pokemon stationary. I ended up buying a Pikachu stamp for my classroom (maybe more for me than the kids...), a mug, and some Pokemon cards just for the helluvit. We'd kept our cool for most of the trip, but both of us released our inner geek in the Pokemon Center and got completely sucked in. So many fourth grade memories. We met a lot of foreigners in there with arms full of giant stuffed Pikachus having the same life-changing experience as us. And one very resigned Dad who travels for work and was shopping for his kids. They also played the "Pocket Monsters" song on replay for eternity. I'm still curious about the mental state of the employees... I'm pretty sure I can sing that song by heart now and it's in Japanese.
Since we'd been going nonstop the past few days, we decided to take it easy my last day in Tokyo. I had wanted to try and check out Tokyo Tower and the LDS temple but I had to check out from the BNB and get to the airport to catch my flight so we decided not to over-schedule. So we settled on exploring a giant garden in the heart of the city. We kind of meandered through, stopping randomly to sit and chill. It was not too shabby:
Then we grabbed lunch and went our separate ways.
I went back to the BNB, packed up, and caught the long train ride back to the airport. I'm happy to say I'd gotten a pretty good handle on the Tokyo subway system by this point and didn't get lost for even a second. I did lose the little paper fan that had kept me alive through Tokyo's stifling heat at some point during the train ride. I was sad but it had served it's purpose and would've gotten crushed in my luggage anyway.
I had time at the airport to grab one last Japanese meal:
I already miss the food there. I love Korean food. But it was refreshing to eat something that didn't burn my face off. As much as I love spicy food.
Then it was back to Seoul and deskwarming in an empty school for the rest of the week. It was a shame I couldn't stay in Japan for longer but I definitely got a good taste for it and am determined to go back again before I leave Asia. Maybe multiple times.
The first day in Tokyo was rough. After the train fiasco, I was eager to get to the BNB, unload my stuff and relax a bit before maybe meeting up with my friends. Instead, I arrived to find the house empty and all the rooms locked. I knocked on a few of the doors and accidentally woke up an Israeli couple staying in one of the rooms (lucky they were there though). The Kedana's turned out to be some of the nicest people and kind of adopted me for the next few days. Anytime I passed their room, they'd insist I chat for a while and update them on my trip. They were in Tokyo for a few days and then renting a van, which they'd be sleeping in and using to tour all over the country. When I asked them if it would be difficult to drive on the other side of the road they just shrugged and said "We will find out tomorrow." I want to be them when I grow up. They told me a lot of visitors had been having trouble getting into their rooms because the BNB owners rarely stopped by and didn't really manage the place. But they helped me get in touch with the whoever was running things (though the person we contacted wasn't very helpful and it involved me, as the English speaker, trying to type out every word of Mr. Kedana's angry rant to send to the owner). They also gave me some candy from Israel to make me feel better about being stuck camping out in the kitchen until I could get into a room:
This candy was the bomb. It was like Turkish Delight with cardamom and some other spices and nuts or something. I don't know, but it was good.
It turns out some French ladies were staying in my room and hadn't checked out. I finally called the owner and he told me to throw out their stuff since they should have left at 2 that day. I tried to tell him I was really uncomfortable with that but he just insisted it wasn't his problem it was THEIR problem. I asked if any of his employees could stop by and he told me he didn't want to bother them with it either. He also insisted I change the beds ( there were clean sheets in the kitchen but not enough to fully change the beds). The whole situation was really uncomfortable. I spent so long trying to get it sorted out that I couldn't meet my friends and had to grab convenience store food since I didn't want to be away from the BNB too long in case anything changed (on the bright side, Japanese convenience store food is actually really good). Finally, around midnight I decided to take the French girls' things out into the hall, since I could only picture them arriving in the wee hours of the morning banging on the door and demanding their things and I really wanted to sleep.
Of course 30 minutes later, they arrived looking really confused. For some reason I had pictured a couple party girls but they were actually a mother and daughter and very sweet. I immediately felt horrible for taking all their stuff out of the room and tried to insist they take one of the beds and we'd all cram in for the night. It turns out someone had told them they could stay an extra day but they'd meant in the kitchen, which had zero room for sleeping. In the end, they stayed in the Kedana's room since it was bigger. Luckily all the people staying in the BNB were really courteous and kind of looked out for each other. It made up for the lack of maintenance.
Brittney arrived later that night and the next day we headed out for Harajuku, the shopping district. Harajuku was full of overpriced stores and girls strutting around and posing in elaborate outfits. We definitely saw a lot of interesting things there. The heat was insane though and we dipped into every cafe we passed just to get out of it.
We... didn't get a lot of good quality pictures. But here's the four of us.
My stupid fat finger will make a cameo appearance in several of these photos because I suck. Enjoy!
At one point, we found a really cool art gallery and met a guy who makes clocks out of found objects. I bought a little music box at the shop that scrolls through little comic strips and plays music to go with them.
We also found this sweet collector's store:
And I crushed it at pinball:
The figures in there were pretty amazing and looked just like the actors. They had the coolest toys too. We found some light-sabers that made noise when you swing or clash them. We had a bit of fun with them until I whacked a Darth Vader display and we had to quietly rush away.
We also visited this temple:
and walked around the nearby garden:
The well.
We finished the night off with sushi and then Veronica and Merinda left for Kyoto.
The next day was just me and Britt. We had a list of random things we wanted to see and hit just about everything.
First was the Buddhist temple:
Spot the main character.
followed by some ramen (I think my food list was longer than my must-see list):
I picked up a few Japanese phrases along the way but it was frustrating not knowing the language. This is the first country I've been to where I don't speak at least a little bit of the language. Even in the Philippines, English was one of their main languages. I constantly had to lean on Brittney to translate silly things like "do you want a drink with that?".
I wish I could've gotten pictures of some of the people we saw on the trains. Korea's style is different but it's all very mild-mannered and conformist. But Japanese style has such a wide spectrum. We saw Gothic Lolitas, a hairy guy in a pink wig with a pink girl's jacket and a beanie, and I'm pretty sure I saw a ghost. A guy got on the subway my first day in a black kimono with white piecey hair, white eyes (colored contacts... I assume...), and giant double-gages in both ears. I think he was wearing a little makeup too. He also walked really strange and stiffly either because of his clogs or because he was deliberately trying to skeeve me out. But to be honest, I really admired all the individuality I was seeing. People did not seem afraid to make bold statements.
Another something we saw on the subway... An "Attack on Titan" add for hair removal. We call it "Attack on Vajayjay".
Our next stop was the Anime district.
I think partially out of curiosity. We'd both had our anime phases back in the day but neither of us are really into it anymore so we gawked for a bit before realizing there wasn't much there for us. We even got surveyed by some students working on a map for tourists and when they asked why we came to that district, we honestly didn't know. We just vaguely said shopping and they told us we were in the wrong district if we weren't Anime "Otakus". We did play some crane games in one of the many arcades though and then wandered into a Maid Cafe:
So, Tokyo has all sorts of themed cafes and restaurants. Like robot restaurants, Pikachu Cafes, all sorts of things. So for some reason I had it in my head that the Maid Cafe would be cute and quirky and not... slightly creepy and uncomfortable. It wasn't so bad. The waitresses all dress in these elaborate maid outfits and wear colored contacts and have big anime hair and the place is all decked out to be nauseatingly adorable. The menu items are all made up to look like cute fluffy animals and the walls are lined with plushes. The melon sodas were also ON POINT. But once we got seated and looked around, we realized we were the only girls in there. The rest of the clientele were kind of.. unsavory-looking dudes. And they were all sitting in corners or along the walls while me and Britt sat right in the center. We also noticed the maids seemed eager to talk with us (despite my blank stares and Britt's slightly limited Japanese). We thought at first it was because we were foreigners but then realized it might be because we were the only people there not trying to hit on them. The girls kept coming up to us with different plushes and trying to start up conversations about "Pom Pom Purin" and what animes we liked. "Do you like Yuki-Kun or Kyo-Kun?" and then endless declarations of "Ah, Kawaii!" It was fun once we got over the awkwardness of the whole situation. In the end, we grabbed a photo with one of the girls and went on our way. It was an experience.
"Make a heart," she said. And we made potatoes. Neither "kawaii" nor "sugoi"
We finished off the day at a giant mall while trying to find the Pokemon Center (which, it turns out, was INSIDE the mall the whole time while we were getting distracted by other shops).
Outside the Sanrio (Hello Kitty) store.
Eggs are great.
We found a Hello Kitty shop, Disney Store, and a Ghibli store. The Ghibli store was awesome. I was tempted by so many little Miyazaki-style knick-knacks but in the end walked out with this li'l guy:
Eventually we did make it to the Pokemon Center and it was everything I dreamed it would be:
I think my entire childhood came flooding back and I found myself going berserk over Vaporeon beanie-babies and Pokemon stationary. I ended up buying a Pikachu stamp for my classroom (maybe more for me than the kids...), a mug, and some Pokemon cards just for the helluvit. We'd kept our cool for most of the trip, but both of us released our inner geek in the Pokemon Center and got completely sucked in. So many fourth grade memories. We met a lot of foreigners in there with arms full of giant stuffed Pikachus having the same life-changing experience as us. And one very resigned Dad who travels for work and was shopping for his kids. They also played the "Pocket Monsters" song on replay for eternity. I'm still curious about the mental state of the employees... I'm pretty sure I can sing that song by heart now and it's in Japanese.
Since we'd been going nonstop the past few days, we decided to take it easy my last day in Tokyo. I had wanted to try and check out Tokyo Tower and the LDS temple but I had to check out from the BNB and get to the airport to catch my flight so we decided not to over-schedule. So we settled on exploring a giant garden in the heart of the city. We kind of meandered through, stopping randomly to sit and chill. It was not too shabby:
The Sake house... which we utilized for shade and a few shots of water. "Kampai!"
This shrine was constructed for the Lord of the manor's pet bird. It was just a really awesome bird.
Me and Britt spent a lot of time trying to master the anime lady behind-the-fan "ho ho ho!" laugh.
We met this little guy in the pond (softshell turtle). Ugly as sin. But, oddly endearing. He snorted on me with his little nose spout and scared the bejeezes out of me.
Then we grabbed lunch and went our separate ways.
I went back to the BNB, packed up, and caught the long train ride back to the airport. I'm happy to say I'd gotten a pretty good handle on the Tokyo subway system by this point and didn't get lost for even a second. I did lose the little paper fan that had kept me alive through Tokyo's stifling heat at some point during the train ride. I was sad but it had served it's purpose and would've gotten crushed in my luggage anyway.
I had time at the airport to grab one last Japanese meal:
Sukiyaki!
I already miss the food there. I love Korean food. But it was refreshing to eat something that didn't burn my face off. As much as I love spicy food.
Then it was back to Seoul and deskwarming in an empty school for the rest of the week. It was a shame I couldn't stay in Japan for longer but I definitely got a good taste for it and am determined to go back again before I leave Asia. Maybe multiple times.
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