(no subject)
My trip to Japan was nice. I was determined not to stress too much and actually relax on my vacation and I think I succeeded for the most part. This is such a wild concept to me I think because the vacations of my childhood were never relaxing affairs. I think it is also why as a family we can now only do cruises and ac, if we went on a 'family vacation' of old we would kill each other.
I've been "planning" on going to Japan for about as long as I've been in Korea. I put air quotes (well, real quotes, but I think air quotes fit better but by definition you can't write air quotes) because my planning went as far as me thinking 'I would like to go to Japan over Christmas break'. A long time ago I looked into getting a travel visa (from Korea which a guy I work with said I needed), but to do that you needed to know when you were going, which would have meant planning the trip, which was scary because I didn't have my visa, didn't know if I really wanted to go because what if at the last moment I met someone who was also looking for a travel buddy and wanted to go somewhere else, or if Japan got blasted off the map by a whim of God, or yadda yadda yadda. So I did what I always do and put it off. Then I started worrying that I waited to long and the tickets would be too expensive, so that made me reluctant to look at tickets, and this also becomes a vicious circle.
But after only a few days off I was bored and knew that I would feel like I wasted my break if I didn't go somewhere so I booked the flight and hostels for the first 3 days of my trip. This was the day after Christmas night. I bought tickets for the 28th, but was very close to buying tickets for 8am the next morning (and of course I was doing this at like 11 so that would have been fun). I only had a crappy Japan travel book so I looked online for the 'big' tourist things and decided to just write a couple of things down but really just wing it.
Getting to the airport. The best way to get to the airport is by airport limo-bus. I knew generally where to catch the bus, but not the exact stop so I went out looking for. But, they have been doing construction in my town since about 2 days after I got here and they are changing the roads so that there are islands in the middle of the streets for the bus stops. The first day the buses started going to the islands was the day before I left (at least I think, I don't really take the bus). So no one really knew what was where. I never actually found anything that said airport limobus but I found about 3 places that Korean people said was the stop to find the bus. Again, I decided to wing it as I did see the bus I needed and someone catch it at a red light.
The next morning I give myself lots of time to get to the airport which was a good idea. I missed the first bus by about 3 minutes and couldn't flag it down and wander around asking people. I decide to maybe take the subway (which is longer, less comfy, and I have to transfer like 5 times, but at least I know where the subway is) and I see the bus stop. But at this hour the bus only runs every hour. Last night it had snowed so there is about an inch of snow and it's freezing (about 7 degrees!). But I catch the bus and everything goes smoothly after I regain feeling in my toes (and I was wearing shoes).
I never looked into going to Japan to teach, but have since been asked (by mostly Koreans) a bunch of times why Korea, why not Japan? There are a lot of advantages to Korea (like it's cheaper!) but I think the biggest thing that makes Korea so much more attractive is that Korean has an alphabet. It is so nice being able to at least read. Even if you don't know what the words mean it is nice to be able to at least sound out the subway station names.
I think my trip would have been much different if I hadn't already lived in Korea. I think I was expected a super-asian version of Korea, but I think Korea is more crowded (at least from the parts I've seen of the two countries, Korea has way more high rises and far less single family houses, which are really rare here, but I saw a bunch in Tokyo). Also, people weren't on their cell phones as much as they are here. Here everyone watches tv or plays games on their phones on the subway. No one was watching tv and only a few people played games. Also I was disappointed in the vending machines (although I think that was really an expectation thing). In Korea there are tons of hot coffee machines where you can get tiny bits of hot crappy coffeeish drinks, which I didn't see in Japan. They did have a ton of machines selling bottled drinks, but we have them here. They did however have tons of machines selling cigarettes (bonus points if you are thinking about wait wait right now) and a few selling beer. I also got a food ticket at a restaurant which they don't do here.
I think that is enough for now. More later I promise (and yell at me if I don't do it soon).
I've been "planning" on going to Japan for about as long as I've been in Korea. I put air quotes (well, real quotes, but I think air quotes fit better but by definition you can't write air quotes) because my planning went as far as me thinking 'I would like to go to Japan over Christmas break'. A long time ago I looked into getting a travel visa (from Korea which a guy I work with said I needed), but to do that you needed to know when you were going, which would have meant planning the trip, which was scary because I didn't have my visa, didn't know if I really wanted to go because what if at the last moment I met someone who was also looking for a travel buddy and wanted to go somewhere else, or if Japan got blasted off the map by a whim of God, or yadda yadda yadda. So I did what I always do and put it off. Then I started worrying that I waited to long and the tickets would be too expensive, so that made me reluctant to look at tickets, and this also becomes a vicious circle.
But after only a few days off I was bored and knew that I would feel like I wasted my break if I didn't go somewhere so I booked the flight and hostels for the first 3 days of my trip. This was the day after Christmas night. I bought tickets for the 28th, but was very close to buying tickets for 8am the next morning (and of course I was doing this at like 11 so that would have been fun). I only had a crappy Japan travel book so I looked online for the 'big' tourist things and decided to just write a couple of things down but really just wing it.
Getting to the airport. The best way to get to the airport is by airport limo-bus. I knew generally where to catch the bus, but not the exact stop so I went out looking for. But, they have been doing construction in my town since about 2 days after I got here and they are changing the roads so that there are islands in the middle of the streets for the bus stops. The first day the buses started going to the islands was the day before I left (at least I think, I don't really take the bus). So no one really knew what was where. I never actually found anything that said airport limobus but I found about 3 places that Korean people said was the stop to find the bus. Again, I decided to wing it as I did see the bus I needed and someone catch it at a red light.
The next morning I give myself lots of time to get to the airport which was a good idea. I missed the first bus by about 3 minutes and couldn't flag it down and wander around asking people. I decide to maybe take the subway (which is longer, less comfy, and I have to transfer like 5 times, but at least I know where the subway is) and I see the bus stop. But at this hour the bus only runs every hour. Last night it had snowed so there is about an inch of snow and it's freezing (about 7 degrees!). But I catch the bus and everything goes smoothly after I regain feeling in my toes (and I was wearing shoes).
I never looked into going to Japan to teach, but have since been asked (by mostly Koreans) a bunch of times why Korea, why not Japan? There are a lot of advantages to Korea (like it's cheaper!) but I think the biggest thing that makes Korea so much more attractive is that Korean has an alphabet. It is so nice being able to at least read. Even if you don't know what the words mean it is nice to be able to at least sound out the subway station names.
I think my trip would have been much different if I hadn't already lived in Korea. I think I was expected a super-asian version of Korea, but I think Korea is more crowded (at least from the parts I've seen of the two countries, Korea has way more high rises and far less single family houses, which are really rare here, but I saw a bunch in Tokyo). Also, people weren't on their cell phones as much as they are here. Here everyone watches tv or plays games on their phones on the subway. No one was watching tv and only a few people played games. Also I was disappointed in the vending machines (although I think that was really an expectation thing). In Korea there are tons of hot coffee machines where you can get tiny bits of hot crappy coffeeish drinks, which I didn't see in Japan. They did have a ton of machines selling bottled drinks, but we have them here. They did however have tons of machines selling cigarettes (bonus points if you are thinking about wait wait right now) and a few selling beer. I also got a food ticket at a restaurant which they don't do here.
I think that is enough for now. More later I promise (and yell at me if I don't do it soon).