~ Kyoto ~

For my one and only week of vacation until December, I went to the place I've been dying to go since I was a little girl.

JAPAAAAAN!

I don't want to go into long descriptions. This post will contain pictures of Kyoto, and just know that it is the most wonderful place in the world.

Seriously, the first night there, I was searching for jobs online.


Off we go!

At the airport with Korean boy.

Korean Boy's first discovery was that in Japan, you can't smoke wherever you want. 

You have to go into the special smoking-rooms-of-shame. Muahahahahaha.

Orange temple walls.

Fushimi Inari Shrine

More Fushimi Inari Shrine and its orange gates.

Cute part of Kyoto

Pagodas

Tanuki statues, balls and all.

For those of you unfamiliar with Japanese culture, I apologize. Hehe.

SUSHI (of course)

 The Golden Pavillion

Nijo Castle

The wonderful Japanese-style guest house I stayed at (I'm displaying their parting gift).

Even the fast food in Japan is delicious!! Yakisoba!

Another shrine!

A dragon fountain...

At the train station to the second (and last) destination...!

Part II coming soon.

I'm a grown-up now

Hello,

I think the reason I forget about this blog is because Korea is no longer some exotic place to me.

It's where I live. It's where I work. And as I come up on the two-year mark of living here, I realize how commonplace that the things that shocked me at the beginning have become.



I ride a bus 30 minutes to work every day, and they only announce the stops in Korean.

Fermented cabbage covered in red pepper paste (aka kimchi) is now present in most of my meals.

I don't own any furniture to sit on. No couches, and only floor chairs. And a floor desk. I don't even notice anymore.

I turn my water heater off unless I'm taking a shower. Saves money.

I bow slightly when meeting people or saying thank you.

I give and accept items from another person with both hands.

I don't get mad when people bump into me on the street.

I haven't owned or used a fork since I was home for Christmas.

I've adjusted to the basic Korean lifestyle - work hard and play hard. Except for me, playing hard means putting two kinds of chocolate chips in the next batch of cookies. Or buying real dairy products (which are extremely expensive).



Aside from Japan (next post), this summer has been pretty uneventful.

Pictures to prove it? Sure.

Here's the little amusement park near my house. I didn't go to it though because I'm boring and decided to just take a blanket and read in the grass next to a Koi pond instead.

I ate some of this meat. A lot if it, actually.

 I did a terrible job at attempting to seal the cockroaches out of my house.

Gilbert helped.

Darcy watched. He would have helped, but these days refuses to leave the vicinity of the fan. 

 These huge bugs (cicadas) are everywhere, singing at the top of their...lungs? I don't know how they sing, but they're LOUD. 

And, instead of buying the 500 dollar air-conditioner, I settled on the 250 dollar dehumidifier. 

Gilbert likes to watch it fill with water (which only takes about two hours).

See, my life is not interesting at all. 

Except when I went to Japan, which is pretty much the best place on earth. 

More next time? Maybe?