Japan Part II

Aaaand here it is!


After Kyoto I went to Nara for two nights before going home.

Nara is a small city with many temples and deer. That's pretty much it. I stayed at the nicest guest house and shared a room with bunk beds with other young travelers. My favorite part was going to a local neighborhood pub, where old guys would try to talk to me (and I was surprised by how much Japanese I remembered). Then the pub owner's 2-year-old sat on my lap for an hour and I considered kidnapping her.

Japanese people are so friendly, and it was so nice to get away from Seoul and the constant pushing, yelling, and staring. I'm absolutely dying to go back, but I need a travel buddy! If anyone wants to go to Japan, let me know!

Anyway, here's some pics from the completely relaxing city of Nara.

Goodbye, deer! Time to go back to Korea!

Welcome home. Korean boy's mom overfed us.

~ 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?

I am alive

It's been a long time.

I'm sure a lot of you are wondering what has happened since March. Well, I finally finished my contract at the public school. It was a huge relief to get out of such a hostile work environment. The only thing I miss about it is the kids.

I started my new job and moved to Gwacheon. I live in a nice quiet neighborhood with trees and birds and little old women selling fruit just outside. I'm stoked not to be living in a huge city anymore!

I work in Anyang, so I have to commute every day by bus. At first it was difficult because the Gyeonggi-do buses don't have any English, so I had to learn the Korean stops. And sometimes they don't even announce the stops! It's all good now, and it takes about 40 minutes from the time I leave my house to when I arrive at school.

There are over a dozen other American teachers at my school, so I'm no longer as lonely as I was.

This school works me hard - which is why I haven't updated much. I've been doing nothing except work! I teach 10 classes a day sometimes, but I'm having a lot of fun. My students are unbelievably smart, and their English is a lot more advanced than at my other school.

If you remember my first job in Korea, this is another after-school program for students. So I work from 2-10 and teach progressively older students as they day goes on. I start off teaching second grade and finish off teaching 9th.

I don't have much else to say - I'm much happier here, and I'm learning a lot at my new job!

And the students really seem to like me...I got a ton of presents on teacher's day!

I hadn't been really confident when I first started - I wasn't sure if I was good enough for this school. The presents let me know that students seem to think I am, at least!

I won't be home for Christmas this year, as we don't have very many vacation days at this school. I have a week off in July that I will hopefully be using to go to Japan!

Anyway, I'm doing well, the cats are doing well, and my two tanks of fish are doing well. Yes, I bought another fishtank. I have a problem. I must have been Noah in a past life.


I'll post again, maybe.

Or, instead of complaining about how I don't post you could, you know, email me.  :D





:D

Update !!

Woah, I haven't updated in a while, so I guess I should...in case anybody is still interested. x.x

I spent the last few weeks securing my next job - I took a high-paying job in Anyang, which is south of Seoul. It would be very quick to get to Seoul, except there's a mountain in the way. In fact, it's surrounded by 4 mountains. Yay! Nature?!

Anyway, I'll be working at another hagwon - the private after-school programs, like the one I had in Jinju. Now before you panic, I want to assure you that I have researched this school. It is very big, very famous, and very organized, and I'm very excited to be working there. It's going to be a lot of work, but trust me, the pay is worth it. Oh, and the students are apparently good at English, so I'll be able to have more complicated conversations with my students instead of "Do you like pizza? Yes, I like pizza."

I will be making about 1,000,000 won more a month than I am making now - but the catch is, NO HOUSING! So in the next few weekends I'm going to start apartment hunting. Apparently the area my hagwon is in is quite busy, so I'm looking at living in the city Gwacheon, which is about halfway between Anyang and Seoul. It seems quite beautiful, although maybe apartments are too expensive.... It'll be a short subway/bus ride away from my school.

Anyway, that new job will start on April 29th - I am working at my current school until April 24th, so I'm gonna have to move fast!

I'm looking forward to a change - teaching in public school hasn't proved challenging or active enough for me. x.x



Oh, and to celebrate my new job, I bought myself a fish tank.

Darcy and Gilbert approve.

Wanna tongue?

Hi all.

Not much has been happening lately.



Vacation ended and I had to do a two-week winter class with about 7 teenage boys. It was fun, I may do a post about that for those of you who don't follow my facebook.


Then school started again...for one week. Then it was graduation and now I spend my days at my desk

I started reading the Age of Innocence out of boredom, but I'm actually really enjoying it.


I haven't really gone anywhere...trying to save money for my next paycheck. I have my eyes set on an oven......


Job hunting is not going well...I might have to give up on a Seoul job until I have a little more experience. I feel like I've been here for years, but I have to remember I'll only have a year and 7 months of experience when I start my next job.


I ate some tongues.

 They were expensive and delicious.


That's all!

The Last Adventure

I came back to Korea early and still had a whole week before my winter class.

I'd spent a lot of money in America, so I decided against going to another country.

Instead, Korean Boy and I decided to visit a new province - Gyeongsangbuk-do! 

(It's on the east of Korea)

It was snowing when we left Bucheon, but the snow wasn't very deep in the mountains.

We were visiting a hot spring, but on the first day decided to visit things in the mountains.

First we saw a giant turtle.

Then a Buddha (with people praying)

Then some lions holding up a pagoda over a Buddha:

A pair of frozen waterfalls:

Some interesting characters:

We also visited a Museum of Roads, which was hilariously lame.

It had a bunch of random Inca artifacts in it too, but mostly talked about the history of roads in Korea.

This was the first day.

The second day we were going to visit many more interesting things.

Unfortunately when we were driving, the car suddenly died, as if we had run out of gas.

Korean boy started it again (we were rolling down a hill) and the engine sounded TERRIBLE.

I made him pull over and call a tow truck.

Unfortunately, the engine had no oil in it, so he had basically ruined the engine.

I would have teased him, but he was pretty sad.

\

Unfortunately it would cost more than the worth of the car to repair, so we decided to ditch it.

We had to empty all of our stuff and carry it through the snow to the tiny shed of a bus station in the

small mountain town we were towed to.

After walking for 20 mins, we had to wait in a freezing shed for a bus for about 30 mins.

It then took us to a slightly bigger city, where we could get a bus back to Seoul.

Korean boy also met with a guy at this station who would take his car.

We were a little disappointed...I saw almost allof Korea in that car.

We were pretty silent on the ride back to Seoul.

Korean Boy just kept saying "I have no car..." over and over again.

I'm not sure when we'll be able to go on another adventure. 

When we do, it will probably be tour-bus style.

It's the end of the era.

We are very sad.

Oh, and we almost got eaten by baby polar bears, too.

Terrifying creatures.

RIP, Korean Boy's car. 

You served this blog well.