First of all i’d like to say a big thanks to everyone who checked out Road2Japan during Korea week.  It was a lot of fun making it happen, especially the video at the end, although my brain WAS on the verge of collapse after editing video for about 1238192873 hours.  For anyone who missed Korea week, it was a series of 5 posts about my trip to Seoul, South Korea.  In part 5, there is 3 youtube clips i made, basically an 18 minute video in 3 parts. Here’s a link to Part 1 of the Korea week posts.

However, as good as Korea week was, I think my timing of it was a bit off, because things happened during Korea week that I felt I couldn’t really mention due to the theme of the week.  So, time to catch up!

Korea week here at Road2Japan was known by another name to the Kansai Gaidai students: “Finals week”.  That’s right, all my finals were last week, and now that they’re done, my first semester here at Kansai Gaidai is over! Time to relax! Blow some money! And prepare for the big backpack trip around Japan.

I think i did well on my finals, i should have passed everything at least, but there is also the possibility for an ‘A’ in there somewhere, so that would be nice.  The finals week format was pretty much the same as the mid-term week, in my case.  That was that I had a Speaking Japanese oral, a Speaking Japanese written test, a Reading and Writing Japanese Oral, and a Reading and Writing Japanese written test.  All of which were tested almost exactly the same way as they were during mid-terms. For my orals, I had to read a passage out loud for Reading and Writing (something about eating turtles…)

Oh I’d like to just mention that there were a few funny things I was able to photograph during my stay.

Monday was a pack up and go day.  The plane left at 4:30pm, but we woke up late around 10 or 11am, packed our stuff and left.  I kinda miss the Bong House, it was cozy there… and it had heated floors…

The flight back was only a 60 minute flight as we had a lot of tail wind.  However, the bus ride from Kansai International Airport back to Hirakata-shi was 90 minutes long… ouch.

I woke up at around 9am… Stomach in chaos.  Hopped outta bed and had to run to the bathroom.  Sunday turned out to be a frustrating day for me.  This was due to:

1. Lack of sleep
2. My freakin stomach
3. The cold I was getting over

I felt like a disgusting piece of human all day.  My cold was gone, but my body decided to start flushing all the crap outta my nose, so I was on the tissues all day.  I needed sleep so bad that not even a wakey potion would suffice, and I was running to the bathroom every hour.  I felt crap.  I was really tempted to stay in, but I didn’t want to waste my day.  Reluctantly, even though I didn’t let them know it, I went out again with the gang.  Not entirely looking forward to the day ahead.

Destination for Sunday was “Insa-dong”.  This place was supposed to be a shopping district kinda place. It also had a bunch of traditional Korean houses, stores, roads.

I really liked this place, it was nice.  It was pretty much just a strip of shops, from clothes to food.  Got some nice night time shots:

The next day was fun.  Frank found out that there were some markets nearby, so we decided to check them out.  I was actually really tired at this time.  Was kinda thinkin to myself “How the hell am I gonna stay AWAKE through this day???”

Then my answer came to me in Potion form.  A “WAKEY POTION”!  Yeah! I found this at a 7-11, a drink, called Wakey Potion.  I was a bit hesitant at first, but then I noticed that the packaging suggested that I “Take my Chance” and that it promised me “+5 Hours”.  Well in that case….  I grabbed me a wakey potion, and drank it.  Awesome.  I wonder if I get a 29 hour day now…

Anyway, Markets! We hopped on a train, Frank led the way and eventually we found them. Most of the stuff on display were kinda similar.  The markets were set up on the sidewalk of a bunch of streets.  There wasn’t a marketplace, per say, but the locals sure turned these streets into one.  There was ridiculously cheap stuff everywhere.  Clothes, souvenirs, what seemed to be stolen electronics (or so I claim) and food.  Speaking of food. OMG. I saw Jesus in food form.

For an entire dollar, I got 2 slices of toast, buttered, with cinamon and an omelette filled with vegetables shoved into a cup and handed to me.  It was the most amazing bit of street food i’d ever seen/tasted.

My initial impression: Korea Rocks!

It was awesome! People! Noise! Wide roads (and narrow side roads)! LITTER!!!!! OMG it had been ages since I’d seen a bit of rubbish on the ground – it was by no means a dirty place! But litter did exist, unlike in Japan.  Korea still kinda felt like Japan, but a little edgier, maybe a little more alive, and even a little more genuine.  It immediately looked rougher, but i liked it.  It was a welcome change from the fabricated/perfectness/cleanliness/professional/polished Japan I’d been living in the past few months.

…looks gross

Also Korea seems to have a LOT of street food.  That is, people with stalls on the street cooking ridiculously cheap food for sale.  Some looked mighty freakin dodgy let me tell you, some looked awesome.  Everything was ridiculously cheap, i’m talkin anything they sell would go for about $1, maybe 50 cents. The most common i’ve seen is this “Fish Cake on a Stick” stuff.  Looks disgusting.  Didn’t know what it was until this very second after researching for about 5 minutes.  However, Chris and Haruna had one, maybe Frank did too… I had a bite, and it wasn’t vile… but… i’d probably never bite into one again.

Slept in on a moderately cool Hirakata autumn day, well rested and ready for my new, brief adventure to South Korea.  Having absolutely no knowledge of South Korea, the Korean language, or Korean people, I couldn’t help but feel a little un-excited at first, but excitement slowly grew as the prospect of visiting another country became more and more a reality.  But I had NO desire to go to Korea!  But I didn’t not have no desire to not not going to Korea… not… dunno, pretty sure i fucked up my double negative there, but basically I was on the fence.  I didn’t really care whether or not I visited Korea at some point of my life.  But, about 2 months earlier a Mr. Frank-san (crazy American who sat next to me in class) asked me:

“Hey wanna go to Korea?”

To which I replied:

“Ok.”

Ok, so next week, starting Monday, will mark Road to Japan’s South Korea week. There will be 5 posts, including the South Korea video of my trip. It’s gonna be awesome.

So if you guys are interested, stay tuned for the 5 part South Korea series.  Gonna be wicked.

Ciao for Now!

Ok guys, very sorry to “bore” you with another post on Japanese Kanji.  BUUUT!  The other day, Annie pointed out a Kanji that made her lol, which in turn made me lol, and i’d like to share it with you.

Ok so firstly, some kanji to stare at:

働　住　食　飲　空　流　留学生
会社　勉強　病院　買

Ok, so they all look relatively kanji-ey, all little pictures, look chinese etc. etc.