Holy cow it's November ALREADY?

It is cold. I don't like it.


Waking up in the morning is starting to get more difficult. It's all warm under the blankets and it's all cold in my room. Not cold enough to turn the heat on yet, but it's getting there. Sad face.
Summer didn't last long at all and I'm already looking forward to spring :)

Yesterday was "Open High School" at Tomogaoka where middle school students came to see the school. They will have to decide which school they want to go to for high school and take entrance exams in March. They were only there in the afternoon, so I only saw them around during my Eiken classes, so they weren't too much of a disturbance.

Other than that- bleh. Winter.

Shanghai World Expo 2010

On Friday, October 15, the Boyfurendo and I ventured to Shanghai to see the 2010 World Expo. We left work early, had some McDonald's for lunch, and caught the bus to Kansai Airport. The flight was only 2 hours, which went by pretty fast. We flew in an airplane painted to look like a panda.
When we got to Shanghai, we took the Maglev (super fast magnetic train) to a station kind of near our hostel, then took a taxi the rest of the way. Taxis are super cheap in China, we paid $4-5 each for a 20-30 minute taxi ride, which in Japan would be ridiculously expensive. The ride was amazing as well because the whole city was lit up and every single bridge, overpass, and high rise building was covered in colored lights. It was the most impressive city I've ever seen- it absolutely puts Tokyo and Osaka to shame.
The taxi driver dropped us off at our hostel, which we couldn't find for a little while because it wasn't labeled very well. The street the hostel was on was all restaurants, and even a fish market-looking place with really awkward looking seafood.

Some kind of clear lobstery lookin' thing.......

We tried to ask some people which way to go to get to the hostel, and it turned out that every person on that particular street was incredibly rude and didn't like to help people. We finally went into a hotel and the lady wouldn't help me, but a man she was sitting next to looked at the address of the hostel and just pointed to the right so we walked that direction and eventually found it. We managed to find a place to have some dinner, and then unfortunately had no energy to do anything else, so we just went to bed to rest up for the next day.

On Saturday morning, we got up, and took the train to an underground shopping center, where we haggled for some knock-off Coach bags and a Gucci watch.

Me, celebrating the procurement of my counterfeit merchandise.

Then, we headed off to the Expo.

The theme of the 2010 Expo is "Better City, Better Life" and had a heavy focus on the environment and improving society in the future. Every country had their own awesomely designed building and inside every building was an exhibit of the culture and language of the country, as well as what that country does to help the earth and improve life for generations to come. Pretty cheesy overall, but the architecture was amazing. There were really long lines to get into many of the buildings- the most popular pavillions had lines that were over 6 hours long!- but James and I found a couple pavillions with lines that were less than 20 minutes and we went in those. We saw Algeria, Portugal, Luxembourg, and 2 of the environmental pavillions that were really interesting.

A view of some buildings in the Expo.

Across the street from the Chinese Pavillion, the largest and most popular pavillion in the Expo. That thing was HUGE!

Sweden Pavillion

The Dutch Pavillion: Happy Street, an "ideal city that has developed along a trade route; an area where all aspects of life flourish together."

Inside one of the environmental pavillions- a huge convex screen with the image of a rotating earth projected on it.

Shanghai skyline in the Expo reflecting pool

Big light display with changing colors and patterns over the reflecting pool.

We left the Expo that night, completely exhausted and with swollen feet from all the walking. The next day we got up to do some more sightseeing. We took a cab to Yuyuan Gardens, and spent a bit of time trying to find the actual entrance to the gardens. The cab had dropped us off in the middle of a bazaar-type area, with lots of shops, so everything was a bit crowded. We eventually found the entrance, and we found something else exciting that we hadn't seen in awhile.......

\(^o^)/

They didn't have Snickers or any of the good flavors, but James was able to get an Oreo cheesecake blizzard, and I got something with brownies and chocolate and deliciousness. I discovered during my trip that China likes to completely ruin Western food chains (they did some absolutely horrible things to Papa Johns that I will never forgive them for), but they did okay with Dairy Queen.

So we finally found the gardens, which was basically a big maze of crazy rock formations and old buildings around a huge koi pond.

It was very relaxing to walk around, though. The city had been stressing me out with all the rudeness and busyness and pushing around and being stared at, so it was nice to be in a relaxing place for a couple hours.
After we left the gardens, we headed east across the river to see the famous Pearl Tower. We decided to go up and see the view of the city from 300-something meters up. Unfortunately, we didn't find out until too late that there is apparently only one regular sized elevator that goes to the top, and we had to wait almost an hour to get to the top, all the while getting pushed around by impatient grandmas wearing Christmas sweaters and being stared at by spoiled teenagers acting like 3-year-olds (climing on guard rails, etc.). So fun. But the view at the top was amazing. We got to the top after dark, so we saw the whole city lit up.

Nearby buildings from the top of the Pearl Tower.

Across the river to the Bund, the famous foreign shopping/old financial district of Shanghai.

We had reservations for an acrobat show, so we waited in line again to catch the one elevator to the bottom, then caught a cab to the theater.

James took this photo of the tower in the cab on the way to the theater.

Because of the long lines in the tower, we ended up being a bit late to the show, but we were still able to see most of it. Afterwards, we had dinner at a foreigner friendly restaurant (they had nachos with pico de gallo and REAL SOUR CREAM!!!! (@.@) ), and walked on the Bund to see the skyline at night.

The next day we went back to the Bund for some more shopping before we had to head to the airport. James bought some shoes and some Wii games. I wanted some shoes, but wasn't able to find any that I wanted/ ones that fit.

Then we headed back to the airport, where I bought out the airport gift shop's supply of Skittles (I haven't seen those things in a YEAR!!), and then back to Kobe, where people actually know how to stand in lines like civilized people.

View of the Shanghai skyline from the Bund.

Host Family!

Last Thursday, I finally was able to visit with my host family, for the first time since 2006! I met them at Kuzuha Station (where I used to live) and then we went out to dinner for Yaki-shabushabu (meat and vegetables that you fry in an iron pan).
Afterwards, they invited me back to their house to play MarioKart and visit some more. Everything was exactly the way it was before and I remembered everything. It felt strange to be back, but it made me really happy to see everybody again.

My host brother, Reize, with one of the toys I bought him.

My host mom and brother in the train station.

富士山！！！

Battling the wind somewhere around Station 7 on Mt. Fuji.

This week, I climbed Mt. Fuji. It was amazing, to say the least.
On Saturday night, James and I went to a birthday party in Osaka. We slept for a few hours in a net-cafe, before meeting up with our friends at Shin-Osaka station to catch the 9:30 shinkansen (bullet train). We went to Mishima Station, then took a horrendously long bus ride to Fujiyoshida Station, and walked to the hostel where we would stay the night. Since we got there in the early afternoon, we had a few hours before dinner to walk around the lake. Unfortunately, the weather was pretty overcast and rainy, so we couldn't actually see Fuji, but we saw the cloud that it was behind. It was a big cloud.

Delicious "houtou" lunch! Thick noodles with cabbage, mushrooms, pumpkin, onion, and tofu.

That night, we had dinner and then went for a pre-Fuji-climbing onsen, and went to bed early so we'd be well rested for the next day.
The next morning, those of us who were climbing from the bottom of the mountain headed out around 7. There were two people in our group who were going the most common route and taking a bus to Station 5 to start climbing from there. The rest of us started from Fujiyoshida Station. We walked awhile before we even came to the woods, and then walked for another hour or so before the trail started to go up. But when it went up, it went up. and up. and up. and up. and up. It took about 3 hours of going up to get to Station 5. Along the way, we were passed by runners training for the Fuji Marathon, which is a race up Mt. Fuji. I believe you have to be completely insane in order to even think about doing that.
At Station 5, we stopped for lunch and to rest and change into some warmer clothes. Just before we got there, the wind suddenly picked up, and it seemed to get stronger while we were inside. By the time we left, the wind was so strong, it was difficult to walk in it, and I felt like I was going to get blown away. After Station 5, the plant life began to quickly disappear. Around Station 6 and 7, the climb was a winding path up the face of the mountain in slippery gravel. Because of the slippery gravel, the strong wind, the increasing altitude, and sore muscles, we were only able to take small steps, so going a few hundred meters usually took an hour or more. We also had to stop a lot because the wind would blow dirt in our faces and catch us off balance. It was just a generally horrible section of the trail, and it seemed like it went on FOREVER. Between 7 and 8 was nothing but lava rock. It was easy to climb, but everytime I would try to move, the wind would always catch me off balance, so in order to make any progress, I had to climb on my hands and knees. It was actually a really amazing experience, making our way through the maze of rock, holding on for dear life with the wind and rain. I hated it, but at the same time, it was the part of the climb that made the whole thing worth it. Around that time also, there were some breaks in the clouds, and we were able to get some amazing views of everything below. We were so high in the sky, and we could see way off in the distance where we had started, and it was unbelievable that we had come so far.
About 3 hours after leaving Station 5, we arrived at Station 8, the place where we would spend the night. (And by spend the night, I mean sleep there from 7 in the evening to around 4am. And by sleep, I mean just lay there and TRY to sleep. Even though we were all exhausted from the climb, the combination of going to bed at 7pm and being at such a high altitude (3100 meters or about 10,170 feet) made a good night's sleep next to impossible.)

The clouds at sunset from Station 8.

Originally, we were going to get up around 1am and finish climbing to the summit to see the sunrise, but the wind was so bad that we decided to stay and wait til daylight. It turned out that more clouds had come in since we got there, and we never actually got to see the sunrise, which was really disappointing. We still climbed to the top (another 3 hours) around 5am, and we hung out there and had some breakfast before heading back down. We wanted to go to the crater, but it was so wet and cold and we all just wanted to get back.

Hanging out at Station 10. Joe and Goran dressed up like Mario and Luigi was getting a lot of attention :)

The way down the mountain took about 3 hours. We only went back to Station 5 and then took a bus the rest of the way. Going down was pretty crazy, because the decending trail is all dirt and gravel, and you basically slide down. It's like skiing in your shoes. We were absolutely filthy by the time we got to the bus.
The whole way down was really surreal, because we were in a thick fog, and all you could see was people covered head to toe in raingear, volcanic rock, and black gravel. It was like being on another planet.
After we got to the station, we took a couple unnecessarily long and complicated bus rides, and eventually, and unintentionally, ended up back where we started. We went back to the same onsen we had gone to the day before, and had much needed showers and soaks in outdoor baths. Afterwards, we had some dinner before heading off to the Shinkansen, and then back home.
That night, I had Spaghettios and went straight to bed. I was supposed to work the next morning, but I was so exhausted that I didn't hear my alarm, and when I finally did, there was no way I was getting out of bed. I didn't have to teach so I just decided to take an extra vacation day. It was well deserved I think.

new blog!

新しいブログを始まりました！
i started another blog to help myself with my japanese studies. it's riddled with grammatical errors and probably sounds like a 3 year old wrote it, but it's there if anyone wants to read it (and maybe help me correct it :) )
i mostly started it because i just need practice forming sentences in japanese. i'm getting pretty good at reading and listening, but my speaking is HORRIBLE. i want to practice, but i'm so bad at it that i feel i need to work my way up to talking to actual japanese people. so far my interactions are limited mostly to sales people, and while i'm a fricken expert at ordering at starbucks, i kinda want to have a real conversation maybe. there are so many teachers i work with that would probably be really fun to talk to, and i just freeze up whenever i try. it's really frustrating.
i'm also learning lots of new grammar patterns and whatnot, and i want to practice them so i can apply them later. good times.

here's the link!

いよかんもち

Every once in a while, I'll find some omiyage (souvenir) left on my desk by a teacher who has recently gone on a trip. The most popular is usually something sweet- individual cake or cookie. Once I got a book mark. Some things are really nasty. Weird texture and odd flavor combinations. But some things are amazing.

Today, I had iyokan mochi.

::cue light shining through the clouds and voices of angels::

Mochi is something that has definitely grown on me, and has become one of my favorite things to eat in Japan. Mochi itself is rice that is somehow made squishy, almost like really, really soft taffy. It doesn't really have a lot of flavor by itself (it is rice) but the texture is really nice and it can be used for many things. In Korea, I had mochi in a red, spicy sauce, and in Japan, I have had mochi in nabe (stew/soup kinda thing), mochiyaki (grilled mochi) with cheese, and mochi with anko (sweet red bean paste), sometimes served hot with sesame seeds. I've had another kind of sweet mochi that has some kind of nuts in it- I think walnuts- and it was one of the sweets provided at the Japanese tea ceremony that I went to. But though all these different kinds of mochi were delicious in their own way, nothing compares to iyokan mochi.

I'm not sure what iyokan is in English, but I do know it is in the orange citrus family. Wikipedia says, "The iyokan (伊予柑), also known as anadomikan (穴門みかん), is a Japanese citrus fruit. It is the second most widely produced citrus fruit in Japan after the unshū mikan [seedless mandarin]. It was discovered in the Meiji era in Yamaguchi Prefecture [in southwestern Honshu]. It is now produced mostly in Ehime Prefecture [in northwestern Shikoku].
The peel is thicker than a mikan, but it can be peeled by hand. The flesh is slightly sour, but sweeter than a grapefruit."

My iyokan mochi was orange and covered on the outside with what looks like a very fine dust, but is probably some kind of flour? On the inside, there were two kinds of filling, one was a cream, and the other, not sure what. But it tasted like an orange creamsicle. INCREDIBLE.

It is now my mission to find the teacher that provided me with this little piece of heaven, and find out where it came from, so that I can get a ginormous box of them. Since iyokan are grown in Ehime, that is probably where I'm going to go... luckily, I'll be there during Golden Week :)

::win::

ready, set, 運動して！

On May 16, 2010, I will be running in a 15-k (about 9 miles) with some Kobe JETs up in Shiga Prefecture, near Lake Biwa.
I found a pretty nice 10 week training program online that I'm gonna use to help me prepare, since I've never run that far at one time, ever.

I got a membership to a gym near where I live so I can do cross and strength training, and also for a place to work out when the weather is crappy and I don't feel like running outside (ex. yesterday). It seems like a nice place. It reminds me of high school to be back in there with all the weights and machines and whatnot. Only James was making fun of me because I was doing the runners' workout (light weights/high reps) and he was doing his "I'm a guy so I need to look like a bad-ass when I'm at the gym" workout (even though that's the opposite of what is good for running, but it's whatevs), but it's okay because I'm gonna kick some butt come May.

Yay for the sprinter going the distance.

ひさしぶり！！！

I fail at blogging. ごめんね。

Major events of the the last 4 months or so include:

• Halloween
• Christmas
• New Years
• Valentine's Day
• High School Graduation
• Acquisition of a Canadian boyfriend
• Trip to Korea
• Trip to Hokkaido
• Lots of studying

Overview-

Halloween:

• Party on Friday night in Himeji with a bunch of JETs and English teachers from other programs. I was a spider and won a costume contest (cutest costume) and got a toilet lid cover as a prize. Some friends and I danced to Thriller. We had an after-party on the grounds of Himeji Castle, and went for some amazing late night ramen and deep-fried gyoza before going to sleep in the library of this dorm where a bunch of English teachers live. Someone brought us fruit in the morning and I ate the biggest apple ever for breakfast.
• Another party on Saturday at Polo Dog, but it was so crowded it was impossible to move, so we ended up hanging out outside. Finished the night up at a club in Kobe. Took a very expensive cab home because I was too tired to stay out.
• 週末はめっちゃ楽しかったよ！

Christmas:

• Japanese people like to take Western holidays and destroy them. Case in point: Christmas.
• The only songs that Japanese people think are Christmas songs are Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas" and Wham's "Last Christmas." That's it. At any point in time, these two songs will be on loop. In the grocery store. On the radio. Karaoke. School. EVERYWHERE. Torture.
• Also, any love song is a Christmas song, because Christmas is just like Valentine's Day. Right? And it's Santa's birthday. And Cupid is a symbol of Christmas. And hearts. And you eat cake, not cookies. Because that's what they do in Western countries, you know.
• So it got to the point where I kind of wished that they didn't celebrate Christmas at all, because not being home on the holidays was made harder by the fact that I was surrounded by familiar things that were all just a little messed up. I was actually pretty homesick and moody for much of December... but it was made better by the fact that MM came to visit for Christmas!!
• We went to KFC for lunch, a Japanese Christmas tradition, and sat out in the courtyard thing of the train station across from my apt and ate our fried chicken and french fries and drank champagne. It was actually a really pretty day out.
• That week, MM and I went all over Kansai. We went to Kyoto, Himeji, Osaka, Nara, and of course Kobe ::heart::.
• MM's friend Allan came up from Kyushu and we met him in Nara. We spent the day putting around, feeding deer, going to temples and whatnot. Allan ended up staying a couple days, and went back with MM when she left.
• MM's friend Jun also came to Osaka to see his brother. We met him in Umeda Station in Osaka, where it took him 2 hours to find us. Not sure why it took him 2 hours. Granted, Umeda is a gigantic station, but I am the most directionally challenged person ever and I don't think it's ever taken me that long to find anybody. MM finally found him in a bookstore (??) and he gave me omiyage (it was white cake with anko in the middle- おいしいよ！）and then we went to the aquarium, and James lost his ticket but then found it later. Then we went to meet Jun's brother, Go, and we went to perikura and then to a sushi place. We had already eaten dinner, but the place we went to was supposed to have really good sashimi, so Go ordered some food. They brought out this plate with a bunch of sashimi, and when the guy set it down, I noticed that the plate appeared to be garnished with a fish head. Then I noticed there was a tail. Then I noticed that they were attached. It was the fish the sashimi had been taken out of. And while I was looking at it, already kind of freaked out, it moved. It's mouth started going and I screamed and jumped and pointed at it. Then it moved again and everybody else saw it and freaked out... even the Japanese guys, which made me feel less like an idiot. So my friends decide it's a good idea to start playing with the thing which I thought was cruel and completely gross and at one point, I told James that if he didn't stop, I was going to vomit, because I really thought I was, but I didn't. Then somebody covered the fish with a leaf so I couldn't see it, and it was better.

New Years:

• James decided to come back from his trip to Thailand before New Years. We went to Matt and Emma's for a New Year's Eve nabe party (best idea ever). We got there around noon-ish, and hung out all day. Then Matt, Emma, and Goran went to sleep, but Joe, James and I went out to Sannomiya to bring in the New Year. We went to this cute Spanish wine bar and had some awesome shrimp and bread things. Then we went out with the intention of going to another place, but we briefly ended up near the Shrine in Sannomiya, and decided to partake in the awesome festival food that makes Japan amazing. We had some yakitori- the biggest skewer of yakitori EVER- and some candied strawberries and mikan, and I had a kebab. Yum festival food. We thought about staying near the shrine for midnight, cuz that's the thing to do in Japan, but it was too cold, so we went to my favorite bar, called Chey's House. At midnight, they gave out champagne. There was no Dick Clark's Rockin' Eve, and no ball dropping, but it was really nice. We decided to go back to Matt and Emma's instead of staying out more (the trains run later on New Years) because we were waking up early.
• So we got back to the house, and slept for about 2 hours, then we all woke up around 4am to catch the first train out to Suma. We climbed the mountain to see the first sunrise of the new year, and it was VERY cold, but it was so beautiful, even though Joe complained because there were clouds. We hiked down the mountain and it was a really pretty walk. Emma, Matt, Goran, and Joe went on to do the Ashiya to Arima hike we had done before, but James wasn't feeling good, so he and I decided not to go.
• Overall, good new year. Very low key and warm and fuzzy.

Valentine's Day:

• Valentine's Day in Japan is where girls give to guys (guys give to girls on White Day- March 14)
• I was　ちょっとbroke after Christmas vacation, so I decided to make dinner for Jamesu. I made homemade gyoza and it turned out really well. I made 3 different kinds: regular, vegetable, and curry. It took me almost 3 hours to make them, but I was proud of myself. Guys are supposed to double what girls do for them on White Day, so Jamesu better take 6 hours to make me dinner :)

High School Graduation:

• Took place last Friday. A lot of schools had theirs on Saturdays, so I think I lucked out a little.
• I felt like I was at a Catholic mass. Sit down, stand up, bow, sit down, etc.
• The kids just wore their regular uniforms. No special cap and gown or anything. A couple of them gave speeches. One girl was talking about all of her high school memories and started to cry and it was really sweet. I'm not used to Japanese children showing emotion. Usually I'm just trying to keep them awake during class.
• I ordered the special bento the teachers were getting for lunch.. it was HUGE. Then I got to go home early :)

Acquisition of a Canadian Boyfriend:

• You might have guessed, his name is James (we say Jamesu sometimes, because that's how they say it in Japanese), and he's from Vancouver, and an art kid just like me. We met in October, "official" in November.
• ::heart::

Trip to Korea:

• MM had planned on going to Korea for a long weekend right after Christmas. Her friend Justin lived in Seoul, so she had a place to stay and someone to show her around. I decided I kinda wanted to go too, so she checked with Justin and it was 大丈夫 so I bought my plane tickets.
• It only takes an hour and a half or so to get there. Super short flight. I flew into Busan, and when I got to the airport, I had to figure out how to get to the place where me and MM were supposed to meet. Just talking to one person in the airport, I could already tell that Korean people were very different from Japanese people. I don't know if it is that they're extremely rude, or if I'm just used to the Japanese being overly polite. I got a bit of an attitude from the lady I was asking directions from, and I got yelled at (first of many times) by the bus driver when I accidentally tried to put the wrong bill in the bus machine because I was temporarily confused by the new currency.
• I took the bus all the way to the subway stop where we were meeting. It was really confusing, becuase trying to hear the name of a stop in a language you've never actually heard before was really difficult. Also, the guy across from me was talking to the bus driver in a REALLY loud and obnoxious voice, so it was hard to hear anything. So finally, I met MM and we went for lunch.... at... get ready... PAPA JOHNS. I don't think I can really express how exciting that was for me. The pizza was amazing. No mayonaise, seafood, or corn (yay Japanese pizza). It came with the classic Papa John's garlic dip ("garlic deep" on the menu) and we got chicken tenders with honey mustard. Amazing. Just amazing.
• After lunch, we had a really fun time trying to find this spa that Justin had told us about (he ended up having a meeting that day in Seoul, and so couldn't meet us the day we came in). It turns out that knowing just a little bit of a language is helpful. Otherwise it's all charades. Which luckily, MM is very good at. So we finally found the place, but the people that worked there were mean. We asked if they spoke English, and they just said no. We were trying to communicate, but they didn't want to. Until this other woman coming out of the onsen said "can I help you?" and she started to translate for us, and magically they produced an English list of all the prices. It turns out, we could use the onsen, and stay the night, for about $7. We weren't ready to go in, so we just left our bags there (our friend later wrote us a message on a piece of paper to show them so we could get the bags back) and originally we were going to the train station to go explore, but the woman we just met (I can't remember her name) invited us to come to the temple where she lived studying Zen Buddhism. We walked around the temple, and took a short hike up the mountain behind the temple and saw the whole city of Busan. It was really pretty. Then we went back down in time for dinner at the temple. It was Buddhist, so everything was vegetarian, but it was good. We had some kind of cabbage soup, kimchi, bean sprouts, rice (an older lady laughed at me cuz I put the rice on the wrong side of my plate) and this really delicious spicy mocchi (basically mashed up rice that has a gummy texture). After dinner, we washed our dishes, and then went back to the onsen.
• The onsen was really nice, different than Japan, though. We got two towels when we went in, and it was hard to find a place to shower, because in Korea they aren't as considerate and just leave their stuff next to a shower when they're not using it, so we had to "shower" by dumping water from a tub over our heads. There were a lot of baths to choose from. They ranged in temperatures, from ice cold, to pretty hot. There was one that had chairs to sit in, and massage jets, and another one that was basically like a swimming pool. It had a current that you could swim against (but there were always old ladies blocking the jets for that.. using it for massage) and a jet that came out of the ceiling that you could use to massage your shoulders. There were also three saunas that ranged in temperature, and this other room that I'm not sure what it was for. A bunch of random people came up to us to talk.
• It was interesting, because in Korea, they seem to love to scrub. They have these special glove things, and they literally spent hours scrubbing themselves and eachother. It got pretty intense. They had massages for about $5, and I really wanted one, but I was a little intimidated by the scrubbing, and I didn't feel like trying to talk to anybody.. the Korean attitude was starting to wear me down a bit.
• After the bath, we changed into the pajama things they give you, and wandered around. We wanted to use the bath in the morning, so we went to the little store they have, where you can buy stuff like soap and scrubby things and whatnot. We were both planning on buying stuff, but clearly not soon enough, because out of nowhere, the woman behind the counter just started yelling, asking us questions, which of course we have no idea what she's saying. We just shrugged and looked blankly at her, and she got all huffy and rearranged everything we had touched, then walked away and started doing inventory or something. I assume what she said was "are you gonna buy something or what? I'm trying to close" but I guess we'll never know. Needless to say, I no longer wanted to buy anything, but MM went back for a scrubby thing the next day.
• That night, we slept in a big room upstairs. There aren't any beds, you just find a spot on the floor, which is heated and so amazing during winter. The next morning, we went into the bath again, and got yelled at again. This time, by the lady that gives out the towels, because I guess we had used too many and then the lady that does the laundry joined in yelling, and me and MM just stood there staring at them, and some other lady started staring and I just looked at her and shrugged my shoulders and she laughed and walked away because she knew the yelling was futile. I finally got frustrated, because I just wanted a towel, and no amount of screaming at me in a language I don't understand was going to make me not need a towel, so I started yelling back. First, I said "わかりません！！" in Japanese, thinking that maybe if they don't know "I don't understand" in English, they might know it in Nihongo. Then I just started saying whatever mean things came to mind, as fast as I could, so maybe she would understand what it's like to be yelled at and not know what's going on, and she finally shut up and gave me and MM our towels. Then we dried off and started getting dressed and this other older lady came up to me and started saying all these things and I just turned to MM and said "oh my goooooood I'm really tired of being yelled at!!" but it turns out the lady was trying to be nice and she gave us some mikans and everything was fine.
• That day we went to the beach to look around, saw a man in a thong, and a section of the city that was on fire, then we went to the train station to head towards Seoul to meet Justin.
• The train ride to Seoul was okay. I got mixed up on the times for a minute and thought the train ride would be 45 minutes, when really it was like 3 hours (stupid military time, making my life confusing) but it was all good. Right before we got there, we had another encounter with another wonderful citizen of Korea. Rough transcript of conversation is as follows:

Korean man: Where are you from? Are you from Canada?

Me: No, we're from the US.

KM: You must think I'm *something unintelligible*

Me: We think you're what?

KM: You must think I'm *something that sounds like elephant*

MM: We think you're an elephant?

KM: You think I'm arrogant.

Me/MM: Whaaaa?? No we don't!!

KM: Why can't you read Korean????

Me: Sir, we just got here yesterday.

KM: Why are you here?

Me: We're visiting a friend. We live in Japan and teach English.

KM: Why are you in Japan? They don't need English! We need English for jobs! You need to come to Korea!

Me: Japanese people do need to know English. They need it to get into University so they can get jobs.

MM: My friend teaches English in Seoul. There are a lot of English teachers here.

KM: I hate America.

Me/MM: Why?

KM: George Bush.

Me: Um... he's not there anymore. That was over like a year ago.

MM: Yeah, and I didn't even vote for him anyway.

::Train stops. Korean man continues for a minute to tell us how much he hates our country. The man steps in the aisle to leave the train, and we both give him big smiles and waves and say, "Okay! Nice meeting you! Bye!!!" ::

We now briefly interupt this blog for a

***Message to the Residents of Busan***

If you want more people to come to your country and teach you English, or learn your language, or whatever- STOP YELLING AT FOREIGNERS. The overall attitude of this particular city makes me not very likely to go back, and it makes me more likely to tell everyone how much better Japan is than your country, and since you hate Japan almost as much as you hate America, you don't want everybody thinking they're better than you, do you? Hmm? So BE NICE!!

おねがいします。

Thank you.

So we got to Seoul, and it was SNOWING :) We met up with Justin, and the rest of the weekend, no random Koreans yelled at us, and we actually had quite an enjoyable time in the city. The first night, we went up on the roof of Justin's apartment and played with snow and looked at views of the city. We had Korean barbeque (Japanese 焼き肉 is soooo much better ;) ) and we went out to clubs and had amazing kebabs, and played in snow some more, did touristy things like shopping, and playing in a lights display they had. We waved at a camera that projected the image onto a giant building, ate at a vegetarian cult restaurant (the lady that the restaurant was built for has encyclopedia books about her dogs and their individual life stories) that was delicious, had some amazing jujube tea in a beautiful tea house, I was told by a group of Korean women that I had a small face and "eyes like doors"- apparently a compliment, and we watched a horrible, horrible, horrible movie called The Room.

Yay Korea.

• I went back to Japan, and the first woman I talked to in the airport, I just wanted to hug because she was so overly friendly and I knew that no matter what I said or did, she wouldn't even think about yelling at me. I ::heart:: Japan.
• On the bus back, I encountered some crazy gaijin. I was sitting on the bus, waiting to leave, and I heard some foreigners getting on. I heard the driver trying to explain in Japanese and a little English, that the woman hadn't bought her bus ticket yet. She thought that the luggage ticket was for the bus. He kept saying "two tickets, two tickets" like she needs to have her bus ticket AND luggage ticket, but she kept pointing at her and her husband and pointing at her two luggage tickets and saying (louder than she needed to) "YES.. TWOOOOOO TICKETS". I was about to go to the front of the bus and help her, when all of a sudden I hear "YOOOOOOOOOOOOKOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!" The woman had yelled ACROSS the AIRPORT to the Japanese travel agent that had helped them to the bus. I decided I didn't want to be associated with that. The woman handed her their money and the lady, Yoko, ran off to buy tickets for them. Again, Japanese people are so nice. I kinda wanted to hug Yoko too. A Korean travel agent would probably have laughed, "Haha! you don't know the language!!" and walked away.

Trip to Hokkaido:

• So in early February, I went with a group of Kobe JETs to Hokkaido, just before the Hokkaido 雪まつり(Snow Festival). We spent 2 days in Niseko, which is a ski resort about 2 or 3 hours by bus outside of Sapporo, the main city in Hokkaido. Our hotel was right on the mountain, and it was really nice. It snowed everyday, all day, and we were able to get in 3 days of skiing, counting the first night, when most of us went night skiing(/snowboarding). The hotel we stayed in had it's own hot spring that we could use for free, and it had and outdoor bath that I used one night. It was so nice because the bath was really hot, but outside was so cold (my wet hair froze), but after being in the tub, you could walk around outside and be comfortable. There was a lot of steam, so it was sometimes hard to see, but you could see that it was snowing and it was so peaceful. I really needed the hot bath, though, because I was really sore after all the skiing. James was on the trip, too, and he and I had been together on the slope that day, and the trails get kind of confusing, so at some point, he accidentally took me down a black diamond, and I basically fell down the whole thing. I got really good at falling though, so I was able to control my falls so I didn't get hurt. I was sore though. The next day we accidentally went down the same slope again, but I made it, only falling once, and I was super proud of myself.
• There were some really cool restaurants in Niseko. For lunch one day, James and I went to this place called the Lumberjack, and they specialize in curry burgers. We both ordered it, and mistakenly ordered them with an extra potato patty, so we got the thing and it was HUGE, but sooo good. Another night for dinner, there was this pizza place that appeared to be run by austrailians. They had really good, western style pizza. It's kind of funny, because back home, I don't really eat pizza that much, but here I get all excited when I can find some normal pizza. I also had some chicken wings, because Hokkaido is apparently famous for chicken wings, and they weren't buffalo, they were some kind of sweet chili sauce that was extra delicious. The other cool place we went to was this really awesome ice bar. The walls, floor, furniture, everything was made of ice. It was really neat. Apparently they rebuild it every year, and it takes almost a whole season to be completely finished. They move it to a different location every year, but I think Niseko was the original. We had some really good hot chocolate.
• We also had 2 days to spend in Sapporo. We spent the first day wandering. We found a mall, a ferris wheel where we got a view of Sapporo, we saw the street where they were setting up for the snow festival- lots of guys with stacks of ice blocks, chisels, and chainsaws, and we ate some awesome Hokkaido ramen. I'm a little sad that we only saw the set-up for the festival, and not the actual festival, but next year I will definitely go back :)
• It was kind of interesting walking through the city. The sidewalks were covered in layers and layers of ice, probably 3-6 inches deep. I think it just snows and ices so much, they just gave up trying to control it. Also, they're Japanese and they like to do things the silly way sometimes. On one part of the sidewalk, there was a crew hacking through the ice, so I guess in some parts they try to keep it cleaned up.
• That night, we had dinner at the Sapporo beer garden. I had wanted to go to the museum beforehand, but the people I was with weren't super interested. It turned out that the museum was interesting though.. so again, something for next year, I guess. The food was really good. It was all you can drink and all you can eat and it was mutton or whatever it's called, which is pretty rare in Japan, so we were all excited about it. You just get a whole plate full of meat and cook it yourself on the grill in front of you. They also gave us a plate of vegetables to grill, but the meat went faster than the veggies :) That night, we wandered around again, checking out the city, and ended up going back to the hotel and going to sleep.
• The next day, we checked out of the hotel, and went to have a かに　(crab) lunch, which is famous in Hokkaido. Me and James split a hairy crab and it was delicious. I'm still partial to MD blue crabs and old bay, but Hokkaido does a good job too. Instead of butter, they gave us two kinds of vinegar to dip the meat in. I also got a small plate of grilled queen crab to try, and that was really nice as well.
• We got to the airport and it was kind of fun looking around the shops. I bought a stuffed snowman wearing a pig hat, and James loaded up on melon flavored everything. Aside from coldness, I ::heart:: Hokkaido.

たくさん勉強：

• I've been studying a lot. Not too much to say about that. I haven't had class in about a week or two, and the next class I teach will be in April apparently. I plan on taking the JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) in December, so I've been making flash cards out of the JLPT vocab and studying that. I made sure I had all the vocab from 4級(the easiest level) and now I'm going to start studying 3級 stuff. I bought some books to learn/review grammar and practice JLPT tests to become familiar with the format of the test. It's apparently changing this year, but hopefully not too much. The only part of my studying that's not going so well is the speaking part. I'm absolutely miserable at speaking. But I sometimes try to talk to my JTEs in Japanese and they're patient and like to help me out. Also, there's a lady that works in the office that sometimes picks me up on the way to work, and she only speaks Japanese, so our 10 minute car rides to school are good practice, too. がんばっている。