Sumi

My first period class was switched to 6th period, so it was nice to have the first part off, but tough to have to go back to teach in the afternoon.

After work, I headed to Hongdae to meet Sumi. I haven't seen her in about a month so it was good to see her again. She applied to an internship program with a company, KOICA (the same one that Jung Yoon, Jenny, also works for, now living in Sri Lanka) So she will be going to Pakistan for at least 6 months, possibly a year in November! For dinner we went to 구이가, Guiga-the same chain Jacob and I had gone to; I had suggested BBQ and she agreed saying she was craving it for awhile. Dinner was ok. The service was about the same as the other location, though not as obnoxious-just not very attentive. We ordered too much food and the one had a lot of fat on it. We had wanted to try this dish to add at the end of the meal with kimchi, rice and vegetables, but we were getting too full to try. When we left the place, I saw a sign and it said "service" with the poster of the dish. That means that the dish should have come free with the meal. We said something to one of the workers and she said that we had to ASK for it, they wouldn't give it to us without asking.   Definitely lost all hope with Guiga...I will only go to the location that is close to me, because older people work there. After dinner we walked around Hongdae a little. She had plans to meet someone else and I was planning to meet Jacob to get dessert for 9 months.

Sumi and I said goodbye and made plans to catch up again next week-trying to fit in hanging out before she goes! I went to meet Jacob for ice cream at Baskin Robbins. I got the green tea ice cream flavor again-so good! After dessert, we walked around a little before I took the bus home.

I stopped in Emart when I got back to do a little bit of shopping. I found some Pokemon stickers for Jacob as his Gotcha Day present (on Saturday). When I got home, I had a package from Mom! Great ending to my day.

Yummy ice cream! 

Package from Mom

Cute mice chocolates from Doreen in Boston. Almost too cute to eat!

Open Class and Korean Class

Today I was lucky because two of my 4th grade classes got cancelled! It was a nice surprise. In the afternoon, we had our open class. My COT wanted to tape the class so she had a video camera set up in the back of the room. The homeroom teacher also wanted pictures and video of her students, so she stayed in the classroom the whole time and walked around and took pictures and also helped here and there. I don't know if it was because I was focused on the class/lesson/students, but I only saw one other teacher come see our open class, and that was my 4th grade COT. The principal and two VP's didn't make an appearance to my knowledge.

After work, I headed downtown to class. I stopped in a Daiso to buy a light bulb for my bathroom. Class was a bit challenging, though I'm not sure why. I've already learned it, but I wasn't very focused. After class, I took the subway back home and I do think that is faster than the bus, though the bus is a little more convenient to ride, and I can usually get a seat easily (I had to stand the whole way).

Bora!

I'd been trying and trying to meet with Bora and hadn't been able to for almost a month and a half now. Finally we were able to meet today. I took the subway to Gangnam to meet her near her work. I arrived a bit before her, so I took advantage of the underground shopping while I waited. I saw a pair of black ankle boots and tried them on, but decided I would think about them a little (cash flow). I met up with Bora and we walked around looking for a place to eat.

She told me she wasn't hungry and I could pick anything, but most of the places I tried to suggest she turned down. We passed a 감자탕 (kamjatang) a kind of soup place and she suggested that so I agreed. In the end she didn't even eat anything because she said her stomach was upset from lunch. I felt a little funny eating while she sat there, but it was nice catching up with her.

We walked around a little after dinner and she suggested dessert. We passed a Baskin Robbins and went in. They have a delicious flavor--green tea and cookies and cream! We ordered that and shared it, though she didn't eat much. We chatted some more and then parted ways. I went back to the underground and the shop keeper recognized me! I ended up buying the shoes because I have been looking for black shoes to wear that should be mostly comfortable, but also a little dressy.

I took the subway home and it was a long ride. At home I played around with my phone a bit.

New Boots!

New Phone!

Originally, I had gotten a free used phone (S3) from one of Jacob's coworkers. The only problem was it was just the phone, no battery. I had plans to meet Bohye after work to get a SIM card for the phone. During the day, my friend John asked me if I was still interested in buying his S4. I said sure and asked how much and when I could get it. Turns out he had brought it to work with him and he gave a good price. I asked if I could pay him with my next paycheck (remember the transferring fiasco?) and he said it wasn't a problem.

So, after work I headed to the GOA'L office to get the phone from Jacob. Then I went to meet Bohye. John had charged the phone up and everything, everything was included and brand new (minus the phone of course)!! Wow~! It didn't take long for the phone to be activated. Bohye said she wasn't very hungry so we looked for a place to get a light dinner. I remembered my friend Mark talking about a restaurant called Crazy Ddeok (rice cake) and suggested that. She said that sounded good. We ordered and it was pretty good. We actually got the "minus 1" which was not spicy and it was still pretty spicy! After dinner, we walked around the shops in Hongdae. As a dessert we got hoddeok, the fried pancake. It was so delicious. Bohye and I parted ways because she had to head home.

Jacob told me to come visit him so he could help me with the phone a little bit. I stopped over briefly and he helped me get some apps that would be useful in switching over from Apple to Samsung. I took the bus home and at home just played around with the phone trying to figure it all out.

Back in Seoul

We woke up early and got ready. The night before Jacob had talked to a worker at the guesthouse about trains to the airport. She informed him there was a train earlier than the 6:45 one we were considering and said it would give us a little more time at the airport. We departed and walked to the station and found the track. We waited about 20 minutes for the train and were able to get a seat in the non-reserved car for the 75 minute train ride.

Again, with no baggage, we were able to check-in quickly. Then we saw the line through security and were extra glad we took the earlier train to the airport. The line was quite long, but again things moved fairly quickly. We found a small shop that had other flavors of kitkats (Japan has many different flavors of kitkats, but we only saw green tea and another kind of tea flavor during our stay) and bought a strawberry pack and I got a cheesecake flavor. There weren't any places to get breakfast, but we figured there would be an in-flight meal again. We boarded the plane and were on our way back to Korea. Breakfast was served, and we got yogurt, breads and fruit. The flight back was shorter (which confused me because we were going against the wind) but we arrived quickly. Going through customs didn't take long and we exchanged our extra Japanese Yen back to Won. We hopped on the AREX and headed back into Seoul. Before getting home, I bought some broccoli so I could get vegetables. At home, I just cleaned, cooked, unpacked and tidied up. Then for soccer I walked there-even though I had done a lot of walking the past few days, I just figured it would be a nice walk-the weather was so nice.

Soccer wasn't that great this week. I don't know if it was because I was so tired or what, but I didn't play well and I got pretty frustrated for the last half of it. After soccer Jacob took the "long way" home to ride the subway with me for part of the way. Earlier in the afternoon, my lightbulb in the bathroom popped and I asked the doorman about it. I figured since I pay a building fee of 50,000W a month it would be covered, but the doorman told me I need to buy a lightbulb; he gave me one but the other I needed to buy.

Day 3: Nijo-jo Castle, Market area and Kyoto Tower

Our last full day in Kyoto already! We didn't leave quite as early today. We were going to try and get a reservation for the Imperial Park, but they were all full as it was a Saturday and the tour books up quickly.

Instead, we went to Nijo-jo castle. It was a good choice. It was where the shogun lived during the time while there was also an emperor. The building has squeaky wood floors so if someone tried to sneak in, the floors would give them away. It was pretty cool, but if I lived there, listening to those squeaky floors all day would drive me nuts. No pictures were allowed inside the castle and no drawing/sketching was permitted either which I thought was kind of interesting. After walking around inside the castle part, we could walk on the grounds. It was really beautiful there. We even saw a Japanese wedding on the grounds!

After the castle, we decided to head to the downtown area to find lunch, picking a choice from our guidebook. We found a ramen restaurant and funny enough, we had passed it on our first day! There was a short wait before we were seated in the restaurant. We ordered two different kinds of ramen, dumplings and a side dish of mixed vegetables. Everything was quite delicious. We were enjoying everything immensely...until I kept working through my bowl and went for that one last bite...and scooped out a piece of hair! We called over a waitress and she apologized and offered to bring a new one. As I had already eaten almost all of it, we said no, I didn't want a new one so instead she took my ramen off the bill, which was nice and I wasn't expecting. I did feel bad because it was at the end of the meal and I didn't want it to seem like I had placed the hair to get a free meal or anything.

We walked through the market again and I found some magnets that I was looking for. We also did a little bit of gift shopping and snack buying. Evening was approaching, but we stopped back at our guesthouse to drop stuff off. Then we went to Kyoto Tower. We planned it so that we could be up in the tower around the time the sun set. It was a pretty nice view and it was cool to see the city spread beneath us and look for the places that we had been to on our trip.

Our mission for dinner was donkasu, fried pork cutlet. We went to the station to look for a restaurant. There was only one place that had donkasu; there was already a bit of a line, but we decided to stay and wait. All of a sudden there was a long line behind us. I wasn't sure if it was because the restaurant was famous/good, people saw the line and figured it was good/famous or because it was the only donkasu restaurant in the station! After waiting about 20 minutes we were seated and made our order. Unfortunately, the donkasu I wanted (stuffed with vegetables too) wasn't available anymore. When our food came out we enjoyed, but it wasn't as great as we were expecting. After dinner, we walked around the station because it was so big and had many shops. We exited and looked at another shopping mall place closer to the guesthouse (though the guesthouse is only about a 5 minute walk from the station). There, I found a nice blouse and a purse! After shopping, we realized we had a lot of change leftover and were still a little hungry. We went to MCD and I got a seasonal Halloween McFlurry-it was so good!

When we returned to the guesthouse, we just packed everything because we have to leave quite early in the morning for our 9:15AM flight.

Entrance to Nijo-jo Castle

More around the Castle

Nijo-jo Castle

Pretty grounds

Outside of the castle

More around the castle

Looking down at the castle

Around the castle

Ramen, veggies and dumplings for lunch!

Ramen!

In the elevator to go up the tower

Looking down at Kyoto Station

View from Kyoto Tower

Day 2: Bamboo Grove, Kinkaku-ji Temple, Gion again

We woke early-ish to head out to the Bamboo Grove. It was one of my favorite places. As soon as you walked into the area, it felt so much cooler and very refreshing. The bamboo was so high! I've never seen such big bamboo in my life. After walking around, we got a snack. First we tried the potato croquettes which were delicious. Then we shared a green tea/vanilla ice cream cone. That was also very delicious. We took the JR train back to Kyoto Station and went to MCD's for lunch so Jacob could try MCD in China, Japan and Korea. The french fries were delicious and it was also a lot cheaper than most of the other Japanese food. Again, we took a short rest at the guesthouse to decide where to move on for the rest of the afternoon.

We decided on Kinkaku-ji Temple, the Golden Temple. Walking back to Kyoto Station, we bought a day pass for the bus and had about a 40 minute bus ride to the temple. The temple was pretty impressive-it had gold lief all over the sides and was quite beautiful to look at. You couldn't go in it or get too close, but there were gardens to walk around on the temple grounds. We hopped on a bus and decided we'd check out the Imperial Palace Park/Gardens. We got there and started walking around a little bit and tried to figure out how to get into the palace. Our guidebook told us in the fall reservations weren't required, but after asking around and finding the information center, reservations were required and the final English tour was over for the day. Unfortunately we didn't get to see much in that area.

We took the bus to Gion area and decided we'd explore more there. We hit the jackpot and realized there was a lot more to Gion than when we visited last night. The weather was also much nicer and it was an enjoyable time. The streets and buildings there were pretty and there were many shops to look at. We started getting hungry and walked down to the main street to find somewhere to eat. We got udon (thick noodles) and a different kind of rice bowl for dinner. Then we did a little bit of shopping before returning to the guesthouse. We had new roommates; this time two Korean young women. We chatted with them and they were very nice.

In the bamboo forest

Felt so refreshing here!

Croquette snack

Followed by green tea ice cream :)

Artsy bike shot

Artsy train station window shot

Cool entrance ticket for the golden temple

Kinkaku-ji Temple

Temple

Around the temple

Imperial Palace grounds

Back wandering Gion

Wandering Gion

Loved this alley in Gion

Gion