A very lazy post to cover the last two weeks

I haven't took you about the rest of Japan. Oops!

A very brief overview of Kyoto:
Well lots of temples... Like a lot! But each was amazing and beautiful and it snowed at several and it was just magical looking. I could tell you about each individual temple but it would take a while and to be honest it would probably be boring because it is way better to see them! I will say that there is something magic about snow floating down, bright green moss growing and red leaves on the trees. Temples are also surrounded my beautiful gardens. They are beautiful. There is pictures on face book.
We also went to an onzen, which is a public bath were you are with all women (or men depending on your gender obviously) and then soak in tubs of hot water. It was an experience. Not used to being around naked Asian women... Or having an spot where they send electricity through the water. Not sure what it is good for but totally weird feeling!

Now Osaka:
We went to a cool museum... It was in an old castle and all about the life of the man who united Japan as a country. Very interesting but all of the names started to make my head spin. Lots of people are involved in history. Who knew!

Then Hiroshima:
Heartbreaking. I left the museum after several hours totally nauseous. I am glad to have done it but I don't ever need to go back. Totally reinforced my feeling of anti nuke.

Then we came back to Michael's house to sleep and chill after a week of going and going and going. Then on to Seoul to get an India visa for Tara.

Seoul was really fun. We stayed in my favorite hostel I have been in yet. Meet wonderful people who did things with us. Went ice skating with a Peter who is from Slovakia (he taught me how to skate backwards. Also he looked a bit like he was born with skates on his feet but I guess you would expect that seeing where he is from), went to Gangnam with our new friend Raymond from Singapore, went out with the hostel owner and where we meet Raymond, Peter, Maggie, and Rahan, and overall just had fun. It was also freezing the whole time we were there.

Now we have left Tara's passport to get an India visa and are back at Michael's for Christmas. Thankful to have Tara with me for adventures and a house to come back to to cook and celebrate in. It will be very weird to be just the two of us for Christmas but Skype makes the distance between us and our families much smaller!

Tara and I got a teeny tiny Christmas tree and decorated it with earrings and put our small stack of presents under it. We hung an ankle sock of our stocking and are having marinated tofu, mash potatoes and eggnog for Christmas. Oh and we bought coffee to make on Christmas morning! It sound kinda sad but I am very happy with our Christmas spirit. I hope all of your holidays are bright and full of love. Hug those close to you and remember what a beautiful place the world is! Happy Christmas everyone.

Tokyo! Day one and two.

12/6

And off we go! I am writing this on my I pad while riding a bullet train across Japan. That's a really cool thing to be able to say. Now going back to where I last wrote.

Saturday Michael, Tara and I drove out of Ulsan to I don't remember the name (it's a Korean name and Korean names are ver hard to remember give me a break! I remember that I am in Ulsan, I live in dong-gu, how to direct a cab driver in Korean, that down town is by the lotte hotel and skyrex, and that buses 123, 401, 104, 127 will all take me home. But not the name of the town we went too). It took a while because of traffic and only getting to go 80 km/h but we drove all the way up the coast heading north.

We stayed at the most random hotel I have ever been in. The room is 30C and can't be turned down, a Korean woman sang 80s songs in very good English while a projected laser thing (like they use at dances/raves) ran, you sat on couches under beach umbrellas, a ham and cheese plate is the most well displayed spam I have ever seen, and breakfast potatoes are actually the French fries that they serve at public schools. There was also life size figures of an astronaut and pirate standing out side the restaurant.

On Sunday we went to a Korean national park. Emphasis on national. Which I won't be writing about. Lets just say it was pg 13 and a rather awkward/interesting but all around hysterical day. It was built because of a legend of a woman drown in front of her lover and all the fish went away. And you know what every drown woman needs? That's right a park full of man genitalia.

Now moving on from that and skipping a few days to Wednesday. We got up went and got cash and some granola bars from home plus and rode a bus to the train station. From there we took the train to Busan (one city over. About an hour by car but only twenty min on a train that goes 300+ km/h. Then rode the subway over one stop and found the ferry terminal. Where we spent all day. There is stuff to do in Busan and we wanted to do it but its hard with a back pack and it being cold. Note for the future, there is no reason at all to be at the ferry station before 5:30 pm if the ferry leaves at 8.

Finally we did get on the ferry though. It reminded me of the ferry I took while in Greece in the band trip but not quite as high class. We, of course, got the cheapest tickets we could and were in a room that had floor mats for 12 people. Luckily there was only 7 of us in the room. I really like ferries. So now after a night of defiantly not the best sleep ever (freaking Korean lady waking up at 5:30! There is no reason to get up at 5:30 on a ferry that doesn't get in until 8. And there is DEFIANTLY no reason to brightly start talking to the room full of sleeping people. No idea what she said but I was not happy to hear it.) (but we did meet a very nice man, who is a tour guide of korea, and his very sweet little girl. Then this morning while we were lining up to get off the ferry she and her totally gorgeous mother came up and gave us two packages of cookies we got a picture with the little girl. It was very sweet and totally made up for the 5:30 wake up.) we are in Japan.

I was expecting Japan to be a little bit more strict (just because they are kind of known for that) but I feel like we got stopped kind of a lot. There was an official guy who read over our immigration forms to make sure we had them filled in right, then the man that stamped out passports didn't like that we have no definite address in Tokyo, then the baggage searching people looked through my bag (was totally confused by the yoga may which is in my back pack), then we walked out of customs and immediately got stopped by a police officer who was there to check our pass ports again. The police guy gave us directions though so that was nice.

So now we are in Japan, with zero yen (haven't found a global ATM yet), and on a bullet train bound for Tokyo. I am over the moon. In the few hours we have been here there has been an even greater lack of English and we stand out a whole lot more. But this train is awesome and people have over all been nice. Not overly helpful but nice. Now we get to cram as much into the next week as we can then back on the ferry we go.

We will get to Tokyo in a couple more hours then first stop ATM, second stop food, third stop grocery store to load up on granola bars, fourth stop find a hostel. I just really hope that Japanese food is better that Korean food. I don't know if I can live on rice and granola bars.

12/7

We have done A TON today. It was the "lets see all of Tokyo in a day" day... And it was so much fun.

To start we are staying in a hostel in Asakusa. It is functional. Nothing fancy but it has beds and a safe place to drop our stuff and an almost comfortable bed. (To be honest, last night I could have slept on a rock so I am not totally sire about the bed.) We were totally lost foreigners last night, having to ask for help almost every step of the train and subway. This weird thing of I don't speak or read Japanese and they seem to like it here. But we did find the hostel where we finally got to drop our back packs and find some real food.

We ended up at an Indian restaurant because that was for sure vegetarian and warm. It was amazing. Everything was hot and filling. And wandered around getting a bit lost in the very cool streets that we found.

Now I am too lazy to go get the guide map so some of the fancy names but here is what I can come up with off the top of my head. We started by going to the shopping ont he street that is in Asakusa and walked all the way down to the temple that is at the end of it. The temple is the oldest one in Tokyo and was very beautiful. There was a prayer service going on when we where there with monks chanting and one beating a drum then the head man doing the incense. It was very cool and something I didn't know I would get to experience. Then we wandered around the garden and the shrines that where around the temple.

Next we wandered our way to Tokyo Tower (which is very close to the temple. We couldn't have wandered there is it wasn't because Tokyo, funnily enough, it Huge.) Tokyo tower looks a little bit like the Eiffel Tower (no quite right but I swear the key chains are made from the same mold). It has two observatories one at 150m and one at 250m. From the tower you could see a 360 view of Tokyo. Man it is a beautiful place. With a view out to the sea one way and to mount Fiji (not really because it is always kind of cloudy but apparently on a very, very clear day you can see it). Then buildings as far as you can see. It stretches on and on and on. It is dotted with trees and parks and there is a mix of old and brand new that is spectacular. It is so mind twisting to be walk by a sky scraper one minuet and through a temple build ages ago the next.

After lunch (ummmm we chose a veggie Demi plate and it was rice with like gravy on top. Tasty and served in a nifty little cast iron pan.) at Tokyo tower we took the JR rail to Shibuya which is the shopping area (according to our guide map!) and boy was it busy! Lots of stores and lots of people! And there we spent several hours wandering random streets window shopping and people watching. I could blow a lot of money here but seeing as I don't have money to blow or any space at all window shopping it is. There was quite an amazing (and totally ridiculously expensive) hat store.

It was dusk when we went back to the JR rail and took it to Shinjuku, which I think is the business district, to see the sky scrapers and wander around the businessy side of things. Sky scrapers have a strange beauty about then. True the fill up the sky line and can clutter the view but they are still amazing and can be beautiful. So we enjoyed that and did even more wandering before heading back to Asakusa and the hostel. We stopped for dinner in the train station and had seaweed onigri (rice balls filled with what tasted like seaweed salad.) then while searching for a man who was selling oranges yesterday we found a grocery store and got oranges and bananas and what we hoped was peanut butter (it wasn't. It is like peanut flavored carmel sauce. Which is fine but more sugar and I just wanted protein. Oh well it was something. But I am a little sad because I love peanut butter!)

Now I am sitting on the floor in the Internet room of the hostel chatting with Tara and a random Italian guy (dude this guy is awesome. he grew up in Luxembourg took a gap year in Africa, is going to college in wales, is here on a year off to learn more Japanese, and dreams of opening a tiny bed and breakfast in Tanzania. Super fun to chat with.) who is here on year off. Apparently there was a earthquake in Japan today that neither Tara or I felt. Which is really funny because apparently it was a rather bad one. But on a more important note, the pope got twitter!!! Say what?!? Now we are listening to a Brazilian song because the other two guys in here are speaking Brazilian. I think I like hostels. Tomorrow we are going to the imperial palace and then heading to Kyoto. I think this is going smashingly well!

Yet another week

Oops I have let another week fly by without writing about it. Im getting good at this being busy thing.

Last Friday we hosted a thanksgiving dinner for Michael's friends and it was quite enjoyable. There was 13 people so we made up chairs and ate on plastic tables but it was more about the people around the table. Tara and I cooked for a party of 13 of our family members and apparently people do not eat like our family. W have mashed potatoes coming out our ears! And had to freeze some of the turkey.

Saturday we had a thanksgiving dinner at one of his friends houses so I got to meet even more people. And we watched the football game. (Funny story. We are in Korea so the football game was recorded via the Internet. Being the exciting game that it was it went into overtime. And Texas was lining up to make the potentially winning field goal... And the recording quit.  Bahahaha 3 hours, 45 minuets, and 30 seconds of football. Most people sitting there for the entire thing! And it quit. All they needed was another 45 seconds. Poor people who are actually into football.) Then Tara, Michael, and I went to see some of the night life in downtown Ulsan. And we had some fun.

The only productive things from Sunday was that Tara and I went for a run and cleaned our room. We rock.

Monday was Tara's birthday! So we went to yoga class in the morning then lunch at a random coffee shop, then some shopping, then some chilling, then some grocery shopping, then dinner and pie with candles. All in all a rather successful day.

Tuesday we bummed around then went to Ilsan beach and did a hike that is from there. Super pretty. Really cool rocks that are apparently hiding a queen who turned into a dragon and is sleeping there to protect Korea from Japan.

Wednesday we did nothing. Literally nothing. It was wonderful. Who doesn't love hot chocolate with baileys and Harry Potter movies. It was also cloudy out.

Now today. We were very productive. Today we found the Ulsan culture museum. Oh my gosh Ulsan has lots of culture! Who knew. (Well old culture then they built themselves as the industrial hub of South Korea and decided to be a little anti art.) It was a very cool museum that started with stone pots and made its way all the way through to explaining oil refineries. (I use explaining loosely because the English translations were, well, short.) I never knew I could be so interested in industry but they did a very good job. There were videos (in Korean but I got the gist) of how big oil rigs are made and how cars are made. There was a wall that showed and describe what raw oil can be processed into and what that is then used in. I had no idea it was in so much stuff. Petroleum is in everything. We also met the nicest tour guide who walked us through and talked us through everything. She spoke almost no English and we speak basically no Korean so it was lots of gesturing and one word descriptions but she was wonderful. And then she started teaching us korean. Writing everything down and taught us their vowel sounds and then started with words. I was a bit confused through most of it but it was very nice to have someone talking us though somethings. Then dinner and a bus ride home (we are getting good at this bus thing. Though to be honest I trust Tara most of the time with all things involving direction. I seem to be missing an internal compass. Seriously half the time I will be walking in entirely the wrong direction. Woo getting lost like a pro.)

That's all for now! We are working on our plans for branching out from Korea. Hoping to go to Japan next week. Planning to spend a week there. So excited!

I tried to post this on Thursday but it wouldn't let me. So here it is and I will do the weekend later.

A brief recap of my week

Today is Thursday. So recap of the week that I haven't wrote about at all. Last Thursday I learned to play mahjong then wandered around some shopping street which were all lined with boutiques. Lots of wandering and was quite enjoyable. Then Friday the only thing I accomplished was going grocery shopping. Saturday I tidied the house and did some laundry (yay clean clothes!), then Tara and Michael got here. Sunday we lazed around the house so they could have some jet lag recovery time.

Now Monday is when we started actually doing interesting things. Tara and I took a taxi to Ulsan Grand Park. Which just for future reference you need to ask the local, only Korean speaking, taxi driver to take you to ok-dong. We wandered around the park in search of the Ulsan museum which was supposed to be by the east gate. Of course with all the maps and signs in korean and no translate app we were really just wandering hoping we run into it. W didn't but we did see that there was a butterfly pavilion and some giant trampoline things and rope web jungle gym thing (the last two were only for elementary school aged children. Dang.). The best thing we found was a coffee vending machine. You put in 500 wan (50 cense) and get a tiny little cup of rather delicious hot latte. It was amazing! Lunch however was not so amazing. We left the park and randomly chose a restaurant that was advertising Vietnamese spring rolls. Assuming that that was a good shot for being vegetarian friendly we sat down. We were wrong. It was a classic Korean barbecue with rice paper to make you own meat spring rolls. Trying to be true adventurers we guessed and ordered a noodle bowl, asking for no meat. Turns out it was sea food. With eyes. Well the shrimp had eyes. Which totally killed it for me and made me a bit jumpy.  So when I stuck my metal chop sticks back into the bowl and they scraped along something I may or may not of totally let out a small scream. That basically ended lunch. We walked down the road for a while then found a bus that would take us to the right place and took a bus home.

Tuesday Tara and I went and had coffee with the expat wives. Lots of people and very enjoyable socializing. Then we went shopping and spent the rest of the day wandering around the amazing maze of street that are referred to as old down town. It was a long day of shopping then we rounded it all off by sprinting after a bus and trying to beat it to the next bus stop. Lost to the bus but the next one came only five minuets later. So the run was unnecessary.  Rounded off the whole day by going to Zumba class.

Wednesday we hung out in the morning waiting for the dish washer repair guy and  cleaning ladies to show up. They never did so we went to the Hyundai department store and bought the groceries we couldn't find at home plus. Then we came home and did some baking. Michael came home around six and informed us the dishwasher guy had canceled and that we needed to go to Costco. So we did. And spent lots of money which was a bit surprising because I really didn't think we needed any more food. Costco is a dangerous place apparently.

Now today. Tara and I caught a bus to down town and played mahjong again. Then hitched a ride back to the foreigners compound with the yoga instructed and did yoga. Then came home to do more baking. We made avocado bruschetta and fruit smoothies for lunch. Rather amazing. Now hanging out until the pies are baked then we are going out to get coffee. Woo!

Michael is hosting a thanksgiving dinner tomorrow so we are working on making anything possible in advance. He has a very very small oven.

I have a place in the community of expat wives. Well they have willingly and happily invited and included me in any thing they do that I would like to join with. It started with a hike that Katie (a 26 year old wife of an engineer of some kind from Huston who hangs out with me while on these wife trips) invited me to join the night of Michael's party where I meet a handful of the women who then invited me to go on the flik (foreigners living in Korea) ladies trip to gyeongju folk craft market. So that is what I did on Monday.

Gyeongju folk craft market is north of Ulsan and up a bit more in the hills (as far as I could tell but no real promises on that) where people hand make and sell traditional Korean crafts, like pottery, wood crafts and metal things. I mainly found pottery which was fine with me because it was amazing pottery. And a lot of it... So we spent about two hours exploring and shopping and admiring then got back on the bus to go to lunch.

Lunch was at the Hilton hotel (I think) buffet where they served a variety of "traditional" Korean food and western food. Oh joy more guessing what the heck I am eating! But it was actually very good. Everything was labeled in english so less guessing than normal and there really was a good variety. I tried kimchi pies (little round flattish pancake things that I guess are made of kimchi), some root of some kind and Vietnamese spring rolls which had pineapple in them (which was just weird. I love veggie spring rolls but the pineapple was weird.).  My favorite dish was labeled bean curd and veggies which was in a sauce that was slightly sweet but salty no idea how else to describe it. To my surprise when I got back to my seat and was actually picking through things to eat them it also has squid in it. And by squid I mean little inch in diameter squid tentacle rounds. It was totally delicious. The fact that there were obviously tentacles in it and it looked a tiny bit like I was eating a colony of happy baby squid playing in a broccoli forest was the only thing that stopped me getting a bigger second helping. My imagination really doesn't help me some times. It did have bean curd in it though so the label wasn't lying!

That was on Monday then on Tuesday I went to the yoga class they have at the foreigners compound at noon, then dropped off Michael's dry cleaning and bought some bread (well actually I bought bread, tofu, milk and alcoholic cider which I though was an odd combination of groceries...) and went home for a few hours. Than ulviya picked me up and drove me to her house where she feed me dinner with her family (which was traditional Russian because her house maid wanted me to try it and it would be way better hand made. In was so good. Like little tiny meatballs wrapped in dough then boiled like ravioli served with onions and home made yogurt with garlic. The best thing was actually the eggplant which was fried then had mayonnaise and lots of garlic on it. I know it sounds gross but it was really tasty. Needless to say after that dinner vampires didn't stand a chance around me.) Then ulviya and I went to Zumba which I have gone to twice now. Once last Thursday and then again yesterday. Yesterday there was only four of us and I was the only one who wasn't Russian. I don't think I had ever meet someone who spoke Russian before and now I am the deprived one for only speaking one language. Which everyone just nods and says your American when they find out. That's a very weird feeling. I really should start another language. Maybe I will have them teach me some Russian. Not that that will help with the Korean taxi drivers but it would be cool!
Now that brings us to today. Nothing is happening. I am staying home and I have cleaned out the fridge, put away my clothes, done some laundry, talked to my family and just relaxed. Tomorrow I am going to learn to play mahjong with some of the wives again and then explore around where they live a little bit. Tara and Michael get here on Saturday. I am very excited but I will honestly kinda miss having the house to my self. No more midnight private dance parties. Just have to have mid afternoon for two dance parties. Hope your excited Tara! Can't wait to see you.

Shopping

So in the past couple of days I have done a bit of lazing, a bit of exploring, and a bit of meeting new people. But right now I am going to talk about shopping. Expensive coats, hundreds of shoes, and bling covered refrigerators. Michael and I went down to old down town a week ago Sunday and went to the new James Bond then wandered around the shops. Old down town is several blocks of covered sidewalks that is full of shops. Obviously it also has a movie theater, a mulit level theater that had the most comfortable seats I have found in a movie theater! Totally enjoyed the new James Bond. Which I saw five days before it was released in the USA. Then we went shoe shopping! So old down town has a ton of shops. And they have shops entirely full of shoes, like hundreds of shoes all out and stacked on top of each other in a total fail at displaying them. So that totally satisfied my shoe shopping need. Didn't buy anything but found some awesome shoes! And my shoe size is 235 ish here. Woo!
Ok so there is shoes. So now shopping. I went to a department store and shopped around for the fun of it the other day. It is a five level store that was a bit interesting because it was literally a department store because you bought things from each individual section. It is getting to be Christmas time! There was a Christmas tree and everything. So I found about ten coats that I loved for me (about passed out at the price tag! You know if I had $500 laying around I would so have a coat right now.) and then got totally lost in a rather amazing mens section (so many suits! I greatly appreciate the fact that in Korea they have mens clothing that is rather awesome as well. Found so many snazzy jackets and shoes.) and then there was children's clothes (I have no idea who can afford to spend over $100 on a singular baby's coat but they were super adorable! It's a really good thing I didn't have money or any babies that I know to buy things for.) It took me several hours to explore the whole store. My camera and I had a great time shopping and wishing we had lots more money to spend. Sigh oh to have lots and lots of money to throw around. I just love fashion.
Now bling covered refrigerators. Yeah I'm not really sure why... But! There are so many bling cover refrigerator. I have never seen a bling refrigerator in the USA. All of them are boring and utilitarian. You know black, silver, white with a couple fancy options but no! These have stripes or flowers and Swarovski crystals and fancy doors that only open to a little compartment and random ones that have like four doors that I have no idea what they even go to. Like all of them! You have to look a bit to find one with no extra bling. Even the chest freezers! I got funny looks because I spent like twenty minuets wandering through the appliance section. It was kinda awesome.
I really do love to shop. And so that is what I have been doing! Not much buying (just a pair of socks and a pair of wool winter classy gloves. They are kind awesome just saying. So I bought them.) Until next time!

I really should learn some Korean

Today I learned the struggle of a language barrier, not knowing my address, and curvy roads. To start, I caught a taxi and went to Ulsan beach which has a walk way along it and a hike through a pine forest all along the coast. So I went there and drank a juice at 'Holly's Coffee' then hiked the trail. Which was beautiful. All pine trees and along the coast. You could see a view all along the city and out to the ocean. It was cool outside, smelled fresh and I was in nature. And I got to practice being Korean and take self portraits which everyone does every where. Normally it actually two people who want to both be in the picture. And they take them everywhere! Like Costco where I saw a couple take a picture (you know camera held out at arms length and just hope you get both in the picture). That one confused me. Who wants to show off being together at Costco. "Oh look this is me and my boyfriend shopping for mass amounts of food." That'll be hung on the wall. But! Hiking alone an knowing that picture with people in them are the pictures that I keep mp and like most I am working on the self portrait.

Then I walked back to the main road and caught a taxi. Of course I have no idea what taxi edict is and I speak zero Korean. So I got totally confused when I got in the parked taxi and he said something and laughed at me. Ya that started the confusion. Then I gave him the card that has my address on it and he said "oh ocean city ya." So I sat back and chilled out trying to figure out what the stores around us where selling. Then he stops outside a building and say "ocean city." Shit... It's a building I have never seen in my life. Now at this moment I don't have a cell phone, I defiantly don't know any street names and these roads are so of the most confusing roads I've seen. "No." I said to the driver. The look on his face was sort of priceless. Then there was some loud talking in Korean where he looked at me and gestured to the building and then said some more Korean. Did I mention that I don't speak any Korean? So the he started calling people and yelling at them in Korean. Apparently no one knows where I live! He started driving around and kept pulling over to call more people. Then the Sea Side restaurant (right down the street from the apartment)  saved the day! I saw it and started kind of yelling at the driver to turn and with a lot of gesturing and repeating on my part he got it and turned. Then with even more gesturing and trying to get him to just stop we got the the apartment. Only double the cab fare than what it cost to get out in the first place but hey I'm back! With just a little lost trust in cab drivers and really confused my he didn't use the GPS that was on his dash but home.

That was all today. Yesterday we had a party/get together at Michael's where I got to meet some of the people he works with and they got to see his house. So that went down smashingly well. It is really good to meet some more people and finally start to get a little bit of a network. Hopefully Michael will bring the phone I get to use while I'm over here home with him today then when he leaves Monday I will have access to people and not be totally alone for two weeks. Which would be dandy but I do like myself and find that I am great company so I could just find more adventures to go on and it would all be good! Now I am going to put off washing the dishes even longer by taking a bath and finishing my book. Man I have a delicious life.

10/27
I finally got out of the house. I meet Andrew, Michael's friend the "baby engineer", and the three of us went to busan to see fireworks. The largest firework display in South Korea. We left at about five and drove to busan. Then drove around a random parking where Korean men shouted at us. Pretty sure it was actually a bus parking spot but they let us park so who knows.
Any who, we then got on the subway to get from the outskirts of the city to the center. There was supposed to be something like 2 million at the fireworks so the subway was to save parking and getting out of town time. Very clear easy to navigate subway. There was an old Korean man sitting across form me and Andrew who caught my eye and smiled a rather crooked, yellow toothed grin at me and patted the seat right next to him. "5 dollar?" He said with an even wider grin. So I scooted a tiny bit closer to Andrew (who is over 6 foot tall and like 25 ish) and learned not to make eye contact with the people who stare at me.
Of course we get to the center of busan to find out that the fireworks have been canceled due to the fact that it had been pouring rain all day. So we went out to dinner! Which was also fun. Had we known we wouldn't have traveled two hours to it but it was good to get out of the house and the bridge that they where supposed to launch fireworks from was a beautiful sight. So dinner then a very uneventful ride home.

10/28
More groceries! Woo! And this time it is Costco amount of everything. So we went from having zero baking powder in the house to having a 15 lb bag of baking powder. But it's very nice to have a larger variety of food.and who doesn't love wanting around Costco.
That's about all we did. And moved some more furniture. And slept in. Pretty much sums up Sunday.

10/29
Which brings us to today. It is three in the afternoon and I have reorganized the kitchen so all our new mass quantities of food could have a home. Went for a walk down the street. Admired the fish that were in tanks right off the docks down the block. A huge tank of flounder, and eels and I didn't actually look that hard. Just got distracted by the flounder. Man those are weird fish.
Then I worked out. I couldn't find a single set of weights in the house so I used two bottles of Bacardi. Which you know just made me laugh. Worked like a charm for being light weights though.
Now I'm going to slightly shift some more furniture and finish watching Harry Potter. Oh and wash some towels.
  And figure out how to tell my internet that I can't read Korean so pleas quit changing all my web sights to it. I have no idea what anything says now!

10/25

Another day of hanging out at Michael's house. BUT! We unpacked all of his art yesterday. 12 boxes of at lest two pictures each. It was like Christmas for me. Piece after piece of beautiful art which are now leaning against the walls of the hall waiting to be found homes. To make it even better I spent all this morning un packing all of Michael's carpets. Which are pieces of art themselves. So it's been a good two days!
Then I started to rearrange the living room and make it feel homey here.

I love being right by the ocean. With the side door open I can spend all day listening to the waves. The best thing about Michael's place is that all the walls that can have windows on them. Big windows!

Thank you so much for writing on my blog! It makes me smile to read what everyone is up to. I will go out and find stuff to socialize soon. One of Michael's friends works out a lot so I'm hoping she will take/show me where her gym is. For right now I am going to lay all of the bubble wrap (that was around every single picture) across the floor and have a one person dance party. Bubble wrap just makes me happy!

10/20

The first step of my journey has happened. I got on an airplane. And it was horribly hard. I sat in the airport with my mom, dad, boyfriend (Aaron) and his mom (Tracy) and sobbed as I said good bye for now. Then I took three deep breaths and walked through security. Which took up absolutely no time at all so it didn't distract me in the slightest! Then to my gate and I sat down and kept crying. Which is when a very nice man came and sat by me to ask if I was alright. He was going back to New Mexico to finalize the sale of his house so he and his wife could permanently move up the the Dakotas.

A crazy short plane jump to Denver then a speed walk through the airport to get to my gate for San Francisco. Where I chatted with a man I had just meet as the plane from rapid landed in Denver. Then 2 and a half hour flight to San Francisco. I sat next to more nice people this time a couple from Boulder, Colorado going to Monetary for a library conference and the man flies to Japan for business often so explained the international terminal to me. The plane landed 20 minuets late and I had a nice jog through the international terminal, only freaking out a tiny bit because my flight was already boarding.

It was all good of course and I sat way in the back of the plane next to a window and a really interesting man who works in Silicon Valley but grew up in India. He told me about India and how much he loves Thailand and his job and a tiny bit about his family. Very interesting, very nice man.   Then we settled in for our 12 hour flight. So far I have watch a weird movie which I think was kinda good but I'm also a bit punchy so I honestly don't know. I have listened to all of the Shins songs Aaron loaded on my I pad and am working on the Strokes. Tried to sleep for a while. I have no idea how long we have been flying or how much longer we have. I'm pretty sure we are flying over a far eastern section of Russia. And the damn TV screens keep glitching!


10/22

First day at uncle Michael's house. To finish off yesterday we landed with out event got thought the airport and finally saw a face I knew. Then Michael and I caught a train from Incheon airport to Seoul station. One of the first thing I noticed was 1: everyone wears amazing shoes, 2: I am taller than most of them! So hung out at Seoul station until our next train which would take us from Seoul to Ulsan. Had some ice cream and a green tea smoothie thing that I have no idea how I ordered. A two and a half hour train ride, on a train that was going 180 mph at one point, and we got to Ulsan. Then we got in a taxi for the 30 minuet amusement park worthy ride to Michael's. They have the coolest GPS systems. Not only do they direct you on the quickest route but they tell you when you are on radar. So that makes speed limits extremely optional 60 km/h can totally be fudged to 180 km/h that's fine. Red lights are apparently a bit optional as well. But man was it fun! Ok I was a bit punchy, at that point I'd been up for more than 24 hours.

A quick tour of the apartment a shower and finally bed. Which brings us to today. Michael works so I am alone. Happily I slept all though the night and woke up at 8:30 Seoul time. So far I have watched 3 movies and taken a bath and wished I had Internet connected. I have decided I do not like blue ray über high definition movies. Everything is to sharp and shiny. It makes me feel like I am watching reality TV and I don't like it. I like the sort of unreal effect movies have with out high definition.  

Michaels house apartment is the top floor and you can see the ocean from almost every window. He has several hundred DVDs so I can veg out for days without running out of things to watch! I am lonely right now. A bit jet lagged. But it's raining and there are lots of movies to make me laugh.

10/24

Haha Internet! I spent an hour yesterday rummaging through every stack of paper I could find in search of the freaken Internet password. But success was mine! So I finally have Internet and it is a much less lonely world.

The only exciting thing that happened yesterday was we went shopping! Oh my god... The store we went to is called home plus and it is like a super Walmart on steroids. Multiple floors which you could go up or down to on slope moving walkways that had groves to fit your cart wheels and everything you could ever want in the form of food, home decor, electronics ect.  You name I bet you could find it! I had so much fun just getting to look at everything. They had a kimchi bar with at lest 9 different types of kimchi (which I got to try at dinner at a meat bar where you go load a plate up with meat and cook it at the grill that is in the middle of your table. The best way to eat the meat was to wrap it up in a lettuce leaf with sauce, grilled onions, and garlic. Yum. The kimchi was interesting. Something I will defiantly try again but not something I immediately loved.) I could have just wandered in the grocery store for hours. Which is good because everything is in Korean so you have to walk up and down every aisle to find what you want. The signs won't tell you much if you can't read Korean.