A week in India in one post

India! Yes we are now in India. We flew into Delhi on the 31st (which was the worst idea I have ever had) and started the new year with a new country. Now a break down:


12/31: let's fly in on the 31st, we said! It'll go great, we said!

 The cluster cuss of our trip to India actually started when we got to Inchon airport in Seoul to catch our first plane to China (some random city I have never heard of), from there we were supposed to have a 14 hour layover then another plane to Shanghai, then to Delhi. Random information for you: as a USA citizen you are only allowed to go through one airport in China and you have to be there for less than 24 hours. So someone should call Orbitz and inform them of this little tidbit and save other people the hassle that Tara and I faced in Seoul. After much confusion, calling orbitz, paying more money on our tickets, and getting rather annoyed with the ticket people in Korea, Tara and I had a new itinerary to Delhi. That is how I ended sleeping over night on an airport bench for the first, and I'm sure not the last, time in my life. After 18 hours in the airport we got on a plane to Shanghai.

We arrived in Shanghai and had to go all the way out of security (which we weren't supposed to be able to do and I am still confused how we got all the way out of security with out a visa. But I now have a China stamp in my passport!) to re check in and re check Tara's bag, that had all of our liquids and sharp pointy objects in it. Then right back through security and to our gate and onto our plane for Delhi. That sounds nice a smooth when written like that. China really didn't want us to come into the country and our passports were checked by at lest three people before being stamped. It's rather nerve racking to have the security people call over other people to look at your passport. I kept wanting to shout "That's me, I promise! It's worked in every other country I've gone to!" But, its all good we got through.

The beauty of a practically sleepless night is then you can sleep anywhere! So the 8 hour flight to Delhi went by in no time at all. They feed us on both flights and getting vegetarian food was no issue at all. They even gave us little tiny paper cups of wine on the flight to Delhi. After the wine we both went right to sleep. The down side of sleeping on an airplane is that, even with wine, it's horrible sleep. That is how we arrived in Delhi, on New Years Eve, at 7 pm, with jet lag, and no plan at all.

My advice, NEVER arrive in a big city, on New Years Eve, at night, with out any plans for getting around or where to stay. Especially if you are arriving in India. We had been blessed through all of Korea and Japan with extremely good luck, helpful people, and everything just falling in to place with out a plan.  India not so much. We found a taxi who took us to the tourist information place which proceeded to not really help us in the slightest. Think of all the stereotypes about Indians working in costumer service and you basically got it. "I'm sorry madam. There is no way to get a room in Delhi tonight. Everywhere in city full." "What is your budget?... That is impossible."  Eventually they sent us the market road(Karol Bagh) where the first hotel we got to gave us a room. Not the best New Year's Eve I have had, but a good story.

As a side note the room was freezing! Tars and I slept very close together all night and I was still cold every time one of us moved. We also didn't make it to midnight but got woken up by the fireworks so that sort of counts.

1/1/13: haven't gotten to write 2013 yet.

We moved hotels. The one we were staying at was a bit expensive and some very nice British people we meet in the lobby said it was cheaper next door. So we moved there. And got a SIM card for our phone. And took a very quick stroll through the market that was by the hotels. Delhi is just a bit sketch right now so we didn't do much walking around. Then ate dinner in the hotel and went to sleep early.


1/2: We're here we should actually see some of Delhi

So we got a driver for the day. It is a very popular thing in India to simply hire out a driver of a day, week, month any amount of time you would like them and they will take you everywhere you would like to go. So we hired one for the day and set out (only an hour and a half later than they said we would. India stretch time is totally a thing) to see the famous things in Delhi.

The first stop was India gate, which I can tell you nothing (other than it was built as a war memorial for the India soldiers who died in World War I) about because it was closed due to the protesting. India Gate is a symbolic place to gather so the police closed it to prevent that.

Next we went to Humayun's tomb which is, well, a tomb. It is surrounded by gardens and a few other buildings. It had really cool windows, they all had a carved marble lattice screens that filtered the light and made everything soft. The design was supposed to represent spiderwebs for protection. They also made great pictures!

Now sometime between here and the Lotus Temple we started having car problems that persisted through out the rest of the day. You see apparently this car was having problems idling (I'm totally making that up but the car kept dying and it would have to be physically in motion before it would start again. It is very funny to be in a car that wont start, in the middle of New Delhi traffic, and have the driver running along side trying to get the car rolling, then jump in and to try to start it before we rear ended the car in front of us. You just have to laugh!) and our driver didn't seem to have any idea what to do... so he rod the crap out of clutch and kept revving the engine which sort of worked. We made it through the rest of the day and only stopped on an over pass with smoke coming from under the hood once!

We eventually reached the Lotus Temple, a beautiful Lotus shaped temple which is actually named "Baha'i house of worship". It was built as a place of worship for people of all races, genders, and religions. It was a large room inside that filled the whole building where everyone was asked to be silent.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Then our driver took us to Delhi Haat was a building full of shops. Unfortunately for all of the sales people neither Tara or I wanted to shop at all so we didn't buy anything from them. Then we had lunch at a random restaurant that was next door and got back into the car to go to Qutub Minar.

Qutub Minar is a stone tower that is 72m high and decorated from top to bottom with engravings. There is 5 distinct stories with a balcony at each. You can't go in it (at all i think, it might have just been not allowed, I didn't see a door or anything. I think its just a really tall pillar.)  On the grounds around Qutub Minar is the first mosque ever built in India. It is also beautifully engraved and made of the same red and white stones. There was a college there at one point as well and it was fun to get to wander through the ruins of that. The whole place was covered in carvings which was incredible when you stopped to think how long one of those would take.

The last stop of the day was Lal Quila (Red Fort). I can't tell you much about the fort because we were only actually touring around it for about 5 minuets before the sun set and they kicked us out, that was fine. The real reason we went was to see Mr. Singha, one of George's (Tara's dad) good friends who Tara had stayed with on her last trip to India. He was very nice and fun to chat with. So I have no pictures of Red Fort, thus named because it is constructed of red sand stone, which used to be a military base. The bit of it I saw was beautiful though!

By this point it was dark and being out after dark is not a good idea in Delhi at the moment. So back to our hotel for dinner and bed.


1/3: A lesson in why you should always travel India with an open schedule

"Don't worry ma'am I work here." "Go to booking office they will help." "Don't be crazy I know how far it is 400 too much!" "There is a 51 person waiting list and next available seat not until January 7th." "Please madam I will help you." "I make good deal for you don't worry." "Please Madam be comfortable. You want India tea (Chai)?" "Please have some bread."

Those are some of the things that I can remember being told that morning. Of course we didn't have a plan so needed a lot of help. We started the morning by getting to the train station at 8am and trying to get a train. We missed the 8am train to Agra and were sent to a "Government Tourist Office" (the amount of corruption in India is mind boggling so we were defiantly not at a government office. Not that is matters because India is corrupt all the way to the top) and that is how we ended up with a driver to take us around for a week and an extra stop to do a safari. Well sweet.

And off we go to Agra, home of the Taj Mahal. Which happens to be closed of Fridays so we had to hurry along and see it that day before it closed at sundown. The Taj Mahal really is a beautiful building that is quite amazing to see in person. There were a million and a half people there and it was hazy, as it always is in India, but it is a beautiful building. There also is not super good security or guidance so you can still touch all of the marble and inlay work. Our tour company arranged a guide for us which was a bit surprising so I actually got told a lot about the building and the king who built it for his queen ect. Unfortunately it was crazy crowded so I couldn't meander and soak up everything quite as much as I would have liked. The whole inside of the tomb is covered with inlay work. All semi precious stones that have been designed to look like flowers, the swirling pattern has the suggestion of hearts worked into it. a jaw dropping amount of work went into that building.


1/4: I'm so glad I don't have to drive in India

After a very cold night in the flying elephant hostel we journeyed on to Ranthambor. It was about a six hour drive that was passed chatting with our very talkative and funny driver (Sanjay) and relaxing. Well as relaxed as you can be on the roads in India. Don't worry every thing is totally acceptable here. You want to pass on the left (they drive on the opposite side) shoulder of the road? Go for it. Drive down the middle of the road for a while? Totally a thing. Pass a big truck while three motorcycles are coming the other way? Definitely, we can all fit on the road! Watch out for cows and carts. Camels will not get out of your way, they will just look at you with that nothing-will-ever-phase/surprise- me camel look. Feel free to drive on any part of the road that might please you, especially if there are pot holes. Drive in the ditch before going over one of those very fast.

The three things that are required to drive in India: good brakes, some luck, and most importantly a horn. DO NOT even think about driving with out a horn. It's all good if your car has to be moving to start or can't idol so has to be continually pushed to get it restarted (our taxi in Delhi) but you absolutely must have a horn.


1/5: Safari and Why I am so glad we got a driver!

We had to get up at 5am... And ride in an open jeep with just little blankets... for an hour! I couldn't feel my toes by the time we got the the tiger reserve. Meh I hate being cold.

So we got to the tiger reserve just before sunrise and started driving slower so I gradually regained feeling in my toes and started to look around. We were driving on dirt roads through a mountain dessert feeling place. After about an hour we found a hyena and proceeded to chase it. It is terrifyingly fun to bounce around in the back seat of a jeep that is going very fast down a very bumpy dirt path. The poor hyena was running as fast as it could away from us and I can only assume we totally ruined its day. After that not much exciting happened. We saw some spotted deer, a couple jackals, and the largest antelope i have ever seen. But, sadly, no tigers.

So we drove back to the hotel we were staying at and it turns out that it was a really pretty drive! Something I wouldn't have guessed at 5:30am. So that was nice. Gotta love being a jeep full of white tourist! Every little kid would wave at us as we passed.

After breakfast of parantha and chai(so delicious!) we got back in the car and drove to Jaipur. Since we had all day to get there Sanjay took the country way, past fields of mustard and small villages and Guava. It was very, very enjoyable to get to see a different view of India. Sanjay pulled over at one point and lead us into a guava farm where a man and 6 or 7 kids were picking guavas.  We took pictures and picked fresh guava and ate it right off the bush. The kids loved the camera and posed for pictures every time is was out. We also shared the fresh sugar cane that Sanjay had gotten for us the night before. All of the kids laughed at us as we attempted to eat the sugar cane. You have to peel it with your teeth then you bite off the fiber in the middle, chew until all of the juice is gone, and spit out the fiber. You look totally ridiculous if you haven't been doing it forever. It was wonderful. He also stopped and let us wander and take pictures in a mustard field, which is just a sea of yellow right now. It took us longer to get to Jaipur than the highway but was wonderful!

When we arrived in Jaipur we went straight to the hanuman temple on the suggestion of Sanjay. Funnily enough right as we arrived there was a group of men staring at a spot on the hill across from us. Sanjay went over to check what they were looking at and called us over. Low and behold, there was a tiger sunning itself on a rock way up the hill. It was very far away so hard to see but, if you watched you could see it when it would move its head. We had to laugh at the irony of not seeing any tigers on our Safari and seeing one in Jaipur.

Now back to the Hanuman temple, it is know as the monkey temple not only because Hanuman is part monkey but because there are tons of monkeys there! They get feed so they have become used to humans and you can feed them peanuts from your hands. It was so much fun! All of these monkeys, adults and babies, would come up to you and take the peanuts from your hands. The little ones would climb on you if you held still for long enough.

After we had played with the monkeys, and given them all of our peanuts, we walked up the mountain and watched the sun set of Jaipur. It was beautiful. The haze that hangs over everything in India made it so the sunset was full of color and seeing the whole city spread out beneath you was breath taking. It was an awesome end to a fantastic day. Then we checked into our hotel, had an amazing dinner, and went to bed.


1/6: Swarms of men are really annoying.

For real being a celebrity would be incredibly annoying! Today we decided to see the sights in Jaipur. So we started our day by meeting our guide and going to Hawamahal, palace of winds. Which is a beautiful palace that is built at the the intersections of the two main roads in old Jaipur. First of all, Jaipur was the first planned city in India. The original section of it is entirely surrounded by a pink wall, then there is another "mini wall of China" running around a much wider perimeter. When the palace was built the two roads where very busy streets that had most of the shopping in town on them. At this time it was not allowed for queens or princesses to be seen out on the streets. So the winds palace has lots of little rooms that have large lattice covered windows where the queens/princesses could sit in their swings or on cushions and watch what was going on in the world below. The whole place had ramps to get between floors because as a queen your job was to sit around and eat so, naturally, they got extremely fat and then it was some servants job to push them around in wheel chairs. It also had a swimming pool in the middle of the courtyard where the queen/princesses could swim (only women were allowed in this palace at that time.) There were tons of people there when we were there but, with the guide, we were spared having to pose for pictures. The totally obvious men who would point their cameras directly at us while we looked at things or walked around was unavoidable, unfortunately. Some one should teach these men lessons on being discreet because there was no question that they were taking pictures of us and how, strangely, every time we would move to a new room that room all the sudden became the most popular room in the place.

Next we went to see the City Palace which has been converted into a museum with several focuses. We started in the armor and weapons room where they had way more weapons than they apparently knew what to do with because they had hung knives like star bursts on the walls and made signs out of them. The prettiest ones were in the cases, of course. There were elephant guns, ivory carved gun powder casks, swords from many kings, and old even more old guns. It was actually quite fascinating seeing all of the old weapons. After that room we went to the textiles museum, the one that I was more excited for. There were old saris, scarves, mens shirts, and just cloth that were intricately embroidered (with silk, silver, or gold thread), stamped, and woven. It was crazy to be looking at a dress from hundreds of years ago that had several kilos of gold embroidered onto it.

After the city palace we went to Jantar-Mantar, one of the largest and most well preserved observatories from the 18th century, which is still accurate today. There are two sundials, one accurate to  and the other accurate to 2 seconds of the actual time. A contraption to tell the exact longitude and latitude through out the day and ummmm... thats all I can remember! Our guide was really trying but his english was sketch and its really hard to explain astrology with a language gap. Tara will probably know more, she had already been all of the other places so this was the only new place for her. It was a really cool place though and if i knew more about that kind of stuff I would be able to tell you way more.

Then we had lunch and went to Amber Palace, which was built by a king who had 12 wives and 300+ concubines. All the palaces have little hallways that make it like a maze and most places haven't closed off areas yet so you can just explore where ever you want. It is great fun to wander around and find random halls and rooms. Our guide walked us around a little and when we got to the courtyard of the palace, which was in the center with all 12 of the queens rooms around it and had hooks to hang curtains and swings so the queens could hang out, he told us to go explore. So we did. Which is when we got inundated with men... We were standing on the balcony over looking the courtyard and had paused to take a picture. All of the sudden there were 3 guys who asked for a picture. We ignored them because that is the best way to get people to leave you alone. Unfortunately that didn't work as well this time, they seemed to interpret our silence as conceit and soon they were poising next to us while their friends took pictures. Of course once one started the men multiplied at an alarming rate. I would love to see the pictures they took because Tara and I kept looking at each other and laughing then frowning as our personal bubble got entirely invaded then laughing again because it was just so weird to have this many people want a picture. Eventually Tara started yelling enough in Hindi, which got the response of "Just one more ma'am!" until we both just pushed our way out of the crowd and sped our way out of there. When we got back down to our guide he was chuckling, he had witnessed the whole scene from the courtyard below. 'I told you they would want your picture' was the only thing he told us about the whole event. When we told Sanjay about it later he had a good laugh and said they were probably village boys who had come to the city to take a test that had happened the day before and we were probably the only white girls they had ever seen in person. So your welcome random Indian men! Next time it will be 10 rupees a picture. Which is about 20 cents, but it will still fund some of my future shopping.


1/7: Shopping in Jaipur and Why Hindi movies rock

On our second day in Jaipur we didn't have a guide. Which was good because Sanjay knew a ton about the city and where we should go. However when there was a guide around he pretended not to speak english because it would get him in trouble with the tour company. So he would speak only in hindi when there was a guide around and talk our ears off in english when it was back to just the three of us. We had some wonderfully random conversations and I actually learned a good deal from him in the 5 days he was driving us around. Any who, he took us first to Nagargarh Fort because it has a wonderful view of all of Jaipur. Tara and I explored around the almost deserted fort until we became totally fed up with being followed around and photographed by a steadily growing group of young men. Even with scarves to cover the blond hair we seemed to be attracting an impressive group of followers. So we left and went to find some good shopping.

Jaipur is know for its gems, among other things, but after the gem shopping the day before we were really looking for silver work. Unfortunately we had a tough time finding it and of the two stores Sanjay took us too only one had anything along the lines of what we wanted. Tara found a bracelet and I passed up a beautiful (but $200) moon stone necklace. Then we were on to textiles, another thing Jaipur is known for. Block printing (hand stamped ink onto fabric) is another thing Jaipur is known for. We went to a factory where we stood for a few moments and watched the men rhythmically hand stamp the dye onto the fabric that was stretched across the tables. They use all natural dyes that are then washed in something that makes the color hold and dried in the sunshine which changes the color to a more natural color. It was amazing to watch a plain piece of fabric get layers of color and patterns and be transformed into rich fabric that India is famous for. They had an overwhelming about of things for sale and the best part was watching them make so we didn't spend too much money there.

Sanjay had gone out and gotten us lunch while we were shopping and we ate in the store with the shop owner (who was a friend of Sanjay) and the man who owned the store next door. It was interesting to eat with a group of people. Everything was delicious. Gotta love being vegetarian in India! I'm convinced it's the only way to do it! Because there is such a high number of vegetarians here meat is not always the best. Mutton is normally fine but any beef is most likely from an old sick animal and pigs wander the street eating garbage before they are killed for pork. Best idea is just to stick with veg. The best food is veg already!

Now I get to talk about Hindi movies! First of all, a Hindi movie is an experience that you should take for what it is and simply go to soak it up. The sound is always up way too loud and physics is totally ignored. Coming from Rapid city, people don't cheer in movie theaters. In this movie everyone cheered, whistled, and booed, the hero kicked everyones butt, people survived insane amounts of beats/shoots, there was really only one moment of conflict that helped the weak story line, and almost everyone of the bad guys died. As a bonus we went to the sequel of a good movie that tried to take all of the draw from the first movie and make more money from it. So there was an excessive amount of butt kicking. Sanjay even said it was overacted which is saying something because Hindi films are notorious for overacting. It was awesome! We laughed, jumped,  danced along to all of the songs, and pointed out the incredible amount of science bloopers (Brennan and Dad, you would have loved to pick apart this movie! At one point the hero jams a mettle pole into the cement ground, breaking the cement, he then jumps out so he is holding himself parallel to the floor, and kicks all of the bad guys coming at him in the face while spinning around the pole. I can't get my words to do this justice I will have to find a clip for you. It was so funny!) I am totally sold on Hindi movies!

After the movie we went back to our hotel and packed up all of our things. The next day we said good bye to Sanjay and got on our plane to Goa. This is already a very long post so I will catch you up on the beauty of Goa, our life here thus far, and more Indiaisms that make me laugh soon! Sorry this took so long to post!Happy New Year everyone may your days be full of love and light.

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!