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31 January 2004 (Saturday)

We drove up to Daegu last night and stayed at the Crystal Hotel. We made the mistake of ordering the "American Breakfast" at the hotel this morning and although it was eggs, bacon, and toast, it just wasn't the same. We need to learn to order things that we don't have any expectations for!

Today we went to Home Plus and to Costco to stock up on food supplies (namely bagels and Honey Nut Cheerios).

30 January 2004 (Friday)

Company is coming! Well, not for a while now, but I'm super excited because my mom is coming out in March, followed by Sharon in March, and in June we have Corrine, Scott, Owen, Raisa, and Anita out to visit! As a result, I will probably wait until July to come back to the US, but now we have people coming out to see us which is really exciting!

28 January 2004 (Wednesday)

We don't have TKD on Friday because Sabeamnim and Mijung are taking a group of kids on a ski trip Friday and Saturday. So we had our January test today! I think we all did well and will get our next belts on Monday 2/2!

25 January 2004 (Sunday)

Craig and I were pretty boring with our five day weekend--we stayed home the entire time! I finished three books (A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, Close Encounters of the Third Kind by Steven Spielberg, and All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg) which is good news since I hadn't been doing a lot of reading lately. We went for a hike on Saturday just to say we got out and did something!

21 January 2004 (Wednesday)

Happy Lunar New Year! 2004 is the Year of the Monkey.

20 January 2004 (Tuesday)

Gift box of dried apricots. 1/20/2004

This morning as I was getting in my car to go to taekwondo, one of the apartment people ran out and gave me a gift box of dried apricots for the Lunar New Year which starts tomorrow. This is also why I was going to TKD on a Tuesday--no class on Wednesday or Friday for the holiday.

Today we fought with some kids (they are maybe Jr. High or High school age) which was pretty intimidating (they're obviously a lot younger which means that they have more energy, but most of them were also black belts!). I think Sabeamnim told them to take it easy on us though, which they did. It was still really tiring and I'll probably have some lovely bruises (although we were wearing protective gear).

16 January 2004 (Friday)

I added links to the photos from our trip at the bottom of each day's (1/3-1/10) entry below!

Sabeamnim gave us each a videotape today to watch so we can get better at fighting. Mine is called "Cannon Kicker 1." Should be an exciting tape! Our next test is January 28 and we'll demonstrate poomse 3 and fight again (I'll be testing for blue belt).

14 January 2004 (Wednesday)

I finally felt back to my normal self on Tuesday so I made it back to TKD this morning which was great! I have been sifting through our vacation photos and have chosen the ones I'm putting into a book for us, but the task of choosing the ones for the site is daunting me (narrowing it down further)--I'll try to get them up this week as I know putting it off much longer will result in it never happening!!

11 January 2004 (Sunday)

We took the ferry back to Korea today and it was not a smooth ride, especially for me as my stomach was still not stable. Fortunately the last hour (of the three) was smoother and the ferry from Busan to Jangseungpo was fine as well. It was great to finally be "home" and to stop moving!

When we were walking out of the international ferry terminal (we walked to the domestic ferry terminal), a group of kids were all saying "hello" to us and "welcome to Korea"--this kind of thing didn't happen at all while we were in Japan (I am not at all implying that the Japanese people we encountered were rude--they were all very friendly and helpful). It made me happy to return to South Korea!

10 January 2004 (Saturday)

Still feeling sick and exhausted, I convinced Craig to leave me at the Starbucks at Hiroshima station while he went to the sites--it seemed a shame to travel all that way and for neither of us to see the museum, etc.

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
Images of the A-Bomb Dome | At Peace Memorial Park. (All photos from Hiroshima taken by Craig.)

9 January 2004 (Friday)

We went to Osaka today (on our way to Hiroshima) to check out the electronics shopping district. Craig was in heaven, eying all of the Japanese products that they don't sell in the U.S. Amazingly, we didn't spend any money while there!

I had felt sick all day, which I thought was because I was reading a book on the train to Osaka, but by the time we arrived in Hiroshima, I knew it was more than that. I won't go into the details here, but we stayed in our hotel the entire afternoon and I didn't eat much until Monday when we had been back in Korea for a day.

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
Our room at the bed & breakfast--we already put away the futons that we slept on. | A platform at Kyoto Station

8 January 2004 (Thursday)

It snowed today! It didn't stick to the ground, but it continued off and on for much of the day.

We went on our final walk through the city today, the highlights were many shops, a large cherry tree (although it's way too early for blossoms), and more temples and shrines. All-in-all we had another great walk, but our feet are getting really tired!

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
I woke up to see Snow from the window of our bed & breakfast. | At Kiyomizu-dera. | Craig wanted this bike. | Images we saw on our walk. | In and around Maruyama-ken (that's a big weeping cherry tree on the bottom-left). | At Chion-in. | At Yasaka-jinja.

7 January 2004 (Wednesday)

Today we took the city bus out to see a bamboo forest and also to go on another walk filled with shrines and temples--it is amazing how many there are in just this one city! We saw some men dressed as samurai and women dressed in formal-wear and it turned out that they were filming a movie at one of the shrines. We didn't see any of the filming though as they were on a break as we were passing through.

We spent the rest of our afternoon/evening in central Kyoto which was really fun. On our way home, in the subway station, an older man came up to me and asked me to help him with the english on his poetry--I was reluctant because I didn't want to change the meaning of what he was trying to say, but he gave me some of his poems as a thank-you. I will post a few when we get back to S. Korea.

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
Bamboo forest on our Arashiyama-area walk. | Shooting a movie at one of the shrines on our walk. | Buddha & cherrry blossoms at a temple on our walk. | Detail of roofing. | We saw this creature at a lot of doorstops throughout Kyoto. | Crazy parking for bikes and cars in the city. (Photos by Craig) | We finished our day on a night walk (bottom photo by Craig).

6 January 2004 (Tuesday)

Our first full day in Kyoto was wonderful! We did a walk around the city that stopped at many temples and shrines. We walked all day and we were exhausted by the end. The path is called "the philospher's path" and it followed a canal for most of the way and we got to see some really neat Japanese neighborhoods. Of course, we took many photographs that I will post when we return to S. Korea.

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
Moss samples, moss-covered forest floor, and a zen garden at Ginkaku-ji (temple). | Images we saw on the Path of Philosphy. | At Heian-jingu. | Plastic food samples at the restaurants help foreigners choose where they'll eat!

5 January 2004 (Monday)

We spent yesterday in Hagi which is on the northern coast of Japan and had a good time. Hagi was off of the main rail line so we took a slower train than the ones that run between Fukuoka/Hakata and Tokyo.

We walked to the hotel we had chosen from the guidebook with all of our luggage, but they did not have a room (I didn't make a reservation because we wanted to figure out the train system enough to see how we'd get to Hagi before we committed to going there!). We ended up staying a Japanese-style hotel which was the nicest room yet. I will post photos of the room when we get back to Korea.

This morning we took a bus through the mountains (which was really neat) to catch a train to Kyoto. We had a 4-minute connection from the bus to our train but we made it on time. We saw one of the high-speed trains fly through the station and I'm sure the Japanese people thought we were pretty funny when our eyes bugged out at how fast it was going through the station--the high-speed trains in France at least slowed down!

So far we have met several friendly Japanese people and have had a really good experience. We just found this internet cafe (and I apologize for any typos as this keyboard is taking a lot of getting used to...) and are about to head out to dinner.

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
Rental bikes in Hagi. | On the walk to the Hagi-jo Ruins. | Another short doorway at the ruins. | Detail of a rooftop at the Kikuya House. (Hagi) | Detail of a screen at the Kikuya House. | Doorway decoration we saw on our walks, we think has to do with good fortune for the new year. | Coffee-van inside a shopping arcade. (Hagi) | Our Japanese-style hotel room in Hagi. | High-speed train. | We saw these images at Kyoto Station. | We saw these hungry carp at Shosei-en Garden. (Kyoto) | When it started to rain, we waited it out at Nishi Hongan-ji (temple) before heading back to the station and on to our bed & breakfast.

4 January 2004 (Sunday)

We spent last night in Fukuoka and our hotel was small, but nice (cleaner than the one we stayed in in Busan). I started to get a sore throat and other cold-like symptoms which has not been the best way to start off our trip. We went to the train station after we check into our hotel and got our Japan Rail Passes set up.

We wanted to try some authentic Japaese food our first night (within reason, I am still not going to eat fish or seafood!) but the pictures of the food did not look appetizing at most of the places we checked out. We did end up eating at a place that had "curry" in the name which was OK (Craig really liked it and I thought it wasn't that bad).

One of the first differences we noticed once we arrived in Japan was that the cars seem bigger here than in Korea. Of course there are a lot of the same cars we have at home (in the US) (Toyota, Subaru, Volkswagen, etc. are all over the place) but still a lot of different models than we're used to. The other major thing that I had forgotten about was that the Japanese drive on the left-hand side of the road. We have been in a couple of taxis and that has been confusing, I am not sure that I would be a safe driver if we rented a car--it's so much more confusing than I thought it would be!!

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
Walking to the ferry | Kushida-jinja (shrine) near our hotel in Fukuoka. | Our hotel was located in this shopping arcade. | Short doorways became a theme for Craig on this trip (this particular door is to our hotel room).

3 January 2004 (Saturday)

We are in Busan at the International Ferry Terminal, we have about two hours before our ferry to Fukuoka, Japan departs. I hope to be able to update this every couple of days, but we'll see how easy it is to find internet cafes. I won't be able to post photos until we get back.

We spent the night in Busan so we wouldn't have to rush in the morning from Okpo to Busan. Plus the ferry (from Geoje island) only runs when the weather is optimal, so we didn't want to take a chance of the ferry not running and missing our international ferry!

We spent the night in a not-so-great-hotel but with a great location in Nampodong. We couldn't figure out how to turn the heat off in the room and then we didn't realize we didn't have towels until morning. Anyway, we're still having a good trip so far, we ate at Bennigan's for dinner last night (and ate way too much!) and had Dunkin' Donuts for breakfast. Yes, we are the model of health and really starting off the new year right!

Edited to add links to images 1/16/04.
The "Command Center" in our hotel in Busan controlled the lights, the TV, the heat, etc.

1 January 2004 (Thursday)

Happy New Year! We are going to Gohyeon to see Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King today.