Silver Week

Silver Week is kind-of a made up holiday. Apparently Japanese don't want to take vacation so the gov't made them take vacation! From what I've researched, There is a law: if there is only one non-holiday in between two public holidays, that day should become an additional holiday. The first (Monday) is Respect for the Elder day and Wed. is Autumnal Equinox Day. So in between they add this "citizens holiday". It's called silver week for the elderly (silver hair). Plus they have a "Golden week" so it works.

We went to South Korea for this week. We traveled to Fukuoka, a large city nearby in Japan and hung out a few days there. Then flew to Incheon, South Korea. We traveled around a bit, enjoying different things and seeing some friends.

FUKUOKA: This was a lot of fun. Kelsey, a friend picked us and David (another close friend) up in Oita. We drove (trying to figure out the right roads) to Fukuoka. We stopped at Costco. Yes, they do have that here - we just found out (not near us but...) Its JUST like American Costco's except Japanese writing on most.. but not all. The lines were JUST as long. They had samples everywhere. It was nice. We got a few things!
That night we went to a place called Canal City. Its a big mall type place that has many stories. It has a canal running through it.

We had a nice time there. We met some of David's friends, Sarah and Mary Margarette. They were lots of fun to hang out with. Because of the vacation time, we couldn't find a place to say so they let us crash in their hotel room. We had 6 people crammed into this little room and trying to sleep. Lol!

We ate near the river at these little food stalls. We had Ramen. It was SOO good!

The next day we met up with Tina another Oita friend and tried to check out the "Fish Market". BUT... when we got there... it was closed!
So, bummer. We were exhausted from walking all day so we sat and had a nice lunch. We had a really nice time with Tina. She is from Hong-Kong, but has lived in America most of her life.That night the three of us flew out to Korea. Many of the Oita Jets were going to be there but they had a different flight. But, Tina flew with us.













We got into Incheon late at night. and the hotel came and picked us up. As usual, the first thing you do after a flight is go to the bathroom. Erika and Tina were SO excited to find out that in Korea, unlike Japan, the bathrooms had REAL Soap, and paper towels! It was funny.

In pictures: (left) Tina pointing at a sign that says "Please Queue Here" and (right) Erika holding a paper towel.I was also a VERY happy boy because they had Dunkin Donuts in S.Korea!!! YAY!!!

We finally got some sleep and hung out in that area during the day. We went to China Town (lol) and then to a little fair/boardwalk type thing.

Tina left for Seoul (capital) and we went on to DaeJeon, where we met up with Laura, a friend from USF who is teaching in S.Korea. She was an amazing host and we had such a great time talking and hanging out with her!We went to school with her in the morning to meet some of her students. They were the most adorable kids ever! And SOO smart. Their English was VERY good! That day we biked around the city. It was great because the city "rented bikes" but turns out you didn't have to pay, nor give them your passport or anything. Just HERE! bring them back when you're done! I think I found out why they didn't care. The bikes were horrible. Erika's wasn't too bad but Thayne's; The chain fell off every time he coasted. He had to change it literally, at least 15 times. He was not too thrilled. That evening we met up with Laura (far right side of picture) and some of her friends for dinner.

The next day we headed to Suwon to see the "Korean Folk Village". It was actually a BLAST! They were a self-sustaining village: Grew crops, made silk, had chickens and other animals. We saw a couple different performances. Like balance beam artists, Korean folk dance, horse-back riders! It was fun. The coolest thing, I think for us BOTH, was watching a lady make silk. It was Strange and looked VERY complicated! (picture) We had a nice time. There were people that spoke decent English but by this time we were actually missing Japanese. We started to realize we actually know a decent amount. In Korean we could say "Thank-you" and that was about it!

SEOUL, the capital of Japan. We got in mid-day and went straight to our guest house. It was back in, what seemed like, the middle of no-where! But it was a cute place, very traditional and quite cheap! A lot of the other Jet's were staying there to. There were about 10 or so rooms. We met a guy, from Italy who is working in Japan, near Tokyo. He was very nice. We put our stuff in our rooms, took showers and then went to meet up with our JET friends. We had a hard time finding a place to eat. It seemed every place we tried to go, the prices were crazy! Even though outside it looked, from their signs, that it was cheap. Korea is a VERY cheap place. Food was pretty good priced: A good size meal would run you between 3-5,000 Wan (=3-5$). Clothing and items were also very well priced. I got a traveller size bottle of eye solution from Japan (12$) - SAME size in Korea (4$). Our money went a long way here. We ended up eating at a little stall outside. We had a seafood pancake (picture). It wasn't too bad. Then later we met up with Chloe (picture), an Australian - Jet from Oita. We stopped again, we were hungry, and had some vendor food... it tasted like... do be nice, poo. NO ONE would eat it. The Koreans next to us, who had the same thing, seemed to be enjoying so! We defiantly got scammed there (you do have to be careful of that). The Sushi Roll-thing Erika got was 2$. Chloe got some fried dumplings. I had the poo stuff. We figured maybe 8$ The lady came over and charged us 19$. UGH - if there are unmarked prices ASK FIRST!!! (our fault for being naive - In japan, we don't worry about that... we just KNOW it will be expensive-haha). We slept well that night. Cloe and Alex (another Oita JET) left early that morning (5;30am). Erika, Tina, and Thayne explored some more. We went on a tour of a nearby castle. Here we had a tour guide but she was.. mm... lacking in enthusiasm. So we didn't really pay attention and just hung out and took pictures.



Later we went and met up with Laura again. She came into Seoul to see some friends and to see us! We ate lunch and then went to this big street seller place. We looked around there for a few hours. We all bought a few things. Many stores had girls standing outside begging you to come in. They would be offering free items to come in. So.. we would.

After we got a free hug we had to head back to Incheon to catch our flight the next morning. We got in pretty late and then had to wake up nice and early to be at the airport.

Overall we had a wonderful trip!