What you miss in Korea

I just got an amazing package from my mother today full of a plethora of goodies. As a foreigner, you come to find out very quickly what sorts of things you miss here in Korea. Now, I'm mainly a Californian (read: spoiled when it comes to food), so my tastes tend to run a bit different from others. But here's a quick laundry list of what she send, so you get some idea of what sorts of things you might miss out on.

2 bags Cheez-its, one regular and one white cheddar
6 instant soups (minestrone, split pea, and hearty bean)
1 summer sausage
1 bag mexican chili pods
1 of each of the following cheeses: super-sharp cheddar, mont blanchard, gouda, chili chive onion gouda, smoked swiss and cheddar
1 package mulling spices
2 pounds of coffee (the stuff here tends to be freeze dried)

And I like to cook a good amount, so a variety of spices: cinnamon sticks, Vietnamese cinnamon, lemongrass, creole, chipotle tofu scramble, smoky bbq rub, Seattle salmon rub, and jerk rub

Truly, she is a goddess. There are a lot of other things a Westerner misses in terms of diet. Some of the other things we constantly mull over:

-Good gum (the stuff here is terrible)
-Avocados (expensive here, hard to find, and very green)
-Limes (hard to find and very expensive!)
-Cottage cheese (not a big fan, but some are)
-Cheese in general (usually processed here, and expensive when not. Some types are just impossible to find)
-Good sandwich meat (usually just processed ham)
-Sandwiches (trust me, the ones you can find are awful)
-Decent gin, tequila, bourbon, vodka (when you enter and leave the country, duty-free is a must)
-Sour cream
-Wheat bread (not as readily available, but certain bakeries are good for it)

And I'm sure I'll think of more later. I'll ask around and see what other people miss. Baking goods tend to be hard to find since most places don't have an oven, but there are a couple of decent stores in Nampo-dong. For Thanksgiving, we wanted to make pies, so I made a trip out there to find various ingredients, including shortening for crust. I ended up at a wholesale shop that would only sell me a box of it weighing 4.5 kilos. Needless to say, we've been making plenty of pies and quiche, which I will not complain about!

Goodbye, Janelle!!!

This week marks the last time that Janelle will be with us. She finished up last Friday, and Anthony so kindly offered his apartment for a going away party on Saturday. We'll all miss her a lot, and no doubt Mulkoki, Kokiri will be lessened by her absence. Good luck, Janelle, wherever you end up!

Jef "voiced" all our sentiments on Saturday by providing this heartfelt tribute to our lost sister. (Coincidentally, he also left our branch on Friday, though he's just changing schools and not leaving. Still, our breakroom is going to feel very empty now!)

A Day in the Life

WHAAA?!?! DOUBLE POST?
That's right, I'm goin there! Something I've been planning on doing for a bit, for all you non-Koreans. Here's a pictorial journey through a somewhat typical day in the life of a foreigner living in Busan. Share and enjoy!


Wakey wakey, no eggs and bacey (Koreans aren't so big into breakfast foods :(


Current state of the apartment. I cleaned it later that day, I swear!



Locking up and heading out.




Walking down the street towards Seomyeon. Yes, Korean dogs are always that hideous. This one wouldn't stop barking at me from half a block away.



Corner stores are a staple here. The best is Family Mart, as they tend to have the most extensive and delicious ice cream selection (including one called "Black Boy". You know you want one).


A Korean back alley.


NeoSpa is my gym/spa (jinjaebang). Jinjaebangs are just those big communal bathhouses where you hang out in pools and saunas of various heats. It's nice and relaxing if you can get over being surrounded by naked people chilling next to you, though I've heard the ladies have it worse since some get gawked at something awkward. They also have this service where you can pay to get THOROUGHLY scrubbed down, though I have yet to try that out (I like my skin, thank you very much!). Membership's about $52 a month since I got a 6 month contract.



Don't forget to take off your shoes and change into your workout shoes and clothes!



Walking into Seomyeon area.



Lotte Department Store (this is the back) is the big landmark in Seomyeon. It's floors and floors of department store goodness and sooo much more! There're some pretty decent, though expensive, restaurants towards the top, a theater, and the bottom floor has a small, select grocery store along w/ a couple of bakeries, a wine shop, and a variety of quick eating stops. The last is what I'm going for (my salad lady wouldn't let me take a picture of her).



Walking around Seomyeon proper.



To get around some streets, you have to duck down into the underground shopping area. These are all connected around Seomyeon to the subway also, so you can stroll around shopping and pop up pretty much anywhere provided you know the exit number. One of my first nights here, I walked down here at night and was engulfed in a sea of people, shoulder to shoulder. I tend to avoid shopping on Fridays and Saturdays now.



Bookstore. Their English section (that's all of it) is only slightly smaller than most that you find.






Over to my favorite cafe, Mulkoki Kokiri (which apparently means "Fish Elephant"). Randomly ran into Jef and Miranda there (and Janelle joined later). I love this place; the guy in the last picture always laughs at me when I come in and says, "See you tomorrow!" when I go. And he's usually right.



Walking around here can be murder, it's probably the only thing I really hate here. Imagine every annoying thing people do to you while walking in crowded areas; then apply that to pretty much every person you walk around. Also, this is the subway area, they're pretty easy to figure out and convenient. But I tend to walk everywhere.




Kimbop! A staple here in Korea, it's an odd sushi roll that has egg and spam and a few random veggies in it. This is a tiny place that is one of the few that's noticeably different from the rest. When you want a quick Korean version of a sandwich, just look for the orange sign!


Ajuma gang!






Home Plus is like Target or Walmart: everything in one place. It's also the principle supermarket for us. They've got everything you need for your Korean experience!
Kimchi
Rice
and Soju and Mikju (beer).

A short interlude later (where I cleaned and updated my blog, along w/ other boring miscellany), and I'm off to work!






Busan really comes alive when night falls. Seriously, the city never sleeps; at all hours you will find people stumbling around the streets. And I realized when I was taking these that it's really at night that you start to feel how foreign this place can be.



Wheeee!


Massagey? Just look for the double poles!






This is the infamous CDI Busanjin! Paul's manning the front desk (with other staff ducking out of the picture). And lastly, the break room with Anthony, Janelle, and Jef (everyone else had first class off, as did I). Oh, the stories that are told here...





My class tonight is middle school Par Listening/Speaking. In the back is Kevin, who's sitting to since he's training to teach the same thing next term. He's taking the rest of pictures. Aren't those kids so enthusiastic?!?! They're one of my favorite classes this term, and this was my last class with them.




A short bus ride later (not pictured, since you really don't want to try and do anything on a bus here but hold on and pray), and we're over at the kimbop place again! Yes, it's the same one as before; we get off work at 10:10, which means you're stuck eating a very small variety of foods that are still open. There are some 24 kimbop places, which is very nice, but not a whole lot else stays open late besides fried chicken places. That's Janelle with all of our side dishes. And our food from my plate clockwise is cheesu donkatsu (fried pork cutlet w/ cheese, mmmm!), chamche dolkbop (spicy tuna and cabbage and such with rice), and a random, previously unseen noodle dish.


Lotte Hotel (next to Lotte Department Store. Also, that's where the Casino is), done up for Christmas!




A little of Seomyeon by night. The orange tents are these little drinking areas where they also serve terrible drunk food. Haven't been to many, and I doubt I will be with the weather change.





And here's our favorite haunt, Bar Guri (which means something obscene, I forget what at the moment). That's Adrienne, one of the April teachers, drinking with me tonight, though she wasn't keen on the whole photo thing. And the last picture is with Pon, the awesomest bartender in Busan (nay, South Korea!), who also happened to be drunk when we got there.


Aaaand that about does it for the day! We'll do a bit more traveling sometimes, but it's a weekday, cut me some slack! Anyways, that's a bit of what life's like for me.

Fall Comes To Busan

The Autumn season has dropped on us here like a ton of bricks. Literally overnight, the temperature has fallen drastically, prompting a quick change into coats and gloves and knit caps. It wouldn't feel so cold if not for the damn wind, which blasts through Seomyeon like some anti-demon and cuts right through whatever pitiful protection you may possess (that's called alliteration, kiddies!). But this all comes without complaint (ok, maybe just the usual), because the surrounding area has become gorgeously picturesque! Luckily, in the past weeks, I've been able to get out on a few trips to see the countryside. Sadly, we're losing a couple more teachers as the term comes to an end this week (Jef is moving to another branch, but Janelle is going home for good. Or so she says/thinks...), but we've been trying to take in the sights a little more. So here are a few words, though I think I'll let the pictures speak more for themselves (mainly because then I can be lazy!)

First up were the green tea fields in Boseong. We took a jaunty jaunt out there on Sunday morning, waking up bright and early at 5:30 to catch the bus, which ended up taking about 3 1/2 hours(?). We mostly slept the way out; I bought an eye mask shortly before because it gets so damn bright in my apartment, which came in handy. It's a silly lil number that has a red raccoon on it and says "Do you like me?" Pretty standard fare here in Korea. Anyways, we get out there and take the bus out to the fields, which were beautiful! Rows and rows of these green bushes with a background of just-turning trees on the hillside! When we saw our first red and yellow trees, I think there was audible squealing.
(Photos courtesy of Janelle Berghoff, since Erick was an idiot and forgot his camera)







As a side note, there's a trend in Korea where couples will wear matching clothes in some bizarre mating ritual that, I assume, displays heightened affection and marks the territory of those involved. A normal foreigner game is to treat it like Slug Bug, where when you see people dressed like that, you called out "Couple Shirt!" and punch the nearest person. Well, Dan and I decided to up the ante a bit. When you see couples with one matching piece of clothing, you get a punch; with two, a knee/kick; with three or more (the Holy Grail of couple shirts), you get to slap someone in the face! Everyone else gleefully joined in, no doubt hoping to spot the first 3-fer, but no one could find one when others were around. UNTIL THIS WEEKEND! Not 10 minutes after I explain the new rules, Noemi, a teacher at another branch, spots a couple with FOUR matching pieces. She calls it and, without warning, slaps me clear across the face. She did pull back a bit, but I had met her maybe 3 times before, so I was just shocked. And my respect for her grew instantly. Guys are weird.

Anyways, the trip back took about 5 1/2 hours because of some ridonkulous traffic, and we all got off the bus vowing never to take a trip on a Sunday night again.

The next Sunday, I jumped on a bus with most of my branch and our April (little little kiddies) branch for another trip out of the city. I can't remember the exact place we went to (I'll look into it and get back to you, maybe), but it was a really pretty and quaint coastal area. We rode up there (2 1/2 hours) and took some time walking around a bit before heading over to a little restaurant on the water where we had some mussels and seafood noodles. Then we jumped on bikes and rode down the coast for a bit, playing around and skipping rocks and other grabassery. Anthony, our new HI, got shown up by some random little kid who wouldn't even acknowledge him as he skipped his stones about 20 times. I call for a blood test.







After we go up to a hill to watch a beautiful sunset over the water and the surrounding islands, we jump on the bus for what would be the most torturous bus experience of my life! Seriously, it took us 7 1/2 hours to get back, 5 hours longer than it took us to get to the damn place! I tried to sleep, but the ease and comfort of Korean stop-and-go prevented that, so we entertained ourselves as best we could. At one point, we jumped out of the bus and walked along the road to get some air and stretch. We figured, "Hey, when the bus catches up, we'll just jump back on!" But the bus never caught up. We walked for about 20 minutes before we stopped and waited the same amount of time for the bus to catch up. We also stopped for dinner to let the traffic give up a bit, then started the drinking. After that experience, one of the April teachers Adrienne and I beelined for the bar and had a few stiff drinks.

Finally, last Friday a few of us went out to Beomosa, which is the big temple just in Busan. I'd been up there before with Dan and Mac (see issue #235. And give God a high five if you get that reference!), but this time around, the Fall change was in full effect. I won't write much here, but enjoy the pics! Peace out!

The other day we had a company wide sports day, which meant all the branches got together at a spot and spent the day doing all sorts of activities. The draw that I heard repeatedly was that the company had spent a million won ($1000, for you dirty Americans) on meat along. With a bill like that, how could you pass up?

I love my branch. Our head instructor spent the night buying me shots and encouraging us to go out clubbing only to text us at 9 in the morning to "remind" us to show up on time! Also, we were given these lime green collared shirts with the implication that all the other branches would be wearing similar uniforms. Of course, we showed up and were the only ones. We tend to be a group that stands out already, and proudly so. We don't really need the assistance most of the time.

The day started out with all the groups breaking up into teams and participating in a variety of sport goodnesses. A good portion of us showed up late (for obvious reasons) and so we jumped on the nearest team and started playing/cheering/recovering. With great pride, our team took first in dodgeball (huzzah!), then got combined with another, lesser team (awww), only to be lead on to glory by Busanjin's own Jef (huzzah, redux!). We took the lead with such invigorating and Olympic-worthy events as Pass-the-People-Along-On-the-Tarp(?), Blow-Up-the-Balloons, Pop-Said-Balloons, and Bounce-the-Enormous-Ball-On-the-Tarp. It was a tarpy, balloony kinda time. Needless to say, I feel confident in declaring us the winners, though on a day like that, how could you be a loser?

I have to admit, I really do enjoy stuff like that. I met up with a lot of people that I haven't had near as much contact with. It's easy to get insular here, since your work routine combines with your foreigner routine to shut you off from a lot of others. Sometimes you're tired, sometimes you don't want to put the effort in required of somebody in a different country and want to hole yourself in a wall. I realize I've slowed down a bit since I came here; every weekend I was in a new place before and saw new things every day. You need stuff to keep you invigorated or else you fall in the trap. I guess that's the same anywhere you go, but I don't want to squander my time here since it's already limited enough.

We also celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving yesterday with a potluck dinner at the coworker's place. Gotta say, I couldn't name a single Canadian holiday before I got here and now I'm jumping at the chance to join everything from Canadian Independence Day to Canadian Kwanzaa (please, let that exist...). Also, I miss cooking since it's so cheap here to eat out and I'm a lazy bastard. So if anyone has some new recipes/cooking ideas, send them my way. I only have a stove, no oven (baking ain't so big here), no microwave or anything really, no space for much. So if you have ideas on delicious meals using only a range and the sweat o' my brow (maybe not actually IN the food), post em up! Otherwise, later all! I'll have more actual Korean culture soon, I swear!

P.S. No, I probably won't.

DMZ, Seoul, and Film Festival! UPDATED!

UPDATE: Added photos from the trip. Reminder: they were taken with a disposable, so they're pretty bad and at a slight tilt, which makes me queasy to look at. Also, apparently my thumb is huge and impossible to get out of the way.

God, I love long weekends! Once a term, a magical time comes where the older kids have midterm exams, which means they cancel their supplementary classes only to spend time on their actual classes for about two weeks. While not every class gets canceled, you still end up with situations like mine, where my Saturday and Monday classes were gone and I had a nice extended mini-vacation to play with. Sounds like time for a trip! Another coworker, John, also had the same time off, so we spent the weekend up in Seoul. We got there Saturday night and stayed until Monday afternoon, which was plenty of time for sightseeing and frivolity. Met up with some friends that I hadn't seen for a while, even since training! We checked out some areas in Seoul that I never got to see during my week of hellish training, went to some cool bars and a club or two. Seoul's a cool place to visit, but I'm glad I don't live up there; it's a bit too much all the time. There's tons to do, but I enjoy a more laid back Busan atmosphere. I could also just be a loser. Hmmm...

Anyways, we went up there mainly to go check out the DMZ, or for you non-cultured people the Demilitarized Zone. It's the border between North and South Korea where there is a fenced off 2 km area where neither country can really enter or bring military forces. Now, some people might ask the pertinent question, "Why?" to which I respond most intelligently, "Cuz!" It's a big attraction for tourists, with buses going up with people by the hundreds. And it's also a really interesting look at foreign relations outside of that peaceful, idyllic image that some of us keep in our heads. I personally found it very interesting to listen to all the rhetoric being thrown about on the South Korean side, with little comments being thrown in showing the North Koreans in such a terrible light and pushing all the blame squarely on their shoulders. South Korea can definitely be guilty of painting different historical and current events in a light that's far too favorable for themselves (Dokdo, anybody?), which I guess is the case for anybody, looking back on all those years of American history in grade school. I need to read up on more history between the two now...

So anyways, the tour consisted of a few different stops along the way. First, we stopped at a little park area called Imjingak with a silly amusement park called Peace Land! The great thing about all the stuff we saw along the way was it all had names like "Unification Village" and "Freedom Bridge". By the end, we were calling everything by those names: "Man, I'm hungry. Let's grab some Unification Ice Cream at the Freedom Mart." But yeah, there was a Peace Bell and a Bridge of Freedom where over 12,000 POWs were exchanged after the war and a bunch of other monuments to peace and unification. And souvenirs! We then went up past the military blockades to the main area where they showed us an epindary movie about the DMZ that included rockin 80s music, super dramatic shots of some little girl crying/frolicking around the DMZ, and a mystical butterfly that heals wounds and restores good will and peace. We were laughing the whole time, but I don't think the other people there appreciated it so much. We then walked down to the 3rd tunnel, which is a place where those dirty commies tried to dig through to the other side and invade our way of life, only to be halted by the forces of righteousness. And butterflies. It was a grueling walk for two reasons: 1) Korea doesn't believe in making inclines/declines easy by including luxuries like switchbacks or stairs, so we enjoyed a brisk walk down and a ridiculously difficult and long walk back up, and 2) the NoKo's apparently didn't have 6'2" American tourists in mind, as I was hunched over the entire time and cursing genetics. Finally, we got to the observatory that looked out over the DMZ, and you couldn't take pictures past a certain point in case you were suspected of spying or something. On the North Korean side there was a fake village that was set up to apparently fool everyone that everything was a-ok over there, no doubt also hiding untold numbers of NBC's strapped to little puppies. Those crafty bastards. Another highlight of that area was a sign for the military forces there that said "N1CE". We took a few pics doing thumbs up there. I forgot my digital camera, but bought a disposable and am having them developed AS WE SPEAK!

All in all, a good weekend. Got a little time to do more sightseeing and went to one of Seoul's palaces, Gyeongbokgung, which was a cool look at some historical Korea. I love touristy shit sometimes. Side note: older Korean buildings and historical sites are some of the ugliest in Asia, for one specific reason. While the outsides look cool and different and interesting, the insides are always painted in the most godawful gaudy colors, like pinks and neon greens and whatnot. If some aspiring historical architecture expert (achem) wants to see if that's really the original colors they used, I'd like to know as I seriously doubt it. Also went to the bookstore, Kyobo, of course, which is fabulous in Seoul as they have a massive foreign section. Only bought one book, Bonk, which is done by the same author as Stiff, an amusing book about cadavers that I bought a little while back. This one's about the science and history of sex and sounds amusing.

Finally, next weekend is the Pusan International Film Festival, which is a huge event down here that people have been mentioning for some time. I could regurgitate what I read from Wikipedia, but I'm lazy, so here are some excerpts:

"Pusan International Film Festival held annually in Busan, South Korea, is one of the most significant film festivals in Asia. The first festival, held from September 13 to September 21, 1996, was also the first international film festival in Korea. The focus of the PIFF is introducing new films and first-time directors, especially those from Third World countries. Another notable feature is the appeal of the festival to young people, both in terms of the large youthful audience it attracts and through its efforts to develop and promote young talent."

I've got a good amount of tickets and I'm totally stoked! Here's a list of the movies I'm checking out, to give you an idea of what there is. Unfortunately, a lot of the really big ones were almost immediately sold out, and these ones were still somewhat hard to get ahold of as a lot of other things that I was looking at were also sold out. Enjoy, and catch yall later!


Bottle Shock United States 2007 108min Randall Miller
Winemaking perfectionist Jim and his free-spirited son are trying to make the perfect California chardonnay when a British wine snob chooses their wine to take part in a tasting in France. That sets the stage for a drama that will shake the worlds of both Jim and of wine.

Mental Japan, United States 2008 135min Kazuhiro Soda
MENTAL observes the complex world of an outpatient mental health clinic in Japan, interwoven with patients, doctors, staff, volunteers, and home-helpers. The film captures the candid lives of people coping with suicidal tendencies, poverty, a sense of shame, apprehension, and fear of society.

Another Planet Hungary 2008 95min Ferenc Moldoványi
Shot on four continents and spoken in five languages, this docu-drama studies the problems facing Earth today. Looking at rampant ecological, political, and social unrest and injustice, Moldoványi’s two-year survey of where we are and where we seem to be going is an illuminating look at contemporary human experience.

The Vanished Empire Russia 2008 105min Karen Shakhnazarov
Moscow of the 1970s, and the Soviet Empire’s zenith is also the beginning of its end. Three university students wrapped up in their own romantic dilemma fail to see their home’s downward spiral into non-existence, not recognizing the passing of a defining era—both personal and political.

Empty Chair Iran 2008 100min Saman ESTEREKI
A series of directors are making each other’s movies, blurring the lines between actor and director. In the end, who is the one who ends up yelling “cut” from the “empty chair”?

Terribly Happy Denmark 2008 95min Henrik Ruben Genz
Robert Hansen is a cop transferred to a remote village in Denmark. His usual days there are not much. One day, a woman comes to see him telling him that she has been abused by her husband. But as he is trying to help her, he falls in love with her getting himself into a big trouble.

Button Man Hong Kong, China, Taiwan 2008 80min Jen Hao Chien
Wei is the “button man”, an expert cleaner for the gang, a man who comes after a murder scene, takes care of the victim, disposing the body and leaving no evidence behind. Who would have thought that one day, he would become a target of their list….

Nightmare Detective 2 Japan 2008 102min Shinya Tsukamoto
The whole thing started out as a prank. Yukie and her friends lock their classmate, Kikukawa in an equipment room in the gym, to scare her. Though they let her out in the end, Kikukawa stopped coming to school the following day. Yukie began to have nightmares about Kikukawa

Seoul-der

Japan Trippin!

Man, I suck at this updating thing. A week after my trip and I'm finally getting around to posting something. Ok, well, here goes:

So last weekend was the Chuseok holiday in Korea, basically one of the two biggest in the country. In honor of such a momentous holiday, I, along with 3 of my fellow teachers, decided to celebrate by getting the hell out of this country! We jumped a plane to Tokyo, and wacky adventures ensued. These are their stories.

Unfortunately, us Saturday class people still had to teach. That's right, we teach classes on Saturday! But luckily, we pushed them to earlier in the day; the downside was that we had to teach at 9 in the morning. But afterwards, we jumped into a cab and shot right on over to the airport! A short flight overseas (2 hours, about), and Japan met us in all our glory. Well, not Tokyo though; the airport is an hour and a half train ride outside of the city, so we took a little while to get there. But Japan had to be eased into our glory.

Now, for unknown reasons to me today, the decision was made not to have a hotel room the first night. We had an area that we wanted to stay in (Shinjuku, western part of the city), but somehow we ended up without specific accommodations. That was ok, though; we got off the train and made our way to one of the two hotels we narrowed it down to. Wait, the hotel rooms are like $150 more than the online prices?!? Forget that! We had two choices: bite the bullet and pay extra or find a new hotel. Or wait, maybe we had a third: stay up all night! Yep, that's right, we reserved our hotels for the rest of the time there, then dropped off our bags and hit the streets for what would soon be the most painful night of our lives. We went out to a club/bar area in Rappungi, which was full of foreigners, and checked out a few places. Eventually, by the early morning hours, we decided it would be a solid idea to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market so we could eat sushi as soon as it opened at 5. So we walked about half the length of the city to get there. Now, we all got up early, but the others essentially stayed up all the night before as well, and I'm a wuss when it comes to sleep deprivation. So we got to the market with time to spare and found a diner to sit in and rest (and, for some, sleep). Turns out, the fish market was closed on Sundays, and it was a holiday weekend besides, so no market for us, though we did still eat sushi there. We then headed over the the Imperial Palace, which was nice from afar, though that's as far as we got since we couldn't get past the gate to see it. We then attempted (unsuccessfully) to find places to sleep until our hotel rooms opened up, settling finally on the hotel lobby.

A lot of the time there was spent just walking around people-watching and checking everything out. Tokyo has a cool vibe; it's a huge city with lots of flashy lights. Our general rule was to go towards the shiniest areas, which worked out pretty well. Everything feels more relaxed there than Korea. The people there are different from Korea as well; everyone's so fashionable and has their own individual style versus here where they all kinda dress the same. And people are so polite in comparison! Walking down the street, you don't have to duck and dodge people, shouldering old ladies out of the way. It was also oddly quiet in comparison, even though it was tons busier in parts. I have to say, I kind of wish I went to Japan for the atmosphere alone, but Korea for the actual work is more worthwhile: better pay, more jobs, etc. And the food! Oh lordy, we had some good food: sushi every day, all fresh and not that frozen tuna crap. Tonkatsu, yakiudon, we even went to a really nice dim sum place and splurged a bit. Good times.

We also did a fair bit of shopping. Dan and I are of course huge nerds, so we hit up the manga places and arcades. He had been looking to play Street Fighter 4 since it's only in Japan, so naturally that was one of the first things we did. They had all kinds of fun, goofy games to play there and I spent many a yen. The manga places were overwhelming and I really didn't know where to start, but ended up buying a few odd things here and there. And of course lots of little toys; I love the Japanese capsule machines for all the cutsy and just plain awesome things you can get out of them, including a bunch of manga-looking Marvel superheroes! As a side note, in Japan 100 and 500 yen (about $1 and $5) are in coin form, so you don't really keep track of them quite as well as you probably should. But also, since it was so fashionable and such, I even went out to a few clothing places and picked up some stuff. I am a consumer whore!

Anyways, that's about it in a nutshell. We got to the airport and our plane ended up being delayed for 2 1/2 hours, which meant we were late for class, but ah well. After a weekend like that, class was the least of my worries. Got lots of fun souvenirs and trinkets for everyone, which will be sent out post haste-esque!

And now, the pics.