Seoul-ful Wedding!

This weekend I took my first trip outside of Japan since moving here! I left after work on Friday and about an hour plane ride out of Fukuoka airport and I was in Soeul! I traveled with my friend Juha who had been to Korea five times previously, but his last time in Seoul was a few years ago. We flew into Incheon airport, which is about an hour away from Seoul Station by train. We got in late, but found our hotel before midnight and did a little exploring before bed. We stayed in Yeongdeungpo, the same district as the wedding was taking place. Much to my excitement, the hotel we stayed in was called the Lexington!

Juha and I met Patrick and Leah the next morning for breakfast. We ended up going to a 7 Eleven for gum. The 7 Eleven was right outside a subway station and when we came out the street was flooded with people and cameras! They must have been shooting a scene for a movie or TV show because they had a camera and a boom mic set up facing the subway station! I think it was a scene with extras. There were a ton of people standing behind the camera . When the director yelled) what I assume is) the Korean equivalent of "Action!" the people would walk past the station down the street. After a few seconds, everyone started to murmur and huddle together while pointing to something in the distance. I think it might have been some kind of disaster they were supposed to be seeing. We didn't stick around long, but it was really cool to see!

We walked to the wedding hall and were there by 10:45, 15 minutes before the wedding started. We dropped off our gift and talked with Dan's family for a bit before finding out seats. The ceremony was beautiful. It took elements from Korean tradition, Western tradition, and some really cool things I've never seen before! Both mothers started the ceremony by walked down the aisle together and each lighting a candle by the alter and bowing to each other. They were wearing beautiful Korean hanboks in incredibly vibrant colors. Next, Dan walked down the aisle where he was soon joined by Young Lim and her father. Her father gave her hand to Dan before finding his seat. Both sets of parents each had special seats on either side of the aisle. I didn't understand much of what was said because it was all in Korean, but it sounded short and sweet. There were even two assistants dedicated to walking around and fixing Young Lim's dress, spreading out the train and veil just right and adjusting everyone's clothes as needed. Sometimes I think they were a bit over ambitious with fixing the parents' clothes, but it was pretty funny to see these two running around adjusting shirts and skirts.

After the vows were exchanged, Young Lim had some friends come up and sing songs. It was really cool! Two of her friends started by each singing her one song. Then two more friend came up. They sang a little together, but they mostly danced! They sang pop songs and even had outfit changes to mimic the outfits in the music videos for the songs! They ended with Gangnam Style and wore horse heads! They dragged Dan off the aisle and had him dance in the middle as if he were PSY! It was great!

After the ceremony we went upstairs for a buffet lunch. There was all kinds of food, both western and Korean, and it was great! We got to talk to Dan and Young Lim a little as they walked around to thank everyone for coming, but we didn't get to see much of them. We were meeting them for dinner later, so we decided to head off and see some sights while they finished up. We ended up walking to the 63 building. It is a building with 63 floors that houses an art museum, aquarium, IMAX, wax museum, and observatory. We went up to the observatory where the tallest art gallery in the world is held. The exhibition featured was called "Beatles Generation" and included many pictures of the Beatles as well as abstract expressionist works from the 60s. It was really cool to see, especially with a great view of Seoul from the observatory! The only thing that would have made it nicer is if Seoul wasn't so smoggy so we could have seen more.

Outside the 63 building was a tower with what looked like huge speakers at the top. It took us a minute, but we eventually figured out it was an alarm. We had previously noticed that almost all the subway stations had giant glass cases full of gas masks in case North Korea attacks. The tower tower we saw is an alarm in case of the same situation. It's a little jarring to see everywhere, but it makes a lot of sense.

We eventually meet Dan, Young Lim, and some more friends for dinner. Young Lim's parents invited all the foreigners to an amazing Korean BBQ restaurant as a thank you for coming all the way to Korea for the wedding. We had a great time and ate a lot of amazing food! It was also nice to talk more with Dan's brother and sister and all the other guests from around the globe.

After dinner most of us went across the street to karaoke. There were probably about 20 of us and I think the room we were given was bigger than my apartment! There were three TVs and couches along three walls. There were tables to one side full of beer, soju, and snacks. The room was big enough for all of us to dance and we stayed for three hours! It was so much fun! People started to head home after that, but I stayed with Juha, Young Lim, and Dan and his siblings. We ended up in a university district full of clubs and bars. We were a bit tired by then (especially Dan and Young Lim), so we found a quite restaurant on the third floor or a bar overlooking the streets. We had a few more drinks, but mostly snacked and talked. Eventually we all started to feel tired and headed off on our separate ways back to our hotels.

The last day in Seoul was pretty uneventful. We slept in and took our time getting up. We checked out around 11:30 and meet Patrick and Leah. We headed into Myeong-dong for lunch. It was a really nice place with lots of shops! We took a look around before heading back to the airport and ended up back home a little after 9:00 PM. It was a great trip and I hope to go back soon to have more time to spend in Seoul!

誕生日おめでとう！

I had a great birthday weekend! On Friday, my actual birthday, I had school, but I spent most of the time with my 三年生 (sannensei, third year students). Some of the 三年生 are still taking high school entrance exams, so we spend the time playing English games with the students who were in class. My schedule in March becomes more hectic as the private ALTs will be on vacation, so I will be going to five schools instead of just two, so it was nice to spend some time with the students since I will only have three more days at Futajima in March before moving to a new base school.

After school I meet up with my friend Leah, who's birthday was the next day. We went to Lush and had a quick shopping spree before meeting Patrick, Tomoko, and Yukiko. We went to 白木屋 (Shirokiya), an izakaya that was amazing! We had a course dinner with 飲み放題 (nomihoudai, all you can drink). The dinner was served over two hours and consisted of salad, edamame, sashimi, karaage (friend chicken), yakitori (chicken on a stick), okonomiyaki (cabbage pancake kind of stuff with egg and sauce), french fries, and motsunabe (soup heated at the table with tofu and cow intestines). Everything was delicious! We even got small pastries with strawberry and chocolate ice cream inside for dessert! It was a lot of fun, but it was eventually time to leave so Tomoko and Yukiko could catch the last train home. We said goodbye and Patrick, Leah, and I walked home. Leah had packed a bag and stayed the night at my apartment. (She stays over so often she has her own shelf in my bathroom!)

The next day Leah and I slept in. When we did get up, we started working on making some chocolates! Throughout the day we made small chocolates with caramel crunch on top as well as truffles with chocolate ganache in the middle and almond powder or cocoa powder on the outside. It was a lot of fun to make, but we also made a huge mess! In between making chocolates we had a mini, at-home spa day with the stuff we'd gotten from Lush the day before. We had so much fun putting on face masks and getting ready for the night! We even got a shimmy shimmy bar (lotion with lots of glitter in it) and enjoyed getting glitter on everything. (Well, everything except the chocolates, we made sure to keep those clean!) We packaged up the chocolates into 18 gift bags and met Patrick at 6:50 to head over to the restaurant!

As a combined party for both Leah and I we invited a bunch of people to 牛さくら (gyuusakura), a yakiniku place we both really like. We had a great time hanging out with our friends and ended up staying for over two hours! After the restaurant a few people had to go home, but most of us continued out to karaoke. We stayed at karaoke for another two hours and had a great time! A few of us ended up staying out even a little bit later to get a late night snack and eventually Leah and I walked back to my apartment. We'd given out the chocolate as little gift bags and everyone enjoyed them! We had also gotten some great things including wine, chocolates, homemade sweets (chocolate covered strawberries in mochi! Yum!), and sparkly make-up. It was a great night and one of my favorite birthdays so far!

Leah left early for church on Sunday, but I slept in again. I got up in time to meet my friend Fumiko for lunch at an all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant that was delicious! Fumiko had only been able to stay for dinner the night before because she had come straight from work, so we ended up sitting and talking at the restaurant well after our all-you-can-eat time expired. We eventually ventured out and headed to the fish store for me to get my ふぐ (fugu, pufferfish). I got two green spotted puffer and they are so cute! Fumiko came over and we watched a movie while we waited for the fish to acclimate to the new water before fully releasing them into the tank. When the fish were ready, we let them swim around and explore and they seemed to enjoy their new home!

I had a great weekend and I'm looking forward to heading off to Korea on Friday!

Birthday Weekend!

This Friday is both Valentine's Day and my birthday! I'm very excited to be spending both of these in Japan!

In Japan, girls make chocolates and give them to the boys they like on Valentine's Day. Because of this tradition, all of the 百円 shops (hyaku en, dollar stores) have giant bars of chocolates, mix ins, molds, and cute wrappers. My friend Leah and I went on a shopping spree (as much of a shopping spree as you can have in a dollar store, anyway) and bought a bunch of chocolates. Although I don't have anyone here to make chocolates for, we though it would be fun to make them all the same! We got cute wrappers with hedgehogs on them and are going to try to make both caramel crunch drop chocolates and truffles flavored in almond, cocoa, and strawberry. Hopefully all goes well and I'll have some delicious looking chocolates to show you next week!

Leah's birthday is the day after mine, so we are celebrating together. On my birthday we are going to meet after school and have a nice dinner out. Then head to Lush, do a little shopping, and start making chocolate! On her birthday, Saturday, we'll finish making chocolate and have an at-home spa day with the things we got from Lush the day before. We'll paint each other's nails, put on face masks, and generally lie around the house and have a good time. We also have reservations at a restaurant called 牛さくら (gyusakura). It's one of my favorite restaurants in the city and serves 焼肉 (yakiniku, grilled meat). The tables all have little grills in them, so you pick your meats and vegetables and grill everything at you table. It's a lot of fun and the food is always amazing! We have some of our other ALT friends coming as well as a few new friends. We'll spend the night out and have a good time! We also want to give everyone some of the chocolate we make as little goody bags!

Another thing that will happen on Saturday is that I will get to pick up my new fish! I've been preparing the tank for a while now and will soon have some cute green spotted puffer fish as pets! I'm very excited! They are small, but very cute. Hopefully I will have some pictures of them as well next week. The next weekend I'm off to Korea for a wedding and I'm super excited for these two upcoming weekends!

下関

Hello!

I'm sorry! I know I have not been updating as regularly. I didn't have a very exciting last two weeks, but this month should be better! This coming weekend I have a game day in Fukuoka, the next weekend is my birthday (as well as Leah's) and we have a lot planned, and the third weekend is Korea for my friend's wedding!

Despite my lack of excitement, I did have a great day on Sunday! I met two of my friends, Dave and Fumiko, at the train station and we took the 15 minutes ride to 下関 (Shimonoseki). 下関 is a city located on the southern most tip of Honshu, the biggest island of Japan. 下関 is very famous for ふぐ (fugu, pufferfish) and there is a beautiful warf I had been to only twice before. the weather was perfect, although not at all what I normally experience on the second day in February. It was in in the 50's and the sun was peaking through clouds. We walked along the warf until we came to 唐戸市場 (karato ichiba), the fish market there. We walked around tasting different foods for a while. We eventually settled on a few different plates to split for lunch, including some giant sushi. We brought our food back outside and found a bench to sit and eat on next to the water. There were performers outside and we sat in between a band and a magician.

After having lunch, we grabbed some ice cream and found a nice spot to sit and overlook the water. A lot of people were fishing and we even saw a couple doing a wedding shoot by a small light house! We decided that although we were ready to head home, we didn't want to get back on the train just yet. So we caught a ferry over to 門司港 (Mojiko), the northern most point of Kyushu island where I live. Shimonoseki and Mojiko are very close and the ferry ride only took five minutes, but sitting on top of the small boat on such a nice day was a great way to travel.

We took a train back from Mojiko and did some shopping. We went to Kaldi, an imported food store, and a fish pet store. Dave has a fish tank and wanted some shrimp to put in it. The store was incredible! It had tons of different types of fish and even had a small sting ray! It had turtles and frogs and even a few non-fish pets including a hedgehog! It was really cool to look around and reminded me of being back at Hofstra and going to the fish stores with my friend Reid. We spent over an hour looking at everything in the store and had a lot of fun! We caught a bus back to Dave's apartment when we finished and made some dinner. All in all it was a great day!

Today, February 3rd, is 節分 (Setsubun), a bean throwing festival in Japan that is preparation for Spring. Beans are thrown out the door of your house. Sometimes fathers will dress up like an Oni, Japanese demon, and children will throw beans at him instead. People can also say, 「鬼は外! 福は内!」(Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!, Demons out! Luck in!)while throwing the beans. For school lunch today I had some roasted soy beans and was also given beans by some of my coworkers. Some of the beans were even coated in frosted sugar! The packages all these came in had cartoon Oni on them and some said 「鬼は外! 福は内!」. Traditionally roasted soy beans are used for tossing, but more recently peanuts still in their shell have been used since the beans are sometimes eaten after being thrown. I would rather have a peanut from the floor than a soybean from the floor!

Another thing going on now is the private high school entrance exams. This week my 三年生 (sannensei, third year students) are taking their High School Entrance Exams. In Japan, students don't go to high school by district like we do in America. Instead, they take a test during their last year of middle school and based on that test they are accepted or rejected from different high schools in the area. They are testing Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. This exam is for private high schools and they will take another test in March for the public high schools. I'm wishing all my students a lot of luck during their exams!