Alright, I survived my Saturday workday and spent the afternoon with my old host family. So, let's talk about my trip.
The first night was really just a ton of travel time. I got on the Shinkansen (bullet train) at about 8:00 and headed west to Hakata in Fukuoka. I hung out at the station and walked around for a little while and then headed for the ferry port. Got there, bought my ticket to Tsushima and walked around until midnight.
Tsushima is the last stop in Japan before you hit Korea. It's fairly large, it took about 2 hours to drive from tip to tip. The ferry ride there wasn't bad...but I wouldn't recommend taking a 5 hour ferry ride anywhere. I got a little sleep, but not was still pretty beat when Aaron picked me up at the port in Tsushima.
Aaron showed me around Tsushima for a few days. It was a really different side of Japan. Much smaller, obviously, than what I'm used to. I got to see an endangered cat called the yamaneko (mountain cat). It was pretty much like a house cat, but with a bigger tail and seemingly lazier.
On Monday we finally made our way to Pusan, South Korea. It's pretty safe to safe we were both a little worried about the trip. We needed to get from Tsushima to Pusan and then up to Seoul in just a few hours.
The ferry ride was interesting, Koreans doing shots of whiskey on any sort of ride will do that. Got to Pusan a little late, but we were able to get tickets for the KTX (sort of like Japan's bullet train, just as nice and just as fast, just a little smaller) up to Seoul. We were much relieved. Hopped on the KTX and we were on our way to Seoul.
Got to Seoul, figured out the subway and made it to our hotel. We were both sort of in a daze and didn't find it strange that as we walked in a key was simply handed to us at the front desk. Went up to the room, walked in, saw someones clothes and luggage strewn about the room and promptly left. Remember...one must always check in to a hotel. Got that all fixed and we were back in business.
Seoul was really just a fantastic city. It was quite clean and simple to get around on the subway. It had a much different feel than Japan. We saw two former palaces, a folk museum, went up the Seoul Tower, and got to see the Korean War memorial, which was truly impressive. Great time in Seoul.
We made our way back to Pusan on Thursday. No problems there. Our hotel in Pusan was a ways out from the down town area, but it was right on the beach in a sort of touristy area. It felt a lot like being at home.
We didn't have much time in Pusan, but we did make it to this temple in the northern part of the city. I don't know what was going on, but it was obviously some sort of holiday or festival. The whole temple was completely canvased by these large colorful lanterns with pieces of paper attached that had names (i think) on them. It was really beautiful.
The next day we walked around the beach that morning and then made our way back to the port. Aaron and I took different boats back, so we parted ways at the port terminal, though not before meeting some weirdo from Florida, who, unfortunately, was on my boat back to Fukuoka.
Aaron's boat was late. Mine was this scary looking "hydro-foil." It was powered by a jet engine. It takes a normal ferry about 9 hours to do Fukuoka in Japan to Pusan in South Korea. This thing did it in under 3. For all the speed it was an incredibly smooth ride. Thank god.
Fukuoka to Shin-Osaka. Shin-Osaka to home.
I'll stop writing now. Pictures will be up soon.