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The KTX Bullet Train

Hey all, been awhile been pretty busy with getting lesson plans together, so here we go. The Visa trip to Pusan and Japan was awesome, tiring but very fun. The trip to Pusan took around 3hrs by train; 1hr on a normal train and 2 by high speed KTX. When we arrived we booked into a cheap ‘love hotel’ dropped our stuff off and headed into the Foreigner Shopping district. The area was primarily Russian and we found out afterwards that it’s a pretty rough place…but as you can probably guessed ‘Tough Trev’ had no problem, those Russians musta been intimidated by my size. I did think it was rather strange that all these Russian women were hanging around outside of various buildings around the area. After looking around we picked up some souvenirs, and hit a Karaoke bar. The bar was empty for awhile and the background screens for the Karaoke eventually went from normal to semi-porn, Catherine and Julie did not enjoy that at all.

Waiting for the Ferry

The next morning we headed to the port to catch the Hydrofoil “The Beetle” to Fukuoka, Japan, the length of the trip was supposed to be 3hrs but we were delayed an hour because there was a hunk of seaweed stuck on the propeller. An hour of bobbing on the waves and I was feeling like crap, thank you Mom for the Gravol it definitely came in handy. The delay also caused another problem; it only gave us about an hour upon arrival to get to the Korean Embassy, luckily we made it there with about 10 minutes to spare.

Canal City Mall

After checking in to our hotel and dropping our stuff off, we headed to Canal city Mall a giant 5 storey mall, it was pretty cool. I couldn’t find any cool Japanese Baseball caps, just ones for the Fukuoka Golden Hawks…not a cool hat. Afterwards we walked around the surrounding area for a bit, and accidentally wandered into the red light district. We made it out unscathed and went for a bite to eat at one of the Yatai’s (street vendors) for some Ramen. It’s a popular Japanese noodle dish and according to our cabby, Fukuoka’s is the BEST in all of Japan. The food was great and the people were too, one old guy with a huge white beard came up to us and took our picture, so I got him to take one for me, and then I got one with the both of us.

Ramen was good enough for me. Good enough for Mr & Mr. Lee

After diner Julie and I wandered around and checked out some of the ‘Amusement parks’…basically 4-5 storey arcades with something different on each floor; crane games, shooting games, arcade games, slot machine and medal games (games where you win tokens for prizes). It was all real fun I won Julie a Stuffed Snoopy, and after spending another $15 I realized that my luck had run out and that I’d best leave before this blew into a full scale Crane-Game addiction. There were some really weird games, like this virtual horse racing game where basically you bet which horse is going to win.

We left the next day after our eating a nice breakfast, and headed back to the Korean Embassy to pick up our Visas. After getting those we headed to another mall, ate some more Ramen, played some more prize games, and bought a little Godzilla for my desk. We made it back to the harbor and made our way back to Iksan. After 6 hours of travel we were all pretty beat, we made it back at midnight and then found out we had to work the next day. Total downer. I’ll be posting another blog tomorrow.

Us at the Korean Embassy

On a personal note I just received word that my Grandma pasted away yesterday. This was one of the things that made my decision to leave extremely hard, knowing that I might miss her funeral and other things like the birth of Chrissie’s first child. But I know that I made the right decision in going, and that there would always be reasons to stay home. I don't really know where I’m going with this but the main thing I've found that I shouldn't worry about what I’ll miss because if I do I’ll never fully enjoy the things I'm doing. I’ll always have fond memories of my Grandma, her wink and her smile and how no matter where you were or what you were doing if you needed anything; she would always be there for you. It was really hard for me to leave knowing that I may never see her again, but I’ll always have these memories and that’s what comforts me now, at a time when I wish I could be there with everyone. Hope everyone is okay, missing you all even more.

Love, Trev