Yep I'm a world traveller now! 

Yep I'm a world traveller now!

WOWZERS! What a long weekend! I cant believe all the places I've been and experienced within a matter of 4 days! I've travelled across ALL of South Korea, to every major city or even small town by train. Went to Japan!!! and stayed overnight. i wished I could stay for longer but it was sooo expensive, and I was broke. But I fully intend to go back in the spring time....that's my fantasy Japan....in the spring with cherry blossoms etc... and to see Mt. Fugi that way would be too perfect.
I dont even knowwhere to begin. If I started from the beginning....I think I'd get lost. So maybe I need to be backwards...but that would be confusing. Hmmmm. Well how's this. i'll just blurt out whatever I remember first. Here goes. Oh, and I should say that I won't get it all down in one entry, because I think that would most likely bore you all to tears! Or frustrate...or no one would actually read the whole thing! I wonder if anyone does...really. Hmmm...

Long story short, GwangJu to Busan Wed night, Thurs am Busan to Fukuoka, Japan!, get visa process started Thurs pm, Thurs night shopping with new friend Landa, Friday am go get visa, Friday pm wander in Japan and try to decide if I can stay longer!, Friday pm go back to Busan, lose my sketchbook on ferry, Stay in Busan overnight at hostel, meet cool German guy, leave Busan after getting my sketchbook...(it must have been APEC vibes), take train to Seoul Sat pm, arrive Sat night and meet Candice finally!, go window shopping downtown Seoul, go to Suwon, watch Batchelorette bee a goof, sleep, Sunday am, go get train ticket back home to GwangJu, go visit cool fortress wall 3000 years old that surrounds Suwon, so incredible that I get very 'verklempt' and give Candice a topic to discuss herself till I recover!, meet Taekwondo President of Korea in a coffee house, go catch train, meet a cool Korean guy and get to know him for the next 3 hours to Gwangju....and.....breathe....back home!!!!! WOW!

So, on Wed night, I was scheduled to leave GwangJu at midnight and arrive in Busan at 3:30 am. Before i left John, the other English teacher at my school I've been making friends with, invited me out to visit his friends Will and Liz and Kate. They're all Brits, and it's fun getting to know them. Took a taxi to the bus station, and the adventure begins. When I got on the bus, I noticed another 'foreigner' with her baby getting on. She looked a bit hippyish, and looked a bit older, and it made me happy to see an older woman (40's?) with a baby. Hopeful, perhaps. Ahem. So when we arrived in Busan, we ended up connecting, and discovered we were on the same trip to japan. We both hung out at the bus station all night, and attracted quite a crowd of Koreans because of the baby. It's amazing how small and cute things like babies or small animals break barriers! It turns out that this lady, Mary, (who was from France) and her husband had just adopted Andy who is Korean and Philipino. She was bringing Andy for a 'visa run' for him so he could stay in the country another month before they move to Saipan I believe the island is called. I'm glad we met, because the bus station would have been a bit shady- and it was regardless.

At 5:30 am the subway started, and we got the subway to the wharf, or close anyway. I'm so glad she was there, because she had doene the 'visa run' before and knew generally where to go. I was also glad that I could help her carry her bags...having a baby and all... We got to the international ferry terminal which was quite beautiful, and it was just sunrise by the time we were there. Oh, and before I forget, there was this AMAZING building there while it was still dark that I got a mini film of...wowzers I love this country for it's technology and attention to detail and aesthetics. The building's windows lit up and changed color like a light show! And it's sooo beautiful to see! Breathtaking actually!

So, Mary and I got to the terminal, had to wait an hour for the ticket booths to open. I was a bit worried because I was instructed to pick up my travel tickets and hotel package on the 4th floor of some building, and everyone I asked said that it was indeed the ferry terminal building, and it only had 3 floors! Great. It ended up being just fine, and I got the Kobee ferry and the ticket vendor had my package all there for me. Sweet- Relief actually. Mary was going on the Beetle ferry. I'm kindof glad because she was a lot of energy in a way. So through customs and immigration...I always seem to get into the wrong lineup for some reason!

So off we go....on a boat that turns out to be a HYDROPLANE boat/ferry that had posh seats like an bus or train or more like airplane, and the engine I noticed it said Boeing Jet Engine on the side of the boat! NIce! So here I was, speeding away on this hydroplane boat! How cool is that? Going away was great because it gave a good view of Busan. It's quite a nice city that is like North Shore extended in terms of buildings or the city built on the side of mountains and extended along the coast line. It's long because of this, and very hilly. I really like it here, and it's just like I thought it would be, or very close anyways.

i was so tired, and ended up sleeping a bit on the ferry. I'm not sure what to call it- a ferry or boat or plane! It felt like a plane in a way. Strange. So I slept...it was sunny when I left Busan, and rainy when we got out an hour. A few times I wondered if we were going to be picked up by the wind...but I always get paranoid about that stuff at one point in the trip. There's a lot of trust in travelling I realized. A lot. Trust in maps, in transportation, in the people that run it, the people that you meet, the people that advise you.... and then there's the people you shouldnt trust....whoever they are. I've felt very safe here in Korea, though. A lot of people willing to help you that come up out of nowhere.

I noticed about 5 foreigners on the ferry too...they're all going to do the same visa run that I am, I'm sure. This was proven to be right later on. It's funny how the world changes when you're a foreigner! And an obvious one. You zoom in on people that are whities just like you. Some strange acknowledgement there too. More on that to come, be sure of that.

Hooked up with a guy who was going to visa run too, so we could go find the visa consulate somehow, which helped in the long run. We took a bus to downtown Fukuoka, and then a subway to some part of town, and then walked and got 'lost' down some back alleys in GORGEOUS Japan! I cannot believe how amazing it is here! The first thing I really noticed was how clean the air was. And the cleanness of teh whole town and country it seems. It felt like coming home in a way. But oh so Japan, and oh so what I knew it was going to be. How exciting and utterly amazing to experience this, to see real Japan, the houses here, with the bonsai looking trees perfectly pruned, the roofs, pagoda style stuff....oh I get 'verklepmt' just thinking about it! I fell in love with Japan, and I NEED to go back and spend some time there. THe thing is, I'm not sure I would want to leaave! I had a really hard time leaving as soon as I did because I had no choice.

K, I gotta get me some sleep now...and I will have to finish this tomorrow.... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz