Just Flew in from Japan....

and here are my pictures!

So Tokyo is HUGE! It took us two hours by train to get to our hotel from the airport. Our hotel was more like a hostel except that we had a private room which they cleaned every day. It had bunk beds! It was in an area called Jim-bo-cho which is quite close to the center of Tokyo.

One of my first impressions of Tokyo - all of the buildings are uniquely designed and very beautiful. They don't just build office buildings, they build really cool-looking office buildings! Also it was so much cleaner and well-organized than any other city I've seen. I never felt like I was in a city of 30 million people. There's no smoking on the streets and the air feels clean and clear. You can tell they work hard to keep their city clean - the subway system was so much more elaborate than Seoul's and was somehow even cleaner.

looking up at buildings

look familiar?

View from an observation deck. when you go to the top of City Hall and look out at Philadelphia, or go to the top of the Empire State Building and look at NYC you can see the end of the city. It stops at some point and you can see where the water is or where the next state is. In Tokyo you can see nothing but Tokyo. The city never ends, it goes on and on and on and on. All you can see in all four directions is the city. It's HUGE.

In the business district of Shinjuku

Feel like you need a vitamin? You can get them in this vending machine, conveniently located in a subway station

Hanging out at Roponggi Hills - a really snazzy new shopping area with lots of designer shops both outdoor and indoor. Very modern and zen.

Worst part - gigantic spider sculpture in the center. Eeek!

Sunday morning in Tokyo - lovely breakfast of tea and toast at an outdoor cafe.

We went to the Meiji shrine at Harajuku.

We found a random kimono-clad woman and asked to have a picture with her!

gift shop

seeing a woman in a full kimono is really amazing

It was amazing seeing both sides of Tokyo culture. On the one hand the delicate and lovely kimonos. On the other hand is cutting edge, sometimes bizarre fashion which you can best observe on the bride over Harajuku station. Here Tokyo's stylish teenagers hang out and make incredible fashion statements. Everything from goth to glam and even dressing up like anime or manga characters. It's what they do on the weekends and it's amazing to see!

The Japanese teenagers are way more openly rebellious than the Koreans! :)

Takeshi-dori - busiest place I've ever been. This is THE place for funky teenage fashion and weird stores. If it's bizarre, you'll find it on this street.

It was too crowded to move so we took a picture!

Making a statement

Harajuku Street!

Here I am in Ginza - the "Rodeo Drive" of Tokyo. In this picture I'm outside Mikimoto - the mother of all pearl stores. Get it? :) Ginza has every designer you could imagine: Tiffany's, Fendi, Armani, Louis Vitton, Gucci... Being there made us feel poor.

My favorite part of the trip was the evening we spent walking around the huge district of Shinjuku at night. It was so alive and bustling, a neon forest that was always exciting and never felt dangerous. Restaurants, bars, stores, clubs, anything you could imagine, this place was incredible to experience and it went on forever.

At some smaller restaurants in Tokyo you place your order before you go inside by pressing a button on a machine like this one that has all the choices on it. Cool!

We opted to eat at a Sri Lankan restaurant that night. You might be wondering why there aren't more pictures of us eating Sushi and other Japanese cuisine. Sarah doesn't eat and is terrified of all fish with makes eating Japanese food pretty difficult. So we ate lots of other cuisines on our trip: Indian, Sri Lankan, Thai, Turkish, and Swiss.

The station where our hotel was located: Jim-Bo-Cho

At the entrance to the East Garden of the Imperial Palace (where Japan's royal family lives). The actual palace where they live is only open two days a year. But the grounds and gardens (which are mind-blowingly huge) are open to the public. Also behind me in this picture is Tokyo Tower!

The east garden of the Imperial Palace - it was so beautiful.

again

Looking for butterflies

A group of Japanese students who were in a photography club asked to take our picture and after they were through they took one with my camera.

After the Imperial Palace we went to Asakusa to see a Buddhist shrine and visit a market there. We ran into more kimono-clad ladies and of course had to get a picture.

The busy market in Asakusa

The gate and gigantic lantern at the far end of the market.

A 5-story pagoda

waterfall around the pagoda

more of the market

After Asakusa we went to Ueno where there is a gigantic park with lakes and fountains and there was a kind of carnival going on.

We ended up buying matching kimonos. It was such a fun trip!!! I highly recommend Tokyo! :) Thank you for looking at my pictures! Sayonara!

Off to Tokyo!

Well it's been such a busy month of April that I hardly had any time to spend actually planning this 4-day getaway to Tokyo. But armed with a plane ticket, hotel booking and the always trusty Lonely Planet guide book, I will depart tomorrow for the economically booming, technologically dizzying, population-ly overflowing, seismically active Land of the Rising Sun.

In light of this, did you know that....

There are about 200 volcanoes in Japan, 40 of which are active

Japanese have the highest life expectancy in the world, about 81-82 years

The biggest exporter of frog's legs in the world is Japan

The oldest man to reach the summit of Mount Everest was Japanese

Japan's population is currently just over 127 million.

Metropolitan Tokyo has a population of approximately 12.7 million (when you include surrounding areas it's closer to 32,000,000!).

Sarah and I in Hong Kong last September!

Now off to Japan!

Spring

"April hath put a spirit of youth in everything." - William Shakespeare


I love Spring in Korea. It has many of the sights and sounds of Spring back home (baseball, birds, flowers). And I can easily imagine the motorcycles going by are lawn mowers while I lie in bed in the morning. There are some unique Spring-isms to Korea that I particularly enjoy. Where I live is very residential and somewhat secluded for being in the city and there are always groups of kids playing in the streets as the traffic on my road is sparse. It reminds me of the 1950's growing up stories my Dad tells of playing in the street with his brothers and cousins. I never really had that experience as Timberline Drive was far too busy and dangerous for playing in. So I love seeing the kids playing with balls or bikes in the street, stopping when cars go by or to stare at me for looking so different - not a mean stare, just curious - and sometimes one is brave enough to say "hello" with a little prodding from his friends.

I have a break from 4-5 during the week and I walk home to eat dinner. Public school lets out around that time and there are hordes of uniform-clad teenagers walking home around me as I make my way. Here in Korea most if not all public schoolers wear a uniform. I love to see them - all immaculately attired in button-down shirts, vests, perfectly ironed trousers and skirts. And then you get down to their shoes. Apparently there is no dress-code for footwear and I think that's wonderful. These kids have so much being controlled in their lives and so much pressure but their shoes - those they have completely control over. And boy do they express it. There's something endearing to me about seeing an entire pristine uniform come to a halt at the bottom with Adidas sandals and socks - or a pair of bright pink high-topped sneakers. I love that the kids are allowed to express themselves in that way. As if the powers that be here realize they're putting way too much academic pressure on their youth but the only thing they could relinquish control of was shoes.

They've put up colorful lanterns in my neighborhood which add vibrancy to the somewhat dingy buildings. Korea was built quickly and while efficiency and maximizing space where taken into consideration, aesthetics were not so highly valued. While there are more exceptions to this in the main part of Seoul, in my area it's mostly box-like, brick buildings with flat roofs. Also, hills don't seem to bother the Korean builders. They'll build all over them, making for some pretty hazardous roads and exhausting trips to friends' houses.

In celebration of Spring, I've started going to baseball again here. My team, the Woori Heroes, lost their sponsorship over the off-season so now they're simply the "Seoul Heroes". Woori was a tobacco brand so that's fine with me, I think Seoul Heroes is nicer anyway. They ended the season in 2nd to last place out of 8 teams last year. I'm hoping they make the play-offs this year (top 4 teams go to the play-offs). This has been such an exciting last year for baseball in Korea between winning gold in baseball at the Olympics and finishing second in the World Baseball Classic. Many of my students love baseball and we have some fun conversations about it. I even have a baseball-themed game which I use to review before tests in my classed - complete with innings, outs, strike-outs etc. The kids love it.

As always I'm enjoying teaching so much. There are certainly slumps as could be expected in any job. But I am enjoying seeing myself grow and progress as a teacher. I look back at when I first came and I am amazed at how much I've learned and changed in my job. It's such an enjoyable experience (with a few exceptions) and I feel so blessed to be able to have this experience.

I am going to Tokyo, Japan for a 4-day vacation from May 2nd - 5th. I've only ever been to the Tokyo airport so I'm very excited for my first taste of Japan. I'm going with my friend Sarah (from England) with whom I went to Hong Kong last year. We are very excited about our trip - we're staying in a hostel/hotel and plan to do lots of shopping, sightseeing, and relaxing! More on that later...

Last weekend my friends and I celebrated on of the first truly gorgeous Spring days with a roof-top barbecue. There are some pictures below. Some of baseball, some of the barbecue, and some simply of Spring. Enjoy!