Japan Day 1-2

• I know you all wanted to hear about my Japan adventure but I have been so busy every since my return I hardly had a chance to unpack. In fact, my carry on bag is still sitting in the living room area much to Tokey Pokey’s delight; jump on the bag, jump off the bag, jump on the bag, jump off the bag etc. Although it has been a while, I will try my best to remember the events that will interest you all most. I’ll leave the mushy romantic stuff to a minimum.
• So before I went to Japan I needed to get the rail pass. Apparently, you can not buy the Japan Rail Pass in Japan; it needs to be purchased through a travel agency or through JAL before you get there. So Lucas got his from a travel agency in the US and I tried calling JAL to get mine. They took down my flight information and said ‘yes’ then hung up. I had no idea what that meant. So I figured I would just figure it out at the airport. Well I went to the airport and the first person I talked to had no idea that JAL sold rail passes, not a promising start. She then asked her manager, who also had no clue. I asked if there was anyone else around that I could speak to and she pointed to a reservation desk. I walked over there and said “Rail Pass” and he pulled up a ticket with my name on it. Oh thank goodness! He had it all ready to go. So who ever I gave my info to over the phone did do something with it. I was happy to see things were going my way after all, until I hit a road block, of course! I pulled out Korean won to pay for the ticket and he said, “No, only Japanese yen or U.S. dollar.” What? I am still in Korea correct?!?! I had to take out more money from the ATM and exchange it to yen so I could get my rail pass. Long story short, I finally got the stupid pass. Which was a good thing because Lucas and I took the trains all over Japan. We went from Tokyo to Kyoto to Osaka and back again.
• Our first full day in Tokyo we went to a beautiful cherry blossom garden. I couldn’t believe our luck. These trees bloom for 2 weeks out of the year and we were there to witness it. I really can’t describe how beautiful it was. But I got some amazing photos to prove it. I really wanted to paint a picture of it though. There were so many people in the park painting.
That first day we also went to an electrons mega mall. But what I liked best was going to the fish market and beer museum. We went to the Tsukji Fish Market and found ourselves a great little shop to have sushi at. Freshest sushi I have ever had. Oh and for those of you who don’t know yet, I did start eating fish so I truly could enjoy the sushi.
After a sushi lunch, we went to the Yebisu Beer Museum. It wasn’t much of a museum although it had a few cool items like an old music box and some paintings of Japanese flappers. The good part was getting draft Yebisu beers.
• Day 2 we took the bullet rain from Tokyo to Osaka. It is unbelievably expensive! It was close to 100$ one way, for a 3 hour train trip. But it was the bullet train so I guess 3 hours was making good time compared to other trains we could have taken. Since we already bought our rail passes, we already paid for using as many trains as we wanted to for 7 days.
In Osaka we walked around a mega mall and went to a fish market as well. I saw the world’s largest edamame beans at that market! They were the size of a giants thumbs!!!
Lucas also went to and onsen, which is a bathhouse, at our hotel. I couldn’t go because I had tattoos, the sign said that I must refrain from, “drunkenness and tattooed.” So I just sat with a beer in a bubble bath and read my book in the tub while Lucas was making new friends. You need to ask him to tell that story.

Not Japan Part 2

• The other day I got a great art set from my friend Vicki (thanks again Vicki!!!!). We went together to the Andy Warhol exhibit and she brought the art set with her. It has oil pants, pastels, colored pencils, acrylics, and water colors. I can’t wait to get started on my first art project!
I can’t say I was all that inspired by the Andy Warhol exhibit, but I can see how his work has influenced pop art still being made today by other artists. I am glad that I did get to see his work in person; I had only seen photos of it in art class, oh, and in the movie Basquiat.
• I was watching that crazy Korean animal show on TV again. This time there was a man and his horse and they were sharing carrots and bowls of macoli (rice wine). Reminds me of the time Melissa was trying to give Tokey Pokey macoli, which for some strange reason he decided to drink it. It also showed a rabbit in a cute knitted sweater. Looks like I might have a new knitting project!!! Somehow I think Tokey Pokey would eat the sweater before I could even get the thing on him.
• The other day was my 10 year anniversary. This means I have been cancer free for 10 years. My friend Sai, from the Craigslist hiking club, and I went to a beautiful Buddhist temple and then to a German brewery to celebrate. It was a great day, and the best part was that there was not a crappy Korean beer in sight! No Cass or Hite at this place. The bar was called Octoberfest and they made good Wit beer served with lemon, instead of orange, but I can hardly demand perfection, I was just so happy it wasn’t Korean crap beer!
I also had some special anniversary celebrations with my girls from work. At lunch time, my friend Jae and I went for seafood rice soup and then out for tea and shared a cupcake. She had bought a chocolaty, fudgy, yummy cupcake from Paris Baguette and put large 1 and 0 candles in it for me. I got to blow out the candles and wish for another 10 years cancer free. It was so sweet of her!
My friend Hye Jung also gave me a little box of 4 different flavored cupcakes to celebrate the occasion. I was able to cut the cupcakes into 4 pieces each so that everyone who went out to dinner with me that night could have one piece of each. Sunny, Dasom, Hui Kyung, and I went out for Thai food that night after work and shared the cupcakes.
At first I was really upset that I couldn’t spend my anniversary with my family and friends from home, but my new friends here really made my anniversary special. And getting all that facebook love from my friends back home also helped me get over the fact that I am far from home and had do drop the plans I had once made for this momentous occasion.
• Now for some strange and gross stories… Vicki and I went out for lunch after we went to the Andy Warhol exhibit and we ordered a pizza to share. When they served the pizza they also gave us a bowl of what looked like apple sauce. Now, I have had honey in a bowl as a side for dipping the pizza but not apple sauce. But I thought, well, if they serve honey with pizza, why not apple sauce? Alas, as I should have known, things never taste like what I expect them to. It wasn’t apple sauce at all. Any guesses? Answer: pineapple. It had the right consistency and color of apple sauce but no, it was defiantly pineapple.
• Warning, this next story is once again about girls pooping. The other day at work I found myself in the middle of a girl-poop-sandwich!!! Let me explain that one. There are three toilets in the ladies room at work, and only the middle stall was open. Turns out that the girls in both the occupied stalls were taking their poop breaks. Hence how I came to be in the middle of a girl-poop-sandwich. One girl was flipping news paper pages, and the other one was using the bidet to wash her butt off so I was certain they were on their poop breaks. I don’t think I will ever get used to this!!!!

Not Japan Part 1

• I know everyone is expecting me to post stories about Japan but I can’t yet. I didn’t have time to write about my Korean adventures before leaving for Japan so I need to take the time to do it now before I start sharing about Japan.
• So I decided to go back and visit the facial and massage place near my house. Its only 30$ for a 2 hour pampering, and ever once in a while I needed to treat myself. This time I was more observant of my surroundings and found the various jars of what look like Plaster of Paris. So that stuff she smears on my face that feels like cupcake frosting is most likely a powdered mud or even more likely, actual plaster. This time, the face-frosting smelled like Strawberry Bubblicious Gum! Mmmmm. Once again, I feel asleep on the table, under my heated sleeping bag as I waited for my Bubblicious face-frosting to dry.
After I was done with my facial and massage, and had come back from the locker room dressed and ready to go home I was surprised to find my masseuse with a camera. Apparently, this masseuse was not the same masseuse I had visited before, and I was her first ever foreign client so she wanted to take a picture with me. Whether this was to prove that she actually had a foreign client, or because I was so beautiful (no snickering!), or because it was so rare to find a foreigner willing to put up with the Korean abuse called “a massage,” I will never know. And yes, I did take a picture with her. I only regret that I didn’t get a picture of her with my camera so I could post it on here.
• I did however get a picture of the lunch lady at my office cafeteria. I came down to lunch on April Fools Day, and she handed me a giant bag of popcorn. I was so confused, I just wanted some lunch and now I had enough popcorn to feed an army! She had to show me that I was the 176th person to get lunch that day and therefore had won the bag of popcorn. Apparently, as it was explained to me much later by Sunny, the Korean word for this type of snack is similar to the Korean word for ‘fool’ hence handing out ‘fool’ food on April Fools’ Day.
I had so much popcorn I didn’t know what to do with it all. I took computer paper and rolled it into a cone shape, stapled it, and then filled it with popcorn. Then I went around handing it out to everyone on my floor. Many of these people had never spoken to me so when I came over to their desk and handed them a cone of popcorn they were very surprised. I could only hold two cones in my hands at a time so I had to deliver the cones and then return to my desk to make more. Every time I came back, and I mean every single time, the person I had just given popcorn to walked away from their desk to share the popcorn with the other members on their team. Maybe they were assuming that I was not coming back with more popcorn for everyone? It was really strange! I would show up at someone’s desk ready to give them a cone of popcorn and they would already have a tissue with popcorn on it or a few kernels of popcorn in their hands.
Even though I handed out popcorn to everyone working on my floor, I still had more than I could eat by myself. So when the opportunity to give it all away came along, I jumped at the chance. One night after work, the office hosted another movie night. Since it is still not spring time (it snowed the other day) it was held in the basement of the office instead of on the roof like last time. So I brought my big bag of popcorn to the movie night and donated it. I was happy to be rid of it before it went bad and was wasted.
• I got the cutest ear buds ever!!!! They are little bumble bees!!! Buzz for Bazant!!! They were only 10$ and are nice and comfy in my ear holes. I got them from the Lotte bookstore when I went shopping for Lucas’ birthday presents. Of course, you go to get someone a present and you end up buying things for yourself! I did end up getting Lucas a really cool gift there.
I found a pill bottle with 100 pills for your heart. However, these pills are not really medicine. Instead, inside each pill is a blank scroll for you to write a message on. So I spent hours taking pills apart, writing little love notes, and reassembling the pills. I did this 100 times! But it was worth it, Lucas loved it. Plus, it was a unique and heartfelt gift. Awwwww, so cute!