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Today was a fairly busy day. Hit up the Lumbini Indian buffet with Blanchard, then did more shopping for gifts to take home. I’ve spent more this week on other people than I would usually spend on myself in a whole week or two. Ran some more errands all afternoon, then headed to Makuhari. Saw Miyoko who’s working at some shop that sells funky Christmas hats and clothing for miniature dogs, then went to Hana no Mae with Andy. That kid is mad sweet. For real. It’s actually hard to explain, but the guy is just awesome.

Right now I’m supposed to be packing, but I’ve spent a long time tonight sitting around watching Iron Chef episodes. And speaking of Iron Chef, I randomly checked Iron Chef Sakai’s blog (he is a pretty hardcore blogger) and saw a picture of him at the gym. It’s pretty surprising. I guess you don’t think about an Iron Chef pumping iron.

I need to be at Narita around noon, so I’ll probably leave my place at 10 or 10:30. Not packed at all yet, but I’ve got piles of stuff on my floor waiting to be Tetris-ized into my suitcase. Will be in St. Louis for X-Mas and all that. If you’re around, hit me up.

I’ve been back in Japan for about a week and a half; I guess I should give a quick summary of what else I did in the US to wrap that all up blog-wise. I also need to post pictures all over the place (here, Facebook, mixi, your mom’s house). I’ll probably do it tomorrow.

So I already wrote a bit when I was in St. Louis. In general, it was just a lot of hanging out with the family since Al came in for the weekend, and seeing friends. A great time. I thought for some reason that all kinds of things would be different when I went home, but it was quite the opposite. Actually, things had changed a lot less than I had imagined. It was almost as if I had never left. I got to watch a decent amount of American TV too. Most of it is terrible, yes, but it’s not as terrible as Japanese TV. I watched Heroes for the first time on actual broadcast, and my brother Joe got me hooked on The Office with Steve Carell. What a great show. Shopping was a good experience too, but just because I love walking around Target or Wal-Mart. Everything in one spot! Japanese stores don’t really have that down as well. Oh, and there was one other major thing that was enjoyable about going back to America…

Hell. Yes.

It’s not like food in Japan is bad, but there are just some things that seem to be impossible for chefs here to get right. Nothing beats real St. Louis style pizza, and certainly not any Japanese pizza. Let’s see, what else… Steak, Cecil Whitakers, Jack in the Box, Mexican food, IHOP, Denny’s, Penn Station, White Castle – all were eaten by me during my vacation. And of course home cooking. My Dad decided to make a full turkey dinner on the Saturday I was there, so missing Thanksgiving in America again won’t be such a big deal.

After spending just over a week at home, I went to LA for a few days to hang out with friends. It’s strange how the majority of my close friends from college now either live in California or Japan. I stayed at Joey and Kyle’s new place, which puts my apartment in Chiba to utter shame just because of how huge their place was. Went to a sweet comedy show, ate more good food, went to happy hour, saw friends, walked to a funky mall with random walkways going everywhere, and went to a cool Oktoberfest-type party at the Alpine Village. Oh yeah, and just for future reference, if you’ve only got 4 guys, reserving a table and getting an entire liter of alcohol that no one wants to drink isn’t such a great idea. *cough*PAT*cough* Haha.

Saturday morning, had breakfast at IHOP with Kyle and Ashley, then went to the airport. My flight was scheduled to leave at 2:30, so getting there at 12:15ish I figured I was golden. Wrong. There was a typhoon in Japan so the outgoing flights had been delayed. My flight on Singapore Air had to wait for the plane from Tokyo to arrive, so I ended up getting delayed like 3 or 4 hours. Really not that bad, but by the time I got to Narita and then back to my apartment it was around 11 or 12PM and I was beyond exhausted. But America was a great vacation, and hopefully I’ll go back again soon. Maybe Christmas.

Got back to Japan on Sunday night around 9PM, after the flight was delayed almost 3 hours due to a typhoon they had in Japan Saturday night local time. LA and St Louis were both pretty awesome; it was a nice vacation from…living in Japan? Haha. Either way it was great. I feel like I’m recharged and ready to find a real job.

Actual physical recharged-ness will come later, since I’m also completely jet lagged and off schedule. I seemed to be fine on Monday, waking up in the morning, working in the evening, etc. I was completely beat though, passed out for a few hours, woke up, and spent pretty much all of Tuesday either falling asleep or watching The Office, which I’m glad I started watching because it’s amazing. I’ve been up now since 3AM, and am debating whether or not to go back to sleep or to shower and go find some breakfast.

I’ll write some wrap ups from my American adventure later this week. I started my Monday and Wednesday evening teaching job, and also have some other work this week. It’s good to be back, although my apartment seemed extra small after being in the States for almost 2 weeks.

If memory serves me right, the last time I was in the United States was September 8, 2006. That was nearly 13 months ago! I’ve bummed all around the Kanto area, been attacked by deer in Nara, went to a penis festival, ate snake in Hong Kong, and struggled with the language barrier in Korea, but I haven’t stepped foot in my home country in over a year. But guess what? It’s time to return for a visit. That’s right, I’m coming to the US !

And pretty soon, actually.

I only have general plans so far, but mostly it will be a lot of hanging out, seeing people, and eating American food. I will be flying into the US, going first to St. Louis, on Monday, October 15. Then, on either the 23rd or 24th, I’ll head to Los Angeles to stay until Saturday the 27th. I’ll be stateside for almost 2 weeks, so if anyone wants to meet up when I’m in either of those cities, let me know. Unfortunately, I don’t think I’ll be visiting Indiana or anywhere else, but I should be visiting again around Christmas time so hopefully I can then.

My cell phone number will be the same as my old US one, if you haven’t deleted me yet. E-mail or message me if you need it though.

How in the world did I forget this last story of my Seoul adventure? The night before I left Seoul (Sunday the 12th), I was packing my stuff up and watching MythBusters, which may be one of the most interesting TV shows ever. I had a shuttle ticket purchased and ready for the next morning, which would get me from my hotel to the City Air Terminal near COEX Mall, and from there to Incheon Airport. I found out the night before that this Air Terminal has check-in services available for several airlines, including Asiana, which I was using. This was just like Hong Kong’s, I figured, which was an amazing service last time. I assumed I could check in, send my luggage on it’s way, reserve a nice window seat, and be on my way.

I didn’t realize until stepping up to the Asiana Air Terminal counter, however, that they require you to check-in 3 hours before your flight here. I was 2 hours before. The lady at the counter told me I needed to check in at the airport itself, and to “please hurry up.” I was boned. The bus ride from the Air Terminal to the airport takes about an hour, which means I wouldn’t get to check in until an hour before my international flight. Things weren’t looking good. After arriving, I booked it to the Asiana counter about 45 minutes before planned departure time. “The flight is full…” My mind started to race with schemes and ideas of how I would con my way out of this mess. Luckily, I didn’t need to worry, since her next words were “…so I’ve upgraded you to Business Class.” Wait, what!? I don’t know what good deed I did in the past to deserve this, but I wasn’t going to complain. I didn’t have time anyway, since I had to book it to the gate. But yeah, I was late of my own fault but was instead rewarded for my tardiness.

Business Class was pretty nice. This was the first time I’ve flown anything but Economy (when did we stop calling it Coach?). But yeah, the seat was fully mechanical, adjustable, and reclineable. I had my own personal screen and remote, which Asiana doesn’t offer in Economy, tons of arm room, wide selection of English magazines and newspapers, but best of all was the improved food service. I was given a glass of champagne as soon as I sat down. The meal was a small steak that, while not restaurant food, was leaps and bounds better than usual airplane food. Bread baskets and wine bottles came around routinely during the meal to give you refills. Overall, Business Class was very enjoyable and I wish that I had more than just a short 2-hour flight to experience it. I likely won’t pay for this upgraded service anytime soon, but I am trying my hardest to think of schemes to get this upgrade for free. There’s gotta be a way. Having this for 12 hours back to the US would be really nice, even though I usually sleep the whole time.

(I started writing this on the 16th but actually didn’t get around to finishing it until the 25th since I’ve been pretty busy lately.)

After writing the last post, checking my e-mail, and talking to a few people online from the PC Bang, I headed out back into the streets of Seoul. Across the street there was a Dunkin’ Donuts, a chain I haven’t seen since my trip to Chicago in May of 2006. They’re all over the place in Seoul. I checked out what they had, and since it was so late the selection was pretty poor. No donut for me. I then head to the nearest train station, Dongmyo. I had apparently walked far enough from Dongdaemun station to reach a different one. Anyway, I head downstairs and notice that the crowd is pretty much nonexistent. But there were still a few businessmen-looking guys waiting for the train, so I figured everything was still running. I was golden. I then noticed that there was a station attendant talking to one of these few waiting guys, and there was also some kind of announcement. Of course this was all in Korean so I had no idea what was going on. I now realize that they were probably saying something like “This is the last train. If you don’t get on this train, you’re on your own. Especially you, American tourist.” And that summarizes the rest of Saturday night.

I get on the purple line train and ride it 1 stop to Dongdaemun, where I figure I can transfer to the light-blue line and begin my journey back home to the hotel, which is near Cheongdam station. If this were not at a quarter to midnight, I would have been right. But, being so late, the trains were now done, so I had no choice but to exit the station along with the rest of the suckers who were trying in vain to get on the light-blue line. I was now back on the street near Dongdaemun, which seemed less amazing the second time now that I was realizing I had no trains back to my hotel, which wasn’t that close to my station. Please look at this map to see where I was, and where I needed to be (follow the arrow down):

To be honest, I didn’t know, and really still don’t know, how big Seoul is compared to Tokyo. But I was, just for mental calculation’s sake, imagining them to be similar in size, meaning I would have to take a taxi pretty far. And, still being in Japan mode, a far cab ride meant tons of money to me, maybe over 100 bucks USD. Please also note at this point in time I was carrying only a 10,000 won bill (about 10 USD) and some change. I thus walked around for a bit looking for some kind of ATM with a Cirrus or Plus logo, which of course I didn’t find. I then went into some convenience store, and miraculously I was able to withdraw 100 USD from my US account. I don’t think I can even do this in Japan. But, I now had money. Walked around a bunch trying to figure out where to get a cab. Found a somewhat busy intersection and stopped a cab after it dropped off some people. At this point I realized the cabs that say “Free Interpretation” don’t mean the driver speaks English, but rather they have some internal phone line you can call that will provide you with an interpreter. Or something. I didn’t bother.

After showing 2 cab drivers my hotel key and saying “Ri-bi-e-ra?” and receiving angry or confused waves of the hand, I finally found a guy who knew it. Off we go! I then noticed that the initial cab fare was like 1280 won, around $1.50. Compare this to the initial Japanese cab fare of 660 yen, about 6 USD. Way cheap. So my Korean taxi driver is zipping around the late night streets of Seoul, flying down highways, across the river, and finally to my hotel. The drive took around 25 or 30 minutes, and the grand total was 14400 won. 14 bucks for a 30 minute cab drive?! I was shocked, happy, and happy again because I didn’t have to drop a bill on a cab ride because I spent too much time in an internet cafe. I didn’t really even need any of the money I withdrew from the ATM!

I awoke Sunday morning refreshed and ready to get some serious sightseeing in. First stop was Gyeongbok-gung, the former Korean imperial palace. I actually took a cab to get there, which cost only about 15000 won again and saved me the hassle of transferring on a bunch of subway lines. Cheap taxis are amazing, and make you feel like you’re rich. Anyway, what I had thought would be a fairly easy temple viewing ended up being a full-day excursion because I didn’t realize how big the grounds are for this place. It’s not just 1 main building, but rather a huge area with several temples, buildings, museums, and gardens. To make a long story short, I spend the entire afternoon at the palace and one of the museums inside. As you can see from the picture here taken by some random German tourist whom I at first thought was an American, it is very similar to Chinese or Japanese temples. But the mountain view in the background was pretty sweet. This is just the first major gate before heading towards the body of this massive complex.

After Gyeongbok, ate some awesome bibimbap for lunch and chilled in a coffee shop while it rained. Luckily I wasn’t in the rain much all day since it started while I was eating lunch, and it at least made the weather on Sunday much better than the humid head we’d been having here in Asia. I walked around downtown Seoul for a few hours, noticing how much western influence there was. Seoul seemed to have more American franchises than Japan even, but I think it’s probably about the same. Just different ones. After that, I did some more souvenir shopping near Nandaemun again, even buyiing some K-glasses that I am not stylish enough to wear. However, eyeglasses in Korea really are super cheap; I got some prescription glasses for 50000 won, made in about 10 minutes by some Korean guy who had lived in LA growing up and thus sounded like a Hispanic gangster. He said the glasses I got made me “look like an O.G.” What a sales pitch.

Unfortunately by the time I got back to the south side of Seoul, it was too late so I couldn’t check out the huge COEX Mall. I was able to eat a huge sukiyaki/yakiniku hybrid for dinner, and watched The Queen on my giant LCD TV. I then packed, with the inside of my suitcase almost exclusively containing Korean seaweed for myself and for friends as souvenirs.