Travels abroad..'s Travels abroad!

Well, it has been much to long yet again, eh? I think a little update on my life before I dive into the bigger topic of my latest travels is in order.

I'm alive! I know, it's amazing, isn't it! It goes to show ya, even a noob such as myself can live in a forgien country and not perish. So far, my experiences here have been wonderful, however there have deffinitally been the normal ups and downs of life. Finals here, although a little less stressful than I'm used to, still put everyone in a foul mood. The biggest downer so far though happened when the one-semester residents left. We deffinitally lost quite a few cool people... I can only hope that new ones come to replace them (You guys arn't replaceable tho, dont worry! +10 suck up points for David, eh? :D)

Well, I thought I'd get the downers out of the way before going on to the fun stuff! Learning japanese and actually successfully communicating with natives (every once in a while) is a unique joy that I've never experienced before. Also, The food is most delish. mmm...... after experiencing some itnernation travel... traveling is becoming a new hobby of mine. I understand why people put so much moola into traveling all over the world now!

Anyway enough about day-to-day David's feelings and stoofs... (boring, eh? yeah.. I thought so.) and onto the two weeks of funness Steven and myself had! I'll try to hit points that Steven didn't hit in his blog. Sooo go read his for an entertaining different perspective! (www.koreasteva.blogspot.com go read it!)

The most interesting two-week trip started when Steven arrived at YCAT. It was then that I realized that I hadn't seen this friend in over a year. The wierd thing was that.. well... it wasn't wierd. It was amazing. Anywho, After Steven arrived, I figured I'd quickly introduce him to an important aspect of Japanese cultural. Sooooo after dropping his bags off at my room we headed out to partake of said Japanese culture. Thats right, Steven, I, and three of my friends sang our lungs out at Karaoke.

I am just going to hit a few of the interesting experences we had in Japan because Steven already has done a wonderful job explaining what we did and where we went.

Ok, time for random stories! The highlight of random stories during our trip though, was when we went to McDonald's in kyoto. It is in Japan so it was obviously full of Japanese people. So we decide what we want and stand in line, and right before we get to the counter the next free worker started acting somewhat strange.. she didn't make eye contact with us.. and quickly shuffled off returning with her boss. She obviously was frightened by the tall gaijin and thought we'd try to talk to her in english.

Anyway, The boss got halfway to us, saw what was the matter with his worker, and pushed her forward to figure it out herself. with a terrified look on her face she greeted me and asked what I wanted. I told her (in Japanese) what I wanted which in turn produced the most grateful and releaved smile I've seen so far while living in Japan... heck maybe so far in life!

I've been stared at before, assumed that I had no Japanese skills, discriminated against, been the target of passing schoolgirl giggling, and so many other strange social situations because I was white before, but this was the most blatently scared anyone has become by my presence. It was quite amusing.

Dinner in Kyoto was a very memorable experience. Instead of going to a big obvious looking resturant, while in a side ally we ducked into a ghetto back ally resturant. And by ghetto.. I mean... would probably get a negitave number if it had to undergo a health inspection in america. let me regale you with the story of our dinner. after crossing the threshold and seeing a semecirclar counter full of random japanese ingreedents, and getting the "what are gaijin doing here" stare but that isn't so rare :D, and asking the two people Steven and I had to sit between if it was OK to sit by them, I realized how out of place we were. Not only could I not read the menu (dang you kanji!) I couldn't fudge knowing what I was doing either. how do you order, or eat, from a resturant that just has 30 bowls of random food sitting out? do you point and pick? but if you do, do they just scoop you a bowl full? or do they cook it? (some of the things HAD to be cooked before eating...) so.. for the first three minutes or so (it felt like an hour of awkwardness but I know it couldn't have been that much.) We just sat there with scared looks on our faces I'm sure. but, I sucked it up and attempted to ask the other customers what to do, unfortunatly being in kyoto, I didn't understand a lot of what they said. They speak kansai-ben in kyoto... a different brand of Japanese.

The two ladies to our right were not from Kyoto, though. One of the ladies spoke fairly good english thankfully! Kyoto has one of the highest populations of Japanese tourists in Japan. This is because it was the capital of japan a long time ago. Anywho, We figured out through body language and guesses that we were supposed to point to a few bowls that looked interesting. We ended up getting いたこ, baby squids cooked whole. Not the first time i've had it, though. It was quite good, as always. we also got various other dishes which I have forgotten the name of. It was a very interesting night for me because a good chunk of the conversation was in Japanese which I dont get to do very often. Steven also had a fun time though, I think it was here he had the realization that it is amazing how much one can understand solely through body language. (I also confirmed this while in korea.)

Anyway all and all, what started off as getting something to eat, ended up in being our nighttime activity while in kyoto. We stayed at that bar-like resturant for a good four hours I believe. It was most probably my favorite experence while I was in Kyoto.

Anyway, a lot of Steven's pictures and my own overlap, so I'll add some random ones here of kyoto. If I accidentally do doubles.. tough!

Next update ---> KOREA! (and hopfully you wont have to wait over a month for it! :D