Getting Married and Japan!

It's been a while since I made a post. I've got a lot of time on my hands, and a lot of news. For those of you that don't know, I am getting married! I never thought it would happen to me. Ha! The wedding won't be till summer of 2012 in Colorado. I will be leaving Korea on March 1st. My fiancé Sang Hwa and I will travel around Southeast Asia for 3 months. We plan to visit Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. I will fly back to Colorado at the end of May, spend a week camping in Colorado, and then look for a job. Not bad huh? Sang Hwa will come back to South Korea after our travels and get her visa. She will meet me in Colorado probably in August.

Just got back from Japan yesterday. Wow! Very cool place. We went to Osaka by boat from Busan. From there we went to Kyoto and Nara. Every place has something special, but Japan really blows my mind. Everything is clean and organized. The people are shy, but very polite and helpful. It was honestly a little intimidating. I felt like I had to be extra polite and not be too loud.

The food is great, but damn is it expensive! The best thing we ate there was real ramen in pork broth. A bowl of restaurant ramen goes for about $8, but it’s really worth it. On my birthday we had blowfish! It’s a popular thing to do on tour of Japan. It’s the poisonous fish that is extremely dangerous to eat. Only certified cooks are allowed to serve it. The fish has to be cut in a certain way to avoid poisoning the consumer.

Nara is a great place to see temples for free. The signature attraction to Nara is the deer. They are everywhere. It is best to watch your things carefully, cause they are thieves! The deer love paper. They wait till you are not looking and try to steal your map. We saw a group of deer gang up on an old lady trying to take her banana. When she wouldn’t give them the banana, one deer head butted her! She was okay, just very shocked.

Kyoto is where all of the most famous, oldest temples in Japan can be found. In WWII, Japan and the U.S. agreed not to fight in Kyoto to preserve the temples. Many of the places in Kyoto look like they come out of a fairytale. The gardens are kept in pristine condition. This is at a price though. Every temple costs about $8 to enter. We only went to a few, but I think we got a good taste.