Arigato, Japan

Ashley and I have officially been to Japan. Here was our travel schedule for Saturday and Sunday (December 4-5):

Saturday

7:30am leave Eumseong for Cheongju

9:30am take bus from Cheongju to Incheon Airport

11:30am arrive in Incheon and check in with Korean Air

1:30pm leave South Korea for Japan

2:30pm arrive in Fukuoka, Japan

Sunday

10:30am leave Japan for South Korea

Noon arrive in Incheon and do everything all over again (but in reverse)

So as you can tell we spent less than 24 hours in Japan. Due to certain visa restrictions we needed to leave the country. We are now back in home sweet Eumseong where we are busily decorating our Christmas tree while listening to Sufjan Christmas (as if there was any other way to celebrate the holidays). Actually, live update: Ashley has stopped putting up ornaments and is now in the other room listening to different Christmas music and sipping hot cocoa.

While our plane ticket and hotel stay were covered by the school we still had to pay for meals and transportation around the city. That would not seem like a big expense if we were in Thailand. Japan is expensive. I thought Korea was somewhat expensive and then I landed in Japan. I will say that Japan is a very easy place to navigate and the main issues to watch out for are people on bicycles almost hitting you on the sidewalk and of course they drive on the left side of the road.

Looking for bike storage?

The best way I can explain the expenses would be to use the conversion of Japanese Yen to USD. Korean Won is easy to convert to USD because 1,000 won is close to 1 dollar. But, when I gave them 70,000 won ($62) they gave me 4,000 yen (I did lose about $12 in the exchange at the airport which sucks). So 1,000 yen is about $12, just remember that.

We get to the subway and pay 500 yen to get to the hotel ($6) and in Korea the subway is $2 for two people in Seoul! After arriving at the hotel we took another subway to see another part of the city, 500 yen ($6). I bought a bottle of water for 250 yen ($3) and then we got on the wrong bus which cost us 350 yen ($4). Since we got on the wrong bus we needed to take another subway to find some food, 500 yen ($6). Found some street food where we sat down and had some amazing Japanese noodles, 1000 yen ($12). We were still a little hungry and so we went for some more noodles (just one bowl this time for 400 yen or $5). Got on the subway back to the hotel which was another 500 yen ($6) and we were done. We were not only tired, but out of money...and every money exchange place was closed and none of the ATM machines I found would take my card from Korea...that is when we thought we might not make it to the airport in the morning.

Subway leaving...

...Subway coming

Well, after walking all over the city, I realized that I was using the wrong bank card so I tried the bank card from Korea that said global on the front and go figure- it worked! The only problem was I had to take out a minimum of 10,000 yen ($120). At this point I did not care and just took the money out and converted the leftover amount at home. I had given Japan around $60 of my money and had not done much so why not keep going with it! We bought some pocky (10 times better than Pepero from korea), woke up and got some seasonal Starbucks drinks with a Mcdonalds breakfast and went back to the airport.

I hate to say that money was the reason I did not enjoy Japan very much, but that was a big reason. While we are paying off loans I am still pretty tight with cash especially when I think that my money is not being used for much (ie subway fees and three noodle bowls). I am happy for the experience however because while I never want to encourage people to make poor decisions with money, sometimes you have to not clamp down so hard on the expenses. It ruins the times you spend with the people you love when you are so focused on counting every penny (sorry Ashley). Go to Japan and spend away, you will be surprised that all your money is gone in an hour!

This man wanted to help us find some food (we think)

Flipping the noodles

McDonalds and Starbucks

After getting back to the hotel, we did watch a Japanese TV show involving teenagers racing robots that they built and it was pretty cool. In the morning I used the bidet in the hotel bathroom...is that too much to share?

A little Christmas in Japan

Just a vending machine right?

Oh thats right a vending machine with beer