OK, sorry the last chapter was more for those with an interest in things linguistic but as language was a prime motivator in coming to Japan it bore some mention.
Anyway I did in fact go to Korea for a couple of nights.
Yet again another ride in a large plane that got me all excited, this time crossing Japan mostly in the dark as we departed around 6pm.
Gorgeous views regardless. The plane rose through patchy cloud cover and as such climbed into the last sunlight before darkness fell.
It was like being in another world. A place of softness and clean light. But one could see through to the world below which was a dark and forbidding landscape. The [mostly orange] city lights looking like the smoldering embers of a recent forest fire's dying remnants.
A very interdimensional view riding across one world and looking into another from the safety of my flying unicorn.
Korea: I wandered around the airport trying to figure out why I hadn't studied any Korean when a fella came up and asked me, in quite reasonable English, where I was going.
A brief interchange with him [read haggle] and I scored a ride to the area I had been told would be most interesting to stay, I'teawon, the backpacker red light area.
He took me straight to a hotel that was *very* well located and very cheap so I was sorted immediately, all that was left was find some dinner and then try to sleep in the tropical warmth.
The next day I had a mosey around the nearby area for a while and fobbed off as many shopkeepers as I could, only buying a new pair of shoes and a bumbag to carry my [way heavy] camera in.
Then I asked some passing gaijin about finding an Internet cafe and was soon sitting in a darkened lair with lovable air conditioning paying US$1 and hour to do my Internet thing.
I ended up staying there quite some time as they had some of the latest games and at that price it was cheaper than eating! The price was obviously right because I was surrounded by teenagers doing the same thing.
I took a few photos which I will endeavor to get online in the near future but I didn't get too into Korea. The traffic was insane [left-hand drive also] and dirty. The roads made Sydney look like a motorist's, and for that matter cyclist's, heaven as they were tearing up nearly everything in sight which just made the traffic even more aggressive and unpredictable.
So two nights there and I was looking for a taxi to take me back to the airport and then Nihon.
This all went according to plan and I have gotten a few more classes as well since a friend went back to Texas and gave me a few hours of his work to cover during his, one month, absence.
Hope you're well.
nomaD
