My Adventures in Korea! (Part 1)

I've been really wanting to write a summary of my year in Korea, however, it's taken me a long time to actually take the time to do it! So much time has passed that now I'm back here!

Better late then never eh?!?!

I've compiled a list of my greatest experiences in the land of the morning calm. I can't seem to pick my number one experience as they have all been so special so here they are in no particular order:

DJ festival weekend: The Seoul DJ festival was a great musical experience. I got to dance under the stars and in the rain. It was the first time I ever spun fire in public and also the first time I heard live Korean music. One of the bands I was exposed to is a great Korean band called 'Windy City'. It was the first good round of live music I got to see in my year!


Gosapo beach camping: All the camping that I experience in Korea was great. Gosapo beach sticks out in my mind. My wicked friend Chris went out on a limb and decided we should check around an ocean bend and boom! There was a deserted beach with our name on it! It was so nice and relaxing plus we had a group of a bout 10 people there to enjoy it with. I got do some beach yoga, walk in Maria's labyrinth, watch as the boys decided to find the biggest pieces of wood they could possible carry and watch the tides coming in and out. I learned all about hermit crabs and very cool little eco-systems!


Bigeum-do camping: OK, so I thought that Gosapo stuck out specifically but so does Biguem-do. This was my first camping experience in Korea. On a wimb (most things for me in Korea were just trial and error), we met up with some other foreigners from Mokpo and jumped on their camping band wagon. It was a great idea! We took a slow ferry to this island and it was paradise! Our taxi ride from the ferry to the site was along the beach. The people we met were wicked and the people I went with will be friends for the rest of my life. I'll never forget being 5 waygooks in a 5 man Korean tent! I thought I was going to be ill so I had to move around a lot to get comfy and so I yelled 'alright everyone, SPOON RIGHT!!!' and quite literally everyone spooned right! So good!

Morave festival: This festival claimed to be on a desesrted beach on the west coast of Korea. After a very long bus ride we ended up at a beach that was densly populated with Korean families. Much to our surprise we were litrally sandwiched between families! This picture describes the way Sarah and I felt:
It was a bit hard to stay positive after the bus ride, but after a few glasses a wine and some conversations with the organizers we soon realized that this was going to work out just perfectly. I ended up doing all the things I truly love doing- dancing, swimming, chatting with amazing people, spinning fire, getting my face painted, trying out a new instrument (didgeridoo), and many more groovy fun things!

Korean culture in general: Being that Korea was my first country to travel in Asia many of the cultural differences contributed to my favourite times. The 3-4 hellos I got when riding or walking down the road (sometimes small children would chase me down the road yelling 'How are you?'). The food in general has been great. Bibimbap and side dishes are my favourite! The Bus system! You can get anywhere in Korea very easily and for such a reasonable price. As well the cost of food is so cheap!

JAPAN!!!!! I can't even say enough about my trip to Japan. It was mind blowing, spirit lifting and all around fantastic! The Zen gardens, Tokyo, the Fuji Rocks festival and much much more!

My new found friends: The people I met in Gwangju and in Seoul will forever hold a special part of my heart. In no particuliar order they are- Jenny, Sarah, Chris, Lindsay, Whit, Maria, Ethan, Jess, Pk, Zoe, Anna, Lucy, Zaid, Prya, Lisa, Catie, Hannah, Anna, Vicky, Jessie, Richard and so many more!!! I know all of our paths will cross again one day and am so happy to have had the opportunity to meet everyone.


My school kids: Although, I found it very challenging and sometime frustrating to teach at my hagwon the kids made it worth it. Yes, they were at times very trying on my nerves but all in all they were great. I feel and hope that most of them learned some English but above all I know they had fun while learning. I"m happy that I could bring some fun into a society where school can sometimes be very tough!


Project Warm Hands: This amazing group was started by one of the coolest people I've ever met, Hannah. She decided she wanted a group where both foreigners and Koreans could meet to eat, learn, play and experience each others culture. I attended many monthly dinners as well as made some really great Korean arts and crafts with the group.


I feel like I missing many moments in this year in review which is great in itself. To many good moments to get them all!!

I can't even believe how much I've learned about the world and myself in one very short year abroad! I'm so happy to have had the opportunity to travel and work in such a great country as South Korea. I look forward to my next steps, stay tuned for Angie's Adventures in NEW ZEALAND! That's all I'm saying.... ;)

My Farewell Party in Gwangju :(

I wrote this post way back in November and never finished it. So, now I'm back and have some time so here it is:

My farewell party in Gwangju was absolutely perfect! I got to do everything that I would have wanted to do before leaving. Hike, play, sing, dance and spend time with awesome people!

The day started with a hike on Muduang Mountain. This mountain is beautiful anytime of the year but on that Saturday is was stunning. Most of the leaves had turned or already fallen off but there was still tonnes of colour contrasts with the dead grass and the green pines. A small group of some of my best friends and I went on the hike. We had such a great time climbing trees, rolling in the long grass and taking wicked funny pics! Not to forget about one of the best parts which was getting a ride on my friend Whit's motorcycle!

For dinner I met up with a big group of my friends and went for my favourite food (shabu shabu, which is actually Japanese). The soju train decided to pick us all up at shabu shabu. My friends Jess and Pk (from England) came down from Seoul for the night. They are this absolutely amazing couple who I'm going to miss to pieces.
In my head I had decided that all I wanted to do was go to a Noraebang (singing room) after dinner. A few peops were resistant to the idea as they were barely hanging on to the soju train and hadn't fully jumped on yet. However, I along with a few others were riding with the conductor all the way!!! CHOOO CHOOOO!!! So, we convinced everyone that the soju train was the best idea. We headed off to this huge Noreabang. The room we ended up getting was wicked! It was like a VIP room with huge long tables. From there things got pretty messy. I went out to buy some more beer and soju but then had forgotten something in the room so went back to Whit having everyone practice the song 'Angie' by the Rolling Stones. At that moment I was hit by such a feeling of dejavu it was wild. At my going away party in Ottawa before I left my amazing friends there also sang me that song and so it was so heart warming to hear all my Korean friends singing it.

It's hard to describe how fun the night was but if I could some it up with a few key points it would be the following:

1-Prya dancing on the table and then jumping off to about 4 glasses smashing, but she didn't notice and kept on going wherever her mission was at that moment.

2- Whit's insistence on playing Angie for the third time (I love you Whit!)

3- Lindsey whispering in my ear 'let's dance on the table to Dancing Queen' to then have about 6 other girls join us and or dancing queen routine turning into the Kan Kan.

4- Sarah's I'm going down down.

5- Chris and I doing Oasis as a reminder of our first noraebang experience together way back in January.

5- Me telling everyone that we need to get the hell out of dodge as we were in the entrance of the norabang because the staff went into the room. The room looked like a bunch of rockstars had just gone through it.

6- Everyone's' drunken smiles of love at the end of the night as we stumbled to find our ways home.

I'm so thankful to have met so many great people in Korea. Upon my first couple weeks in Korea I feared that I would not meet any like minded people. I thought that I would do my year and leave no strings attached. I was wrong, I've made bonds with people that I will cherish forever. Also, the best part about making these bonds is that I will see these people again and it will be in a different part of the world :) :)

I see a light shinning bright...country roads take me home :)

Annyong, hello, bonjour,

Well, well, well, what can I say? My time here in Korea is almost over. I'm finding it very hard to believe that I only have 2 weeks left in this wild and wacky country. My feelings are all over the road map as well as my plans. It's taken me 27 years to actually realize and acknowledge that I hate making decisions on what to do with my life's path. I feel like I'm full circle all the time with the old question 'So, Angie what are you going to do after- high school, university, living out west, joining the real world and now Korea'? As I've said to a few people lately, I don't really care what I do as long as I'm happy, and I'm super lucky because for the most part I'm always happy.

The one thing I'm sure of is that I will be landing on Canadian soil on November 26th at midnight! I'm so happy to be going home! For those who I haven't told yet my sister Amy had a beautiful baby girl!!! I knew I would be happy to have a niece or a nephew, but I didn't realize it would be this exciting!!! Not to mention that my other sister Kim will be 7-8 months pregnant while I'm home!

As far as what I've been up to the last month. Well, I've been to Seoul for a drum festival. It was great they had drum groups from around the world performing as well as tonnes of traditional Korean drums out that anyone could play or take a workshop. As well, I got to play the garbage can with this super cute Korean garbage can band!!! It doesn't sound as cool as it was...honestly!


I've also had the opportunity to participate in Seoul's first ever Zombie Walk! Zombie walk you ask??? Basically, a group of people get together and dress up as zombies and sludge around the city they are in scaring the shit out of people. It was pretty wild! Because Korea doesn't celebrate Halloween people were really shocked to see a group of about 30 zombies approaching them.

I also finally got the chance to go to the ever so famous 'Kimchi Festival'. It was everything you would expect from a kimchi festival. It had kimchi making, kimchie contests, kimchie dolls, a kimchi museum and tonnes of kimchi!

Halloween weekend was also a good friend of mine Chris's 30th birthday. Two of my super good friends came down from Seoul to celebrate. Four of us went as the elements! It was sooooo good! We were earth, wind, fire and water. I being earth was a tree, Anna being water was a sea goddess, Zoe being wind was the mother of air and Sarah was exactly her role- hot, hot fire! I think we could have one some serious prizes if we had tried!! We had a call for each other all night 'Elements Unite!!!' Unfortunately that night saw the death of my third digital camera :(. I'm not sure what the deal is but I can not keep one for long then 6 months! It's turning into an extremely expensive occurence! Therefore, no pics of the halloween night (facebook has lots though).

This past weekend a big group of us headed to a wicked mountain called Naejangson. It's peak season here for the leaves. So, we saw so many beautiful trees with vibrant reds and yellows and then some random bright greens still holding out. It was a really nice relaxed day. What made the day even better was that we had a little baby with us. A new couple has arrived from Canada (Kenora and Thunderbay!) and they have a beautiful little baby boy Kaylex. It was great to have them and their baby along for the trip. Usually as foreigners we get a lot of looks and random 'hello's' but this trip we might as well have been Korean. The baby stole the show! It was so funny, people pretty much stopped in their tracks to see the baby. At one point an Ajuma (older Korean lady) came over to where we were sitting and asked to hold the baby. The next thing we knew she had taken the baby back to the circle of Ajumas sitting nearby. It was hilarious and pretty cute!

So, this will probably be my last update before I leave as it's starting to get a bit busy with packing and planning. I'm going to miss everyone here in Gwangju and Seoul so much, but I'll be back for a bit in January and I'm sure that our paths will cross again one day. To everyone at home, put your party pants and hats on I'm coming home :) :) :) !!!!!!

'Country Roads, take me home, to a place where I belong...Summerstown, Glengarry, river valley..take me home'

Peace, love and big big smiles!

A morning with my Yoga Instructor and a Monk

A couple Saturday mornings ago I had the experience of a life time. I've been taking yoga lessons for about 2 months from this amazing Korean woman. At the beginning she only spoke a little English (random words like achilles tendon and fish pose, both of which she learned studying yoga in India). When I joined the class there were 3 foreigners but now there are about 6 of us so she has decided that she wants to learn more English. She is a super fast learner and she can now say all these really important words for yoga like, inhalation, 100 times and my favourite- sphincter up!

She has been wanting to take some of the foreigners out to her hometown or to a temple for a while but no one could find a day that worked. So, I ended up just going on my own and it was absolutely amazing.

I was quite worried about the lack of communication, as I know very little Korean and she knows very little English. However, keeping a conversation going wasn't the problem we somehow talked the entire time and I have to admit probably only understood each other for about 25% of the time! It was pretty funny to the both of us.

I met her super early and we headed out to what I knew at the time as a 'Flower Festival'. Korea has many flower festival and you never really know what your getting into. This one was in honour of the 'Spider Lily'. They are these beautiful red flowers that grow like asparagus straight out of the ground without any leaves. In Korea they are known as the heart ache flower because once they lose their flowers and the top falls off they grow their leaves. I don't really get the logic behind it and I feel as though I've lost a lot of it in translation. Nonetheless they are pretty cool looking!

I knew that we were going to a festival and to have lunch with her friend. But, in fact we went to this festival that was at a Temple and then proceeded to have tea with her friend, a monk! When I say we had tea, I mean we officially had a tea ceremonies. It was amazing. The chief element of the Korean tea ceremony is the ease and naturalness of enjoying tea within an easy formal setting...and that's what we did :)

The monk was beautiful and completely relaxed he just exuded this feeling of Zeness. He was sat in the middle of an open window area of a temple like structure and his back was to the mountains. So as I sat there I could see gorgeous mountains. We sat there with him and they chatted in Korean, every once in awhile looking at me as if I should add something because they were talking about me. I just smiled and kept saying thank you. Then she told him that I had a bad back and he immediately grabbed my hand and told me to breath. I did and I focused really hard and I could feel all this wild energy flowing in and out! After that he got up and went around to my back and did all this stuff, once he was finished I had a sigh of relief it was pretty wild!

After our tea ceremonies we took a walk around and headed back down to where the actual festival was happening to watch some of the drumming performance. We left the festival and it seemed like she wanted to take me to this other festival, or maybe it was part of the same, but there was a huge line of cars. So, instead we drove out to the ocean near her hometown (I think) and for a drive around the countryside. It was so nice to be in a car, it's been 9 months since I've been somewhere in car that hasn't been a taxi.

We then went to eat at this special restaurant with tonnes of side dishes! It was so good! She's such a fantastic lady and is so nice to everyone in our yoga class. I'm so happy to have met her and will definitely miss her classes when I leave.


This picture above is taken on one of my many random field trips. It was so cool!!

On the leaving note...I'm about 45ish sleeps away from departure! So wild! I can't believe my contract and year are up. So in saying that, see you soon everyone :) !!!!!

Happy Chuseok and lots more!

Well Hello Everyone!

Sending big smiles and hugs to everyone back home!!! I've been busy over the past month with lots of great adventures!

Three weeks ago I went to this wicked mountain in the interior of Korea, Songnisan. I went with a group of my friends along with 2 English bloaks who were hear visiting my friend Chris (the guy I went to Japan with). We had a great time! The park was surrounded by 600 year-old pine trees and had many Temples. The most extravagant of the Temples was Beopjusa Temple on Mt. Songnisan. It was built in the 14th year of Silla King Jo-Heung's reign. Here I saw the biggest standing Buddha ever! It was wild, I found it a bit much as it seemed a bit goddy...

After we visited the extravagant statue and Temple grounds we headed up the mountain to find our lodge. We stayed an hour in from the main entrance. It was great we were hiking along a fairly rugged path and then boom there was our little lodge. It was a really beautiful setting with a stream running through the area. That night the owners served us up an all veggie dinner which was delicious. The next day we hiked up through temples, streams, beautiful trees to the top of of Songnisan Mountain. The view was amazing and the rock formations were really wild! On the way down we were so hot and sweaty that we found a great stream to swim in and a natural waterslide!!!

The weekend after that was my really good friend Maria's birthday. So we had a birthday bash for her on the rooftop of her and her hubbies apartment. The next day I got up fairly early and headed out for a beach that's only about an hour away from my city. I went with 2 wicked friends and all we did was sit around, sing, drink wine and swim. What I call a perfect Sunday!!

Last weekend was one of the 2 biggest celebrations in Korea. It's called Chuseok and is basically their Thanksgiving. Unfortunately for everyone the holiday fell on a Sunday so everyone in the entire country only got one day vacation! (They work way to much in this country)For the vacation I went up to Seoul to meet all my friends from there and head to a beautiful island of the island of Incheon (that's where the International airport is). We took a fast ferry and where there within an hour. We weren't the only ones with the idea of going to an island though. When we got there we soon found out that almost every English teacher from Seoul was there! Well, maybe I'm exagerating a bit, but still there were more foreigners there then I've seen since I got to Korea. At first it was almost an annoyance that all these foreigners were at the same place, but we found a perfect little camping area and had an amazing time all together.

The highlight of the weekend was meeting a family of Koreans who sat down with us late on Saturday night. We all just sat around drinking soju and talking Konglish, so good!

Most recently it was my friend Sarah's birthday so in her honour we headed back to the beach. I've been to more beaches this past summer then I've ever been to! I love it! It was a great low key weekend :)

Morave Beach Gathering...so great!

Hello, Hello, Hello,

What's shaking everyone??? I swore I would write this as soon as I got home last last weekend but I didn't. I wish I was better at blogging...but it's just one of those things!

I went to this great Beach Gathering last weekend on a beach close to where the oil spill was in December. It was really nice to go back to the area and see lots of life back in the place!!

This gathering was pretty amazing. It was a really good mix of fun Koreans and Foreigners . This made for great conversation and really good partying!!! Friday was a bit rough as we got stuck in traffic from Seoul to the beach (They don't have many national holidays in Korea so when they do they all hit the pavement!). We were on the bus for over 6 hours only to arrive to this 'secluded beach' to find that the beach was actually full of Korean families! Yup, we were sandwiched between a Noraebang tent (karaoke) and a bunch of families. My friend Sarah and I started to set up our tent only to be informed that we were about 4 feet away from the DJ booth area! We had a good laugh opened a bottle a wine and went ahead with it anyways as the flat available terrain was scarce! In the end our location was perfect because we always had front row view of everything that was going on :)

Saturday was a full day o'fun. The organizers were fantastic and planned all these super interesting and artsy workshops. I got a dread put in my hair by the cutest little Korean Rambo, my eyes read by a Tibetan eye reader (which was scarily dead on), my foot Henna tattooed (no, Mom it's not permanent ;) ), learned how to play the didgeridoo (which I'm in love with and want one, but it's super hard to learn the main technique- circular breathing), and the last thing I did was one of the weirdest things I've ever done with a group of strangers. It's called Tibetan Pulsing Yoga. Everyone was super psyched to do some yoga, you know maybe a few Sun Salutations, some triangle poses the ususal..NOPE! Tibetan pulsing yoga is a meditative combination of sexual energy with the pulse beat hearts creating the gentle power to dissolve blockages in the bio-electrical flow which runs through our nervous systems. Basically you lay down head to toe with people and have to raise your hips up and down.....it was pretty interesting and slightly uncomfortable..in saying that I think with a group of people you know and trust it would be a great exercise!

Saturday night was full of good stuff as well. We barbecued, checked out lots of cute hermit crabs, danced and sang. Plus I got to spin fire :) !!! Their were lots of fire spinners doing some really cool stuff along with a few staff twirlers.

One of the funny moments came when this guy walks out holding a sign that says 'OPEN BAR'! I was like 'NO WAY!!!' But, then I continued reading to find that it meant 'the bar is open'. Nonetheless my friends and I found the bar along with the tequila shots! It's been since my going away party in Ottawa that I had tequila...and it still proves to be the devil!

It was one of the nights where you just talked and danced together with everyone. I made tonnes of new friends and as the sun came up (some unmentionables went skinny dipping) and we helped clean up the garbage. As the bongos played I crawled into my little tent and driffted off into dreamland!

On the way home we ended up hitching a ride to the bus station with a super nice retired Navy sergeant. It was great I got to ride in the back of the truck! I felt like I was home :)

Well it's official, I'm into my last 3 months here in Korea! Wild eh! My last day will be around November 25th! I'm in the midst of figuring out what in the world I'm going to do next. I'm coming home for a month and then I have a few options- I can come back to Korea and teach for a few more months and then go traveling (I"m thinking India or South East Asia) and then come home for good in the summer, go home and get a job, go home and go back to school...sigh...I feel like I keep coming full circle with the question 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'. Am I grown up? hahah I guess that depends on who you ask!!! Sooo, I have lots to think about and will keep you all posted on my decisions :)

I'm sending lots and lots and lots of love from the hot and sunny world of South Korea! MUAH

My Wonderful trip to the Zen World of Japan :)

Japan- The trip of a lifetime! (You might want to take a bathroom break or read this in chunks 'cuz it's kinda long :) :) )

I had some pretty big expectations for Japan as many people had told me how wonderful it was. My expectations were met and blown away!! It was AMAZING!!! I can't get over how great Japan is....everything about it was interesting and wacky and wild! The people were wonderfully friendly, the trees were absolutely gorgeous, the Temples had the most amazing energy and the food was scrumptious!!! I traveled with two great friends from here in Korea both of which happen to be from Manchester, England. We all had such a great experience and want to go back!

Tokyo- Highs: Meeting a Samurai Lows: only having one night in such an amazing city!
We landed in Tokyo on Saturday afternoon with the intentions of being on a somewhat of a budget. We had to pay a lot of money just to get our Rail Passes (we traveled through Japan using the Shinkensan (bullet) trains...they are the fastest trains in the world and they are super efficient and comfy). As well we spent a lot on our tickets for the Fuji Rocks Festival so we had all decided to be very careful with our money. However, once we got into Tokyo we headed up to ASASAKA to where they were having a huge Fireworks festival on the Sumida river. Once on the subway we started noticing many people wearing Kumonos (actually Ukatas for the summer). Chris the British guy I was traveling with made a few comments about how great it would be if we could wearing them as well....sooooo after seeing the first group of foreigners in Kumonos we stopped in a shop and started trying them on...needless to say after being in Japan for only an hour we were walking around in Kimonas (so much for the budget!)

It was great to see so many people dressed in traditional clothing. I soon realized that Japanese men are GORGEOUS! I didn't realize that there was a big difference between Korea, China and Japan, I was wrong! We spent the afternoon walking around in awe at the Japanese people, architecture and cleanliness.

In the evening we gathered around with thousands of Japanese trying to get a good spot to watch these famous fireworks. They were really good but the amazing part about them was that they went on for over an hour!! They just kept going and going and going.....

Our accommodations in Tokyo were pretty wacky! We stayed in a capsule hotel. So what that means is they have separate little cubby holes for each person. In each little capsule you have your own tv, radio and alarm. It was pretty sweet as the also had a bathhouse (hot tub) on the top floor with a wicked view of the city.

Because we only had one night in Tokyo we decided we had to do it up right. So we got some advice from some American guys we met about where to head out. Once on the subway we met a group of wicked Japanese people, one of which walked us right to one of the coolest bars I've ever been to. It was in the Shibuya area which is where they filmed some of the movie Lost in Translation. The strip that the bar was on was full of little tiny bars. They were literally holes in the wall with anywhere between 5-15 people crammed into them. We met this guy who I can't help but compare to a Samurai (see the picture with him and Chris). He was so wise and just oozed with charisma. The bartender gave us welcome 'sochu' shots (sochu is a distilled beverage which dates back to the 14th century making it a latecomer in comparison to sake which plays a part in Japanese mythology much like wine does in the bible. Unlike sake which is only ever made from rice, shochu can be made from a variety of different ingredients such as barley, buckwheat, sweet potatoes and sugar. The alcoholic content of shochu varies, though it is usually 25%, although sometimes it can be as high as 42% or more..there is a little lesson for you).

After a couple minutes it happened....one of the most beautiful men in the world walked up. I'm serious!!! He should have been a model! Not only was the man beautiful he was soooo nice (sadly he has a beautiful Mexican wife..hahah)!! We sat in the bar for awhile talking about music and our lives in Korea. The Samurai guy then invited us to go to a Birthday party with him. Without a second thought we were in a taxi heading to a Japanese party. We walked down into an artsy bar where the party was and I was immediately floored by the contrast of Korean vs Japanese culture. The Japanese women were dancing and everyone was having a great time. Not to say that Koreans don't have a good time but it was just different...it was nice to see woman having as good a time as the men (something you don't often see that often here in Korea).

So we partied to the wee hours of night, dancing, drinking, chatting and laughing. It was great and at 4 in the morning we had to pry ourselves away as we knew we had to get up early to get to the Fuji Rocks Festival.


Fuji Rocks Festival @ Naeba Ski Resort, near Nagano.

This festival was super expensive but super worth it! I want to go back and do all three days. It's nestled in the mountains and had over 6 stages of music varying from rock, blues, reggae and much much more. It also had tonnes of side areas with wicked art, food and randomness.
I would have to say that one of the highlights of the festival was seeing Micheal Franti and Spearhead (not to mention standing front row and touching him as he dove into the crowd). As well Jenny and participated in the biggest drum circle I've ever seen which ended with a huge thunderstruck!
We watched some Japanese blues guitarist, Rodrigo Y Gabriella (amazing female/male guitar duo-mind blowing), Lee Scratch Perry (old school reggae legend, kinda of reminded me of seeing Bob Dylan in concert...it was great to see him but he's definitely lost his oomph!). After all the live music stopped we somehow ended up in a small restaurant tent where we were given free beer and had a Bob Marley sing along with these wicked Japanese people. The late night part of the festival was all around two stage areas, one which was in an arena and the other made up of all this wacky art. We all wandered around dancing while Chris passed out in a chair covered in his poncho and beside a generator (to keep warm) it was way too funny...the festival was fantastic!! I would recommend it to anyone who is ever in the Japan area!




Mount Fuji

Our trip was pretty short so we didn't have time to climb Mount Fuji. Instead we just got as close as we could and relaxed in the small mountain town that is nestled close to the beautiful dormant volcano. We were really lucky because at this time of year the mountain can stay cloud covered for days but on our arrival we got a clear view. It was surreal how perfectly shaped Mount Fuji truly is. We stayed at a really nice hostel in the town of Fujikawaguchiko which is at the base of Mt.Fuji. Jenny and I went to an Onsen. An Onsen is basically a spa full of indoor and outdoor hot tubs, saunas and just a really beautiful building with gardens. It was just what we needed after our all night party at Fuji Rocks. On our way back to the hostel we spotted an India food restaurant and we couldn't help ourselves even though we had already eaten. I know India food in Japan sounds funny but coming from Gwangju, South Korea it was heaven!!

The next day we headed up a cable car to get a better view of Mount Fuji. Unfortunately it was cloud covered :( ...I wish I had taken more photos the day before...thems the breaks...at least I got to see it. We took a path down the mountain and saw some of the most beautiful flowers and trees. I couldn't stop taking pictures!!!

Kyoto

Kyoto was definitely the most spiritual and mind blowing place I've ever been. We were only meant to stay there for 2 days but in the end we ended up staying for three and left without really skimming the surface of all it's wonders and beauty. In saying that we managed to visit lots during our time there.

We went on a tour that was lead by an older Japanese man named Johnny Hillwalker. He was super cute and quirky. He took us on a 'behind the scenes tour' of Kyoto. We went to Higashi-Honganji, the biggest Buddhist temple in Japan. Then we went to three Shinto shrines, Ayako Tenman-gu ,Ichihime shrine (a shrine for women) and Toyokuni shrine. We learnt a lot about there 'factories' which all tend to be mom and pop shops where people are sitting on the floor making art. We saw pottery painters, fan makers and jujubead creators. I kept thinking 'hmmmmm..I could do this...I could sit here drinking green tea while making Asian art ;).
We ate traditonal sushi and Japanese cookies as well as walked through the old Geisha district and saw one of the few Geisha administration buildings (Gojo rakuen). Oh yeah!!! We saw the birthplace of NINTENDO!!!!!!!!! Did you know that nintendo actually started as a card game? It was pretty wild to be standing beside the building that Mario Brothers was created in!!!

The end of the tour brought us to the area that most overwhelming for me that day. It was the Kiyomizu Temple which is surrounded by other Temples and gorgeous scenery. It is a Unesco World Heritage site. The Temple belongs to the Tendai sect of Japanese Buddhism, and is one of the oldest temples in the city. Everywhere I looked I could either see beautiful Temples, shrines or gorgeous Asian trees.

My sister told me I had to eat enough sushi for her while I was there...I think I completed the task very well! That night we hit up a sushi bar (one where it's a train that goes around in a circle so you can just grab whatever you want). It was DELICIOUS! I ate way too much of course but I just couldn't stop myself (Amy I kept thinking of you). We then managed to find a reggae bar that was run by this super chill guy. We drank lots of good cocktails and listened to Sublime, Bob Marley and many more of my favourite music...sooo good!!

I had read that the people of Kyoto can sometimes be a little cold in comparison to the rest of Japan. We found this out first hand when we tried asking for directions to get home that night. This guy jumped back and gave me this frightened looked....I guess no where is perfect :(

The next day we rented bicycles to hit up the places that we knew we absolutely couldn't miss. Just a side not about bikes in Japan- they are everywhere!!! It's what I imagine some European countries to be like. They have biking lanes, parking lots and no bike parking signs everywhere. It's wonderful to see so many people using bikes instead of cars. This would also be a good place to mention how clean Japan is. You could seriously eat off some of the streets it's so clean. They have recycling cans instead of garbage cans as well as wind powered vending machines!!! Also, you are not allowed to smoke and walk and can only smoke in designated smoking areas...pretty cool!

Another side note---VENDING MACHINES!!! You can get anything from a vending machine in Japan. It's great they are everywhere so you never go thirsty. They also have alcohol vending machines...yup you can get a beer and walk down the street....does it get any better then that???

On our bike tour we went to another highlight of my trip (I think the entire trip is a highlight..hehehe) the Bhuddist Zen Gardens. One of them was the Daisen-in Zen Garden which is Zen Buddhist contemplative garden, within the Daitoku-ji temple complex. One part of the garden is an allegory; the other is designed for meditation. Rocks symbolise mountains. Quartz stones symbolise a river. A boat-shaped stone represents a human journey through the the troubled waters of life (symbolised by quartz) and towards Nirvana. It was unbelievable the amount of thought and intent went into these gardens. It was pristine, before entering we had a cup of green tea prepared for us by an older Japanese woman. Once inside they gave you a map and description of the meaning of everything. Every placement of rock and tree had a special meaning. It was mind blowing!

After the Zen gardens we headed to the world famous Kinkakuji (Golden Pavilion Temple) is the common nickname of the Rokuonji (Deer Garden Temple). It's actually painted in gold flakes! It was pretty wild and beautiful. Although it didn't have the same affect on me as the other Temples did which I think is because it seemed overwhelming with all its gold! I did however discover a little turtle that I watched for a very long time...he was super cute...

Osaka

Well because we wanted to spend more time in Kyoto we only got to Osaka around 11 at night! Osaka is known for it's food and for it's party scene. You can imagine that we found the party scene pretty quickly. We had been drinking casually all week but holding back because we knew we had to get up early every morning to go sightseeing. However, as Osaka was our last stop we had set our intentions of drinking the night away....and that we did. Throughout the trip we kept meeting up with another friend from Korea, Colin. We met him that night and he had managed to get a group of people together from his hostel, ironically some of them were Korean. We went to the downtown area only to discover that all the crazy lights we had been expecting had already been turned off :( (In all reality I think it's great that they were turned off to conserve energy) . Instead of wild lights we found WILD FASHION AND HAIR! Oh my god you would not believe it! The guys in Osaska looked like they had just come through a ninety 80's time warp. There were tonnes of Whitney Houston's meets David Bowie's and then some! It was really hard to get pictures as these guys were also pretty pretentious. After we were done staring we found a relaxed bar and sat around with our new Korean and English friends playing Korean drinking games. I thought us Canadians had some good drinking games but now I think Koreans have us beat! The rest of the night gets a little but fuzzy....

That's pretty much the end of my whirlwind tour of Japan. It was probably the most expensive trip I've been on but it was worth every penny. If you ever want to go to Asia and have a little bit of extra money to spend GO TO JAPAN! I guarantee you will love it!

I'm so happy that I've had the chance to go and I now look forward to researching all the new things I saw and experienced.

I hope that everyone at home is having a great summer and that you are all living it up in the sun! I love you all and think about you everyday...peace and love from the wacky world of Korea...MUAHH