A trip to Japan

My second week of work didn't hold any surprises, but the weekend came with a huge bonus. After only being at work for 2 weeks I was getting a vacation! We had five days from Saturday to Wednesday, and to make things even better, Unium was going to use the holiday to send me to Japan for my Visa. For those of you who don't know, you can't get your working visa in Korea, so if your school brings you over without enough time to get a visa in your home country then they send you to Japan.

I went overnight on Monday and Tuesday. The school set me up with a ferry ticket and a hotel in Fukuoka. The ferry was actually pretty cool, it was a super fast hydro foil craft and the trip only took 3 hours. I had gotten all kinds of different directions on how to get from the docks to the Korean Embassy. But I decided the safest, quickest thing was to take a taxi. So on the ride over I rounded up 3 other foreign teachers who were also getting their visa and we shared the cost. Its a safe bet that most of the foreigners you meet on the ferry to Fukuoka are on a visa run.

Anyway, we got to the visa and took care of the paperwork by 3 pm which gave me the afternoon to kick around the city. The downside to this whole trip was that I was going before I had had my first pay day, which means I was quite short on funds. Japan is EXPENSIVE! Everything is 2-4 times more expensive than in Pusan. So with only $60 worth of Yen left in my pockets after paying for the taxi and visa my options were limited. I hooked up with a couple more foreign teachers outside the embassy and we wondered off to find lunch. We ended up at this little take away shop which was selling these little round balls of batter with octopus inside. They took 15 minutes to cool down to the point where you could actually eat them, but they were really good. After that we took the subway back to the downtown area where all our hotels were located. I spent an hour or two looking around the city, before heading back towards the hotel. I needed to make sure I had enough cash for the next day, so I ended up buying a bento box and a couple cans of Asahi from a corner store and eating in my hotel room. I ended the evening with a trip to the hotel's sauna, where they had steam rooms and different hot tubs. It was really lovely, the tubs were all black marble and we were on the top of the hotel with windows that looked out on the cityscape. Like all asian bath houses everyone was naked, but there were only a few people and because everyone acted like it was completely normal it actually didn't feel weird. It was a nice relaxing way to end the day. I figured that since my apartment doesn't have a tub, I ought to take advantage of the sauna. It's probably the last bath I will have for quite some time :)

Anyway, the next day I went off to the embassy and came back downtown to catch the ferry to Pusan. Not exactly an adventure, but I will get back to Japan again this year with more time and money to burn. To be honest, although it was a lovely looking city, clean, modern and well designed, in some ways I prefer the hectic mess of Pusan. There is a great energy here.

P.S. The picure I have attached to this post was taken from the ferry as I was arriving in Fukuoka harbor. Its quite a nice city view from the water.