1st day in Seoul!

This morning went by pretty smoothly and quickly. We got back to the airport, found the place that I can pick up my SIM card, and took the bus headed for Gangnam Station. With only 4 people on the bus, we only made two stops around Gangnam and the whole trip took only 1.5 hours. From the station, it didn't take too long for us to find the language cafe.... up on a hill (seriously, everything in Korea that's not on the main street is on a hill).

The cafe looks really nice and we started working.... today!

But before that... lunch! We got recommendation to eat at the Chinese Korean restaurant. Joyce got the cold Jjambbong and I got the kong guksu.

I just wanted to try the kong guksu since I've heard about it for so long. Verdict? I think I'm just not a cold noodle person. Every time I eat cold noodles, I just feel "ok" about it. The kong guksu is made out of bean powder soup with noodles, cucumber, and some sprouts. Mmm... I added a lot of salt, but still not salty enough for me. It feels like I'm eating soybean soup with noodles. I'm glad I finally tried it, but I think I'll go with things like kalbi jjim next time. Haha.

Joyce and I then walked around Gangnam a little before we had to start working.... and found this Gangnam Style thing. She said we had to do it.

Very touristy indeed.

After lunch, we started doing the language cafe where we conversed with students one hour at a time. These are mostly university students or working adults who want to improve their conversational English skills. Many of them admit that although they learned English in school, they never had to practice speaking, which means they can pass written, reading, and listening exams with flying color, but they don't feel comfortable enough to speak in English.

After four hours of conversing with these people, I feel pretty drained. Joyce felt the same way too. Although we had 10 minutes break in between sessions, many people want to keep talking, so that means we basically talked for four hours non-stop. Since many of them may be too shy in making conversations in English, I had to direct most of the conversation, which makes it an even more tiring day. It's pretty much like teaching in high school for me again because: 1) I talk non-stop, 2) I had to keep asking guiding questions to have them answer, 3) no breaks (I always had students come in for tutoring during break, lunch, after school... etc). It was nice meeting these people, but it was very tiring doing that.

We then went to the place we are staying... well, I think Joyce and I are just too old for this. It's a very small apartment with two small rooms (imagine a normal sized room in US). One room is for the guys, the other is for the girls, which has 3 bunk beds. Imagine putting 3 bunk beds in your room. The bunks are not very sturdy... and I feel like I could pull it down if I were not careful. Because we arrived later than other people who had been here for a few days to a month already, we had the upper bunks. My bunk was across from the A/C and it was soooooo cold that I just couldn't take a nap. Not to mention the bunk to ceiling distance was really short.... making it impossible for me to sit up in my bed. When I sleep in it, I felt so claustrophobic that I had to leave the room.

The kitchen, bathroom, and overall the entire place is just so shabby. I told Joyce that we are basically living like Kpop trainees, and we seriously do look that way. Except we got no pay, or no promise of advancement :( I'm not quite sure what living expenses we're saving since the living situation is just not good. I'm surprised that these volunteers would actually be willing to stay here. I suppose when you're a student aged person, you don't quite have a choice.

Joyce took a nap until around 8pm, at which time, we both went around Gangnam to walk around and to look at the Kakao Store. We were basically like walking zombies because we were so tired.

On the way back, we saw Hot Star!! What the?! I guess they're trying to invade the Korean business....

I'm glad that Joyce mentioned on the way back that maybe we can just quit this cafe thing after a week instead of staying for three weeks. We just can't imagine how we can live there for three weeks with the living situation. Sigh. This means we need to start looking for a place we can live in.... hopefully not too expensive, but at least we can live more comfortably. Pray for us that everything will work out!!

One day in Tokyo

Started the day bright and early at...... 5:30am. Both Joyce and I just couldn't sleep anymore due to time difference and just gave up on trying to sleep anymore.

The breakfast buffet at the hotel was 1,300 yen.... so we decided to go with the breakfast of champions. All the leftover food we gathered from the flight.

Yeah, it's a little sad, but oh well. At least we're full! Kinda.

And our hero of the day is.... Febreeze from the hotel. Because we didn't get to have our luggage, we had to rewear our clothes and they smell! So we sprayed a lot of Febreeze on our clothes so that others don't have to suffer because of us.

First mission in Japan is to go to Joyce's bank in Tokyo and close the account. We got to the subway station early and bought our ticket to go.

Bought some water as well..... their cap is really interesting! It's designed so that you don't take it off... in case you lose it!

On the way out of Narita, we went through a rice paddy... very pretty.

When we finally got into Tokyo, it pretty much took us 30 minutes to find the bank that was supposed to be 10 minutes walking distance from the subway exit -_-. This is what happens when your phone's GPS doesn't work properly anymore :(

Once that's done, it's time to set out for Mitaka, where the Ghibli Museum is.

When we got to the Mitaka station, we were very hungry, and there was a lot of nice shops selling food.... so we got some to try.

This was a fried bean curd roll with shrimp, water chestnut, and bamboo shoots inside. It was very good!

We also got some mini taiyaki from this man.

It was not very good :(

It tasted more like a croissant with very little filling than anything else. Bleh.

Along the way, from Sherry's recommendation, I also tried the onsen egg from 7-eleven and this grape ice thing.

The onsen egg was.... ok. I had to crack open the egg shell against the wall and couldn't really peel off the shell because it was soooo soft. So I ended up just sucking the whole thing out of its shell...

And this grape ice thing.... I think it's ok, maybe it's just not my type of food. It tasted like the gummy that you find at the super market..

But apparently, this grape ice is popular enough that they also have a KitKat version!

So walking towards the Ghibli Museum, you pass through many different parks and a nicely designed neighborhood. If it weren't for the time crunch and bad weather, I would have stayed in this city longer to bike around or explore the area. It's really quite nice!

Along the way, there were many signs and buses for the Ghibli Museum.

There was a lot of people at the museum today despite the rain (apparently, the rain was really bad for Japan today... a lot of mudslide and all that). Because we couldn't take pictures inside the museum, I'll just describe a bit of what we saw.

First, you go through the main entrance and you see this museum that looks like a castle.

(ugh, I need to lose weight when I go back home)

Once you go in, they give you these little film strips as tickets to enter the small short film theater. The short film this time is a bug's life. It's really a strange short film. It documents how the bug (or really a worm) saw the world... but the whole thing has no dialogue and only one guy is making sound effect into the microphone for everything.

Inside the museum, you have rooms where they show you how an animation is developed from concept, to painting, to recording it on film, to finishing. It's really amazing how they used to draw animation FRAME BY FRAME. It really gave me a new appreciation for his artwork. There was also a team or artists who drew and colored everything together in an assembly line-like fashion.

The new exhibit this time is the food in all his work. They have the fake food replica of some of the more famous dishes... like Kiki's chocolate cake, all the buffet in Spirited Away that turned the parents into pigs, half egg sandwich from Castle in the Sky, and soooo many others. It was quite incredible.

There was also a spiral staircase that went from 1st floor to 3rd floor (inside), and then another set (outside) to go to the roof. It was quite claustrophobic for me and wayyy too high!

Up on the roof, there is the iron giant from Castle in the Sky. Umm... I guess I really haven't seen the film.

After finishing walking around the museum, we went to the souvenir store and unfortunately, everything was sooooo expensive that we didn't buy anything. It's quite interesting how this museum is mostly about the artwork and appreciation of the artwork of Miyazaki than trying to sell products. In the souvenir shop, there really wasn't any sale of the films, plushes, and things of that sort that you would see elsewhere. There were t-shirts that cost $600(!), small magnets and pins, postcards... but all very overpriced.

We finished the museum tour with the cafe... which was gonna be one hour wait! So we opted for the better option of getting the ice cream next to the cafe.

That was a milk ice cream with lemon ice cream.

I don't know if you can see it... but there is a translucent part of the ice cream, which is that lemonade part, and the milk ice cream is basically made with milk, so it melts really quickly!

Last stop is to find the fountain pen for Ritchie. He said it's called Inkstand, which was not too far from Tokyo... but we didn't expect the entire shop to be just a shop dedicated to ink color!!

I got the fine pen for him... hopefully that's the one he wanted!

And then it's finally time to fly to Incheon to check whether our luggages were intact! We got our in-flight meal that mostly tasted weird to me....

...and then got to Incheon... and found our luggages! Yay!! Yay for fresh clothes!

We are now staying at Crown Hotel near the airport since we got out of the airport at 12am... but the hotel was super efficient that he got me checked in before I arrived and gave me the key once I got off the shuttle!

And the hotel is super nice!

It even has a washing machine!

Alright, I'm starting to become incoherent... it's time to sleep now, at 1:45am. Ah so tired!!

First Day! We FINALLY made it to Japan!

Day 1! You would think that it should be rather eventless..... but this has to be one of my top airport travel experiences. Yup, it made the list.

So it started pretty harmless in the morning of July 4th, traveling to LAX by Lyft.

The Lyft guy told us a lot about how to travel smart to LAX! First, go in from the north side instead of south side, because there is much less people that way (I haven't quite figured out my north from south yet...). Second, if you're departing, go to the arrival gates; if you are picking someone up, go to the departure. Because LAX always has all the planes arriving and departing at the same time, it's wayyyy too crowded if you go with the crowd... so you want to do the opposite. He said that in order for shuttles and drivers for Uber/Lyft like that to get the LAX certification, they have to actually follow that driving rule. So we made it to LAX with plenty of time to spare.

But this is about to go down real fast.

So our plane to Incheon, South Korea was supposed to leave at 12:40pm, but because of connecting flight issues, they delayed boarding until 1:10pm. In reality, we didn't actually leave until 2:10pm. That's 1 hour and 30 minutes behind schedule! So thus the domino effect.

When we got to Incheon, it was 6:17pm local time, and our connecting flight to Japan was at 6:50pm, boarding at 6:25pm. The plane taxied in the airport until 6:40pm! Joyce, now equipped with her "I don't take any crap" level-up, we pushed all these people aside because we told them we can't be late for our connecting flight. In Incheon, to get on a connecting flight, you HAVE to go through customs again! So we got through customs and RAN to our gate.... like really really ran. I haven't ran that much for a lonnnnnggg time........ when we got to the gate, they were already doing final boarding and we were one of the last ones (beside a family who was also on that LAX flight) getting on. We were really sweating by that time.

Finally, arrived in Narita Airport.... and they don't have our luggage. Of course not right?! If we had to run to get on the flight, how were they able to sort out our luggage for the transfer even quicker than we ran?! So Joyce, again equipped with her level-up, flagged down an Asiana person and was trying to figure out the situation. The lady was trying to explain to us in English, but was having some trouble... so I told Joyce to talk to her in Japanese, and they were communicating fine! And then I looked at the lady's name, which seemed Korean, so I asked her if she speaks Korean, and she said, of course! She's Korean! Then we spoke a bit in Korean. Ah, the power of languages!

Long story short, they don't have our luggages and won't have them until tomorrow at 11:10am. We told them that we're gonna be flying back to Incheon at 8:30pm tomorrow, so there's no need for the luggages and if they can just keep it in Incheon? They said yes, but I'll let you guys know tomorrow if we actually get it.....

So we arrived in our hotel with just the bare necessities that we packed in our backpack. Thank God that we packed well enough... with the stuff we need to get through at least another day!

Finally at the hotel now..... we miss Japan! Such a nice place! Haha.... lots of drinks!

And here is the Narita Airport Rest Hotel, which is just <5 minutes driving from the airport (free shuttle service!)

And the wifi is so interesting.... to find the password for the wifi in the room, you have to turn on the TV and look at the password on the top right of the screen. It's like a treasure hunt..

Alright, just a few more things before I finish a super long Day 1.

LAX has this puppy service for people to pet and feel more relaxed. This dog is SUPER BIG.... the man said it's a Irish Wolfhound. Bred to hunt wolves. o_o

I like the food on the plane.... quite good! Although the plane ride itself was bad for me. My butt hurt so much for sitting for almost 13+ hours, with nowhere to walk. Oh! And did I mention that although Joyce and I booked our flight in March, they actually split us apart?! We are one row in front of each other, both sitting in the middle seat. We tried to ask the people next to us if they can switch with us, and a young kid sitting next to Joyce said that his family actually got split apart too, where his mom and sister are sitting together with a lady they don't know. And that lady was also split apart from her group. My goodness. I think not sitting next to the person you know made the plane ride even more unbearable. Bleh.

This was steak lunch right after we left. Not bad. It had smoked salmon salad!

This was chicken pasta, which I thought was very good!

As for in-flight entertainment, I watched Greatest Showman (finally) and Jumanji (students' recommendation). We were literally counting the hours left on the plane by how many movies we already watched. Being so bored... I challenged Tetris again and got the highest score for my seat. Again.

It's already 11:40pm on July 5th now. When you travel to Asia, you really feel like you lost an entire day on the plane...... But I like this leaving at noon in Los Angeles, arriving by night time in Asia kind of travel because since I don't sleep much on the plane, I am super tired when I arrive, which means I should be able to adjust my jetlag really quickly. 

Alright, getting up at 6am to catch a train into Tokyo! Thank God this hotel has kimonos for us to wear... or else we'd be wearing the same clothes for 3 days in a row....

Till tomorrow!

T-1 Day

Joyce and I are traveling tomorrow! It's been more than a month since I got out of school (that's crazy) and we're leaving on July 4th for Japan and Korea!

Am I excited? To be honest, I'm not quite sure anymore. I think I'm feeling a bit paralyzed by all the things I have to take care of before I leave... and somehow, I have this procrastination anxiety. At this moment, I still have so much I feel that I need to finish.... wash my clothes, clean the bathroom, take out the trash, return Amazon package, PACK!, clean my room, clean out the fridge..... etc... and I just do nothing about it. This is definitely the first time I've felt like this about traveling... sigh.

It's a bit sad that we won't be able to celebrate July 4th with all the Americans.... no BBQ and fireworks... but hopefully the airport won't be as crowded because of that.

Anyways.... time to start packing!!

Learning Korean

This entire past year has been a struggle with learning Korean. There had been A LOT of ups and downs. Every time I meet a language group (or anyone who can help me learn Korean), the first thing they ask is "What made you want to learn Korean? When did you start learning Korean?" My answer is always, "I watched too much Korean drama and wanted to sing along to the Korean songs... so I thought that I should just learn it" and "I started 4 years ago, but I didn't really try learning it until this past year". And that is the truth, that this past year has been a serious growth struggle and growth spurt for me in terms of learning Korean.

Ever since my trip to Korea last summer, I struggled to maintain the same rigor of studying I had in that intense Sogang atmosphere while in US. It's really hard. I can hardly find anyone who teaches Korean around me with a reasonable price. I honestly tried everything I can think of..... I looked through all the local colleges for Korean classes and the closest ones are all 30 minutes away by driving. I tried Coursera, but the classes on there are too easy. I tried to find Meet Ups, but they're either very far (K-Town or Irvine), or they want you to go to their church. I tried HelloTalk, which is an app I still use to write to people, but I rarely TALK to anyone on there. After feeling really discouraged about my learning process.... I finally found some solutions! I found a website that helps you find locals who also wants to do language exchange and I am now doing video conference with a woman living by UCLA. A new Meet Up started in Hacienda Heights/La Habra area and we've been meeting for 5-6 times already! Amanda introduced me to AmazingTalker from Taiwan where I study with a Korean teacher (she speaks Mandarin) about once every 1-2 weeks.

After such intense studying this past year, and many many discouraging thoughts, I finally feel like I'm getting better! There were many times that I really wanted to give up being fluent in a third language.... there were just too many walls. Every time I make up a sentence, there is always something wrong with it. It just seems like I couldn't get better. It was so discouraging so frequently. Thank God I persisted..... and now looking back, I can definitely say that I'm much much better than I was one year ago.

I took a sample TOPIK I exam last night on reading only and I actually passed it! TOPIK exam is a Korean fluency test, and there are only two tests: I or II. This is the quick summary from Wikipedia:

TOPIK I - Level 1: 1st grade fluency (beginner)
TOPIK I - Level 2: 2nd grade fluency (beginner)
TOPIK II - Level 3: 3rd grade fluency (intermediate)
TOPIK II - Level 4: 4th grade fluency (intermediate)
TOPIK II - Level 5: 5th grade fluency (advanced)
TOPIK II - Level 6: 6th grade fluency (advanced)

So the test I took said that I should take the TOPIK II exam instead. Honestly, even though the highest level says it's 6th grade fluency, it actually means you're fluent enough to be able to attend a Korean university... although you're still not as fluent as a native Korean. Looking at my goals realistically, I think it would be nice if I can even reach Level 4. If I can get there, then I can already converse with Koreans regularly without too much problem. So.... just to set a milestone for myself, I'm gonna plan to take the TOPIK II test some time within the next two years! Just to push myself a bit more with a clear goal ahead of me.

Anyways... what I really wanted to say is, I can really see my improvement! The most visible improvement is my listening and reading skills improved a lot! When I'm watching Korean drama, if they don't use too much slang and speak at a medium pace, I can probably understand 50% of the content! For variety shows, it's just way too fast for me... I would say that I can understand maybe 10%. When I read song lyrics, if it's not a rap song, I can probably understand 50%+ of the content! *patting my back* Good job Ann! Hard work pays off...... or does it? Why the heck am I learning Korean anyways? Haha... great question. I think it's just a nice thing in my bucket list to achieve :)

Just wanted to share my excitement about my progress..... and just being able to notice my progress is quite amazing!