A Last Minute Hong Kong Trip

On the first Monday of October, I found out we would having that Thursday off because it was Korean Independence Day.  I was so excited because they don’t always give us holidays off, but a little annoyed that they couldn’t have told us that earlier.  Once I found out, I decided I was going to take a chance and ask my boss if I could take Friday off so I could go to Hong Kong for a four day weekend.  The odds were definitely stacked me (it was less than four days notice!), but my coworkers helped me craft my request in a way he couldn’t refuse.  I was able to get Friday off!

My reaction when I found out I could take Friday off.

I rushed after work to book my plane tickets and do some research for what I would do in Hong Kong.  The plane tickets cost about $720, so I knew I was going to be broke for the month.  It was totally worth it though!  I did some packing on Wednesday, and then the girls convinced me to come over for “just a glass of wine” for girl’s night.  That didn’t happen that way…. somewhere along the way I decided I just wasn’t going to sleep for the night.  We ended up in a noraebang (karaoke room) with my suitcase singing loudly and off key.

Around about 3.15, I grabbed a cab and rushed to the bus station and napped on a two hour bus to the airport.  I did a lot of sleeping on my plane to Shanghai where I had to switch planes.  I feel bad because every plane ride I went on, I would wake up frightened and confused when the flight attendant brought over my special vegetarian meal.  Whoops!  Shanghai airport was really annoying because I had to go through immigration and leave the airport, then check-in and go BACK THROUGH immigration.  I was worried because my first plane had been delayed, so I thought I might miss my other plane!  It turns out my other one was delayed as well, so it was fine.  From the Hong Kong airport, I took the A-11 bus to the Yesinn at Causeway Bay.  Once there, I went up to the rooftop to meet some people. There was only one girl there named Rachel, but we decided to go to this big Hong Kong pub crawl together.  As every pub crawl starts out, everyone was a little awkward at first.  Once everyone got some drinks though, it became really fun.  So much dancing and fun!

Dancing up a storm during the pub crawl.  Only ~$20 for the pub crawl and the awesome shirts!

The next day I headed out on my own to the Ladies Market.  I did not realize that it was a night market, so everything was just getting opened when I got there.  I was able to find two pairs of flats that more or less fit –yay!  The one pair I brought to South Korea has turned disgusting within the past two months, but I have Godzilla feet here, so I couldn’t buy any shoes.  After the market, I headed to the museum of tea ware.  Being a tea lover, I absolutely loved it (and it was free)!  The first level was full artifacts through the different Chinese dynasties, then how they traditionally brewed their tea. The second had all kinds of tea pots and cups from an annual competition.  I wish I could have taken pictures because they had so many creative and fun teapots!  Next door, they had a vegetarian dim sum tea house.  I loved being able to relax there, drink all the tea in the world and have some delicious dim sum.  I honestly think the museum and tea house was maybe my favorite part of the trip –it was just so relaxing and fun!  It was also surrounded by a beautiful park that had a nice pond and flowers.

The beautiful park on the hill among all the skyscrapers.

The inside of the tea house.  It was so pretty and pleasant!

Relaxing with my rose tea.  Om nom nom!

Nothing like enjoying some veggie dimsum and sticky rice. 

Such a pretty park!

I realized that the tram to Victoria’s Peak was right next to the park, so I decided to brave the hour and a half long line to go up to see the sights.  There was a shopping mall on the peak, which I thought was very odd….  While I was walking around, a Chinese family asked if they could take a picture with me.  I was surprised I would encounter that in Hong Kong where it’s so international!  The view was beautiful from the peak, but it was a little hazy that day, so I couldn’t see too much. 

I enjoy taking ridiculous pictures when nobody is paying attention.

My Saturday was full of fun times in MACAU! I took the ferry around 11 and immediately felt nauseous with the intense rocking.  Luckily, I remembered the trick to apply pressure to your wrists and just slept through the whole ferry ride instead.  Macau has such a beautiful feel to the city –you can definitely see the Portuguese influence by just a glance.  I got off the bus at Senado square and started walking.  There was a super popular bakery/candy shop where I was able to get chewy peanut candies for all my classes.

Some really cool art at a gallery near Senaco square.

Nearby was the St. Domingo’s church.  The church had a beautiful hidden museum that had various religious items and paintings.  On the top floor they had some sketch sign saying no more than 10 people could stand on the top floor.  As I was leaving, a horde of people went to go to the top level, so I booked it out of there pretty quickly.

St. Domingo's church

Along my way to the ruins of St. Paul, I found a shoe shop that carried one shoe in my size (and they were comfortable)!  St. Paul’s was crazy packed.  It was still really cool to look at!  Next to it was the coolest souvenir shop.  They had a lot of really awesome, unique and artistic stuff there, which totally made up for the fact that the staff was stalking me around the store.  On the hill next to the ruins, they had a museum about Macau that was only about $2 to get into!  I thought it was a really well done museum that showed the influences of Portugal and China on this city.

There were so many people in this area!  I was a bit worried I would get pick-pocketed, but everything turned out fine.

The awesome souvenir shop right next to St. Paul's ruins.

Inside the museum.  It had a great layout with some fake buildings inside.  

Macau was a great day trip (maybe even better if I wanted to gamble), but I decided I wanted to go back to Hong Kong for dinner.  One of the things I realized I LOVE about traveling alone, is I can do absolutely whatever I want.  This means I get to eat at random vegetarian/vegan restaurants around the city without driving travel companions insane!  I found the Loving Hut in Hong Kong and completely fell in love with it.  It had such a big variety of vegan Hong Kong food, so I was a little overwhelmed.  The food was delightful though –so much that I even went back the next day for dinner too!

Sunday morning, I got ready, packed up, and met this English teacher in China named Natalie.  She has a fear of heights, so decided we’d take the cable cars to go to see the Big Buddha at Lantau Island together.  The Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car was pretty cool, but Natalie was absolutely terrified.  I did my best at comforting her, but I’m really horrible at making people feel better it would seem.  I told her, “think of it this way -we’re really close to the ground right now, so if we fell we wouldn’t be too far from the ground!”  She gave me the most horrified look and asked me how that was supposed to help her feel better.  On the bright side, at least I could make her laugh during her scary experience!

The Ngong Ping tourist village was the first thing we went through before getting to the Big Buddha.  They had a nice little tea shop that had rose tea (my favorite) and some cute tea ware that I bought.  We saw Buddha’s tree that he spent 7 years under.  It was suspiciously made of rubber and fake though….  There was a really cool audio walk through next to the fake tree that had Disney style cartoon shorts of Buddha’s life with some cool special effects.

There were so many stray dogs near the Big Buddha.  This one was my favorite!

Big Buddha was preceded by a ridiculous amount of stairs, which was less than fun to climb.  It had beautiful view of the island from the top, so the view enough made me glad that I came.  Afterwards, we went to the Po Linh Buddhist Monastery for a huge vegetarian lunch.  The food was so delicious!

Some guy carting around some women -how do I get this?

We took a bus back to Hong Kong and I decided to crash on one of the couches in my hostel’s common area.  Feeling a little more refreshed, I decided to check out a knitting shop nearby since I haven’t been able to find one in Daejeon yet.  The lady there somehow convinced me (which didn’t take much) that I need to knit a sweater this winter, so I bought 25 balls of yarn.  I might be a little in over my head….  While walking around, I was also able to find a hair shop that carried my favorite shampoo that I haven’t been able to find in Korea.  Finally my hair will become non-damaged again with my Joico!  ^^

Somehow, I was able to fit everything in my suitcase.  I didn’t get back to my apartment until about 9.00 on that Monday, so I was really tired at work that day.  That weekend was totally worth it though! 

Japan Part II: the Tokyo Edition!

Train tickets to Tokyo were ridiculously expensive…..I missed the cheapness of Korea!!  I was a complete idiot and forgot to look up how to get to the capsule hotel while I had wifi, so we wandered around for a few hours and enlisted a lot of people’s help before we were able to find it.  When we checked in, the hotel definitely wasn’t what we were expecting.  It didn’t seem clean and fresh like the other hostels we had stayed at.  Also, THEY HAD A CURFEW (except for Saturday).  What twisted, horrible place would forget to mention that in their information online??  Although we were really disappointed at first, we ended up meeting some pretty cool people there on Saturday night which made up for it.

The outside of one of the capsules in our hotel.

We explored around Shinjuku for dinner and some place to get a drink, but we were having the hardest time finding a place that looked like it was actually fun.  Some Germans who ran into also had same goal in mind, so we ended up teaming up to find a place.  We hadn’t realized that when they said we should team up, that really meant we were going to have to do all the work while they ordered us around.  Eventually, we found some Japanese girls who were nice enough to lead us to a sketch club that we’re pretty sure was run by a gang.  I was elected to go in first as well as be our spokesperson because none of the five other guys had a backbone.  The club was kinda dull with super expensive watered down drinks, but Yeji and I still had a fun time awkwardly dancing!

One of the less busy streets of Tokyo.

The next morning, we set out for Harajuku to see the funky dressed people and do some shopping.  We didn’t really see many gothic Lolita or cosplay people, but we did do a lot of shopping!  I was feeling a little crappy as we were walking in some of the shops, because I figured I wouldn’t be able to get even my arm through a shirt (like how it is in Japan).  I was really surprised when I saw a medium dress (of all sizes) that looked like it would definitely fit me.  I decided to just try some clothes on and they actually fit…and looked cute!  It was like I had 5 shots of caffeine because suddenly I was full of energy and shopping like no other.  In Harajuku, I got a dress, a cutesy hooded poncho (like little red riding hood, except black), and an adorable sweater.

After shopping up a storm in Harajuku, we went to Minato.  Minato had tons of malls with all sorts of stores including H&M, Forever 21, and American Eagle.  I shopped my heart out at H&M and literally bought all the things in the world.  I was only supposed to buy two long-sleeved shirts and a pair of thick leggings, but then on my way to the checkout line I saw colored leggings….and gym tank tops, polka dot tights, and over the knee socks.  I may have gotten a little carried away, but it was cheap much needed winter clothes in my size!  When we walked out of the mall, they have this ginormous transformers robot that was doing some sort of cool show that shot out a lot of smoke and flashed some lights.  At another mall, we had a gorgeous view of Tokyo, complete with the statue of liberty.

We are robots....beep boop.

A gorgeous view of Tokyo around sunset.

We went out with a few people to this area of Tokyo called Roppongi for finding a fun place to club, but it was a total disappointment.  It was full of foreigners and crowded bars.  We were hoping to party with some Japanese people since we are with expats every weekend, so Yeji and I took a cab to Shibuya.  After some guys trying to con us into going to some expensive club (since dancing is illegal in Tokyo), we finally were able to find Club Asia where we could get in for free!  It had a really awesome secret room with a big dance floor, and great drinks at a decent price as well.  We met this Japanese-American guy named David who we danced the night away with.  Together, we had a blast dancing ridiculously.  I was glad we didn’t give up in our endeavors to have a fun Saturday night!

The VIP section at the Roppongi club.  So overrated!

David, Yeji and I after a fun night of dancing.

Our Sunday was mostly comprised of souvenir shopping (for me) and snacking (for Yeji) in Asakusa.  I was able to find so many cool things at the booths there for my family!  I seriously have never seen someone so thin that eats that many snacks within the span of a few hours.  How do Koreans do it??

This perfectly sums up our Sunday -tons of snacks, exploring and Yeji sleeping on every subway we took. :D

Afterwards, we hit up the Calico Cat Café in Shinjuku to play with some non-cuddly kittens.  I was so excited to show my love for all the cats!  However, every single time I tried to pet one, they would shrink away from my hand (unless I had food)… shallow jerks.  Since no cats would play with us, we instead just terrorized a sleeping cat instead.  It wasn't until after we left the cafe that I realized HOW INCREDIBLY ALLERGIC TO CATS I AM.   For the rest of the night (and most of the next week too) I was making the dumbest faces as I tried to stifle my sneezes.  Next time I shall be going to a dog cafe where they'll love me and I won't get miserably sniffly.

Our hour of cat terrorizing fun.

After an hour, we decided to leave and found ourselves at a maid café instead in our desperate attempt to get some more coffee and tea.  It was an interesting experience, but it really just made me realize how unadorable I am most the time. No wonder so many guys go to maid cafes –they act so cute!

We headed back to the hostel to meet up with our hostel friend, Dan for dinner before we were to head out for our airport hotel.  We had a grand time at some Italian restaurant near the train station.  Perhaps it was too grand of a time though, because we forgot to keep track of the time!  Dan did his best to help us find a way to get to our hotel that night, but it just wasn’t going to happen.  I didn’t realize that the airport was an hour and a half subway trip away!!  Whoops….

Being some classy individuals at a Japanese-Italian restaurant.

Yeji and I went back with Dan to the capsule hotel and attempted to check in again for the night, but the rooms were booked.  It turns out it was a Japanese holiday the next day, so essentially we weren’t going to find a place to stay anywhere.  With a little bit of begging, we convinced the receptionist to let us crash on the couches and use the showers till we’d have to leave at four in the morning.  I didn’t get much sleep, but I was very thankful that we had somewhere safe and somewhat comfortable to stay!

My approximate response when I found out we weren't going to make it to our hotel.

The next morning consisted of us scurrying to the airport.  We were frantic because we were so close to the departure time, but the lady was taking her sweet time checking us in.  I decided I’m never flying Peach airlines again.  They had subpar/rude service and ripped us off for our bags.  We had to pay $120 for checking in our tiny bags!!  In line, I was having a mini-heart attack because I thought we’d miss our flight and I’d get fired for missing work.  Thankfully, we were able to make it back home just in time.  I had so much fun on my trip to Japan, and I can’t wait till I can go back again. J

Japan Part I: the Osaka and Kyoto edition!

It was finally here –the Korean holiday Chuseok (aka my trip to Japan)!  Yeji and I were so anxious and excited about our trip to Japan that we couldn’t sleep.  It probably wasn’t the best idea, but we were too excited!  We took the 6.30 train to Busan despite having a 2.30 flight because we were worried about the traffic and craze.  It turned out we definitely overestimated how much time we’d need because we were in the airport by 9.30.  At least we got to sleep a lot during our wait!  We landed in Osaka and took the train into downtown.  We were totally lost while buying tickets, but luckily a cute Japanese guy was able to guide us through the process!

Our Osaka hostel. It was right next to an elementary school!

We stayed at the J Hoppers Osaka hostel, which was a nice clean hostel with very helpful and personable staff.  The other backpackers weren’t exactly approachable though, so we didn’t hang around there too much.  I came to the terrible realization that I forgot my pajamas, so the staff sent us to the downtown shopping/food area, Shinsaibashi, so I could at least grab some leggings to wear with one of my tunic shirts for sleeping.  One of the things I really loved was the abundance of arcades in Japan.  They had a ton in the shopping district, and we had a blast playing this drumming game and Mario Kart.  I wish they had more of these in Korea –I haven’t seen any here yet!  We eventually found a good looking dinner place and had Okonomiyaki with a caesar salad.  I was surprised to see they put a poached egg on the salad.  It was surprisingly a good addition to the taste of the salad though!

A really awesome looking ferris wheel on the riverside.  If only it had been working!

My beautiful Wario picture at the arcade.  I make even Wario look sexy.

The next day we went to the Osaka castle before taking the train to Kyoto.  It was a gorgeous view, but I was a bit disappointed.  I had been expecting the castle’s insides to be recreated to match the interior of when it was used.  Instead it was a museum centered on a large fight between two clan’s families 400 years ago.

The gorgeous entrance to the Osaka castle.

Some adorable elementary boys enjoying some water during their field-trip to Osaka castle.

Working on some cool street art right outside the train station!

The train ride to Kyoto was only thirty minutes long, so we were at our hostel in no time.  We stayed at K’s Backpacking House, which was about a 15 minute walk from the train station.  It had a café/bar, a nice large common room with a roomy porch, and clean rooms.  We met a girl from Holland named Danielle there and spent the day exploring with her.  Yeji and I looked for an ATM for about an hour before we finally found one at the post office.  It turns out my sister wasn’t being a smartass when she said it’s hard getting yen in Japan –a lot of the ATMs only accept Japanese cards!  The three of us went to the Ippongi tea room (which has been open since 1717) where we learned how to make some tea.  There were two kinds we drank: matcha and genmaicha. I loved the rice flavor of the genmaicha, so I got some bags to take back with me.  I’ve been missing constantly drinking tea like I would do in the US!

 One of the beautiful shrines that we found while walking around in Kyoto.

 This tea shop has been open for over 300 years.  That's how you know it's good!

The matcha tea and a sweet to enjoy with it.  It was very strong and bitter!

One of the shopkeepers guiding Yeji through making her second tea.

Afterwards we head to the Harvest Moon festival at the Shimogamo-jinja shrine.  We wanted to wear kimonos for the festival, but it would have cost 5,000 yen (about $50) to rent for one day.  The first thing we saw at the festival was multiple food stalls full of Japanese sweets and special festival food.  Inside the temple area was a live traditional song and dance performance.  On the other side was a tea ceremony.  We were watching the tea ceremony when an older Japanese woman came up to us and gave us a ticket to the ceremony.  It was the last ticket so only one of us would be able to go.  We decided it would be better to give it to someone else, so I went up to a Japanese woman who I had seen asking about getting a ticket for the ceremony earlier.  She was so shocked when I gave it to her and said she couldn’t accept it.  I did an awkward interpretive dance to explain to her we got it for free, but we thought she should have it instead.  She tried to pay me for the ticket because she was so happy.  I was glad that we were able to make her night!

The entrance to the temple.  We had to walk through a long path in a forest to get here! 

All the tents had different Japanese sweets for people to enjoy.

Some roasted chestnuts.  I still don't think I've tried them!

Trying out a interesting tasting noodle sample.

Sake central.  Wasn't expecting to see that at the festival!

So jealous of their beautiful kimonos.  Next time I come to Japan I definitely want to rent one!

Thirty minutes later, when we were watching the dance performance she came up to us to thank us with an epic bow for giving her the ticket.  We realized that meant she looked through the big crowd just to find us.  A bit later, we made another round through the stalls to look for some dinner food.  Danielle went to this stall that was selling dough balls covered in sweet sauce and waited in line for a while Yeji and I went to a small temple food shop to check out their selection.  When she came back, she told us the woman saw her in line and bought her a package of the sweet balls as further thanks.  Japanese people are extremely nice –maybe even nicer than Korean people (who are already extremely nice)!  It seems like everyone really went out of their way to be nice to us or to help us, even if they didn’t know any English.

Part of the huge crowd enjoying one of the live dance performances.

The tea ceremony was so interesting to watch.  I wish we had known about it earlier so we could have gotten tickets!

One of the performers dancing while men in the back played instruments and sang.

The next day, I was looking through our map when I saw a monkey park!  Naturally, we had to drop all of our previous plans so we could go feed some monkeys.  The bus there was about an hour long, and once we got to the place, we had to walk about 20 minutes up a hill to get to the monkeys.  Some signs along the way warned us about not to look at the monkeys in the eye (apparently they’re not like hippogriffs), which of course I accidentally did anyways with the first monkey we saw.  I cried and just about sprinted down that hill when that monkey came sprinting in my direction afterwards.  It turns out the monkey was just running towards another monkey friend, so I just looked like an idiot.  We were able to buy a bag of apples and feed them from a small shack on top of the hill.  As I was feeding one monkey, I noticed he was throwing down the apple peels.  I tried to give one back to him and the jerk threw it at me!!  What a picky, temperamental monkey….

 Just monkeying around.  Also, you can see the gorgeous city view we had from the top of the hill!

Draw me like one of your French girls. 

The street to the silver temple.  There were so many cool shops along the way to the temple!

A cool ornament shop.  I got a really rockin one that has a dragon making the cutest angry face I've ever seen.

Just before leaving for Tokyo, we made a quick stop at the Silver Temple, which had absolutely gorgeous gardens and a breath taking view of the city.  I definitely want to go back to Kyoto sometime soon.  Maybe I’ll go back for a weekend to explore some more!

A big zen garden at the entrance of the temple.

The beautiful view of the city from the silver temple!