- I got up sooo early to get to Incheon – I left my apt at 4:30, which turned out to be a very good thing. I was out early enough that I almost couldn't get a taxi! None were driving around, so I went into the Family Mart to ask the worker to call me a taxi. She had to call twice before getting someone that would come get me – after the first time, she said no one would come! But then her friend called and was able to get one. They were both really nice; the woman made me sit down while I waited and the man (her friend) asked me a few questions in English.
- The taxi came shortly (I said many thank-yous to the man and woman) and drove me really fast to the bus terminal. After I bought my ticket, I still had 20 minutes to wait. Woo!
Getting on the bus - level complete.
- Easily got to the airport (the direct bus is more expensive but very convenient) and realized that, although the Incheon airport is farther from Pohang than Busan or Daegu, I'm glad for the chance to understand departures from there so I don't have to be confused and more overwhelmed than I need to be on my leaving day. Called Rachel to make sure she was well on her way and then used the free wifi and people-watched/-listened while I waited for her to get there.
Successfully find Rachel at airport - level complete
Get tickets (and present/not forget important documents) - level complete
Go through security and customs - level complete
- Before going down to the gate, I got some food that was too expensive, took too long to be ready and was too spicy :/ Boo. I ate a little and then we exchanged money and made our way to the gate. But then the flight check-in lady told us I couldn't bring my frappuccino on the plane! :( :( :( So Rachel and I formed Team Finish-The-Frap and THEN boarded the plane.
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| Only my purse and my backpack! Yes, it was only a weekend, but we WERE going to another country. |
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| Go, go, go! |
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| Felt very safe flying with Big Bang ;) |
Boarding the plane/take-off - level complete
- We met the guy sitting next to us and turns out he is an EPIK teacher Andong who has been to Japan/Nagoya several times. He gave us tips on what to see and eat and, since he was going to the same area we were, we left the plane together, he bought us some Japanese chocolate (better than Korean, not as good as American), and helped us buy our train tickets/find our seats (the train ride was really smooth and relaxing). It was really awesome of him. We would have eventually figured all that out, but he saved us a lot of time and energy.
Get into the city of Nagoya - level complete
Find hostel - level complete
(It's so cute! Kind of small but has everything we need)
- For dinner, we found a cute/unique restaurant with a really nice owner. She didn’t speak English and we didn’t speak Japanese, but we eventually used pointing to order - and it turned out to cost 3500¥ (about 50,000₩ or $45)! It was yummy but yikes! (This was our first experience with things costing more in Japan than in Korea.)
Find dinner - level complete
...but we not successfully
- After dinner, we decided to explore as much of Nagoya as we could before the subway stopped running at midnight. We made our way downtown in search of the TV Tower and a 3-story fountain called Oasis 21 that the EPIK teacher told us about. Luckily, it is apparently a big attraction and was well-labeled (in English) throughout the subway. We exited the subway into a kind of mall, which opened right up to the night sky. There was a roof over it but not completely. It was really cool. The floor below the open part was even a special kind of tile that seemed to be made to absorb rainwater. But we didn’t see any kind of fountain. We walked up to the ground level (the mall was about 3 stories underground) and enjoyed our donuts (when we found a store near our hostel called “Mr. Donut” we couldn’t not make a purchase). And then we saw it! Through the glass roof we saw a rippling reflection...the fountain was on TOP of the roof! (3 stories in the air!) We took the elevator up – to the “Spaceship Aqua” floor – and walked around it. Not all of the jets were on, and the fact that the whole roof bounced a little with heavy footfalls was slightly unnerving, but we got a great view of the city.
Subway - eventually level complete (though stressful)
Oasis 21 - level complete
- We could clearly see the TV Tower from the roof too and headed there next. After much wandering towards and around, we were told we needed a reservation/ticket to go up. Since we hadn’t read that on any website/brochure, we could only assume that there was some kind of invite-only party happening. Darn!
TV tower - level failed
- Following that we sat on sidewalk for a while, realized that the Japanese drive on the left side of the road and right side of the car, wondered how we didn’t ever realize that before, and decided that the remainder of our night would be best spent hanging out at the hostel. Lamenting the fact that we didn’t think to bring playing cards with us, we went searching for a deck. After stopping in several convenience stores, we finally found some! They were 600¥ (about 9,000₩ or $7.60) and totally un-Japanese-looking but we were desperate.
- Back at the hostel we met a cool British couple, here visiting his brother and taking the vacation time to bike throughout Japan. I think they were even planning to go from Nagoya to Tokyo, which is about 220 miles! The cool thing was that they were equally amazed by the fact that we were living and teaching in Korea. It felt awesome being the cool backpackers (after all, that’s all we packed for the whole weekend...in a foreign country!) 'from' Korea ;) A little while later, we played a game of Nertz (after which we realized/remembered that you should NOT play that game with 2 decks of cards that have the same design...) and went to bed :D
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