I Hate Good-Byes

After returning back to Seoul from Tokyo, we still had Friday and most of Saturday before Daniel was scheduled to fly home.  Friday was a low key sort of day, thank goodness!  We both slept in, unpacked, and attacked the gigantic pile of laundry that always comes with the end of a vacation.  Daniel was very happy to pack clean clothes in his suitcase rather than dirty ones and I was happy to give him a lesson on how to properly do laundry (using half as much soap as usual)!  To finish off the night, we walked through Yonhi Dong to Pizza School for some delicious cheese pizza and brought it back to the apartment so we could finish our marathon watching of Chuck season 1.  


One of Daniel's favorite places to eat in Seoul from his visit in the fall was La Celtique, a little creperie in Sinchon, so before he caught the bus back to the airport we walked over for lunch and it was delicious!!  I could eat crepes every day:).  Before long, it was time for Daniel to grab his suitcase and walk down the hill to the 6005 airport bus stop.  I have to admit, I hate seeing people leave--it breaks my heart and I've cried a little on and off all day.  I'm not sure why I have such a visceral response to parting, but needless to say, it really sucks!  After having a constant companion for the last week, it was really sad to walk back up the hill to an empty and very quiet apartment.  Thank goodness for my lovely friends who were available to  talk and catch up!  Daniel is such a good brother...he just accepts me for me and allows me to be the neurotic, overprotective sister that I am.  I truly wish he lived in Seoul too--I think we would have lots of lovely adventures together.  Maybe someday we'll live in the same city again!  Thus ends our spring vacation and in a day's time it will be back to work for me and school for Daniel.  I've been counting the days until I get to board a plane and make the same 12 hour flight back to the US.  At this point I'm down to about ten weeks--time that will be filled with end of quarter grades, lesson plans, labs, tests, bible study, review sessions, IGCSE exams, discovery week (only 7 weeks until Venice!!), graduating seniors, a Korean wedding, and many more good-byes as everyone goes their separate ways for the summer break.  I imagine these ten weeks will fly by and before I know it I will be seeing family and friends again.  I can't wait!  Now, off to tackle the giant pile of grading waiting for me before I head back to school on Monday morning!!

Sayounara Tokyo

We were scheduled to leave Tokyo on Thursday evening after nearly five days spent exploring the city.  For some reason, Daniel and I both found ourselves still exhausted (perhaps it was because we stayed up late the night before watching the first episodes of Chuck and writing postcards!) but somehow we managed to check out of the hotel right at 11am.  We left our luggage behind and went out for one last adventure in the city.  We decided to visit the Hama Rikyu Gardens in the Ginza area of the city and catch a waterbus for a cruise down the Sumida River.  A subway ride later we found ourselves in unfamiliar territory.  Thankfully, Daniel can successfully orient and read a map, a skill that I am still working on:).  We walked for about ten minutes before reaching the garden and took a nice stroll through what we would refer to as a very large park.  There are indeed flowers, but sadly it is still a bit early to see many things in bloom.  Regardless, there were some nice pictures to be taken...

It seems that the city is awakening after a long winter as there were LOTS of people out at the park just taking in the sunshine!  I can just imagine how beautiful the garden, and the city, will be when the cherry blossoms are in full bloom!  

To get back to our hotel, we took the waterbus to Asakusa, the same area we visited on Wednesday with the historic temple.  The ride was obviously very relaxing, because I think I snoozed through a great deal of it...I guess that just goes to show you how tired I was!  We did see a couple of bridges and some cool buildings before disembarking.

Back at Ueno Station, we made one final stop at our favorite haunt--Starbucks!  Daniel and I both enjoyed a mango blended cream frappuccino for the walk back to our hotel.  Mmmmmm.....I hope these make an appearance on the menu in the States this summer!

We grabbed our luggage and found a cab to take us back to the station where we caught the Skyliner directly back to the airport.  Check-in was a little anxiety provoking as it seemed we made two mistakes, 1) Our suitcase was overweight by 0.6 kilos and 2) we didn't bring Daniel's flight information for his return flight from Seoul to the States so the agent hassled us about Dan not having the correct re-entry permissions.  Despite this, we both made it through security and spent the next couple of hours enjoying our last taste of tempura and noodle soup (or McDonald's in Daniel's case--he wanted to test out the hypothesis that the burgers taste different in Japan) and browsing in the numerous duty free shops.  The two hour flight back to Seoul was uneventful and we caught a cab back to Yonhi Dong, arriving a little after midnight.  While I headed straight to bed, Daniel stayed up to watch more Chuck:).  And so ends "Daniel and Colleen Take Tokyo"!  We've already started scheming up ideas for next spring vacation--Thailand is at the top of the list!

Old and New Tokyo

Daniel decided that being a guest blogger was too much work to do while on vacation, so while he camps out elsewhere, I'm back to the computer.  We got a very late start today--both Daniel and I decided that we needed to sleep in and let our very sore leg muscles rest.  Gosh, we must be getting old!

We had planned on being up and out by 10:30, but fast forward 4 hours and we were finally on our way.  I'll take the credit for delaying our departure...I just could not coax myself to get up and ready to go!  Anyway, by 3:00pm we were muddling our way through Asakusa trying to find Sensoji Temple, the oldest in Tokyo.  We managed to make our way there, but Asakusa truly is old school as none of the signs on buildings or streets are in English (everywhere else we've been, signs are in both English and Japanese).  The hoards of people were our first clue that we were headed in the right direction.  As you can probably tell from our other posts from Tokyo, this city is PACKED full of people--natives and tourists.  We took a quick look at the temple, then headed down Nakamise Shopping Street to try and find some fun, authentic souvenirs.  What we encountered were TONS more people.  The street was packed to the point that all you could do was follow the flow.  We stopped for ice cream and were scolded multiple times for trying to walk and eat--I was barked at for stopping to pull out my water bottle.  Being resourceful humans, we hid out in an abandoned alley way so we could finish eating without getting into more trouble.  Here are a few pictures of the scene...

As chaos ensued around us, we walked up the other side of the shopping street back toward the temple.  Daniel found a few fun things to purchase along the way.  Approaching the temple was very cool--there are giant lanterns hanging from the main gate and the winds that had kicked up were making them sway.  It looked as if the sky was about to open up on us, but thankfully we made it inside one of the main temple buildings first.  This temple is truly incredible!

I took this shot with the panoramic feature on my camera.  Pretty cool, huh?

On our way back to the JR, Daniel was on the lookout for just the right lantern to bring home.  We came across this talented man who was painting customized lanterns and Daniel found one that was perfect!

One very long ride on the JR later, we made it to Harajuku for a bit more souvenir shopping and some people watching.  We headed straight for the Oriental Bazaar which has great items made in Japan.  The real gem of the trip, however, was Kiddy Land, a three level toy store packed full of all sorts of childhood goodness.

Harajuku is a colorful and lively area of Tokyo.  Teenagers into Manga and Anime hang out here, although we didn't see many as we walked about.  It's definitely a picture of New Tokyo.  Here's another interesting shop we spotted...

As the evening crept on, we decided to grab a bite to eat before making the half hour commute back to Ueno.  We stopped at a little cafe filled with Japanese folks and another foreigner or two and enjoyed paninis and sodas as we watched Harajuku bustling below.  Daniel really enjoyed watching the plethora of expensive cars roll by.  On our way back through Ueno station we did a bit of exploring and found so many amazing bakeries and cake shops.  Mmmmm....pastries!  We secured breakfast for tomorrow (blueberry and panda croissants) and walked back to the hotel.  Tonight we are packing our bags and getting ready for our last day in the city before we fly back to Seoul in the evening.  This is about how we looked at the end of our day today:).

Our Adventure to Tokyo Disney

Hey everybody, this is guest blogger Daniel James, for today's blog I get the opportunity to talk about the happiest place on Earth , Disneyland.  For starters, we had to take the fun subway to get to our destination . Luckily my sister and I are now world travelers and taking the subway is becoming easier and easier each time. After the numerous stops we finally had reached our destination Tokyo Disney.

Lets just say Tokyo Disney was nothing like I expected. Yes I have been to both Disneyland in California, and Disney World in Florida, but Tokyo Disney was a whole different ball game. After we purchased our tickets and finally got into the park, we decided to head to tomorrow land and ride some of the rides their.(of course my sister being the planner that she is had us stop and make a plan first)

 For starters, we decided to ride Star Tours, a classic ride with our favorite star wars friends R2D2 and C3PO.

Surprisingly, it took us almost one hour of wait time, to just get onto this ride. My sister and I are both convinced that it must have been spring break for students in Tokyo because everyone seemed to be there. After the four minute Star Tour ride we decided to take a quick pit stop and see how long the wait for space mountain would be. Lets just say that 210 minutes to wait for a ride didn't seem worth it for us so we kept on moving. 


Up next we decided to try our luck by looking to see how long the line to see Mickey in Toontown would be. Unfortunately Mickey, being as popular as he is, ended up being a no go either. We then decided to head over to both Fantasy land and Critter country hoping to ride either the haunted mansion or, splash mountain. With the lines being over two hours long we decided that was not going to happen. 

Finally, after facing defeat after defeat we decided to just suck it up and wait to ride the Pirates of the Caribbean. 

After about an hour of waiting we finally had the opportunity to ride and hear the old song "yo ho yo ho its a pirates life for me." 


Next up we decided to take a break from trying to get on rides and do a little shopping, unfortunately it seemed like everybody had the same idea. 



We then decided to go to the main castle in Disney and take some pictures. Along the way we saw some very impressive mosaics.

Finally we headed towards the front of the castle to get the classic shot. Here while waiting to find someone to take our pictures, we met some pretty funny young girls, who asked us to take their picture for them. In return they were more than happy to take our picture.

After checking the ride situation, once again and seeing that the wait times had not changed much, we finally decided to have dinner at a place called Hokusai, where i had the opportunity have trying tempura for the very first time. I must say I rather enjoyed the experience of trying out new food. 


After doing a little more shopping and checking the ride situation just in case, we finally ended our Disney experience by buying some pastries at the Sweetheart cafe.

Bye Bye Tokyo Disney