Valencia

Tags

Holy Week, Mediterranean, Palm Sunday, Semana Santa, Spain, Spanish, Valencia

My trip to Spain was mostly just so that my mother could finally meet her pen pal of 30+ years. I did hope I could get some touristy stuff in, but there was something I hadn’t counted on: the siesta (afternoon nap). I knew about it, I knew Spaniards still did it, but I totally neglected to consider how it would affect my stay. Many places do close for the afternoon break. Some days I went up on the roof of the building to sunbathe with the pen pal’s daughter. Other days, I got online while the siesta was going on.

Unfortunately, 2 days of my short one week stay were spent waiting at the airport. My flights were fine, but my mother had the bad luck of coming in on March 29th, which was the “huelga general,” meaning “general strike.” Oh boy.

Demonstrations didn’t get rowdy in Valencia (if they happened at all, I didn’t see any), but things were a mess in Madrid. I didn’t think we’d feel any effects since my mother’s flight was coming in from Paris, but alas, her flight was cancelled. The airline, Air Europa (with which I’m not terribly impressed), didn’t put the passengers up in hotels, or at least, not my mother, so she spent one whole day waiting in Charles de Gaulle. Meanwhile, as my mother didn’t have a cell phone and the phones in the airport kept swallowing her money and that of anyone else who tried to use them, we had no idea when she would come in. So we just kept going back to the airport to greet all three flights coming in from Paris per day. When my mother finally did make it to Valencia, her luggage was AWOL. Luckily it arrived the next day. The loss of time was even greater for her, since she was originally going to stay only 5 days.

Now that the negative aspects of the trip are out of the way, let’s talk about the good.

The Architecture

Mercat Central = Central Market.

First, there’s the architecture. There’s buildings that are hundreds of years old all over the place. It’s absolutely beautiful. There’s also some modern buildings in the City of Arts and Sciences (Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencas) that are interesting, but…not as nice in my opinion as the old architecture.

Since I want to show the detail in these buildings, I will upload only a few photos, but leave them at their original really large file size.

Here we have a photo from the side of the facade of the Mercat Central, or Central Market. Inside, there are many stalls selling fresh fruit, vegetables, and meats. Of course, there’s Spanish hams hanging all over the place too. I also saw eel and this really weird sea creature that looked like…it was like a dried bamboo shaft with this white thing squirming inside. It was so weird. Oh, “navajas” is what they were called (meaning “knives”) and it was a type of mollusk.

Another incredible building is the Lonja de la Seda, or Silk Exchange. It was one of the first buildings built in the Gothic style that was not a church. The scope of this building was too big for me to capture with my wee little camera, but the above linked Wikipedia article has a nice shot of the central hall, and here’s a shot of a candelabra there:

The dragons (and Big Brother) are watching you!

Valencia Cathedral is a huge complex whose many parts can easily be mistaken for separate buildings if you’re not paying attention. The Miguelete, or belfry, is visible from quite a distance, and in front of the Gate of the Apostles, there’s sometimes reenactments of the Tribunal de las Aguas, the Tribunal of the Waters. I didn’t get to see a reenactment, but I did get to see a woman in the traditional Valencia dress, complete with the intricate hair ornaments.

Chance sighting in front of the Gate of the Apostles.

Is this angle disorienting enough? ^o^

Going through a throng of tourists towards Valencia Cathedral, with El Miguelete, the belfry, standing in the center background.

The Climate & Atmosphere

As you may have guessed from the clear blue sky in these photos, Valencia has wonderful weather. It was cloudy on maybe 2 days the whole time I was there, no rain, and an average daytime temperature of 24C (75F). Considering this was late March-early April, you can imagine how hot the Mediterranean summer must get. Actually, according to my mother’s pen pal, that’s the reason for the siesta: it’s too hot in the afternoon to do anything!

Speaking of “Mediterranean,” I got to see the Mediterranean Sea a few times. Unfortunately, it was overcast all the times that we went in the daytime.

Waves breakdancing. *Rimshot*

Valencia has a famous festival that I missed by a few days. It is the festival of “fallas” (the “ll” being the same letter as in “tortilla” or “llama,” to give a pronunciation of ファヤス) or “ninot” as in the local language. It started out with people just gathering up old things they weren’t using anymore, and setting them on fire. Then, someone started arranging these things into shapes. Eventually, they became the gargantuan satirical structures they are today. But they still get set on fire on the last day of the nearly 3-week festivities.

This is all well and good, and I had wanted to see it. But one of the interesting things about traveling and staying with locals rather than in a hotel is that you also get to hear things that don’t get printed in tourism pamphlets. They told me that people go a little crazy with the fireworks, and that fireworks are regulated by law but that in practice everyone gets their hands on them. From what they were saying (due mostly to the fact that I didn’t learn Spanish academically I can’t say I understood 100% of what was being said) it sounded like people were even lighting M-80s. This is of course dangerous, and apparently, despite all the incidents of kids or young adults losing fingers or otherwise suffering bodily harm on account of playing with these miniature bombs, people continue to set these off during the festivities. Add to this the fact that there’s lots of drinking in the streets going on, and I suddenly didn’t want to see the fallas festival anymore. ^o^;

In any case, the leftover party atmosphere was nice. Some of the decorations were still up, and some people were still doing street BBQ.

My mother’s pen pal said that it was Romani who did these street barbeques.

I had missed fallas, and was about to miss the start of the next set of festivities, those for Semana Santa (Holy Week). There were tons of vendors outside of Valencia Cathedral on Palm Sunday selling the whitened palm fronds, many twisted into decorative shapes. Many churches in the area also have special processions. The faithful put on historical costumes and parade around the street with various floats. The one that I saw had a float with Jesus on it, and in front of the float walked a man dressed as Jesus.

Now, for me, the most striking thing about this procession was the costumes some of the men were wearing…

?!?!

These costumes, called “capirote,” of course predate the Ku Klux Klan’s sheets by centuries. Maybe this is even where the Klan stole the idea from? In any case, it was a bit startling at first, but I know that those connotations are absent from the minds of the people in and watching the parade. I had had the same sort of reaction the first time I saw my students in Japan doing the Roman salute to the school principal during Sports Day. Despite knowing in advance that that would happen, it can still be a bit jarring to see when you’ve grown up with a different set of connotations.

Am I terrible for hearing GACKT screaming “Jeeesuuuuus!!!” in my mind when they walked by?

The whole time I was there, the orange trees in the street were in bloom and covering the city in a soft fragrance. While the oranges of these trees are sour (so I was told), the scent of the orange blossom is sweet.

See the oranges in the trees? ^o^

The Food

Despite having lived in Japan for nearly 3 years now, I still think it’s kinda weird to photograph my food, and felt too self-conscious about it to actually do it around my mother’s pen pal and her family. I regret this now, especially that I didn’t photograph the paella the pen pal made for me my first day there. Well, Wikipedia’s article on paella has some good pics.

I was a bit surprised that the paella the pen pal made included rabbit. I had never had rabbit before. It tasted like liver to me, which surprised me. Isn’t everything supposed to taste like chicken? Ahaha…

I was also a bit surprised by the daily buying of baguettes. Of course, to them it’s just pan (bread). I know that corn or flour tortillas are a food of the indigenous people of what later became Latin America, so I didn’t expect to see them in Spain as the main carb consumed with each meal; I had assumed that carb would be rice. But it’s bread. Baguettes. Bought daily fresh from the supermarket, and placed on the table without a plate under it, or even in the cutlery drawer without a bag. I’d seen this handling of bread in movies, and in the back of my mind it gave me a slight discomfort. Of course, everything’s clean so there’s really nothing to worry about.

I do have one photo of some local food. I met the sole JET participant from Spain last year at the seminar for the Linguistics and Pedagogy course. When I told her I would be visiting her country, namely Valencia, she told me to make sure I had an “horchata con fartón.” I knew what horchata was as it’s common in Latin America as well, but I’d never heard of fartón. Turns out it’s a type of sweet bread usually eaten with horchata. Churros, I was told, are for eating with hot chocolate.

Deeeeelicious!

As for the horchata itself, it turned out to be different from what I was used to. Horchata, in my mind, was a drink made from rice. But it turns out it can be made with something else as the main ingredient. In Valencia, that ingredient is chufas.

The tubers of Cyperus esculentus, from which Valencian horchata is made.

My second night in Spain, I actually felt a bit nauseated, because living in Japan had changed my eating habits. I wasn’t a big oil user to begin with, and what oil I did consume back home had usually been olive oil. In Japan, olive oil is very expensive, so I largely make do without. But in Spain, there’s oil on everything at every meal time. I didn’t think this would be a problem, since I’d consumed olive oil many times before. But thinking back I had felt the same discomfort when I had gone to the States after my first 7 months in Japan. So I figured my stomach just needed some time to reacquaint itself with oil, and indeed, that was all it was.

The Language

Anyone who knows Spanish may have wondered why I wrote that the Central Market was the “Mercat Central” instead of the “Mercado Central.” That’s because when people of the Americas say “Spanish,” they’re actually referring to “castellano,” the language of Castille. “Spanish,” or “español” to say it in castellano, consists of several languages spoken by the people of Spain, which also includes valenciano (also known as catalan). To me, Valencian sounds and looks like a mixture of Spanish and French. Indeed, if I hadn’t studied French, I would not have been able to understand things written in Valencian. Signs in public places tended to be written in both Valencian and Castilian, so I didn’t really have a problem. It was only in the Museum of Fallas that there was lots of untranslated Valencian. But I ain’t gonna say that I didn’t feel like a G for being able to figure out that “hui” was Valencian for “today” on the basis that “today” in French is “aujourd-hui.”

I’m a language ballah!

XD *Ahem…* (Well, it also helped that “ayer” was in the same title, meaning “yesterday.”)

The Journey Home

The day before I was to set off on the long voyage back to Fukuoka, we heard news that Air France’s baggage handlers were going on strike.

Good grief!

Luckily, the strike ended a few hours before my flight to Paris, so I was able to escape without feeling the effects of the strike in my own flights. (My mother likewise got home on schedule the next day.)

In Valencia’s airport I was surprised to find turrón, a sweet dessert usually eaten around Christmas. But it’s considerate to have it available year-round at the airport, for those not fortunate enough to visit in the Christmas season. The one I bought was made from almonds. I bought two boxes: one for sharing, and one for not sharing. XD

In the Paris airport I indulged in a pack of macaroons from La Maison du Chocolat (one pack for me, and one pack for English Club). Since I was in one of the world’s fashion capitals I thought of going into the designer shops, but even with a strong yen working in my favor I figured I wouldn’t get far in there. >o<; In Seoul I spent the long layover likewise walking about the shops and indulged in a beautiful mother-of-pearl jewelry box.

The main reason I wanted to unpack: to get at that turrón! XD

I’d like to go back to Spain one day. I had wanted to go to Madrid at least as a day trip, but what with the general strike, it just wasn’t possible.

Well, that was a little bit about my first trip to Europe! It would’ve been a different experience for me had I gone from the States, but things were colored in unexpected ways by the fact that I was going not as an American, but as an American who lives in Japan.

Culture as Excuse

And with that festive title,

HAPPY NEW YEAR! *Confetti* あけましておめでとうございま〜す！

Well, I got back to Japan on the night of Sunday the 7th. My vacation felt way too short. There were so many things I wanted to pick up or photograph to use in future classes, and I just didn’t get around to it. Didn’t get my hair cut either. But, I did get to see friends and family, eat pizza, tacos, and pastel de tres leches. And choco-flan. And–

lemme stop.

^o^; It was bad enough I was smelling people’s bentou as tacos al pastor. I need to get my mind back on my favorite Japanese food.

Tonkotsu ramen. Yudofu. Beni-imo flavored anything. Matcha Milk. Matcha Ice Cream.  Matcha Cheesecake Set.

From Kyo Hayashiya in JR Hakata City.

*Slaps self back to reality*

So, what am I thinking about in the New Year other than green tea?

Actually, this has been on my mind for a while. What made me ponder it again was something that happened with some friends who were visiting me at home. We had ordered pizza so I had gone to the kitchen to make sure we had enough plates and such. Meanwhile, my brother and 4 friends had started playing Tekken Tag Tournament. When I got back, I sat down. The loser of each round would pass the controller. It seemed like they had decided a play order, so I figured I’d just sit back and join in at the end of the rotation. But no one passed the controller to me, and since I knew I wouldn’t be able to do much anyway, I just sat back and watched and talked. Eventually, someone realized I wasn’t playing and asked me if I wanted to. I said that I could, and when someone asked me, “Why didn’t you say anything?” I said, “No one passed me the controller.” The response to that?

“You’re so Asian!!!”

@_@

Okay, so the whole “Asians are submissive” stereotype is at play here, even though I think it’s odd for someone to think that Asians would be like that among friends in an environment as familiar as someone’s house. What struck me on a personal level was how a behavior I’ve ALWAYS had — staying in the background in social situations — was suddenly perceived as the result of my living in Japan. I can’t even say I’m a wallflower, cuz I wouldn’t even go to the dance! But no one said I was Asian in high school.

This reminded me of how I was never, ever, eeeeeever told that I spoke English with an accent until I went to college, where for the first time the majority of my classmates were white, and only after they found out I hadn’t been born in the States.

I think people accept things as simple personality quirks until they think they have something to blame it on.

From the standpoint of the individual whose traits are in question, I do think culture can be and is often used as a shield for fear, or as a Get Out of Jail Free card. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but I seriously hope that my students aren’t really suffering from a crippling shyness that prevents them from speaking out in class (as teachers would have me believe) and that they’re just using the national excuse not to speak.

Another example: I hate going to parties, but I don’t mind hosting them. Given my background in AmeriCorps, I could tell you that it’s because I love my fellow man so much, nothing gives me greater pleasure than to serve. 思いやりの心 and all that. But it’d be a big fat lie. The simple fact is, once a social gathering becomes something more than 2 people talking, I feel immense pressure to have to be entertaining. To exude charisma, animal magnetism, which I have none of. But if I’m the hostess, I can let the guests entertain themselves, while I hustle about getting food and drink, making sure everyone is comfortable, without actually having to hold a conversation, without having to be ignored or interrupted mid-sentence (something I hate, hate, hate, hate, haaaaaaate). In short, it’s easier to fulfill the role of Caring Hostess than of Personable Human Being. Well, if only I were judged as a Human Being, which would mean as a Man, it would be easier. But that’s a rant for another day.

Hm, before my train of thought becomes even more difficult to follow, I’ma just stop. >o<; I’ll try to be more Happy Fun Times in the next post. Maybe. Ahahaha…

For kicks, here’s a photo I took early Christmas Eve morning. (And now I’ve got Cyndi Lauper in my head.)

Forgot to resize the photo before uploading. Ahhhh...don't feel like it now. >o<;

☆

よいお年を!

It’s 4 o’clock in the morning on December 31st, Detroit time. I’m not jet lagged, I think it was the green tea from Osushi in Canton that kept me awake. That, and watching disc 1 of 4 of La Antorcha Encendida in one sitting with my mother and brother.

Why do they always make the dark haired sister the hypocrite slut? Sheez.

Ahem, anyway, I came home for Christmas a little over a week ago. I’ve been enjoying relaxing, shopping, seeing friends and family, and lazying around with the cats and my unicorn Pillow Pets. ^o^; I wanted to make a sort of “look back” at 2011 post, but I don’t think I have enough witty things to say for such a task. Maybe later I’ll just post a bunch of random pictures.

Well, have a Happy New Year, O Reader! よいお年を!

I’ll Tell You About Being Home (From a Room in Shiga-ken)

This week, I’m at the 研修会 (workshop, training) for the Japanese Linguistics and Pedagogy Course.  It’s being held in Shiga-ken.  But since I write posts chronologically, I won’t say more about that yet.

Well, I figured not everyone who lands on this blog is from Detroit, and those who are might not necessarily be from Southwest Detroit, so my trip home should get at least a bit of attention on this blog, as do my (few) trips to other places.  Plus, there was one very interesting thing I found out about.  More on that later.

On the plane ride to the States, I ended up in a seat whose headphone jack didn’t work.  So I literally just watched the movies.  I dozed through some, and woke up in time to see…who else but Zac Efron!  What is it with trans-Pacific flights and Zac Efron movies?!  Last time it was 17 Again, this time it was Charlie St. Cloud. Also, I saw the show Glee for the first time, and was not impressed. Sorry, Glee fans.

During my 3 weeks in the 313, at first I just slept.  Then I cleaned.  A lot.  Then I ate, after that I shopped and went to the dentist.  Mixed in among this latter phase, I got to catch up with some friends and teachers.  Not with everyone I had hoped to see, but what’s to be done?  If long distance relationships don’t usually work out, it isn’t all that surprising that friendships fade across oceans as well.

Well now, how about some 写真？

He asked for it...

Ah, the cats back home.

There was still snow on the ground when I arrived in mid-December, but, as usual, the cats cried and cried to be let out.  Especially the above furball.  So I grabbed him and tossed him in the snow.  He thought about his predicament for a few seconds, then casually walked back to dry ground.

"Night Street with a Dusting of Snow"

I really don’t care much for trying to go all out to get photos, but the times I do wish I had a higher-end camera are when interesting scenes appear at night.  Maybe it’s because I’m a night person that I enjoy such views, or maybe it’s just because night scenes don’t seem to be as popular as, say, photos of cherry blossoms or Michigan Central Station (to give examples of photography subjects that have been mercilessly run into the ground).

Finally! The Gateway Project is complete!

Most of the time I was in Detroit though, it was unseasonably warm and there was no snow.  Unfortunately, the day I got a chance to finally see the completed Bagley Pedestrian Bridge, it was really dreary. But I was glad to no longer have to go around down Vernor to get to La Gloria and Lupita’s.

Rosca de reyes: cousin of the much maligned fruit cake.

January 6th is Epiphany, or Three Kings’ Day, or the 12th Day of Christmas.  In some (if not all) Latin American countries, it’s common to eat a rosca de reyes, or kings’ cake, on this day.  Somewhere inside the cake, there’s a plastic Baby Jesús.  Whoever gets the baby has to buy the cake the next year.  Well, that’s what my mother told me, but for some reason, the kings’ cakes we’ve gotten from both the local bakery and the supermarket have more than one baby in them, and actually, they’re not hidden at all; they’re always in the four “compass points” of the cake.

Now, on the sixth, I got more than just a plastic baby in the mouth.  In the course of catching up with a friend, it got dark outside.  I didn’t want to take the bus back, but instead of me calling a taxi, my friend said that since her mother and aunt were about to go to her place, why not see if they could give me a ride?  So she set it up for me, and that’s what we did.  While her mother was asking me various things about Japan, I at one point mentioned Fukuoka specifically, and the aunt yelled out, “FUKUOKA!!!”  I didn’t know what that was about, and just ascribed it to it sounding similar to Spanish and therefore funny or something like that.  Then the aunt says, “I love that song, ‘Bachata en Fukuoka.'”  I was like, “Eh?! There’s such a song?!”  She had it on her phone, so she hooked it up to the van’s speakers and played it for me.  I was so surprised!

Turns out, this song was a big hit.  I tried to embed the video, but EMI doesn’t want people doing that, so here’s an old-fashioned link to it on YouTube.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t actually shot in Fukuoka (it’s L.A.), but it does mention Momochi Beach.  I’d like to translate it to Japanese.  I’ve already started, and once I finish, I’ll give it its own post (with a translation to English as well).

And so, on January 7th I packed my bags, didn’t sleep, posted the post right before this one, and then began the 24 hour journey back to Fukuoka.  Fortunately, on the flight back my headphone jack worked.  Charlie St. Cloud came on again, but I’d already seen it and understood it, so I played Dissidia instead.  (Plane rides seem to be the only time I play that game.  ^_^;)  I did watch The Social Network and Going the Distance.  I thought the former was interesting, the latter was kinda meh.

My good ol’ apartment welcomed me with a flooded toilet room.  Yay, more leaks!  ^_^;  But, I was also welcomed by some nengajou, which was nice, and, surprisingly, some CDs that the co-worker of a friend had said he’d send a good while ago that I was no longer expecting!

I didn’t have much time to rest.  I arrived in Japan on the 9th, the 10th was a national holiday.  Then it was back to work for four days, rest for two, catch up with the Fukuoka peeps, and get up dark and early in the morning to catch the shinkansen up to Kyouto, then the train to Shiga.

次回！Eli Fails Miserably at Teaching Japanese to JETs Pretending to be American Students who Don’t Know Japanese!

Back to the Sky

Tags

Detroit

Happy New Year, O Reader!

Well, I said I’d post from the other side of the world, but I didn’t really have time to.  Maybe once I’m back in Japan I’ll write about my time home.

In the meantime, enjoy this new sculpture of a brick cat!  I don’t know who did it, and neither did my family, but there it is, chillin’ next to the freeway. EDIT (February 7, 2011): I found out that the sculpture is entitled “Monumental Kitty” and was made by Detroiter Jerome Ferretti.  Read an article about it on Roadside America.

Nyaaaa?

Well, I had wanted to go to bed at 4AM, but that didn’t happen.  I’ve just a few more things to get straightened out before I can sleep knowing everything’s packed and ready to go.  Maybe I can get 2 more hours of sleep in my wonderful bed. T_T

There and Back Again (Sans Hobbits)

Also, sans dragons.

I apologize to everyone who thought Bilbo Baggins had started blogging.

Anyway, I went to the States, and I’m back in Japan again.  Have been for…almost two weeks.  Anticlimactically, I did not experience re-entry culture shock in the States. It felt like I’d never left.  How to interpret that, I don’t quite know.  My theory is that I felt that way because time has gone by so fast.  By the third or so day in the States, Fukuoka started feeling unreal, despite the fact that I was giving my friends and family mentaikou flavored chips, and that I still had my phone on, so I was getting SoftBank’s Otousan-kuji messages and seeing emails about the other JETs in my area doing hanami (flower viewing).  The first seven months here passed in the blink of an eye.

It was great to go home though.  It was refreshing, mostly because due to my particular living arrangements here in Japan, I feel constrained.  Living in the juutaku is like living in rented housing anywhere: you’re never quite free to move about as you please.  If you’re up at 2AM (which I often am) you might be making noise for the neighbors.  If you like to exercise in your room, you might be disturbing the downstairs neighbors when you jump around.  And while I never felt like I was too tall for my apartment here, in my mother’s house in the States I realized that yes, it is nice not to accidentally hit your light fixtures when you stretch.  Again, these are things that have more to do with the fact that in the States I live in a single-family home, whereas here I live in outdated public housing, than they do with being in Japan versus in the States. Well, it’s not just that it’s old, it’s that it’s uncared for because this apartment has been occupied by a JET for at least the past 15 years. Read: by someone who knew they weren’t gonna be here forever so they did less than their best to keep the place nice.

Anyway, while home I bought clothing, shoes, and Final Fantasy XIII! Though I haven’t played it yet because I still don’t have a PS3 and HDTV.  But I plan on spending Golden Week with it! I’ll have the hardware by then, hopefully!  I also made sure to watch High School Musical 2, so I can better help my English Course students prepare for 英語劇 (eigo geki, “English play”). It wasn’t as completely asinine as I thought it would be.

Now I will make this post have a Michigan feel with a picture of the Uniroyal Tire, taken on the way to the airport the day I came back to Japan.

I liked it better when it had the nail in it.

Speaking of movies, on the plane to the States I saw The Blind Side (good) and New Moon (…). They also played The Soloist, which I had tried to watch on the plane ride to Japan back in August, but I kept going into half-asleep mode. (I can’t sleep sitting up.)  I was dozing this time too and gave up halfway through.  Then they played a bunch of sitcoms.  On the plane ride back to Japan, they played The Blind Side and New Moon again, as well as 17 Again and an episode of How the Earth Was Made.  I was losing too much on Final Fantasy Dissidia while New Moon was playing, so I gave up on the game and for the hell of it I watched the movie with the Japanese dubbing.  Not that that made it any better.  Seriously though, I don’t get it.  This movie is about a girl who values herself so little she’ll do suicidal things just to see an apparition of the vampire who dumped her! What the fugu?

And so, I landed in Narita with 17 Again just having finished.  It was funny to see Zac Efron in that movie after watching High School Musical because the character from 17 Again was basically the same as his character from HSM, just that with 10 times the attitude and less dancing.

In Narita’s domestic terminal I got random gaijin checked.  As I was walking down a hallway, a cop came up to me, asked me if I spoke Japanese, then if I was Japanese (well, he said　「日本の方ですか。」which I assume can be taken as “Japanese person” not “person who is in some way involved with Japan,” but maybe it does mean the latter?), then told me that because security was strict, they were checking people.  He copied the info from my Foreigner Registration Card unto a plain sheet of paper and took down my phone number.  He ended the strange interview with 「勉強がんばってください」(“please do your best in your studies.”) Ummmm, okay.  That was all kinda weird.  Despite how cordial he was about everything.  If there had been a checkpoint, okay, but…I guess I’m just a shady-lookin’ individual.

The funniest thing about it was that the cop looked like the well-fed, grown man version of one of my students, the class clown at that!  So as soon as the cop was out of my sight, in my memory he was replaced with that student! >o<

And that segues nicely into what will be the next post. 次回！イ君 Lays Down the Law!

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Yes, I thought that was rather funny. Ohdearlord I need to go to bed.

36 Hours in Seoul

Tags

Distant Worlds, Final Fantasy, Seoul

Three weeks ago, I hopped on a plane headed for Seoul.  My main objective: to see Distant Worlds: Music from Final Fantasy. If I didn’t live within range of Kim Jong-Il’s missiles so close to Korea, I wouldn’t have gone through the trouble of flying internationally for what amounted to two and a half hours of geeking out. But I live 20 minutes from the airport, and Seoul’s just an hour and 20 minutes away so…yeah.  Besides, the piece “J-E-N-O-V-A” had just been added to the repertoire, so how could I miss out? ^o^;

I left Fukuoka Friday night. By the time I got into Incheon International Airport, it was around 10:30PM.  I saw the signs in Korean, English, Japanese, and Chinese pointing towards the airport railway that I could use to get to the city after transferring to the subway but…honestly I have a large fear of getting lost. The taxi stand was right in front of me too, so I gave in to fear and laziness and took one.  According to the guidebook I’d bought (which, granted, was two years old, but I didn’t think it could be too off) a taxi from the airport to downtown should run around 45 USD. But man, did I ever get the foreigner shaft! The taxi had a sign that said “highway toll not included.” By the time we pulled up to the hotel, the meter read 87,000 won (around 75 USD). Then the guy points to the sign and gives me a bill for 120,000 won (about 105 USD)! Whaaaa?!? A $30 highway toll?! I don’t know, but that seems a bit much to me.

Anyway, I checked into the two-star Friend Hotel around midnight.   The room had heated floors, which was really nice.  For the first time, I didn’t take my own shampoo and conditioner, because even cheap hotels always had some, but not this one! Later I noticed small holes in the sheets and odd stains that looked like baked-in dirt on one of the towels. It really wasn’t all that big a deal, but I think if I ever go to Seoul again I’ll go for a three-star hotel. There was a map in the dresser that turned out to be very convenient.

I had picked that hotel not only because it was cheap, but because it was the closest one to the concert venue, the Seoul Arts Center. Saturday morning I got up at 8AM to be able to get to the box office right when it opened, in hopes of getting a VIP ticket—meaning, a chance to meet composer Nobuo Uematsu and conductor Arnie Roth!

On the way there, I walked by this cool overpass.

Unfortunately, VIP tickets were already sold out. T_T But since I’d gone willing to get one of those, I went for the next best thing: a box seat. At 77,000 won (67 USD) it’s the cheapest box seat I will probably ever get.  Well, it was the first time I’d sat in a box seat!

I had about 5 hours before show time, so I went to the palace all the tourists go to: Gyeonbokgung. At this point I needed to get on the subway. As everyone had told me, Seoul’s subway system is excellent.  It lives up to the hype.  There were signs in English, and the ticket dispensers also had full English.

I already put many of my favorite photos from the palace in the video in the post below this one, so I’ll add different photos here.

This lies past the second threshold.

So colorful!

These next two sculptures are across from each other, lining a small waterway. The waterway was dry, there was only a small bit of snow in it.  While I labeled these sculptures as “gargoyles,” I’m not sure that’s exactly what they are.

When it was getting close to show time, I made a quick tour of nearby Samcheondong-gil, which, according to my guidebook, was supposed to be a lesser known but just as good “tourist alley” like Insadong-gil.  Don’t know if things changed that much since the book was published, but I didn’t see what the big deal was.  Well, I didn’t go down any side streets.

As I was walking down Samcheongdong-gil, I saw what I thought was a store selling action figures.  I’ve a friend who likes comic books, so I thought I’d go in and see if they had anything interesting.  When I walked in, I saw that it was wall-to-wall toys, some shelves replete with multiple copies of the same figure outside of its packaging.  The woman at the register said something to me in Korean, I said I didn’t understand, and she said “Ticket.” I said, “Do I need a ticket?” She said, “Yes.” So I left.  I thought, maybe it’s a special collectibles store where you need an appointment or something to see the merchandise.

Then, I rushed back to the Seoul Arts Center and got there just in time.  It turned out I was sitting on the same side as Nobuo Uematsu!  So, I was able to see him during the whole concert.  Well, I couldn’t see him when he went up into the choir to sing along during “One-Winged Angel,” all I could see was his bright orange do-ragged head bobbing next to the far singers of the choir. Overall, the concert was good. Not as good as it would’ve been had it been a more experienced orchestra, but it was their first night performing those pieces, and for me, still well worth the trip. The new arrangement of “J-E-N-O-V-A” was excellent! When the CD Distant Worlds 2 comes out later this year, I will be sure to get it! It’s going to have all the pieces that have been added to the concert tour since the first Distant Worlds album was released.

After the concert, I stopped at a conbini to pick up a sandwich.  Breakfast had been a bulgogi sandwich and chai latté from Starbucks.  Partly from lack of time, and partly from fear of running out of money since that taxi ride from the airport took out 105 USD from the start, I didn’t really eat meals while in Korea. ^^; I rested up at the hotel, then set out for Insadong-gil to buy omiyage.

I had barely started walking up Insadong-gil when I came across another toy store.  I went in, and was taking in the cluttered scene, when the guy at the register said, “Excuse me, excuse me, this is toy museum.  Ticket is one thousand won.” I was thinking, huh? This is a museum? But, one thousand won being just one dollar, I paid the fee.  The “toy museum” consisted of random toys, not special editions or anything, some broken, some covered in layers of dust, crammed ungracefully into every corner on old shelves and dirty showcases.  The guy had said photography was okay, so I realized what a shady operation it was.  You get people to pay a dollar to walk around and look at old toys that are of no particular value, and have a few toy-related things for sale. There were people who were getting a kick out of seeing all the toys, but most of the time I was just like, “what is this bullshit?” I got a small gift for one friend, so it wasn’t a complete waste of time.

Anyway, back to looking for omiyage for the school…

Several JETs had told me that Japanese love Korean seaweed.  They told me not to bother with expensive gift boxes and just go to a supermarket and buy a bunch of the stuff.  Unfortunately, given my lack of time, I didn’t hunt for a supermarket.  The conbini I’d gone into earlier didn’t have any.  So, when I came across a bakery that had rice cakes and other Korean sweets in gift boxes, I just bought all my omiyage for the school at once: a box for kouchou-sensei, boxes of half that value for the two kyoutou-sensei, and a large box for all the teachers.  The boxes were pink and gold, which I didn’t really think about.  When I got back to Japan and gave them to the kyoutous though, they were like, “oooh, it looks like boxes of Valentine’s Day chocolate, hahaha! *wink wink*” I said, “Oh, it’s just that those are the store’s colors,” but in my mind I was like, “okay guys, okay, think what you want.” ^_^;;;

I did end up coming across a 7-Eleven that had seaweed, but as it didn’t come in nice packages (it wasn’t meant to be omiyage, afterall) I just bought a few that I could give to the neighborhood people that are nice to me, but that I don’t really “owe” anything to, such as the Takoyaki Lady.  Perhaps I would’ve been able to find nice gift boxes of Korean seaweed at the airport shops, but I didn’t want to risk having to buy omiyage at the last minute.  Which was a good thing, because…

The day of my flight back to Japan, Sunday, I knew I didn’t have enough money to take a cab, but I didn’t know how long it would take to get there by train.  According to the guidebook, the airport and downtown Seoul were about an hour apart by airport railway and city subway.  I knew I wasn’t staying in downtown Seoul, but I wasn’t that far away, so I estimated it would take an hour and a half and checked out of the hotel accordingly.  The night before, I had looked at what trains I’d need to take in my handy-dandy guidebook’s subway system map.  Me being paranoid as I am, normally, I would’ve quadruple-checked the route in the guidebook, then double-checked it again on the map in the station proper.  But sometimes, unfortunately, I’ll think to myself, “I should stop being so paranoid” and don’t check things the usual 10 million times.  *sigh*

The problem was that my guidebook’s map of the subway system, given that the book wasn’t in full-color, was in 4 shades of orange and 4 shades of grey.  It was a bit difficult to keep the lines separate as it was, so, I didn’t see the short transfer route, and since I unfortunately decided that morning not to be paranoid and didn’t look at the map in the station, I took a route that added 30 minutes of travel time because I had to double back.  I realized this while on the subway train, looking up at the full-color system map over one of the doors. I wonder if the other riders heard my mental facepalming?

After the city subway, I had to transfer to an AREX train.  I thought AREX was only for the airports, so I thought it would be fine.  But no, AREX trains stop at the airports, but also make stops in the boondocks by the airports.  I was so, SO agitated on that train! I kept screaming in my head, “GO FASTER!!” I nearly lost it when I saw that the cars were passing us!

By the time we reached Incheon Airport, I had about 40 minutes before my flight left.  When I checked in, I checked one bag.  The lady told me, “please wait 5 minutes for a bag check,” and pointed to a few rows of chairs.  I was confused, because there was no security checkpoint there.  I thought, maybe someone’s going to come?  So I sit there, worried about missing my flight, and no one came.  I asked a nearby Korean Air guy, and figure out that the lady meant, “please wait 5 minutes while we check your bag, and we’re not gonna tell you anything unless there’s something shady about your luggage, otherwise you can just leave after you’ve sat there for 5 minutes.” Not that I’m a globe-trotter, but sheesh! I’d never been to an airport with that procedure.  Luckily, the rest of the process of going through security was a lot less of a hassle than in American airports, so I went through quickly and got to the gate just 8 minutes after the flight had started boarding. What a close call! So, it was a really good thing that I had already bought the omiyage!

Well, that’s it! My 36 hours in Seoul! ^o^

Seoul Photo Video

I’m writing a post about my trip to Seoul two weeks ago, but as that takes longer than slapping one of these vids together in iMovie, in the meantime, enjoy this photo vid! Well, there are two actual video clips in it.