Mount Fuji Ghost Town

I spent a weekend in the woods near Mount Fuji because we were quarantined from Nihon University for a week because of swine flu.

This is a view from a train station in Hanoke. This could go into Mom’s collection of weird signs.

Close-up

One of several modes of transportation we took into the mountains.

Going up

Looking back

Sulfer….. imagine how awesome this smelled..

You can see the smoke coming off the mountains because of the heat from underneath the rocks

Trees (duh!)

More trees

Arriving to our final desination

Abandoned boats. Nobody has been here in a long time it seemed.

Swan boats are cute

We took these ferries to the other side of the lake where more people were…

Abandoned swans

Creepy

Our professor and the rest of the kids and I went out here at night.  A sight I will never forget.

More abandoned boat action. Actually, this town just isn’t in season. Later in the summer months, people are allowed to climb Mount Fuji, and this area is more lively.. I think.

I don’t think you understand. NOBODY WAS HERE.

Hot Spring

I love this…

A photo from the Pirate Ship

A human!!!

On the other side of the lake we found more people.

Can you see Mount Fuji faintly in the background?

The town we visited

I bought some Black Sesame Seed ice cream. TASTY

Cedar walk. These cedar trees were planted to provide shade for people when the only mode of transportation between Tokyo and Osaka was walking.

A shrine off the water

The lake is getting full.. It’s rain season in Japan.

Mount Fuji is behind me, but you can’t see it. Take my word for it.

Back on the ship.

Awesome cabins that we stayed in

MT FUJI (barely)

We are preparing Japanese bbq.

My cool bunkbed

Mt Fuji from the way home!

Tokyo at Night, Tokyo in the Bathroom.

This is us and all the kids from Nihon University. They had a welcoming party for us at the University, but we had to leave, so we went to Shibuya until midnight.

Weird clothes at Starbucks.. Had to take a picture.

The view from Starbucks.

I liked the colors. Nathalie (my roommate) and I went on a walk in Shibuya and found ourselves in Harajuku an hour later.

Shibuya at nighttime..

This is our group going to a club in downtown Tokyo. NO THANKS!

This is Sam, Robert (FSU graduate from 2003 who did our trip and ended up moving to Tokyo– he’s been showing us around. Nice guy.), Brett, and Rayvon. All the bars were packed or too small to fit our group, so we drank a beer in a parking lot. (It’s legal!)

All dressed up Tokyo-style. They all went to a club, I got in for free and then left about 4 seconds later. It wasn’t fun.

People.

Probably the only palm trees in Tokyo. I miss FL!

This was the entrance to Club Atom.. Which is a very well known club in Tokyo. I left just after walking through here…

I took a picture of everyone…

HUGE Harajuku-style hair.. Pictures in the bathroom are normally frowned upon, but I had to do it!

This is Samantha, Robert, and Takanori. We went to a British Pub instead of going to Club Atom. We missed the last train home from the city though, so we stayed out until 5 am, when the trains started to run again.

Samantha and I.. getting tired!!!

After we got off our exit at 5am. It’s amazing how bright it is in Japan at 5am!!

The flowers near our apartment are out of this world!!!

Chinese-lantern-esque flowers near our apartment.

We visited the TOTO Toilet showroom. Only the most innovative toilets in the world!

Hanging out in a TOTO shower

TOTO kitchen

Beautiful TOTO toilet.

Walking with the group in Tokyo

The girls in Shinjuku….  after TOTO

That park is where the wedding photos (in my previous post) are from…

There was a coloring contest to promote brushing your teeth. I thought this one was cuuuute!

Shinjuku!

TOKYO Pictures

DISCLAIMER TO GRANDPARENTS: just skip over some of my red light district pictures please.

Japan

I made it to Tokyo on May 28th! That means I’ve been here for a couple of days, and boy is it different from Korea! Here are some pictures of what I’ve done/seen so far.

On the way to my apartment, we pass by a motorcycle mechanic. He’s got maybe 20 Suzuki, Honda, and Kawasaki vintage motorcycles laying around. Today I saw him with his shop open, I wanted to sit there and stare at all those bikes all day!

This is a picture of me once we finally made it to our apartments. Our rooms don’t have any furniture, we do the whole sleeping on mats thing. It’s very comfortable though. Anyway, we got to Tokyo in the rainy season. So it’s been raining for 3 days! Which is normally fine, until I realized that we had to walk our luggage about a mile in the rain from the subway station. Cramming our luggage into a crowded Tokyo subway was its own separate challenge! Either way,  we made it without too many issues! On the fight, I sat next to a breakdancing crew. My friend Satrak told me later that they’re one of the best breakdancing crews in the world. Why didn’t I take a picture? Because that would have been weird! Duh!

These characters mean “circular moving shushi” …this is what I’m having tattooed to my face so I always know where to go in order to get some awesome food.

I had my first conveyor belt sushi! SO GOOD! SO CHEAP! Each plate is about 120 yen, or 1.20 USD. The first plate is a “sweet sushi pocket” that’s got rice inside, the second is cucumber and wasabi roll, and the last is a pickled raddish roll. Tastttyyyyy… also, here the’ve got spickets of hot water every 1.5 feet along the bar, which means unlimited green tea. One reason that Japan is better than Korea. In Korea they give you thimbles of water with your super spicy dinner, but here, the food is bland and the tea is neverending (and free)!

This is my roommate, Nathalie, my professor’s wife, Mari, and I.

Next we headed to the electronics district to get some memory cards and some other random stuff people needed.

It stopped raining for a little bit and we headed to the Harajuku district which is famous for it’s fettish shops, eccentric clothing on the women, etc, etc. Here, I am posing in front of an entrance to a shrine just in the outskirts of Harajuku.

Here’s a picture of some loser guys taking pictures with the girls. A LOT of girls are dressed like this or even crazier. I passed by quite a few girls that were dressed like Little Bo Peep.

Once in the shrine, we were told to move out of the way because a wedding processional was on it’s way. Little did we know, weddings here happen about every 20 minutes like clockwork! Like a Las Vegas wedding chapel, only a little more classy. Here’s the newly married bride and groom. My next pictures show how they stack everyone up for photo-ops.

Then we left. We had to cross the street and I took some pictures of the taxis zooming around.

Afterwards, we left to head to Shibuya, which is like the Times Square of Tokyo. Millions of people are roaming around in this area.

Here, you can see how many people are waiting to cross the street. Insane!

So that’s a brief re-cap of what I’ve done so far! More pictures to come. Miss you all!

The day we visit North Korea/DMZ is the same day they declare war on South Korea.

(This is us with a stationary South Korean soldier while officially in North Korea. Not sure why we’re smiling because at the same time, North Korea was declaring war on South Korea. Tourists!)

Tensions are high at the 38th parallel. But I made it back alive and with no problems. This was the best trip I’ve ever taken.

We got to the Lotte Hotel in Seoul at 9:00am to meet with our tour guides and to get our passports checked. Americans are allowed to make a reservation to visit the DMZ as long as their passports are valid, however, south koreans must wait months in order to be formally investigated and evaluated before they’re allowed to see it.

MOVING ON…. our first stop is  to the museum where they talk about South Korea’s relationship with North Korea. We got to sit in a room that was a replica of a North Korean primary school classroom. Awful. They emphasized that the paper they print their textbooks on is so poor that the children cannot even read the words. Also, they have cosmetics that Chinese spies bought from North Korea, and it’s all products from the 70s. It’s so weird. And they were purchased in 2009.

We hopped on the bus with about 25 Japanese citizens and 10 Russians, and headed north. I slept the entire way. It was about an hour ride.

Next, we had lunch 30 minutes away at a restaurant that serves awesome traditional food. They had roasted pork, and they ordered me bibimbap,  which was very tasty. We got free Korean coffee, and listened to live music by a North Korean solo artist. It was very very enjoyable. On our way to the actual DMZ, we had two people in our group that had to alter their clothing. My roommate was wearing a tank top. She had to cover her shoulders. Also, you cannot wear ripped jeans, stylish or not, because North Korea can record images of us and use them as propaganda against the North Korean people, saying that South Koreans cannot afford jeans without holes. Another girl had flip flops on, and they gave her sandals with heel straps incase we had to make a run for it.

(Entrance/exit of the DMZ.)

(getting checked by a South Korean soldier.)

Afterward, we left for the actual DMZ… As we entered, we sat on our bus and got our passports checked by a South Korean soldier. After that, we drove inside, and hit the main gate. From there, we had to get our passports rechecked by an American and one other Korean soldier.

Long story short….  We got in, toured around, had to walk in a straight line, couldn’t make any contact with the North Korean army, got to go into the military meeting room that is located in North Korea, took pictures with soldiers who are basically frozen still, checked out the UN plaque, saw some places where fights broke out in the 80′s and 70′s, learned about the lifestyle of north koreans, got to see how they live, what kinds of cosmetics the women use (similar to ones women used in the U.S. in the 70s), and…. packed up and left. I’ll have to tell you the entire story in person because it’s way too much of a story to write out. If you have any questions, e-mail me them and we can talk about it more. Jordanmgarrison@gmail.com. Here are some pictures though. You will learn more by looking at these than reading 10 paragraphs about the DMZ.

This is the view of North Korea from South Korea. Here, they’re separated by a river. The village you see is the Propaganda Village that North Korea built to make South Korea think they weren’t under economic hardship. If you use binoculars though, you can see that little to nobody lives there and most the buildings arent finished because they ran out of building materials.

This is another view of the North Korean village. In the 70′s, South Korea built a huge flag on their side, then a few years later, North Korea built one that was bigger.  In the trees between me and North Korea are thousands of buried landmines to keep South Koreans from coming in.

This is our group in front of the woods where the landmines are. Basically, the statue here represents the cooperation from the United Nations and several countries with the Demilitarized Zone.

This is a map of the area. Blue is South Korea and red is the North. We visited all along the river on the South Side, but crossed over into North Korea from South Korea in the very top right corner of this picture. You can see there’s a blue flag there.

Within the DMZ, North and South Korean buildings are mixed together. Tension is high. Blue buildings are are South Korean, and grey ones belong to North Korea. The three story grey building is filled with soldiers who are watching us from the windows. Our tour was very strict with what we were allowed to wear, how we were to walk, and whether we could even speak in public. This is the actual 38th parallel.

Here, you can see a North Korean soldier.

The white posts are the border between North and South. This was the ceasefire line at the end of the Korean War, called the MDL or Military Demarcation Line. A post is planted every 10 meters for the entire length across the country. The grey building is North Korean.

South Korean surviellance

Between these two buildings is the passageway between North and South Korea. The left building is the military meeting room, and half of it is located in North Korea. So as I was in there, I was officially in North Korea. Also, those soldiers stand still right there all day.

As I look out the window, to my left is North Korea.

South Korea

What a modern/wealthy North Korean home looks like. Check out the mandatory Kim Jong-Il (and his father, the former dictator) portrait that has to be in every room of every building.

Another view of North Korea

This is “The Bridge of No Return”. . . after the Korean War, thousands of prisioners of war were placed here (this bridge connects North & South) and were told to choose a side. Afterward, they were told they could never return to whatever they had on the other side. (Most chose the South)

There is a civilian village within the DMZ… The people who live there do not have to pay taxes because they’re not in North or South Korea officially. If they live there for more than 8 months, they do not have to be a part of the South Korean military draft.

View on the way out. Unbelieveable!

Final week in Seoul…

My last week in the capital of South Korea is finally here. It seems like I’ve been living here for a while, even though it’s only been one month. I will definitely miss a lot of things about this place; however, I really look forward to Tokyo.

Right now, I’m sitting in a little cafe near where I’m staying, pretending to study. This morning I took my fourth exam in my multinational management course.  We have to take 6 exams in our time here, and there are two left, even though we only have three more days in the city. Also, we were assigned five projects where we have to write about multinational enterprises and their different management tactics in Seoul compared to the U.S.. I haven’t done any of them. Correction, none of us have done any of them. We have a lot of work to do in our final days! So tomorrow we have to turn in our five projects by midnight, take our 5th exam at 8pm, and take our final exam immediately following the 5th exam!

But after all that, I can finally relax and look forward to visiting the Demilitarized Zone. (Where North Korea meets South Korea.)… Our group is planning on visiting the main areas, but my roommate’s dad came to Korea this week to visit because he was in Japan for business (he’s the VP of McAfee antivirus software) and he told us that we need to check out the interceptor tunnels that South Korea built in the 70s after they found out that North Korea was building a tunneling system in order to make it possible to invade SK. Also, my South Korean travel guide told me that you can’t take pictures there, but I found out that you can! I am soooooooo excited. So look forward to seeing those!

Earlier I went shopping with Brett to get a couple things from the marketplace. Too bad we confused Insadong with Itaewon, somehow. We ended up in a park full of old people. All of them were drinking Soju in the street vendor tents, reading the paper on a bench, or getting their hair cut on the sidewalk. Very interesting!

Here are all the old men.. sitting in a row in the park.

And here’s someone getting their hair cut on the sidewalk. . .

I think it’s charming that he hung up his hat on the fence, and got his hair done.

Moving on—– Tonight we got free tickets to see NANTA from Sookmyung, which is similar to Blue Man Group or Stomp, only Korean, and more theatrical. It’s been said that it’s on the list of top 10 things you should do while in Korea. I agree! It was really fun. No pictures allowed though.

On our walk back to the subway, we passed by where the memorial service was being held for the former President of South Korea (who committed suicide on Saturday in Busan). There were so many people there, standing in line to make it inside the church. You can see in this picture where the flowers had been laid, and candles burned.

Such a weird thing to experience. Thousands of people holding up their flags or watching videos of him on projector screens by the side of the road.

Then we went home and had dinner as a group. I ate the Duckbokgi (AWESOME!) and kimchi.

This is all I have for now. I will report back to you soon.

Really? Really.

Former South Korean president commits suicide in the same city I was in earlier today. Weird.  No visible reactions from the public yet. . .

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/05/23/roh.dead/index.html

A Long Bus Ride….

Wow, sorry I haven’t been updating recently. The end of last week was pretty normal and then this weekend we did a weekend exursion to a city about a hour north of Busan, which is in the south east area of the ROK.

Last week we did the National Museum of Korea visit. Since Brett and I had already been there because we went before everyone else got to Korea, we headed straight to the Dip n’ Dots stand and hid until all three hours had passed. Pretty pitiful, but I had gotten NO sleep the night before due to a big test we had that morning. Awful. But this place is HUGE and informational, I’ve just already spent my 3 hours looking through it all. Here’s a picture of the outside:

Afterward we took a subway and a taxi to the South Korean Capitol Building in Seoul. A Congressman actually showed us around and took us to his office and to his subcommittee meeting room where they discuss family, health, and child services. We also go to hang out in the room where all the congressmen meet. I forget what that room is called. Forgive me, it’s late. Anyway, this was a very awesome experience, but I didn’t get any pictures of it. Camera was dead. But I will post them when I get them from my roommate.

Anyway–  This past weekend we left Sookmyung at 5am to head around 5 hours south. Seeing that I got limited sleep the night before, I spent the vast majority of the 5 hour drive sleeping. I did wake up a few times to some spectacular mountain views, but I was entirely too tired to take any pictures. I did take some on the way back though.

This is where they grow rice on the side of the highway.

We stopped at some rest areas every couple of hours to use the bathrooms and eat. Of course, breakfast foods don’t exist in Korea, so I had my usual “Bibimbap”, which is mixed wild vegetables, dried seaweed, sticky rice and hot sauce, all with an egg on top. I could eat this every meal for the rest of my life. It’s so good.

Our first destination in the south was Hyundai Motors. Of course, photography is prohibited, so I have little to show for my visit. It was really cool though, this is the largest plant located in Korea, and assembles over 400 cars in each hour. Also, it’s located on the water so they have these huge exporting ships that carry over 4,000 cars around the world. Definitely one of the most impressive operations I’ve ever seen!

This particular plant manufactured seats, transmissions, and engines. Also, they assemble the Hyundai Tuscon, Elantra, and one other model there. It was very cool to walk through their plant; however, I was mostly fixated on how bad I wanted to take pictures.

Promptly after Hyundai, we headed about an hour away to visit POSCO Steel which is the third largest steel manufacturerer in the world (after two Japanese companies). And guess what? Photography was strictly prohibited. Do I care? Not after not being able to take any pictures after a couple days. So I sneaked some. Don’t leak these to them please.

POSCO is HUGE! They have pretty much an entire city that revolves around the plant. They have apartments for their employees, a hospital, some 100 restaurants, a elementray, middle and a high school, a university for steel technology, and countless other things I can’t remember now. They have been raking in the dough and just turned their company from publically owned back into a private company.  I guess they are trying to make it more “green,” too.. which is interesting. The place looks like a huge pollution producer. They claim that it’s only steam that’s being emitted from the giant smoke stacks. Who knows for sure, though. Maybe Aunt Sheryl?

Gross.

Either way, they took us into the plant where they melt down the steel and roll it into sheets & rolls. It must have been like 110 degrees inside the building. Very cool to see though. I don’t think I’ll ever get an opportunity like that again!

Afterward, we headed to our hotel. Four of us to a room. And in the good old U.S.A., usually there are two double beds.. but not in Korea, baby! Four separate beds! I was thrilled. I need that next time we go on a family vacation. No more sleeping with Katy!

The next morning, I had no choice but to sip on clam, octopus, and tofu soup with chili sauce and kimchi for breakfast (not a fan). We had a day of visits to traditonal sites. We visited a Buddhist temple, a burial ground, and a few other really cool places. Also, on the back of their version of the penny (the 100 won) is a statue.  We visited a site where they’re reconstructing it! It was cool to walk up the scaffolds to get a sneak peak.

A very cool thing to get to see!!

We also got to see some Buddhist action at the temple we visited.

…and other traditional Korean buildings..

Check out all the pictures. I’m sure there are many things I’m forgetting. I’ll fix it later! Goodnight from Korea!

Local Celebrity

I was on the front page of two newspapers in Seoul today. And a few other pictures were inside some others. My professor grabbed them from the newsstand, but we couldn’t find any more around town to buy. (Which stinks!) I think we are going to contact the newspaper and see if we can’t get an extra copy somehow. One of my Korean friends found a picture of us inside another newspaper and brought me her only copy so I could take it home.

ALSO— I was on the news!

here’s the link:    http://www.ytn.co.kr/_comm/pop_mov.php?s_mcd=0103&s_hcd=&key=200905181634592947

Lately everything has been going well— but i’m getting a little frustrated with 2 things.

-there are no bathrooms ANYWHERE

-there are no trash cans ANYWHERE

Upcoming trips: DMZ (mostly excited about this), perhaps the Samsung Electronics factory, POSCO Steel corp. tour, Hyundai Motors tour. Woo!!!!!

Seoul Tower

In some of my older pictures from the rooftop, you can see that far away in the distance is the Seoul Tower. Located on a mountain in the center of Seoul, it’s towering above everything here. Yesterday we went to the top.

This is a close up of it, as we got off the cable car and headed to the elevators. I guess sunset at the Seoul Tower is a huge deal because they crammed 9000 people into our tiny cable car, 10000 into the elevator to get to the top, and it took us 30 minutes to catch an elevator trip back down. Claustrophobia was starting to kick in. (especially since there’s hardly any air conditioning up there, so it’s a little too warm and a little too many masked tourists.) Also, it’s a huge date spot. When you’re at the platform before you take the elevator to the top, there’s an outdoor viewing area, fountain, etc. On the fence keeping you in, you can buy different kinds of locks and decorate them with markers or whatever and attach them to the fence so you can come back and remember your trip. I found a huge lock on the fence that said,

Sweet right?? Anyway, this place obviously has an awesome view of the city… My camera did it’s best to capture what is going on.

I tried to get as many pictures as possible, but most of them look like historical photos taken 50 years ago. You be the judge.