August is vacation time for many in Korea. My school closes down and I usually get half of my yearly vacation in the first week of August. While last year was a fabulous trip to Beijing, this year was a much more scaled down trip to Japan. We left on Friday, August 1st and went to Fukuoka on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu. It’s pronounced “Foo Koh Ka” in case any of you foul-mouthed readers wanted to say something else. I would never stoop to such middle-school behavior <grin>.

Rather than fly, we took the jetfoil boat out of Busan. That was fun as the boat was both smooth and fast.  Same sort of terrorist prevention applies, however, and baggage Xray, metal detectors and immigration/customs red tape provided the usual fun.

One of the first things we noticed about Japan was how clean the place was. Korea is nice, but rarely do people go out of their way to find a trashcan and rubbish is everywhere. Not a speck of trash was anywhere in Fukuoka. I may write another post on Korea’s trash as it’s something that’s been bugging me for a while.

The second thing we noticed was the cost. Everything was more expensive, from the buses, taxis and subways to the food and other shopping. Gone were the noisy open markets of Korea and in their place we found gleaming malls and glitzy department stores.  We’re used to a decent lunch costing $3-4 per person but the cheapest we could find was 2x that for just noodles. Substantial meals were substantially higher. We spent a lot more than we thought we would. Bummer, but it didn’t damper the fun.

Once on land, we quickly started checking out the sights. We visited the a Zen Buddhist temple, a shrine (I still don’t understand the difference as they look the same to me) museums and gardens. The peacefulness and tranquility of these was a fabulous change from the hectic travel of just getting there. At night, we went to Higashi Nakasu, a neighborhood in the city famous for its restaurants and clubs. Most of the clubs we found were the type for men. Lots of bar girls there to keep them company. Not necessarily bad girls, not strip clubs, just their culture that men are more likely to stay and buy drinks if there’s a friendly, pretty girl to keep them company.  We saw hundreds, dressed as graceful geishas, or glamorous gals or just plain cutesy.

Then we went shopping. I have yet to find a “mall” in Korea, but Fukuoka’s Canal City mall was fabulous. My favorite was the houseware/cooking store that offered cooking classes.

These two cuties were in the middle of their lesson. It apparently turned out pretty good as they wasted no time in cleaning their bowls.

We spent a lot of time shopping at the mall. MyeongHee bought several tops for herself. Reminded me of home to be in one large mall again. The prices were ridiculous, but what the hell. She makes her own money.

We also spent some time at Ohira park. We rode a paddleboat around what once was a part of the bay but was closed off nearly a hundred years ago. The pond was modeled after China’s West Lake in Houngzhou, which Marco Polo made famous in his travels. I thought there was some similarity from my visit there in 2004.

Although we were only there 3 days and two nights, we had a good time but were more than ready to come home. Neither of us speaks or reads Japanese and we found only a smattering of folks who spoke either English or Korean. It was sometimes difficult just to get around in the buses and taxis. Most people assumed MyeongHee to be Japanese and spoke to her in their language. She learned from last year’s trip to Beijing that a useful phrase to learn was “I am Korean” and she spoke that often. She did know a few words and phrases and she had a J/K phrase book with her that helped. Still, the difficulty of a language that shares nothing with either of ours was tiring.  I learned Korean well enough that I can read quite a bit and get around. It was frustrating not to be able to read street signs or place names and understand where we were. The bright side was that people were exceedingly friendly and helpful, even if they couldn’t speak either of our languages

Then there was the exchange rate to deal with. I still think in terms of dollars, which run about 1000 Korean won per dollar. Japanese Yen are about 100 to the dollar and more than once the number of zeros on a price made me think twice before buying. An ATM mistake cost me about $20 in exchange fees when I withdrew 10X more than I needed and had to change in back in Korea. Oh well.

We had fun but we resolved to go elsewhere next time we travel. Hopefully, that will be to America next year for Teri’s college graduation.

I made a short video of the highlights of the trip. Check it out and tell me what you think.