LAST DAYS IN KOREA

(wrote this up day 7 on the bus to tokyo)

know i've been lagging with the blog posts. it's just hard to find time to just sit, think, and type. we've been jam packing our days to make the most of our short time here abroad. i barely even have time to sleep haha. i'm actually on the bus right now on the way from incheon airport to tokyo - day seven … so, for whoever is counting, i'm officially two days behind. but don't worry, i remember everything. so here goes - a short (maybe kind of long-ish) recap of our last two days in korea! 

DAY 5:

our first day without our korean guide, aka billy. we decided to take a day off from sight seeing to shop at dongdaemun, the city for thrifty buyers and rude ass sellers lol.  so, we started the morning with a nice refreshing visit to the local atm machine … then it was off to dongdaemun!

place wasn't very classy. was sort of set up like a normal american mall, but there we way more floors and waaay more sellers. each vendor was either the owner or a direct representative of the brand ... so haggling was the name of the game. we weren't korean though, so it wasn't easy. amy and ron were pretty much the only people to get anything. lots of escalator time up and down though.

a lot of dongdaemun was closed on monday during the day (when we went) so we decided to go again some other time and hightail it back to our first home - hongdae! we just ate, shopped, and walked around our favorite city haha. here are some pics of ron's face:

sums of the day pretty good lol. found batman smoothie at the korean jamba juice. 

met up with billy later in the evening to go korean karaoke ... and of course, eat and drink. i don't really karaoke much, but i have to say ... definitely the best singing sesh i have EVER had haha. street food we ate after was pretty bomb too. 

sooo behind with my bloggin right now, so i'm just throwing up pics lol. wheee!

DAY 12: KYOTO

just woke up here at the hotel in kyoto. we finally have some consistent wifi lol. about to leave for osaka ... but i'm gonna try and post up a bit from yesterday:

soooo we took an overnight bus from nori's place in tokyo to get here. it left at 11 on sunday night and arrived at around 7 monday morning. i literally slept the whole way. ko'd even before we left the station actually haha. supposedly there were two rest stops along the way, but i had no idea. seats were comfortable. they were like sleeping pods. you could recline, ajust the foot rest, and like cover your face with this foldable head awning thing. not everyone slept as soundly as me though, so collectively, we were pooped from the trip ... but it was morning! can't let the day go to waste. so it was off in search of temple/shrine things (what kyoto is famous for) ...

i honestly can't remember the name of the palace/temple/garden places we went to. still have the pamphlets and tickets though ... uhh, so we went "the golden pavilion" (rokuon-ji temple) first, the ryoanji temple second, and the "old imperial palace" (ninna-ji) last. it was pretty fun. not really my thing though haha. suuper pretty landscaping and architecture. ron, lucio, amy, and david probably have more and better pictures of everything. i didn't really take very many. here's me at ninna-ji though in front of its big entrance gate ... sky was really nice too. even though the sun being out made it a bit hotter, it was a positive change i'd say from all the rainy and cloudy weather we had in korea.

after we got our fill of temple hopping for the day, we started getting hungry for some real food ... and a shower (i was the only one that was able to wash up before our long evening bus ride) ... found a sushi place that turned out to be on the pricier side, but had some intense nigiri. i just ordered off the picture menu. have no idea what i got lol. 

after food we went to check in to our hotel. had some complications with the rooming arrangements, but it all got sorted out in the end. then it was out and at it - kyoto night life!

according to ron, kyoto is the city that wakes up late and sleeps early lol. and although i can't say that it was exactly the city that never sleeps, it was crazy nice. plenty of food places, bars, and sketchy night clubs. there were a good number of people out despite the fact that a lot of places were closed late at night. we ate at this japanese "pizza-pancake" place ... 

aww, lucio looks happy huh? haha. we drank a bit of sake there and then left in search of an arcade and some japanses pachinko! was a good night even though we didn't win anything lol.

upstairs had darts. annd just so you know, i smoked! haha. just ask any of us and you'll discover the story of my newfound dart throwing abilities. made freakin' 3 bulleyes (or whatever they're called) and got a triple 19 and a triple 20 in my last round. bring it. 

YAY NORI!

he got us wifi somehow using his new iphone haha. woohooo!

JAPAN HAS NO WIFI!

still haven't figured out a way to get online here in japan. nori set up some sort of wifi device at his place, but he doesn't know how to use it, much less how to connect to it ... and all the public "free" wifi spots require some sort of app or pre-registration/login. sucks! i seriously thought that japan of all places would be more connected. damn. so sorry if i haven't posted anything here in awhile. i'm on my phone typing this up right now at a spa here in hakone. i'll try my best to write up stuff in word and copy-paste it to my blog when i get the chance. in the meantime, stay posted. hella shit has been going down here in asialand.

DAY 4: DRAGON HILL SPA

we set off this morning in search of the dragon hill spa. the itinerary for the day was wake up, go to the spa, eat jjajangmyun, nap, hit up the last day of r16, and then attend the afterparty clubbing event after. pretty much everything went according to plan. new public transportation to try for the day - the bus.

was raining hard again today, but we made it to the spa in relatively good time and all in one piece. place was crazy awesome. very similar to the happy day spa we went to in hongdae, but a bit nicer. spas are now our go-to good time place haha. for those of you who have never been to one before, it is basically the same concept as like an ancient roman bath house. there are pools of super hot and super cold water as well as showers and in between pools (one of which is filled with green tea) where you can bath, wash, soak, and relax. baths are divided by sex and everyone inside is naked. you leave your clothes in a locker room and borrow a set of "spa" clothes that you can wear into the common area. the common area is, in my opinion, the most fun. here they have the special "sauna" rooms. we spent a lot of time here just exploring ...

rooms can be oven hot or winter snowy cold. it's an adventure every time you enter one of these specially designed "chambers." dragon hill spa had a lot of different rooms to check out and try. rooms can also vary in humidity and construction (i.e. some can be made of wood, others of stone, some have salt rock floors, etc) ... we also had some snacks there (charcoal blackened hardboiled eggs, cold green rice tea, and a sweet rice dessert drink ... i forget the name of it) and played in the arcade. the place was really big. good times haha.