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Published: March 21st 2007
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I had to go to Fukuoka, Japan to get a work permit to teach in Korea. I didn't mind since it was a country that I have not been too, and the school paid for the trip. Not so bad! Actually it is fantastic, (my passport has one page left in it).
I found out the night before I left that another teacher would be traveling with me to Fukuoka. Michelle started working for the school one week before. She has come straight from Portland to teach at the school. I didn't mind the company and she was relieved not to travel alone, she is not use to being in a foreign country.
So I woke up at four in the morning to get to the airport early. When I woke I realized that I could not open one of my eyes. It was swollen shut. Yup, I had pink eye. I guess these random infections are expected when working with kids. I finally got my eye open and grabbed my stuff and went to get Michelle. Only to find out that she woke up sick with painful sinuses and a sore throat. What a pair to go
traveling!
Well we made it. It was easy; Fukuoka was only an hour away by plane. We arrived, went through immigration, exchanged money, and onto the subway straight to the Korean immigration office. We had to be at the office at a certain time, there was only a hour window to drop off your papers for a work permit. Off the subway and on to the streets of Japan with our photocopies of directions in hand. Only to realize we were standing next to 3 other women with the same photocopies. So this gang of women English teachers from Korea went marching to the Korean immigration office. No problem, all we did was drop off the papers, and we needed to come back the next day to pick up our passports
Michelle and I decided to take a walk to the beach before going to the hotel. It was such a beautiful day, much too warm for my sweater. The beach was very quiet, but a pleasure to see. I have missed the ocean. Michelle and I found a nice restaurant on the beach and feasted on pizza and salad. The server even spoke English well…it was nice.
Worn out and still sick we finally found our hotel. We went to check in and found out that there was only one reservation for the two of us...one single room. You got to be kidding! Our school is not very organized as I am finding out, and over and over again. And of course the hotel was full so we could not get another room. There was no option for sharing since I could barely fit in the room myself. So we spent roughly 30 dollars calling our school, all of about 12 minutes, for them to figure out this mess. So we waited and waited and waited in my closest of a room. I did get some sleep though. After some hours, we figured that our school was not going to call us back, and decided to find another room ourselves. It took several tries, the area hotels were full, but we found one. One more trek out for dinner. The menu names would be in English, but all the dishes would not. Not that I was expecting things to be in English, but the combination made me wonder, why?
Off again to the immigration office,
picked up our passports and off to the beach again. After a very long and nice lunch at the same restaurant as yesterday, we went for a long aimless walk around Fukuoka. The day was gorgeous, and my pink eye was much better. Up and down streets, enjoying the fresh fruit from small markets and an occasional coffee. Some small shopping, but everything is very expensive. The streets or I mean everything was so clean. No trash anywhere. No smells of sewers, Fukuoka is a very beautiful city. It is very small compared to Tokyo. That night Michelle and I went out and had sushi, oh so good.
The day, well it rained and rained. So we went to a mall and had a look for hours. I wish we could have done more but it was just raining to hard. We saw familiar stores like the gap, which the prices were about 3 times the cost back home for the same crap. Back on the subway and back to the airport. Bye Japan, and back home to Korea...weird.
Arriving late in Seoul, we caught the bus from the airport back to the area where we live. I
guess since it was late at night and we were the only two left on the bus, the bus driver didn't feel like taking us all the way home. He just pulled the bus over and told us to get out (I think?). I was much to tired to care. Off the bus, we haled a cab. At least Korea is a safe city.
Til next time...
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Jeff
non-member comment
travelling again
You seem to be a born traveller - fill up another passport!