Entering Japan

For Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) weekend, I went to Japan with Leon and Emily from work, Emily's boyfriend Michael, and her friends Carly and Sam. There is a ferry that runs a few times a day from Pusan into Fukuoka, Japan, and we set up the ferry tickets and hotel stay in Fukuoka with a travel agency for under $400 for two nights. That's pretty decent for Japan. I brought 300,000 won with me, which I traded in for 22,000 yen, which is about US$242, for spending. I spent it all very easily.

After we all got to the ferry terminal around 11am and picked up our tickets, we went through customs easily, except for Leon. Because he recently extended his contract, his ID card shows an expired date on it, but his visa was extended to December. This caused some confusion with the official, so Leon was taken into a little room for about fifteen minutes. The others, not knowing the true situation, for some reason automatically (jokingly?) thought it was a racial issue (Leon is half Indian) and got kind of (jokingly?) upset. I explained. I was slightly concerned they wouldn't let him go, but they ended up just having him purchase a reentry visa, since he'd already used the single reentry on his previous visa. Or something.

Finally, it was a smooth three-hour ride into Hakata Terminal. There were tv screens, one big and a few small, in the boat, but no personal plugs for headphones, and the motor was so loud that the audio playing from the speakers wasn't sufficient. So I missed Lassie on the way, and The Incredible Hulk on the way back. I was sad to have missed that one, but they play it on Korean tv sometimes.

We took a bus to the hotel. It was a little confusing, but not too bad. In Japan, you take a ticket when you get on the bus (in the middle, not the front), and it lists the zone in which you boarded. At the front of the bus, there is a digital sign with fares listed depending on what zone you end up in. When you exit, you go up by the driver and put your ticket and your money into a slot. There is a convenient change machine, so you don't have to worry about having exact change. We weren't exactly sure when to get off, although we knew the name of the stop, because the stops have all these stop names on the outside, and I wasn't sure which one was the name of THAT stop. I started to make us get off at one point, but then these two old ladies indicated with Japanese I didn't understand and gestures that it was one more stop. So I pushed the button for the next stop, and they corrected me again, saying, no, it was the NEXT stop. Who doesn't know the difference between one and two? (It's one, by the way.)

But we eventually got to the Central Hotel, which was very nice, and had a sauna/bathhouse that we didn't have time to use. Maybe next time. I got a single room. The rooms are nice, but pretty small. The bathrooms are cool, and a subject for another blog entry.

If you're looking for pictures, you'll have to be patient. I had forgotten to check which plug converter I would need to take to Japan for my camera and iPod chargers, and had half figured it'd be the same as in Korea. When I asked Leon about it from Busan, where I stayed the night before we left, he made the outlet situation seem so alien that I figured it would be useless to bring my chargers, and I might as well save myself some space and leave them in Busan at my friend's house. When I got there, however, not only were the outlets the same as in the States, but I found out that I had accidentally left my camera on and the battery was completely spent. So I had no camera in Japan. I am currently waiting for a CD with everyone else's pictures to come to me in the mail. I hope it comes soon, otherwise I'll have to force everyone to email their pics to me in increments. I'll add pictures to this and other entries once I get them.