[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":77},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Fposts\u002Fenglish\u002Fone-country-down-one-to-go":3},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"description":12,"extension":60,"meta":61,"navigation":72,"path":73,"seo":74,"stem":75,"__hash__":76},"content\u002F3.posts\u002Fenglish\u002Fone-country-down-one-to-go.md","One country down, one to go",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":53},"minimark",[9,13,18,21,24,27,30,34,37,40,43,46,50],[10,11,12],"p",{},"As I write this, I am in a cafe in Japan having a cheeky French press coffee in a swanky cafe in Tokyo. I\nfeel like I am not in place without a flat cap and loafers, but I'm enjoying relaxing here and thought its\nwould be a good time to reflect and appreciate the wonderful time that I had in Korea. In my last post, I\ncovered my time in Incheon and Seoul. I went to two more cities, and looking back on the trip I had a really\ngreat time in Korea. There were difficulties and the trip was very different to my usual trips as most of it\nwas unplanned and ad hoc, but I went to Korea with the aim of meeting up with my three close Korean friends,\nand I was able to do that, so the trip for me was a resounding success.",[14,15,17],"h2",{"id":16},"suwon-suwon","Suwon {#suwon}",[10,19,20],{},"After leaving Seoul, the next stop on my journey was Suwon. This was actually an unplanned stay since I was\nexpecting to stay at a friend's house at that time, but the friend's unexpected sickness caused my plans to\ngo out the window. All is well now, but there was a hectic time trying to put together a few days of my\nholiday on short notice. A bit like golf, though, it doesn't matter so much what path I took to having a good\ntime but more important that I was just having fun, and Suwon was a refreshing change from the big city life\nin Seoul.",[10,22,23],{},"Cherry blossoms in Japan had already come into bloom while I was in Korea, so I was a bit worried that I\nwould not be able to see during my trip.. While walking around Suwon, though, I found a place jam packed with\ncherry blossom trees, and so this crisis was completely averted. Booyah!",[10,25,26],{},"I also met someone in Suwon who was a bit of an interesting character. Apparently she eats donuts 10 at a time\nand can have 6 meals a day, and yet she is so skinny! Oh, life did feel so unfair, but it was nice to meet\nsomeone nice and fun to talk with, and it made me feel like most of the people that I talk with online are surely\nnice people, but not really fun for me to talk with. I had always had this feeling of guilt that maybe I was\ntoo picky when it came to choosing who to converse with, but as I get older and have more experiences like\nthis, I feel like maybe I am actually not picky enough.",[10,28,29],{},"I also made sure to stick to Korean food in Suwon, and had more than a few experiences where I would see\nsome dishes on a restaurant window that I knew and felt comfortable that I would not die of spice overload,\nbut when I actually got in the restaurant would not be able to find the dishes on the menu. Things quickly\ndevolved to choosing whatever wasn't red, which was a bit of a shame but also a good chance to ensure\nthat I was experiencing new things.",[14,31,33],{"id":32},"yongin-yongin","Yongin {#yongin}",[10,35,36],{},"I remember almost 10 years ago, about the time that I started studying Japanese, that I had a very close\nJapanese friend who I did Skype video chats with on a very regular basis. In fact, I did video chats with\nboth her and her boyfriend, and it was really wonderful. When I went to Japan on holiday, I stayed at\ntheir house. I felt like this experience was so valuable because it was a chance to see what\nreal Japanese life was like. I thought that it was so interesting to see what things like grocery shopping\nand mundane things like that were like to see how these things differed to how they are done in Australia.\nI have lost touch with these friends, and while it is a great source of sadness that we lost touch, I always\nlook back on that time as very important in solidifying my interest in Japan and Japanese culture.",[10,38,39],{},"So the next stop on the journey was Yongin, and it was here that I stayed at my close friend's house. I was\nso looking forward to this part of the trip because to me it wasn't just a chance to see my great friend,\nbut it also represented a chance to really get to understand what Korean life is like. While I expected\nthat Korean houses would have some high-tech elements in them, I have to say that I was amazed by some\nof what I saw, even if they do seem somewhat straightforward in hindsight.",[10,41,42],{},"The apartment building has an underground parking area, and when you drive to the entrance the boom gate\nwill detect whether the car belongs to a tenant or not, and will only let people living in the building\ninto the parking lot. We have places in Australia that do metered parking by reading the car's registration\ninfo from the car, but I have never seen it used to regulate entry into a private parking lot before. You\nalso don't have any key lock on your front door - you type a PIN into a number pad on the front door to\nunlock the front door. I found that pretty crazy, but apparently it is quite common over there.",[10,44,45],{},"We went out to a traditional Korean folk village area and to an old Buddhist temple, which was not too far\naway and was really nice to see. The surprising highlight of my stay in Yongin was the lime juice served\nin an army soup restaurant about 10 minutes walk from the apartment. I ended up drinking two jugs of it and\ngave myself a bit of a stomach ache in the process, but the lime juice was seriously amazing. It probably\nsounds like just normal juice but it so good. I also realised that drinking Korean rice wine and beer\ntogether is not the best idea if you want to have a comfortable time the next day. Ah well, you live\nand learn.",[14,47,49],{"id":48},"japan-time-japan-time","Japan time {#japan-time}",[10,51,52],{},"I got to Japan yesterday evening after a pretty rough trip to the airport. I am also not really good at\nhandling turbulence and it seems like every time I fly into Tokyo I have to put up with five minutes of\ncocktail glass-like shaking. Anyway, it was worth it in the end because I went out on the town yesterday\nand got my Japanese drinking on. I'll touch base again when I have more time but it's going to be a fun\nweek ahead. In particular, I'm really looking forward to my stay in Sendai in a few days! Can't wait!",{"title":54,"searchDepth":55,"depth":55,"links":56},"",2,[57,58,59],{"id":16,"depth":55,"text":17},{"id":32,"depth":55,"text":33},{"id":48,"depth":55,"text":49},"md",{"author":62,"date":64,"lastmod":65,"tags":66,"categories":68,"type":70,"draft":71},[63],"Jarrod Moore","2018-04-08T13:37:00+10:00","2021-06-17T00:04:41+10:00",[67],"travel",[69],"english","post",false,true,"\u002Fposts\u002Fenglish\u002Fone-country-down-one-to-go",{"title":5,"description":12},"3.posts\u002Fenglish\u002Fone-country-down-one-to-go","rc--sEebPr2G1t0--OxmC1ehmwf6RJhiuCo57MQ2Kx4",1779660265153]