Happy New Year!

Recapping January since we were so delayed about posting Osaka... there were just so many pictures!

Fruit loops in Korea?!

One of Nicole's student's
shoe.

We both went back to work just 2 days after returning from Japan. Thankfully it was only a 2-day work week. We were still exhausted. But the next week was just like normal & we were back into our work routine. Which we are getting extremely tired of... especially since we have opposite work schedules; (Nicole 9-6; John 2-9).

Found the best store with the worst
grammar: "is will spring come after go
winter?"

Does the shirt mean this is
what it means to be normal?
We think Korea is confused.

Birthday fun!

However, we did have a blast celebrating Nicole's birthday. A lot of us went out to our favorite restaurant, Traveler's, & after some dinner and a few drinks we went next door to the 노래방 (noraebang)!!! It was both of our first times at a noraebang so that is why Nicole decided to go there for her birthday. A noraebang is like a karaoke bar but instead, you get your own room & you only sing in front of the people you're with. It was so much fun! All kinds of songs were being sung. It's amazing the amount we sang in just an hour. Ever since then, Nicole has had only those songs stuck in her head from time to time. Thank you to everyone who made Nicole's 25th birthday celebration a blast!

John's Ultimate Birthday Dinner:
Hamburger steak topped with
bacon, caramelized onions,
tomatoes, & avocados.

Brownies always trump cake.

The day of Nicole's birthday, John was awesome & made what he calls "The Ultimate Birthday Dinner". It definitely was ultimate! We were both full after that meal but it didn't stop us from having birthday brownies from Costco! Also, thank you to Nicole's mom for the goodie box! Us & Nicole's students really enjoyed the mini Reese's cups & the Butterfingers. YUM!

Kids Park fun!

Half of Nicole's class enjoying this
awesome slide.

That same week, Nicole's school took a field trip to the 키즈 파크 (Kids Park). It was just a giant area filled with the blow-up slides & bounce houses. It was very entertaining to see the tiny students go down the giant slides.

Birthday parties are always a big deal at Nicole's school.

The workshop goers.

Evgeny Greshilov!

On the 18th, Nicole traveled to Seoul for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. One of the pole studios there was having a workshop with Evgeny Greshilov - World Pole Dance Champion. It was almost 2 hours long & he taught several strength moves & steps on how to progress the skill to eventually doing it as easily as he could. It was hard but a lot of fun. Nicole was actually the only person there who could understand him easily, due to everyone else being Korean & having minimal English language skills. The next day, Nicole was sore all over! John enjoyed making her laugh because it hurt her stomach just to let a little giggle out. Nicole had her payback just a few days later when John had an intense workout himself. We're strange; we know.

No, Korea, it's not.

One of Nicole's coworkers has two students
named John & Lewis. This just happened
to be the order his Korean co-teacher hung
their toothbrushes.

Bar in old downtown Daejeon.

We have finally had our first (and probably last) Weizenhaus night. We went with Nicole's coworkers & a few others. It was a great time but the restaurant was nothing too special. Nicole's coworkers have made a pact to hang out much more often in the next month because 6 (out of 8) of her coworkers will be replaced at the end of February! It will be sad to say goodbye to everyone but we're making the most of our time! Even if we do drive each other insane most of the time.

Shopping in Korea is always fun!

The reason for so many teachers leaving at the end of February is because the new school year starts March 3rd. Most teachers are hired at the beginning or very middle of the school year. And yes, the time between last day of school & first day of school is one weekend. So on February 28, Nicole's 11 students will be graduating from kindergarten! For the next month she will be preparing her students to sing/dance one or two songs & help them to write & memorize letters to friends, parents, & teachers. Ready for exhaustion overload!

But, back to January... Happy New Year! This year, January 31st marks the calendar for 설날 - Lunar New Year! Due to this major holiday, we are currently enjoying our much needed 4-day weekend! 2014 is year of the Wood Horse. Nicole found out that her kindergarten students were born in the year of the Golden Fire Pig (2007); the Golden Fire Pig is a very lucky sign & comes only once every 600 years! After some research, we discovered that many Chinese & Koreans married in 2006 & deliberately conceived to have a child born in 2007. This has piqued our interest. We also discovered that John was born in the year of the Fire Tiger & Nicole was born in the year of the Earth Dragon.

Anyways, Happy Lunar New Year!

Off to Osaka!

Apologies for the delayed post... here's Osaka!

On Saturday, the 28th, we were on our way from Kyoto to Osaka. We were lucky to find a train line that took less than an hour & was less than ¥500 each!

Our awesome hotel key.

Beautiful crane left for us.

When we arrived in Osaka, we were overwhelmed. It is significantly larger than Kyoto. We arrived at Umeda Osaka station & looked around outside a bit & found a very large ferris wheel. After making it to our hotel (via another subway ride) & relaxing a bit, we ventured back out, purchased ¥600 subway passes, & decided to go back to Umeda Osaka station to take a ride on the ferris wheel. It went 106 meters high & gave us a great 360º view of beautiful Osaka. We had a lot of fun on our ride.

There were even speakers so we could
play music from our phones.

Perfect view of Osaka at 106 meters high.

Going down.

After the ferris wheel ride we decided to shop at the Gap since we were right there. They were giving out discounts in a box & we were both lucky enough to get the 50% off tickets! John got himself a nice hat... finally!

After that we took a long subway ride to Doutonbori. It is a large area with amazing street food, shops, bars, restaurants, etc. We found a Daiso! Our favorite dollar store & purchased... many things. Daiso stores in Japan are much larger & carry significantly more things than Daiso stores in Korea. After that we found some delicious chicken we wanted to try; it was awesome. We really enjoyed walking around this area. Nicole also got some Turkish ice cream. We both got a great laugh. After walking for a little while longer, we went to a bar that was offering ¥200 drinks. We had fun & enjoyed talking with the bartender. We made the trip back to our hotel after that.

Every time we turned around there was something else
picture worthy.

Morning of the 27th was our first morning at our hotel. We were allowed breakfast for free. It was delicious. The hotel makes its own jam... we had the strawberry jam on our toast. It was the best jam we've ever had! Yum!

112.5m high

After breakfast we got ready for our long day. We went to Osaka Aquarium (Kaiyukan). We only found out the day before that it is one of the largest aquariums in the world. It really was huge. When we got there, we noticed another ferris wheel. We wondered if it went higher than the one we took a ride on the day before... yes it did! But only by 6.5 meters. When we made it up the line to purchase our tickets, we finally made our way inside! The very first thing we saw: Penguins! There was an area near the entrance that had about 5 penguins in it. There was no glass between people & penguins & they were close enough to be touched (though, touching wasn't allowed, of course).

Penguins of lights

Waiting in line for tickets.

"Penguin Parade" at the entrance

The aquarium is right by the ocean.

The aquarium building is 8 floors starting from the top. We think the aquarium itself lasts 6 or 7 floors. The tanks are separated into "parts of the world" such as 'Great Barrier Reef', 'Antarctica', 'Japan Forest', 'Monterey Bay', etc. The biggest & best part was the 'Pacific Ocean'. That was the largest tank & it houses 2 whale sharks. Some tanks could be seen on several floors. The 'Pacific Ocean' tank was in the center of the aquarium & could be seen on at least 5 different levels. There were so many animals in there. It was amazing just to watch.  We enjoyed walking around & seeing everything. It took over an hour to get through it all. We had a lot of fun. The pictures we got were great.

Little baby otters! So cute!

Playing and/or eating

So sleepy

This big guy was having the best day ever.

Anteaters

Oddball penguin. There were only two brown penguins.

Dolphin having so much fun!

There they are... the 2 whale sharks that make this aquarium famous.

Squids make Nicole squirm.

Same giant seal we saw early having a great day.

At first we couldn't tell if this fish was real or not...

...then we saw its eye move!

They were really so tiny that we couldn't get a good picture.

Little mushroom jellyfish

Entering the Arctic Tundra.

Beautiful big eyes!

But his big eyes want to sleep.

The first & last animal we saw... gotta love penguins!

As we were leaving the aquarium, we noticed a family sitting near a guy who looked like he was setting up for a show so we decided to wait & see what kind of magic he might be doing. The guy was funny & enjoyable to watch. Then John's hat was chosen for a trick. Then John was brought up & his hat went into the guy's trick trunk. John was up there for a long time! It was entertaining. Hopefully the video works. Enjoy the pictures! Don't worry, John eventually got his hat back!

Picking more members from the audience.

Doing a dance

Entertaining tricks

Now they all get gold medals!

John got a gold medal!!

We love Japan.

And candy too!

Favorite picture of the castle.

After the magic show, we got back on the subway & went to Osaka Castle. The castle is surrounded by a large moat & on the outside of the moat is a park. We saw a running team at the park & other people jogging alone, walking around, playing with their dogs, etc. It was a beautiful day to be out. We crossed the bridge & entered through the gates. It was very large.  It was still another 5-10 minute walk & a couple of shrines later before we made it to the castle. Unfortunately the castle was not open so we could not go in but we enjoyed walking around & shopping at the few souvenir shops that were there. After spending a good hour there we had to find us some food because we were hungry!

In the park; the castle is in there somewhere!

Bridge over the moat.

Some Osaka Castle history.

It's huge!

See the castle?

Beautiful day.

Two time capsules buried 15 meters below in 1970, holding
cultural assets of the 20th century. The top capsule is to be
opened at the beginning of each century; the bottom is to be
opened in 6970.

Diagram

Some details

For size comparison... find John!

Pretty afternoon sun near Umeda Station

Our evening was uneventful as we were exhausted from the day & we had one more full day ahead of us. While watching TV that evening, we watched quite an interesting competition. It led us to discover what is called tobibako vaulting. It was really amazing to watch. And the competition itself was entertaining. Love Japanese TV!

After breakfast on the 30th, we headed out to find Umeda Sky Building. It was about a 15 minute walk from the Umeda Station. It's not one of the tallest buildings, but we thought it was one of the most interesting & we had a great time viewing all of Osaka & taking cute pictures. It was a beautiful day.

Model of the building

Looking down at the escalators we took.

Another panoramic of Osaka.

One of our favorites.

A Korean took about 3 minutes to take
this very blurred picture & drain the
camera battery...

Floating Garden Observatory; Dec. 30, 2013

We love seeing bad grammar.

View from the ground, looking up.

When we finished exploring the building, we headed back to the station area to do some shopping. We shopped a lot! We came across this store that had EVERYTHING. It was ridiculous how much we saw. It was a great shop. We probably spent an hour just in that place. It was a lot of fun. After that, we headed over to a place called Round 1. It was a 12-14 story building. Can't remember exactly. Each floor had something a little different. A couple of floors were dedicated to arcade games & video games; other floors for pachinco games; a few had bowling alleys; a couple with ping pong, billiards, & darts; and even a floor with some karaoke. After a lot of walking, we were getting tired & hungry so we went to an amazing buffet we found the day before. We ate quite a variety of food & were full when we finished. We had a wonderful last evening in Japan just exploring the area around us.

Nicole bought a skirt from the Womb.

The next morning, we packed, checked out, ate breakfast, & got on the bus to the airport & arrived 2 1/2 hours early. Simple, right? NO! Somehow, we rode the bus to the Osaka International Airport. Too bad our flight was leaving out of Kansai International Airport! (Which is also in Osaka). What city has TWO international airports?! Thankfully John realized we were at the wrong airport right away. We went into panic mode & managed to run our way around the airport to buy bus tickets that went straight to the correct airport. The bus left 2 hours & 10 minutes before our flight. When the bus left, we heard on the intercom that it would take approximately 70 minutes! Check-in for our flight closed 50 minutes before our flight was supposed to leave. That gave us less than 10 minutes to jump off the bus, run to catch another bus that took about 3 minutes to get to the other terminal where we needed to check in. Thankfully the bus only took 55 minutes! We jumped off, ran, got on the shuttle, jumped off that, & ran inside. A worker inside noticed the crazy running foreigners & took our paper, checked us in within a minute. Thankfully the line for security wasn't long. It only took about 10 minutes to get through it all. We found our gate & still had time to shop & use the yen we had leftover. Our hearts were still racing for a little while but we were extremely happy that we made it. Every Japanese person that was in our path was very helpful too. We loved Japan so much.

The flight was short. The bus ride back to Daejeon was long. We were missing Japan the moment we landed. It was a fantastic vacation & we can't wait to visit other cities in Japan in the future!

The next flight we take will be the one back to America! Hope y'all are ready for us... y'know, in a few months. :)