Bounenkai & Korea

I've been pretty busy and haven't had time to put up a post in a while... ok actually I've just been lazy about it.

To end the year, schools have a 忘年会 (bounenkai) which is a get-together of company employees (maybe even just between friends, but not sure) where they eat, drink and play games.  The characters mean a meeting to forget the year, but it's more to forget the bad things of the year and remember the good.  I went to Niitsuki's party and they played bingo and a "Who is the quiz king of Niitsuki" game where random questions were asked to people in groups of 3.  I actually ended up winning the game thanks to other teachers giving me answers and the game host teacher screwing the coordinator (my 1 vs 1 final opponent) out of the final question because he didn't say the full name of a movie.  I wanted to post a picture of the game board but for some reason I lost it.  Sad.

I spent a few hours of Christmas day in Japan, and the rest of the day in Korea!  I spent a week there and went with 2 other teachers, Rachel and Tara.  I didn't want to be there that long but didn't have much of a choice because the flight times were so crowded.  I went to get my money back and on Tuesday I succeeded!  So glad, that had been a burden for a few years, but now it's one less thing I have to worry about.  I got to see a bunch of things I didn't see the first time around also.  I went to a prison that Japanese used to imprison Koreans in, the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) and I got to spend New Year's in Seoul.  All very awesome!

I stayed in a youth hostel for around $20 a night, and right outside was this set of places.  I didn't end up going in either of them, but the one on the 2nd floor is a cat cafe where you can go and play with cats.  Sounds fun but yeah, might save it for another trip.  Never made it to the 3rd floor, but it sounds interesting too :)

This is a picture of me in North Korea!  The DMZ tour was pretty cool, and even though it's a pretty touristy thing to do, if you ever go to South Korea you should try to go on it.  There's a lot of interesting history and I got to see a North Korean soldier (from pretty far away but still) up in his post.  No North Korean soldiers came to check out the tour which was a little disappointing but it was still a pretty awesome experience that I didn't get to the first time I was in Korea.  Glad I got to it this time.



Still on break until next Tuesday.  Just taking it easy until then probably.

忘年会【ぼうねんかい】 (bou/nen/kai) (n) year-end party; (P)