Mimi!

John here -- we got unstuck and made it to Shanghai (I'd never seen a credit card actually melt before).  We now have Mimi, who is a joy!  More to come (and pictures) soon. 

Stuck in Tokyo

Miscommunication when booking our bullet train tickets led to us leaving three hours late and missing our flight to Shanghai.  Thankful we found a hotel room since the woman at the airport said that all hotels were booked solid.  We'll get to the airport early and see if anyone can put us on a flight to Shanghai.  This was supposed to be our day to relax and get ready to meet Mimi on Monday (tomorrow).  Wish us luck!

Friday, 3/16 Kyoto

 John dragged us to temple after temple today.  The main highlight was the Golden Temple....

 Followed closely by the Temple of the Golden Arches.

 We saw a lot of geishas going to work.  The one on the right is holding her smart phone.

The Philospher's Walk is a popular path during cherry blossom season.  We missed the blooms by a few weeks but still saw the first signs of spring.

 
After a long day of walking we reenergized in the public baths.  Public service announcement:  If you happen to find yourself going to a public bathhouse remember to bring your own towels or you will have to drip dry....

Thursday, 3/15 Busan to Kyoto

 We took a whole bunch of different types of transportation today:  Taxi to Busan airport, Asiana Air to Osaka, Haruka train to Kyoto, subway to Gion district to see the geishas and cool shops.

 We're staying in a tiny house that's down a tiny alley.  None of the taxi drivers have any idea where it is.  It has one bed upstairs and tatami mats on the upstairs floor to sleep on.  In the living room (above) the table goes down into a space in the floor then the whole room becomes a tatami room.  The house is so small it's almost like a camper but in New York lingo it's "cozy" and we love it!

We had a whole bunch of unidentifiable foods for dinner.  One little dish had about 10 baked beans in it.  At the bottom of the dish were tiny little shrimp bodies. 

James fell asleep at dinner for the third night in a row.

Random thoughts on Korea

Everyone is so nice and helpful.  We kept asking people on the street for help and they would stop whatever they were doing and walk us to our destination, make phone calls, check their GPS, or ask other people for help until they got us where we were going.  One guy spent at least 10 minutes with us on the street corner until he pointed us in the right direction--after it turns out the map we were given was wrong!

Even in the small towns there are huge high-rise apartment buildings.  All of them have huge numbers on the side (101, 102) and a lot of them have a company logo on them.  We didn't see any houses.

Money is so easy to use.  Just x1000 and you're set.  Food, clothes, transportation are about the same prices as in America.  No one wants to bargain!  We went to a night market and were looking for a hat.  We went to three places and asked the price and not one vendor would negotiate with us. 

90% of the people under 30 have headphones in and/or are doing something on their smartphones at all times!

None of the old people have gray hair.

Andrew had the longest hair of any male we saw in the country.

Besides the babies we saw at Holt there were no children in Seoul!  We saw a few kids in Busan getting out of school and some under-5s at the Busan Aquarium.

Wednesday, 3/14 Busan

 Anyone who knows my mom will be amazed at this picture.  It shows Andrea Holybee awake, showered, dressed, and watching the sunrise!!!

Mom also gets the "most energy" award.  While the napping team goes back to the hotel to rest she keeps on going, and when the rest of us go back to the hotel early she goes sightseeing with the first team.  As long as we pull her up any stairs we encounter (and there are a lot since we've been taking a lot of subways) she's fine.

 We walked along the beach and saw tons of coffee shops but none of them were open.  A few of them had hours posted and they said they opened at 9 or 10.  Hmmmm.  We walked back to our hotel and had bulgogi and cake for breakfast....and appreciated every bite.

 We took a subway to the hospital where James was born.  It was a busy hospital/clinic with lots of families inside.

 The front desk people at the hotel worked for about 30 minutes trying to find the hospital where Andrew was born.  I believe the story is that it used to be a maternity hospital but they tore it down to build a new hospital complex.

In the afternoon John and James went to a museum and the rest of us went to the Busan Aquarium.  It was a great last day in Korea!

Tuesday, 3/13 Seoul to Busan

 Today we took the KTX high-speed train to Busan where both boys were born.

 Before we left Seoul we toured some ancient Korean buildings.

 But James was much more interested in the ancient Korean vending machine...

 They said our hotel in Busan was on the beach and they meant it was ON THE BEACH!  We have a fantastic view from our hotel window.