Fukuoka!?

Well. . . .I'd love to take the time to fill everyone in on all the excitement of our Chusok Holiday but it looks like I won't be able to do that for a little while now.

Arriving at work today, Nate and I inquired once again about our trip to Japan, originally scheduled for late Thursday morning. We were given the same, "don't worry, we'll take care of it," response from Joseph that I've come so used to just accepting.

A few hours ago, Joseph arrived in the Native room with two stuffed envelopes, one reading Nathan, the other Adam. . .in Korean of course! I was informed that all our necessary documents were enclosed and that we are to be going to Japan tomorrow. . . .wait, what?! I doubled checked the enclosed itinerary and sure enough, we have a flight out of Seoul Incheon on Asiana Airlines at 9:30am tomorrow morning!

Also enclosed in this envelop are two other sheets of paper (one with the Korean Consulate's phone number and address, the other with information on how to get there using different modes of transportation), my passport (which has been missing for over a week), a sticky note with our Visa reference number on it, and 180,000 won! Now if that's not a James Bond envelope I just don't know what is!

Our Fukuoka Documents

I asked Joseph what we are supposed to do and he informed me that we are to go to the Consulate, show them the number on the yellow paper, and get our Visa. In the past few hours we've been able to do a small amount of research on the subject and it looks like the processing can be done in one day so long as you arrive at the consulate no later than 1:30pm. Not sure if we'll be able to make that deadline tomorrow so it's a good thing that our flight out of Japan isn't until. . .Thursday!? Well, I guess we'd better get everything together before our 6:10pm flight out of Fukuoka the day following our arrival!

Joseph then asked if we knew where we'd be staying. Um. . .well, we figured out that we we're going to Japan an hour ago and still aren't exactly sure where we're going so. . .no.

It looks like there are hotels in the area although we might just do some wandering to find one once we are there as we have little time to plan and, still no internet in our apartments. 'So how are you blogging then,' you might ask. Well, great question!

For the next three weeks, Korean middle school students are preparing for their mid-term exams. Consequently, their academy lessons focus on test preparation rather than simple 'speaking' and 'writing' lessons. Little time to explain, but essentially this is the job of the Korean teachers only. Meaning for my class today, I simply sat in quiet at the front (as I'm still obliged to do) and read a book. Not the most interesting class period in the world but, hey, I'm not arguing with free reading time.

I've taken the opportunity to ditch my last class on the premise that we need to do research about our upcoming trip. . .which is extremely true! Hopefully we'll be able to get the directions down pretty well so that finding the consulate is not an issue; which, as I foresee, will be of greatest difficulty. Sleeping and eating will obviously come second and shouldn't be a huge issue as we're expected to survive for only a day on a rather generous stipend. Oh wait. . .getting to the Incheon airport might be a bit of a journey as Joseph suggested it takes about two hours. . . .lets see. . .for a 9am international flight leaving from a foreign country to begin with that means we're leaving at. . . .5am. Well that's not bad because work ends at. . . . oh yeah, 10:30pm.

How exactly we plan on staying sane/awake for the next three days, I'm not entirely sure. But hey, they don't call it Adventure Teaching (the name of our recruiter, ha. . .ha. . .) for nothin' do they!

I'll have a computer with me in Japan so hopefully should be able to find i-net at some point. . .just in case any of my avid readers are dying to check in via Skype (Sapeoblast) or g-chat (ACSaper)!

More from the land of sushi and samurais!