I WENT TO SOUTH KOREA AND CHINA!

It was incredible, but it's taken me like a week to recuperate, thus I haven't written here yet. I don't even know where to begin. I guess with the first day. This is going to be long, but that's ok:
Day 1: I met Patrick and Ayako at Hiroshima station and we hopped the Shinkansen to the next prefecture. We got off the train too early, so we were delayed by like 30 minutes, but we eventually made it to our connecting station and then to Shimonoseki which is where we boarded the boat to Busan, South Korea. We had a great little nautical adventure. I mean it was really rather uneventful, and I had been up since early, so I ended up going to bed pretty early but I drank a starbucks frappaccino in a glass bottle which I hadn't had in 9 months. So that was awesome. Oh, and I was in some documentary that these guys were making about a guy going to Korea alone. He met us, cause we were cool foreigners, it was awesome.
Day 2: I woke up around 5:45 am to find that we had docked in Busan but couldn't get off the boat until 8 because the customs place wasn't open. I got packed up and washed up in the on board bath house then we all got some coffee. In the midst of the group bathing process I lost my socks. That was a pretty tragic ordeal. We eventually got off the boat and to the station with plenty of time to locate some muffins before boarding the train. We ate at Dunkin Donuts...how Korean. We caught our train and headed for Seoul! We arrived 2 and half hours later, and checked into our hotel, where Ayako and I set a goal of visiting 3 tourist things in our time in Seoul (3 days; maybe it was a little under ambitious of us since the goal was accomplished by like 2:00 the next day) and Patrick napped. We went to Pizza Hut for dinner (again, so Korean, but we were dying for real pizza: defined as pizza without corn or potatoes) and then on a expedition to Seoul Tower. We took the cable car up and enjoyed a view of Seoul from the top. There was also this weird visual art performance thing going on where a little mist fountain would spray while this loud music was playing and the tower looked like it was flaming. It was cool. I don't know if it always happens. We decided to get some coffee while we waited for all the city lights to come on and while we were drinking, some Junior High girls came up to the window next to us and started knocking, I turned around and they were like "Hello!" and waved excitedly. Then did the international sign for crazy and pointed to one of the girls. I agreed and said that I knew she was crazy, and then pretended to be shocked and confused when I saw who they were pointing at. Immediately retracting my statement. It was cute. Then we tried to get on a bus to get back to the station, on which we were tossed around and nearly fell out of our seats several times, Ayako and I were laughing so hard that everyone on the bus (mostly Korean business men) stared at us. We ended up in some bar area, so we decided to get drinks, but we totally ended up in some old persons bar, it was strange. But from the window we saw a drunk man make a seen and the pee in the street. It was disgustingly entertaining. Then we wondered around until we found a subway station to get us back to our hotel.
Day 3: We wondered around Seoul, and I fell in love with it a little. I told Ayako that it reminded me of America and then noted that it smelled a little funny and there was garbage everywhere, so I'm not sure what that means, but there's that. It just had an interesting dynamic. We went to some awesome places, including Jogyesa Temple and took a tour at Changdeokgon Palace and visited that location of the historical gate that was recently burned to the ground by an angry Korean man (everyone knows his name, but I don't). Later that night we went to the Chongdong Theater and saw a traditional Korean performance including singing, dancing, and traditional instruments. It was awesome! I wish I could have captured it on video, though that probably wouldn't do much justice. The performance was one of my favorite parts of the trip.
Day 4: We spend the bulk of the day (literally almost 5 hours) wandering around another palace after eating a delicious pasta lunch at the connected museum. Gyeongbokdung Palace was beautiful and there was so much grass! We just spent like half an hour sitting in the grass and blowing dandelions. It was amazing! Later we met Ayako's friend Monica and she took us out to dinner, this delicious chicken meal, Mmmmm! We ended the evening with some live music at the Live Jazz Club it was great!
Day 5: We woke up early, real early and took a cab to the airport, a few hours later we were in Beijing. After some settling in time, we headed out for a walk around the city. We walked to the Forbidden City and walked around the outer wall. It was beautiful. We sat on the side of the river and just watched people walk by, it was great. Patrick got suckered into buying like 3 books from a guy on the street. Not so good at ignoring the people who sell stuff. We wondered around, I bought a coke and an ice cream for less than a dollar. Then we wondered to a park, Beihai Park to be specific. Home of the White Pagoda (on the sign it said Dagoba, which led to an outbreak of laughter from Ayako and I. We climbed the hill to the temple, once we got there I saw a man meditating in a corner under some trees. He was perfectly still. It was amazing, so I watched for a while. The sun set while we were at the top of the hill. When we were heading to the exit we saw a taichi class taking place in the middle of the park. there was music playing that went perfectly with the class, I figured it was planned. It turned out to just be a man with a radio in his pocket, which is even more awesome.
Day 6: This day was fullllllll of sightseeing adventures, we went to the Forbidden City, Tianniman Square, Summer Palace, Temple of Heaven, the freshwater pearl shop and a silk factory. We wrapped up the evening with a Peking Duck dinner (which was incredibly delicious, and I want more, right now!) and the Peking Opera we saw A day on the River and The Monkey King Fights 18 warriors. The latter was the better one, but they were both wonderfully entertaining.
Day 7: We visited the Great Wall. Amazing! However, in my mind, I knew that the Great Wall went through the mountains, however, I didn't think that I would be climbing in the mountains when I was climbing up the Great Wall. But I was. Climbing up wasn't a problem, but stopping and looking down and then thinking about walking down made me real shaky in the legs. But it was an incredible experience. On the way up we met some guy making a video of his experience with his iphone, so I'm in his vacation video. I love doing that. It started to storm on our way back down , part of me wanted to stay outside and play in the rain, but I couldn't, I knew I'd be miserable in the van for the rest of the day. So I put up the umbrella that I bought at the entrance to this part of the wall (it's blue and says "boyfriend and girlfriend" on it. it's funny) and continued to slowly slowly walk down the wall, gripping the stone in my hands so as not to fall. By this time i was petrified. But it was more than worth it. After the wall we went to a jade museum and then to the Ming Tombs which are actually in there location because of the Feng Shui of the mountains and the river. We visited a Cloisonne Factory and saw how the made art out of copper and clay and paint, it was awesome and then we headed past the olympic stadium and to a tea hows for tea ceremony, then on to the market where I bought a gucci watch (knock off, obviously) for ten bucks and it doesn't even work. How awesome. And then we went to a kung Fu show.
Day 8: We left the hotel at 5:45 for a day full of transportation. Literally: van->plane->taxi->train->bus->boat and then we left for Japan and I arrived home around 2 pm the next day. It was an amazing trip. I will try to post pictures on my flickr, but for now they are on my facebook, please look there.

Love you all! and good night!