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Japan & Korea - A little of this, a little of that

Japan & Korea - A little of this, a little of that

Old Sep 17th, 2014, 07:20 PM
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Japan & Korea - A little of this, a little of that

I am going to go ahead and commit myself to writing a trip report now before too much time goes by and I decide it's not worth the effort and I have forgotten half the details! It may take me a bit to finish as I tend to ramble, I am still jet lagged and I came back to a big pile of stuff on my desk I am still trying to wade through.

This may be of no interest and little use to anyone but this is the first trip we have taken in six years, aside from our usual Hawaiian poolside vacation, so I feel obligated to make some kind of contribution to Fodor's other than my lounge input.

The original purpose of our trip was to celebrate our oldest son's and daughter in law's marriage which technically happened last December but it was just filing paperwork at a government office. Our son has been living and working in South Korea for the last seven years, his wife is Korean. The intention was to have some type of reception or ceremony in the Spring. Options were explored, time ran short and they decided that a ceremony wasn't really important to them (nor to us) and they couldn't find a place they liked for a reception and it would also have been fairly expensive to have it in Seoul because there would then be an obligation to invite a large number of people who they really didn't care about! They decided the most important thing to them was the chance for the two families to meet, have some time to get to know each other and relax a bit. My son found a large rental house on Jeju Island and booked it for three nights in September. I then went into my planning frenzy, trying to decide on when to go and fit in the wedding trip etc.

Originally the plan was to spend about ten days in Korea. Our younger son was also going along with us. We had visited Korea once before six years ago but we were only in Seoul for a few days and then went to Gwangju where our son was working. We didn't really get a chance to see much as we were mostly there to see our son and we were not there for very long. This time I wanted to see more. I had everything planned out and as I was ready to book flights my husband informed me if he was already going to Korea he really should stop in Japan to meet with a company we do business with. This meant he wanted to cut down time in Korea. I wasn't happy. I could really ramble at his point but this is already way too rambley and I have yet to report anything. In the end we wound up being invited to spend time in Japan with friends, my husband had his business meeting and we had almost enough time to spend in Korea before we all got sick of each other!

Now I will check my notes and see if I can find anything of interest to say about our time in Japan!
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Old Sep 17th, 2014, 08:09 PM
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I'm looking forward to hearing about your experiences, SeeHag, and sincerely hope that the meeting of the families was everything you could have hoped for.
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Old Sep 17th, 2014, 08:50 PM
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kia, I am reluctant to even call this a trip report after your master class in report writing!
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Old Sep 17th, 2014, 09:08 PM
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Looking forward to this. All too few reports on Korea here.
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Old Sep 17th, 2014, 09:41 PM
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Don't even think about drawing comparisons, SeeHag! You had a taste of two different cultures in a very short period of time, so I'm confident that your observations will prove enlightening. My TR was based on an ENTIRELY different kind of trip -- a month in South Korea, on my own, visiting places that are almost never covered here on Fodor's. I'm looking forward to the chance to see a few of those places through another person's eyes and to learning whether you thought Japan and South Korea as different as I found them on my widely separated visits.

(That said, I thank you again for your compliments. )
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Old Sep 17th, 2014, 10:01 PM
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Looking forward to the report!
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Old Sep 17th, 2014, 11:07 PM
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So far so good. Keep going. The stuff on your desk can wait until after you recover from the jet lag.
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Old Sep 18th, 2014, 01:35 AM
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Looking forward to your trip report too SeeHag. Hope you get to Busan.
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Old Sep 18th, 2014, 05:21 AM
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Looking forward to your report, SeeHag. We visited Jeju back in 2011, and had a good time there. Interested to hear about your experiences on the island and elsewhere.
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Old Sep 19th, 2014, 07:02 PM
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Japan!!!!

After stressing out about a number of things including my husband’s failure to book his ticket under the name that appears on his passport, what to buy to give to Japanese business associates, what size suitcase to take, what to pack/not pack and what kind of carryon bag or purse to take it was finally time to travel. My husband corrected his name at the last minute a day or two before we left, I was forbidden to buy another smaller suitcase because we have no more room to store it, I under packed for the first time in my life and somehow I am wearing the same pink shirt in every photo taken, I used a purse I already had and it was fine and I found out the $75.00 of gourmet beef jerky I bought is not allowed to be taken into Japan due to concerns about mad cow disease so we took most of it on the plane for a snack!
We left the Sunday of Labor Day weekend and I wasn’t sure what to expect at LAX but it was really pretty deserted by noon and we had time to wait in the Delta lounge. My husband is nearly 6’7” and really can’t ride in coach for a ten hour flight so he used miles to upgrade to business while my son and I sat in steerage. He did come back and visit us on the flight long enough to describe his personal pod sleeping area and meal and get his sleeping pill from me.

My son and I managed to doze for a few hours and didn’t feel too bad by the time we arrived at Narita around 4:30 pm. We breezed through customs and made it just in time to take the last direct limo bus to the Yokohama Royal Park Hotel. This hotel is advertised as the tallest hotel in Japan, occupying floors 52 through 70! It is right on Yokohama Bay and is part of the Minato Mirai 21 area, described in the Japan-guide.com as “a seaside urban area whose name means "harbor of the future". It has many large high-rises, including the Landmark Tower, which was Japan's tallest building from 1993 until 2014. The area was a large shipyard until the 1980s, when development began to turn it into a new city center.” There is a shopping center and an amusement park that I wish we had more time to explore. There is a giant ferris wheel with lights all over it and it is quite a sight to see from the top of the hotel. We enjoyed taking a quick walk around the area the next morning before breakfast.

Our stop in Japan was to spend a couple of days with a married couple that we are friends and business associates with. They are currently living in the US but go to Japan on business for several weeks at a time. They were going to be there during the same week that we would be there. He is a Brit and she is Japanese. They are going to retire in Japan and recently purchased a home in Ito, on the Izu peninsula. They are both golfers and so is my husband. When he visits in California he and DH always golf and he wanted to take DH golfing in Japan. She is tons of fun and would have taken us on a two week guided tour of Japan if we had let her!

Instead she had us meet them in Yokohama at the Park Royal where they were staying, and spend the first night and then the next day they would take us sightseeing. Originally we would stop the following night at a golf resort and then the two husbands would golf the following day and afterwards we would take the train to Osaka where DH had a meeting on Friday. The golf resorts were all fairly expensive and because we had our adult son with us, some of the hotels didn’t allow three adults in a room which made it more costly for two rooms. They wound up getting the new house sooner than expected so she said if we didn’t mind sleeping in the tatami room on the floor we could stay there instead. We were honored by the offer! We had all been to Japan before but my son and I had never been inside of a private home so I was interested to see what it would be like.

My husband has had various connections to Japanese businesses over the years, and many years ago he had a Japanese customer who we wound up being friends with him and his family. We went to Japan and he visited the US often and invited our oldest son to come and spend the summer with them when he was fourteen. We kept in touch and then suddenly we stopped hearing from him. E-mails and voice mails were not returned. We were really worried but didn’t know what to do. Several years went by and finally he wrote a letter to tell us that his wife had died from breast cancer after a long illness. His English is not very clear but he said he felt ashamed. We would hear from him once every year or two. We had not heard from him for awhile and my husband said while we were planning the trip he wished we had time to see him. The very next day my husband got a friend request from him on Facebook!It turned out he would be in Yokohama the same time that we would but the only day we could meet was the day we arrived.

We checked into the hotel, our son had his own room since the hotel didn’t allow him to share our room. The hotel is a very nice hotel although the décor is a bit dated. The rooms are very large and the restrooms were very large especially by Japanese standards. We have been in Yokohama several times and always stayed at the Sheraton but our friends really like Royal Park and since they were staying there and we were leaving early the next morning it was the best place to stay. The bar and restaurant were very expensive typical of that type of hotel.

We then met with our long lost friend in the lobby. He had mentioned he would be with his partner and we speculated on what that might mean! I thought it was a business partner, but it turned out to be his girlfriend. I was afraid talking about his deceased wife might be uncomfortable but it turns out that his girlfriend was his wife’s best friend from high school who had also not known she had passed away until much later. We later found out that in Japan it isn’t unusual for people to keep a serious illness very private and when a family member dies it is a tradition to spend a year in sort of a private mourning. We enjoyed seeing him happy.

We went up the lounge at the top of the hotel and met our other friends and had drinks and ate a snack. There was a ridiculous cover charge and drinks and appetizers were pretty expensive. A jazz band was playing and our son said it was just like “Lost in Translation” but without Scarlett Johanssen! We managed to stay awake and visit for a few hours but soon it was time for sleep to get up early for sightseeing.

This is way too long already and it’s only the first day!
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Old Sep 19th, 2014, 08:31 PM
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Sounds like you began your trip with some great personal connections - how nice!
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Old Sep 19th, 2014, 09:18 PM
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Great report so far looking forward to the rest. My DD has been offered a contract in Japan but it starts January and she doesn't finish in Busan until mid February.
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Old Sep 19th, 2014, 10:54 PM
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kja, I think my report is mostly about personal connections with a side of travel!

nelsonian, too bad she couldn't work Japan into the work schedule, great excuse for you to take a trip! By the way, do you know your screen name always gets auto corrected to melatonin on my stupid Kindle!!!
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Old Sep 19th, 2014, 11:11 PM
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Yay, trip report! I love reading all trip reports, or even when people share tidbits about an experience by way of giving suggestions or feedback on an info request thread. I love all of it. Keep going please!
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Old Sep 20th, 2014, 05:37 AM
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Enjoying your report so far!
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Old Sep 30th, 2014, 11:03 AM
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SeeHag my DD has been offered a 4 month contract in Japan starting 1 April 2015.

Looking forward to the rest of your report!
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Old Sep 30th, 2014, 05:38 PM
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How cool Nelsonian!!! Where will she be? Our friends live near Yokohama and she is a music lover and plays the piano. If she is near there I will tell her to go! When does she leave for Busan?

I have much guilt over not getting my trip report done! I left a trainee to do my job for two weeks and she did great but there are lots of things she wasn't trained on that were left undone and I am playing catch up! And last weekend my husband told me at the last minute he didn't care if we had decided our trip was also our birthday and anniversary gift, we were going to get away for a few days to celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary so no time then! I can't do it on my tablet so I need to use my work computer...excuses excuses!!
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Old Sep 30th, 2014, 08:55 PM
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Great to have some more of your report SeeHag and congratulations on your anniversary. It deserves being celebrated properly.

I'm heading back to South Korea Monday but not to Jeju. I'm looking forward to hearing about that and enjoying the Japan report as well.
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Old Sep 30th, 2014, 10:21 PM
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Okay, the pressure was on so I got through another day. It will get briefer after this I promise!

The weather had been a concern before we left, Japan had terrible flooding and mudslides in the weeks leading up to our trip but Monday morning we woke up really early with light streaming through the window. The view of Yokohama Bay spread out shining and bright was great from the room on the 59th floor.

It was very early and we felt like getting in some activity after the previous day’s flight so we went out for a walk around the amusement park and surrounding waterfront. It has a nice park area and we watched a few people out early on the water taking paddle board lessons. I know Yokohama is not a sought after place for tourists but we have enjoyed our stays there. It’s close to Kamakura, it has the world’s largest Chinatown and it has a ramen museum! However we were only there for the night and morning! We went back and packed an overnight bag to take with us and the rest of the luggage was then sent ahead to our hotel in Osaka since we were traveling by car to our friends and then the next day we took the train to Osaka. I think we paid about $50.00 for three suitcases to be sent ahead. We met for breakfast in the hotel restaurant, the same place we had drinks the night before and it was just as pricey, about $35.00 per person if I remember correctly. It was a really great buffet with all the traditional Japanese and Chinese items as well as a full western breakfast selection. We then checked out and loaded into the Toyota van our friends rented so we would all be comfortable.

Off we went to Hakone. I was surprised at how little traffic there was at 9:00 am in a huge city like Yokohama. We all had a good laugh when my son who was sitting in the very back of the van admitted that he had forgotten that the driver’s side was on the right and he had been really nervous because he didn’t realize that Tomoko wasn’t driving and she kept looking over her shoulder to talk to us! We drove for about an hour and a half through really beautiful hills and mountains on a windy road. It seemed like we stopped at a toll booth every fifteen minutes. Our friend was so disappointed that it was cloudy when we started to get closer to Hakone because it was obscuring the view of Mt Fuji, which she was keen on having us see.

We drove through Hakone and on to Onshi Hakone Koen Park, a lovely garden overlooking Ashino-ko Lake. It used to be an Imperial villa. The villa was destroyed by earthquakes but it has been rebuilt to look like one of the originals. We wandered around and enjoyed the surroundings of beautifully manicured gardens, hoping Fuji-san would peek through but the clouds were too heavy. We then drove back to Hakone and did some shopping. The town is known for the inlaid wood puzzle boxes made there so we picked up some souvenirs made from the wood and I bought a pair of tiny little thong sandals for my friend’s little granddaughter. We stopped for lunch at a soba place and had some mochi for dessert. Our friend Tomoko said that Hakone is known for this treat. We split a couple of different types. We were all stuffed by the time we finished lunch.

It was then time to head back down through the mountains to the town of Ito on the Izu peninsula where our friends just purchased a retirement home. They have lived in Japan, the UK and most recently the US where they have a home. They decided that Japan was the best place to retire and they like the Izu peninsula because it has pretty beaches and some nice smaller towns. On previous trips to Japan we have seen mostly huge cities, so it was so nice to see the countryside and the smaller towns we went through. We stopped at several scenic turnouts still hoping to see Mt Fuji but no luck. We still had great views back to Hakone and the lake and then the other direction looking out over the peninsula. We went some picturesque little farming areas in the lush green hills and finally came to the coast.

Originally we planned on staying at a golf resort where there are also hot springs. This area is filled with onsens, golf courses, hotels and ryokans. The town of Ito is a little fishing village. As we got closer to Ito we could see a peak, Mt Omuro which is an extinct volcano that they told us was right next to their home. They said you can take a lift to the top. They had never explored it so we decided to check it out. It was a funky little place with a chair lift that looked a little sketchy but I feel safe in Japan so what the heck! The peak is super steep, covered in grass and at the summit there are paths to circle the crater. In the center of the crater there was an archery area. The lift was a quick ride and the view from the top was spectacular. You could see for miles up and down the peninsula. We kept taking pictures but they just don’t capture the panorama. Finally the clouds parted a bit and we could see a small bit of Mt Fuji! We could look out and see the golf course that the two guys would be playing the next morning. We hopped back in the van and headed to Ito.

We could have gone out to dinner, there are lots of good restaurants in the area but our friends thought a picnic at home would be fun. In addition, our host enjoys having cocktails and there is zero tolerance for drinking and driving in Japan. We asked what the penalties are and apparently everyone in the car goes to jail, not just the driver! The picnic was looking better and better! I love to go to a grocery store when I am in a different country so this was great fun for me. The place was the size of a smaller American grocery but it was full of beautiful fruits and vegetables, which were displayed very nicely. I have never seen such huge pieces of fruit! We all wandered around throwing whatever looked interesting into the multiple carts we had. We got lots of curious glances, one small Japanese woman, one tall white woman and three very tall white men all scouring the aisles! We got several big platters of sushi and sashimi for really reasonable prices. Lots of beer and sake too! We checked out and took our booty back to the house!

The house is on a hillside with views of the ocean in the distance. It is an interesting place. Built in the 70’s and engineered to be very earthquake resistant. The previous owner was a Tokyo lawyer who built the place as his tennis retreat. It has a huge yard with a tennis court and beautiful garden. The downstairs bathroom is like a spa at a tennis club, giant soaking tub big enough for five or six people and five showerheads! There was hot mineral spring water piped to the house. There were also three water closets in a row off of the hallway. They will have some remodeling to do but it is a great house! We ate our picnic at the table with recessed area for your legs, sitting on the floor. After much eating and drinking, our son serenaded us on his guitar and then we retired to the tatami rooms where our futons awaited. I was nervous about sleeping on them as I have been having some back problems, but they were double thick and I I slept fine. I think the sake may have helped!
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Old Sep 30th, 2014, 11:14 PM
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Loving it Seehag, I don't like all the detail. My trip reports always end up as books!!!
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