Highlight: Koe no Katachi

Warning: This post contains spoilers. Please read at your own risk.

Ah, I’ve been wanting to watch this movie ever since they released it last year! Now that I’ve got the chance to, and watched it, I truly feel that movie is a masterpiece of its own. I fell in love with the story, characters, music, development and the beautiful ending. Basically, everything in the movie was really well done. Of course, the movie’s not perfect, it has its own flaws, but it still left a great impression (and feels)!

Koe no Katachi is a very powerful movie about redemption, regrets, friendship, and family. It revolves around the two main characters, Ishida Shouya, who was once a bully, and Nishimiya Shoko, the one being bullied because of her inability to hear.

Ishida closing himself from the rest of the world

When Ishida started to bully Nishimiya, everyone in the class joined in, including his closest friends. But in the end, Ishida became the scapegoat of his friends when Nishimiya’s mother reported to the teacher about the possibility of her daughter being bullied at school. As a result, he became the bullied and was cast out by all of his friends, leading to his depression and him wanting to commit suicide in the very first few scenes of the movie.

Ishida’s suicide attempt was then found out by his mom and she made him promise not to commit suicide every again (by threatening him that she would burn all the money he has gathered for her) and try to live his life better. Ishida promised, but he continued living by not properly seeing and hearing what is around him because he wanted to shut himself inside. This is illustrated in the movie with all the X on the people’s faces around him.

Ishida started to see Nishimiya again because of what he did before he tried committing suicide. He had returned Nishimiya’s old notebook (which was used for communication, as Nishimiya can’t speak properly) as a last ‘deed’ and actually didn’t expect to see her again after. However, after those events, Ishida and Nishimiya started seeing each other more. Ishida now uses sign language to communicate with Nishimiya.

The story progresses and brings all of his old friends together again. Ishida also gained a new faithful buddy, Nagatsuka, along the way by rescuing him from a bicycle thief. (Chubby cute friend, I must say.) He also got to know Nishimiya’s younger sister, Yuzuru, (mistaken as Nishimiya’s boyfriend by Ishida at first) who does her best every day to support her sister.

At this point, Ishida thought he was doing fine with this life of redemption. However, the X labels that had fallen off came back because his old friends brought back the past he wanted to forget about. Kawai, Ishida’s elementary school friend (who is actually not cute at all), started to spread rumors again about Ishida’s past which led him to take a tremendous action to shut everyone out once again. What Ishida didn’t know was that his actions made Nishimiya think that Ishida’s suffering was all her fault, leading her to blame herself for everything that Ishida had experienced.

I think this part of the movie made Ishida and all the viewers of this movie freak out. Ishida and Nishimiya’s little family went out to watch the fireworks display, but when her sister and mother was gone, Nishimiya told Ishida that she wanted to go home suddenly. Ishida was confused but since Nishimiya insisted, he couldn’t do anything and was only able to say ‘see you later’. Nishimiya usually responds with ‘see you later’ as well, but this time, she didn’t.

Yes, because she tried to do the same thing as what Ishida tried to do at the beginning of the movie.

Ishida soon came back to Nishimiya’s house because Yuzuru told him to get her camera. He expected to see Nishimiya at home but the house was dark. He soon saw Nishimiya’s figure standing on the balcony and Ishida panicked so much when he started seeing her climbing the railings to the point he shouted out Nishimiya’s first name, Shoko, for the very first time.

Nishimiya didn’t fall because of Ishida’s help, but Ishida fell because his body shifted forwards when he tried to pull Nishimiya from the balcony, resulting him to fall into the river. Ishida survived because his friends from elementary school helped to pull him out. He was hospitalized after that event but soon regained consciousness and welcomed back by his friends and family.

Ishida opening himself to the rest of the world

After all that he went through, Ishida realized that he had never apologized to Shoko and all of his friends yet. So he did. By doing so, Ishida was finally able to drop all the X on people faces and look at everyone directly in the eye. The background song that was played in this scene also got a little louder as Ishida moved his hands away from covering his ears, showing that he is finally able to forgive himself.

Review: Innisfree Products

I purchased these products several months ago before leaving Japan to return to my country during the winter break. I got it through an Amazon seller based in Korea. At that time I was getting more sucked in into the skincare world (specifically Korea’s) and found out more about different brands. This road-shop brand particularly intrigued me and made me purchase several things that were very popular in the skincare world.

This review is just a short mini one because I believe more in-depth and detailed reviews are out there. This post is about how the product works and what I think about it. Different people may have different results with these products.

Well, this is not a skincare product. But this loose setting powder has the functionality of controlling your skin sebum. It will give you a matte finish if applied on the top of your makeup, which is something that I aim for. I love the cute little puff it came with. So soft. This powder can maintain your skin from producing excess sebum for several hours. In my case, it held off for around 4~5 hours. After that my T-zone will start to get oily again and I’ll have to reapply it.

I’m guessing most of the skincare lovers know this product since everyone loves it. Despite being a clay mask, it doesn’t get dry enough when you leave it on so it’s really easy to rinse off. This product is targeted to fix your pore concerns. I notice that it kinda minimizes the appearance of the pores on my nose (I have gigantic pores), so I guess I could understand why it was a cult favorite. I came to fall in love with this product after several uses. 😀

Hydrating green tea serum (contains alcohol)

I wasn’t originally going to purchase this product because it was quite on the pricier side. However, winter in Japan has somehow dried my skin and I watched several youtube videos that stated this was nice for hydrating your skin as well, so I gave it a try. I didn’t realize it contained alcohol in the first place, but thankfully my skin is OK with this product after several uses. It reacts a bit on the first few applications, making my skin a bit red, but afterward, it’s fine.

This serum absorbs really fast to your skin because of the alcohol, but it doesn’t dry my skin either. Applying moisturizer afterward works to keep my skin moisturized for the rest of the day.

Another non-skincare product, but I came to love it because it works so much better than my old primer. My old one was Tony Moly’s Egg Pore Silky Smooth Balm (long name, I know), which dried my skin really bad to the point of making my cheek area look really flaky. Thankfully, this one from Innisfree does not accentuate my flaky skin. It keeps my makeup for a longer time as well (this depends on what you use) and makes my skin surface smooth.

Walking around the city of Beppu

The Japanese class I took this semester offered the students a mini tour around Beppu Station once every month. It was a voluntary activity and the ones who participate and wrote a report on it will receive a bonus point for their Japanese language grades. At first, I was reluctant to join because we had to pay 500 yen (call me stingy) for the participation fee and get up early in the morning (yes, I’m lazy, I know). However, some of my friends who have participated it said it was worth it and that I should try joining as well.

So I did.

And I have to say it was really worth it as well. So this time I’m going to review some of the places that we went to. Not every thing that was mentioned in the tour will be mentioned here. So if you’re interested, give the tour a try when you come to Beppu!

Introducing Beppu

This bald man is probably one of the most iconic person in Beppu. His name is Aburaya Kumahachi, self-proclaimed as Pika-pika Ojisan or Shiny Uncle (Hint: see his head). He was the person who made Beppu famous of onsen and tourism in the old days and was still looked up as the Father of Tourism in Beppu nowadays.

Our guide, Hirano-san, told us a lot of things about Aburaya and how this statue contained a lot of details and meaning behind it. The pose he made was a ‘landing pose’ showing that he just landed from the sky. If you look closely, there are two oni children sticking to Aburaya’s mantle. They also became the famous tourist attraction icon in Beppu, the Jigoku Meguri. You can’t really see clearly from here, but the mantle had an onsen icon. His necktie (also unclear), had a crucifix, showing that he was a Christian.

On the side of the monument, there is an engraving:

“旅人をねんごろにせよ

Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers.”

This showed how big Aburaya’s love for tourism was for the city of Beppu.

International Inn Kokage

The original name for this place is 民宿こかげ (Minshuku Kokage). It’s a very old Japanese Inn with tons of priceless antique stuff inside. The owner opens this place to the public for those who want to see the collection he has gathered for the past years. Of course, you can book a room and stay there for several nights if you want to as well. Vintage lovers would fall in love with this place!

良聞居 (Ryoubunkaku)

We were then taken to visit a very old house with tons of history in it, Ryoubunkaku. There we met the keeper, Akiyoshi-san, an old man who was once a dentist. He inherited the house from his parents (if I’m not wrong). This house is not open to the public, and Hirano-san also mentioned that we got really lucky because visitors was allowed on the day we went on the mini tour.

I wanted to take a lot of photos because, man, this house was majestic! It had a small garden behind and so many rooms with all the antique interior design. However, he scolded someone who took photos once, so I guess we’re not allowed to take any. Too bad.

The house had so many sliding doors connected to many different rooms. Each room had a history and drawing that shows us a lot about Beppu. One was used to predict the seasons and another one was a beautiful painting of a mountain in Beppu (which its name I forgot). It also might sound funny, but this is the only house in Beppu that has swinging doors (like the one in the salon). A lot of poets who wrote haikus have come to this house a long time ago and you can still see their original piece of paper they wrote on being displayed inside the house.

Anyways, there are so many things you can discover in this house and me talking about it without pictures wouldn’t sound so interesting, so I will go to the next visiting spot.

The Sitting Tree

The famous ‘sitting tree’ that appeared in lots of TV shows in Japan. Can you see it?

I was wondering where we were heading after we got out of Ryobunkaku and it turns out that our tour guide brought us to a small alley where this sitting tree was located. I never knew that this tree existed, to be honest, but I found it really amusing. You can only see the tree ‘sitting’ from a certain angle.

Other places

We also went to several other places that I didn’t mention here because I forgot to take pictures of it. One of our last destinations was 海門寺温泉 (Kaimonji Onsen). Kaimon literally means ‘the sea gate’. It was named because the land was once a border between land and the sea. A humongous pine tree named Shigure Matsu grows here. You can see a short video I took of the tree in my Instagram if you’re interested.

The last place we were taken to was Hirano-san’s office. We were shown an old video about Beppu’s tourism and also encouraged by one of the teachers from our University to explore more about the city we’re living in right now. Hirano-san also encouraged everyone to apply as a helping tour guide if they’re willing to. I was quite interested, but I still feel I won’t be able to do much with my minimum level of Japanese right now. I do wish I can help around in the future, though!

This ends the mini tour around Beppu Station. I had so much fun and gained a lot of new knowledge that I wouldn’t have known if it weren’t for this program. If you’re interested in history and such, I think that participating in this kind of events wouldn’t be so bad!

Golden Week Shopping

I feel guilty about posting this because it gives me the feeling that I kinda failed to save my money. But I just wanted to talk about all the fun we had while shopping and looking at all the things on sale during the Golden Week in Japan!

At first, I didn’t know that department stores had sale during Golden Week until my friend told me about it. It turned out that stores like Muji and UNIQLO had a big promotion during the week so I decided to go and ~~waste my money~~ see what was worth it to buy.

Muji didn’t have their prices cut off insanely, but we do get 10% discount for everything if we have the Muji application on our mobile phone. (It’s all about the apps these days). I got several stationeries and funnily, a Tom Yum soup paste.

Black gel pens, pen tube (with mechanical pencil), and two pen refills.

I discovered the Tom Yum paste accidentally when I browsed through the back section of the store. I’ve been dying to eat Tom Yum ever since I ran out of the pastes I bought back from Indonesia. I can’t really find one here, but luckily Muji has it! The pack comes with the paste, fish sauce, and other ingredients such as leaves for spice. It still requires you to put in chopped tomatoes and milk (and something else I forgot) to make it more tastier, which is something I didn’t need to do if I use my old paste, but I guess it can’t be helped. It tasted pretty decent!

The pens I bought was for self-satisfaction and aesthetic reasons. Lol. But they’re really nice to use and I like sharp-pointed pens because they’re so easy to write with!

Uniqlo’s UV cut jacket. Image from Uniqlo.

I also bought two jackets from Uniqlo (even though I have so many already, but they’re for winter, so…) since they were on discount. Both got a 1000 yen discount so I decided to get both of them … just because. I really love it and they have those tiny little holes at the end of the sleeves for your thumb to go through. It has super comfortable material as well!

Some kind of wind-resistant umbrella. Image from Uniqlo.

I decided to go for a pricier umbrella (900 yen) this time since my cheaper one (600 yen) is about to die because of strong winds on the mountain areas. Unfortunately, the umbrella flipped today when I used it because the wind was too darn strong and, well, screwed my umbrella. The umbrella ribs didn’t rotate just like what was stated in the picture. Boo-hoo. At least I’m grateful it get destroyed after my first use.

Gotta love the bad picture and lighting quality. This is Herschel Dawson in black.

This just came in today, but I ordered it during the weekends because it was on sale as well. I fell in love with the appearance and the discount just kinda lured me to purchase this without thinking twice. I already have three bags prior to purchasing this one, so as of now I have four backpacks. Lol.

Instead of having zippers, this bag has a drawstring and magnetic closure to keep your things in place. The magnets are really strong I had to put a little effort to pull them up haha. The insides are wide enough to fit things and it has a laptop compartment as well. Other than that, you can see it’s a pretty simple backpack.

Actually, I feel really bad having four backpacks but only using one and leaving the other three covered in dust. So I decided to sell the Herschel Pop Quiz to someone else and use this new one as my main instead. That leaves me with two other backpacks but that’s okay since I don’t really like using the 25 liters backpack my mom bought because that was meant for traveling. I have another Anello bag, but I’d like to use that for other purposes in the future so I will keep that stored for now.

You might want to praise me because despite purchasing this many, my expenses didn’t exceed my monthly leisure allowance! I got all the items for a relatively cheap price so I’m really satisfied with it!

I’m still alive, barely

I haven’t been able to post anything after the Hobonichi post because classes started several days after that and my leisure time literally got thrown out of the window. Many more troubles occurred ever since and my life has never been this hectic. Here goes my mini update post. Warning: this post contains so much love. (You’ll get it later if you read it.)

First things first

I found the apartment where I will be moving into with the help of my lovely friends! It’s located in near the middle part of the town so it’s really convenient. There are mini markets and drug stores around me, several restaurants that I really like, also a bus stop within 4 minutes walk. The rent was pretty cheap for a single apartment if you compare it to others. It’s around 40000 yen excluding electricity and gas per month. I know sharing your room with someone else might be a good solution if you’re tight on money, but I still think living alone is nice since you get all the things for yourself. (Then you cry because you need to cover all the expenses on your own.)

I was drowning in the sea of ‘problems’

… and luckily was able to swim out of it several times. Funnily, all these problems revolved around my scholarship. At first, I thought I screwed up my applications because I misunderstood the instructions, resulting in me filling the forms the wrong way. I thought wouldn’t pass the screening because of it. (It was written that any false information may cause your scholarship to be revoked. Panic, panic.)

Welp, it turns out that I luckily passed the screening and got nominated for the scholarship. (How on earth did this happen, I don’t know.) But then another problem popped up because my dad urged me to decide a date for returning home because a cheap plane ticket was on sale. For those who don’t know, the system requires us to sign in person within a certain period each month in order for us to be able to receive the scholarship, otherwise, you won’t get yours for that month if you skip it. Well, newsflash: the date I will return (not arrive) in Japan coincides with the last day of the signing period!

(Insert several images of me panicking, and my parents telling me to let it go because it’s not easy to change the booking date for cheap plane tickets.)

And luckily somehow this particular airline were so kind they let us change the dates, free of charge. ♥

Other than that,

I’m currently stuck under piles of reading materials and weekly assignments and math. I just had to bold math to emphasize.

Most of the subjects I took requires me to read around 20 pages of materials, others being 40, for each week before class. (I’m sorry but ain’t nobody got time for that.) One of the courses also made us do referencing, ~~which everyone obviously loves.~~ And almost everyone fails in it. Lol.

But let’s not forget about math! My math teacher is really wonderful because he gives us a generous amount of homework and quizzes for us to do every week! Other teachers don’t really give out homework and test that frequently, though. So I guess my teacher’s just the good ambitious type who cares about his students a lot. I don’t get stressed anymore because my stress level never goes down anymore.

So, yeah, I’ll end the post here because 1) I still have essays to do and 2) it doesn’t look like a ‘mini update’ anymore.

Review: Hobonichi 2017

If you’ve read my previous rambles about planners and whatnot, you could probably tell what I’m going to talk about in this post just by looking at the title. I’ve been indecisive whether I should place an order for this year’s Hobonichi planner since I was trying to save some money for something else. I thought I shouldn’t give in, but my planner junkie instincts kicked in and finally made me purchase one three days ago. (Forgive me, me).

I decided to get the A6 sized planner this year since the A5 size was too big and a bit heavy for me. I didn’t purchase any of the 2017 covers that I’ve mentioned before since I’m a bit tight on money. But instead of that, I decided to reuse my old A6 cover (which had no actual planner inside it) that I purchased last year.

I made an additional purchase for this cover since I wanted to keep my existing Weeks planner safe. I really liked the design of it and it wasn’t that expensive, so why not! The cover has two multipurpose slots for cards, pen loop and some sort of bookmark tab. All in all, it’s a pretty handy cover!

The original A6 planner with the freebies

For those who don’t know, every purchase of Hobonichi planner through their online webshop will include a freebie of Uni Jetstream pen and a different extra each year. Last year’s pen was yellow colored and the extra freebie was a tissue holder which was very nice to have! 2017’s freebie is a toast-shaped plate … which I have no idea what to use for.

Overall, I was really satisfied by this purchase. Their shipping was lightning fast! It only took three days for them to process the order and get the items to my place. Price wise, it’s quite on the high end, however it won’t betray your expectations for their quality are so far the best that I know. If you want to know more about this planner, do check some Youtube videos! They have all the explanations and previews of the planners as well as their covers.

Review: LUSH Ocean Salt

This is my first time trying out a Lush product. I’ve heard and read great reviews about this brand so I decided to give one of their most popular products a shot: Ocean Salt. There are two versions of the product one being self-preserving (SP) and the other one in the original version. I got myself the SP one via their website.

Shipping and Packaging

I placed the order on the 22nd of March and just got it yesterday at 27th. The shipping process took quite a long time because they had to pack everything by hand and send it from Tokyo. In the website, there was a drop-down bar in which you can select the delivery time that suites you. I picked 8-12 in the morning, however, it reached my place 9 PM. I am not happy with that. But I’m glad it’s just several hours late compared to the Innisfree things that I purchased from Korea.

The box when it came. The edges are sealed with a sticker.

Inside the box. Those fluffy little balls make me happy.

I must say I am happy with the packaging. I guess it’s because they put some effort in arranging those white balls to fit the box properly. I’ve tried taking the products out and then tried to put them back in place, but the box won’t shut because the stuffings aren’t properly arranged. Haha. I’m also pleased that they gave me a free tester of their other product for me to try.

Stickers … of their employee’s face

This has nothing to do with the review, but I just had to mention this. I was genuinely amused when I saw these stickers inside the box and on the product’s tub. It tells you who were packing and handling your products.

Product

The product does not come with a spoon or anything to scoop the product. So you have to use your own hands to dig in and take it out. Not exactly hygienic if you’re using for both body and face. So, for the meantime I’m just going to use this as a body scrub to see how well it works.

I love the product color just because it’s aesthetically pleasing. The salt inside acts as a scrub for your body but it’s not that rough for your skin. It does have a strangely refreshing smell, though. I wouldn’t recommend this to people who aren’t fond of strange and strong smell.

When applied to a damp skin and rinsed after, it does give you a soft and smooth sensation. The smell stays there for awhile and will just disappear after some time so it doesn’t really bother me. It managed to get off some dead skin off my scaly legs (lol) so I guess I’m quite satisfied with it for now.

Price

This product has three sizes available starting from 120g, the medium sized being 250g and the biggest at 500g. I got myself the 120g for ¥1,670 (tax included). A bit pricey but I think it’s worth it if you’re just splurging once in a while. A little goes a long way if you use it wisely.

Final verdict

Strange and strong smell. Exfoliates well. Not irritating. Aesthetically beautiful. A bit pricey.

I will continue using this product for the time being and see if I can finish this tub. I won’t be purchasing any other products from this brand for awhile since I’m quite considerate of the smell that Lush products give. I would have to visit the actual store to test it out in the future.

Back to Japan

The trip back to Japan wasn’t that pleasant. Turbulence kept happening when I was on the plane to Korea. It took me full 9 hours to get there. Luckily, there was no one sitting beside me so I got more of a wider space for myself. I was only able to sleep for four and a half hours, though. I was unable to sleep again after that. The photo above was taken around 6:30 AM.

The transit at Korea was 4 hours long. I had nothing to do other than munching on french fries from Taco Bell and stare at my phone to report my status updates to my family. Overall, it was quite boring. I even had to listen to several grandmas and grandpas chattering at the waiting room. It wasn’t that fun.

Arriving at Japan, I stupidly missed the bus to Beppu that was in front of my eyes. Even though I saw the sign on the bus saying Beppu, I was too confused whether that was the right bus or not. Lol. In the end, I had to wait an hour for the next bus to come. I didn’t make reservations beforehand so I couldn’t get immediately inside the bus and had to wait outside until all the passengers with reservations got in. I was quite lucky since I got an empty seat!

The most hellish part was probably having to carry my own luggage down the stairs of hell. It connected the highway stop where the bus dropped us to the university. (Heck, I wonder if there are any universities that existed on the top of the mountain.) I dragged my baggage down the stairs three steps each until I reached … another set of stairs.

My hands felt so heavy that I couldn’t even lift it to wash my face after that.

My Innisfree products that I purchased a long time ago before leaving Japan.

Today I went to my friend’s room to pick up my package that I left in her care before I left Japan. I had expected that it would arrive really late since it was shipped from Korea, and I was right. That package was ordered before I made the post about saving money. Lol. Now I kind of regretted seeing all the things left unused scattered on my table. Amazon is toxic!

Students from APM (business majors) will have a course restoration tomorrow and to be honest, I’m fucking scared. Yes, the curse word because it is truly horrifying. Good luck to fellow friends who are taking the registration tomorrow as well. Lol. Wish me luck!

Room layout planning

Last month I posted about whether I should move out alone or with someone. The answer to that question remains unanswered for now, but I thought if I’m going to move out one day why not think about things that are easier to resolve at the moment. So I researched some furniture websites such as Nitori and Muji to compare the prices for their products that I might buy for my room in the future. Here are the things that I put in my list!

Bedding

I decided to go for a futon set instead of mattress due to the reason it’s easier to clean and keep. This futon set includes both the main futon, quilt, and pillow as well as the covers for each of them. There are two sizes available which is S (210 x 100 cm) and SD (210 x 120 cm). But they have 2000 yen difference 😥 which is really expensive for the 20 cm addition in my opinion.

I didn’t really like the idea of directly sleeping on the floor, so I thought this storage bed from Muji might be nice to have since it’s multifunction. It’s not cheap, though, but I think it’s still worth to have rather than having the room cluttered with the things that I don’t use every day. The picture above is the S sized, while the SD sized bed is 5000 yen more expensive compared to this one.

Clothes and shoes storage

Most Japanese apartments have a built-in closet. It’s not too big but will definitely fit most of the clothes I have at the moment. I can simply keep my shoes in a rack provided at the main entrance of the apartment. Even if they don’t have it, I could just simply line the ones I use every day there and keep the ones I don’t in the closet. Easy! If I happen to have excess clothes, I could just buy a simple and cheap pole hanger from Nitori.

Tables

Instead of going with a high dining table, I thought of just purchasing a kotatsu and have it as a multifunctional table. I can take the covers off during summer and have it on during winter. It’s a two in one product! It almost costs 15000 yen, though, but I guess it’s worth the price. I don’t need a carpet since I already bought one, so the only remaining thing to buy is the top cover!

The top cover for the rectangle sized kotatsu is around 4000 to 5000 yen depending on the material and pattern design. Though it might be a little bit expensive, it’s still a must have and worth it item for winter!

Chairs

Since I’m using a kotatsu, I don’t need any actual chairs to sit in. All I need is this cheap and soft cushion which is available at Nitori for around 1000 yen each. An easy solution to save space as well!

There are still a lot of things on my list but that’s the idea for now! If you have any suggestions on saving up space in a little room, please leave a comment because that will definitely be useful!

Going Home

I think I’ve mentioned somewhere in my previous post that I’ve planned to go home in February. So here’s an impression about my trip home: hellish.

Since it hasn’t snowed in Beppu for a few days before my trip, I thought that it wouldn’t need to worry about blizzards anymore, but of course, I was wrong. The night before my trip, snow fell once more and covered all the roads around campus. It wasn’t snowing anymore when I woke up and I didn’t see any signs of strong wind blowing, so I only grabbed my thin jacket and went outside…

Only to rush back inside to get another thicker jacket because I definitely underestimated the weather here.

My friend, Yaya, was supposed to take me to the service area located on the top of the campus. Normally, you wouldn’t find any campus connected to a highway service area, but since this particular campus in on the top of the mountain, you can access it by climbing several sets of steep stairs.

Unfortunately, my lovely friend slept her way throughout the day so I had to desperately search for someone who’s awake at 6 in the morning. God bless my friend Michael for not sleeping because he’s the one who finally took me to the service area when the sky is still pitch black.

Then we had to wait for the highway bus to come longer than we expected because the bus was late for 23 minutes due to the snow. My whole body, especially my hands were frozen to the point I couldn’t move them properly. The waiting seemed forever, but I was finally able to get on the bus and get some shut eye before arriving at Fukuoka.

Nothing much happened at the airport than having to wait in a super long line like the ones you see in a Snake game. I met two other friends who were going home as well, so we went together. We bought two boxes of souvenirs each and then got on the plane headed for Incheon and had to wait there for around 4 hours for transit. The food that was served on the airplane wasn’t that nice … so we decided to get another meal at Taco Bell. It was delicious!

I got to know an old Korean man that sat beside me on the flight to Jakarta. He could only speak Korean, so trying to understand what he was trying to say was very hard since I’m not that fluent in Korean yet. But the textbooks that I bought during the winter break really helped because there were a lot of vocabularies that I memorized! I didn’t think I did a great job in helping him filling in the immigration forms, though. Haha.

After 16 hours of hardships, I finally arrived in Indonesia and got to see my family waiting with grumpy faces. (I had to wait so long for my baggage to come out). I got sick the next day due to exhaustion, but the trip back was worth it because now I can laze around and I don’t have to face the struggle to wake up a bit early to prepare my food every day. Lol.