Japan or Bust! [AKA the time we broke our vaginas]

Oh my GOD I suck at blogging.  My apologies, my 4 readers! ^^  Sooooo, what's new?  I mean, riiiiight??  It has certainly been a hot minute.  Since my last post, the most eventful..uh..event was going on an INTENSE bike trip in Japan.  LET ME TELL YOUUUUUU, it was rough.  We didn't think we needed to do ANYTHING to prepare for this suicide mission  adventure, but boy were we wrong.  It was literally the hardest thing I have ever done in my ENTIRE life.  I was all, "I bike to school everyday, foolios", and "it'll probably be flat, and if we get tired, the bus can come and pick our asses up".  Not so.  SOoooooo not so.


Where to begin.  Well, it took us about 20 hours to make it to our destination: Tsushima Island, Japan.  We left after work on Friday night and took a night bus to the city on the Southern-most tip of Korea. This was supposed to take around 4 1/2 hours BUT it was a Korean holiday and all the peeps were gettin outta dodge, so it took us 8 1/2 hours.  On a bus.  Where yours truly of COURSE slept like a baby could not sleep.  PLUS these turds were boozing in the back and asked to stop LITERALLY 20 minutes in.  I almost went ham on them.  THENNNN, we stop at our 3rd reststop, and it seemed like it had been a while, so my friend Elyse asked what the holdup was.  The trip leader proceeded to shush her, point at the bus driver and say, "He's taking a nap".  A NAP!!  IN THE MIDDLE OF A TRIP HE WAS DRIVING!  I mean, that's his JOB!  I don't get to tell my Kinder kids to chillax for a while so I can rest ma peepers, do I?  Did I want him to fall asleep at the wheel, plummet off a cliff and kill us all?  No.  By all means, take a 15 minute nap to rejuvenate, right?  Here's the amazing part...we stopped for an hour and a half!!  Good GRIEF we could have made it in 7 hours without him pulling a Rip Van Winkle on us!

Ok, so we finally make it to Busan as the sun was rising, and we had to wait a few more hours before getting on the ferry.  First we had to rent our bikes (which were WAYYY better than we expected) and we obviously chugged a few beers on the boat, since it was 8:00am five o'clock somewhere.

Alright, now it's time to succinctify this shiz. We biked about 70 miles in three days, stayed in 2 traditional Japanese guesthouses, and camped at two different sights nestled in the mountains. OH YEAH, IT WAS ALL MOUNTAINS!!!!! I simply can't convey the difficulty in words. Everytime we made it to the top of a mountain (we had to walk our bikes up most of them) we had an amazing joyride down (at speeds that felt like 50mph). Elyse and I were constantly on the verge or mental and physical breakdowns, but we DID it!! 40 foreigners went on thsi trip, but my 4 friends and I were by ourselves for 95% of the 5 days. We were named the "outcast group". And it's not because we're fans of the American hip hop duo... OH, and a few people crashed their bikes at high speeds. One girl got 40 stitches on her face and had to go directly back to Korea. We saw her bloody bike. Eww.

 

Dude, where the eff are we going?  Hey look, more Japanese writing!




Cute towns around every turn!



Oh my god, you guys, nature is the BEST!




Rockin campsite part deux!




Sunset at the top of Mount Eboshi




DISSSgusting traditional guesthouse our last night in Japan.  Ew.

Beer vending machines, anyone??? ^^

The beer we enjoyed the morning before the ferry ride home(aka barf fest 2012)

Elyse and Yune were in heaven with all the sushi.



Delicious breakfast at our guesthouse.  Barf.



This is my new BFF, Yune.  <3

This was our traditional guesthouse.  Pretty fancy, ehh?



Our first campsite..fire made by yours truly!



Outcast Group Photo!!




These occasiona tunnels were my saving grace. 
They meant we could ride THROUGH the mountain instead of up it!



There were BILLIONS of man-eating spiders on this island.  I got stuck in like 15 webs...

Mount Eboshi!

 

 So the biking was insanely strenuous, our guesthouses were shitty, camping was freeeeeezing, and I felt like I was raped by a rhino after biking so long every day, AND YET, this trip was awesome.  It was such a feeling of accomplishment doing something I thought was IMPOSSIBLE. We also laughed allll week.  Can't complain about THAT! =]  There's so much more to tell, but goodness gracious this post is already so LOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG.



Here's the ferry TO Tsushima Island.  Mostly barf-free.

When we boarded the ferry back to Korea, it was raining, and super windy.  Every person was handed a barfbag, and dramamine, but I didn't know exactly how bad it was going to be.  The hour and a half ferry ride took 3 1/2 hours, and it was BARF FEST 2012.  There were 20 foot waves crashing over the ferry, the boat was rocking so much, we were almost completely sideways at some points.  Oh yeah, and EVERYONE was barfing.  I'm talking, atleast 100 people blowing chunks on this small ferry boat.  Everywere I turned I saw someone hurling into their barf-bags and the poor crew folk were running all overrrr the boat trying to help people/redistribute barfbags.  Just walking was a feat on this boat!  Thank GODDDD, I somehow avoided barfing. (My method?  Eyemask, and earbuds blasting music.  I was pretended that the rocking was just my body dancing!  Hey, it worked!)  My friend Lauren was one of the fallen...sadly.  But she was a trooper!

We returned our bikes, and took the bus back to Seoul, arriving around midnight, with school in the morning.  WHEW!  What a trip...


Can't beer a beer on the top of a mountain! =]