Tubby-tustard

Silla burial mounds and no sign of Lala. 

Cotton wool

The beauty of Gyongju -land of the telly tubbies 

An intimidating figure

Some Korean men are extremely tall. 

My wifey now Dave

On the left you can see a picture from a traditional Korean Nobleman's house. The unusual item in the centre is a bamboo wife. Yep 'wife'... Men would sleep holding them fondly. They keep the sleeper cool allowing air to circulate. They really were thought of as part of the family and could not be shared with other people. When the owner died the inanimate wife would be buried with them. 

Woohoooo!

We are settled back in Japan!!!!!!
It has been stupidly long but the whole visa saga is now over. We have official permission from Japanese Immigration to work in Japan for up to three years.
Now, here as promised are some photo's.

The end may be in sight...

We have finally received our certificates!!!!!!! We are heading to the Embassy in Seoul tomorrow morning.......
If everything goes well then we will be back in Japan on Wednesday.
Fingers crossed!

Things could be worse....

Sitting in the hostel on the PC next to me was an Irish girl who had been quite excited about a job she had found in Korea. She was crying because she had just visited Korean immigration to get her Visa extended. They told her that she had overstayed by six weeks already (she had read the wrong line on her visa). There is a fine of up to 50 quid a day, deportation and a ban on re-entry. I suddenly felt like our problems were nothing in comparison.
Anyway to lighten the mood.... on the right you can see a Korean delicacy- silkworm pupae. I can't describe the taste but it is almost as bad as it smells. It is famed for its nutritional values... definitely not for taste reasons.

Still in the land of Kimchi - Thanks for all your support!

Thanks to everyone who has been in touch.
Wow... what a time to be in South Korea... Nuclear tests, North Korean incursions, shots fired... As you can tell we are still here. Japanese immigration are still looking into our documentation supposedly. As neither of us has done anything remotely dodgy (apart from growing my beard) we know they are just being complete a**e-ho*es.
We cannot deny that we have had some great times in Korea but the lack of control and the open-ended situation has left us feeling exhausted and looking forward to a bit of normality.
In the meantime we have plenty of time on our hands so I will be doing some monster posts...

Reset my account...

Ok so we can post again!
We are in Korea. In a lovely town called Gyeongju. It is a crazy mix of tellytubby land and a big graveyard. Photos will follow to help to explain what I mean. Old Silla dynasty kings were laid to rest in a thing similar to a pyramid (except rounded and covered in grass) and this town is full of them.
We are staying in Korea for a few more days then going by ferry back to Japan (For a nice holiday with Rob and Fumi). Then we are coming back to seoul to complete the misery of Visa cr*p.
Sorry for the lack of posts but it has been extremely manic recently. Hopefully immigration in Fukuoka wont give us any trouble when we come back into Japan as tourists but who knows....

Living.... NOT IN JAPAN

Unfortunately our employers made a mistake with our visa applications and this means that we can only stay in Japan for two more weeks........ No joke.
This will mean that most of the money we have saved this year will have to be spent on a trip out of Japan while they sort it all out. We think we are going to Korea but going by our recent luck we will probably end up in North Korea rather than South. I'm going to scream a few more times and bang my head on a brick wall until everything is magically better.

What are they drinking at the Pepsi marketing dept?

Whatever it is... it isn't Pepsi.
These are the ads being shown on TV for the latest diet drink from Pepsi - NEX.
click here

Pepsi Carnival / Pepushi Kaanibaru

The camp-est cola in town. PePuShi KaaNiBaRu. Good ol' Pepushi with the taste of tropical fruits. Could you ever see this bottle design catching on in the UK? I'm a fairly easy sell on new soft drink flavours but it really isn't bad (not as good as Pepsi Red though).

Regular readers may recall....

... the new year departure of a filling. Well... after the initial pain it didn't hurt so much and due to my strong dislike of dentists I kind of ignored it.... This decision has come back and bitten me (so to speak). The pain is now incredible, making one side of my face feel slightly numb and my whole head feel like a facehugger's spawn has taken temporary residence in my jaw and is looking to move on soon. I had previously posted that paracetomol was not available in Japan. The pain made me search a little harder and I discovered that acetomenophen is what it is called in the USA and it's sold under the brand name Tylenol. I found tylenol in my local pharmacy. Five quid for 20 300mg tablets!!!!! I bought them anyway. I have the number for a local english speaking dentist and I will be visiting him in the near future. AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!
Here are some pics from our recent trip to Takayama and Hida.....

The thatched roof of a Hida village house.

Hida village in the rain. A beautiful museum village. People don't live here but there are a number of traditional craft workshops.

The rickshaw guys were discussing latest footwear fashions.

Everything you need in one little shop. Beef, beer and icecream.

Why is this cheeky young chappy so happy?

...Because he is riding a huge fish. Wouldn't you be cheery if you had transportation like this?

It sounds like you've nicked our heat!

I was checking the BBC and I saw temps of up to 38 degrees in the UK!! What's going on?!
It's cooled down a little this week (20-28) but flooding has kicked in across the country, landslides and mass evacuations. Today or tomorrow I'll put up some of our Takayama/Hida pictures. We had a great weekend (despite the torrential rain).