How Not to Quit Smoking

I had heard that Sun Young, her sister, her mom and I were going on a little vacation to Japan at some point while I was in Seoul, but I had no idea that it was going to take place only six days into my stay. A six day tour of Kyushu starting with meeting mom for the first time, hopping on a three hour train ride to Busan and boarding a quasi-cruise ship for a lovely 12 hour ride across the East Sea to Kyushu. So I opted to quit smoking as if I wasn't enduring enough shock as it was.

The train ride was no big deal. Racing towards Busan at 185 kph, sitting across from mom and sis' at a table being sized up for three hours. Mom was extremely happy to meet me, and even packed enough snacks and beer to get us from point A to point B without feeling Seoul-sick. We sat facing each other, mom and I drank some beers and I tried my hardest to stare off into space.

Once we got into Busan we met up with our tour group... Tour group? Dammit. I heard we were going to tour Kyushu but I didn't realize there would be lining up, very inquisitive old people or absolutely no free time save our early bird sleep schedule. On the ship we went in two rows; neat and tidy. Speaking Korean would have really come in handy here, and I'll tell you why:

In our room on board I noticed that there were four beds and not two, or even one. I was meant to sleep next to Sun Young's sister who I met once prior, and her mother who (while I had shared some cocktails with) I had met only hours prior to being bunkmates. I laid in bed awake all night with nicotine withdrawal sweating both physically and the idea of drifting off into bouts of loud snoring punctuated with farts; we had a lot of radish and cabbage for dinner and finished it off with a few beers. The next morning came with little or no embarrassing moments much to my relief. But there was plenty of time for that.

At this point I expected to get on a tour bus, and go to some moth eaten taxidermy museums for 10 hour stints. Not so much on the taxidermy, but we were on a bus for three quarters of the day for the next five days. If I ever see any of the ladies or gentlemen from our tour group again it will be only to cackle loud and drunk right in there face while pushing them out of the way so I can arrive at my destination a full 1/100th of a second prior to them. Perhaps I will take everything they have to offer even if I don't need it, or treat their prized possessions like my own personal petting zoo. Who knows I could even just slap them on the nose saying "NO, WE DO THAT OUTSIDE!" as if I were chastising a domestic animal for not peeing on the newspaper.

I'll leave the sightseeing to later posts that contain a multitude of pictures. The trip was very exhausting, I managed to quit smoking, saw some amazing (and amusing) things and made it past mom.