Happy 2007!!

As I said in my last blog, I spent my holiday vacation traveling. Rose and I had the Christmas cakee you see in the picture. I also put a picture of some of my Christmas decorations.
We had a great new year’s eve in Pusan. In the morning we went to a fish market that had lots of interesting sea creatures. Rose has those pictures, so I will post pictures later. Then in the late afternoon, and after walking about 800 km, we relaxed in one of the biggest spas in Korea called Dongnae Spa. It has natural spring water with many different and quite large pools. My favorite was the lavender pool because is had cooler water and bubbles. Some were about 42 degrees C, and too hot for me! I had a few difficult times because they kept telling me I couldn’t do certain things like the exfoliation and massage because there was no time, and I couldn’t go to the relaxing room because there was no time. Others seemed to be allowed to, so I don’t really see why I wasn’t allowed. But it was a very nice spa and I loved relaxing in the different pools.
That night we went to an outdoor celebration in a park. We were a little startled to see lines of buses that each had protective bars and armor on it. It looked like they were to transport prisoners. Luckily we never saw the inside of one! We hung out by some trees, which was slightly less crowded than other areas. There was a line to get a balloon that said, “Dynamic Busan 2007” that you tie your wish to and let go at midnight, but we didn’t get one. So we took a picture with someone else’s. Rose and I were chatting away when suddenly everyone starting counting down, but of course it was in Korean, so we didn’t know what number they were on until the crowd started cheering and let go of the balloons. There were hundreds of balloons, and it was amazing to see them all float up. Then at 12:01, we tried to make our way down the hill along with hundreds of others. Rose and I were separated for a little bit, but I found her. The crowd was pretty calm, but I have never been so crushed for so long. It was a little scary for a few moments.
Last night, we took an overnight bus from Fukuoka to Osaka, then I took a train back to Wakayama-shi. This morning I washed all my stuff – yuck!, and slept.
We counted up the different modes of travel we rode on for this trip and it is at least 9: Shinkansen (bullet train), regular train, bus (city and highway), tram, trolley, subway, hydrofoil boat, cable car, and ferry.
I have had a great start to the new year. I hope all yours have been good as well. I want to hear all about it, so write to me!