leaving japan (hello korea)

the last couple days have been a bit hectic. i was scrambling to make new plans for leaving tokyo. originally i was planning on making my way south to a city called shimonoseki where i could catch a ferry to busan korea but my week in tokyo has already cost me more than i was willing to spend in the first week of my six month trip. so instead i opted to just fly one way to either busan or seoul. since it was our last nights, james and i along with naomi, brandon and their friend chris, went to a korean barbecue and ate and drank a lot. james decided to come back with me to party with the australians and so we were all up pretty late. i was hoping to get my tickets the next morning and leave for korea in the afternoon but i couldn’t get up in time and i had to delay another day. but get this - when i bought my ticket to seoul, there was a frenchman there who was explaining to me that he had met a man in tokyo that knew french and so he took him out drinking. well this guy said the other man drank a bottle of rye to himself and died on the bar in front of him. the frenchman ended up missing his flight because of all the paperwork he had to fill out as a witness and was totally screwed. that is such a crazy story that i decided i would try and write it into a short piece or something, we will see. anyway, so, without a place to stay i crashed on the couch in our hostel and managed to make it to the airport by 12. right now i am on the flight to seoul and have the oddest instructions to the hostel i booked. i hope i make it. but the same french guy ended up getting a refund for his ticket and i saw him again in the airport. i think he said his name is jean-francois. he is on the same flight as me so maybe i will get to practice my french for when i am in vietnam. i am also trying to memorize the basic words in korean but it will probably be some kind of mix of the Japanese i learned this week and the mandarin i was studying. wish me luck. oh yeah, and if no one hears from me for a few days, i am supposed to be staying at a hostel called windroad guesthouse. send people to look for me there. oh god!