A night with my Japanese friends

When I was taking a Korean class at Yonsei University, most of my classmates were Japanese. A few weeks into the semester we were playing a game where we had to translate expressions from Chinese, Japanese, and English into Korean. I answered one of the Japanese expressions and everyone responded "애슐리 씨 어떻게 알았어요? (How do you know that?)" Then I told them I was an exchange student in Japan and we grew closer together talking about green tea, Japanese soft ice cream, and Hokkaido food. They all think I am some trilingual American - HAHAHAHA I have them fooled!!

My friend Kanako messaged me on Facebook last week wanting to get together. During our entire semester at Yonsei, I was under the impression that she didn't speak ANY English so I was a little surprised to see long English messages from her pop up in my inbox. She later admitted that she had a dictionary in front of her and was translating everything. I don't know why she didn't just write in Korean....

So cute^^

Kanako has a Korean husband who lived in Japan for 10 years and is fluent in Japanese. These days she is working from home translating Korean restaurant menus into Japanese for tourists. She studied abroad in New Zealand for a year when she was in her early 20s and can still understand quite a bit of English. Kanako is a true trilingual individual!!

We met at 이대역 at 6 for dinner. Kanako always prepares Korean and Japanese food for her husband so she wanted to eat Western-style food with me. I am always down for pasta.. While we were walking around, I heard some girls screaming "OMG ASHLEY!" and it turns out they were some students from the middle school I worked at last year. I believe they are 7th graders now and what they were doing so far away from school at that hour, I'm not sure.. But they were some of my best students and are very proficient in English. They were very surprised about my recent haircut and we talked for about 2 minutes on the streets about what teachers are still at the school and I told them I was leaving Korea next month. Kanako was really impressed and said she thought the students were really respectful towards me and that I was a "real teacher." 

I'm not sure giving your teacher bunny ears is considered respectful..

Kanako treated me to a nice Italian dinner. 카나코씨 정말 감사합니다!

Then we walked around for a bit window shopping and decided to head to a Hello Kitty Cafe. 

The bathroom entrance was so cute. Hello Kitty + a violin - OH MY GOSH!!

We ordered cute lattes. Normally when you order they just give you a random latte art design but I told the cashier I really loved HK so she let me pick. Score!! On our way out of the cafe, Kanako bought me a Hello Kitty cake. :) We took it to go to meet up with our other Japanese friends, who are still studying at Yonsei and had class until 9.

We met up with Hideyuki and Takuko at the Paris Baguette near the back gate of Yonsei. Hideyuki is a Japanese diplomat and Takuko is also married to a Korean man. Takuko spent 3 years in Virginia for her husband's job so she understands my American identity and sense of humor. It's so rare to find a Japanese person familiar with Western culture. Takuko is an awesome older Japanese woman!

Kanako - Hideyuki - me - Takuko

We ate and enjoyed the cute cake together and sat around talking about Japanese food, the Asiana plane crash, and how the heck am I going to adapt to American culture when I get home.

Kanako was so sweet to organize this little get-together for me. Walking out of the HK cafe last night, we commiserated on how emotional it is to be leaving a country. Being neither super sad to leave Korea or super happy to be heading back to the States, "emotional" sums it up pretty well. 

I promised my friends I would contact them if I ever return to Japan for travel one day (let's face it, I will!). I hope we meet again some day. <3

どうもありがとうございます！私はいつかまた会えることを願って！