It's Raining... Minnesotans... Hallelujah!

This has been a looong week. It was my first full week of classes for the year, and I am feeling the extra load. It's not (or shouldn't be) excessive, but it's definately an adjustment. Had an awesome ESS (English club) meeting where I got my boys to sing along to the "Bye Bye Bye" music video and the new first years seem like a good bunch. The good news, though, is that it's pratically been raining Minnesotans! I was pretty homesick after Claire's visit, and while things are getting better (don't worry - still having fun), it's been nice to have a shot of the home-life. My friend Chris, who lives in Aomori, stopped by to say hi while he was in the area on Wednesday (traveling with three friends from Minneapolis) and Joe arrived this evening.
We haven't done much so far; went to Sushi Ro (conveyer belt sushi) for dinner, followed by a long walk through the neighborhood to see the water and Akashi bridge at night. With limited exposure, Joe has - however - already noted how "cute" everything is in Japan (hehe).
We're meeting my friend Briane (also from MN) tomorrow to take the boat to Korea, so I'm getting pumped for the adventures to come. This next week is 'Golden Week' (where three national holidays fall in the same week & pretty much the whole country goes on vacation). I'm not sure it's going to be the most relaxing vacation in Korea, but we have a lot of funky plans up our sleeve and it's a good group! I need to figure out where to put all the goodies Joe brought me and get to bed so that's all for now, but more stories to come... from Korea!