[2014 Kyushu Family Trip - 1] Off to Kyushu & to Kurokawa Hot Springs!

I personally wanted to go to places like Hokkaido or Kusatsu Hot Springs, where it's likely to snow, for the winter break. I wanted to go skiing or snow boarding (both of which I have no idea how to do) during the day, and at night relax at some really nice open-air hot springs.
Basically, I wanted to see a lot of snow.

But my mom hates the cold, and she wanted to spend a night at a ryokan really badly.
So we decided to go to Kyushu for my family trip instead.


Before the dawn on December 22nd, 2014,

My family headed to Incheon International Airport.

We valet-parked our car, checked-in,
and just when it was almost boarding time!!
.....
.........

It snowed at the airport...
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! WHY CAN'T IT SNOW AT THE DESTINATION INSTEAD?!

Anyway, my family boarded the plane,
and had to spend about 5 hours in it until we got off at Fukuoka, because the door to the baggage compartment froze!!
(normally Fukuoka is only 75-minute plane ride from Incheon)

so my father watched 2 movies.
and I watched 2 episodes of the Big Bang Theory and slept a couple of hours.

by the way, I recommend you avoid flying with Korean Air for now.
They suck these days (in many ways).

Nevertheless, my family arrived at Fukuoka Airport, 5 hours behind in schedule.
It was one of the smaller and older airports I've been to.

My parents bought the round-trip tickets for the bus to Kurokawa Hot Springs, with uh... almost non-existent Japanese skills.
(No one in my family is good at Japanese, and yes, that includes me too.)

Since we were going to take 2:30 PM bus to Kurokawa Onsen, my family had some extra time.
All of us were pretty hungry, so we bought 2 bentos from this store.
I mean, this is one of the cheapest things you could ever eat at an airport, you know.

After having lunch, my family boarded the 2:30 PM bus to Kurokawa Hot Springs.
It was a 3-hour ride, so we all took a nap on the way.

My dad spent more than half of the bus ride awake, and he was really surprised to see a giant bus drive through tiny roads.

and we've finally arrived at Kurokawa Onsen Station!
The shuttle from the ryokan was waiting for us to arrive at the bus station!

Tada!

After a ridiculously long day (about 5 hours of which were wasted on the airplane), my family had finally arrived at the ryokan called 'Okunoyu', where we were going to spend the night.


to be continued in the next post...

Hair Donation to 'Korean Association for Children with Leukemia and Cancer (KACLC)'

2014 Winter Break,
I have done something very meaningful.

Yes,
I've donated my hair!!

This is what the hair donation page of the KACLC looks like.

As soon as I escaped the wretched garbage dump called the "Korean Secondary Schools," where human rights was no where to be found,
I've started growing my hair.
I wasn't really planning on growing my hair below my shoulders due to my personal preferences,
and then I saw one of my fellow blogger's post about his hair donation.
and that's when I started thinking, "Hmm... Maybe I should try donating my hair too!"

 Tada!

This is how much I've been growing my hair for approximately 27 months!
It finally has become long enough to be donated!!
(since the minimum donation length is 25 cm)


How did all of the hair-donating process go?
I'll show you.

1. I had my hair tied with a rubber band, and then the 25-cm of donate-able hair was cut off.

Oh god....... why is my hair becoming so short...?

Each strand of hair dropped on to the floor along with the tear-droplets from my eyes.
:'(

Oh My.....
This is waaayyyyy tooo short...

I'm going to have a really difficult time growing my hair out for the second donation.
*sigh...

 I took my 25-cm hair back home.

 2. My hair was then re-packaged within a zip-lock bag, along with all of the information required by the KACLC written on a post-it.

According to the KACLC website, I was supposed to have my name, my cellphone number, and my home address.
and then I was good to go!

3. I went to the nearest post office.

4. I filled out every information needed for sending the package. 

The address of the receiver was written as shown on the KACLC website.

 5. I assembled the box

6. I put my hair and the post-it inside the box. 

7. I sealed the box. 

 8. I got a waiting ticket, and patiently waited for my turn.

9. and Off Went My Hair.

:'(
Farewell, my long hair
I'm gonna miss you very very much!
Become a nice wig and make your new owner happy!

I've been too busy with school work and all of the extracurricular stuff ever since I came to college, so I haven't been able to do any volunteer work.
It was extremely fortunate of me to find a way to help other people without spending too much effort or time.


I sure hope,
No, I definitely will grow my hair out and donate it again!
FOR SURE!

2014 Black Friday Purchases (Sony AS100V, Seagate Backup Plus Slim, and etc.)

At the end of Novermber of 2014,
it was that time of the year again.
"Black Friday"
so I bought some stuff that I needed.

 The first package that I received.

 Let's open it.

 Uh.....
This one isn't for me.
This is for my cousin.

Now this is a package for me.

 Time to unbox it.

Well... uh...
these things weren't on discounts.

I bought these headphones because the ones I was using were broken.
and I'm not really the kind of person who spends an astronomical amount of money on headphones.

 and this....

  ...is a case for an external hard drive.

 Then there came these two.

Within the white package were Sony Universal Head Mount, NP-BX1 battery, and a lens cleaning kit.

 and within the bigger package, there were...

 Hot Shoe to 1/4" converter,

 Sandisk Extreme Plus SD card and MicroSD,

 and Sony Action Cam AS100V!
I had a really difficult time choosing between this and Gopro.
Since I regard audio as one of the most important factors, I went with the Sony.

 It came with this box,

 which contained all of these stuff.

 Here's the last package I received.

 It came with this, Seagate Backup Plus Slim.

Working with tons of photos and videos made me realize that I'm going to need numerous external hard drives.
There's never enough storage space for people who work with photos and videos.


It does seem like I've spent an awful lot of money,
but thanks to the Black Friday discounts, everything other than the action cam didn't cost as much.

It even feels weird that I spent even less money on 2014 Black Friday, than on the preceding year's