Hilary Meets the Land of the Morning Calm

Back in January 2005, I was a freshman at Bishop's University in Québec. I signed up for a double dorm room, and shared it with a girl named Saeko Ochiai, from Tokyo. She quickly became one of my best friends, becoming very much like an older sister for me. I had to say goodbye to her when she left Canada a year later, but we kept in pretty good contact with skype. As I planned for what to do after school, Saeko was a big supporter of my application for JET in Japan, and later, teaching in Korea. When I told her I had secured a job and would be a mere 3 hour's flight from her, she immediately made plans to come visit me.

I have a home again! Tuesday night, after work, my boss and one of our school managers picked me up in a car and helped me move all my big heavy suitcases and bags from the love motel to my new apartment. I now live three subway stops from work, (a 15 minute commute) and only a two minute walk away from the Kkatchisan station on line 5 and 2.

I went on an adventure to the mall that is connected to the subway station near my school/hotel, and used the bathrooms. I had to take a picture of this when I realized what it was. Maybe this exists elsewhere, I don't know, but I saw it for the first time here. This was on the wall of every stall. I don't know if you can read the writing in English on the bottom line, but it says:

"Press 'PUSH' button and flushing sounds"