Home Again

I know this post is waaaaaay overdue, so overdue in fact that I considered not even writing it.
I apologize, but better late than never I suppose.

In case you haven't heard yet, I am no longer in Japan and have returned to my home on Lopez Island.

I'll quickly fill you in on all the important things that happened after my last post.

While in Korea I gathered more documents to show the immigration officers before trying to re-enter a second time.

As you can probably guess, I was turned down this time as well.

They told me they could not let me in because I was planning on doing the same thing as before.

It soon became apparent that my plans to do WWOOF were a problem.

The immigration officials thought the work I planned to do violated the tourist visa even though it's all volunteer work.

I had taken an earlier boat this time, so I was able to catch a ride back to Busan instead of staying in the port again.

Once back in Busan, I spent a few days communicating with the language school.

They did a lot to try and help get me back in, and even spoke with immigration officials several times.

I purchased a ticket back to Fukuoka, but ended up canceling it.

It was a hard decision to make.

But considering what had happened the past two times, it seemed unlikely that they would let me in this time.

Also, I had encountered some problems with Korean immigration officials, (namely one particular official) after being sent back the second time, so I didn't want to risk anything happening if I was sent back again.

Since I already had reserved 2 plane tickets for the return trip (Fukuoka-Narita, Narita-Seattle) it was cheaper to change the date of the ticket rather than to buy one from Busan to Seattle.

So I took a plane from Busan to Fukuoka on what I hoped was a connecting flight, but turned out not to be.

When I arrived in Fukuoka I was questioned again by immigration, but I managed to convince them that all I wanted to do was get a plane back home.

2 more plane rides and approximately 14 hours later I landed in SEATAC on the 10th of February.

So now I'm home, and have been for a while (again, sorry for the overdue post.)

My plans for now are to keep studying Japanese and working until the end of summer and start university in the fall.
I know I'll be going back to Japan in the future, probably through an exchange program with my university.
Also, I'm planning on taking a trip to Europe sometime this year or next year to visit some of my friends from the language school.
Until then, I'm not sure what I'll do with this blog.
I may post random things about Japan/Japanese as I feel compelled.
Or now that I have more time, I may post more about things that happened during my trip.
As always, leave a comment if you have any questions etc.
じゃまた。