Thai Holidays

Thursday, December 24th, 2009. Christmas Eve. I departed from Busan at 8:30am and arrived in Bangkok at 12:40pm. Tan had to work, but before heading there I had met two good LDS girls online, and one of them (Ivy) picked me up at the airport. From there we went back to Keng's apartment (the other LDS girl I met through Tan) and met Keng. I dropped my bags there and we walked to the local shopping center and had lunch. After Tan finished work, we met her at Siam Paragon, a huge and very nice mall in Bangkok. We decided from there to eat dinner and saw Avatar in 3D. After the movie I went with Tan to her family's house, who were gracious enough to let me stay there for Christmas. Of course they are Buddhist and don't celebrate, so there were decorations, presents, or tree in sight.

Friday, Christmas day Tan gave me a tour of Bangkok. We took a boat ride on one of the main rivers in the city and were able to get off at the pier closest to the Grand Palace. This place was amazing, as I'm sure you will see in the pictures. It was really hot but I couldn't wear shorts because its considered a sacred place. Men or women wearing shorts or skirts were required to buy or borrow a big wrap to cover their legs. That night after we finally got home, Tan's mom was super nice and took us to a Thai massage place, her treat. It was so nice!

Saturday morning Tan took me to a local street market where you can buy just about anything, and I bought a few souvenirs and gifts for friends back in Korea. Then around noon I caught a plane down to Phuket. Arriving in Phuket, I took a minivan with other vacationers to the main beach area called Patong Beach. The driver didn't really know where my hotel was, so he dropped me in the wrong place and I had to walk around for 15 minutes until I found it. Then, the desk worker told me my room was broken. I guess a water pipe broke. So I asked what he was going to do for me. He said come with me, and we jumped on his scooter and he took me to a brand new hotel, closer to the beach, for the same price. His hotel paid the difference. So actually I ended up getting a better deal! That evening I had some dinner and just explored Patong a bit.

Sunday and Monday there is not as much to talk about. I pretty much spent both days laying on the beach, drinking from coconuts, having lunch and dinner at a different place each time. I had steak, fish, crab, shrimp, prawns, mexican food, italian food, and the best part is I never spent more than $10 on a meal.

Tuesday I had booked a one day tour of the local islands. These included Khai Island, Phi Phi Don and the famous Phi Phi Lae. I left at 8:30am and didn't get back to the hotel until around 6:30pm. The first island on the tour was Khai Island. Its very small and no one lives there, but a few huts were selling snacks and drinks. This island had the most perfect sand and clear water I had ever seen. There were also a bunch of fish that people would feed with bread they bought there. Next was Phi Phi Lae, which has Maya Bay. This is where Leo Dicaprio's movie The Beach was filmed, if you didn't know. It was sooo amazing. I thought it might be overhyped, but I really loved it, even though we could only spend 45 minutes on the beach. Next was Phi Phi Don, which is just north of Lae. This is where the hotels are and the beaches are decent, but not as good as the previous two islands. On the boat trip back to Phuket I met a girl from Australia, but her family is actually from East Timor. She was pretty nice, but with her family and so couldn't really hang out with me, but we exchanged Facebook info. Hahaha.

Wednesday rolled around, and I still hadn't seen much of Phuket Island other than Patong beach where I was staying. So, I rented a scooter for the day and drove up and down the coast to all the other beaches on the west coast. I was a little nervous since I had to drive on the left side and some drivers there are a little scary, but it was fun! I stopped at the different beaches, took some pictures, and spend the afternoon relaxing on Kata beach. Quite the life I must say.

Thursday, which was New Years Eve, I decided to spend the day relaxing on the beach again, which was nice. That night I returned to the beach for the countdown festivities. The beach and streets were packed with people. Everyone was buying big paper lanterns and letting them float away into the night sky to bring good luck for the next year. Of course I had to do it too. Then they had tons of fireworks, which were awesome too. The whole scene was like nothing I'd experienced before. The funny thing about Phuket is that I was pretty much the only American. Everyone I saw spoke other languages, besides a few Australians and Brits. But most of the people were European and spoke languages I couldn't even recognize. I think there are lots of Scandinavians there, or so I hear.

Friday, the 1st day of the new year, I flew back to Bangkok. Tan was away with her family so I met Keng and Ivy again and they decided to take me to the floating market in Amphawa. It was also super crowded but I'm glad we went. We took a boat cruise down the market area of the river and out into the less crowded part to see fireflies in the tries alongside the river. We had dinner that night at a cool Thai restaurant with performers dancing and singing traditional Thai music. We even had crocodile, which was very tasty!

Saturday, my last day in Thailand, Tan met us again at a shopping market area and we did a little more shopping and had dinner. That night I flew back to Busan at midnight. I had so much fun and definitely want to return again when I can. This Christmas I really missed my family and friends, but at the same time I had an awesome experience I will not soon forget. I love you all and wish you a happy new year!!

So I seem to be doing these about once a month now, which is fine with me! Not too much news to announce lately. The weather is getting colder, but still not bad at all. I am going to Thailand in 12 days so I am very excited for that. I did have an exciting visit to the hospital last week due to my 3rd episode with kidney stones. The stones and I have parted ways now, and all is well! hahaha. After I get back from Thailand I'm sure I will have many pictures for you all to see, but for now I have added some random pictures from my cellphone you can check out. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and miss you all!!

Halloween Weekend!!

What you are about to see is very scary! Be warned, you might have nightmares of the Zombie teacher! Hahaha. So Korea does not really celebrate Halloween. The only exceptions being places where foreigners can be found, such as english schools and waygukin (korean term for foreigner) halloween parties. Lucky for you I have pictures of our school's Halloween party, which was the entire day on friday Oct 30. We had decorated several classrooms with the holiday theme, but foreign teachers were in charge of the playroom. With mostly black plastic garbage bags we were able to transform the playroom into a haunted house for all the kindergarten and elementary students. Now normally I wouldn't take joy in children crying, but on Halloween it seemed to be the exception. Is that bad? hahaha. Actually this week some of the students were still afraid of me, thinking I am still a zombie. Anyway, the party was a success.

On Halloween, during the daytime, I also went with a couple Korean girls I recently met to Taejongdae. This is a popular tourist location, situated on the coast with steep, high cliffs and a lighthouse. Unfortunately by the time we arrived it was getting dark already and so the only good pictures I got were with the girls who had accompanied me.

Well, well, well...it has been a while! Summer has come and gone, fall is beginning, and I have now been here 7 months! I can't believe it. Time flies. Since my last post, nothing too major has happened, which explains the lack of posts. We just had our open class last week, which meant all the parents came in to observe our lesson for the day. There was also a video camera and photographer. It was my second time so I wasn't as nervous, and my kids did great! All the parents were happy and thats what matters, because they pay big bucks to send their kid here.

I am putting up a link to some new photos. I recently went with some friends to Yonggungsa temple. Unlike most Buddhist temples here, which are normally on a hill or mountain, this one is on the ocean side. I guess the name and history of it has to do with dragons. Here is a quote I found about it: The temple is located on spectacular rocky outcrop just meters from the sea. Haedong Yonggungsa (palace of the dragon) which was built in 1376 was named when the priest Jeongnam had a dream about the Great Goddess Buddha. In the dream, the Buddha wore white robes and rode on the back of a dragon, which was emanating a five-color beam. It is known as a mysterious place where anybody can have their wishes granted through serious prayer.

I thought I did this already!

Pictures from the Philippines are up now. Click the link below and enjoy :)

Philippines!!

Ok, so it rained half the time, and I wasn't able to visit the places I used to live, but I still had a great time! Since I wasn't able to catch the boat to go see old friends, I spend all my time in Cebu, specifically Mactan Island. The hotel was nice, great pool. I spent the first few days by myself just relaxing, getting tan/sunburned, shopping, making friends with the locals, and even got a nice $10 massage. Then two coworkers, Ashlee and Kamara, flew in from Korea and met up with me. I got the better days as far as the weather, it rained more when they came. But we hung out at the beach, pool, took multicabs (like mini-jeepneys) into town, went shopping, sightseeing, and even went to a couple dance clubs the last night in Cebu city. I had a lot of fun and definetely want to go back again while I live on this side of the world. P.S. the video is on a multicab ride from our hotel to the city of Lapu-Lapu. Enjoy!

This and That...

Sorry everyone, I didn't realize it had been so long since I updated this thing! I can sum up July so far with one word....Rain. I guess Korea has a rainy season, and so we've had like 2 days of sun this month. They say it should be finished by August I think, so thats good. I go to Philippines next week too, where rainy season is in full affect, so I'm crossing my fingers there is some decent weather. I added some new pictures here also so you can click and check them out. Yesterday I went to dinner with some coworkers to a nice seafood place. We had shrimp, fish, sushi, sea cucumber, and I even had my first experience with whale and live octopus! The whale is actually pretty good. The octopus was the tentacles that had been cut up, but were still moving when we ate them! hahahaha I was a little nervous but I just chewed as fast and many times as I could to make sure it wasn't moving anymore. They told us if you don't chew it enough it might still move and stick to the inside of your throat, but I had no problem. And it didn't taste that bad either! haha. I also put some pictures from our last field trip to the beach with all the kindy kids. Enjoy!