south korea follow up

ive been back in thailand for a few days now and have had time to think about my trip. first, i was really surprise by the feeling i got when i arrived in the airport and heard thai again. i dont understand it any better than i do korean, but something about hearing that familiar foreign language was comforting. also, i was literally hit in the face with the heat when i stepped off the plane. i wasnt happy with the snow and cold in korea, but this heat is not much better. is there anywhere in asia where i can find a happy medium???

sightseeing on my own, freezing my booty off.

the flowers hopes were crushed by mother nature.

anyway, it may be because it was something much more like home than my life here, or because im heading back to work and no longer on my time off, but its funny how much i miss korea when i was only there for such a short time. the people, the food, the semi-routine i had gotten into...all of it. my friends who are still here have been asking me about my trip and i cant stop gushing about everything i did and all that i didnt get to do that i want to go back for. two of those friends are actually heading to teach in korea in the next few months, so obviously they are pleased with my report.

i stick with my statement that if i had gone to korea before resigning my contract i would be going there instead, but im accepting the reality that i am staying here. i do love thailand, and have things to look

forward too, and at the end of the day, i still have steph here.

a few things i learned while in korea:

-gamsa hamneeda means thank you. its the one korean word i mastered.

-korean ages are very strange. they are born and are automatically 1 and then on january 1 everyone turns a year older. as erik put it to me, a baby could be born on december 31 and on january 1, even though its only 2 days old, would be considered 2 years.

-seoul is much more fashionable than bangkok. by far.

-they celebrate valentines day, but then a month later, on march 14, is something called white day. apparently, on valentines day guys give girls gifts and on white day girls give gifts to the guys.

-couples like to wear matching outfits on the regular. down to their underwear.

-heated floors. best invention ever, in my opinion, considering how affected i was by the cold. they have a special name for it and stuff, but all you need to know is that its heated from underneath. erik insisted on giving me the bed most nights but one night i did take the floor and it got so hot i was sweating without a blanket!

-thai sounds like whining and korean sounds like you are constantly being reprimanded.

-korean is much easier to learn to both read/write and speak than thai...i taught myself in the span of one morning. nevermind that i couldnt tell you what i was saying, but i still could make out the sounds.

korea vlog! (3)

final video on my trip to south korea.

korea vlog! (2)

sorry for the delay in posting! and for the split in the video...

travel time

so this should go BEFORE the vlogs start, but, ya know, lack of internet access, etc.....its long. just a warning.

when i went to print out my plane ticket thursday afternoon, i got the unnerving surprise that my flight was not leaving friday afternoon at 1, it was leaving thursday night/friday morning at 1. perfection. this wouldnt have been bad, had i not been retarded beforehand and misread the ticket. but since i had, it meant that not only would i not get to spend the night out with friends on khaosan before they left for good, but also that i was incredibly rushed to get everything done before leaving.

i had dropped off my camera lens at mbk, a mall in siam, on saturday. they had told me it was fixable for a good price but that it wouldnt be ready for two weeks. fine. there was nothing i could do about it, and i was set to just not take my slr to korea, even though that was a bummer. well wednesday they called and told me the lens was ready. awesome! i headed in to the city right after tutoring in hopes that i could still get back home and get things like laundry and packing done. but my trek into the city did not lead to me returning with my lens, as they didnt tell me that it was necessary that i bring the receipt with me. i begged and pleaded and tried showing id telling them i was leaving the country but it was no luck. SO i had to rush to mbk after finishing packing on thursday afternoon. luckily, i made it there in time and the lens was fixed so now i can take lots of pretty pictures.

from mbk i went back to khaosan to meet up with people. almost everyone who is still in bangkok was there and we had dinner and a few drinks before i had to say goodbye to the kiwis, marissa, neil and worst of all beth, for good. that was a very hard thing to do, but i didnt have time to think about it because at 10 i was in a cab headed to the airport.

the line was long and it took a while to check in, but it was not chaotic or a hassle in any way. bangkok international airport is pretty big and by the time i got to my terminal, it was almost time for boarding to start. or rather, the time that boarding should have started. first, there were some people, me included, who were sent over to a separate area and asked to wait there to receive new boarding passes. after about 20 minutes, we got them, but there was still no boarding happening.

nearly an hour and a half later it finally started. i went to find my seat and the attendant looked at my ticket and told me to go straight then turn left. i did, but got really confused because i was entering business class, so i turned back around. what i didnt notice was when they gave me my new boarding pass, i moved from row 33 to row 14. this meant i WAS in business class. a free upgrade!!!

i took my window seat and was immediately greeted by another attendant who offered me a choice of a glass of water juice or champagne. seriously. then she brought cool towels and an additional pillow. too awesome. after we got into the air, they came around again and asked if we would like some 'light supper' and so i said yes. she gave me a tray with a bowl of salad and another of fruit and it was tasty. then they came around and offered fresh rolls. mmm. then, still, they came around again and offered our choice of fried rice with shrimp or fried noodles with pork, and i asked for the rice. but it was not like other meals where its in a plastic tray, this was a real heated dish that they gave us. when i finished being gluttonous, because i always have to take advantage of the food on flights, i kicked up my footrest and was able to stretch out for a rather decent nights sleep on the plane.

before i knew it i was being woken up because we were landing in beijing. it was around 6am their time (5am thai time) and needless to say, i was groggy. the first thing i noticed when stepping off of the plane and into the immigration area was that i was completely unorganized. they lines were not formed and most of the stations were not opened. luckily, i had gotten off the plane near the front and so i was near the front of all the lines. when i finished getting through, i knew i had about 7 hours to kill before my next flight, so i found an empty bench and spread out for a nap.

the bench was actually surprisingly comfortable for what it was, but i couldnt stay asleep because it was insanely cold in the entire airport. i knew it would be colder when i got to korea, so i had packed some jeans in my carryon, but even putty those on was no help, and my feet were constantly cold. after about 4 hours, i gave up and decided to grab a bite to eat. i tried a cafe but it was all food i didnt recognize, so i just went with sushi. bad idea. it was no good. and worst of all, they couldnt give me the passcode to log onto the internet. so i paid, with credit card because they wouldnt accept my baht and i was not getting money exchanged for 5 dollars, and went searching for the person who could give me internet connection. i got a slip of paper and then trekked back to the other side of the terminal where my gate was, but still coudnt figure out the code, becasue the page that came up kept giving me chinese even when clicking on the english button. i eventually gave up and took the tram to the plan. needless to say, beijing is not one of my favorite airports.

i didnt get bumped up again but it was only just over 2 hours so it wasnt a big deal. when i went to take my seat, i noticed there was a woman already in it, but she clearly knew it wasnt hers. instead of speaking to me, she got a flight attendant who motioned if it would be ok if i moved back a row. alright, fine with me. then she came over again and asked me to move from the aisle seat to the middle one. i wasnt too happy about that, but did it anyway. it turned out that no one say in the aisle seat and other guy in my row was going to korea to teach english so we had a good conversation and i was at incheon international airport before i knew it.

everything here went really quickly and i was waiting for my bag less than an hour after we landed. erik had given me detailed instructions about which bus to take and what to do in order to get to his place, so i knew exactly what to do and was greeted by him at the bus stop outside of his apartment at 730. :]

korea vlog! (1)

too many goodbyes

being one of the people that has to stay and see everyone off isnt fun. its been making me homesick and uneasy about what the next term will hold. its not as if i will be meeting new people to replace the ones that are leaving, because besides the fact that many of them are irreplaceable, i met them during my training course, and im not doing that again. my school is not getting any new teachers, so the chances of meeting new people are very low.

with each 'last night' that comes along, it becomes harder and harder to say goodbye to people. our group isnt as close now as it once was, but these people have made my time in thailand more than i thought it ever could be. when i am finished traveling and return to bangkok and the routine of next semester, it is going to be so different not having people to text all day or meet up with for dinner or go out with in the city on the weekends or travel to other towns with.

amy left for traveling weeks ago, but after a few days, she was in a motor bike accident and needed to go home to get an operation, which was awful bad luck. we have already said bye to the boys, and tuesday we said bye to emily. tonight is our LAST last night. i have to say goodbye to too many people and dont know when or even if i will see them again. and the hardest goodbye of all is tonight as well, a miss bee-tan will be leaving for travels on monday, but since i leave for korea tomorrow, tonight is the last time i will be seeing her :( surely, buckets and tears will be plentiful.

quite a LONG weekend

this past sunday was a buddhist holiday, and so we had monday off. the long weekend gave us a chance to go on a trip a little further away than we would normally prefer to do in just a two day weekend, and so we opted for the beaches of koh chang. from what we had been told, it was suppose to be so amazing there that once we had been, we wouldnt want to go anywhere else.

to get to the port town of trat takes about 5 hours from bangkok, so we bussed down to trat and spent the night at a cute little hostel there, then woke up in the morning, had breakfast, and headed over to the ferry. we thought the whole thing might take about an hour and half and then we would be on the beach! but no, of course not, because THIS IS THAILAND.

so it took a good half hour at least to get to the port, or what we thought was the port, and so we booked our tickets for the ferry to koh chang, back and our bus back to bkk since it was a good deal. then we climbed into another songthaew and went on another ride to the port. as we were about to enter, the guy stopped us because apparently the four of us who got the package deal did not receive our tickets TO koh chang. great. so we spent about 10 minutes arguing with him, as he was being very not nice, before he finally got smart enough to call the desk, and things were eventually settled. but we had missed the ferry and had to wait for the next one.

so we ferry over to koh chang and are loaded onto another songthaew, this time packed fuller than it should legally allowed to be, and we start on our journey to lonely beach where we had booked our stay. after driving for a half hour, we still hadnt made it, and to make it worse, we were pulled over so that some of the other passengers could go to a bank. we were stopped there in the heat for about 15 minutes before they got BACK on the songthaew and continued on with us, ugh. finally, we saw a sign for lonely beach, and thought we would be getting off. but not yet. our place wasnt that close, and after a little longer, we got dropped off on the top of a hill with a sign pointing down to where we could find our bungalows. at this point, i was not happy, but our place was nice enough and that cheered me up some, until i discovered we had to trek BACK about 15-20 minutes to get to a beach. needless to say, my first moment in the water was long anticipated and well deserved.

the water was crystal clear and definitely the warmest i have yet to encounter here in thailand. the group we went down with was me steph tasha beth jake and eric and then when we got there we met up with david megan and nicole who did ati in chiang mai at the same time we did and are friends with beth from school. we stayed

on the beach all day and had a nice time. i had decided that i wanted a jumping picture at sunset, and so i made everyone stay out until we got a semi good one...after 22 attempts. its much harder to do than it looks.

thats the only one that is semi-good. i need more coordinated friends :P

so after that we got showered and ready and had dinner, then we heard that there was a full moon party on the island somewhere but found out it was way too far for us to go to. some people the others knew from their group joined us and we went to happy hour where drinks 20 baht, then we went back to a bar closer to the beach and danced and drank and swam until we were tired then made the trek back to our bungalows. the next day was more relaxing and basically all we did was stay on the beach and eat. we got to see the start of a gorgeous sunset before some clouds moved in and blocked it, then i ended up reading in a hammock until dinner, which was a nice barbaque. jake and steph and i took a long walk and explored the area some more and then we called it an early night.

i wouldnt say i preferred koh chang more than koh samet, but it turned out better than i expected it to at the start and i ended up having a great long weekend.

o yeah, i also made a new friend:

and steph and i almost puppysnatched yet again. the two of us are dangerous when it comes to baby dogs and the longer we are here the more likely it seems as if we will have a pet pretty soon...

too much (or not enough?) monkeying around

at this point it was two weekends ago that steph tash and i headed up to the little town of lopburi. around thailand, it is known as the town to go to if you want to see monkeys. we knew we wanted to go at some point, and found out back in january that on this particular weekend, there would be a festival, and so it was the weekend we chose to head on up about 3 hours north of bangkok.

the journey seemed like it should have been easy enough. we opted to leave from the northern bus terminal which is pretty close to the last stop on the bts, mo chit. the three of us met up at that stop and then taxied over to the bus terminal. however, of course we arrived at the perfect time for rush hour and it took us a good half hour to get to the station. then when we get there, we get directed all over the place by multiple people before finding the stall to buy the tickets to our destination. so we get there and find out if we arent taking the immediate next bus, which was leaving in 10 minutes, (which we werent cause we needed to eat before our journey) then we couldnt book yet. ok. fine. head back to the other side of the station for dinner. then walk back to the booth to buy our tickets, all the while being pointed in still different directions by people thinking we have no clue whats going on.

finally, we get on our bus which is set to leave at 8:20. we are pulling out by 8:30, not to bad by thai time standards, so we figure we will be in lopburi by 11. but then the most obnoxious thing starts to happen. every 10 minutes or so, we start stopping on the side of the street. it is a normal occurrence to stop and pick up a few people a random spots along the way, but this was like...a new load of people getting on and off at every stop, almost as if using this bus as a mass transit, public bus.

not.cool.

i was already in a bad mood...or according to tasha and steph, a more than bad mood, and was not having it. so steph said something to the guy about how long it would take to get to the city, showing that we had a feeling something was up, and eventually the side stops stopped. but that wasnt the end of our debacle. nope. about an hour before we should have been arriving, the attendant started to ask us for 300 baht, or 100 baht each. when we would ask him for what, he would ramble on in thai for 5 minutes and we would just keep saying that he had ALREADY COLLECTED OUR TICKETS showing that we had already paid. this happened at least three times until we finally pulled into the bus station and could escape the bus. then he tried to point us in the direction of the city. we knew there were no cabs here, and so we started in the direction he showed us until we realized that we were heading away from the lights.

luckily (?) as we were walking and looking lost, a car pulled up next to us and asked where we were going. when we said into the city, he told us he was a taxi and was going there. despite the fact that he already had two thais in the car, we hesitantly got in. the entire ride, the driver and the two thais kept talking about us, but at this point, we didnt even really care. we got to the hotel we were planning on staying at and got out, ready to crash.

we had been told that lopburi isnt really a big tourist spot and that it would be easy to get a room. but nope. that was not the case. the first, and second, and third places we tried were all full. eventually, after wandering around the city for a bit, a nice thai man decided he would try to help us out. he took us to a few more spots, which were also full, and then he was about to start taking us to a few we had already gone to when i spoke up and said we had already been there. so he took us a different way and THANKFULLY they had one room available. it was just a fan room with no hot water (and no sink either) and with windows facing the street, but it was a place to sleep. and thats what we did.

the next morning when we got up and started searching the city to see what the festival had to offer. we decided to first eat, but the places we went to at first only had western (?!) food offered in the morning and we wanted thai. finally we found a place on the side of the road and had some breakfast/lunch, but it wasnt very good. it gave us enough energy to continue on though, and so we went to see king narai reigns castle. (the festival was for that king) almost immediately, while we were watching a performance, some thais called us over to join them in their festivities. they were a group of mostly men, with a few of their wives, who spoke some decent english. they started chatting with us and then had us sit with them and began to offer us food, alcohol, drinks, and then they even started fanning us! we sat with them for a while until we decided we needed to see more of the festival, so we told them we would be back later and headed on.

steph and tash with our lopburi friends.

the city is tiny but actually really cool, as it is built around ruins. there is one that is in the middle of a traffic circle, and even though its not the most modern city by any means, it was cool to see the contrast of that very old mixed in with the new. we kept walking around and seeing what there was to offer, but we got confused because we had yet to see any of these monkeys we had heard so much about. we asked someone and they told us that they congregate around a certain monument because thats where they get fed. so we headed over to that area and were waiting for meghan and emily to arrive when i started feeling really sick. sure enough, as soon as our friends got there, i was throwing up on the sidewalk, and the monkeys had come over to eat it, little scoundrels. so while everyone continued on, i went back to the room to lie down for a bit and try to feel better.

the ruins in the middle of the city.

a few hours later, they came back to get me and i was feeling fine again. we went out and bought some 'thai' outfits to wear that night, and then went back to get ready. then we went for food, which took hours, and following that meghan and emily left (o i didnt get to spend time with them in lopburi, boo). so it was just the three of us again and we headed out to see more of the festival, since we were told it was more of a night thing anyway. and it was. there were fireworks, and parades, and light displays, and shows. we walked around for a while, and had a lot of people asking us for pictures with them, haha. between that and the people fanning us earlier, we felt famous!

we actually asked her to take a pic with us! the lady who sold us the clothes, hehe

we went and saw some muy thai boxing, for free, and had an amazing time there. this time, it was a lot more aggressive than when we went in hua hin and we were actually in the crowd with the thais, who really get into it, cheering and such. but since they hadnt had a three hour nap like i had, they were tired, and so we called it an early night.

we got up early the next day, but i refused to leave without spending some time with the monkeys. so thats what we did for about a half hour.

more monkeys than people?

baby baby, right in front of me! no zoom!

monkeys all over me!

and even though it was a rough start, i left lopburi happy.