i don't wanna write much cuz it's late but i'll do a short entry to get you updated :o)
i couldn't have had a better last night in korea! it was AWESOME! went to eat with friends, then went to a bar, a noraebang, and another bar and just danced and sang the night away! it was SO much fun! best way to do it! i was literally dancing with people as i said goodbye to them :o) no time for getting sad and crying! lol
that's where the fun ended though cuz we took a bus up to seoul and it was horrible! 5 hours of our driver driving like a bat out of hades! and he had the heater on full blast so it was like a sauna on there! we couldn't sleep at all and i felt totally sick by the time we got to the airport :o/
got the dogs checked at quarantine, checked our bags and dogs, got a snack and got straight on the plane!
the flight was much better than the bus ride! although i couldn't eat much because i kept feeling nauseated from lack of sleep. wasn't too bad though- we ate, we read, we slept a little, we watched movies, etc. i love korean air's entertainment selection- it's amazing! i watched the lovely bones and whip it- both good!
we arrived at dfw at about 8:30am local time, went to immigration, got our dogs and bags (dogs did great! no accidents! lol), went through customs (they took our dog food and treats but no biggie), and then met up with our parents! it was great!
we immeditately took the dogs to the pet relief area in the parking garage so they could go to the bathroom. it's a little 3x4 foot space with wood chips and a fake fire hydrant lol so funny. jjang peed like 6 times lol
got back to the house and the morning was pretty chaotic- we let the dogs run around the yard and they met mom's big dog, cheyenne. then mom surprised me with her new puppy which i didn't know she had! she got a teeny tiny little yorkie about a month ago- her name's diva and she literally vibrates constantly lol i swear she never stops moving even when she's peeing lol so funny! sadie is doing good with the other dogs but jjang is NOT. he's being a little turd! he's just being too aggressive and barking too much. hopefully he'll calm down after a while. we went out and saw our little house we'll be living in!
if you don't know- my dad built a little apt/guesthouse onto the back of their garage for my grammie several years ago and recently she had to move into a home for round the clock care so the house is vacant. i'm really grateful we're able to live out there. we call it the bungalow. anyway quite a bit of my grammie's stuff is still out there so we have to go through it, take stuff out, unpack our stuff and put it away. it's gonna take some time but it's starting to come together. i'm excited about making it our own.
i absolutely LOVE the yard! it is SO WONDERFUL to have a yard. if you've never been without one then you just have no idea just how great it is to have one lol it's amazing. i feel like i live in a park lol and the dogs having a great time to of course. they're outside so much and they haven't peed in the house but once. i'm sure it was jjang and i'm not sure why he did it cuz the door was open to the outside. i was asleep so i'm not sure when it happened but he may have been sleeping, woke up and just randomly peed in the middle of the floor lol other than that they've done great though!
so back to our first morning- we let the dogs out, saw the house and had a brunch with grandparents, parents and siblings. it was wonderful! eggs, bacon, homemade raisin bread, blueberries, strawberries, grapefruit, coffee, apple butter, honey we bought in laos- yum!
we unpacked a little the first day and then took a long nap! woke up about 6pm and went to jens'a parents' house for dinner with them and his sister jill. they got a new puppy about a month ago too- a welsh terrier named hugo. so cute! the dogs played in the yard while jim grilled amazing sausages from central market (one had apple in it and it was delicious!), eggplant, mushrooms and squash. we ate it with homemade wheat bread and a salad made from veggies from their garden. oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooosh! i was in heaven!
after leaving there we came back to the bungalow and jens had joel over and we sat on the porch and ate CHEESE that joel brought. thanks joel!!! i think it was...edam? i don't even know i just started devouring it lol
i went to bed at 11p and jens went at 2a and we both got up today at 6am.
we ate a quick breakfast and then went on an EPIC grocery trip! lol i had to take pictures throughout of course lol SO MUCH VARIETY!!!! so much cereal! and bbq sauce! and beer! i think we were there 2-2.5 hours! we wanted to get beer and wine but a guy working there said you can't buy it before 12pm on a sunday! LOL LAME! first culture shock moment lol
we came back and had to empty the pantry before we could put stuff away. then ben and vivienne came over and we ate some of the goat cheese and crackers we bought and chatted on the porch before viv had to go to school.
then ben helped us pack/unpack stuff. we got a slow start but overall we got quite a bit done today. all the stuff we don't want is almost outta the house and my mom emptied two of our suitcases for us today. so that's good! a big problem though is my mom took all my gram's plates, pots, pans, and utensils out of the kitchen so we could put ours in but ours are still in storage and we haven't had time to get to them yet lol so we've been borrowing stuff from my parents/just cooking out at their place lol we're gonna be in limbo for a couple weeks i'm sure. there's so much stuff to go through before we find our plates, etc. lol
it's crazy but it's ok! lol we're just loving being HOME!!!!
we got iphones and they're AMAZING! i've been having fun playing with that and jens bought all the parts for the computer he's going to build. we got a 28 inch comp screen lol it's gonna double as our tv! we won't have network or cable tv out at our place but we're used to just downloading shows and watching them on the comp so i think it'll work out fine. if we really wanna watch something on regular tv we can just go over to my parents' house.
we went out to eat with my parents tonight at pho 21 (vietnamese) and it was really good. jens just about fell asleep at the table though since he got less sleep than me last night lol
i'm probably staying up too late now- it's after 1am. so i'd better go! gotta get a lot more done tomorrow! goodnight!
actually i've got the rest of this day and tomorrow but this day's half over anyway lol
we've pretty much got all things packed- just have to stuff a few odds and ends into our suitcases and we'll be ready go!
it's surreal. i thought i would never feel any sadness when leaving korea but i am! when you say to yourself - this is the LAST time i'll eat at the restaurant, go to this job, see these people, be in this apartment, see this view, etc. it's hard NOT to be sad, ya know?
i just hope that once i get back to the states i'll be satisfied with the amount of things we did in korea and in asia as a whole (because who knows if and when i'll ever get back here!). sure we could have done more but we didn't wanna overdo ourselves. we didn't wanna go out EVERY weekend and i'm glad we didn't. i cherish our quiet sat. mornings at home just as much as our road trip/campout/wandering around the big city weekends.
i haven't seen all of korea but i've seen quite a bit. and i've seen several places many times so that i feel like i really know them. i think jens and i enjoy that more- really getting to know a few places rather than seeing a little bit of EVERY place.
we'll be packing and cleaning tonight.
tomorrow is my last day at work. i've got 3 movie day classes and then lunch and i'll be free to go! we've got to go by the bank, make sure we were paid, send money to our account in the states and then close our accounts here in korea. then it's official- we're leaving!
tomorrow night we'll be going to an all you can eat meat restaurant with friends, then to a few bars and to a noraebang for the last time ever! i can't believe it! yes, there's a noraebang in dallas but i know it won't be the same. in korea there's a noraebang on every corner! just in case you get the itch to pop in and belt out a few songs at any given moment lol
i'm hoping i don't cry tomorrow night...although i probably will AT LEAST when we say bye to our friends for the night (or for the indefinite future! or forever! who knows!) i had a friend here once who would say- don't say goodbye, just say "see ya tomorrow!" lol
i feel torn right now- i know i want to leave but there are things about my life here i will miss and i'm excited about moving back to texas but at the same time i'm worried what the future holds! it's such a big change, so much to deal with...
how strange! i only have one work week left in korea! that's 5 days! i can't believe it!
this past weekend was nice. friday night i had a girls night and we watched antm, ate veggie chili and chocolate fondue with fruit (among various other desserts!) and then just chatted the night away. so fun! i will miss my korean girls nights! when i get back home i won't actually know that many girls in my hometown :o(
sat. the weather was WONDERFUL! i made homemade bread by myself for the first time ever (jens usually does it and i've only assisted here and there.) it turned out pretty good :o) i also made some tuna salad and we met up with joe and shanna on yudal mountain for a picnic. the cherry blossoms were in full bloom and it was really nice and sunny. perfect picnic weather! i loved it! we ate and then played scattegories and it was really fun. we got some great pics with the cherry blossoms too. surprisingly i think that's the first time i've ever been on yudal when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. in previous years i always missed them up there lol
sun. we did A LOT of packing and organizing! i was surprised that we actually got most of it done! we also got rid of all our instruments and related paraphanelia as well as our catan game! i posted an ad for those on the mokpo facebook group and a found a guy who has lived here a year but we had never met him before. he bought all of it to donate to an orphanage in the area which is awesome! we gave him a huge discount but still made a good chunk o' change which will really help us out a lot. every little bit helps when you don't know when you'll have income again lol
we packed 2-3 boxes and 2 suitcases. we realized we only have 2 big suitcases, a med. sized one and a very small one. so we're getting a bigger one from a friend of ours and with that we should be able to pack everything we need to bring back to texas right away. it's been a bit difficult deciding ok...what can we live without for 3 months? because that's how long it can take to ship something by surface (on a boat). we've done pretty well though. i was afraid we'd pack the suitcases and than still have a bunch of stuff leftover to ship by surface but it doesn't looke like we will. i think we can fit the remaining stuff in the suitcases. so that's good.
it's gonna be a hassle taking our 4 suitcases, 4 carry-ons and TWO dogs in dog crates to the bus station and then into the airport. but our friend chris said he'd drive us to the bus station which will help a lot! i just hope our doggies won't be too traumatized from being on a bus so long and then on a plane so long! he plane is what will probably get to them. we've been crating them every night in separate rooms so they can get used to being alone in their cages. they haven't been whining and barking too much...in fact jjang is the only one that has whined and barked a little so that's good.
this next week we need to get the dogs tested for heartworm, go to immigration and extend our visas for a few days, i will probably have dinner with crazy kimsookhee lol, finish packing, ship boxes, have the apt. inspected, get paid for everything, go to bank, change coins into bills, send some money to texas, get some money out, close bank accounts, clean our house, and have a going away party! then it'll be time to leave!
crazy!
work will be easy- i'm just showing a movie in every class :o) i love being able to do that!
one day this week the japanese teacher (akiko) is going to host a little lunch for me at school outside in the nice weather :o) it'll just be a few of the female teachers i've become friends with and akiko will bring japanese food :o)
then for our going away party we're going to an all you can eat meat place (or meatatorium of you will lol) where you choose from a buffet of raw meat and cook it at your table. there are tons of side dishes too. it's awesome! then we'll go to 3 of our favorite bars in mokpo and to sing in a korean noraebang one last time! we'll be leaving right after the party to get on a bus to the airport. it'll take about 5 hours. the party will be really fun but i'm not looking forward to the bus ride lol i hate losing sleep :o/ we'll have the dogs in our laps too so it might be even more difficult. gotta get through it though.
when we get to the airport we'll go to the quarantine office to have the dogs checked out and then we'll go check in. it's gonna be really hard to hand over the dogs and not see them for like 16 hours or something. i hope they'll be ok!!! and i REALLY hope there's no mix-up where they don't get on the plane or something! :o( just gonna trust the airline workers though!
we leave korea at like 10:05 am on sat. and arrive in dfw, texas at about 8:50am sat. so we'll be traveling back in time lol i love that! it may be the last time i get to do it! but who knows.
then as soon as we get back we're gonna have a small brunch with our immediate families. can't wait to eat blueberries! then i dunno what we'll do after that! we'll need to settle into the bungalow a bit, we'll wanna see some of our friends that live nearby, we'll probably wanna get a few things at the grocery store and that kind of thing. the dogs will wanna run around in the yard all day i'm sure lol can't wait to take them to the dog park too! so fun! so many things i wanna do! we'll be planning for the welcome back party too. i'm gonna help my parents get everything cleaned and organized and set up for that. we'll need to go buy food for it, etc. we're definitely going to be busy that first week...and beyond for that matter.
it'll probably take a few months to get totally settled in to the bungalow because we've gonna go through our storage and boxes will be arriving from korea and we need have a garage sale, etc. lots and lots to do! i'm happy to do it though :o) i actually like moving into new places and organizing them the way i want, etc.
anyway- wish us luck! it's a big move! probably going to have some reverse culture shock but i'm ready for it! :oD
jens and i made a trip to seoul for the last time last weekend! we were able to get out early on thurs. and take friday off (by using our floater holiday) so we had a nice long weekend :o)
we took the train up around 3pm thurs., checked into our trusty orange yeogwan (small motel) and then we headed out to find jens some new shoes. he sent all but one pair back to the states so of course his one pair decided to completely fall apart right before we were going on the dmz tour where there's a dress-code. you can't look poor in the presence of north koreans or they'll use it against you (i.e. show pictures of the "poor foreigners" to the north korean citizens and make them think they're really much better off than everyone else in the world.) so the search was on!
we went to a mall first and couldn't find anything for the right price. it was around dinner time and i was getting hungry so we got a smoothie from smoothie king! we subway-ed over to myeongdong which is a fancy shopping area filled with western luxury brands and a few less insanely expensive brands. we had never been to that area before but we wished that we had because it was really cool! it had tons of yummy looking restaurants, great shopping, etc. jens bought a new hat from a street stand and was interviewed for the national english radio station! the interviewer was a korean guy from new york and it was really weird to talk to a korean person with perfect english lol i've been in mokpo too long! he was getting people to tell them about a childhood memory. i couldn't think of anything (because i was hungry again...) so jens told them about some scary alien exhibit he had to pass by everyday during a craft class at a museum when he was little lol you can just imagine how that story went...lol
we searched and searched more stores and NO ONE had jens's size! jens has very average size feet in america but in korea he may as well have the feet of godzilla! people are like what??? no we don't carry a 9! what are you? some kind of mutant?? by the time i was in a hunger coma jens finally found some black converse that would suffice and they had his size!!! we then ran to the nearest indian restaurant (dristi) and scarfed down some curry, rice and naan. it was really good! i would recommend it!
we were pretty tired at that point so we just went back to the hotel to get a good night's rest before glimpsing the land of the fatherly leader the next day.
friday- we got up at 7am (which is earlier than i get up for work might i add!) and we grabbed some breakfast sandwiches from the nearby dunkin donuts. we ran to the subway and were disappointed to find that we would not be able to eat our sandwiches on the metro because we ourselves were sandwiched between tons of people lol
we arrived at lotte hotel which was SUPER fancy! we felt under-dressed just going in there! we headed to the floor where the tour office was supposed to be and realized there were several...we spent the next 15-20 min. roaming from one office to the next trying to find out tour. the last one was ours and they were really happy to see us since it was time to leave RIGHT THEN! lol we found out we were 2 of 3 english speaking tourists on this tour. the rest were japanese so we felt like we had our own personal tour guide :o) the other tourist was a girl from kentucky so it was just a few southerners and a korean lol the guide had great english though and she was really friendly and talkative so that made it even better.
we rode a bus about an hour or so and arrived at our first location. i would call it peace and freedom park (although i'm not sure what the real name was lol). our guide told us it was built for south korean families who were separated from north korean family members at the time of the divide of the two nations. 2-3 times a year korean people go to the gravesites of their parents and/or grandparents and pay their respects. many south korean people's ancestors gravesites are in north korea so they cannot visit them. so an area was built near the dmz for this purpose. there is also a large observation deck, park of an old train that was destroyed during the war (you can still see bullet holes all over it), an area where you can write a message of peace on a ribbon and hang it on a fence, and a small amusement park for kids (i guess it would be pretty boring for them otherwise lol). from this area you can see a bridge going from the south side to the north side. you cannot walk on it but you can see north korea from this area.
what does it look like you may ask? ...just like south korea! lol this area is the countryside so you cannot see any buildings on either side. just fields, hills, mountains, etc.
they let us stay there only about 20 mins. and then it was on to the next site: the last ktx train stop in south korea before north korea. ktx is the high speed train. there is a train station there and we could look all around it inside and out. you could even buy a ticket from that station to pyeongyang (capital of north korea) for 500won (approx. 50 cents) lol i got one for our scrapbook. the south koreans hope that one day the train will be allowed to travel into north korea.
we were at this train station for only another 20-30 mins. i think they do the tour so fast because there are a lot of people going to these sites on different tours and they don't want it to be crowded...either that or they don't want people to be at these dmz sites for very long for fear of some north koreans soldiers on the other side attacking or something...not sure though. it just felt that way- like hurry up and look and let's get out of here lol
the 3rd area we went to was much more restricted- we were told we could not take any pictures unless our guides said we could. there was a look-out area where you could pay to look through those binocular machines but you could not take pictures from the edge. you could only take pictures about 10 feet away from the edge behind a yellow line- which meant the pics were not very good lol you can pretty much only see the mountains but i got a few shots. i asked why we could not take pictures at the edge- she said it's because the north koreans do not want you to be able to take good, clear pictures of their country for fear of you using it against them (just like they do with pictures of us).
jens and i paid to look through the binoculars though and you could see the gaesong industrial complex which the south built in north korea in order to have products made cheaply by north korean workers. i'm not sure how i feel about that- they pay the north koreans much much less than they would a south korean person but at the same time they most likely get treated better than they would in a north korean factory...and they may not have a job at all if it weren't for this complex. you could also see some small houses and apt. buildings where the workers live. some south korean workers live there and are paid really well because of it. i asked if the north and south korean people who live there interact with each other and our guide said no probably not. if they do it is secretly. can you imagine having such restrictions on your life? that you can't even talk to a south korean person who lives a few minutes away?
the binoculars enabled us to see really close-up around the buildings but i didn't see any people or cars driving or anything. it looked like a ghosttown. our guide said that on a clear day you could see the giant statue of kin jeong il in the distance but it was super foggy that day- probably do to the yellow dust from china. you can see that statue on google earth though. go to google earth sometime and look at north korea. it's pretty interesting. they do have pictures up but they aren't as good as other countries. i'm sure north korea restricted when pictures could be taken.
anyway, after looking at north korea for a while we went and watched a short film about the korean war, the conflict, the separation of the two countries, etc. MAN was it intense! it was like the epitome of korean drama lol if you don't know- korean people have a penchant for making things sound like the most important thing in the world lol the way koreans speak is a little more "flowery" than americans speak too so the translation ends up sounding really funny...i wish i had a recording of the movie because i can't remember what all they said but the music and narration sounded like something out of a WWF commercial lol "we hope the two glorious koreas can come together in peace and harmony FOREVER!" ...something like that...
after the video we took a sort of "roller coaster" through a tunnel which korean soldiers dug back in the day. i believe it was found in the 70s. we had to wear hardhats in case we hit our heads on the sides of the tunnel lol it was pretty narrow. we went about 300 meters down and in. after that you could get out of the little tram we road and walk further into the tunnel. you could see the holes where dynamite was put to blow out portion of rock. our guide said that north koreans rubbed black coal onto the walls to try and disguise it as a coal mine lol but you can see quite easily the entire tunnel is made of solid granite. you can still see black coal powder on portions of the walls. we walked all the way to a blockade in the tunnel which put us in/under the actual dmz. the dmz is cut in half- half south, half north- and we were 170 meters from the north side of the dmz. pretty wild!!!
it's just crazy to think that we were so close to a country completely controlled by a crazy dictator and totally shut off from the outside world. the majority of the north korean people have no idea what life is like in south korea let alone any other country! many of them are starving to death too while kim jeong-il funds a giant statue to be built by north koreans in senegal! i just wonder if some of them are against kim jeong-il or if they just know no other way of living. it's really sad. i hope they can open up to the world someday!
after the tunnel we went and ate bulgogi for lunch. it was really good! (it's a marinated beef and veggie stew you eat with rice and veggie side-dishes). it was funny because they put all the japanese people at tables on the floor and they put us at tables with chairs and they didn't have the 3 of us share like koreans would do. they gave the kentucky girl a bowl by herself at a separate table from us but we moved our chairs closer to her so we could sit together and talk...it would have been so weird if we didn't lol
overall it was a good tour! we thought we would be going to the joint-security area where you can actually see north korean soldiers but we didn't for some reason. i dunno if it was just the tour that we signed up for or if no one could go to that area that day. our guide said we weren't going there because north korea could not guarantee the safety of tourists there and on the brochure it said no refund would be given if tourists could not visit the jsa that day. so i think it's just a matter of if it's safe that day. i still got to see north korea though so i'm satisfied.
we went back to lotte hotel after that and looked around. there tea room was amazing! it had huge chandeliers and you could get afternoon tea with little sandwiches and desserts for about $28! we did not lol
from there we went to namdaemun market which is an enormous indoor/outdoor market filled with almost every imaginable thing to buy! i wanted to finally get a hanbok (traditional korean dress) seeing as how i've lived here 3 years and have traditional dress from various other countries i've never lived in lol i didn't know if i could find an afforable one because korean people have told me they're quite expensive. i was content to get a low-quality one though since i may not wear it that much- maybe just for halloween, costume parties or if i ever happen to be invited to some kind of chuseok celebration in the u.s. (which is pretty far-fetched lol). surprisingly i found a little hanbok shop after looking around just a few mins. it was run by a non-korean man (maybe middle eastern??) which was weird but his hanbok were only 70,000won-90,ooowon so i was sold! it was difficult to pick one out because the ones i really liked were "for old women" he kept telling me. the subdued colors are for old women and the bright colors are for young women. i liked both but didn't wanna look stupid wearing one for old women now...but i also don't wanna look stupid wearing one for young women when i'm older lol i wish i could have gotten two but i didn't wanna spent that much.
i settled on a bright turquoise and pink one (for young women) because it's a very traditional design and more eye-catching. i figured that'd be best for the uses i wanted it for. they were so affordable jens decided to get one too (the one for men of course lol). his is red and navy and doesn't match with mine in the western sense but in the korean sense that doesn't matter lol we got both for 170,000won i think which is great because i had been told the usual price a korean pays for a hanbok is 400,000! ours of course are not high quality but again, that doesn't really matter for our uses.
after that we looked for a traditional korean tea set but were shocked to find none! we gave up and went back to the hotel to nap.
for dinner that night we ate at marakech nights which is a moroccan place and really yummy :o) we really like the owner- he's nice and friendly. before we left we told him it was out last time to eat there since we were leaving korea in two weeks and he was like oh! we should have made you a pie! lol
after dinner we went to see the rock tigers, a korean rockabilly band, perform at a small bar. i wasn't sure what to expect because the only popular music in korea is trot (for old people) and k-pop (for young people). i had never seen something SO unique and original in korea! they were AWESOME! all the guys had pompadours lol there was a guy on drums, a guy on the string bass which was covered in leopard and fire fabric, two guitarists and a female singer with bleach-blonde hair (a rarity in korea) and the coolest leather boots we had ever seen! the best part was their energy! they were so up-beat and the singer kept dancing around on and off the stage and coming out into the audience. it was so fun! at one point we got up and danced to several songs with other audience members and had a great time! i really wish we had been able to do more stuff like that in korea. it really made me realize what a different experience we would have had had we lived in seoul. we never did it though because of money and vacation time :o/ i'm happy with at least visiting seoul though! another unique thing about that night was were surrounded by english-speaking koreans! some were from lebanon (?? just overheard someone say that) and one seemed to be from the u.s. that right there shows the huge difference between seoul and mokpo. i have never met any korean people in mokpo who spoke english as well as they did - for one, there are not a lot of opportunities for koreans to speak english in mokpo and second, i don't think a lot of international koreans live in mokpo.
saturday- we had breakfast at richard copycat's all-american diner in itaewon and it was much better than the last time we had it. instead of just serving eggo waffles they now serve homemade belgian waffles were are awesome! i think they make their own sausage too which was de-lish! Po:
after breakfast we headed to changdeokgung (palace). it's a unesco world heritage site and you have to go with a tour to see it. it was worth it though because it was a little different than the other palaces i had seen in korea. the architecture and decoration were a bit different. there is a secret garden on the grounds too and the flowers are just starting to bloom in korea so it was really pretty :o) you could tell we were all starved for flowers because we all waited patiently at every plum blossom and cherry blossom tree to get pictures lol
after the palace we tried to find the yeoido flower festival but it was either not happening yet or we just didn't find it lol
we were starving bythen so we rushed back over to itaewon to have a light lunch at steff's hotdogs- they don't have the best hotdog meat but i LOVE their toppings- esp. the crispy fried onions! Po: i'm definitely gonna have to start putting those on hotdogs back home!
after lunch we had a little shopping to do. we went to what the book to sell off some old books and i let jens buy ONE...he just can't resist lol then we searched for a tea set. we found several but they weren't what we wanted. we finally found a booth in a store that sold some we liked but the owner wasn't there! lol a guy at another booth said she'd be there the next day so we decided to try again then.
after shopping around we went to a little coffee shop called hello beans to read. i'm currently reading northern lights and i really like it! it's the book golden compass was based on. apparently the book is better...haven't seen the movie yet but i want to.
dinner that night was at our favorite restaurant in korea- everest! on our way there we passed a restaurant on the main road called everest curry world restaurant with the same font and everything! we were really confused and we almost went in but we thought - no let's see if "our" everest in still in the same old place. we went down the alley and sure enough it was. we asked the owner about it and he said there are no copyright laws in korea so this korean person could open a restaurant with pretty much the same exact name! AND it's on the main road, whereas the original is in this back alley that's hard to find so i'm really worried for their business! :o( a lot of people might think - oh here it is! thinking the one on the main road is the original. be warned- it is NOT! lol
anyway the food was as wonderful as always and we were really sad to leave! that's when it really hit me- i'm leaving korea and most likely NEVER coming back! i'll never take a fun trip to seoul again, i'll never eat at everest again, i'll never shop in itaewon again, and i'll never be in mokpo again! that's so weird! i've spent 3 years of my life here and i'm going to have to leave FOREVER! that's pretty daunting! as much as i don't like a lot of things here i still like some things and i've still become comfortable with things here - just my surroundings in general.
sunday- breakfast at suji's in itaewon. we had never been there before but looked at the menu and it looked awesome so we went in. it's expensive but the food was REALLY good! we got the mexican breakfast and let me tell you that was THE most authentic tex-mex dish i had ever had in korea (maybe asia as a whole!) i couldn't believe it! if you go there- get the mexican breakfast! :o) we also got pancakes on the side thinking it'd be like 1-2 medium-sized pancakes, but no- it was 3 HUGE pancakes and jens and i together ate maybe 2/3 of them and we were stuffed! lol
after breakfast we went straight to that little shop where we saw the tea set we wanted and luckily the woman was there and we were able to buy it. she didn't give us much of a discount though since the man told her we had been there yesterday and here we were first thing in the morning wanting that tea set lol it's worth it though. it's a nice one- signed by the artist on the bottom.
next jens went by the electronics market to get some chip for his ds and i waited at paris baguette and tried as hard as i could to read a magazine over the blare of k-pop lol
when he returned we went to the seoul train station for the last time, boarding the ktx for the last time and road the 3 hours to mokpo for the LAST TIME! aaahhh! so strange!
we felt really melancholy that day. when you're actually doing certain things for the absolute LAST time it starts to get to you. i'm sure i'll feel the same way when i teach my last class, leave my school for the last time, take a korean taxi and bus for the last time, go to the seoul incheon airport for the last time and fly away from korea forever- aaaaaaah!
i hope i don't cry- especially not in front of my students or something...that'd be embarrassing...esp. since i don't actually like teaching lol
it's just a big change ya know? it's a big THE END! hopefully the excitement of being back in my home country will help me get over any sad thoughts about leaving korea.
i think i'll definitely have reverse culture shock though - i took time on sunday to notice how i felt about just being in korea. the feeling of walking through the seoul train station, mokpo train station or just down the street. i noticed how comfortable it was. how i was used to all the sights, sounds and smells. i'm so used to people bumping into me that when one of those korean-americans bumped into me at the concert fri. night and said sorry that i was actually taken aback! lol like why are you saying sorry? i barely even noticed you bumped me lol also being surrounded by 15 story apt. buildings doesn't phase me anymore. walking to my hairdresser and grocery store in 5 mins. has become second nature.
so i know when i'm back in texas and i have to drive pretty much everywhere i need to go and everything will be so far apart...that'll be weird! and everywhere i go people will be speaking english! and i won't be able to zone them out! lol i may freak out and cry when i'm home just because of all the differences. i haven't been in the u.s. in over a year since we visited last jan. and didn't visit home this winter. that's a long time not to be home.
there will be a lot about it i love though! the food, the houses, the yards and even the cars lol it'll be nice to get myself around again. not have to rely on others. american independence! lol
anyway this is a long post so i'd better go! 12 more days in korea!
I can't believe it! we actually only have 3 weeks left (starting tomorrow)!
the past couple of weeks have flown by and been pretty fun. the last week of april i just showed a movie in every class (cuz i told them at the beginning of the year they would get two movies days with me before i left.) so that week was SUPER easy! not so fun was when i went to the dentist about mid-week to get my teeth cleaned and checked up. it went pretty well but i hate scaling! they use this supersonic vibrating scraper to clean your teeth! :o( it wasn't bad the first time i had it done last year but for some reason it was worse this time. it kind of hurt and the woman was doing it by herself so she just had to rest the "vacuum" hose in my mouth that is supposed to suck up extra water. well that didn't work so well and i kept choking lol sigh...i made it through though.
friday night was girls night and we watched antm which was fun :o) that show's crazy but it's a guilty pleasure. sat. our replacements came to visit. they're an english couple who have lived in a small town near suncheon for the past year and they have friends in mokpo. they came into town to see friends, their future apt. and the area they'd be living in come april 24th. they were nice and friendly and it was fun showing them around. we had gamchatang for dinner which is probably the last time we'll go out for it (due to time). it was yummy :o) that night we went out and met them and some other friends at moe's to have a drink. sunday we just relaxed and it was a good weekend!
this past week i called in sick monday cuz i had a bad cold and couldn't breath well or sleep much all night. it was a short cold though. i felt better later in the day and i've only had mild symptoms since then. i'm wondering if when i go back home i'm gonna catch all the bad colds there since i won't be used to them lol :oP
wednesday i got two things done i've been wanting to do for a long time! i went to the eye doctor and ordered contacts and i'll be picking those up friday as well as picking out new glasses. my prescription hasn't changed but my glasses have pretty much had it. the color is coming off the frames and the lenses are scratched up. so i'll be happy to get new ones. i also went to the dentist and got two teeth restored. one of them had been chipped and restored a long time ago but the old restoration was discolored and coming off. so the dentist fixed that and then there was some major confusion. i had planned on getting a second tooth restored that had had a bad cavity in it a long time ago and about 1/4 or 1/3 of the tooth had to be replaced. well that restoration was separating and discolored so i wanted to get it fixed but the dentist seemed to think i would need a shot of anesthesia for it.
well if you know me you know i have a huge phobia of needles and i would totally freak out if she had to give me a shot. the confusion came in when she thought i wanted her to only do one tooth today and the other one next week. on top of that i was crying just from the thought of having to get a shot and trying to figure out what i should do- should i risk starting the restoration with no anesthesia and then possibly HAVING to get a shot in order to finish it? should i just go ahead and get the shot and get it done? or should i just not get it done at all and leave? lol she said there might be a cavity under the restoration so i was worried about just not doing anything.
it took me so long to decide and explain that she had to leave and go to another appt. i explained with the help of jens to another lady that worked there that i really just wanted to get everything done today and not wait til next week. i was thinking that if i left that dentist's office i'd probably never come back because of the anxiety i'd have over the possible shot i would need to get the work done. so the dentist came back in and i said ok let's just try it without anesthesia and see how it goes. if i need it i'll get it. so she started and it just felt REALLY cold! freezing cold water sprays out of this drill thing while she scraps off the old restoration and that's what really hurts sometimes. it was fine for the most part but at one point it really hurt for a second and she stopped. when she continued it was better and i got through the whole thing with no anesthesia! and i'm glad i did it because there was, in fact, a small cavity underneath! so she fixed my tooth and i'm done! whew!
when i get home i'm gonna buy an electric toothbrush because who knows when i'll get to the dentist next lol last time i waited 3 years to go and i had two small cavities. so here's hoping good dental care will do the trick.
this weekend we have a birthday party friday night and then sat. we're going out to an island where some of our friends live for an easter meal and to hang out with all of them. we haven't seen them in a while and it might actually be the last time we see them before we leave.
then i'll just have 3 weeks of school left! crazy! we're going to the pension office next week to do the paperwork to have my korean pension money sent to my u.s. account. and we've GOT to start packing boxes. we have tons of stuff i don't think will fit in our suitcases: books, shoes, purses, clothes, instruments, artwork, etc. we really settled in here! it'll be so nice that when we get back home we won't have to think - should we buy this since we're not living in this country forever? we will most likely be living in the u.s. forever or at least in north america lol so we can buy things that we'll use for years and years.
the second weekend in april we'll be making our last trip to seoul! we're hoping to see the dmz but we stupidly did not book a tour yet and the u.s.o. is full. we're gonna look into other tours and hopefully we'll get in one. it's our last chance to go and we've never been! the dmz isn't THAT amazing but since i've lived in korea for 3 years i really wanna go see it. here's hoping we can!
our last weekend in korea we're going to have a small pic-nic on yudal mountain with a few friends :o) the weather has been getting warmer and the cherry blossoms look like they're about to burst open!!! :o) i can't wait- they're so pretty! it'll be a nice time to leave korea- it'll give me some positive feelings about the place :o)
well it's lunchtime so i'd better go! cheers to 3 weeks! :oD
so we've only got 5 weeks left. i'm surprised at how the time is flying. it felt slow at first but now i'm almost down to one month left in korea! that's such a short time!
this past week started out kinda crappily but ended somewhat happily :o) i'm starting to get into the groove of teaching. i started to have a little more energy about mid-week and the classes went pretty well. yes i still have the odd "omg shut up please" moments and the "co-teacher: what the heck are you doing?" moments but overall i'm dealing. friday was good. 3 classes in a row- my worst co-t actually showed up and stayed for the entire two classes he was supposed to be there for so that was good.
friday night i went out with friends to a noraebang and it was fun as always! :o) i'm gonna miss noraebangs (karaoke rooms). supposedly they have some in dallas???
today jens and i just chilled. did laundry, etc. actually i've been trying to do the same load of laundry since about 1pm (and it's now 7pm) because our korean washer is a piece of crap lol i'm going to LOVE having a regular washer and dryer in the states.
i had dinner with my old insane co-t last wed. i was dreading it but it wasn't too bad. i just have to resign myself to the fact that as long as i live in korea she's not going to leave me alone lol i'll probably see her one or two more times at least. she wants to have dinner, have me over to her apt., maybe go to a temple or something. sounds nice but hanging out with her is actually quite difficult. but i get through it. this past time she told me some shocking information that she never mentioned before- she has a husband and 6 year old daughter that live in gwangju. her mother-in-law takes care of the daughter and that's all she would say! i couldn't get anything else out of her! i was so surprised! i wanted to know more but she deflected my questions and changed the subject. it was really weird. but that's kim sook hee! weird! i have a feeling she and her husband are separated or divorced. that's really scandalous in korea so i'm sure that's why she's never mentioned it before. i don't think anyone at my school knows but me!
anyway, so our plans for the rest of our time in korea are as follows: our replacements will visit next weekend to see the apt. and pay us for some furniture they want to buy. first weekend of april we will go to anhwa island and visit the heaslips and the stainbrooks with shanna and joe. 2nd weekend we'll go to seoul and finally see the dmz. 3rd weekend (and last weekend) we'll start packing and if the weather is nice hike up yudal or something. hopefully the cherry blossoms are blooming by then :o)
and that's it! we'll have a week left at work, go out with friends our last night (friday, april 23rd) and then at 2am on the 24th we'll take a bus up to the airport with our dogs and all our crap! our plane leaves around 10am on the 24th and we'll actually travel TO THE FUTURE! lol we arrive in texas at 8am on the 24th! isn't that funny how the time change works?
we'll be in texas before we know it! i daydream about it all the time! the weather, the food, our little bungalow, the dogs playing in the yard, etc. :o)
i wish it would hurry up and get a little warmer here- that always puts me in a better mood!
i'm trying to have a more positive attitude about korea even though i don't like it that much because i have to live here 6 more weeks! lol
so here's what i'll miss:
ondol heating cheap public transportation (taxis, buses, trains) restaurants where you cook your own food with friends at a table (like galbi) the lax laws on alcohol consumption i can walk to all the necessities (grocery store, pharmacy, doctor, restaurants, the vet, etc.) cherry blossoms in spring colorful leaves in fall rice cakes (not those dry quaker oats things we have in the states.) ho ddeok stands people get out and about more- go for walks, exercise, have picnics in the park, etc. being able to zone out strangers' conversations because i can't understand them lol lots of different coffee shops everywhere cheap doctor's bills and prescriptions very high speed internet having a mountain in the town where i live for hiking, etc. cheap sweet milk coffee "shot" machines funny konglish cute, funny stationary and notebooks being only a 3 hour high speed train ride from a major world city (seoul) being a bus and ferry ride away from japan in general being close to many asian countries to visit
specific things about my job: (i don't know what my future job will be like but i can compare this job to old jobs) not having to get here til 9am only having 3-4 classes a day taking my time planning lessons lots of free time being able to use internet (for email, facebook or anything i want) all day everyday at work no one wants to check my lessons before i teach no one gives me criticism of my lessons i can have a movie day whenever i want i can teach however i want i have my own classroom and office only shared with one other person i have my own computer i have a printer, heater, fan, microwave, hot water pitcher, mugs, etc. shared with only one other person. i can sit and have fun conversation with some teachers or students whenever i want without anyone saying- get back to work! it's pretty quiet in my office/classroom when no students are here. i can go out to the post office, etc. during free time without it being a big deal. a fairly healthy lunch is provided for me everyday (i pay for it but i don't have to prepare it or think about it at all which is nice). full-coverage health insurance at this job costs me less than $80 a month. i don't have to worry about anyone bringing a gun to school because guns are illegal in korea! approx. 3 months vacation
that's all i can think of for now but that's quite a bit of stuff! i'll try to focus on those things and enjoy my last month and a half in this country :o)
so the day we arrived back in korea i wasn't sure how i would feel. i knew i didn't feel like coming back. i knew it'd be cold. but i didn't forsee how much it would get on my nerves!
we were in the airport and jens was cut in front of in two different lines by two different old ladies! welcome back to korea! lol
we took a bus to the train station and had to wait there for a couple hours.
first we got breakfast at dunkin donuts. as we were sitting there eating sub-par bagels and donuts and were bombarded with overly loud, sappy korean pop ballads that's when i knew: i don't like korea anymore lol
we sat on a bench but we were surrounded by sleeping bums that stank so we decided to move. of course everyone and their dogs were staring at us with every move we made lol
everyone was watching kim yoo na's figure skating performance on tv. it was nice that for once they were showing something i could understand but it only served to remind me that korea is obssessed with itself and thinks it's the best in the world because of things and people like kim yoo na lol
{i'm wondering if when i get back i'll notice any americans being overly patriotic (or nationalistic) about dumb things....lol probably.}
i was surprised to find that everywhere we went there was this underlying stench of musty ginseng. i couldn't get away from it. even when we got on the train! i guess that's just the general scent of korea that i had gotten used to. but leaving for 2 months and coming back enabled me to smell it again lol
we survived the journey back to our apt. in mokpo but i stayed inside for 3 full days lol i didn't want to face the reality of living in korea for the next two months. if just a few hours of being in the country put me in such a bad mood i was afraid how i'd react to going out and about.
finally the evening before we had to go back to work i decided that school was not the first thing i wanted to deal with in korea. so we took the dogs for a walk. it was nice. it was dreary and wet outside but it was still nice to get out and take the pups for a walk. it was also good for me to get out and about in mokpo a little before going back to work. i was eased back in with people spitting, old people staring and cars honking lol
then it was back to work! at first i was ecstatic that my incredibly insane co-t had in fact moved to another school and it HAS been much more peaceful without her. but i'm still totally fed up with teaching. it's just not for me. i dunno how people do it and enjoy it lol unless they have perfect students which i don't think anyone does. i just get too annoyed at my students. i'm like why in the world would you think it's a good idea to do ______________? fill in any number of ridiculous things lol they won't shut up most of the time and many of them flat out refuse to do ANY work. even if it's just copying words down from the board or their friend's paper.
it's really hard for me to hold back my emotions. in one class today i got fed up trying to PUUULLL the answers out of them like pulling teeth and i said "oh my god, come on, please just give me one answer, just read it from your paper, pleeeease, you're killing me!" lol later i wanted the students to write down answers i had written on the board. i had to stand next to one table and supervise each and every word they wrote down. if i left at all they would stop writing. i felt like i may as well have held their hands while they wrote! lol
not every class is like that. i feel like two of the classes i had today were the worst but it's probably because the co-teacher is the oldest one i have and i had him last year and he sucks. he won't explain anything unless i specifically ask him to. with other co-ts they automatically know when something needs to be explained and they do it. also this old guy left halfway through one class and didn't even show up to the other. so of course that made the classes much more difficult. i have to be a crazy english drill sergeant if i don't have a co-t in there.
anyway all these things just make me like korea less and less. the students are in school so long that they're not expected to do that much work in one class. english education doesn't seem to be much of a priority at my school so the students feel it's totally ok to just say "englishee no". as if i'm going to say- ooooh i see, sorry to bother you! lol some co-teachers don't show up at all, some don't explain things to the students, they just sit there like bumps on a log (not so much this year but last year). when i go out i'm stared at, yelled at, people spit on the ground whether they're indoors or outdoors, i'm constantly shoved this way and that, no one says excuse me (in korean or otherwise), i'm bombarded with horrible k-pop everywhere i go, etc.
i'm just done with this country!!!
i'm glad i came, 3 years was enough, i had some great times, it's over. time to go home!
the problem is i can't yet! lol i've still got 6 weeks. now that may not seem like much but it's at least 126 more classes! over a HUNDRED classes! aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh! nooooooooooo!
a lot of people say you should just be positive. but how do you be positive about something you don't like? only in a negative way- oh well in 6 weeks i won't have to deal with this country anymore - but that's still 6 weeks that i DO have to deal with it lol
i know that once it's over, once i've sold off my stuff, packed up and shipped things, taken the bus up to the airport with our suitcases and dogs and fly away, it'll feel like it wasn't that long. i'm mean, once i'm gone, i'm gone. but my point is i've got to deal with living in korea NOW! and i don't want to. but i have to! it sucks lol
i think i'll actually feel much better about this country once spring comes and the cherry blossoms bloom. korea is so much better in the spring than in the winter lol that should lift my spirits a bit but i don't think the blooms will come out for 3 weeks or something. i'm definitely affected by the weather.
anyway, i don't want to sound like a bitter old crone lol the fact of the matter is i did not want to stay a 3rd year but i knew it would be GOOD FOR ME to so we could save more money and i knew it'd be much easier for us to see more of asia from korea rather than from the u.s. so we stayed a 3rd year and i'm glad we did because i made some really good friends (korean and otherwise) and ben and vivienne were able to visit us here and we went to japan, singapore, malaysia, thailand, laos and cambodia! i certainly wouldn't change those things for the world.
i'm just trying to figure out a way to get through the next 6 weeks without being in a depressed funk the whole time. the main thing that makes me depressed is the job, but i have to teach. no way around it. i think part of the problem with my job is the classes are way too big. i noticed that last year when i had my english club class and it was only 10 students it was MUCH BETTER! i could relate to them better. i had a much more open and friendly demeanor with them, etc. but with the 30-37 students i have in the regular classes i feel like i automatically have to put up this tough front because they have to be extra quiet in order for anything to get done because there are do many of them. know what i mean? i can't be all fun-loving and lacsidasical with HUGE classes. as soon as i let my guard down they all start talking so loud they can't hear a word i say. it sucks. plain and simple. nothing i can do about it i guess. just keep on truckin'.
ok well that's how i've been feeling. i'm glad it's friday and i've got two days to do whatever i want and not deal with work. then i've just got one more week of lessons before movie week! i'm giving them two movie weeks- 4th week of march and my last week at the school. i figured i could get away with at least two ;o) and that'll make things much easier for them AND me!
driver took us on the grand circuit tour and we saw many temples. it's hard to remember the differences between each one. they're hard to describe. you just have to go there and see for yourself or look at pictures online :o) our cambodia pictures should be up within in a few months lol
lunch was chicken noodle soup cambodian style.
it was extremely hot and humid as usual so we were spent by 3pm again, went back to the hotel, interneted, showered, and went to dinner.
we got a bbq burger at the irish pub and it was yummy! we played a little pool and hung out upstairs and it was nice :o)
Day 52
breakfast as joe to go.
driver took us to see the official angkor wat and angkor tham. they are the two main temples people come to see because they're really huge. angkor tham is actually a temple city. there are many different temples enclosed within a wall.
seeing angkor wat felt like coming full circle. the first time i ever heard of angkor wat was when jens and i first started dating and we went to an archaeological lecture at the dma so i could get extra credit for my anthropology class. it was really interesting and it felt great to actually get to see angkor wat in person!
we looked at all of the amazing bas reliefs around the outer wall first and were able to read descriptions of all of them since we bought a book about angkor wat from a land-mine victim that morning.
we eventually made it to the center where the three giant towers are and we were about to go up when the workers told me i couldn't BECAUSE MY KNEES WERE SHOWING! i was livid! i had never ever heard or read that you needed to cover your knees to go to the top of angkor wat. they didn't even provide anything for me to wear nor were they even selling anything to wear which i would think cambodians of all people would see the opportunity there! if i wanted to go to the top i'd have to walk about 1km out of the temple and hope that someone out there was selling a skirt! i was hot and tired and too upset to even argue or walk all the way out and back so i just said fine and went and cried in a corner while jens went up and got pictures. i know that probably sounds really lame but i just couldn't believe we had come all that way and spent all that money and i still couldn't go up in the main site i came to see because my stupid knees were showing! it was ridiculous! it's not as if this old stone building would have exploded at the presence of my exposed knees! i had already walked dang-near all over the thing anyway! lol
even if i concede to their insane notions they should have at least TOLD me ahead of time or AT LEAST provided something for me to buy to wear up in the thing! there was nothing i could do!
you're probably wondering- why didn't you just go back and buy a skirt if you wanted to go up in it that badly? well truth be told i knew going to the top wouldn't actually be that spectacular. it most likely would have been exactly the same as going up in any of the other temples we visited in ayuthaya and angkor. jens went up and took pics and said as much and that it wreaked of pigeon poo lol so it wasn't so much that i couldn't go up to the top of angkor. it was just the fact that they all of the sudden said no you can't cuz your knees are showing- with no warning whatsoever! i was just annoyed and pissed off because it was such a stupid thing.
they think the gods live in angkor and the other temples. my question is- why would the gods be offended by my knees? the cambodians think the gods are the ones that gave me knees in the first place! so what's so horrible about them that they can't be exposed in the house of the gods? lol also- how come i can expose my knees all i want in every other part of angkor? does a specific god live up in the towers of angkor wat that has a personal disgust of knees???? it's just so arbitrary! i would think it was just a ploy to get people to buy long skirts or pants but they weren't even selling any! it doesn't make any sense!
on our way out i saw two women wearing sleeveless shirts (another no-no) and shorts above the knee so i let them know they would not be able to go to the top of angkor without covering up. they were shocked! one woman said that she had specifically asked a worker at her hotel what she should wear and they said- just bring a scarf to wrap around your shoulders when you go up. wearing shorts is fine!!!!
when we got back to our driver i told our driver what happened and he said- oh i'm so sorry. i didn't know that.
also- a girl was trying very hard to sell us water and i told her she should sell skirts. she asked why and i told her and she was surprised too!
so apparently cambodians don't even know about this. i have no idea why they're doing it.
moving on....
lunch- fried rice with chicken and ginger
ankor tham - it was huge! our favorite part was bayon because it has huge faces carved into the stone towers. i liked it even more than angkor wat so that made up for not being able to go in the angkor wat towers. we also saw the leper king terrace and the elephant terrace. they were basically tall, long walls with elephants, people, etc. carved into them. you could go up stairs to the top of the wall and walk along it. it was cool!
we bought a temple "rubbing" from someone at some point. he supposedly took rice paper to angkor wat and rubbed an image of a woman carving into the paper and then painted it. i've seen them all over. i dunno if they actually do it at the temple or it they do it on a pre-made mold. either way it was cool and only $5. more art for our house!
we stayed at the park til 5pm when it closes and then went back to the hotel for showers, packing and dinner. we ate at a bbq place and got skewers of chicken, squid and veggies. it was good!
that was our last night! last night in cambodia, last night in s.e. asia, and last night of vacation as a whole!
Day 53 flew to kuala lumpur, malaysia and spent the whole day in the airport.
"brunch" was indian roti, masala thosai, curry and teh tarik and it was soooooo good! i was happy we got to eat that kinda food one more time before leaving. you won't believe how cheap it was- all of that for less than ONE DOLLAR! amazing!
we found a coffee shop to read in and we were surrounded by several couples consisting of a man wearing regular, casual clothes and a woman wearing full-body black burkahs! you could only see their eyes! that's when i remembered we were in a muslim country! lol it's so weird to see that and i think it's so misogynistic! the men are just saying- "she's mine", no one else gets to see her body but me. what they don't get is that just makes us stare at their women even more! lol meanwhile i'm sitting there in sleeveless dress and skin-tight leggings lol- WITH MY HAIR EXPOSED! i hope my hair didn't send out too many sex rays to those muslim men!
(many muslims actually believe women's hair emits "sex rays". here's a quote from here: http://www.michaeltotten.com/2010/01/quote-of-the-day-8.php"In 1981, Abol-Hassan Banisadr, the first president of the Islamic Republic, announced that scientific research had shown that women's hair emits rays that drive men insane with lust. To protect the public, the new regime passed legislation in 1982 making the new form of hijab mandatory for all females above six years of age, regardless of religious faith.") insaaaane!
anyway, i read a magazine there called expatriate malaysia and it was really interesting to see malaysia from the expatriate's point of view. there was an article a woman has written about an insulting commercial that shows in malaysia. this guy is talking about a new kind of printer and he explains everything about it and then he says- "it's so easy, even my wife uses it!" as if she's some kind of moron lol can you believe commercials like that still exist? there were also "love letters to malaysia" that people wrote in about how much they love malaysia and why. they made malaysia sound great and i thought...i wonder what expats would write about korea.... :o/
lunch- sandwiches
hung out more, roamed around, they have a freaking enclosed rainforest in the middle of the terminal. it's pretty awesome! lol we looked around a bookstore and jens got a book he'd been wanting (ever the book lover!) i got a magazine and we hung out more until it was finally time to go to our gate (around 10pm).
on the way we thought hey! we need to spend the rest of our malaysian money! (it wasn't that much). so we bought some cigars and some port! woohoo!
then it was on to the plane. lifted off late because some korean people checked their baggage but never got on the plane for some reason...so they had to go through all the bags and take theirs out before we could leave.
the flight was extremely uncomfortable since we were flying overnight and planes are impossible to sleep comfortably on.
Day 54 we arrived at 7am -ish. then it was a race to the bus, the bus to the train station and then up to the ticket counter. we arrived 5 mins. too late to get the train we wanted :o( so we had to hang out in the cold, uncomfortable train station for two hours until we could leave. ice skating was on and i realized that everyone's routines look exactly the same! there's only so much you can do on skates.
we finally got on the train, tried to sleep a little and arrived in mokpo around 2pm. we got a taxi to our apt. and were happily reunited with our puppiiiies! they were so excited! as were we :o)
we had to spend about 3 hours getting our house clean and back in order. we had a few different people stay at our house while we were gone and let's just say they did not leave it the way they found it!
jens made homemade wheat bread and we ate that and black eyed peas we had frozen after new year's day!
aaaaahhhh it was good to be home!
and it wasn't actually as cold as we thought it would be. predictably it had warmed up a bit in the two months we were gone :o) still too cold for my tastes though! it's been overcast and drizzly :oP --------------------------------
since getting back we've started work and we just finished our first week! jens has a new vice principal and co-teacher. he says they're ok. his co-t is older and expects more out of him than the last one and her two young kids hang out in their classroom after school and annoy him while he's trying to write his 3rd novel.
i on the otherhand am ABSOLUTELY COMPLETELY UNBELIEVEABLY THRIIIIIILLLLLEEEDDD! that i have a new co-teacher and my bat-crap insane one from last year has moved on to another school :oD oh happy day! my new co-t is the man who has shared an office with me for several months and he barely talks to me. i love it! :o)
i have 4 other co-ts that will also be helping me in my classes. two men i already knew, only one of which i've worked with before, and two new women. i was very pleased when one of the women offered to go to lunch with me and then have coffee with me after lunch and we talked for about 3 hours. she's really nice and i'm really happy i have her as a co-t because 3 of my co-t friends from last year have moved to other schools and the only other one i am friends with is a 3rd grade homeroom teacher now so i don't see her much. so i'm glad i like this new lady. i'll probably like the other new lady too but haven't talked to her yet. i already know i don't like one of the men much but i do like the other one. he's nice and helpful.
i've just had a few classes so far. all the 1st graders (10th graders) are new and therefore do not speak at all. it makes for extremely awkward and uncomfortable classes and i'd almost rather them talk over me lol 2nd graders are the 1st graders from last year and i'm sure will be just as annoying as they were before lol
i got my permanent schedule today and it looks pretty good! i only have 3 classes a day, all before lunch except one day when i have a class during last period. that sucks because it means i'll miss my bus that day but the rest of the schedule is great so oh well.
i've got all my lesson ideas decided for the rest of my stay here but i don't have all the lessons planned out :oP ...because i hate planning lessons lol so hopefully i can get around to that soon...lol
this weekend there's a back to school party at moe's bar and that's pretty much our plans so far.
you may be wondering when i'm going to finish updating about our trip lol once we got back to korea i just totally relaxed and didn't feel like doing anything. now i'm at work and i could update but i don't have my notes. i wrote a paper journal throughout too so that i wouldn't forget if i didn't write it on here. so i'll have to sit down at home and look at that while i write. hopefully i'll get around to it soon!
i'm gonna make this quick cuz i'm hot and tired and i need a shower lol
Day 49 - flew to cambodia
it was a chinese propeller plane and the most turbulent flight i've ever been on. kinda scary but not too bad lol we landed safely obviously. we had a stop in one town to drop people off and then we flew to siem reap which was interesting. i'd never had a stopover like that before.
we're staying at popular guesthouse. we like it.
cambodia is REALLY hot! quite a shock after the cool weather of luang prabang in laos!
another shock in cambodia are all the beggars. they're everywhere, of all ages and they don't let up til you buy something or give them money. we now have a book, a scarf and 12 bracelets we weren't planning on buying. it was all really cheap though so that's ok. i certainly don't mind helping the people out but they're just so in your face. it makes it hard to think straight. it's overwhelming. especially when it's 2-3 little bitty kids 4-6 years old and they're reaching up with their wares and saying ÿou buy this lady, lady, one dollaaarrr, no buy from me ladyyy, 5 for one dollaarrr"and you're like ah what do i do!? so i just bought something from each kid.
the temples are awesome though! the first time i heard of angkor wat was in the dallas museum of art. they were having an archaeological presentation and i could get extra credit for my anthropology class by going. i went with jens and we drank wine and it was all very sophisticated lol so to finally see the place makes me feel like i've come full circle!
angkor wat is actually just one of the many, many temple ruins that are in a huge area near siem reap. yesterday we saw one location before the park closed at 5pm.
we had cambodia for dinner. something called amok which is basically a curry with lots of scrambled egg in it and it's not as soupy. pretty good!
after dinner jens and i got full body massages for only $7 each!
then we got kaffir lime and passionfruit gelato, then some samosas (cuz we got hungry again) and then went back to the hotel for shower and sleep.
Day 50 - tons o' temples!
we had a western style breakfast at blue pumpkin and then our tuk-tuk driver picked us up and took us along the "grand circuit" to see a bunch of temples. we probably went 15km outside of siem reap by the end of the day. we saw 4-5 different temples and each one was slightly different. we saw the huge trees growing on top of temples with their roots "melting"down over the stones into the ground. we saw huge faces carved into stone gates. we saw big lions and elephants carved out of stone. and we also saw live cows running about, water buffalo grazing, chickens and roosters pecking, dogs lolling about and loooots of people selling stuff.
we had chicken and veg. noodle soup for lunch and that was good.
by about 3pm we were totally melting and exhausted so we saw one more temple and went back to the hotel.
on the ride home a spanish guy on a bike rode up and hung on to our tuk-tuk to get a ride into town. he said he had family in texas! imagine that!
now we've just got one more official day of vacation before we start heading back. we'll see angkor wat and the huge angkor tham tomorrow. then the day after we'll fly from cambodia to kl, malaysia. our flight to korea doesn't leave til 10 hours later so we'll have plenty of time to get to know the kuala lumpur airport. we fly back to korea at 12am! arrive at about 6am and then we'll take a bus to the train station. from there we'll train to mokpo. then it's just one more form of transportation between us and HOME! a taxi to line apartuh! where our little bitty wuffle pups will be waiting! can't wait to see them!!!!! sigh...we'll have two months with them in korea but then we'll be leaving them for another 2 months more or less when we go on our road trip in the states. i dunno if i can do it! :o( at least they'll be in good hands with my mom. she loves dogs as much as we do! :o)
i can't believe our looooong vacation is finally coming to an end! it'll be so weird to go back to korea. first of all it'll be much much colder and we'll only have about 2-3 days til we have to go back to work and start teaching again! blah! i have and idea of what i'm gonna teach but i just don't wanna do it lol i wanna go back to texas like asap. but oh well, we've got so much stuff we wanna do and have to do before we leave i'm sure the time will fly. i'm ready for some galbi!!! lol
anyway i may not update again til the airport day after tomorrow. dunno what we'll end up doing tomorrow. until next time! bye!
i'm reading a book called ant egg soup by natacha du pont de bie. she's a british woman who calls herself a food tourist, which i could call myself! sometimes i decide where to go and where to stay just based on the food! she heard there was only one book written in english about laotian food so she set out to write the second. she traveled all over laos meeting native people all along the way and having them show her how to make laotian food. i love the book so far! it's great to read a book about a country while you're traveling around it! gives you more info and more perspective.
anyway, after breakfast we got bikes and rode around town stopping at any temples we saw. there are 34 in luang prabang! i think we only saw 3 but that's ok. we've seen tons of temples in s.e. asia in general we will be seeing more lol
it was really nice to be able to slowly bike around. this town is really quiet and beautiful! i love the architecture!
we went up phousy hill and saw the temple and buddha statues there including "buddha's footprint", obviously fake seeing as how my whole body could fit into it lol the view from the top of the hill was great though! you could see the whole town and both rivers that run through it- the mekong and the nam son (i think...we've never been able to confirm the name of the other river).
we rode around the town some more admiring the pretty little cafes, monks in bright orange robes and kids playing in the streets.
in the afternoon we got a late light lunch of iced bale fruit tea and a tuna potato salad that was really good at l'etranger - a book lending/selling tea room/cafe. what i loved about it most were all the national geographics you could look at for free upstairs while lounging on big cushions on the floor. i looked at one from 1973 and enjoyed the olds ads as much as the articles. i read one article about centanarians and how they live as long as they do. it sounds like the key to longevity is hard physical labor everyday of your life, a low calorie diet and a good bit of alcohol lol i need to work on the first one lol
we biked some more until dusk and then turned out bikes in.
we decided to go to dinner at hive bar because they have a hilltribe clothing fashion show every night. we ordered a house salad and a tomato pesto pizza, the fashion show began and it started to rain...the problem was all the tables and the stage were outside! no one wanted to risk sitting in a downpour so after it had been sprinkling for 5 mins. everyone ran to get tables indoors and they stopped the fashion show. we got to see 4-5 different kinds of hilltribe clothing though. there are over a hundred different ethnicities who live in the hills and each has their own distinct style of clothing. it's really cool!
we ate dinner inside but it never did rain very hard. the food was good and afterwards we want back to the hotel for an early night because we were getting up early in the morning.
Day 47 - change of weather and change of plans!
we had planned to take a biking and kayaking tour to a hilltribe village and a waterfall where you can swim but the weather had drastically changed overnight! we woke up to the coldest weather we've experienced in s.e. asia and we were NOT prepared! i didn't even have pants or enclosed shoes. we immediately went to the tour office and asked if we could reschedule our tour for sunday because we saw online that it was supposed to warm and sunny that day. thankfully they switched our tour with no problem and no charge.
it was so chilly all we wanted to do was stay inside all day lol we went to joma and had a long breakfast, hot tea and read quite a while. then we went out and checked out some places to schedule a cooking class either for that evening or the next day. it took us forever to find a place and it was too expensive so we went and found another place for which we had seen flyers. it's called tamnak (3 elephants) and it's a combined restaurant, cooking school and book exchange. it seems to be owned by an ozzy woman (and maybe her husband?...she said "we" a couple times but i never saw anyone else...) she lives in the building in which the book exchange is run and she has a funny-looking medium-sized shaggy gray mut with an underbite who will apparently bite anyone who tries to pet her lol the lady had signs up everywhere warning people not to pet her. the dog didn't seem phased by jens and i and as we were leaving she even came up to me and sniffed my leg. i like to think that she could sense jens and i were good dog people :o) the ozzy lady was gregarious and funny and i really liked her.
it took us so long to find a cooking school that it was time for lunch and we had seen that joma had a really yummy looking rueben sandwich so we just gave in to our love of the place and returned for lunch lol we got the delicious rueben sandwich and a wonderfully comforting bowl of creamy tomato soup which really hit the spot on such a cold day. you're probably thinking it was like 30F or something but it might have only been 60F. it was just such a drastic change that our bodies weren't used to it at all and like i said i didn't have proper clothing. if we walked briskly down the street it wasn't too bad but i certainly didn't wanna meander around in it!
so after lunch we decided to go see the national museum which used to be the royal palace when there was a king. when the communists took over they put the king, queen and prince in a cave prison. the prince complained about the food so they said ok cook it yourself. he soon got dysentery and brain fever and died. they moved the king and queen to another cave prison and they died shortly after...of what i don't know. when laos became extremely poor the govt decided to open the palace up as a museum to bring in some money from tourists. so it's a bit weird. the author of the book i'm reading likened it to killing the pope and then opening up the vatican as a museum...i guess you could also compare it to killing the president and then opening the white house as a museum.
nonetheless the palace was pretty cool! the throne room had intricate japanese glass pictoral mosaics on all the walls which really amazed me. picture a little man on a horse made entirely of tiny pieces of colored glass - there were hundreds of these pictures on the walls. amazing! there was also the king's bedroom, queen's bedroom, dining room, a couple other rooms, buddhas (i've really seen enough of buddha and i'm sure he would be appalled at how many statues there are of him all over the world seeing as how he had no intention of people worshipping him at all!), and a room filled with gifts from other countries (given to the king during his reign). most of the gifts were amazing. china had given this intricately carved sphere made of ivory that had other spheres carved inside it! it was amazing and i have no idea how one would do that! it blew my mind! on the other hand the u.s. had only given a little crappy model of the craft they landed on the moon lol now granted they also gave a few moon pebbles but still it didn't really compare to the amazing craftmanship of the chinese ivory sphere.
we discovered the royal ballet theater is right next to the museum so we bought tickets to a traditional dance for that night. it start at 6pm so we needed to eat an early dinner. we decided to go back to l'etranger because i had seen that they had chai. unfortunately when we got there they said they were out of chai so i got hot bale fruit tea, jens got coffee and we went upstairs to read and look at more national geographic. i looked at two old ones from the 70s that had articles about texas! it was really interesting to see how they wrote back then and to see what they said about texas. they wrote about it pretty stereotypically and if that was people's main info about texas i can see why every time i meet someone from somewhere else they think texas is just a desert with cows, cowboys and hicks lol the thing that shocked me the most was that they used both the terms "wetback" and "coolies" as if that was totally ok lol we've come a long way since then!
after hanging out a while we ordered pappadam with 3 dips (smokey eggplant dip, salsa and pesto) and that tuna potato salad again that was so good.
then we went to the dance show. they performed a story from the ramayana and the dance was similar to ones i had seen in bali. pretty cool but a bit slow going. i was glad i saw it but i was also glad it was only an hour lol
it was still early and jens had really been craving apple pie so we went back to joma for the 3rd time that day because we knew they had it. unfortunately they had run out lol (not our lucky day!) so we got cheesecake with mango and a brownie.
Day 48 - cooking class!
we had a light breakfast of raisin bread, fruit and tea and then we headed over to tamnak cooking school. there were about 9 of us students all together.
first we took a tuk-tuk to the market and one of our teachers showed us around. it was great! i've always loved asian markets but i had never had someone guide me through one and tell me what things were! i loved it! we saw fish in buckets, pig feet, pig snouts, blood jello, buffalo meat, buffalo skin, tons of herbs, veggies and fruit, bamboo, cornstarch snacks covered in palm sugar, and lots of non-food items like clothes, toiletries, etc. but we of course focuses on the food! jens and i weren't too phased by anything after living in korea so it was fun to see some of the other students freaking out about the gross things lol
after that we went back to the school for morning tea and some of that cornstarch/palm sugar snack. then we got to learnin'!
there were two teachers and they took turns teaching us how to make various dishes. first they would demonstrate the dishes and then we would go to our stations and make the dishes ourselves following the cookbook (which we got to keep). it was so much fun!!!!! jens and i wished we had been doing cooking classes in every country! not only because it was fun but simply because we like to cook and we were tired of eating out all the time. jens said he was surprised at how great he felt as soon as he started cooking lol there's just something about making your own food that's really satisfying.
first we made a luang prabang salad which was really easy. just lettuce, cucumber, tomato, boiled egg, peanuts and laos mayonaisse which we made from scratch- it was just oil, vinegar, hard boiled egg yolk, salt, pepper and sugar. very yummy! then we made a fried noodle dish with chicken, veggies and herbs. it was delicious! after we made our food we went outside on the porch and all ate together at a big table.
then we went back in to learn how to make 6 other dishes. this time we could choose which ones we wanted to make ourselves. the first half of the afternoon we were shown how to make laap (the national dish), a stir fried vermicelli noodle dish with veggies and pork and a pork and egg stew. then we could choose two to make. we chose the first two. the laap was made with chicken and was also super easy! all you had to do was cook the chicken and mix it with a bunch of garlic, onion and herbs! sooo fresh tasting and so good! next we made the noodle dish and that was a bit more work but really yummy and had a totally different taste. it was made with "ear mushrooms" which gave it a woody peanutty flavor.
then we were shown how to make 3 other things - a stir-fried eggplant and pork dish, an eggplant and chicken red curry and a red chili paste. we could choose one of the first two dishes to make but they didn't let us make the chili paste because we didn't need that much of it. in the demonstration they made enough for everyone. laotian people use it as a condiment like korean people do. so jens and i decided to make the eggplant curry (and we left out the chicken because we already had meat in every other dish that day lol ). it was a little more difficult to get right. it tasted fine we just didn't have much liquid left in it at the end and i'm not sure why. turns out everyone else chose to cook that same dish and none of them had enough liquid at the end either lol dunno if we were supposed to turn the heat down halfway through or what but like i said, it still tasted good. if i made it again though i'd use less red curry paste as it was too spicy for me.
after making our 3 dishes of the afternoon we all sat down to way too much food for such an early dinner lol we ate dinner at 4:30! they have an evening class that starts at 5pm. but the food was really really good! i liked all the dishes equally for different reasons and i'll definitely try to make them when i go back to the states!
we had a lot of food left over so a couple of us boxed ours up to give to people..we weren't sure who but we didn't wanna just throw it all out. jens and i ended up giving ours to the workers at our guesthouse and they said it was good! lol dunno if they were lying but i'll go with it!
we watched the sunset over the river and then we went for dessert at a nearby cafe. got chai, coffee and a cookie, read and then came back here to get on the internet.
tomorrow is our last day and we're doing our biking kayaking tour! hope it's warm!
then we'll be on our last leg of our trip- angkor wat, cambodia!!!!! wooooooo!
so after our late lunch i think we just chilled in the hotel til dinner...then we had dinner at this japanese place because jens had a craving for ramen lol i got veggie and shrimp tempura with rice and it was really good!
day 42 - last day in vientiane, chinese lunar new year, valentine's day!
we had a short bout of digestive bacteria so jens just went out and got some food to go at le banneton and brought it back to the hotel for us to eat in bed. after taking some medicine and eating we felt a bit better. i must say i'm surprised how little i've gotten sick. only twice and the first time wasn't bad at all and the second time wasn't as bad as i've had before. so that's nice! :o) maybe my stomach is finally getting used to s.e. asian bacteria! lol
we went out after breakfast and hoped to see some kind of chinese new year celebration but we saw none whatsoever! i was so bummed! i've lived in asia over 3 years and have NEVER seen a chinese new year celebration! how lame is that? the first two years i happened to be in texas at that time and then this year when i'm actually in asia for it i happen to go to like the only asian country that doesn't celebrate it! i dunno why they don't! it's the buddhist calendar new year and buddhism is huge in laos! so frustrating!
so we just roamed around, had lunch at joma, read, interneted and then went to see a temple. it was pretty cool! older than other temples we've seen.
we roamed some more, hung out at the big fountain in the square and reminisced about our relationship since it was valentine's day :o) <3>
so after updating the journal and interneting it was time for lunch! so we went to joma and got eggplant spinach lasagna, greek salad and a mint lime freeze. it was all wonderful!
then we looked for a scooter but they were all manuals so we gave up on that idea :o/
we got a tuk-tuk driver to take us to two sites. first we went to "that luang", a huge golden stupa with lots of other golden stupas around it. it was pretty impressive! then we looked at the temples buildings near it. the main one was under construction so we couldn't go inside but we got a good look of the outside. then we saw this huge open air gathering hall that was covered in colorful paintings- it was awesome!
after that we tuk-tuked over to patuxay- a replica of l'arc de triomphe in france, except loas-ified lol it has buddhist figures on it and shops insides selling the usual souvenirs you find in laos (silk scarves, figurines, purses, weird pipes, jewelry, etc.) we went to the top to see the view. there's one nice boulevard leading out from it to the presidential palace. on the opposite side there's a nice park and fountain that wasn't flowing at the time. overall pretty cool but when i heard the story of it i was kind of depressed lol turns out the u.s. gave laos money in 1960something to build a new airport and instead of doing that they built patuxay...useful! laotians call it the world's tallest runway lol meanwhile, laos doesn't release the safety information of it's airline...which worries me. we're flying with them to cambodia!!
after seeing those sites we went back to joma to eat amazing mulberry pie and apple crumble! yum!
i think we just hung out in the hotel after that til dinner which was at a loatian place. we got another set meal because we still weren't that familiar with loatian food. it was fresh veggie spring rolls, the famous green papaya spicy salad, a sour fish soup (lemongrass makes it sour), and ground chicken with tons of herbs (which i think is called laap). it was all really fresh tasting and delicious! after having those two set meals i think what quantifies laotian food is spicy salads, sour soups and herbed meats.
i bought this book called ant egg soup, travels of a food tourist in laos. i'm currently reading the satanic verses by salman rushdie but since we're in laos now i wanted to read a bit of the laos book, which i did last night and i really like it so far. before the book was written there was only ONE book written about laotian food in english! when the author of ant egg soup found that out she knew she had to go to laos and write about its food because she loves traveling and trying new foods (just like me! ;o) anyway, she said laap is the national dish of laos and they do, in fact, love their herbs and spicy salads. i haven't read much but i'm eager to read more.
aaaaaaaanyway
Day 41 - randomness
breakfast at joma - i got a mulberry scone (pretty good) and plain yogurt (weirdest yogurt i've ever had and it wasn't that good :oP) and then i shared a fruit bowl and cinnamon roll with jens. the cinnamon roll was really good and i wanna eat another one tomorrow!
after breakfast we headed to the post office to send a bunch of stuff to the texas that we bought yesterday. we found a store that sold laos honey so we bought 3 jars of it! that stuff is amazing! we also got some coffee, green tea, 5 paintings (bought from the side of the road really cheap!) and some handmade house shoes that are really cute!
i just want to take a moment to announce that laotian postal workers are THE BEST packers in all of s.e. asia! (or at least the s.e. asian countries that i have been to and from which i have sent packages lol) every other time i've sent something from s.e. asia they've just thrown the stuff in a box with no padding whatsoever and something has always gotten broken. laotion postal workers though- omg! they're so thorough! they spent like 30 mins,. meticulously wrapping and taping each item and fitting them perfectly into the box with lots of air puffy things. awesome! thank you guys!!!
unfortunately the whole thing cost $60 to send! but we sure as heck weren't telling them nevermind lol after all that packing!!! plus it's either send it now or send it from korea later. and it's stuff we really wanted and will enjoy and plus it was all super cheap! so it's worth it!
jens went to an atm to get more money and i waited in the post office...FOR AN HOUR! i got SO worried! i thought for sure he had gotten hit by a scooter or a car or bus or something and had been air-flighted to bangkok or something! i didn't know what to do. i had no money or anything on me. he had taken the entire bag and all i could do was sit there and wait in the post office lol FINALLY he returned (5 mins. after the post office had closed for the day) and said he had to try 8 different atms before one would work lol
we finally paid and got the heck outta there. it was lunch time but jens wasn't hungry enough yet and i wasn't THAT hungry so i got a fruit shake to tide me over til jens was hungry. i got a mango, papaya, sapadilla shake. what's a sapadilla you ask? well here you go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapadilla
then we went to the national museum where we learned a lot about the tumultuous history of laos, including that fact that it is the most bombed country in the world!!! good going u.s.a.! >:o(
then we went to a late lunch at le bannetone and got a salad and a quiche. it was weird but good.
this internet place is closed so i have to go! until next time!
