Wanderlust

May

2011-06-01T08:16:00.000-07:00

a lot happened in may...

my grandmother on my mom's side passed away which was sad but i'm glad she's no longer suffering.

rest in peace charlie jean self <3

i love that picture of her. i think it was my great-grandmother who made that hat.

here's a silly one of her and i:

love you grammie!

despite this sad event we had a lot of good times in may too. we went out with friends a lot and had fun. we went to the "bike prom" which was put on by bike-friendly arlington. everyone got together and rode bikes around town in thrift store prom clothes :o) we ate dinner at potager and then went to caves and d and j's and then back to someone's house for a pool party. unfortunately i couldn't bike because i was too short for the bike i borrowed lol but it was great just to be a part of the event in some way.

jens and i also had our 5 year wedding anniversary and he surprised me with a party at his parents house- complete with lots of family and friends :o) it was great! thank you jens! here's to the next 5 years!

at the very end of may we went to a party at this hippie commune i never knew existed in arlington near uta. basically some people live in a row of houses on this one street and share things and share all the backyards, etc. they have a pool, hot tub, etc. it's pretty awesome! i met a lot of great people and hope to hang out with them more :o)

as for work i've been getting into the swing of things and am liking it even more...which is good because jens didn't get that job in san marcos so he'll be going to paramedic school in dallas starting at the end of june. so we'll be here at least another 8 months. but it's all good....i don't like a lot about dfw but i'm loving our friends and all the fun we've been having :o)

happy june! <3 <3 <3

One year back in Texas!

2011-05-08T20:20:00.000-07:00

i'm a bit late on this....

april 24th, 2011 marked one year of jens and i being back in texas!

we've had our ups and downs....our busy moments, our boring moments....our fun and exciting moments and our frustrating or sad moments....but overall it's been a awesome year!

i didn't really know what to expect after leaving korea. i had gotten pretty used to life there after 3 years and had forgotten what certain things were like in america! even though my reverse culture shock is gone for the most part, korea has left a permanent mark on me. there are things about it i will carry with me forever. i still prefer densely packed cities with a walking culture and public transportation, i still don't have much of an "american bubble" around me- meaning i don't mind that much when people touch me, bump into me or talk close to me, i'm still shocked by the american culture of excess- too much food, too much fat and sugar in food, cars that are too big, always wanting the next new thing and throwing out the old, etc., and i still don't mind eating a wide variety of foods, some of which i may not actually like lol (not to mention my urge to eat kimchi every now and then). there are more of course but that's all i can think of right now.

i wanted to write a really in depth post but i've been super busy with work and social stuff so i just haven't had the time! i guess that can be a good thing :o) i'm still liking my job and i finally have a great social life :oD

it took about 10-12 months but i actually feel "settled" here now. i have a routine and lots of friends to hang out with, etc. the only bad thing is i don't actually want to live in arlington or dfw forever! lol i want to just pick up my life and move it to a better city like austin or san marcos or portland and take all my friends with me! ;o) alas i cannot...so we'll just have to start all over again if we move. but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!

on that note, here are some pictures from the past year!

our last night in korea was spent having a blast with our friends! i really miss all these people (along with all of our other korea friends!)

we returned to texas and started setting up our little house and seeing family and friends!

we then proceeded to eat lots of TEXMEX!!! surprisingly, we have both lost weight since returning to the states lol

last may we had our 4 year anniversary and jens had a mohawk!

in june we went to the ranch and shot guns as texans do!

july was quite eventful! first we went to jens's mom's family reunion in iowa. these are most of the grandkids and great-grandkids (with spouses):

then we visited our friends abby, jason, jen, shannon and rich in vancouver! (all of whom we met in korea) and it was a blast!

next we visited our friends ali, patrick, kat....and this troll in seattle! it was awesome!

to end our epic n.w. trip we spent 5 days in portland, or. and discovered they have the same motto as austin, tx. lol (side note: we fell in love with the city and want to move there!)

to end july we celebrated my 27th birthday with our friends at a korean restaurant and noraebang! we came full circle in 3 months! ;o)

in august we had a spur of the moment wacky clothes party for jens's 28th birthday! don't take jens's expression to mean he wasn't having fun- this is just his serious look ;o)

jens also started fire academy at the very end of august!

in september our garden started taking off! we grew oregano, basil, carrots, cabbage and buttercup squash! (later we grew spinach and onions and now we're growing the same oregano, more basil and summer squash!)

in october we co-hosted a super fun halloween party with ben and vivienne!

in november we had our first thanksgiving at home in 3 years!

and of course, in december, we had a lovely christmas with our family and friends :o) there are so many good pictures with said family and friends that i can't choose one so here's is a photo of our little tree and presents!

i also received my event and wedding planner certification in december and our teacher brought this cake to class!

on new year's eve jens's band, the small gods, performed in fort worth!

in january we went to colorado with ben, chris and lorri and we had a great time sledding, snow-shoeing and cross-country skiing!

jens also graduated from fire academy as valedictorian of his class in january!

in february we had an anti-superbowl party!

AND I FINALLY GOT A JOB!!!! at half price books :oD

in march i went to the lady gaga concert with sandra, jamie and mengmeng!!! (i also went to the devotchka concert with jens and joel!)

in april i had a ton of fun with my newest bff, selene!

and we went to the gogol bordello concert with jens and joel!

then, on the anniversary of being back in the states for ONE YEAR i was in richmond, va for my awesome cousin catherine's wedding which was beautiful and so much fun!

and that wasn't even the half of everything jens and i did in the past year! WHEW! i guess i never should have worried about having a boring life after leaving korea lol

here's to the next year! :oD

stuff and junk

2011-04-15T21:42:00.000-07:00

wow! i haven't updated in a while!

let's seee....we went to the devotchka concert at the granada and it was pretty cool. not too crowded...the music was fairly mellow but amazing and beautiful and there was a sousaphone with red christmas lights on it!

we recently saw the gogol bordello concert and it was much more fun even though it was in a much crappier venue - the house of blues in dallas- boooo :oP the drinks were incredibly over-priced so after a couple of those we resorted to drinking straight vodka. if you know anything about gogol bordello this was quite appropriate! :oD good times.

other than those two concerts i've just been working and going out with friends. i passed my 8 week review and now we have health insurance!!!!!!!! how strange.....

i'm liking my job but i think i like the people i work with more than the actual job which really explains why a lot of people stay in less than ideal jobs so much....the people really make it. that's something i didn't realize until recently because i was so isolated in my jobs in korea. i was the only FOREIGNER in the two schools in which i worked. i could pretty much only talk to ONE person and even that wasn't enough most of the time. either my co-teacher was too shy to speak much english or just didn't know enough to converse extensively. this is most likely why i had so much homesickness. i mean to not be able to talk about things with ANYONE at work? they were my link to korea and i couldn't fully utilize them. not only because of a language barrier but a cultural barrier too. most of the time my co-teachers just couldn't understand where i was coming from. and many times i couldn't understand where they were coming from. it was very complicated and looking back at it i'm surprised i was able to endure it at all.

don't get me wrong- the job itself was easy. but it was the living in a foreign country and having to deal with a completely foreign culture that was difficult. there are parts of it that were much easier than in america and parts of it that were endlessly frustrating. good and bad like everything else.

ANYWAY, i'm really enjoying being able to converse with my co-workers at half price. it makes the job so much more enjoyable than it would be if we didn't speak the same language and couldn't communicate...makes sense right? humans are social animals after all.

i've been going out with friends a lot. it's weird that i've been "partying" more with people here in texas than i ever did in korea. partying wasn't a part of my vocabulary then. it may be partly due to the fact that korea was just so exotic and exciting in everyday life that i didn't really need to go out and party to have fun. arlington on the other hand....well you get my drift ;o)

but yeah- we've been having lots of fun with all our friends and it's been great. we've finally been here long enough to establish groups of friends and get together with people on a regular basis, etc. it's really nice!

april 24th will mark one year back in the states and i think we've done pretty well. jens has finished fire academy and emt and i got certified as an event planner and now i work at half price. jens is testing for fire depts. in various areas and getting closer to getting a job so that's good.

i thought i would pursue event planning but i really think i mainly wanna do it in the capacity of university campus events which i can't do right now. we'll see what happens. i like half price books but i dunno if i'd wanna work for them forever. if we move i may pursue something else. may try some volunteer work to see what i like, etc. we'll see.

ok i need to go to bed. got work in the morning. just wanted to update a little. GOODNIGHT! :oD

Random cool things

2011-03-26T21:59:00.000-07:00

i found out tonight that one of my co-workers was in the peace corps and taught english in kazakhstan!

also i met a customer tonight that taught english in south korea in the 70s!

pretty cool, eh?

bonus: funny thing overheard in half price-

a young girl talking to her dad saw a book in true crime and said:
hey dad- you should get this book called evil wives so if you're really mad at mom you can read this and then think you are really blessed to have her!

lol kids...

English couchsurfers

2011-03-25T10:48:00.000-07:00

we finally had our first couchsurfing guests wed. and thurs. night and it was really fun! if you don't know what couchsurfing is, go to: http://www.couchsurfing.org/

jens couchsurfed at a couple people's places in san marcos in the past month and it went really well so when we got a request from two english girls we accepted! they both just finished university and are taking a huge road trip all over the u.s. and canada for 6 months! it sounds so awesome! i really wish jens and i could do that!

they arrived wed. night and we grilled portobello mushrooms and other veggies for fajitas and they were a hit! we just talked all about their trip, some about our travels and various other random things. it was a good time! after dinner we had some intense chocolate cake that they had brought with tea which they said was the first "proper" cup of tea they had had since being in the states! score one for the rushings lol

we chatted til midnight and then went to bed.

the next morning jens had to leave early for emt school unfortunately but i got up and made a big breakfast of homemade biscuits, scrambled eggs and pepper bacon. it was good if i do say so myself ;o)

the girls went into dallas that day and visited the dallas museum of art. i didn't get to hear how their day went yet because i worked 3-11pm last night and only briefly met up with them after. jens, joel, patrick and selene took them out to potager for dinner and then caves for some beer. i met up with them at caves around 11:30p-12a. they had to get up fairly early today to hit the road again but i stayed out with joel, patrick and selene and we ended up talking to this funny, gregarious guy nicknamed hermes. i also saw two half price books employees up there which was cool! one of them said she goes up there every thursday for the karaoke. jens, joel and patrick did some songs but i much prefer the asian-style private room karaoke lol i don't like singing in front of strangers :oP

we crashed at joel's since we couldn't really drive home and there is of course NO public transit (BOOOO!) and then we had to get up at 6am so i could take selene to her car and she could get home and ready for work by 8:30am! i was REALLY glad i didn't have to work til 3pm today lol i got home and slept til about 10-10:30am. the english had already left and i felt kind of bad that i didn't see them off but i don't think they had much time to chat this morning anyway.

overall our first couchsurfing hosting experience was awesome! the girls were fun to talk to and it was really interesting to meet new people, especially from another country! i would definitely recommend it!

i work again today 3-11pm and i think jens and his band have a gig tonight at the health and harmony house coffee shop near uta. i may try to meet up with them when i get off work but i dunno if they'll still be out. i close sat. and sun. at work also but i have monday off. not sure what my plans are yet.

i'm hoping to do something really fun on sat. april 2 because it'll be my first sat. off since working at half price! woohoo! party time! :o)

ok i'm gonna go get ready for work now! happy friday!

Blogging again

2011-03-22T09:37:00.000-07:00

hello! long time no blog, eh? i stopped around thanksgiving because the blog just wasn't going where i wanted it to. i thought i would be writing more about adjusting to life back in texas, etc. but i just couldn't get the motivation to make it super interesting. i'm much better at stream of consciousness writing about my everyday life. so that's what i've decided to do. i've re-arranged the blog a bit. i got rid of the "offbeat texan life" location and just re-posted all of those entries on here. one because my blog wasn't specifically about life in texas and two because i may not always live in texas. i'd rather have a blog i can use throughout my life, ya know?

so i'll briefly summarize what i've been doing for the past 4 months and move on lol

thanksgiving was fun! we spent it with jens's side of the family at his grandparents house and had lots of wonderful food and great company :o)

then the christmas season rolled around and it was pretty crazy! i had completely forgotten what christmas was like here. for the first time in my life i totally understood why people get stressed around that time of year and how they don't like the commercialism of it, etc. it's really in your face! i had gotten a break from it for 3 years in korea because it's quite subdued over there in comparison. here i felt like i needed to buy more and more which was bad because i still didn't have a job :o/ i tried making most of the gifts i gave but i still spent quite a bit.

overall though it was nice to be home at christmastime and get to spend it with all my friends and family. there were lots of parties and festivities and we had a great time! :o) some of the gifts jens and i made were photo collages, capes for our nephews, pumpkin butter, all natural cleaner and wine charms. it was fun making things so i think i'll try to do that next year too!

new year's eve was a bit weird...jens's band, the small gods, had a gig at the bandwagon in the fort worth stock yards and NO ONE came out except me, joel's gf and david's gf - so they did a show for the 3 gfs lol the employees there only let them play for about 30 mins. since no one else was there so we were "kicked out" before midnight and had to figure out what to do. joel, katie and chris went home which left me, jens, david and his gf who is only 18. we hadn't been under 21 in so long we had no idea where to go so she could get in lol we tried the chat room but they're 21 and up and we only had about 15 minutes til midnight so jens and i stayed there and david and his gf decided to go elsewhere. we felt really bad but there wasn't much we could do. we celebrated new year's with a bunch of strangers but it was pretty fun lol i definitely want to do something better next year though! we need a plan b in case things fall through.

we started 2011 off with a trip to colorado with christopher, lorri and ben and had an awesome time!!! we drove up and stayed about 5 days in jens's aunt and uncle's cabin in winter park. while we were there we sledded down the street, went snow-shoeing, cross-country skiing and sledding on hills. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! i loved it! i thought it would be deathly cold but it's so dry there that it doesn't feel as cold as texas does in the winter! it was so strange! jens and i liked it so much that we started thinking about living there. i think he's going to test for their fire dept. in june. we'll see!

when we got back from that trip i re-doubled my efforts to find a job. i was pretty shocked that i still hadn't gotten a job by 2011 and i started to feel pretty discouraged. but i got a couple interviews and was FINALLY offered a job in february at half price books! i couldn't believe it! i had heard from a few people that it's really hard to get a job with them but i did it! it was pretty much the only place that didn't require a degree yet didn't hold it against me that i had one. so many places that i interviewed for that didn't require a degree deemed me over-qualified :o( but half price books sees a degree as a plus which is the way it should be! hello!

i've been working there for about 7 weeks now and i'm really liking it! it's a great company! i like the people i work with, i like being surrounded by books, i like the variety in the job and they have great benefits! my 8 weeks of training are almost up and then i'll get health insurance and library privileges (meaning i can check out $100 worth of books at a time for one month at a time for free! so awesome!)

while i LOVE finally having a job it has been quite the adjustment! i considered my job in korea full-time but now i see that it totally wasn't! i pretty much only worked part time there. the other half of my time was spent surfing the internet/sleeping/socializing (and yes i mean AT WORK lol). now i'm REALLY working full time and it's definitely taking its toll. when i'm not at work i just wanna veg out. i've been pretty good about continuing to clean the house/do chores and have a social life but not as good as i would like. i'm wondering how long it'll take me to adjust.

anyway- update on jens! he graduated fire academy with flying colors!!! he was the captain and valedictorian of his class and got the highest grade anyone has ever gotten at weatherford fire academy!! pretty amazing! i'm super proud of him :o) since then he's been applying to/testing for fire depts. in various parts of texas and the country. and last month (or was it this month) he started emt training online. now he's doing the 1-2 week class portion of that and then he'll start paramedic school this summer. we're really hoping he gets a job before paramedic school starts because it's really expensive and if he's hired the dept. will pay for it! he recently tested in san marcos and is 5th on their list so our fingers are crossed for that!

as much as i would love to move out of dfw or even texas i'm torn because i JUST got this great job at half price books! i knew i would most likely have this dilemma but it's still hard. wherever jens gets a job (as a firefighter) he will definitely make more money than me and maybe have better benefits so it obviously makes sense to move wherever he gets a job. i'll just feel really bad if i have to quit mine. they've been really good to me and it takes of time to train a new employee. we gotta do what we gotta do though!

on another note- i went to two concerts this month! first- lady gaga! which was awesome but i (and my friends) were super far away!!! i'd love to see another one of her concerts with better seats! the very next night i saw devotchka with jens and joel and that was great too! we were only like 20 feet away from the stage- much better view! lol next month we're going to see gogol bordello which will be cool! i've just turned into a concert-going fool! lol i never went to concerts this much before but i am now and it's fun!

i've done quite a few other things in the past four months but i think i've written enough for now lol hope it's not too much to read! i'm going to try to get motivated to clean the house now! we have house guests wed. night which i'll write about later! happy tuesday! :oD

Job search, class, Halloween, garden, Thanksgiving and fire academy!

2011-03-22T08:49:00.001-07:00

Re-posted from November 11, 2010

my job-search is on-going...still unemployed.

my class is going pretty well. there was some drama for a while- people complaining about how the class was going, etc. but i think it's finally settled down. there are only 5 classes left and we're starting on our big final projects. we basically have to plan an entire wedding as if we're doing it for a real couple. we have a budget and we have to choose real vendors in the area and use real numbers for the cost of everything. my budget is $30,000 and i'll have 60 guests for a fall wedding. sounds pretty awesome to me!!! :o) i've already been looking up ideas for fall weddings and i've found some cool stuff.

the more i think about event planning the more i think i don't wanna do it full-time. i just like my weekends too much! i like the freedom to plan my OWN events, ya know? i want to be able to plan a big halloween party for my friends rather than for strangers. so i think event planning is either something i'm going to try to do THROUGH another kind of job (like working on a uni. campus) or something i do on the side every now and then.

i'll be glad to be certified though because it certainly can't hurt in the job department. plus i'm learning a ton about event planning that can help me just in the creation of my own events!

halloween:

the friday before halloween we went to a friend of a friend's party and it was fun! jens and i dressed up as japanese people and i finally got to wear my second ukata (summer kimono)! i actually had to watch a video to figure out how to tie the obi (sash) lol

the sat. before halloween we co-hosted a party with some friends of ours and it was really fun too! i dressed up as a female mad hatter and i actually won the costume contest! i gave the prize to the runner up though since i was co-hosting the party lol it was my friend who dressed up as a female sherlock holmes! very cute! jens was mario from the mario brothers and he wore a fake mustache and everything. it was funny!

me and another friend are already talking about next year's halloween! we're thinking of getting a bunch of people together and renting out a place for a masquerade ball! nothing too fancy- the key element would be everyone must wear some type of mask.

i wonder if we could even turn it into some sort of charity party like the halloween party we had in mokpo, korea every year benefiting the local orphanage. we might even get more people to come that way! i really miss that party in korea- so much fun! if we did it here we could raise money for the local shelter! hhmm....

garden:

it's going well! i have 4 buttercup squash growing! i planted onions which won't be ready til next spring, the cabbage and carrots are getting fairly big and the oregano and basil are AWESOME! i've had to give away cuts of basil it was getting so big. i should really freeze some of it for the winter cuz it'll eventually die off but i've been too lazy lol

growing a garden has been so much fun though! it's really rewarding and i would recommend it to anyone who has the space! even just growing some herbs in pots on a windowsill or porch would be fun! the biggest surprise with gardening has been how easy it's been. after the initial work of digging the bed, putting up the fence and putting the seeds in he ground it was a piece of cake! i just water every day and throw some leaves out of the bed and that's it! nature does the rest! i have been lucky though- i haven't had a lot of pests. something was eating my basil for a while but it quit and now i think grasshoppers are eating my cabbage and squash leaves a bit but not too bad. they say you can spray this organic stuff on them called garrett juice but again, i haven't taken the time to make it. you have to get things like manure-based compost tea and seaweed juice....the grasshoppers haven't been too much of a problem yet so i'm going to wait on that.

we have our compost heap going too...not sure if it's the right ratio of "brown" and "green" items or if it has the right moisture level but i'm not too concerned with it lol it's basically just a place to throw my food and yard scraps. if it turns into some awesome compost then great! if not, whatever. it must be fairly rich in nutrients though because i think a squash seed i threw in there started growing! :oD unfortunately i have to stir the heap up every now and then so i dunno if it'll get a good chance to grow but that's cool it sprouted!

thanksgiving:

i can't believe we're almost halfway through november! time has been flying! i'm excited for t-day though! i LOVE all the wonderful fall foods and it'll be great to be home with family this year! my parents work alternating days throughout t-day week so i'm spending the time with jens's family and then i think we're gonna do a christmas decorating dinner with my family later.

fire academy:

i think the reason time has been flying by so quickly is because jens has been in fire academy! it's been keeping us both pretty busy! i do housework all day and when jens gets home he and/or i have to do showers, dinner, ironing, homework, cleanup and bedtime! then every weekend is packed because it's the only time we can do fun stuff together or with friends. he's doing really well in academy though! he was just bumped up to captain of ALL his classmates! :o) pretty awesome!

he's testing for cleburne fire dept. this sat. and i'm hoping he passes! it would be GREAT if he got a job there because they'll pay for his emt and paramedic training. so fingers crossed!

i'm hoping one of us has a job before x-mas so we can actually buy a few things for people. i've been trying to think of things i could make but i can't really think of anything i haven't already done...and i'm not SUPER crafty...like i'm really slow at knitting and i have almost no experience with sewing...

anyway, that's all for now!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Garage sale, class, job search, social scene, urban planning, etc.

2011-03-22T08:45:00.001-07:00

Re-posted from October 11, 2010

wow! a lot has happened in the past month! we had a HUGE garage sale that took days to set up and we made some pretty good money at it!

i also started my event and wedding planner certification course at uta's continuing education building. it's only on monday nights so we've only met twice so far. i've been surprised how much i've learned already. it's not only about learning how to plan events but how to start your own business, getting vendors, dealing with clients, the whole nine yards! and there have been tons of assignments! i can barely keep up but i'm glad to be busy :o)

i've really delved into looking for a job lately. i applied to several event planners and professional organizers as an assistant as well as the library and central market. i'm still waiting to hear back from most of them but i do have one lead on an organizer assistant position.

i just hope i get some kind of job soon because i don't wanna spend all our savings!

jens has been SUPER busy with fire academy! it's taken a while for him (and me for that matter) to adjust to the drastic change in lifestyle but he's doing really well! he's been making great grades on the tests and he was appointed lieutenant of his shift (or group)! so that's exciting! he'll do emt in jan./feb. and then he'll start his paramedic training which may last til nov. of next year. it's a long process to become qualified but it'll be worth it in the end. he may do some substitute teaching during emt training and then ambulance work after that.

as for our social life it's been pretty good but it's been really hard adjusting to the different social scene here. in korea we had one big group of friends. everyone knew everyone and we all had the same job and most of us had the same schedule. so it was super easy to get everyone together not only on weekends but on week nights! for the majority of us our jobs were fairly easy so we weren't too tired to go to dinner on a week night or go camping all weekend. stuff like that.

whereas back home we have various friends who don't all know each other, they all have different jobs and different schedules some of which are super tiring and stressful so it's hard to get people together. i might be able to make plans with one person every two months! granted there are friends of ours that are more available and we see more often and that's great. i just wish i could get more people together, more often. i wish i could call someone up on a wed. night and go to a bar for a drink.

but that's another difference here- things are super spread out! the people AND the business we wanna go to. plus there's no public transit! so it's this huge ordeal to get people to meet at a place (some having to come from far away) and then be able to drink whilst worrying about being sober enough to drive home! korea was so much more conducive to relaxed, fun nights out! everyone lived within 15-20 minutes of each other, they could take a cab all the way across town for about $5-6, there were tons of bars, restaurants, karaoke places, etc. all near each other, there were pedestrian areas to walk around and at the end of the night you could just take a cab home with no problem!

i really, really miss that! that's probably what i miss the most in fact! i wish i could wave a wand and turn DFW into a more compact city with great public transit! lol that would make all the difference in the world! because the longer i'm here the more i realize that there ARE fun things to do in the metroplex, they're all just really spread out. we love the museums, performance halls, theaters, the few bars, etc. there have been arts festivals, beerfests, latino cultural festivals, free concerts, eco-fests, etc. it's just that they're in all different cities and the way the area is set up it's actually kind of difficult to find out about them. you don't have people out and about on foot, mingling, looking at flyers and such. the only way i find out about anything these days is facebook and the internet in general. it's so impersonal :o/ i'm happy that there's stuff going on at all. i'm happy that i can find out about it at all. it's just that i miss that sense of community and closeness and ease of having fun.

jens and i are still thinking about eventually moving to portland or the surrounding area but i don't think it'll be for a while. jens won't even be fully qualified for a firefighter position until the end of next year and then he may need to work for another year to get experience before applying in the n.w. which is fine. i'm happy to stay here and get our careers established before we start to move again. i just need to adjust to the car culture here.

happy halloween if i don't write again before then!

Our garden!

2011-03-22T08:41:00.001-07:00

Reposted from September 19, 2010

we started a garden at the beginning of august. i knew nothing about gardening whatsoever so i bought some books, talked to some people, looked stuff up online and then just jumped right in. jens and i tilled a rectangular patch of soil behind our little bungalow. we weren't sure where to put it in order for it to get maximum sunlight and we ended up having to dig the whole thing over again when we realized it needed to be 4 feet closer to the house in order to get more sun lol oops!

let me tell you- it was hard work! we got all the weeds, grass, etc. out, put a wooden frame around it that jens nailed together and then mixed the soil with compost and other soil we had bought. then we put this little white picket fence up around it to keep the dogs out. the fence was pretty dingy and dirty so we decided to paint it some bright cheery colors! grassy green, bright fuchsia and sunny yellow! it took several weeks before we were finally done painting!

around aug. 15th i transplanted our basil and oregano into the garden and planted some winter squash seeds. the herbs flourished but the squash never sprouted! then around sept. 10th (i think it was...) i gave up on the squash and raked down the hills i had formed for them. i planted carrot and cabbage seeds and hoped they would do well.

then we had that day of torrential rains! my garden looked like a pond and i feared my seeds were done for! but that was in fact exactly what they needed! i had sprouts one or two days later INCLUDING the winter squash sprouts which were now all over the garden and not in a neat row since i raked them out lol i transplanted two of the squash sprouts to be near the others and not interfere with the carrots.

all the sprouts have just been getting bigger and bigger and it gives me hope that i might actually grow something edible! woohoo!

i still don't think my garden gets as much sun as it needs because there are so many trees in our yard but the leaves are falling like crazy so maybe the garden will have more light soon enough.

later i'm going to plant onions, garlic and spinach.

we started a compost pile too. we just got some rolled up wire fencing stuff, formed it into a circle and wired it to the side of our fence (so it would stay standing up). then we just started throwing all our produce trash and garden refuse in there, like leaves, etc. you can't put meat, fat or grain products into it i don't think. but you can put paper products in there- used napkins and such. some websites say you have to be careful about the percentage of produce trash to garden refuse you put in but we haven't really been worrying about it too much. it seems to be doing it's thing!

when i'm cooking and i have peelings and bits and pieces of veg. leftover i throw them in a groc. bag in the freezer and once it's full i go out and dump it in the compost pile and kind mix it in with a pitch fork. maybe one day it'll be some really good compost for the garden or yard. it may be a year or more before there's anything usable and we may not even live here anymore but i wanted to go ahead and start it so i could see how to do it, etc. and my parents can continue it after we move.

so that's my gardening adventure so far! it's really exciting to see things sprouting and growing and to think i might actually be able to eat a vegetable i grew myself! i'm doing it all organically too. i won't be spraying pesticides, but there are organic sprays you can make if you have certain bugs, etc.

i'll keep you all updated about how it's going! til next time!

Our birthdays 2010!

2011-03-22T08:39:00.001-07:00

Re-posted from September 6, 2010

my birthday is july 28th and jens's birthday is august 28th...

so this year jens and i decided to have a combined korean- style b-day bash! our friends met us at our house and then we drove WAAAAAY out to some part of dallas where there is a korean restaurant right next to a korean noraebang (karaoke room)! jens and i were super excited to show our friends how we partied in korea! we got a private room in the korean restaurant which was cool but it was different than in korea. first of all it was a table and chairs and you didn't have to sit on the floor, second there were no call buttons on the table so we had to keep getting up and pushing a button on the wall about 10 feet away to get someone to come to our room and let us order something and third they weren't as quick to come to our table as in korea. but overall it was fun!

we ordered dueji galbi for everyone (except the vegetarians who got bibimbap- rice and veg. bowl. galbi is marinated pork you bbq on a grill on your table. in korea dueji galbi always had a sweet brown marinade on it that we love but for some reason at this place in dallas it had a spicy red pepper paste marinade like what would usually be on dak galbi (chicken) in korea....strange but still pretty delicious! one of the waitresses cooked it for us and she was hilarious! lol she just joked with us the whole time and it was really fun. we spoke some korean to her and i think she thought that was funny lol

some other differences were they didn't give us quite as many side dishes as i would have liked. there was a decent amount but i only like about 3 of them. and they didn't serve ANY korean beers! now korean beer IS gross but we just wanted that authentic experience lol we had to settle for the better japanese beer.

the most shocking difference was the price- all my friends who have taught in korea are about to get their minds blown...guess how much a bottle of soju was? (soju is the traditional korean liquor)...$10! TEN FREAKING DOLLARS! in korea it's less than $1! lol the galbi was about $16 a person which is twice as much as most galbi places in korea. needless to say we felt bad for bringing our friends there when it turned out to be so expensive! most everyone were good sports though and didn't complain :o) they all liked the food and had a good time!

after dinner we went next door to the noraebang!!! again it was similar to in korea but slightly different in various ways. first of all it was huge. you go in and there's a very large open room with some tall tables and bar stools and a bar at the back with all kinds of beer and liquor. it's almost like a club. they have a huge tv screen on the wall and you can pay $3 a song to sing karaoke on this stage to your friends as well as strangers. but we went there for the private rooms! we had had to make a reservation ahead of time because this place gets busy on the weekends! so we told them we were there, got drinks and waited a little while for our room to open.

(in korea most noraebangs have a very tiny room when you go in with a counter where you pay and 99% of the time we haven't had to reserve or wait for a room. we did once in a seoul at this really popular place but that was the only time. usually you walk in, tell them how many people, pay and go straight to a private room.)

so- back to the american noraebang- our private room was awesome! it was almost the same as in korea but it had much bigger, nicer and comfier leather chairs to sit in, one ENGLISH remote control lol, and a button by the door to call a waiter if you wanna order drinks or food. the song books were exactly the same as in korea though! they had korean, japanese and english songs in there and they pretty much didn't have many more english songs than they do in korea. that was kinda weird cuz i thought on their website there were more. i think they encourage you to look at the song lists online and make a list of the songs and numbers you want before you go. but we of course did not do that lol everyone found plenty of songs they liked though! it was so fun noraebanging with our texas friends for the first time!!! (ben and viv were there and they've been to korea but the rest hadn't.) i was really glad that most everyone wasn't afraid to sing. it was also really fun for me because my cousin catherine was there and she and i hadn't gotten to hang out in forever!!! (she was visiting from virginia).

i had set up a tab at the bar and jens just kept calling the guy in to order drinks. well when we left i had quite a shock! i went to the bar to pay and the guy goes...did YOU have 10 shiners??? i was like no! that must have been my husband! and he was like- ok cuz i thought- she should be falling on the floor right now! lol i don't think i'll do a tab there again because jens went a little overboard! i think he must have given some of those beers to other people cuz there's no way he would have been standing after 10 lol

overall, it was a great birthday night! i was so happy so many of our friends could come out and have a korean-style party with us! it definitely made me miss certain things about korea! like the cheap galbi and being able to drink whatever and not worry about driving home because there were taxis. siiighhh...

in conclusion i don't think i'd go to that korean restaurant again but i'd definitely go to that noraebang. the prices were comparable to korea and it was super fun!

____________________________________________________________

like i said jens and i had decided to have a COMBINED b-day party. this was HIS idea. he didn't want his OWN b-day party but when sat., august 28th rolled around suddenly he did! lol it was mainly because we happened to not have any plans on a sat. night so he was like- hey, why don't i have a b-day party? surprisingly (and luckily) a lot of our friends didn't have plans that night either! so we cleaned the house and gathered up some snacks and everyone came over around 7 i think. at the last minute we told everyone to wear some kind of WACKY clothing lol most people didn't dress wacky enough so i let them borrow some of my wacky accessories. i didn't realize til that night that most people don't have a stash of wacky accessories lol ya know like sombrero hats, giant glasses and boas. we snacked, talked, took pics, played "beerminton", danced the night away and listened to joel philosophize intensely while drunk lol it was a good night! i'm glad jens had a b-day party after all :o)

so we're both one year older and it feels pretty weird. i'm 27 and he's 28...that's almost 30! we don't feel almost 30...but i guess that's a good thing! FOREVER YOUNG!

Portland!

2011-03-22T08:38:00.000-07:00

Re-posted from August 25, 2010

portland was amazing! we absolutely loved it! we went there for about 5 days at the end of our northwest trip. we stayed in the northwest international hostel and it was really nice! it was made up of 3 big, old houses in a neighborhood converted into a hotel with hostel rooms, hotel rooms, separate bathrooms, kitchens, lounge rooms, patio, garden, etc. we had to stay in two different rooms there just because of timing (we stayed in one for half the trip and another for half the trip) but we liked both rooms.

the public transportation in portland was great! in the central downtown area they have two types of free pub. transit: a streetcar and a train and the buses are really cheap. the pub. transit also goes way out into the surrounding suburbs which is really convenient.

our first night we ate at some of the food carts for which portland is famous. people just set up these little trailers all over the city and sell all kinds of great food out of them! jens had ukranian and i had mediterranean and they were both delicious!

i love the pedestrian lifestyle there- public transit, lots of sidewalks, food carts you can walk right up to, public parks, etc. they're also really bike-friendly. they have bike lanes all over the city and the people in cars are aware of them so they don't have as many accidents as other cities.

they also have tons of stuff going on all the time! we went to a random event there called bridgefest where they celebrate the cities bridges lol there were all kinds of works of art representing the various bridges, there was cheap beer and wine, some snacks, music and a dance performance!

on friday we went to the HUGE farmer's market they have on the psu campus every fri. and sat. it was enormous! it was mind-blowing! i loved it! that right there made me want to move to portland! lol they actually have various farmer's markets all over the city everyday but the psu one is the biggest. there were tons and tons of vendors selling organic produce, meats, breads, spreads, desserts, etc. there was live music, food carts and tons and tons of people! we spent hours there roaming around, eating food samples, listening to the music and just basking in the wonderful, liberal, hippie vibe :o) they even had recycling and composting bins all over! all their cups, plates and utensils were compostable! how cool is that? i felt right at home :o)

after that we went to the famous powell's bookstore. it's the size of a city block! literally! it's the largest used bookstore in the world so of course jens was in heaven! we spent like 3 hours in there and only got through about two sections of it! we bought tons of books and were able to ship them to our house right from the counter so we wouldn't have to pack them in our suitcases! it was awesome!

we ate a late lunch at rocco's pizza and it was so good! we got the tomato basil pizza with cheese but they also have vegan and gluten-free options. that's another thing that surprised me about the city. they have vegetarian, vegan and gluten-free options at almost every restaurant! it's the norm! can you imagine???

that night we went to the playwright's festival and saw a dance performance and a play for FREE! the play was called gnit and it was really funny :o) for a late dinner we went to teazone and got a mezza plate and chai tea and watched a band play.

sat. we went to the saturday craft fair which was almost as big as the farmer's market. it was so cool! there were tons of people selling their handmade wares, plus food carts and yet again- live music! portland apparently loves live music lol i bought some cute little soap truffles- it's soap that looks like truffles. they look good enough to eat! i also had mehndi done on my leg and i loved it! it was so pretty and it only took the woman about 5 mins. to do! i'm thinking about trying to learn how to do it myself. it looks pretty easy but i dunno lol

after eating african food at the craft fair we headed to the beerfest! yes! another festival! you buy tickets at the door and then go try all the beer you want! 1 ticket is a taste and 4 tickets is a full beer. jens and i had 14 tickets each and it was a bit much lol mainly because a "taste" of beer is like 1/3 of a mug lol they had live music too of course and we watched a breakdancing show that was awesome!

we got so tipsy we had to go back to the hotel and take a nap lol that night we had a really late dinner at typhoon- a thai place. it was ok but not the best meal we had in portland.

next day we went to another farmer's market and had lunch at a food cart there that was soooooo goood! it was a pulled pork bbq sandwich with some kind of berry bbq sauce plus a fancy salad with blue cheese, nuts and berry vinaigrette. all of it was organic, local and in season! we bought some stuff for a picnic that night and then we went to voodoo donuts! we knew the place was famous but we were shocked when we showed up and the line was out the door and around the building! i had to put sunscreen on just to stand in line lol i think we were there 45 mins. before we got our donuts and i have to say i don't think it was worth all that! they were good donuts but not better than i've had before. the reason people like them is they have unique flavors and shapes of donuts- like the signature voodoo doll donut with pretzel sticks stuck in it and raspberry filling and the old dirty bastard which has chocolate frosting, oreo cookie crumbles and peanut butter drizzled over it Po: they also have some with fruit loops, maple frosting and bacon and one called tex-ass which is an enormous glazed donut lol the size of 4-5 donuts!

so we got our donuts and went to stumptown coffee to eat, drink and read which was nice. then we walked to couch park to hang out for a while. the weather was really nice the whole time we were in portland- sunny and warm but not hot. a little chilly at night.

that night we went out to sellwood (a suburb) for an outdoor concert by the water. i loved that neighborhood! there were all these cute little houses with gorgeous little gardens and lots of people walking down to the water for the concert. you could really feel the sense of community! we ate our picnic of olive bread, alsatian sausage, pesto cheese curds and peaches and listened to the band and watched people playing on the water. it was so nice! we'd love to live in that suburb. even though it is a suburb and it's small it still has public transit access to downtown and it still has a bookstore and coffee shops and antique stores and a yoga studio and all kinds of things!

after the concert we went to the green dragon which is a brewpub and had some beers and chips and salsa.

the next morning we wanted brunch at byways but we got up too late so we went next door to cha cha cha's for some tex-mex and it was really good! so now that i know portland has good tex-mex i can move there! :o) after that we took a tour of the rogue rum distillery, tasted some liquors and had some beer. then we went to an open mic at our hostel and it was a weird crowd. mostly older people and their kids. a kid even performed on stage and unfortunately he wasn't good at all lol jens got up there and played a couple of his weirdest songs which really didn't go over well with that crowd so we shrugged it off and went to eat lol

thankfully dinner totally made up for the weird open mic! we went to jake's for crawfish and it was wonderful! it's a really old establishment that's been there forever and we had a great server! we had wine, crawfish boil, salad and key lime pie and we were in heaven the whole time! i'd love to go there again!

our last full day in portland was my 27th birthday! so we got coffee and pastries for breakfast and then went to the rose garden because i love roses! portland is actually called the city of roses so i guess it's just another sign that i should live there ;o) the garden was huge and had so many different kinds of roses that there was no way we could look at each one. i took so many pictures! it was great! we ate the rest of our farmer's market finds for lunch and then went to the japanese garden. it was really nice too! very peaceful :o)

we were gonna see a movie downtown that night so we headed down there and caught yet another free live concert and they were probably the best band we had seen the whole time we were in portland. really fun! the movie we saw was called winter's bone and it wasn't one of those uplifting birthday movies but we still really liked it.

we had brunch at byways the next morning and then we flew out!

it was an awesome trip and we can't wait to go back- OR MOVE THERE! lol :oD

Vacation continued....

2011-03-22T08:33:00.001-07:00

Re-posted from July 31, 2010

like i said vancouver was awesome! not only did we get to spend time with abby, jason and little anneke but we also got to see rich, shannon and jen! they too taught english in korea while we were there. rich and shannon came over for a couple bbqs at the sauchuks and we biked around the seawall and went out to eat twice with jen. the first time went to this awesome little japanese place called guu with garlic. there are apparently 4 different guu restaurants and each one specialized in a different spice/taste like garlic! it was packed and the servers just yell your order from your table to the people in the kitchen! it was a really lively and the food was awesome! it's like an izakaya which basically serves tapas styles dishes. we got garlic udon noodles, okonomiyaki (fried veg. pancake), octopus balls (like meatballs but with octopus!) and mackerel. it was all super delicious! the second time we ate with jen we went to a ukranian place where we had cabbage rolls stuffed with meat, perogies, sausage, and relishes. yuuuummm!

we ate at really nice restaurant the day we went to deep cove! we got a lamb ragout appetizer that came with pita bread and jens and i split a lemony buttery seafood mix of scallops and crab that came with risoto and vegetables. soooo goood!

i just love food!

we spent a few days on vancouver island and it was really nice! we stay in abby's mom's condo that's right by the water in nanaimo and it was amazing! i loved it! alex met us out there and it was great to see him again. we all just hung out, they swam a bit but it was too cold for this texan! lol we ate at a mexican place that literally floats on the water and the food was really good. californian style mexican (which basically just means it was healthier than tex-mex lol). we spent our last full day in victoria (the major city on the island) and they happened to be having this huge classic car show lol so i took some pics for my dad. we went to the wax museum which was cool at first and then it creeped me out. i don't understand the necessity of displaying wax figures in darkened rooms with thunder and creepy voices playing really loudly lol wax figures are weird enough on their own! we ate lunch at the pub where abby's sister works and got a wonderful reuben sandwich and good beer! we saw the gorgeous empress hotel and parliament building! then we dropped alex off at the airport and headed back to nanaimo. it was a good day!

our last half day on the island we went with the sauchuks to visit the van keorklies (i have no idea how to spell their name lol) abby grew up near this couple and they're really awesome people! abby actually names her daughter (anneke) after the woman. i think they're from holland and they survived a concentration camp growing up! now they're in their 80s and live in this gorgeous eco-friendly wooden house in the woods on several acres (don't remember how many). they have a garden and plants everywhere! it's just an absolutely amazing gorgeous place and i wish i could live there! lol we took a walk through the woods with anneke v.k. and she showed us where she has to break open a little dam that this beaver keeps building in their stream every day lol they said he (and or his family of beavers) have been trying to build a dam there for years and years but they have to break it open daily so it doesn't flood. but the v.k.s have a very zen attitude toward all things so they just go out there and make a little break it in everyday so the water can get through. it was awesome to see this 80 something year old woman out there with a hoe hacking away at this beaver dam! lol

when we got back to the house we had a very european style lunch: bread, cheese, sausages and fresh raspberries picked right out of their garden mixed with yogurt! it was so good! i knew that they gardened organically so i asked anneke how they keep the bugs off their crops without pesticides and she just said- well the bugs have to eat too! lol abby also told me that they never bother taking the bugs off the raspberries before they eat them lol "extra protein!" i guess after surviving a concentration camp you don't worry much about those kinds of things!

i loved their house though. they told us that it totally burned to the ground a while back but they had the plans for the house so they just had it re-built exactly the same way! only they added a few more eco-friendly features like geo-thermal heating, bamboo floors, etc. even their compost heap was cool! their kitchen is upstairs so just outside on the balcony they have a little chimney that goes down the side of the house right into another little wooden house where their compost is! so they just step outside the kitchen and throw their food waste down this little chimney! so cool!

we wanted to stay there for days but it was time for jens and i to catch the ferry back to the mainland so we could get the train down to seattle!

so we said our goodbyes to them and then we said our goodbyes to abby at the terminal cuz she was staying there to visit more with her mom. jason went back with us though because he was gonna have a visit with his parents. once we got back to vancouver we parted ways with jason and took the train down to seattle where we met up with the langs! jens went to high school with ali (duke) lang and jens and i actually went to her wedding in 2004 when she married patrick lang. they live in a suburb a little outside the city-center of seattle.

i love their house too! it's on a hill so it has a split level basement where half of it's underground but the other half isn't. so you can in through a door into their basement or you an go up some stairs into the main part of the house. their master bedroom is in the basement. on the "first" floor there's a kitchen dining, guest bedroom, guest bathroom and office, and then they have an upstairs loft which is their living room! it's so cool! and i love the way they've decorated it! it's mostly ikea furniture, very modern, soft colors. very nice! the guest bath made me feel like i was in a ritzy hotel! lol

we only had 3 days in seattle so i feel like i still don't know THAT much about it but it was still a good visit. the first day we went to pike's place market which was huge and awesome! i saw a crab thrown! lol i saw the original starbuck's coffee there too. it was packed but there didn't seem to be anything exceptional about it lol we bought a bunch of fruit to eat during our stay and some vegetables to grill with the langs one night.

after that we went to the mind-blowing library! it's SO COOL! it's super modern and has a "book-spiral" like the floors spiral up and up and up so that their collection can be continuous! they also have a "red hall" and a "mixing room" and all kinds of crazy stuff that is better represented by photos which i will eventually add to facebook lol

after the library we stopped by the pink gorilla, formerly known as pink godzilla, video game store so jens could look around.

for dinner went to to big bowl- a vegetarian thai place that had the best fake meat i've ever tasted! then we all took the underground tour! to learn more about the seattle underground go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground

it was interesting and fun! (and funny because we took the "adult" tour lol) afterwards we got a drink and headed back to the house.

our second full day we went to freemont with ali and saw the troll under the bridge! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freemont_troll we ate indian for lunch and then we met up with patrick and took a hike in the woods which was quite nice (other than the tons of mosquitos lol) then we drove over to some waterfall that was HUGE! the biggest one i had ever seen in person. i unfortunately can't remember the name of it but i could ask ali if you're really interested lol

we grilled that night and it was de-lish!

our 3rd and last full day in seattle we toured a winery with ali. it was the first time we had ever done it and i wouldn't mind doing it again! you get free wine at the end! woohoo! we also did a survey of 3 different reislings for free and they were all really good. we ended up buying their dry reisling. (yeah there are DRY reislings!)

next we went to an awesome boehm's candy shop started many years ago by mr. boehm's who was from switzerland (i think). they make handmade chocolates and candies and they are OUTSTANDING! we actually got to see some women making some chocolates by hand through the window. jens and i bought chocolate caramel pecan turtles and they were YUM!

that night we ate at a pub and then we stayed the night with ali's sister, kat, because the lang's had to leave the next morning bright and early to fly to north carolina!

the next day we trained down to portland!!! i think i need a whole separate post for portland so i'm gonna stop there and go clean my house! :o) until next time!

ps- thanks to all our friends who let us stay with them and showed us around the awesome cities where they live! it was great fun and we really appreciate it!

Vacation in Vancouver-BC-Canada, Seattle and Portland

2011-03-22T08:32:00.000-07:00

Re-posted from July 15, 2010

i've been wanting to update for a while now but haven't had a chance and now we're on vacation!

we're visiting some friends (the sauchuks) that we met in korea who live in vancouver, b.c., canada and it's been really fun! the first couple days we just hung out and then we started siteseeing. we've been to the imax theater, granville island which has a huge, amazing local market, chinatown, gastown (historic district), stanley park, we biked along the seawall as huge waves were crashing up against the wall, saw some amazing views of the mountains, city and water, went to the aquarium, deep cove for swimming (very cold!), art gallery, a bit of shopping, eating out at awesome little restaurants (japanese, chinese, fancy seafood, ukranian, fish and chips, etc.), we've cooked out a few times and hung out with 3 other friends we met in korea too! it's been a little mini reunion :o)

vancouver is AWESOME! i absolutely love it! the only things i don't like about it are it's way more expensive than texas and it can get pretty cold even in july! it was really sunny and warm the first few days but then it got really chilly for a few days! i had to wear the hoodie i brought and i actually would have been fine wearing a winter sweater! lol so weird! but most days have been really nice. it's great to get away from the scorching texan summer!

but if not for those two things i would totally live here. it's my ideal city. there are tons of things to do and see, the natural scenery is gorgeous, you can see mountains in the distance all around, there are some really interesting and fun neighborhoods, lots of ethnic restaurants, great shopping, great public transit (trains, buses, etc.), people biking and walking everywhere, great bike parking, you can take bikes on trains and buses, there are huge parks right in the middle of the city where you feel like you're not even IN the city!, etc. it just really easy to get around the city without a car and there are tons of areas people actually WANT to walk around. it's like a different planet than arlington, texas!

not to mention there's recycling, farmer's markets, local produce and eco-friendly stuff all over the city!!! I LOVE IT!

i'm hoping portland is just as cool but less expensive cuz jens and i really wanna move there. from what i've heard it's like a mini vancouver and somewhat cheaper. so we're anxious to visit!

tomorrow we're going with the sauchuks to abby's mom's condo on vancouver island. should be really nice! our friend alex is gonna meet us out there too which will be fun. i actually took over his job our last year in korea. unfortunately his wife can't come too but maybe we can at least call her or something while we're there. after a few days jens and i are gonna train down to seattle and stay with one of his old high school friends and her husband there.

we flew into seattle and then bused up to vancouver at the beginning of our trip and we were able to spend a few hours there so we were already able to see that it's a pretty cool city. only reason we aren't really thinking of living there though is it's further north. portland is far south enough and inland enough that it doesn't get too cold or snowy.

so we'll spend a few days on vancouver island, a few in seattle and then we'll train down to portland and spend about 5 days there. can't wait!

we'll return to arlington july 29th! then it's back to "real life" lol

Yoga and Scarborough Faire

2011-03-22T08:29:00.001-07:00

Re-posted from June 17, 2010

so we've been doing yoga at the ymca down the street. it's literally like 2 minutes away which is nice.

jens and i got memberships at the ymca during our first week back i think. that in itself was a bit of culture shock because the girl that helped us talked SO FAST i could barely keep up! lol it was such a strange feeling. i was so used to talking really slowly to people in korea and having them talk really slowly to me...sometimes incredibly slowly...sometimes so slowly i would finish people's sentences for them just to get on with it lol but this girl at the ymca was talking 90 miles a minute and i just stood there in a daze trying to take it all in. we successfully signed up and paid for 6 months though.

jens started working out there right away but i don't think i tried yoga until our 3rd or 4th week back. i went by myself the first time but i liked it so much i convinced jens to try it with me the next time and surprisingly he went and liked it! jens has always told me that would never do a yoga class with me because he doesn't like the class atmosphere. it makes him uncomfortable. but the yoga class is done with the lights off and nice music and it's not about competition at all so you can kinda be in your own little world and not worry about what anyone else is doing. that's part of why i like it so much. you go at your own pace. you do what your body can do.

the instructor is great! she's very aware of everyone in the room and is always helping people, giving tips and reminding everyone to go at their own pace and not push themselves to injury. she's serious most of the time but you an tell she has a goofy/silly side too. she makes jokes, etc.

the class is mostly women. other than jens there's only one other man that comes to every class. he might be in his 70s. then there are a couple other guys that show up randomly. i don't think jens cares though.

overall it's a great class and i'm really liking it! i'm to the point now where i don't wanna miss it which i didn't think i'd get to this soon lol i may try a zumba class in the future and i might just workout up there sometimes but for now i'm focusing on yoga. one step at a time!

last month jens and i went to scarborough faire with joel and katie and it was awesome! i hadn't been in years since i hadn't been in texas in the summer in years! it was sooo hot and sunny but it was great! it was much bigger and more built-up than i remember it. like a virtual medieval town! and i LOVED all costumes i saw people wearing. i would love to have a few of them lol some of them are a little out there and not really my taste but i like the traditional dresses and the fairy costumes!

we watched various shows- singers, musicians, fire whippers, fire eaters, acrobat types, christof the insulter (the best! lol). we looked in a bunch of shops that had handmade costumes, artwork, jewelry, ceramics, puppets, and tons of other stuff. and we OF COURSE got a big, wonderful, delicious turkey leg! omg! best i've ever had! we also got a fruit ice, some king's nuts (a must!), a reuben sandwich, german potato salad and beer! yumyumyum! it was a great day! i took lots of pics which i will post eventually :o)

i was so happy to be able to go there because i went every once in a while growing up and always loved it so it really made me feel like i was home! :o) i didn't have a whole lot of culture shock while i was there aside from certain people wearing things they really should not wear in public lol i dunno what some people are thinking when they get dressed to go somewhere! and i thought the fake accents were a little silly but other than that nothing really stuck out.

anyway, i must be going. until next time!

First month back in the states!

2011-03-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

Re-posted from June 1, 2010

here are a few things we did our first month back:

our welcome back party! it was may 1st (one week after arriving in texas) and we really had to scramble to get things ready for it. waiting one more week would have been helpful but we got it done and the party went off without a hitch! :o) the main thing we had to focus on before the party was getting stuff OUT of our little house that we did not want and putting things IN (from storage) that we did want. that was quite a task let me tell you! the pack-rat gene runs in my family and even though my mother had already gone through my grammie's old house and taken out boxes and boxes of stuff jens and i still filled about 10 more boxes with things that either weren't our style or we just couldn't use. don't get me wrong, i've kept several things of my grammie's and i like them and i enjoy using them...but there's only so much you can keep!

the party was on a sat. and people started arriving around 1pm i believe. we didn't put the food out right at first because we wanted more people to arrive before we did so. i think we got the food out around 2pm and we had lots of it! smoked ham and turkey for sandwiches, bratwurst and hamburgers plus sides that our guests brought: cole slow, potato salad, pasta salad, fruit, chips, etc. i also put out some homemade salsa that my mom's friend adelita showed me how to make :o) and jens's mom made an awesome chocolate cake!!! the food was wonderful and the company was great!

it was awesome to see everyone again. i didn't get to talk to any one person for very long but it was a good way to at least SEE everyone at once lol now that we live here for good we can go and visit longer with individuals over time which we've already started doing.

it's such a different feeling this time around- since we're not just visiting. i think all our family and friends feel the same way. they keep saying- "i can't believe you're actually here for good! i keep expecting you to have to leave but you're still here!" or "i get excited everytime you come over cuz...YOU'RE HERE! lol" it's funny...we feel the same way. we have to keep reminding ourselves- we live here for good now so we don't have to rush and do everything all at once or see people every single day - we can take our time!

everyone liked our little house. we got it cleaned up pretty well for the party. we've done so much to it since then too. gotten more boxes from korea, emptied more boxes in storage, put things away, put up decorative stuff- plus we got a full-size couch with a pull-out queen size bed!

our friend joel also took some family pictures at the party. some of my family members had already left unfortunately but we got a few which was nice :o) the weather was absolutely beautiful that day which we were so happy about because the forecast had said rain. some of my family stayed til late in the evening and a few of our friends stayed til late into the night. we partied aaalll day and aaall night lol it was really fun though! we had some games for people to play like frisbee, horseshoes, bubble wands and badminton. jens, joel and ben played drunken 3-person badminton at one point which was pretty hilarious! it was a great time overall!

another thing we did in may was go to central market. i told my kroger's grocery store story but central market was even crazier! we spent 4 hours there cuz the place is so humongous! I LOVE IT! there are new wonders around every corner! fruit and vegetables i've never seen before (or at least haven't seen in over a year! lol), lots of fresh herbs, artisan bread galore!, what feels like miles and miles of cheeses, hundreds of wines and beers, an all natural/organic/eco-friendly cosmetic/bath section to die for!, locally made bbq sauces and honeys, handmade sausages, huge filets of salmon, samples of food throughout the store, a cafe with food that made me drool, a gelato station that made my eyes bug out and gorgeous flowers of all kinds! amazing! love, love, love that place! i would have spent even longer if jens had let me lol we got tons of yummy stuff and just went home and had a foodfest lol

we got a few things for mother's day which was the next day. it was the first mother's day we were home for in at least 3 years! jens's mom and dad were out of town so we just celebrated with my family that day. i had my grandaddy, dad and mom over for brunch and we ate awesome cheeses and crackers, homemade guacamole, a pasta salad from central market with tomatoes, cucumbers, greens and edamame, hummus, olives, homemade caprese salad, and lots of fruit! it was really nice :o) i got my mom and my grammie flowers and after we ate we went up to the home where my gram lives and gave her her flowers and cards. she really liked them! :o)

mother's day with jens's family was the next wed. night. jens's dad cooked a bunch of delicious food and we gave jens's nana and mother cards and flowers and had a lovely evening of talking and looking at pictures. it was fun!

alright that's all for now. i've got to run!

Update and grocery shopping experience

2011-03-22T08:23:00.000-07:00

Re-posted from May 25, 2010

ok i have a little bit of time so i'm going to try to update you :o)

we've been home a little over a month now and we've gotten quite a bit done! the state of the house fluctuates because as soon as i get everything put away a few more boxes arrive from korea for me to unpack lol it definitely keeps me busy though and i think we'll only receive a couple more boxes and that'll be that! we'll have all our stuff in one country!

i'm almost done going through all our boxes in storage too. we should hopefully be having a garage sale next month. just have to check with my mom on her work schedule. we'll probably end up having 2-3 garage sales. there's just so much stuff we need to get rid of! after living in korea for 3 years i'm realizing there are a LOT of things i've had since high school (and before!) that i really don't need anymore lol plus my mom is really wanting to down-size on all of her stuff. it'll be good for both of us to purge all this extra junk!

so that's what i've been focusing on lately. it's been like a full-time job so i haven't looked elsewhere for work yet. jens did the written test for the fort worth fire dept. and he thinks he did really well. we find out this week if he passed it and if he can move on to the physical test which will be within a couple weeks. it would be so awesome if he got that! here's hoping! as for me i'm in no hurry to find a job. right now i just wanna get our house in order and help my mom get hers in order, etc. after we're done with all that i'll think about jobs. i can't pin-point exactly what i wanna do. all i know is i'd love to be involved in the local eco-friendly community. i already have a few contacts so that's good. i'm not so much concerned with money as i am with just doing something i really wanna do, ya know?

anyway: here's a reverse culture shock story for you:

the first time we went to the grocery store we just went nuts! we went to kroger and were pleasantly surprised at their selection! of course, we were coming from korea so we weren't hard to please lol some of the differences between korean grocery stores and american are: in korea a store that only has groceries will be fairly small (like the size of a wal-greens or smaller) and most everyone has one within walking distance (which is nice). there are also big grocery stores that have a wider selection but they are 3-4 stories and are more like wal-mart in that they have lots of non-food items also. the first thing that stands out about an american grocery store is you most likely have to drive to it and it has an enormous parking lot out front. the distance from the street to the front door is almost as far as i would walk from my apt. to the grocery store in korea!

in korea there are lockers at the front of the store for extra bags or your dog (if you happen to have it with you). you just put in a 100 weon (or about 10 cent) coin in the slot which enables you to get the key and you get your coin back later when you open it. same goes for the grocery carts- you put a 100 weon coin in to unlock it from the row of carts and you get your coin back later when you put the cart back. now, i dunno why but all the carts i ever used in korea were much nicer than the ones in america. they just seemed better maintained or newer. the ones in america have all seemed really rickety or down-right impossible to use lol they're bigger though!

so- we went into kroger and were automatically mesmerized by the produce section! there's an entire wall of organic produce! including things we can't get in korea at all such as: huge, cheap bunches of cilantro, fresh mint, tarragon, thyme, purple cauliflower, mini cauliflower, nice, big, good-looking bunches of asparagus, cheap green beans, tomatillos, guava, passion fruit, artichokes, limes, texan ruby red grapefruits, and BERRIES! lots and lots of berries! blueberries, raspberries, blackberries (and strawberries- which you CAN get in korea) i have to say though- korea totally wins out on strawberries. the ones we got at kroger unfortunately tasted like cardboard in comparison :o/ we just grabbed wildly and all these wonderful things and then moved on to the organic pre-packaged foods section which was equally awe-inspiring!

there were more kinds of organic cereals at kroger than there are of just regular cereals in korea! koreans don't really seem to be cereal-eating people. they've got corn flakes, green tea corn flakes and chocolate cereal at most places and then 2-3 tesco brand cereals at the big home plus (wal-mart-type store). we immediately grabbed some cinnamon shredded wheat squares that were to DIE for! lol i know that sounds crazy but korea really changes your taste buds lol other foods we were excited about: brown rice (koreans think white rice is superior), basmati rice (have to travel a ways and pay a lot for this in korea), brown basmati rice (non-existent in korea), various kinds of whole wheat pasta! (i think there was one kind in the stores in mokpo), many different kinds of yummy-sounding chips! (no more shrimp or squid flavored chips for me!), tooooons of different kinds of tea...tea that actually sounds good that is! in korea they've got green, black, barley, corn, multi-grain and other boring or gross sounding teas lol

and that was just in the organic section! i think an hour had passed by the time we got to the regular part of the store and another hour or more passed before we were done lol

some other general differences: the aisles are nice and WIDE! i felt like i was constantly bumping into someone or something with my cart in korean stores. they have limited spaces so they have to build up instead of out and everything is really close together. this has resulted in people getting used to bumping into each other so much that they don't even say anything when they do it lol in america we have lots of land so we can build out, space things far apart and rarely bump into each other. when we do we MUST apologize. how dare someone get in our bubble! lol

we have TONS of selection in america. we have 100 different brands of cereal and 5-10 different flavors of each brand! it takes forever just to pick out cereal! although i suppose after you live here a while (or if you've just lived here your whole life) you get to know what there is and what you like and then you can just go straight to what you want and pick it up. but if you're suddenly confronted with more cereal than you know what to do with it's a bit daunting! i would LOVE to plop a korean person in the middle of an american cereal aisle and just watch there reaction lol i have a feeling there would be bugged out eyes and lots of OOOWAAAHHHs! lol

another difference in america is you don't have guys screaming at you through a karaoke mic/speaker about their specials on watermelon or meat or fish! good grief i can't tell you how many times i went downstairs to the food floor at home plus and immediately ran through the produce section to get away from the watermelon man. i had to cover my ears it was so loud! trust me dude- if people want watermelon they will buy it. you don't need to yell at them for them to do so! it's RIGHT THERE when you get off the escalator! i like the very subdued announcements over the pa system they have in american grocery stores. it's very....non-deafening!

i also enjoy being able to buy normal cuts of chicken, fish without bones in it and nice, big fresh shrimp! in korea the butchers randomly hack up chickens so that the pieces are completely unrecognizable, the fish ALWAYS have all the bones in and sometimes the head and eyeballs attached and the shrimp is just not fresh. i think they must have to get it from far away.

we, of course, have many more kinds of bread and bread products since we're a bread-eating country and not much of a rice-eating country. korean people usually just eat bread as a snack. it's always white or white flour based and really fluffy. they're not into whole-wheat or multi-grain or bread with OOMF!

after going through almost the entire store we made it to the cheese aisle! AH glorious cheese! korean people aren't really a cheese culture. they have american slices and "pizza cheese" (which we call plastic cheese) and a few select "fancy" cheeses like expensive brie, camembert and parmesan. and if we were feeling really ambitious we'd take an hour-long bus ride to another town and go to a specific foreign foods store to buy a big block of $20 cheddar lol well those days are gone! we bought about 7 different kinds of cheese while we were there: cheddar (of course!), monterey jack, feta, a blue cheese, provolone, parmesan, and a creamy herb and garlic goat cheese that was my favorite! sooo goood! we were in cheese heaven! lol

after the cheese came the wine and the beer! wines we would pay $15 for in korea were only $5 here! insane! we got a couple bottles of wine and a couple 6-packs of beer. are you wondering if they sell korean beer here? no, they don't. know why? cuz it's awful! lol their most popular beer is called hite but we've taken to calling it shite. we most likely got shiner that day at kroger and maybe something else.

we were finally done shopping and we were super excited about all our purchases including our alcohol! :o) then a man came up to us and said...uuuhhh you know it's against the law to buy alcohol before noon on sunday right? and were like whaaatt? no! (we were still waking up at the crack of dawn at this point...still getting over jet-lag and so we were at the store really early! lol) stupidly we had to put our alcohol back. it's not like we were gonna chug two bottles of wine and two 6-packs and then go to church! lol so dumb!

we went and checked out and were surprised again when we BOTH had to be carded! we were NEVER ONCE carded in korea anywhere, at any time. they're SUPER lenient about alcohol there. you can buy it anywhere, at any time and drink it anywhere at any time. you can walk down the street and drink. you can drink in the park. once i was offered a shot of strong blackberry wine AT SCHOOL at 10am! i drank soju (like vodka) at my korean elementary school after students had gone home almost every wednesday after the teacher's volleyball game with my co-workers! lol totally different culture! anyway, it was a good thing i had my passport with me because i lost of my texas driver's license like two years ago lol

they bagged our groceries, we took them to the car and put them in our nice, spacious trunk! in korea when we had our scooter we had to be careful about how much we bought because we had to fit it all onto the scooter. we got really good at fitting tons of stuff on there though. korean grocery bags are about 3-4 times the size of american ones and they're stronger. we'd fill 2-5 of those, hook a couple on the front floor board and i'd hold the rest and off we'd go! it was fun seeing korean people staring at us with all our groceries piled on the scooter! we've fit a chair, an ironing board, an amp, guitars, the dogs and all sorts of stuff on that thing! we were really sad after it was stolen. then we really had to be careful how much stuff we bought cuz we'd either have to carry it onto the bus or to a taxi.

another little thing about bagging groceries in korea: when you're going through the check-out line you have to tell them how many bags you want and then you have to pay for them (i think it's only like 5-10 cents a bag). i think we should do that in america! i heard they were going to and it fell through or something. the best thing to do of course is to bring your own bags. i can't believe people aren't doing that more now that they're selling them all over the place and we're running out of the oil to produce plastic ones! such a shame! anyway, in korea you have to bag your groceries yourself which i totally don't mind but i hate the fact that they rush you through the line. as soon as they're done scanning your stuff they want you to pay so they can move on to the next person, i've even had them start checking out the next person before i even pay! so you have to really scramble to hurry up and get your stuff in the bags which is pretty nerve-racking. i like being able to take my time!

overall it was an awesome shopping experience and we've really been enjoying all the foods we can buy and make here :o)

until next time!

Whirlwind

2011-03-22T08:19:00.000-07:00

Re-posted from May 6, 2010

wooooo it's been quite a whirlwind since we got back to texas almost two weeks ago! there's so much i want to write about but there's still SO MUCH else i have to do! i'll try to at least write some today. might be easier if i do it in list form...

reverse culture shock so far:

-everything is huge!

-we have to drive pretty much everywhere

-everything is far apart

-walmart is evil but oh so cheap! i just can't resist! :o/

-it's super windy! don't remember it being that windy...maybe because we're on the plains and there aren't tons of big buildings to block the wind?

-it's already getting REALLY hot!!! oh nos!

-you have to have a driver's license and car insurance and inspection tags and registration tags and you have to get gas and aaalll that mess! lol

-i've been overwhelmed by selection at nearly every store.

-i almost didn't remember how to check out groceries here lol it's not that different but enough to get me a bit frazzled. the belt automatically pushes your stuff to the end, there's a store card for nearly every store and they always ask you for it, you do the debit card machine yourself, someone else bags your groceries, they'll put it in plastic automatically unless you tell them not to and they don't move on to the next person until you leave! lol

here's a more positive one:

-people are really nice! they ALWAYS say sorry even if they don't really need to. even if they just have to walk somewhat near you to get by!

-and it's nice to be able to understand what the salespeople are saying- things like how can i help you, have a wonderful day, etc. and i can actually ask them to help me find something and understand what they are saying! that's really nice :o)

other things i'm loving!:

-i have a little house! (no apt. neighbors!)

-i have a little porch! (we've been eating a lot of meals out there and it's sooo nice!)

-we share a HUMONGOUS yard with my parents- tons of trees, plants, grass and flowers. everything is SO green right now! and the dogs LOOOOOVE running around in it all day long. can't wait to start a garden!

-we have a spacious living room/kitchen so it'll be easy to have parties.

-the kitchen is so much nicer than any kitchen we ever had in korea- more counter space, more drawers, 4 burners! a regular oven! aaahhh it's heaven! :o)

-our bed is like sleeping on a cloud compared to a korean bed!

-we have a huge walk-in closet! no more packing stuff away in suitcases for a season lol

-we have a washer AND a dryer!

-the bathtub is huge compared to our korean one and the water gets hot within a few seconds. no more turning the hot water off and on and waiting on it and not being able to have one person showering and one person doing dishes at the same time lol

-i like having a car even though i do wish i had other options too.

-ALL THE WONDERFUL FOOD OPTIONS! you can get pretty much anything here!! it's so great! same goes for drinks and alcohol!

-the sunny warm weather!

-the shopping options

and the list goes on!

things i've gotten done:

-went through all my grammie's stuff out at "the bungalow" (our house) and boxed up what we can't use.

-unpacked our suitcases and lots of boxes we had in storage.

-found lots of wedding presents we hadn't been able to use since our wedding!

-put stuff away and now our house is more livable :o)

-ordered a driver's license and debit card.

-got a computer, phones, food, misc.

still need to:

-go through a TON more stuff out at my parent's house

-have two or more huge garage sales

-do yoga

-change our weon!! (still haven't done that! lol)

-start a garden

-get dogs' tags

etc.etc.etc.!

hopefully it won't be too long before i write again! :o)

Back in TEXAS!

2010-04-25T20:44:00.000-07:00

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!

One DAY left!

2010-04-21T20:06:00.000-07:00

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...

but here goes nothin'! lol

ONE Work Week Left!

2010-04-18T18:24:00.000-07:00

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

Last trip to Seoul and only 12 days left in Korea!

2010-04-12T20:47:00.001-07:00

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!

About THREE weeks left!

2010-03-31T19:19:00.001-07:00

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

5 weeks left!

2010-03-20T03:01:00.001-07:00

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!

anyway that's all for now! bye!

What I'll Miss About Korea

2010-03-11T22:31:00.000-08:00

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)

Korea Korea

2010-03-11T20:14:00.001-08:00

ok i need to do some theraputic writing!

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!

Day 51-54 end of s.e. asia trip and back in korea!

2010-03-05T03:08:00.000-08:00

Day 51

breakfast at blue pumpkin.

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.

ok i need to go! goodnight!

long time no write!

2010-03-02T17:16:00.000-08:00

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!

Day 49 and 50 Siem Reap, Cambodia

2010-02-23T02:20:00.000-08:00

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!

Day 46-48 Luang Prabang

2010-02-20T06:10:00.000-08:00

Day 46 - biked around the town

breakfast at joma - good!

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!

End of Day 41 - 45 vientiane to vang vieng to luang prabang (laos)

2010-02-17T06:22:00.001-08:00

end of day 41 - dinner

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>

it is day 43...or something....

2010-02-16T07:49:00.000-08:00

woohooo i'm in vangvieng, it's awesome. caves, went tubing all afternoon, had buckets o' alcohol tonight and i'm currently "drunktyping" lol

no time! will update about the past few days when we get to luang prabang, laos!

i <3 laos!

Day 40-41 Seeing sights in Vientiane

2010-02-13T07:29:00.000-08:00

Day 40 cont.

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!

Day 33-40 Ko Pha Ngan to Bangkok to Ayuthaya to Laos!

2010-02-11T19:42:00.000-08:00

wooo! long time no write! we were really busy in bangkok and ayuthaya and then the internet in laos has been reeeeallly slow so i haven't had a chance to update until now. since i have so many things to write about i'm not going to be very detailed. sorry :o/ when i finally upload all our pictures hopefully they'll fill in the blanks :o)

Day 33 - journey to bangkok

we took a taxi to the boat, a boat to the mainland, a taxi to the train station. then we hung out and ate dinner at a little thai place.

then we took the night train aaallll the way up to bangkok. we left at like 9 or 10 pm. arrived at 8 or 9 am. we didn't sleep very well because it was a fan only car. should have gotten an a.c. one.

bangkok was pretty crazy! LOTS of traffic! HOT! noisy, tons of people, shops, food, lots of weird smells, etc., etc. we stayed at rambutri villa and it was probably the most conventional, nice clean hotel we've stayed in. they had a pool!

we stayed near the famous khao sahn road that's touristy and filled with food carts, shopping stalls, some restaurants and bars....and lots of people! the most interesting thing we saw there was insects for sale for the purpose of eating! they had scorpions, giant roaches, grubs, etc. no we didn't eat any but i got a picture of them! ;o)

first order of business was to get me a new camera! we went to this huge electronics market called pantip plaza and went straight to a camera store and bought my canon powershot d10! i love it! it's waterproof up to 33 feet, shatterproof up to 4 feet and freeze proof down to 14 degrees. also it takes great pictures!

next we played around in this mall in the arcade, used a massage chair, did karaoke, got coffee and then we went to this international world music and bbq festival for dinner which was AWESOME! we saw a cuban band, a zydeco band from lousiana/texas (jens talked to the singer and told him we were from texas too!) and a japanese band. they had ALL kinds of food and bbq for sale but we settled on lousiana bbq baby back ribs, cole slaw and potatoes au gratin! yeah we were in thailand and could have gotten satay or something but we just couldn't resist that homestyle taste! Po: at least we can blame the fact that we haven't lived in texas for over a year so we craved a taste of home ;o) we ate, we danced, we drank cheap beer and then we went to the movies. we saw avatar and it was AMAZING!!! the things they can do with cgi these days blows my mind. i loved the forest!

Day 34 - seeing sites in bangkok!

we took a river taxi to see the grand palace which was incredible! i had never seen a palace so ornate! it was covered in gold and mirrors and all things that shine and sparkle! amazing! then we saw wat pho (temple) and the temple of the emerald buddha. they were also awesome!

after site seeing in the heat all day we went back to the hotel and swam in the rooftop pool. more topless french women were to be seen- i swear they take their tops off every chance they get lol and we tried out the camera in the pool- it worked great! it was a little difficult to take underwater pics when we didn't have goggles but we still got a few good ones. can't wait to try it with goggles on though (we shipped ours to the states because we won't be doing any more snorkeling this trip).

Day 35 - took train to Ayuthaya

the train to ayuthaya was preeeetty crappy but at least it didn't take long. maybe 1.5 hours. we liked ayuthaya because it was much quieter and less touristy than bangkok. that being said you only need about two days there at the most. it was probably the hottest place we've been to so far. it's so hot you don't really feel like doing much during the day but there's not much to do at night at all. because it's not touristy there aren't many restaurants or bars. in fact i don't think i saw any bars lol i think most people just take a day trip to ayuthaya from bangkok so there's not much need for a nightlife there.

we stayed two nights and 3 days in this AWESOME old teak house. i think it's my favorite place we've stayed so far. i loved our bungalow right on the beach on ko pha ngan but this teak house in ayuthaya had so much character i think it wins out. it was made entirely of teak wood that had been smoothed down over years and years of use. i think jens said it was at least 100 years old. our room was small but really cute. we had an iron bed with white mosquito netting all around, antique night stand and dressing table and a lamp. there were some old sepia photographs on the walls of thai people and some pith helmets hanging on one wall. it felt like it took me back to another time.

downstairs was the front desk and restaurants, lots of tables and chairs and a big porch facing the river with more tables and chairs. the guest rooms are upstairs all around a central "lobby". there was just a bench and an old iron and board in the lobby and a big expanse of that smooth teak wood. i loved walking on it! there was also a really nice balcony upstairs overlooking the river where you could sit and read and contemplate. across the river from us was a gorgeous temple.

the bathrooms were shared and they were down a few stairs in another building adjacent to the main building. i usually don't like shared bathrooms but i didn't mind these at all because they were basically 4 private bathrooms. each one had a toilet, shower and sink so that was nice. no hot water but like i said the town was so unbearably hot we welcomed a cold shower at the end of the day.

anyway! moving on! lol i'm getting so wrapped up in the details i'm not going to have time to finish this post lol

in ayuthaya the main attractions are the ruins of the ancient capital city of thailand. they have tons of ruins all over the city similar to angkor wat (but not as extensive). the first ones we saw were pretty impressive. i took TONS of pictures and we stayed quite a long time. it was really peaceful because there are lots of grassy fields and trees all around and not many people so you feel like you're all alone walking in a nice park with these awesome ruins all around.

that night we wanted to eat in the night market but we found out that because it was sunday not many of the stalls were open. so we spend quite a while walking through this spooky seemingly abandoned night market lol we came across a butcher chopping up a pig and jens wanted his picture with him. so i took it and then right after this other butcher came barreling through with a cart-load of dead pig parts and hit jens in the leg! lol he got pig blood all over his pants but hey it makes a great story :o)

we finally found a little place to eat and got pad thai- it was good and only about 75cents!!!

Day 36 - more ruins in ayuthaya

we got up, had breakfast and went out to see more ruins. by the way we rented bikes to get around the city. it was pretty stressful trying to ride bikes on the roads with all these buses, cars and scooters going every which-way, especially in the round-a-bouts! ugh those were scary! i only had one minor accident though and it was really stupid, i was trying to ride the bike between these two concrete curbs and i hit the side of it which made me ram my arm into the handle bar and stub another toe! i still have the bruise on my arm on day 40 lol

anyway we saw more ruins but the heat was so dang strong! we saw about two sites and decided to go back to the hotel, take a cold shower and chill out the rest of the day lol

that night we ate at a restaurant that floats on the river and it was really cool!

Day 37 - last day in ayuthaya

we weren't too keen on seeing more ruins by bike so we just took a tuk-tuk straight to this site over the river on the mainland (the main part of ayuthaya is actually on an island that lies where 3 rivers converge). these ruins weren't quite as ruined as the ones we had seen previously and there were tons of buddha statues everywhere. next we went to the japanese settlement hoping they'd have a restaurant with ramen but it turned out to be a teeny tiny museum with no food. so we ate on a road side place and then went on to see the largest sitting buddha in all of thailand and some recently discovered solid gold buddhas, as well as a chinese temple that was really colorful and ornate.

then we headed back to the hotel to shower, hang out, eat dinner and catch a tuk-tuk to the train station where we hopped on yet another night train (the 4th of the trip) to go up to laos. we got an a.c. car this time and it was a bit nicer. we slept well!

Day 38 - laos

we arrived at the border to laos, went through immigration and the guy said- OVERSTAY!!! we were like what? he said you overstayed your visa! it ended feb. 1 and today is feb. 9! we were like what??? we thought they were 30 days! this visa is only for two weeks! he said you overstayed you have to go to this other office to pay the fine.

so we did and it was $270!!!!! $15 for each day overstayed for each of us! needless to say we were baffled and pissed. no one could tell us why we had a 2 week visa and not a 30 day visa. we looked in the lonely planet later and it distinctly said thailand gives 30 day visas! i have a feeling thailand just does that to screw people over and get money out of them. so there's a lesson for us- always double check the length of our visas! laos's is 3 months!

so we got to our hotel in vientiane and unpacked. we're staying at the riverside hotel- conventional with a soft bed, a tv (with cnn, bbc, french tv5, and an australian channel! pretty awesome! lol), a fridge, a.c., hot water, the works! no pool though.

we walked around the town a bit and it's really nice and quiet. lots of cute little restaurants, cafes and coffee shops and LOTS of french food which we're loving :o) you know, laos used to be a french colony so their influence is still seen today. we had dinner at la terrace and it was wonderful! we got a big salad with bacon, veggies, and apples, tender duck with an apple sauce, potatoes au gratin, wine, espresso and creme brulee! heaven!

Day 39 - laid back roaming around vientiane

breakfast at scandinavian bakery, roamed around, found a market selling all kind of things: roots, bark, etc. for tonics, loads of fabric for traditional dress, laos t-shirts, and bottles of scorpion snake wine! we bought a few souvenirs and had lunch and a laotian restaurant housed in a huge old colonial building. we felt under-dressed but no one gave us any looks lol we got a laotian set meal and it was huge! most likely meant for 4 people but we didn't know that when we ordered lol it was a good way to sample a lot of different laotian foods all at once though!

we had purple sticky rice, lemongrass fish and veg. soup, smokey eggplant and veg. stew, spicy eggplant veg. mix of some sort, chicken pieces cooked in banana leaves, salty pork, a fish cake, ground pork cooked in fish sauce and herbs, spring rolls, steamed veggies, and fruit. the ruit plate included a fruit we couldn't identify but it tasted really good so we asked what it was. the guy didn't know the name in english so he brought us a whole fruit. it was the size and shape of a kiwi but not hairy and more of a grey color. the fruit inside is a dull peach and it's really sweet. it almost taste like rum. the guy said it's called laomoot in laotian.

after lunch we were stuffed so we just did some internet and went back to the hotel to relax, watch tv, read and nap.

we got up around 5pm and had a big beer lao by the river and watched the sun set.

then we had dinner at la terrace again because it was so good but this time we got pizza. it was delicious! after dinner we watched a funny french movie in our room and then went and saw a band play at a nearby bar. they were pretty good but not very energetic.

Day 40 - TODAY!

we had breakfast at a french place that had wonderful pastries and the best honey i have ever put in my mouth. i asked a guy where they got their honey and i have no idea what he said so i'll have to search it out myself lol we saw some honey for sale at this little market yesterday so we may try there. we wanna get some and send it back to texas. i swear it was the most nuanced honey i've ever had! they harvest it in laos and i'm sure it's most likely organic and comes from bees that pollinate gorgeous tropical flowers or something lol. hope we can find some!

today we're going to rent a scooter and see some sites!

whew! there you have it - a whirlwind week of traveling in s.e. asia! are you tired yet? lol

Will update soon

2010-02-08T04:43:00.000-08:00

hey just wanted to let my readers know i will try to update about bangkok and ayuthaya soon. i just haven't had time yet! we've been goinggoinggoing non-stop.

tomorrow is our last day in ayuthaya. we'll probably look at some more ruins of ancient temples and then we're taking a night train aaaallll the way up to vientiane, laos. we'll be there 5 days so i may get to update in detail then.

The Rest of Day 29-32

2010-02-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

the rest of day 29:

not much!

went to dinner next door and watched sherlock holmes which they were showing on their old, discolored big-screen tv lol jens was super skeptical but said the movie was better than he thought it would be. i thought it was pretty good too, but not great.

had drinks at heaven (outdoor bar) and my mint julip was more like lime juice with some mint in it lol waaaay too sour to drink! but they played nice music and we saw the best fire dancer that we had ever seen before. he was amazing! it just blows my mind when i see people performing for free and they have all this talent and most people in the world will never know, ya know? i felt lucky to see it.

Day 30

didn't feel well in the morning but pushed through and scootered to koh ma with jens anyway. it's a little island off of ko pha ngan. we actually just scootered to the beach that's across from koh ma and there's a little sandbar you can walk along to get to koh ma. there were quite a few topless woman sunbathing there. it's always a shock when i first see someone doing that but then i get over it immediately when i think- oh yeah, boobs, i have those too, no big deal lol so i laid out while jens snorkeled some and i think i just need to give up on this whole tanning business. it takes forever and now i'm the color most americans would consider "the whitest they've ever been" lol plus it's really hard to tan evenly. my arms and upper back are darker than the rest of me for obvious reasons and i just don't feel like lying around in the sun for hours each day. so i give up. if i tan, i tan. if i don't, i don't. whatever. i don't care lol

moving on...i snorkeled with jens some but there wasn't much to see. the water wasn't that clear. it was really clear in the shallow areas but once it got deep it was really foggy. we saw some fish that we had already seen before but not many and barely any coral at all. it makes me really sad that the world's coral is dying so rapidly. we actually haven't seen any of that colorful coral you see in movies/tv/photographs because what makes coral colorful is the algae that grows on it. with global-warming the temperature of the oceans have risen and when coral gets hot it expels all the algae and slowly dies. so all we've seen is dying or dead coral :o( it really wakes you up to see something like that. i wish everyone could see so they'd take global-warming seriously!!!

had lunch at the local restaurant and it took FOREVER! slowest service we've ever had. i completely finished my drink before the food arrived, ordered another drink when the food arrived and then finished my entire meal before the 2nd drink came lol

from there we went to see a waterfall. the main roads here are fine but all the side roads are just dirt and they've been rutted by rain water and have all kinds of random rocks and holes in them. it's crazy. we drove up one road to get to the waterfall and there was another road we needed to go down but i refused lol it was too dangerous. so we parked and walked the rest of the way. we got to the beginning of the waterfall area and saw some people coming down and asked them if there was much water and they said no and that it was really difficult to climb up. so we decided not to go. there was just a bit of water trickling down, nowhere to swim and i was starting to not feel well again. so we left.

went back to the bungalow, swam there, showered and went to dinner at dolce vita. i had major heartburn so i had to get all bland non-acidic foods. we got milk tea, steamed tilapia and a baked potato and it was all good but i still had really bad heartburn afterward. that's exactly what happened to me the last time we traveled for a month. it was last august when we went to japan for two weeks and then traveled all over korea with ben and vivienne for two weeks. the last couple days i had bad heartburn and couldn't get rid of it. it really sucked! what saved me was it was the end of our trip and we were going home. i researched home remedies and found out aloe juice helps. but there's no aloe juice here in thailand. so we went to a pharmacy and i got some conventional medicine. it was so disgusting! like drinking soupy toothpaste- UGH! :oP hope i don't have to take it again!

i think my body just gets really tired of eating out after a month. it's like ok that's enough! time to go home! lol thing is i have a month left of vacation! so i think i just have to lay off the fried foods which is hard in thailand when the main dishes they serve are fried spring rolls, fried rice, fried noodles, etc. i have to be careful about what i eat. hopefully i can make it another month without having too much if any heartburn!

Day 31

breakfast, hammock, read, slept, lunch (coconut milk and veg. soup) didn't feel great but didn't wanna lounge around all day so we went out.

we scootered to another waterfall hoping it would be better and it was somewhat. the waterfall was another trickle but there was a big pool of water at the bottom of this one that we could swim in :o) there was also a rope you could use to swing into the pool which was pretty fun! the most surprising thing was the little fish that come up and bite the deadskin off your feet! i knew about them because in korea they have places called "dr. fish" where they put a bunch of these fish in a tub and you stick your feet in for a fish "pedicure" lol i was never interested in that so i never went but i got a free session in this pool! only one fish came up to me right when i got in and it totally freaked me out because i wasn't watching. i just felt this fish bite me all of the sudden! lol now it doesn't actually feel like a bite. it kinda feels like a teeny tiny little suction for one second but it still freaks you out if you're not expecting it. later i stood there and watched (the water was really clear) until a fish came up. but he wasn't as interested this time. he bit my ankle a couple times and swam away lol it didn't scare me as much if i could see him though.

we swam a while, had lots of fun and then scootered down to an archery range where you can shoot arrows. i had never done it before and it's actually really difficult! lol you have to have really strong arms! i shot 10-12 arrows and hit the target about 3 times. i never hit the center of the target. all my arrows hit the outer edge of the target or the ground or the building behind the targets lol it was fun though and jens did much better than me.

next we drove around and happened upon a cute little cafe that sold coffee and baked goods. we got a coffee that was more like a medium sized espresso, a REALLY good croissant and a yummy raspberry cream tart. it was quite the treat after eating almost all our meals in one of 3 restaurants on our beach!

after that we went "home", showered, watched the sunset over the ocean which was gorgeous! and then we went to dinner next door so we could watch the movie, american gangster while we ate.

we got tea, burger and baked potato and the movie was really good! based on a true story involving the drug trade in the 60s/70s.

the end!

Day 32

breakfast of whole wheat bread we bought at that bakery yesterday, toasted with peanut butter - yum!

went into thongsala (bigger town on the island). we wanted to mail our snorkeling gear, books we've read, hammocks, etc. to the states so we wouldn't have to carry them all over for the next month when we don't need them. we wanted to do the 3 month surface mail because usually that's really cheap but the snorkeling gear alone was $30! we said nevermind, unpacked the gear and went back out to the scooter but then we realized we definitely didn't wanna carry snorkeling flippers all over the rest of thailand, laos, cambodia, malaysia and then back to korea only to be packed somewhere and THEN taken back to the states AND we didn't wanna ditch the stuff and buy more later because it'd probably be at least $40 to replace- so we decided it was worth it to spend the $30 to send the stuff home now. so we went back in and did so.

we decided against sending anything else until bangkok. it might be cheaper there.

we dropped off the 3 disposable cameras i had used to get the pics developed. 2 were waterproof and had snorkeling pics on them and the other was a reg. disposable camera with pics from the full moon party, etc. after our digital camera went kaput. they said we'd have to pick them up tomorrow but we're leaving tomorrow so after much negotiation they said they could be ready by 6pm.

so we went to lunch at ando loco- a tex mex place! awesome huh? it always amazes me the kinds of foods you can get all over the world (except korea lol). it was open air and we got a margarita (for jens), iced jasmine green tea with honey (for me- it was amazing!), nachos and two veggie tacos. it was all delicious but i felt sick immediately after! :o( thank goodness they had a hammock for me to lie down in. i felt better after about 30-45mins. it was really discouraging though. made me feel like i just couldn't eat anything without feeling sick now that we've been on vacation a month. i felt like that was my body's limit. after one month it says- nope! you need to go home and eat your own home-cooked food now. no more traveling! lol but i don't have much choice! plus i WANT to see laos and angkor wat! so i willed myself to feel better and then we went to the hammock store.

it was AWESOME! this guy sells handmade hammocks in two styles and two different kinds of thread. he has regular hammocks for lying down and sitting hammocks that make you sit up more. he has them in a superfine thread that's really soft and really comfy but it's also really expensive! a large hammock made of that thread was about $90! the cheaper thread is less expensive but still comfortable enough for us so we bought a sitting hammock in the cheaper thread. i love it and can't wait to use it but we're not gonna string it up here cuz it's our last day. we'll probably ship it home in bangkok because we don't know whether or not we'll be able to string it up anywhere else we're going and we wanna ship as much stuff home as possible before the 2nd half of our trip.

we realized that we then had a lying down hammock (which we bought on koh samui) and then this new sitting down hammock and that would really work for something we were planning on doing on our u.s. road trip- sleeping in our hammocks whenever possible. so we bought one more cheapy lying down hammock like the one we bought on koh samui at another store.

so we now have two really cheap but useful lying down hammocks and one really nice sitting down hammock :o)

after that we just roamed around town either driving or walking, going into shops and book stores, etc.

we tried to go pick up the pictures at 6pm but the lady said - tomorrow. and we were like what? we told you we need them tonight lol so she was like ok come back at 7pm.

so we decided to go have a pint at this english pub we had seen advertised all over the island- the masons arms. we found it and it was awesome! the building is really nice and looks super out of place on this island lol it's a proper english pub! white with dark brown wood, inside there are nice tables and booths with a big bar, pool table, fuse ball table, upstairs there are darts, pingpong and a nice balcony! we were amazed! we got a pint of cider and a pint of guinness and had a seat. we chatted a while and then played a game of pool. we were both horrible so we went upstairs and played darts and that was more fun :o) jens won and then we played pingpong and let's just say we failed miserably lol

around 7:15pm we went to pick up the pictures and they were finally done! but let me tell you- disposable camera pictures SUCK!!! big time! the color's all off, some are grainy and many are out of focus. on top of that only 15 out of 39 pictures from one of the cameras even showed up! the rest were solid black! i have no idea why but i was really disappointed. there were quite a few from the full moon party i remember taking that didn't show up at all :o( the pics from snorkeling were ok though. i mean even though my digicam was working at the time i still couldn't use it for snorkeling since it wasn't waterproof so whatever. they're better than nothing. i can't wait to get my new digital camera though!

while we were at the shop i stubbed my toe really bad and it still hurts hours later. i'm hoping i didn't fracture it or something! :o(

after getting the pictures, and stubbing my toe, we went back to the mason's arms for dinner because they had steak and ale pies (like pot pie). we got one and it was wonderful! it had this flaky pastry crust on top and it came with mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, peas, broccoli and cauliflowers. OMG! IT AS GREAT!!!! they also had this adorable dog there and kept looking at us with sad little eyes lol she wanted some steak and ale pie but the owner said she had eaten so we didn't give her any lol

after that we came back here.

tomorrow begins the long journey to BANGKOK! ahoy!

The Rest of Day 28 - Morning of 29th

2010-01-30T20:13:00.000-08:00

The rest of Day 28 - camera and full moon party! :

ok so remember how i got saltwater and/or sand in our camera and then i got it fixed really cheaply and it worked again?

then remember how we got to ko pha ngan and immediately dropped the dang thing on the tile floor cracking it open a bit?

and remember how i said we'd need to be really careful with it after that?

well let me tell you a story:

so yesterday after i got off the internet in the early afternoon jens and i had lunch- pad thai and flat noodles, it was good.

hung out in hammocks, read, showered, etc.

then i came back to the internet to add pictures to facebook off of the photo cd i had made of the pics we took the first part of the trip. i added them and the power went out so i had to restart the computer. then i captioned about NINETY of them and the power went out again! i had to restart this computer again but 2-3 other computers kept working after the power went out so i figured i'd better change computers, which i did. i didn't start captioning pics again cuz i didn't feel like it. i just went through and rotated all the pictures that needed it and THEN the power went out AGAIN! the computer stayed on but the power didn't come back on so the lady said i needed to get off the computer. so! so much for captioning those photos yesterday.

the sun had gone down at that point so it was really dark. jens was at the bungalow so i decided to meet him out there. he actually met me on the pathway there because the power had gone out and he was wondering about me. so we went back to the bungalow and just hung out on the porch waiting for the power to come back. he said the sunset that evening had been really beautiful so he had taken some pictures for me (which was sweet :o).

side note: i brought a flashlight for this kind of thing (power going out) and it was working previously but all of the sudden it didn't work anymore when we needed it! lol

so we're hanging out and some people start setting off fireworks on the beach just a few meters away from us. the first one went off great and it was so loud it scared me and made me scream lol well the 2nd one they set off didn't fly up! it just exploded on the ground which made both me and jens scream lol thank goodness no one was hurt. so the guy goes further down the beach to get away from the group of people he was with and sets off another one like right in front of our bungalow! i braced myself thinking- who knows if that one will work but jens stood right up at the edge of the porch thinking- well i want to be able to see it when it flies up and explodes lol well that one went off on the ground too! again- thankfully no one was hurt. it started to rain and i was fed up with the firework nonsense at that point so i went inside lol jens followed me and we just hung out in the dark in our bungalow wondering how the full-moon party would be if it was pouring down rain!

we were scheduled to take a truck taxi to the party at 8:30pm so at about 8:25pm we started to gather our things to go to the cafe and catch the taxi. jens was in the bathroom and i was looking for the camera. i couldn't find it so i yelled to jens- where's the camera? he didn't answer (even though i knew he could hear me), which gave me a sinking feeling. i asked- you didn't leave it on the porch after taking sunset pictures did you??? again no answer which REALLY made me panic. i went to the back porch and found exactly what i thought i would find- the digital, non-waterproof camera with it's big crack in the top of it sitting on the balcony railing...in the POURING down rain!!!!!!!!!

i took it inside and even though it was off the screen was backlit (you know like when you leave your computer on but it goes into power save or sleep mode and the screen is black but there's still light coming from it?) i turned it off and on and it didn't change and the zoom lense didn't come out like it normally does.

i wanted to cry but i was so incredibly baffled i couldn't lol i just kind of laughed and yelled and cursed a lot.

we had to leave like RIGHT THEN so i had no time to really process what happened. i just took the battery and memory card out and laid it all out to dry on the counter. i wasn't optimistic.

we ran and caught the truck taxi with 5 other people from our bungalows - 2 australian girls and 3 norweigan guys.

*before i go into the full moon party i'll go ahead and tell you that this morning the camera STILL didn't work so we have to buy a new one while we're in bangkok. i'm more baffled than pissed. it's like the universe was out to get my camera lol first the saltwater, then the drop and then the RAIN! i mean good grief! every time i've said- man i really wish my camera was waterproof, jens has said well it looks like it is to a certain extent! i mean we've gotten water on it a few times and it's never ruined it! well i'm just glad it was jens who left it out in the rain and not me because it might have looked like i was saying- SEE! it's not really waterproof! lol

but you better believe i'm getting a waterproof one this time! shatterproof too if they have it! i need some kind of industrial bullet-proof camera lol it just sucks i have to get one in asia and not the states because most of the time, even if the camera is MADE in the asian country in which you are buying it it's more expensive than buying that same camera in the states. i have no idea why.

another sucky thing is i will have no digital camera until we get to bangkok. that means 3-4 more days on koh pha ngan with no digital camera (and last night it meant no digital camera at the full moon party so sorry guys! there won't be pics up of that for a looong time! i bought a dinky disposable one and i dunno how the pics will come out but if they're any good i'll scan them in in the states (in like 5-6 months lol).

ANYWAY!

full moon party:
the taxi ride was HORRENDOUS! first off all, for some reason, we decided not to eat dinner at the bungalow. i think it was because we thought there'd be better food at the party. but for me that mean eating lunch at 1pm, yogurt at like 4pm and then nothing til we got to the party at 10pm, which if you know me is WAY too long for me to wait to eat! granted we were leaving at 8:30pm and i didn't think it'd take long to get there so i wasn't worried at first. but we got in the truck and waited like 30 mins. for the norwegian guys to show up!

i already thought these guys were big jerks because twice i'd seen them go by our bungalow out to the beach and yell "where are the f***ing females?!!" and once one of them argued with his mom in front of our bungalow for like 10 mins. straight lol

so when they hopped in the truck with drinks already in hand i was not thrilled lol turns out they're alright though. i assume they're younger than us since they're here with their parents and they act like high schoolers. they were very pumped for the party and were yelling out of the truck to everyone we passed- "WOOO PARTY! CHEERS! HOW YA DOIN'?" lol it was pretty funny. they made a ton of american culture references and it was really interesting to realize how little i knew about norway and how much MORE they knew about my country. you would have thought they were american if not for their accent lol they also did an impersonation of steve erwin for the ozzy girls lol

anyway as i said the taxi ride was horrendous - i was STARVING, i started feeling depressed about the camera and it was the bumpiest automobile ride i had ever been on! it was almost as bad as that boat ride we took to koh pha ngan! so i was feeling pretty sick soon into the journey. we went up hills so steep i thought we might all fly out the back of the truck bed and the guy went entirely too fast! he drove like it was a matter of life and death that we get there ASAP! thankfully we made it ok.

we all went our separate ways when we got there and jens and i headed straight for some food. we went to a bar owned by a german/thai couple and got german sausage, fried potatoes, a baked potato and salad. it was really good! we had to sit at the bar because all the other tables were full- including a table of insanely loud ozzies drinking something even the bartender thought was gross lol it looked like swamp water :oP sitting at the bar gave us a front row view of what it's like to work there though. the thai wife of the german guy seemed pretty annoyed at the loud people and the german guy kept speaking german exactly the way i always imagine germans speaking german- yelling things like AUFENBLATSENKRANSESHTOLENBLARF!!! lol it was great.

then we went down the PAAARTAAAAY! it was HUGE! the beach, haad rin, is HUGE! maybe a kilometer long and really wide. the tide was way out so the beach was about 30 meters wide. they had stalls set up all along the beach selling "buckets". a bucket comes filled with 200ml of hard alcohol (like rum, vodka, etc.), a can of soft drink, juice or tea, and a little bottle of red bull. jens immediately wanted one but i was worried lol jens has a pretty low tolerance and i wasn't sure if he could drink an entire bucket without puking. even if he could i was worried he'd want a 2nd one! lol we walked down some more and we saw a stand selling magner's cider! which i love so i got some and a little while later i gave in and let jens get a bucket because that's pretty much all there was. he got rum, coke, red bull and lime. they put it in a little plastic bucket like kids play with on the beach and gave him like 5 straws. he said it tasted like pure sugar.

we walked around and here's what we saw: huge elephant "lanterns", lots of stations where you could get something painted on you in florescent paint which would glow under the blacklights, fire dancers, tall tables and bleachers with people dancing on them, tons of bucket stalls, lots of glowing things for sale (we bought flashing devils horns for the both of us lol), a huge slide that didn't go all the way to the ground- you slide down and then fly off onto some cusions lol (jens did it and said it was fun- it looked like everyone was hurting themselves though- one guy flew off into the crowd! lol), a huge fire jump rope they were letting drunk tourists jump in which i thought was pretty stupid (jens wanted to do it but i wouldn't let him- sorry! i don't need a burned husband for the rest of vacation!), a huge scaffolding with letters spelling out "the original full moon party, paradise bungalows, 2010" which were set on fire (this party started to make me think of burning man), lots of painted people with crazy get-ups on dancing, running, screaming, yelling, drinking, jumping, etc.

the not so glamourous side: people peeing in the ocean (including a group of girls who all decided to pee in one big group where everyone could see them???), a guy puking a waterfall of vomit into the ocean, lots of plastic bottles and straws being swept out to sea (which pissed me off the most!!!!), people generally being really stupid!

i'd say that if you go, don't bother walking along the water or looking towards the water- you just don't wanna know what's out there lol

all along the beach they have different djs playing at different restaurant/bungalows. there must have been at least 5 different ones. they were just far enough away from each other that you couldn't hear one over the other. they mainly played dance/house/trance music (i think- i don't really know the difference between all those) and honestly the music was pretty boring. i don't like listening to one beat over and over with no words in the song :o/ eeeeeevery once in a while they'd play a song with words or some of a song with words mixed into the dance beat and i liked that more. there were tons of people dancing at each "dj station" and i saw a lot of really bad dancers lol it was fun to just sit and watch people make complete fools of themselves dancing lol we danced at a few places but more ironically than seriously lol

jens finished his bucket and said he didn't feel tipsy at all! he said he wanted another one but i was like no way! he had told me earlier he'd only get one and NOT to let him get another one no matter what! so i didn't. he said he never did feel very drunk though and i wonder if the red bull counteracted the effects of the rum that much or if the guy didn't actually put that entire bottle of rum in the drink...we didn't actually see him make it so who knows.

i got another cider and we walked to the other end of the beach where they were setting up another huge scaffolding with a "fire sign". immediately after they were done all these crazy people climbed up to the top of it and were dancing around! it was about 25 ft. high! of course jens wanted to climb up too and at that point i had had to talk him out of the fire jump rope like 3 times so i was like ok whatever- go climp up onto a big fire ladder with 20 drunk people jiggling it all around lol he did it, climbed to the top, i took a picture and he came down unscathed. thank goodness!

at that point we had pretty much seen all there was to see. we danced some more, took a picture of some girls who found a big wheelbarrow and were pushing people around in it and then we left!

it was only about 1am but honestly- the only thing for us to do for the rest of the night would have been to get really drunk and do something stupid or get robbed, ya know? lol so we decided it was ok to leave. we had drank, we had bought glowy things, we had danced, jens had done the slide and climbed the fire ladder, we had seen people doing crazy things, etc. the only things we didn't do were get painted and do the fire jump rope. i'd say it was a pretty good night! :o)

we got in a truck taxi with 4 ozzy girls (2 of them bartenders) and made the long journey home. it didn't seem as bad this time- probably because i wasn't starving to death lol

we got home and went to sleep and slept well! the end!

Morning of 29th

we got up around 9:30am, hung out at the bungalow a bit, saw some ducks randomly on the beach eating things out of the waves as they washed up lol

went to breakfast and ran into those norwegian guys. we asked them how the rest of their night was and one guy said- well it was going good until i was beat down and robbed!!! we were like what??? omg! he said yeah i was just walking along and this guy came up, beat me and stole my wallet! we felt so bad for him! :o(

that kind of thing happens at the full moon parties all the time though which is a good reason not to bring your whole wallet and to stay with your people the whole time AND not to get so drunk that you're not paying attention. jens and i just brought enough cash for the night in our pockets and pretty much nothing else except tissues and bug repellent. digital cameras are probably another thing people like to steal but we just had that disposable one so that wasn't a problem either. we didn't even wear our wedding rings to s.e. asia at all - partly so as not to lose them and partly so we're not showing off any kind of wealth. so take that advice if you ever come here or to any full moon parties!

so there ya go! we survived our first (and probably last) full moon party!

jens said even though he barely got tipsy last night he still had a bit of a hangover this morning lol so weird!

now we're just internetting, jens is captioning our photos i added yesterday and i dunno what we're gonna do for the rest of the day. we'll see!

until next time!

Day 27 and 28

2010-01-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

Day 27

so we just relaxed a lot yesterday. we had breakfast and then went swimming for a little while. i laid out first. i'm determined to get a tan. i've pretty much never had a full-body tan in my entire life. i don't think it's better to be pale or to be tan. i think people should like the color they are whatever it may be. i just wanna try out a tan for once in my life ya know? it's hard though because my skin is so white that it pretty much just reflects the sun and won't absorb it lol i have to get burned before i'll tan. i've got various shades of skin all over my body at the moment. i've burned my back twice but not on purpose. this may be more work than it's worth :oP i probably won't ever TRY to get tan again after this trip. i just wanna try once :o)

so the beach is pretty skinny during the day but the tide goes WAY out when the moon comes out. it's really crazy how much the moon affects the tides. it's something i never really thought about since i never lived on the beach but i've been on the beach so much this trip that i've really started to think about that. it's really weird that the moon's gravity can pull the waters of the ocean toward it so much so that the tide goes out several meters each evening. pretty wild.

the water here is really clear but the bottom of the ocean is kinda rocky and weedy. you have to find sandy parts to stand in. but it's fine. the water was really calm though- almost like a swimming pool so you could just float around without any waves disturbing you. jens snorkeled a bit and just saw a few fish. there might be better snorkeling at these rocks that are a bit further out.

while we were swimming we saw this really dumb guy go out and get a black spikey sea urchin out of the water with a hook! you're not supposed to take any marine life out of the waters when snorkeling. i mean just think if everyone did that! there'd be nothing left! but this idiot gets this sea urchin and he keeps dropping it under the water and then he PICKS IT UP! with this fingers! like he just grabs one of the spikes! these things sting really really bad so we were waiting for him to start screaming! we just stood there baffled thinking he must know what he's doing. i mean most people look up some info before they go snorkeling or before they start grabbing things out of the water lol but then these two people on the beach stood up and yelled at him- BE CARFEUL! THOSE THINGS ARE POISON! lol so then he just turned around and took it back in the water. i was worried he was just gonna drop it right there near the beach and we were gonna have to worry about swimming around it, etc. but thankfully he took it way out...probably near where he found it. dunno if he got stung or not...

after that we showered and had lunch at our bungalow. just thai jungle curry. good but spicy!

then we just hung out in our hammocks on the porch and read and listened to the waves. it was SO NICE! makes me always want hammocks on a porch for the rest of my life lol

later we walked to the mini mart, got a few things and walked down the road a bit. there are barely any businesses at all on this strip. we got really hungry at that point so we went to the reggae bar on the beach for dinner but it was really uncomfortable so we left. it was too dark, had uncomfortable, dirty cushions on the floor and there were a bunch of people smoking :oP

so we went back down to la dolce vita again and we'll probably end up eating there every night we're here lol it's got the nicest atmostphere and the food is good. we got wine, bruschetta, spinach and ricotta ravioli al pomodoro, salad, more bruschetta lol and then tiramisu and espresso! it was all good :o)

Day 28

just relaxing again. had breakfast and came in here. might swim later or just hang out. tonight is the big full moon party on haad rin (rin beach...a ways away from here). we'll have to get a taxi to get there. i wish we could take a scooter but the roads here aren't great and they say it's pretty dangerous to try to drive here at night esp. after a full moon party. apparently 8,000-30,000 people show up to this party each month. pretty insane! i'm a bit apprehensive to go but we're gonna be careful and smart about it. we're only gonna take some cash and the camera and stay together the ENTIRE time. we won't let each other out of our sight, won't take any random food or drink from strangers, etc. we'll probably just eat dinner, walk around, check things out, have a couple drinks and come home. we don't wanna stay too late when everybody starts getting too drunk and too crazy. i think we'll experience enough of it in 4-5 hours lol may sound lame but i just don't feel like getting kidnapped or injured or have things stolen from me lol we'll go but we'll just be smart about it.

then we'll have 3 more full days here. we may rent a scooter one day during the daylight and go see other beaches and waterfalls or something. the main priority is just to relax though. it's kind of the mid-way point in our trip. we have a lot of moving around after we leave here. a couple days in bangkok, 3-4 days in ayuthaya, a few days in vientiane, laos, a few in luang prabang and then about 4 days to see angkor wat in cambodia. it's gonna be go go go.

i've loved having this 2 month vacation away from korea but i gotta tell ya it's a bit tiring after a while. all the packing and unpacking. all the eating out. only having one person to talk to the whole time lol we've talked to some other travelers but it's always hard to start the convo. you don't know if they'll be receptive. and then you just talk about the same things with everyone- where are you from, what do you do, why are you here, how long are you here, what do you think of it, etc. lol

i certainly don't regret this trip! it's been AWESOME! we've seen so many amazing things and had great experiences! we've always wanted to go to these countries and now we are! it's really happening! :) it's always nice when you want to do something and you work toward it for a long time and then it actually happens. i love that!

all that being said though i don't think i need to take a 2 month vacation across 5 countries again lol i think one month in 2-3 countries is enough. or even just 2-3 weeks in one country. that right there would be enough "getting away" for me. i'm happy to have discovered that though! because that's what most americans get in a year - 2 to 3 weeks. i'm happy to know that that actually is enough.

we were talking about europe last night though. i've always wanted to go back to france and i've always wanted to see more of europe! i just wonder when it's going to happen. after we move back to the states there's no telling when we'll have the money and the time to travel abroad again. and what with oil running out and the prices rising it makes it even harder. we almost thought- maybe we should do europe instead of our american road trip in may/june! but that'd definitely be more expensive and we're really looking forward to seeing more of america and and to see b.c. canada and all of our family and friends along the way. we're hoping that'll it'll be possible for us to visit just one or two european countries once a year during our 2-3 week vacations we'll have if jens is a firefighter.

flying is by no means eco-friendly but i LOVE traveling. that's my weakness! lol i figure if i'm "good for the environment" in a bunch of other ways then maybe it's not so bad if i fly ;o) i plan to recycle and compost and grow my own herbs and some vegetables and try to walk and ride my bike as many places as possible and buy local and organic. most people don't do those things AND they fly so i think i'd be doing pretty good lol

which brings me to my wedding planner aspirations. i've been thinking about it more and i'm just not sure wedding planning would be that fulfilling. i love planning events, i love some weddings. but the weddings i love the most are the really simple, innovative, diy ones. the ones that don't cost that much money and therefore probably did not involve a wedding planner lol if i were to do it i'd have to find clients who didn't have a lot of money but had enough and weren't that creative and therefore needed me to help them. i dunno how many of those there are.

i just don't wanna work with rich spoiled brats who are like OMG MOM i can't believe you're not going to pay for me to ride in on a camel! or someone who wants icelandic peonies flown in for her bouquet.

also- i think i'm not just interested in weddings. i'd be happy to plan showers or birthdays or whatever. i just like planning parties in general.

at the same time i'm really getting into the eco-friendly/local/organic movement. i'd love to plan parties that serve only local organic food and use dinnerware and old linens from antique stores and thrift shops and had handmade decorations, etc. is there a niche big enough for that that i could actually money at it?

one thing i pictured doing was organizing some kind of local food festival at the local farmer's market or something.

i read barbara kingsolver's "animal, vegetable, miracle" and i just finished a book called "do good lives have to cost the earth?", which is a compilation of essays by various british authors, and they both inspired me a lot. in the latter book they talk all about how we can lead good lives without over-consuming and using up all the world's resources. research has shown that wealth only makes people happier up to a certain point, and that when you get to that point more money (or material goods) won't make you any happier. that's what's wrong with americans. that's why we've got a good percentage of wealthy people who are really depressed and feel they have no meaning in their lives. they've focused too much on working, earning money and then spending that money on material goods thinking that the more they have the happier they'll be. that's not how it works. if you take a really poor person who lives in a shelter or on the streets and you give them enough money for a decent apt., decent clothes and decent 3 meals a day they'll be MUCH happier than they were before. but if you take a rich person who has a big house, tons of clothes and gourmet food for 3 meals a day and you give him or her an even bigger house, more designer clothes and even more expensive food- they won't actually be much happier than they were before. get it?

they also talk about how we need more celebration in our lives. back in the day, even though people were poor, they'd have lots of feast days and celebrations in the community. it was about getting together, everyone bringing something and just having a good time together. it was about community and the simple joys in life.

so my point is i don't want to overwork just to get more and more money so i can buy more and more things. i want to work enough to meet my needs and have some small pleasures in life and spend the rest of the time ENJOYING life! i also want to work a job that helps other people do that. i.e. the kind of event planning i was talking about earlier. or i'd at least like to have a job that's good for the environment and good for people.

i just really don't know what exactly i'll end up doing! so many possibilities! i guess i'll just have to see where life takes me! lol

i also want to say that no one is perfect and just because i've said what i've said it doesn't mean i'm never going to eat food that's not local or i'm never going to drive a car, etc. it's up to all of us to do a lot of little things that help the world and help our population. so praise the things that people do! don't focus all your attention on the things they don't do :o)

and i urge all of you to start doing little things here and there that will help the planet. start out small and add things over time. start recycling everything that you can. don't just throw out that old cell phone. take it to a shop where they can re-use it or its parts. start buying some vegetables at the local farmer's market (i bet they'll taste a lot better than those pink tomatoes from chili or wherever lol), ride your bike to the store to get milk, buy a few quality durable pieces of clothing instead of a bunch of cheapies that'll fall apart in a year and have to be thrown out. there are so many things the average person can do to help!

go forth and save the world! lol

Day 26 - Koh Pha Ngan

2010-01-28T07:22:00.000-08:00

first of all- my camera was fixed! somehow the guy cleaned the saltwater out of it and it was fine. only cost me $6! can you believe it? it would have cost me like $100 or more to have a "professional" look at it. geez.

anyway- we got up this morning and got breakfast at that bar we ate at before...never did figure out the name...lol we watched bbc news while we ate and heard some of president obama's speech.

we got muesli with yogurt and fruit and i'm really getting tired of eating out! you just never know what you're going to get unless you go to the same exact place and order the same exact thing more than once. we think some of the fruit in the muesli was a bit rotten :oP i love being on vacation and i love eating good food from restaurants but eating out in general gets a bit tiresome. i'd like to cook my own food but we haven't a had a kitchen at any of the places we've stayed. i'm hoping i can deal with another month of eating at out lol

after breakfast we went back to the bungalow and waited for the taxi to come. the truck taxi was so packed with people and stuff that we had to sit in the backseat of the cab which they normally never let you do.

he took us "near" the ferry terminal lol we had to walk quite a ways to get where we needed to be and then it was complete chaos. we waited around a while to get on the boat and then when it was time to get on we had formed two different lines and were merging to go onto the bridge to the boat but then this woman was like- no you have to go all the way around to the end of that other line and go down the bridge one by one! lol how ridiculous is that? well we didn't do it. we went to the side of the other line and just merged with it and got on fairly quickly. the bridge and platform were pretty scary though. just a bunch of random wooden planks nailed together haphazardly.

so we got on the boat and some men just piled everyone's bags into this huge mound on the deck. then jens and i went down some stairs and found two seats inside. it was a fairly small boat and the seats were small and hard. we were in a row of three and a big guy sat next to us. there ended up not being enough room for people up on deck or in the seats and some people had to sit on the floor inside.

the boat got going and it was fine for about 10 mins. but then it started rearing up and hitting the waves really hard! that's when the nausea started...it was horrible. after about 10 mins. my entire body felt nauseated! my ears were hot and my fingertips were tingling and i felt like i was dying! i know that sounds like an exaggeration but that's how i felt. now i had bought some motion sickness patches in korea before we left and i used one once on a long bus ride but none of the boat rides had been bad at all so i had no idea that i would need one on this trip! well of all the times not to wear one! my god! i couldn't even put one on if i wanted to because they were all the way out on deck in my bag probably under a hundred other bags! so i was screwed. i curled up in a ball, clutching jens and moaning for an hour and a half lol moaning actually seemed to help. the last 15 mins. or so the nausea finally subsided. i think the seas were calmer then.

during at least half the trip if not all of it (i'm not sure because i was in a nausea coma for the most part) this scottish girl was sitting on the floor at the front talking ENTIRELY too loudly. she was like 8 rows ahead of me and i could hear every word over the crashing of the boat on the waves, the motor and other people chatting lol she was SO LOUD! i couldn't believe it! well we weren't the only ones who thought she was too loud because these two dutch women in front of us kept trying to hint to her that she was being too loud. at one point one girl sang that song- " shut up just shut up shut up!" lol and later she started mocking the girl by repeating what she was saying lol well the girl never got the hint apparently.

when we docked she stood up and was talking to her other scottish male friends and they ALL started being really loud and that's when i saw they were all drinking beer at 11am (the boat took off at 10am or so). well we finally started lining up in the aisle and one of the guys starts yelling back to the girl- well you're sleeping with 4 guys! you slut! and she's like omg take that back! i have my own bed! and they start all joking about that, etc. and then one dutch girl starts talking to the other dutch girl about them in dutch but obviously gesturing to those scots and the scottish guy notices and he's like oh i'm sorry if i'm being too loud! i'm probably one of the biggest assholes you'll meet and the dutch woman goes- no i think she is! (gesturing to the scottish girl- who is still oblivious lol) and the dutch woman asks the scottish guy- where are you from? (he tells her) and she asks- do they all talk this way over there? (meaning really loudly)...dunno what he said. then she gestures to the beer and asks- is this your coffee in the morning? lol anyway over all he was apologetic and she said well - think about it next time. (meaning don't be so loud next time). it was pretty awkward lol

so i ended up standing up right in front of the scottish girl unfortunately and then she dropped her beer and it splashed all over my feet and legs and she was like ooooh noooo that's half a beer!!!! (not even saying sorry) and i said- i think you've had enough! but she still didn't hear. and the dutch woman looks right at her says- that's a sign! that's a sign! you've had enough! lol dunno what she did. she probably still didn't get it.

so we get out on deck and that's when i realize just how drunk the girl was. she sees this guy with really nice snorkling (or diving) fins and they have a slit down the middle of them (probably to go faster) and she's like HEY FLIPPERS! (the guy looks at her) WHERE ARE YOU FROM? (i guess he tells her) YOUR FLIPPERS- WHY'S IT GOT A LINE DOWN THE MIDDLE LIKE THAT? (he says- better) and then she says to her scottish friend who's standing right next to her and the guy and already heard the entire conversation- HEY BETTER! lol omg....i couldn't wait to get away from them...

i zoomed off the boat and jens grabbed our bags and met me on land. we both had to walk down this gauntlet of touts though! there were like 30 people with signs saying taxi lol it was insane! i can't believe they let the people up there when we're all just trying to get our bags and get off the boat! they're like HELLO HELLO TAXI! and i'm like MY NAME ISN'T TAXI!

so we got outta that mess, found a guy and asked him how much. it was a decent price so we said yes. we got to the truck and it had a roof over the bed which was nice and we got in. there was a girl from canada and a girl from quebec already in there. they had met on another island and decided to travel together a bit. they were nice. there was also a little tiny thai girl in there who was probably about 4 years old. she was so adorable! she came right up to all of us and took our stickers off our shirts that we had to wear for the boat. then she stuck them all on our arm hair and pulled them off lol then she separated all the stickers and gave us each one only to come back later and take them all off again. i guess she doesn't have much to do lol we waited a long time and finally the guy came back with two other people to ride with us and we thought it was time to go but no! he went off again to find more people. then it started pouring down rain and jens had to get out and get onto the roof of the truck to put the rain covers on our bags that were up there lol we thought the guy had given up on getting more people at that point but no he crammed two more people in and we finally left while it was pouring down rain and our backs were getting soaked.

it was a bit of a ride (maybe 10 mins.) but thank goodness our bungalow happened to come first! it had stopped raining at that point which was also nice :o) we checked in and walked to our bungalow and boy was that a sight for sore eyes! SO NICE! not like ultimate luxury but it's the nicest place we've stayed in so far (and probably the nicest we WILL stay in!)

it's a beachfront bungalow with two porches, one of which faces the beach directly and the one with the front door is perpendicular to the beach but the short end of it faces the beach too. the front door porch already has a hammock on it so we hung up our hammock too and now we can both lie in hammocks at the same time! :o) inside is really big! we have two full-size beds, shelves, aircon, a fan and a fridge! the bathroom is HUGE! way more space than we could ever need in a bathroom lol

(side note: you cannot flush toilet paper in thailand whatsoever! like it won't even go down the toilet and even if it does apparently it will clog the pipes really easily. you have to throw tp in the trashcan which is really hard for me to remember lol thai people just use a hose with a spray nozzle to clean themselves off but i still don't know how that works. do they just go around with wet nether regions afterward? lol)

anyway the bungalow kicks ass! i love it! we're staying 6 days and i'm hoping that's long enough :o) we could extend...we have a few days of the trip that are free. we'll see.

we just unpacked a little and then went to lunch at the bungalow cafe because we were starving!!! jens got veggie fried rice and i got veggie fried noodles. it was really good!

we went back to the bungalow, took some pictures and then dropped the freaking camera on the freaking tile floor and dang near cracked it wide open!!!! i was so mad! we JUST got it cleaned and it was working great and then THAT happened! amazingly enough it's still working fine. the two halves of it are just a little further apart than before and we'll have to be even more careful about getting water or sand in it which is really hard when you're staying on a beach! i wish i had known i would need a waterproof, shatterproof camera lol

after that incident we both laid in our hammocks, read and feel asleep. so nice!!!! when we got up the sun was low in the sky and it created a beautiful scene over the ocean so i took some pics and we walked down the beach a bit.

i was hungry again so we got a mango shake and spring rolls and ate them on our porch. that's when the mosquitoes came out with a vengeance! i have always been lucky in that mozzies never want to bite me! all this time they've been leaving me alone but for some reason the mozzies on koh pha ngan LOVE me! i was getting eaten alive! i put on two different insect repellents AND burned a repellent coil lol that seemed to work.

we hung out on the porch a bit and then decided to go to dinner. we went to la dolce vita down the beach. it is the only non-thai restaurant on the beach (and there are only like 4-5 restaurants on this beach in total lol) they serve italian AND thai food. we weren't super hungry so we just got one iced tea with lemon and gnocchi in pesto sauce. well the guy acted weird when i ordered the iced tea but i didn't think much of it. he repeated iced tea with lemon to me so i figured he understood me....until he brought me my drink, i took a swig and it was iced COFFEE with lemon! GROSS! lol i told him i ordered iced tea and he was like no you said iced coffee and i was like no i said iced tea! lol i dunno why he thought i said coffee...

so then this other guy brings me a drink, i take a sip and it's LONG ISLAND ICED TEA! lol i gave up at that point and resigned myself to drinking a drink a didn't want but then another guy brought me the regular iced tea i originally ordered! so he took the long island and realized it belonged to the guy behind us and he was gonna give it straight to him but i said - oh i already tried it! so he was like ok and took it back to the kitchen but he came right back with it really quickly so i think he just changed the straw lol but whatever...

the food was pretty good. while we ate we got to see a fireworks show put on by some random people that bought a bunch of fireworks at the local minimart. i love how fireworks are legal for anyone to buy and set off anywhere they want here! it's awesome!

after dinner we decided to come here and do some interneting. i think we'll get dessert now and go to bed!

it was a pretty crazy day but overall good :o)

Day 23-25 -snorkeling, chilling

2010-01-27T05:28:00.000-08:00

Day 23 - snorkeling

so we did end up going to jansom bay but it took us forever lol we decided to walk and there were lots of cute shops and stuff along the way and we got hungry for lunch before we got there so we had nachos at el gringos lol

we got to jansom bay at about 3:30pm or so. we had to walk through these really fancy shmancy bungalows to get there. it was $15 per person just to use their pool :oP

anyway the beach at the bay was pretty tiny and there were huge granite bolders everywhere but it was clean thank goodness! we put on our gear and went right in- forgetting the disposable waterproof camera i bought just for snorkeling because we were so excited to finally snorkel lol but i used it for another snorkeling trip we took so it's all good.

snorkeling at jansom bay was great because our snorkels worked! lol lots of different colorful fish and TONS of coral. the most coral i had ever seen! we swam a bit out of the bay and around some rocks towards this other little bay where there was supposed to be a shipwreck. well we ended up having to go over this enormous "field" of coral and it felt like it was really close to us because the water magnifies things so we felt like we were gonna hit it with our fins and that we couldn't ever go up for air and tread water lol it was awesome though! (and we weren't actually close enough to hit it accidentally).

we found the shipwreck and it was REALLY creepy! just like out of a horror movie where they slowly film some dark and scary shipwreck and then a giant octopus comes flying out lol but thank goodness, nothing flew out of this one but little fish :o) jens was regretting that we didn't bring that camera. we didn't wanna go back for it because we didn't wanna swim over that coral field again lol

we also saw some GIANT dome-like coral (i don't know the names of all the coral) but they were bigger than me! it was really amazing! we were probably in the water an hour or so but we were exhausted from all the swimming around so we swam up to the closest beach and walked back to the beach where our stuff was. it was a great little snorkeling trip!

dinner- papa's tapas - another AMAZING meal! we got 5 different vegetarian tapas and one shrimp that included: gazpacho soup with little croutons, fennel and citrus salad with vinaigrette, tomato and parmasean salad, baby potatoes baked with pearl onions, rosemary and garlic, shrimp cooked in garlic oil with aioli and bread and cauliflower risotto with truffle oil! OMG! it was awesome! lol

for dessert we got the cinnamon chocolate fudge cake with orange rind shavings and freshly whipped cream and a french press of coffee- again: OMG!

to top it all of we wanted to try port so we got the ruby port and it was really good! it's just a sweet wine.

we were stuffed after that meal and all we could do was go to bed lol

Day 24 - chilling

we were pretty tired from snorkeling the previous day, plus we've been traveling so much we needed a day of doing nothing so we basically just ate, hung out, took a nap, interneted and read.

breakfast: new heaven cafe. turkish breakfast, waffle and fruit, mango lassi, coffee. the staff there is really incompetent but the food is good so we keep going back lol

late lunch: onions rings, thai spicy crystal noodle salad with veggies, apple pie.

dinner: portobello again. wine, vegetarian antipasto board which included fresh mozzerella cheese, various pickles veg., olives, grilled veg., etc. and a pizza with coppa ham, asparagus and artichokes. all wonderful!

on the way home we happened by papa's tapas and they had live music so we went in, plopped down in a giant bean bag, ordered wine and port and listened to a guy play flamenco and french jazz on the guitar. he was really good!

Day 25 - more snorkeling!

breakfast at new heaven again - muesli with yogurt and fruit, turkish breakfast, tea, and i ordered a mango lassi but i think they gave me a tropical shake...you kinda take what you can get at this place lol but it's always delicious.

got a longtail boat over to these 3 islands off the coast of koh tao. all three are connected by one beach. met a guy from vermont/new york who is living with his wife in nepal while she teaches english and he does photography.

got to the island and had to walk on "the bridge of my worst nightmare" for like 30 mins. before reaching the beach lol i survived.

there was a huge tour group of koreans wearing life jackets in 2 foot water and screaming a lot lol oh koreans...

we went down to the opposite end of the beach and got into the water on the left side of the beach (there was water on either side). it was awesome! jens zoomed off as usual. he likes to swim a lot and just glance at things but i like to sit and watch one fish or a group of fish for a long time. it was lucky that i did that though because after a little while this HUGE group of 3-4 kinds of fish just started swimming all around me! like ALL around me, REALLY close! it was sooo coooool! i had the camera this time so i got pics :o) i swam all around and saw tons of fish and coral.

i can't find a good "types of coral" website but here's what i did find:
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112361/coral/coral.htm

i saw all those kind of coral except the fan coral i saw was brown not red.

and i also can't find a good site for thailand's saltwater fish but i know i saw parrot fish: http://blog.nesthostelsvalencia.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/parrot-fish.jpg

and sea anenomes similar to this: http://www.berlinmethod.com/images/photos/anenome.jpg

and longfin fish like these: http://www.3reef.com/forums/attachments/tropical-fish/22673d1261526681-moorish-idol-blue-dotted-sting-ray-long-fin-20bannerfish.jpg

and lots of sea slugs! http://blog.cryos.net/uploads/SeaSlug.jpg

we also saw some tiny electric blue fish, white translucent fish, yellow fish, yellow and white fish, fish that stick their heads in the sand to find food, a GIANT fish i don't know the name of, little purple fish, needlenose fish that swim just under the surface of the water, etc.

so pretty cool huh??? it was great!

we swam around the whole area of water that was blocked off by a rope and we were truly exhausted by the end of it because we didn't have fins. they wouldn't let us bring them onto the island because they can disturb sediments which are some sea creatures homes or something. i did see a lot of little sand mounds with holes in the tops...

anyway we were tired and i had major dry mouth from breathing through my mouth for like 2 hours lol it's a very strange sensation to be emersed in water and have dry mouth lol but i'm still amazed at the ability to breath with your face in the water due to the use of a snorkel - it's really cool! lol

we had lunch in the cafe- shrimp and pineapple fried rice, fruit plate and pancake.

then we swam in the water to the right of the beach. the water was much clearer there- at least in the first 25 feet for so and tons of parrot fish and these white/lightblue/light yellow fish were swimming in a huge school and stopping to eat off the coral. the weirdest thing was- you could hear them eating! munchmunchmunchmunch lol it was so funny.

we had to go pretty far out on this side to see coral but we saw some HUGE stuff! big mounds of it that were bigger than our bungalow! and we saw some black spikey sea urhcins that really freak me out! they look like this: http://www.scuba-equipment-usa.com/marine/NOV04/images/Centrostephanus_rodgersii.jpg

scary!

we swam and looked and swam and looked and then we went up on the beach and layed down til it was time to go.

took the longtail boat back, showered and went to a place to have my camera looked at. the guys thinks i got water or sand in it (which is what was the problem the last time i had to get it fixed! :oP) i blame the elephant that sprayed water on us right when i was gonna take a picture in singapore! dangit! i hope he can fix it. if not we may try in bangkok. i'm just worried it'll go kaput right in the middle of photographing the amazing temples of ayutthaya or ankor wat :o/

then we went to dinner at...dunno the name. jens got lasagna and i got the burger. it was pretty good. we listened to a couple swedish guys sing/play american covers. they were good! had great english!

now i'm here updating. we go to koh pha ngan tomorrow! we'll be there 6 days and i think we're just gonna chill the whole time. 2 months is a looong time to be on vacation lol i need a vacation from vacation! i at least need to store up energy for all the walking we're gonna do in bangkok and ayutthaya, laos and then angkor wat in cambodia. i think laos will be pretty low key though. everyone calls it "sleepy". we shall see.

anyway- we're happy we finally got some awesome snorkeling in! can't wait to see the pics from the disposable!

have a great day/night! whichever it may be :o)

Day 19-23

2010-01-24T21:15:00.000-08:00

gonna try to make this quick!

Evening of the 19th

FINALLY found a hammock to buy! only $6! green mesh, comfortable. love it! we have it hanging on our porch in ko tao now. gonna try to hang it on our porch in texas too!

mojitos at yellow bar.

saw the climax band at shamrock- they were pretty good. guitarist was boring but the bassist and female singer were great lol

Day 20 - ko tao

breakfast and lunch at beer's house - yogurt, muesli, fruit and fried rice.

van to ferry

waited more (island time you know).

ferry- fairly comfortable.

off ferry- immediately bombarded with taxi touts. got a pick-up to hat sairee (beach where we wanted to stay). pick up truck taxi just had benches along the long sides of the bed, no railing!

went to sairee cottages first and they were fully booked! so i hung out in the restaurant with our stuff while jens hauled it up the beach checking at every place for an hour. he finally found a reasonably priced bungalow at wind beach resort (still in hat sairee so that's good). while i waited i had a really yummy mango shake and banana pancake!

jens came back and took me and our stuff to the bungalow. it's pretty nice! medium sized porch, large room, queen size bed, fan, shelf, bathroom with plastic skylight, toilet flushes well!, good shower head and hot water :o) what more can you ask for? we hung up the hammock, tried it out and then explored sairee "village".

LOTS of great looking restaurants- every kind of food you could want! lots of shops, internet places and diving schools. most people come here to scuba dive. it's like $500 a person though so we're gonna pass this time and just snorkel.

walked along beach a bit- kinda narrow, water is shallow WAY out into the ocean but it's kinda nice. the water is really calm with several long boats floating in it. the sand on the beach is a bit grainy but the sand under the water is really soft! there are palm trees, beach front restaurants and bungalows all along the beach. and LOTS of dogs! this is not only paradise but a dog-lovers paradise! there are lovely, friendly dogs of all shapes and sizes everywhere you go here :o) we love it!

hung out in the hammock til dinner.

dinner at hippo- we had bruschetta, ribs, mashed potatoes and salad! so good! there dog followed us down the street a bit after lol

bungalow- bed.

Day 21

the new heaven cafe for breakfast- apple black currant smoothie, turkish breakfast of toast, fried potatoes, fried egg, onions, feta cheese and olives! yum!

hung out, read, wrote, etc.

got my photos put on dvds. my camera is acting up and i'm really worried :o( the functions of the buttons keep switching and many times you have to push a button like 10 times before it'll work! i use rechargeable batteries but maybe it needs a new one...no idea where to get one :o( prob not on this island...dunno what to do...

interneted

lunch- thai massaman curry (yellow with veggies), rice, tea. watched bbc news on their tv.

back to room- napped.

got up- swam some. nice, clear water!

showered and went to dinner at our bungalow. got cushions and a table right on the beach. had their bbq chicken and veg. kebab and it was GREAT! came with grilled corn, baked potato and salad :o) looked up at the moon and stars after we ate.

then we went to the reggae bar just down the dirt path from our bungalow. it's basically a roof over wooden bar and benches with all kinds of random decor everywhere lol the guys who work there are really layed back. it's small bar so it almost seems obligatory to strike up a conversation with the person next to you. over the course of the night we talked to a french woman named tan (gypsy name) who lives in china and mixes traditional chinese music with electronic music to make it more accessible to the younger generation, hannah the english woman who used to work at a wine packaging factory but quit when they moved the factory and has been traveling around s.e. asia for several months, learning to dive, an australian girl named carla who used to work at a wellness center but is going to go back to school for youth work (helping troubled teens, etc.)- she dives, her friend malin from sweden who has lived in australia long enough to have a solid ozzy accent- she lives in sweden now but wants to move back to oz and work at the swedish stationary store where she worked before, boaz the atheist israeli who has an american mother and an american accent but lives in tel aviv and thinks there will never be peace in the middle east, and the funny swedish couple leo and katarina who had us cracking up over nothing lol he works in construction, she's had odd jobs including working a "franking machine"(whatever that is) and they both think we're the cleverest americans they've met since we know the capitals of many scandinavian countries :o)

it was a great night but jens drank too much so the next morning we had to take it easy lol

Day 22

up late, breakfast at this bar i dunno the name of. we got two huge plates: english breakfast and steak and eggs breakfast to fill us up so we could go snorkeling! (the steak was just a small hamburger patty lol

we interneted and then got a truck taxi to hin wong bay.

man was THAT a treacherous ride! i was holding on for dear life! it seemed we were driving up and down at 90 degree angles at points! lol all on rutted and rocky dirt roads! at one point we were going down such a steep hill that i just sat in the bed and let the cab keep me from falling to my death lol it was INSANE!

but we made it to the bay alive. we told the guy to pick us up in 5 ours but we soon regretted that statement lol the "bay" was a super rocky coast with fairly strong waves and lots of trash. there was a restaurant of sorts but that's it.

we had seen a sign for view rock resort on our way over there and our friend jen has stayed there a couple years before and loved it. so we decided to hike over there, snorkel and come back for the taxi. it was quite a hike, esp. in the heat but it was kinda fun. we saw a big lizard and coconuts sprouting new coconut trees!

we finally made it to view rock resort but then we had to take like 100 stairs down to where the porch was lol they really make you work hard to get to this place! we made it down and there was the sweetest friendliest dog on the island to greet us so that made it all worth it. that and the GORGEOUS view! the place seemed deserted; there was only one guest sleeping on a lounge chair on the porch and 3 staff members. so we basically had the place to ourselves! we got fruit and hung out on the lounge chairs and just enjoyed the view for a while.

later we went down some stairs to the water but again- it was too rocky and wavey. jens got in but i was too chicken. he didn't snorkel long though because he said the waves kept pushing him into rocks and there was some trash he kept thinking were jelly fish and it freaked him out lol plus his snorkel kept filling with water for some reason (it was cheap) so he got out and we decided to ask the staff to call us a different taxi and we'd just go back and tell the other taxi guy nevermind.

overall it was nice to see that resort and bay. it was really beautiful but such a shame to see the trash in the water and on the rocks :o( i dunno if it's the locals or the tourist who are throwing their trash on the ground and in the water or both but it's uncalled for. i wish they could get a cleanup crew and more signs and trash cans around to encourage people not to litter. one obstacle is that whatever can't be burned has to be taken off the island for processing or land filling. so that's a lot of plastic, glass, metal, etc. that has to be taken away.

anyway- i'm making this too long! gotta go soon!

we dangerously taxied back to our beach and tried snorkeling there but then MY snorkel kept filling with water and both my feet cramped up from using the fins so snorkeling that day was kind of a bust. we saw a wonderful sunset though! absolutely gorgeous!

we showered and then went to dinner at portobello- a mediterranean/italian restaurant and it was to die for!!!! SO GOOD! we got bread with various dips: olive tapenade, aioli and veggie dip; tagliatelle with blue cheese sauce and italian ham, tagliatelle with mediterranean vegetables and basil pesto, salad, red wine, espresso and a delicious creme brulee. OOO LA LA! amazing! lol

i know it's weird not to just eat thai food in thailand but we haven't had a lot of different foods since we've been living in korea so we wanna eat all kinds of food! Po:

i do think it's pretty crazy that you can get that quality of italian food on tiny ko tao and you can't even get decent cheese in korea! c'mon korea! get with it! lol i won't have to put up with it much longer though so whatever lol

after dinner we were so stuff and sleepy that we just went back to the bungalow lol

Day 23 - today!

breakfast at new heaven - apple black currant smoothie, coffee, apple coffee cake, breakfast burrito, surprisingly good salad, and fruit plate!

bought new snorkels.

now i'm interneting and later we'll snorkel at jansom bay. hope it's good!

Night of the 18th - Day 19 Ko Samui

2010-01-21T04:56:00.000-08:00

Night of the 18th

after interneting we went to find a couple bars and restaurants i had looked up online that were supposed to be in the hat lemai area. we ended up finding a few streets packed with all sorts of shops, bars and restaurants.

jens wanted to walk out to the beach there and find that "freak party on earth" lol (yes it was actually "freak", not "freakest"). it was basically a fairly large field with beer tents around the perimeter and a some people milling about and drinking. they were playing techno music really loud but no one was dancing. the only interesting part was the fire dancers. we watched them for a while and then went to a beach bar. i'm sure the party picked up more later in the night but they weren't playing music we liked and the drinks were actually more expensive than other places so we never went back.

the beach bar we went to was called "the beach bar" lol they had lounge chairs and tables on the beach and drinks and sheesha for sale so we go some of both, hung out, chatted and looked up at the stars. after a while we realized there were bats flying overhead! pretty cool!

after that we went back to the road, walked down the street and came across shamrock bar where the amazing ovada show band was performing! they were truly, truly amazing! they're from the philippines and there's two women and 3 guys in it. the older woman plays the electric guitar like i have never seen in person in my entire life. she made me enjoy songs i had never ever been able to enjoy before lol examples: freebird and some song by rage against the machine. she totally blew our minds with her amazing skills lol the other part i liked about the band was the two woman would do these sincronized dance moves while they sang and played their instruments. it was awesome! i got lots of pics and video :o)

i googled them later and they have their own website. apparently they're family and they've been performing together all over asia for 22 years! they have 800 cover songs in their repertoir and mainly play at touristy places where people want to hear songs they know. they take requests. i think it's only $500 to book them! wish we could get them to perform at one of our parties in the states! lol we'd probably have to pay their airfare and that'd be way too much :oP

anyway before we left i wanted to get some more pictures closer up. i was trying to be discrete but then this german dude (who owned the bar??) came up and wanted me to go up on stage while they were performing to get a pic! i was like no way! he kept pushing me and saying it's fine, no problem! and i was like noooo lol finally the male bassist came over to the edge and let me take a pic with him while he played and then i went in front of the stage and got pics of the ladies lol

it was a great night! most definitely my favorite thing that we've experiences on ko samui!

Day 19 - very laid back

we just ate and tried to go snorkeling.

we drove down to the end of our beach to a rocky area where someone had said there was good snorkeling but we only saw like two brown fish lol got some good pictures of the rocks, ocean and two different beaches though :o)

we went swimming right outside our bungalow and the water was nice. very calm, clear, luke warm. this german woman went topless the whole time she was on the beach with her husband and son and quite a few people were around. didn't phase her at all. it's amazing the difference between the european and american mentality about nudity! i wish america was more like europe in that respect. i wish people wouldn't freak out so much about nudity like they did with janet jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" - as if seeing a nipple slip is gonna scar someone for life lol

anyway after swimming i got a foot massage and pedicure right on the beach in this little pagoda type thing. it was great.

then jens and i took a walk on the beach, showered and went to dinner. we had indian and it was wonderful!

now we're interneting and we're gonna go back to shamrock tonight and see a different band. unfortunately ovada is performing on another part of the island tonight :o/ but maybe the band they have tonight will be really good too! plus they have cider on tap!

tomorrow we go to ko tao!

goodnight!

Day 17 and 18 Ko Samui

2010-01-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

Day 17

"breakfast appetizer" - espresso and fruit on our bungalow porch (we ordered at the main restaurant area and took it to our porch). then we hung out at a table in the restaurant overlooking the beach and each had yogurt with muesli and fruit Po: yum!

the beach looked beautiful in the daylight! it's really long with clear blue waters and white sand!

back to the bungalow porch for reading, then i took a nap.

walked down the beach to find a place for lunch. there are surprisingly few bungalows and restaurants on our beach (hat lemai). so we went to the road and searched some more but there still weren't very many!

we came across a huge, fancy, western-style shopping center with a coffee shop, restaurants and shops but those places were too expensive for us. we did go into the western grocery store though! omg all my "expat" friends in korea would have thought they had died and gone to heaven! lol it's amazing all the western foods they had on this little island and you can't even get a plain old block of cheddar cheese in mokpo, south korea lol we drooled around the store some and went looking for an afforable place to eat lol

we came across a really barebones place and got pad thai and a beer. it was good!

we walked down the road some and found a little place called siam art bar. it's really tiny and they have big colorful painting of buddha heads and dragon faces all over...i guess they're for sale, i didn't ask. we noticed the place because it had a sandwich board outside advertising mojitos! that's like our favorite drink so we had to try them. while we were waiting for them a german expat said that place was famous for the mojitos and i can see why. they were great! we hung out on a cushion on the porch and drank them while watching the traffic go by. after a while a dog mosied up and laid down with his head on jens's shoes lol there's lots of fairly large dogs here and they all just lounge about and let you pet them :o) it's great!

after a while we decided to go back to the beach and swim. the water was a bit cold (the sun was going down at this point) but it was really clear! one thing i really like about hat lemai is there aren't many people there. i think we were 2 of 3 people in that water that afternoon lol there were more suntanning on the beach but not too many.

after a shower we walked down the beach to eat at a beachfront restaurant we had seen earlier in the day. they had really colorful, comfortable lounge chairs and long tables between them right on the beach so we grabbed one of those and ordered red snapper with garlic peppercorn sauce. it came with a potato and a trip to the salad bar. it was a pretty simple salad bar but good nonetheless. the fish was great and afterwards we got drinks and just hung out under the stars :o)

Day 18 - explored the island

we got up late and drove a rented scooter to coffee world (which is in that huge western style shopping center) for breakfast. we got a ham and cheese panini and a strawberry belgian waffle with coffee. we ate it all out on the porch in a comfy couch. it was all pretty good. the panini was better than the waffle though. they had free internet there so i checked email and posted the previous entry on this journal you see here.

then we drove to hat chaweng which is the more "happenin'" place to be but we didn't like it that much. it's basically a small city complete with regular businesses like paint stores, furniture stores, a huge tesco grocery store (like walmart), tons of people and tons of scooters and cars. it was a bit hectic. we looked in a bunch of shops for a hammock cuz we wanna get one to take back home but never could find one. i was starving by that point so we stopped at the first place we saw for lunch- it was a falafel stand which we figured out was in the jewish quarter...yes ko samui, thailand has a jewish quarter lol the menu was all in hebrew and they played songs about elohim but the falafel was good! :o)

after that we went to the actual beach. it was pretty crowded. not too bad but definitely more people than at hat lemai. we slathered on sunblock and went in the water. there were some pretty big waves! jens was hesitant to go to this beach because he thought - why not just go to hat lemai since there's less people? but hat lemai has no waves to speak of and chaweng does- so that was a good reason to swim there. we had a ton of fun riding all the waves and were pretty exhausted by the end of it.

on our way back we wanted to search a little more for a hammock and ended up on some bumpy dirt back roads lol saw a water buffalo, some fields and 3 girls crammed on a scooter. then we came across a reggae bar that looked awesome! it was another one of those completely haphazerdly created "buildings" lol completely open to the elements, diff. tables and chairs all over, different levels, a tattoo "knook", columns somehow made of used beer cans and spirit bottles. it was awesome and we wanted to stay for a drink but we couldn't find the owner lol we looked all over and there was nary a soul in sight! so we left. may go back some other time, later in the day lol

we drove back to our place after that, took a shower and had dinner at our bungalow. we got noddles fried with chicken, veggies and basil chili sauce and some spring rolls and it was all pretty good.

now here we are in the internet cafe. it's a really nice one! nicest one i've seen in s.e. asia! lol i don't think it even has a name though...

after this we may go to this party we heard about earlier in the day. several trucks went by blasting music and an announcement for the "freakest party on earth!" lol "we love ko samui!" very weird but we may check it out...it's on our beach!

we just have one more full day here and i think we're cool with that. it's a little too busy for us right now. we're gonna head to ko tao day after tomorrow. it's supposed to be more laid back and have great snorkeling! by the way we bought our own snorkeling gear for pretty cheap so now we can snorkel wherever whenever we want!

after ko tao it's ko pha ngan where we have a beach front bungalow booked. we'll probably just chill and snorkel til it's time to go to bangkok!

goodnight!

Day 14 - 16 malaysia to thailand

2010-01-19T19:30:00.000-08:00

alright- time to pick up where i left off! hopefully i can get you all updated to today's date.

Day 14

breakfast at hostel - eggs, toast and a mango we got at a fruit stand.

post office- shipped some gifts and books we had finished home. don't wanna carry them all over the peninsula! lol

arab district (or rather the muslim district)- really cute and quaint! 2 of the streets were pedestrian only and had colonial style shops and restaurants all up and down. there's a huge mosque near the center that was really pretty but we didn't go in (i don't know if we could have actually...it's a working temple and we heard the call to prayer while we were there.)

lunch- mutton kebab, fries, prata, veg. curry. overall pretty good but not great. it was interesting because we went there expecting to see mostly arab people, food, etc. but it's actually a big mix of peoples, foods, etc. from countries who have a large muslim population- middle east, indonesia, malaysia, etc. it was cool to see the cultures mixing.

after lunch jens hung out at lovely little coffee shop while i shopped around. they had lots of cute things but i settles on two pretty throw pillow cases and a table cloth.

next we went to the botanic gardens which were wonderful! they didn't have as many flowers as i expected (but we didn't go through the entire huge park so i'm not sure) but it was really, really green! there were all kinds of huge trees, two ponds, swans, a rainforest section and a huge green field for picnics. we just roamed around and took pictures. there was a wedding going on so we saw the bride and groom getting pics. and lots of people had their dogs there so we loved on as many as we could! we miss our puppies! the things i liked about this park the most were it's free, it's beautiful and all kinds of people go there to hang out and enjoy nature. it's so diverse!

we got a snack of samosas and ice cream and hung out on the green watching people. then we headed to chinatown! it was HUGE! lots of people and shops and cafes and colors and mayhem! they had big decorations up over the roads, including tons of fake cherry trees! lol i assume that was all for the upcoming chinese new year.

we got a boba milk tea and just let the crowd take us around. there was a hindu temple i wanted to see in that area but when we got to it it was all covered for renovation! that's the 2nd hindu temple that i tried to see and it was covered! i'm thinking it must be something they do at the beginning of each year...

we knew there was another hindu temple in little indian so we rushed back over there to try and see it before it was dark. well the sun just went down before we got there but i think i still got some good pics. it was lit here and there. i felt a little awkward taking pics though because it's a working temple and many people were coming in and out to pray. i think they're used to tourists though because they didn't seemed phased by me at all. i tried to be discreet. anyway, hindu temples are amazing! so colorful and SO many figures carved into the roof and walls. i think i like them the most out of any other religion's temples.

for dinner we decided to go to the same food court stall we went to for lunch on the first day because it was so good! we got chicken biriyani and a big tiger beer. so yummy!

then it was time to go back and get a good night's rest for our harrowing 48 hours or so of travel to thailand lol on the way we stopped by a place and got some chai to take back and drink while we read in our room. they put it in bags with a little handle and a straw! lol it was so funny but practical. only thing is you can't ever sit the thing down lol

Day 15 - singapore to kuala lumpur, malaysia

got up, packed and left the hostel. we were planning on eating a quick breakfast there but the smells of indian food were so wonderful we decided we had to eat it one more time! lol we ran over to the only restaurant open and got a cheese prata (indian cheese), a murtabak (kind of like an indian breakfast burrito) and chai. so yummy!

after that we took a small van to the big double-decker luxury bus we'd be taking to KL. it was pretty nice! we sat on the second level and they had nice roomy seats that reclined and a tv screen in the back of every headrest. i watched a movie called "the perfect getaway" - a thriller with a twist! it was pretty crazy! lol

when we got to the singapore/malay border we had to get off the bus, get our bags and go through immigration and customs. it was weird. i had never done an overland border crossing. they're MUCH less strict than airport security!

the bus took like 5 hours or something. i can't remember. then we had an afternoon/evening in kl.

we had subway for lunch- underwhelming as usual. i was just in the mood for something familiar and somewhat healthy though.

hung out at gloria jean's outdoor coffee shop for a few hours reading.

i have to say that s.e. asia has totally blown the "loud, obnoxious american traveler" out of the water! we've only met like 2 americans on this trip (one of which has been living in paris for 30 years so he doesn't really count lol) and i tell you what- i've encountered SO MANY loud, obnoxious travelers from other countries that i have no idea how america got such a bad rap lol when we were hanging out at that coffee shop this middle-eastern looking guy was YELLING his entire conversation at his friend who was 2 feet away lol he didn't seem angry he was just incredibly loud! i had ear plugs in AND i was sitting like 40 feet away and he was still to loud! i kept looking over there like what the heck man? i didn't seem to get the picture. THEN this guy sitting right behind jens kept singing to his girlfriend off and on the whole time we were sitting there lol i dunno where he was from but he wasn't american. and i can't tell you all the times we've been somewhere and some non-english speaking people were talking entirely too loud! lol so that stereotype about americans actually applies to people from all countries. every country has loud, obnoxious people lol

anyway! later we went to an internet cafe and then dinner at a macrobiotic cafe. i had never been too one. the idea is to eat food as close to its original form as possible. i got brown rice with veggies, possibly dried tofu (?) and a really yummy peanut sauce. it was great! jens got udon noodles with veggies. i think we were both happy to eat something really healthy after eating out so much. when you go on vacation you tend to want to have big fancy rich meals at every meal simply because they're available. but when you go on vacation for 2 whole months you have to watch it and try to eat plenty of fruits, veggies and whole grains to stay healthy and not feel sick :oP

after dinner we went to the train station and the train was delayed. i think we got on it at about 10pm. it was the same as the last night train we took. we both had top bunks across from each other. we just settled in and read til we fell asleep. we both slept really well! i guess the train rocks you to sleep lol

Day 16 - malaysia to thailand

we got to sleep fairly late and then we stopped to go through immigration. we left our bags on the train because the last time we did an overland border crossing we made two stops- one for us to leave one country and another to enter the next country and have our bags checked. well at the malay thai border you do it all at once lol no one ever asked us about our bags though lol like i said they're much more lenient at the overland crossings. we had just finished going through immi and customs with we saw the train leaving!!! we were like whaaaaat? i ran up to a guy and asked and he said it'd be back in 20 mins. WHEW! lol i have no idea where it went or why but i did come back.

so we got back on the train and made our way to hat yai, thailand. before the train even stopped some touts were on it asking people if they needed transport. we fended them off and best we could until we ran into one guy outside the train station and he said there was a bus company across the street. we thought we'd at least check it out so we went over and they said they sold combination tickets for the bus and ferry to ko samui (the island we were going to). it was a good price so we took it.

we got a quick lunch at a local place- fried noodles- and then we hopped in the tiniest pick-up truck i've ever seen! lol we sat in seats that had been put in the truck bed and we had a little roof over us. it was really fun to ride that way and see all of the town as we passed by.

we made it to the bus station and the bus wasn't AS nice as the picture had been but still decent. it wasn't very full so jens and i split up and took two seats each to spread out (a lot of other people did that too). i read a little and then i laid down for a nap. i had just gotten comfortable when the "bus mistress" as i call her started yelling something out over and over. i had no idea what she was saying so i just tried to go to sleep. well she walked by and accidentally (i hope) knocked the armrest down on my head! i pushed it back up and was gonna try to go to sleep again when she motioned to me rather frankly to sit up! i thought she meant i couldn't lie down but a min. later everyone on the bus (except jens and i) stood up in the aisle and got off the bus! lol thankfully a nice man who was getting off said "bus change".

i thought good grief! good thing he said something! that bus mistress isn't very helpful! so we got off and i took the opportunity to get our reese's peanut butter cups out of our big bag (since that was the only snack we had and it was a long ride). well that made us get on the new bus last and we had to sit right in the line of the bathroom which stank to high heaven lol after we got going we noticed two seats at the very front were empty so we went up there and sat down. right as i got to the seat thought he bus lurched and i was almost through down the stairs at the front of the bus!!! lol (we were on the second level you see). it was kind of embarrassing but pretty funny so i just laughed it off. we could see bus mistress on the first level through this little window and i saw her motion to us a couple times. i think she was pissed that we moved. but we just thought- whatever lady! we're not smelling a toilet for the next 5 hours lol ...yes that's right- FIVE MORE HOURS to suryat thani to catch the ferry.

the bus ride was horrible. really long, uncomfortable and the crew kept stopping for gas and snacks for themselves and they played this loud thai movie the whole time (with no english subtitles). i think we got gas 4 times! we were an hour and a half late for the ferry so we had to take the next one.

they wouldn't let us get our bags off the bus at first and wouldn't tell us why. they tried to act like they didn't know english but i knew the bus mistress knew some at least. a couple different times she had deigned to speak a few words.

so we went to the ferry terminal coffee shop and then went back to get our bags. they still didn't wanna give them to us but jens insisted so they let him get them. we got on the ferry and we were discussing why we thought they were keeping our bags. some cars and trucks were driving onto the ferry and we thought- surely they're not going to put that double-decker bus on here just to carry our bags to the island??? are they??? wait they are!!! insane! they loaded like 2 or 3 double decker buses onto this ferry! no telling how much that slowed down our speed to the island!

i think the ferry ride was about an hour and a half. we got to the island at dark. but again- there was a tout on the ferry asking people if they wanted to take his van to the other side of the island to where we were all staying. it was a good price and several other people had signed up for it to so we bought tickets. when we got to the island we got off and thankfully found the guy who had sold us the van tickets lol also thankfully the van was really nice and air conditioned and it took us straight to our bungalows! :o) you have to take leaps of faith a lot in s.e. asia lol

we're staying at beer's house bungalows. it's owned buy a thai couple named ben and muk (muk's the guy) and they supposedly have two kids named beer and wine lol i haven't seen them but that's what it said in the lonely planet! they also have two cute little dogs. one looks like a cross between a chihuahua and a mouse deer lol acts about as skiddish as a mouse deer too. and they have a smaller dog that looks like a full bred chihuahu (which i'll call chichi for short) and he's not very nice. mousedeer was skiddish as first but once we pet him he didn't want us to stop lol chichi on the other hand snapped at jens when he tried to pet him the little turd lol there are a lot of sweet dogs on this island though and we love it! we're major dog people :o)

our bungalow is super cute! all wood and woven bamboo. there's a big porch on the front with a long bench, a chair, a table and a hammock! we love the hammock! we not in the first row of bungalows that face the beach but we're on the 2nd row and there's a path straight from our bungalow to the beach so we can still see the water and hear the waves from our porch. so nice! inside there's a full-size bed, table and shelf with an attached bathroom with hot water. love it!

we ran out and looked at the beach but couldn't tell much it being night. then we ate dinner at our bungalow's restaurant. i got yellow curry with shrimp and pineapple and jens got green curry with veggies. both came with rice and two drink jens got a beer and i got a $5 singapore sling to compare it to the $20 one i got in singapore lol i must say it was NOT as good. they put too much grenadine in it or something and it was WAY sour :oP the food was great though!

it was wonderful to finally be on the beach after our harrowling journey! we probably appreciated it much more having gone through all that we did lol vans, trains, buses, mini pickup truck taxi, ferry, touts, bad food, annoying people, etc. lol

alright i'd better go! time to explore this island! i'll update more later! :o)

Night 10 - Day 13 Malaysia to Singapore

2010-01-17T01:49:00.000-08:00

Night 10 was great!

we decided to go to babylon for a sundowner and ended up seeing niamh (somehow pronounced neeve). she's the irish woman who works at zackry's guesthouse where we stayed on langkawi. when i met her the first day i knew i liked her but we never got to chat until our last night. but boy did we make up for it lol we talked to her for 4 hours on the beach...so long that we almost missed out on dinner lol most places stop serving at 10pm lol

i won't go into all the details here because i have a lot to update on but i'll give you the jist. she told us some really interesting stories about when she traveled around the world in her twenties (including 30 states in the u.s.!) and about how she came to live on langkawi. she said she was volunteering in vietnam with her brother-in-law 7 years ago, came to langkawi for a vacation afterwards, went back to ireland and turned right around and came back to langkawi because she loved it so much! lol she's been there ever since and is engaged to a malay man. they think they'll settle in ireland or spain.

anyway she was SUPER friendly and fun to talk to. i feel like i've known her my whole life now and i hope to see her again. who knows- maybe we'll visit her in ireland or spain or she might come to texas because her sister married a texan! :o)

after hanging out with her it was too late to go to the malay place we were gonna go to for dinner so we just went to the irish pub and had a cheeseburger and fish and chips lol

it was a great night and made me not wanna leave langkawi- i'll miss it!

Day 11 - flew to singapore

I LOVED SINGAPORE!!!! it was sooo nice! the weather was perfect (and barely changes year-round since it's so close to the equator), it's really diverse which makes things interesting, it's got great urban planning and it's SO CLEAN! people were even sweeping LEAVES off the sidewalk! in the rest of southeast asia you're lucky if they sweep anything...ever lol

we stayed in little india which was AWESOME! i've never been to india but i felt like it was like going there without the danger of getting sick lol it was great! we stayed at "the inncrowd". the main building is a hostel with a kitchen, lounge and internet area but our private room was in a different building down the street and around the corner. the room was nice enough. it had a bunk bed with a double on bottom and a twin on top, cute sheets, cute paint job on the walls, a lamp and a really nice tv that only plays dvds. there were shared bathrooms upstairs. the things i didn't like about this place were as follows: the guy who checked us in gave us no towels, no top sheet and didn't tell us the tv only worked with dvds (or even how to turn on the tv which we could't figure out). we had to ask about all of these things over the course of the 4 days. the worst thing was the top sheet because the room had aircon which was too cold to sleep with without a top sheet but there was no fan or window so we burned up if we didn't use the aircon. we assumed that they would have told us if top sheets were available so we didn't ask about them til the last day and they did in fact have them for free! lol i was so frustrated because we had 3 bad night's sleep because of that. the things i didn't like about the bathrooms were: they built the toilets so close to the stall door that you could fit your legs in between lol and they didn't tell us how to work the hot water so the first time we took a shower it was freezing! lol

other than all that though it was ok lol the bed was pretty comfy, everything was clean, we got free internet for 30 mins. per day, there was free breakfast of hard-boiled eggs, toast, tea and coffee and the place was very stylish. they also helped us with info about buses, etc. and they let you watch a selection of dvds for free. overall not horrible :o)

little india was really cool though as i said. there was a market along one street with fresh veggies, fruits, clothes, etc. for sale. people everywhere and WONDERFUL smells throughout- curry, incense, flowers, etc. it was really fun walking through there! there was a tamil festival going on during our entire stay called pongal. it's their harvest festival. they had concerts everynight, food specials at the restaurants and cows people could pray to and take pictures with. one day i got the pongal special set at one of the restaurants and it was really good! pongal is also a type of rice dish- it's like mashed rice with lentils and spices, sometimes milk. it's really good!

our first meal was in an outdoor food court type place which are all over singapore. it's just a bunch of food stalls all in a row which they call food hawkers. there was ALL kinds of food- indian, chinese, malay, korean, indonesian, etc. we got indian chicken biriyani with an iced milk tea. it was SO GOOD! we got a huge plate of rice with a piece of chicken and some curry, plus the drink for like $4 u.s. that's when singapore totally won me over! lol

after lunch we walked down orchard street which is like a huge rodeo drive with giant designer stores all up and down it- chanel, louis vuitton, gucci, etc. it was pretty crazy! there were also like 10 starbucks on this one street lol we stopped in singapore's biggest bookstore and spent a couple hours in there looking around. it was awesome to go in an english bookstore again! that's another thing- everyone speaks english in singapore really well...i don't know if it's their national language but it's at least the second language which made things really easy and relaxing. it took us a while to get used to it though lol we still spoke in "korea english" for a while lol

for dinner we went to a really nice food court on orchard road and got chinese that was pretty good- it didn't compare to that indian though! lol

after dinner we just hung out in an outdoor starbuck's and read til we got tired and went back to the hostel.

Day 12 - the zoo!

singapore has the most amazing zoo i have ever been too! it has open concept habitats for the animals so many of them are in completely open habitat where they could jump out at you but they don't. somehow they train them to stay in their habitats. the good thing about it is you can get really close to them and get great pics! they of course keep the really dangerous animals in the type of habitats we use in the states. for example the lions on in a big open, natural looking habitat high up but there's a big fence and ditch between you and them.

they had most of the usual animals you see but my favorite was the primates- especially the proboscis monkeys! i had never seen them before and the singapore zoo has the most of any zoo in the world. they're really funny looking because they have really big noses- some of them look almost human!

another cool part was the rainforest section where they had these pretty blue chicken-like birds that roamed around, flying foxes, mouse deer, lemurs, butterflies, etc. we got really close to most of these creatures because it was feeding time and the put the food out where you can see them eat. i was surprised how the animals weren't scared of us. in all other asian zoos i've been in the animals are terrified and down right aggressive towards people because the people they've had contact with have been aggressive toward them. it seems people who live in or go to singapore are a little more aware of how animals should be treated though.

this zoo also had the best zoo food i've ever eaten! we got an indian set meal with rice and curries and a papdam! delicious! they also had TWO ben and jerry's ice cream shops! we definitely got in on that! ;o)

after the zoo i got that pongal special for dinner and jens got a masala dosai which we didn't know would be so huge! lol it's like a giant crepe but thinner and crispier. it came with curried mashed potatoes inside. we were stuffed after that! we went to the prince of whales bar for happy hour and to see the live music but the guy didn't start playing til we were almost done with our drinks so we didn't listen long. but it was a good night!

Day 13 - walking everywhere!

breakfast- indian! the indian food was so good in singapore i wanted to eat it as much as possible! lol i got chapati with curry and jens got dosai with curry- yum!

then we walked to the famous raffles hotel! it's huge and white and in the colonial style of architecture. very big and beautiful. there are shops and restaurants all around. we peeked in at the long bar where they sell the famous sinagpore sling and vowed to get one later that night.

then we wanted to walk around the colonial district but we got lost in this HUGE "shopping city" called suntec. jens read it's bigger than little indian and arab town put together! i believe it! we liked to have never gotten out of there! singapore's consumer culture started to really get to us at that point lol

we finally found the colonial district and but it was lunch time and we wanted to get into the art museum during the free time (12-2p) so we had to hurry. we got pad thai in a food court and rushed over to the museum but the guy said they stopped having free admission during those hours this year lol but it was free from 6-9p so we decided to go back later.

we roamed around some more and found came across a firefighter museum- it was free so we looked around and took pics for our dads :o)

then we hung out at a coffee shop til it was time for free admission at the museum. the museum was really nice. it's built in the colonial style too. most of the exhibits were philippino modern art but i kinda wanted to see more art from the s.e. asian peninsula since that's where we're traveling. the art we saw was awesome though. i got some pics!

after that we went to the long bar and had the famous singapore sling for $28.50 singaporean dollars!!! that's about $20 u.s.! pretty insane but it's something you just gotta do! lol the bar was super nice and the drink was good...just not $20 good lol

we made up for it by having a cheap indian dinner at a food court- it was delicious again!

ah! i have to stop now! we gotta eat dinner in time to catch the night train to thailand! hopefully i can finish updating about singapore in the next couple days! bye!

Day 9 and 10

2010-01-11T21:59:00.000-08:00

well i'm getting kind of tired of writing about every little detail of our trip lol especially when i have to use internet cafes or guesthouse computers that other people are waiting on. so i think i'll try to pare down my entries but still give you the good stuff :o)

Day 9 - SNORKELING!

we went on a snorkeling trip with a bunch of other people booked through a company. we took a big boat out to pulau payar (payar island), they gave us the gear and then we were free to hang out on the beach and go out and snorkel whenever we wanted.

we snorkeled for two hours, ate a crappy lunch provided by the company and then snorkeled for two more hours! it was awesome!!!!

we had only snorkeled one other time on gilli meno in indonesia. that was cool but the water around pulau payar had WAY more fish! plus sharks! i bought a waterproof disposable camera so i could take pics of the fish, sharks and coral. unfortunately i took all the pics before i saw a shark lol but i took digital pics of the sharks from above the water though and those turned out pretty well.

there were SO MANY different colorful fish! all colors of the rainbow, all shapes and sizes. the sharks were brown and 1-4 feet long. they really freaked me out when i first started swimming with them but they don't bother you.

the day really flew by because we were having so much fun! at the end of the day a few people fed fish and sharks right at the shore line and i got some good pics and video.

the whole day was GREAT!

Day 10 - CABLE CAR

we finally took the cable car up to the top of one of the highest mountains on the island today. it's the thing to do. it's the highest we have EVER gone in a cable car and it really freaked me out!!! lol so scary! but we made it up and down without dying so that's something lol the view was amazing! we could see other mountains, beaches, the ocean, island and thailand!!! we were about 710 meters high- it was really awesome.

side note about monkeys:

they have wild monkeys here on the island and when we're been driving around sometimes we'll see them cross the road in a big group! also when we went to the waterfalls we could see the monkeys in the trees and at one point they came down and got a bunch of trash out of the trash can lol little monkeys were every where licking the inside of chips bags and coke cans lol probably not healthy but so funny. i love monkeys!

anyway,
this is our last day on langkawi. we're gonna eat malay for dinner and go to our favorite bar- babylon!

tomorrow we fly to SINGAPORE! WOOHOO! until then! goodbye!

End of Day 5, Day 6, 7 and 8

2010-01-10T03:17:00.000-08:00

End of Day 5 (still on Langkawi):

dinner - fat mum
thought it was malaysian but it ended up being chinese. there was an upstairs open air level with a good view but the music was horrible lol it was an asian woman singing rhinestone cowboy that kept skipping lol we told the owner and he was like "i know" lol so we had to ask him to change it. the food was pretty good. we got curry crab, chili garlic shrimp and pineapple fried rice. only drawback was that the crab was tiny.

after dinner we went to babylon bar on the beach to hear a reggae band but they took like 2 hours to start- island time i guess lol they were good though. we got drinks and danced :o) some other people danced too, including a tiny little 1-2 year old native boy- so adorable!!!

after a while we went out to the water and stuck our toes in in the dark and then came back to the room.

Day 6

breakfast was at cactus. i got roti jalla (which was really good! i wanna learn how to make it...http://rasamalaysia.com/roti-jala-recipe-and-reintroducing-a1/) and jens got baguette slices with various things on them.

then we hopped on the scooter and ran a few "errands" - internet cafe to call and make sure our u.s. debit cards were activated because they weren't working, various rent-a-car places to get prices for the next day, etc.

we had a late lunch at the arabic cafe - falafel, hummus and fattoush. yum!

went back to the hotel and took a nap.

when i got up i went and had a pedicure at yuan spa. very nice and relaxing. they had an adorable little doberman mix puppy! made me miss my puppies!

dinner was at sheela's near our guesthouse. it was a pretty little place with outdoor dining but there were no tables outside so we sat inside. it was nice too. the food was AWESOME! we got mee keow teow - panfried flat noodles with chicken, veggies, cilantro and lime. it was soooo good! definitely going to have to eat there again!

Day 7

i hadn't driven in about a year and for some reason i really had an urge to do so lol plus they drive on the left side of the road here in malaysia and i felt that was something i needed to do in my lifetime so we rented a car! it was a little white 4-door. don't remember the brand but it was fairly new. jens drove it to breakfast because he showed them his d.l. since i lost mine a while back and we didn't want them asking for mine lol

breakfast was at garden tomato. we got the garden special omelet this time with a fruit plate. de-lish! i love that place. wish there was one in mokpo and in arlington lol

then we drove to kuah to go to an atm and try our debit cards. i tried mine twice with the pin i thought i needed to use and it didn't work so i tried a 3rd time with a different pin and it ate my card!!! thank goodness both of jens's cards work (u.s. and korean debit cards). i'm really mad because i spent about an hour on skype with our bank in the wee hours of the night a few months ago setting up our cards and pins, etc. apparently mine wasn't set up at all...in fact it must have been canceled or something. i'm not going to bother with getting a new one til we get back and i may just change banks. i don't like having an account there because they barely have any atms in arlington...let alone the rest of the world.

anyway, driving on the left was fun! not too hard! the main problem i had was reaching for the gear shift on the right to put it in park, drive or reverse lol AND i kept turning the windshield wipers on when i meant to do the turn signal lol

we drove all around the island. it's kinda big! jens said we drove 80 miles that day! there were lush green mountains, coconut trees, rice fields, cows, decrepit houses, lots of people on scooters, kids on bikes, tiny restaurants and shops, mosques, etc. it was cool to see more of the island.

we stopped at something called the gallery but it ended up being a place to showcase all the gifts the prime minister had received. we weren't interested so we moved on. we went to the craft center which we thought would be like a museum but it was just a huge glorified souvenir shop lol the best things we saw were the beaches and the waterfalls. we saw the beach near the four seasons hotel which was all white sand, blue water and islands out in the sea. gorgeous! we walked into the water a bit and saw lots of fish and crabs! i wasn't too keen to swim with them so we moved on. we also saw the black sand beach which wasn't all black sand but about half and half. i was surprised how soft the black sand was! the beach was a bit littered though so we didn't swim there either.

we went to one waterfall that was pretty deserted. i think it's the dry season so the waterfall is smaller than usual and therefore there aren't many tourists but it was good enough for us! we walked up a bunch of rugged rock stairs to get there and there was lush vegetation all around including banana trees that grow actual bananas! lol we got up to the waterfall and the view was great! the fall wasn't huge but it wasn't too shabby either. there was a small pool at the bottom and a bunch of teenage malay girls were playing in it. at one point they all lined up sitting in the pool and washed each others' hair lol it was funny. we didn't have our bathing suits on and didn't feel like getting our clothes wet so we just waded a bit and then hung out on the rocks.

when we got back down the stairs i noticed i had a tiny leech on my heel! i couldn't get it off but fortunately the lady working the cafe helped me. she got some cream on a tissue and took it right off. it didn't hurt at all so that was good! we decided to get a small lunch from the cafe. we show mee keow teow (what we had eaten the night before) because we wanted to compare the quality. it was $3 the night before and it was only $1 at this cafe but it was still great!! i was shocked! we washed it down with a fresh young coconut. the lady just hacked it open with a machete and put a couple straws in it. ah southeat asia! lol

the other waterfall we went to was called 7 wells because the water pools up in 7 wells. the climb up was horrendous! it was the hottest part of the day, i forgot to put my hair up and i was sweating like crazy with no tissue to wipe my face lol needless to say i did not prepare lol we got to the top and there several little pools to swim in and what looked like a natural water slide. we didn't realize you could swim there so we still didn't have our suits on - they were like 1000 stairs down in the car lol jens was wearing really lightweight shorts so of course he jumped right in but i was wearing jean shorts so i really didn't wanna get in. a malay dad showed up with his twin sons and a daughter and they all got in and started sliding down the natural water slide. jens did too and it looked really fun so i finally got in! lol i thought the slide would hurt or go too fast but it was actually REALLY smooth and you could control how fast you went down. at the end of the slide it was like a whirlpool! we ended up playing in the water for 2 hours or so and i was worried we'd get sunburned since we ALSO didn't have sunscreen on (not knowing we'd be in the sun that long and again, it was all the way down in the car) but thankfully we only got very slightly pink. it was TONS of fun! best part of the day! :oD the view was gorgeous too. can't wait to upload the pics for everyone to see!

after that we headed back to our part of the island and went straight to babylon bar on the beach to get some drinks and watch the sun go down. it was beautiful!

dinner was at champor champor (again), another place i love. it has great atmosphere and wonderful food! we got the coconut breaded calamari again with an entree of citrus couscous and spicy lamb cubes. delicious! for dessert we got the black rice pudding with bananas and coconut milk- mmmm another dish i want to make!

that was the end of that day!

Day 8

today was pretty laid back. we got up late, took the car back and went to brunch at little garden (a french style place). we got a ton of food! coffee, croque madame, an apple raisin crepe, a big fruit platter and a danish. we ate leisurely and then jens wrote a short story while i wrote in my journal, read my book and looked a magazine that was in the cafe. it was nice!

then we went back to the guesthouse and changed into our bathing suits for the beach. we needed to book our snorkeling trip for tomorrow so we did that and by that time it was about 3pm lol i was hungry again so we stopped at a little malay place and got teh (ice milk tea) and goreng sayur (veggie and egg fried rice). total = $1.50 and it was great!

then we went to the beach. the sun was lower in the sky today than the other day so it wasn't as hot but the water was really warm! after a fairly short swim we went up to babylon for drinks and reading. then we laid on the beach some more to sunbathe. i think i'm actually getting somewhat tan! lol the koreans are gonna hate it lol

after that we just came back to the g.h., took showers and here i am. i think we're gonna have pizza for dinner.

our favorite places so far are:
cactus
garden tomato
champor champor
and babylon!

i think we especially like babylon. it's so laid back. the whole place looks like it's made of a bunch of stuff that just washed up on the beach. the floor is sand, the benches are driftwood, the tables are driftwood or wire reels, there are cracked plastic chairs, big umbrellas over some tables, the roof is corrugated metal, the bar is wood and various other things like cow skulls, there's a stage for the reggae band that jams off and on, there's a didgeridoo that one guy can make some really weird sounds on lol, the drinks are great! they have some pretty good snacks and there's an adjoining "juice shack" which is basically a driftwood counter covered by a big umbrella. next to that there's the babylon shop which is an old decrepit vw bus, painted and filled with bar shirts, pretty dresses and pants, flipflops, etc. for sale. the whole place is just awesome! makes me wanna work there and live on the island forever lol

the cafes we like are all pretty rustic too but they have interesting decor and lots of green plants everywhere. i could see myself running one of those too and just being a permanent expat. we'll see ;o)

alright well i must go! goodnight!

End of Day 3, Day 4 and 5

2010-01-07T01:42:00.000-08:00

dinner on day 3 was amazing! we went to a place called champor champor. it had really eclectic decor and plants everywhere. we got thai curry fish with green beans, rice, coconut fried calimari and thai spring rolls, plus a few drinks. it was so good!

after dinner i went and got the WORST bikini wax EVER! don't worry, i won't go into it lol suffice it to say it ended the night lol

Day 4

Cactus Resto for breakfast. this time we got traditional malay breakfast. i got nasi lemak (chicken curry and rice, came with a fried egg and tea). jens got roti jala (weird bread thing i can't really describe lol plus a different kind of chicken curry and tea).

then we rented a scooter and drove around, went up to the mall and got a couple bathing suits for me (buy one get one free) and then we had an unfortunately bad indian lunch lol we were grateful it did not make us sick!

then we drove more, had juice and read at a cafe and then i went to a yoga class at the only yoga studio on the island. the yoga instructor is a really soft spoken irishman. he and his chinese-malay wife live in the yoga studio. they were both really nice and friendly. their studio/house is also really nice. it overlooks a beautiful view of a field, flowers and palm trees. jens went and wrote a story in a nearby cafe so it was just two of us for the class- me and a big british guy. i had never been in such a small yoga class before but it was kind of nice. felt like i was getting a private lesson lol it was also the longest class i've ever taken- 2 hours. but it was good because we could take our time and do lots of different things.

first we did relaxation, then pranayama (breathing exercises) then some traditional hatha asanas (the poses). it was a MAJOR workout for me because i pretty much hadn't done yoga in a year lol i was sweating like crazy! i loved the class though. i wanted to go everyday we were here but unfortunately they are going on a yoga retreat for the next 3 days. after the class we sat and chatted with them on their porch. it was soooo nice! made me want to become a yoga instructor on langkawi too lol

after that we headed straight for the beach to watch the sunset- it was beautiful!

then we went back to the guesthouse for showers and then went to dinner at debbie's irish pub. jens got irish stew that was just absolutely wonderful and i got a really yummy cheeseburger and fries Po: those are two things the average traveler might not get a hankering for on a tropical island but living in korea for the past 3 years will make you eat anything delicious at any opportunity lol no irish stew in korea unless i make it myself! lol (and even then it's a bit difficult to get the ingredients and it takes a while to cook).

jens heard there was live music at a bar down the street so we headed down there and got a couple drinks. the band was really skilled but the songs they chose to play were not our style :o/ it was kinda fun though :o)

Day 5 - today

it rained a lot this morning so we got a late start.

we had brunch at a really cute little place called tomato garden (run by a german woman) and i loved it! it was so busy when we got there that we had to share a table with this random german lady but she was really nice and we chatted until she finished her coffee and left. her husband has taught in different schools all over the world therefore they've lived in all different places. it sounded awesome! wish jens liked to teach ;o) lol our meal was a big plate of fruit and a "farmer's plate" - potatoes, eggs, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes and turkey ham (no pork on this muslim island) all scrambled together- awesome!!! it came with a homemade wheat roll on the side which is another thing that you can't get in korea. we enjoyed every bite of it! the coffee was good too. we stayed a while and read and ordered more of that yummy bread.

then we FINALLY headed to the beach to swim! i'm probably the whitest person in all of langkawi lol (that british guy in the yoga class even commented: you're quite pale randi lol) but i didn't really feel self-conscious because it's mostly european tourists here and boy do they let it ALL hang out lol you can't really feel bad about your looks around them ;o) but it's great! i wish americans would relax more in that area too!

the water was great! really warm on top and just slightly cooler underneath and the waves were calm. if you floated on your back you could stay in the warm part of the water and look up at the big blue sky and the fluffy white clouds. in the distance you could see big round-topped mountains, palm trees and other green things. sooooo glorious! lol everyone should make it a goal to go to a tropical island sometime...it's just one of those really wonderful things. i do without fancy cars and big screen tvs for the rest of my life if i knew i'd get to go to tropicals islands every now and then instead :o)

after swimming for quite some time we got out and went to this beach bar called babylon. it's really rustic- all wood and corrugated metal, lop-sided tables and old plastic chairs. we got two tiger beers and read til we felt like swimming again.

swam some more and came back to the bar to get juice of the adjoining "juice shack" run by a british lady. we also got some samosas from the bar. before we left i bought a pretty bohemian-style cotton dress from the british lady.

then we just came back to the guesthouse, took showers and here i am. now all we have to do is eat dinner. we might go back to babylon later to hear some live music.

we're extending our stay on langkawi so we can just fly straight from here to singapore on the 13th.

alright! a bientot!

We're on Langkawi!

2010-01-05T00:30:00.001-08:00

i really need to make this quick because i wanna get out in the sunshine! :o)

we ate middle eastern in kl last night. it was basically a tent with a homemade grill under it and some plastic tables and chairs lol jens got lamb kebab, i got chicken biriyani and we shared garlic naan- it was amazing!

then we got the night train to aloo setar- THAT was a bit harrowing lol first class rooms with beds were way too expensive so we got the 2nd class beds. picture a train car with bunks along the sides, one on top of the other...so it's like a hallway with beds in it lol we both had top bunks and let me tell you, it's a little difficult to climb up a ladder into a bunk bed when you're on a rickety train and sways back and forth lol the beds had railings and "seatbelts" going from the bottom of the bunk to the ceiling to make sure you didn't fall out lol it was fairly comfortable...the pillow was way too firm though. there wasn't much to do. we just ate some chocolate, read, brushed our teeth (which was a feat in itself lol the bathroom was tiny and gross and it was really hard to stand up in there. when the train would sway the cabinet door under the sink would fly open lol), read some more and went to sleep. we kept waking up all night due to the stopping and starting of the train and the announcements about where we were but overall it wasn't bad. better than taking an overnight bus where you just have a bus seat and not a bed. i think the best part was that we had a little window in each bed and when the sun came up we could watch the beautiful scenery go by :o)

we got to aloo setar at about 8am and the train station platform was too short so we had to hop off the train into the ditch lol fun times! we got a taxi to the ferry terminal and then we took a 1.5 hour boat ride to langkawi!!!

the boat ride did NOT make me feel sick as boat rides usually do BUT it was absolutely FREEZING! they had the aircon up full blast and we were of course only wearing short sleeves and shorts. i was really glad when we got off the boat and into the hot sun :o)

we're staying at zackry guesthouse and it's fairly barebones but i like it more than the number 8 guesthouse in kl...mostly because of the funny, friendly irish woman who works the front desk :o) we have a comfy bed, private bathroom, there's a kitchen and a lounge, a blow up wading pool lol and a big friendly dog :o)

we went to a place called cactus restaurant for brunch and got a big english breakfast, a banana pancake, coffee, tea and orange juice. it was an open air place with writing all over the ceiling from customers that had gone there before.

after breakfast we went back to the hotel and took a nap (didn't get much sleep last night lol). then we got up and walked down the main road checking out the restaurants and shops. we went to this chocolate store and this little chinese-malay woman took us around and gave us a sample of almost every single one of their 70 flavors of chocolate! lol it was funny.

then we went down to the beach and it's GORGEOUS! white sand, warm water, blue sky, palm trees, islands out in the ocean! can't wait to swim!

now we're gonna roam some more! :oD

We're in Malaysia!!!

2010-01-04T01:52:00.000-08:00

hello from kuala lumpur, malaysia! i'm blogging from the guesthouse we stayed in last night called number 8. i'm going to try to make this quick because we need to go to dinner soon!

let's go back to the night of jan. 1st. we packed up, ate a late dinner and ran around doing various things until 2am jan. 2nd. we donned layers and layers of our se asia clothes hoping they'd keep us warm enough to get up to the seoul/incheon airport in cold, cold korea lol i wore a dress, 3 tops, leggings, socks and sandals...i looked pretty ridiculous. jens looked normal because he just wore layers of shirts and khakis.

we ran out into the freezing weather and thankfully immediately got a taxi which took us to the bus terminal. once we arrived we were met by a handful of other foreigners we know who were also taking the late night bus lol

fortunately it was one of those nice, spacious limousine buses that are a little easier to sleep on...unfortunately i still didn't sleep well AT ALL :oP

when we arrived at the airport 4 hours later i had to drag myself off the bus in a dazed stupor. we got there so early check-in hadn't started yet so some of us went over to dunkin' donuts and had breakfast together.

then we checked in, got on the plane, and flew to kuala lumpur malaysia!!! i won't go into the flight that much. it was fine, had a meal and a half (second one being a gross sandwich), slept, read and landed.

the airport was nice but it took FOREVER to get our bags. i was worried they didn't make it lol once we finally got through we took this high speed train into the center of town. it was super fast! on the way most of the scenery was just miles and miles of palm trees! i had never ever seen that many even on tv or anything lol

we arrived at the train station, bought tickets for the over night train that we'd be taking the next night and then roamed around til we found the monorail. the train station was super busy, people everywhere, all different kinds of people, all languages being spoken, lots of stalls selling things, etc. it was a bit overwhelming.

so we took the monorail to the area of town where our guesthouse was. on the way we saw the famous petronas towers in the distance. they were really sparkly and pretty :o)

the area of town where our guesthouse is is super busy too! lots of shops, coffee houses, restaurants, other businesses and LOTS of massage/reflexology places. people stand outside those and try to lure you in lol since we just arrived we didn't need any kind of massage yet so we soldiered on and finally found out guesthouse after going through a couple back alleys lol

the guesthouse entrance and "lounge" area are cool and modern but our room left a little to be desired. it wasn't as nice as it seemed on the website but it was decent enough, just small. it just had a bed, a little table and a sink (no private bathroom, there was a shared one down the hall). one wall was a big glass sliding door and you just pull a curtain over it so it doesn't feel that private. we were just staying there one night anyway though so it wasn't too bad.

we dropped off our stuff and headed to dinner. we chose a place called paparich and they make these things called rotibuns which we also have in korea but this place also served awesome food! jens got these panfried flat noodles with shrimp, cockles, bean sprouts, etc. in a spicy peanut sauce. it was really good! i got this suuuuuper spicy beef and noodle stew type dish. it had onion, pineapple and mint in it. it was really tastey...just a bit too spicy lol for dessert we got a rotibun, coffee and chai (tea). it was all good but we were soooo full after!

on the way home we passed a fruit stall and bought a dragonfruit and some mangosteens! then we bought some snacks for the over night train we'd be taking the next night.

back at the hotel we just showered, packed, read and went to sleep!

Day 2

got up, had breakfast in the hotel which was just toast and our dragonfruit we bought the night before. surprisingly this one was bright fuchsia on the inside!!! usually they're white. it was reeeeally good Po:

after that we headed to the u.s. embassy because in all the commotion of getting ready for this trip we did not realize jens only had ONE more page in his passport and we have FIVE more countries to go to -some of which will give us full-page visas lol so we got a taxi over there and we had to go through this rigorous security check before finally getting where we needed to be! man are they paranoid lol

we thought it would be quite simple to get more pages because we looked up info online and it sounded like it'd be a breeze. well unfortunately jens got the uberjerk of all employees to help him lol this guy argued with jens for like 15mins. about the fact that his old signature on his passport looked like it said jan instead of jens and that his new signature doesn't look like his old one! lol he was like- did your name used to be jan and you just changed it to be closer to your cultural heritage?? lol i finally went over and said- hi i'm his wife. the guy asked me some stuff and i was just like- he has always had bad handwriting. he argued some more and i just said....why does it matter??? lol i think that got him and he gave up. after that it was a breeze. we waited a few mins. and this is passport was ready to go with 22 more pages in it! lol

ok gotta hurry and cut this short!

after we left the u.s. embassy we headed over to the colonial district and saw independence park, little india and chinatown. we had an awesome lunch on a banana leaf at this indian place, a mango orange slurpee from 7 eleven (lol because they don't have slurpees at the 7 elevens in korea), we looked at two chinese temples and a hindu temple that was under construction we roamed through a HUGE indoor market for a couple hours. we're definitely going to have to go back there and buy a few things when we go back through kuala lumpur.

in the late afternoon we just came back to the hotel, got beer, read and hung out in the hotel lounge. we ended up taking a nap and here i am writing!

now we have to go get dinner and then hop on the over night train up to alor setar, then a boat to langkawi island where we'll stay for 5 nights or so taking in the beach! :oD

until next time!