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

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
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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!