Playing in Nha Trang!

After a sleepless 12-hour overnight bus to Nha Trang, we arrived at the Backpacker's House at 6:30am, tired and droopy-eyed.

Luckily, we are almost always able to check in at any guesthouse as early as we arrive, none of this 3pm check-in that we are accustomed to in America. This was the first dorm we stayed at. It wasn't bad at all, there were five bunk-beds, one bathroom and an internet-connected computer in the room. Lena was staying there and would overlap our stay for one night. Ryan and Dillon, along with a group of Brits they had met along their way also stayed there. Everyone kind of mobbed around town to restaurants and bars together. We had a blast in Nha Trang.

The next day, we got everyone to agree on a $7 boat tour of a few nearby islands.

It also included lunch, fruit, "happy hour" in the water, snorkeling and live entertainment, which was truly entertaining to say the least. We stopped in the clear blue waters for our happy hour and a few rounds of jumping off the top level of the boat. Some people got creative with their jumps!

We returned to the hostel for showers before enjoying another fun-filled night on the town.

The following morning, Amy and I rented bicycles and went all over the city to the big, white Buddha, and much further than that to an old temple that looked quite Aztec-like to me.

We came back to the town to soak up the last few hours of sunlight by the pool and gorgeous beach of Louisianne Brewhouse.

Rather than taking our next bus to Da Lat, we got the group to agree on a motorbike ride down there, which would commence the following morning.

Rainy Day Hue to Hoi An.

In Hanoi, we bought an open-tour bus ticket, which gave us five stops in different cities down the country. We chose Hanoi > Hue > Hoi An > Nha Trang > Da Lat > Saigon. Our first bus was my first of several overnight sleeper buses. It had about 30 "beds" that were about 5'10" so I fit comfortably, but the other foreigners definitely struggled. It wasn't too bad of a ride with the exception of the Vietnamese music blaring through the bus speakers by the inconsiderate driver, not to mention the incessant honking!

We also had bad weather upon our arrival in Hue and only did minimal sightseeing - mostly just the citadel.

The rainy weather brought us to a fancy restaurant where we opted for a cooking course. We made a delicious 4-course meal that took around three hours to make and stuffed our stomachs beyond a comfortable limit. We even took some leftovers to go!

In the evening, we found the backpacker district and had a drink and did some shopping. It didn't seem like there was loads to do there, and we were happy to take our next bus to Hoi An in the morning.

We wobbled around Hoi An with our increasingly-heavy packs until we found Nhi Trung Guesthouse that our friend, Lena, had stayed at a few nights prior. There were plenty of other backpackers there, including Ryan and Dillon - fellow Californians - that we would later do some traveling with. We also met the fabulous Joyce from Canada that I would spend a lot of time with later as well.

Amy and I loved Hoi An! Our first day was a little rainy when we did some sightseeing with our $1 per day bicycles. We also rode 5km out to the beach, which was beautiful! We were hit with a huge rainstorm there one day but got nicely sunburnt the next.

Hoi An is also famous for beautifully custom-tailored clothing. Although we had no intentions of having anything made, I left Hoi An with two dresses, one skirt and an incredible blazer; these might be my favorite pieces in my entire wardrobe - note just in my backpack. I would go back to Vietnam just to have more clothes made here! We also rented a motorbike for a day, and Amy drove the two of us around town as I wasn't too stellar as a motorbike driver.

A bunch of us backpackers were all heading to Nha Trang at the same time, and we made plans to meet up at the backpacker hostel there as we all set off on our next sleeper buses.

A Million Pics in Sokcho

For Chuseok - Korean Thanksgiving - we got three days off work in the middle of the week. We journeyed up to northern South Korea to Sokcho for strenuous hiking at Seoraksan Mountain - the third highest mountain in South Korea. It was beautiful in "Fresh Sokcho." It's a small town, but there were a lot of people around for the holiday and tons of foreigners visiting as well. 

We spent one day just hiking the giant mountain, or rock rather. There was one 14 ton rock that is famous for people trying to push it off the ledge. It still cannot be done. We tried and tried to make history and get on CNN but to no avail. We rewarded ourselves for our hard work and went into town for dak galbi (chicken korean bbq) and some drinks. There, we met a group of hilarious Koreans who were back home in Sokcho for the holiday.

The next day, we did the touristy things, checked out the beach, Sokcho Tower, etc. Dozens of adorable Korean children were driving around in plastic motor cars in the courtyard of Sokcho Tower. Some mistakenly were playing bumper cars with each other. One precious girl was just as fascinated with me as I was with her - she walked right up to my face.

When it was raining, we went to a Jimjilbang, which is a place with all kinds of saunas. There are some unisex areas with various temperature saunas to include 'ice' saunas. There are TVs in some of the sauna rooms, there are massage chairs, PC rentals, a cafe, draft beer area and a section separated by sex with different hot pools and showers for a no clothing, no swimsuit area. Beth managed to snap a few photos in the clothed sections.

It was an awesome trip, great scenery, excellent workout and couldn't have been a better break from Daegu.

New apartment in Sang-In Dong - Daegu.

About the pics:
My feet in a pool of mini fish eating away at my dead skin.

Losing at a drinking game - sinking the shot glass in a cup of beer.

Fully clothed Koreans on the beach in Busan.

Korean BBQ and Kimchi - I can't remember what it's called in Korean.


So I've been here just over a week now, and it's been really great so far. The school I am working for is a private school, and famously known for being among the best private school chains you could work at here - for both the Korean teachers and the foreign teachers. Pretty much every foreigner (the English teachers are from all over - USA, England, Scotland, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, etc.) that works there was in Korea for at least one year before working for our school, and they never fail to remind me how lucky I am to be at this school my first year.

We have a group of Korean guys that are our "reinforcement team." Generally, they help us with anything we need, get us set up with cell phones, and internet, fix problems at the apartments, and generally anything that we may need. My first weekend here, the school took us on a day trip to the beach in Pohang - it's about 2 hours away by charter bus. It was pretty nice, but the beach was all rocks and the water was freezing! Much like Eilat, minus the crystal clear water and awesome coral reef. Then, we were spoiled at the Hyandai Hotel with a very nice buffet with unlimited drinks included. After that, we came back to our city, Daegu, and the school continued picking up the tab at a bar. It was a lot of fun and a great way to meet many of the teachers at our other branches. The next day, I went with some friends to another beach in Busan - the 2nd largest city in Korea. The beach there was nice, full of people, and the water was great! Also, the Koreans are terrified of the sun and even though it's easily 95 to 105 degrees here, they are fully covered from head to toe, even while they are in the water!

I started teaching my first classes on Monday, and it went pretty smoothly. Our school is very structured and there is really no prep work required. We just have to take up a 50 minute class period with minimal information, so it's sometimes a bit tricky to take up all the time. They want us to repeat everything and have the students repeat everything several times - repetition is the thing here, but I start sounding ridiculous in my head while repeating things so many times. My students are all pretty good - I have one class that is painfully quiet, and I have one class that is pretty non-compliant, but besides that, they are all really good.

I just moved into my permanent apartment on Monday and it's not bad at all. Nothing fancy, but could definitely be worse! I'm not complaining! I have a small kitchen with a stove top, fridge, microwave and very mini toaster oven. They also gave me a table and 2 chairs, so that's good! There's a sliding door that separates the kitchen from my room/living room, so I don't have to waste the AC cooling down the kitchen. My bathroom is fine also, not too small - the shower head is attached to the sink, so i turn the sink on and loosen the knob and it switches to the shower. The apartment is a studio, but it's a fairly good size - they also provided a TV, and washing machine but gotta hang to dry.

The weather here is pretty awful - it's insanely hot these days, always upper 80s to 90s, but feels like 90s to 100s with this humidity! It's also the rainy season and the last day it's been very rainy, and doesn't look like it's going to stop for a few more days. Add 90 degrees to humidity and rain - it's not fun! It will be nice in September, and then freezing cold by November - so weather is definitely not one of the positives.

Besides that, everything is great! The city is amazing, there is so much to do here. The public transportation system is awesome, I've made many new friends, been staying very busy and having a lot of fun. The food is not bad at all either. My friends have mostly been here for at least a year, so they are pretty good at ordering food and making sure I'm getting beef and not pork. Everything is very spicy, but I can handle it well most of the time. I've been having a lot of Korean BBQ - the beef, of course. Many restaurants only have pork bbq, so sometimes that's a challenge. They also have "American" restaurants that are pretty much Italian food, pastas, pizzas and the occasional burger. I had some Italian style food at a place in downtown Daegu called "about" - it was pretty delicious! I hear they have good burgers around here too, but the one I had in Busan was quite awful. You know how much I love burgers! I also went to an Indian restaurant nearby and it was great, but again VERY spicy!!! I haven't seen any dogs or anything around, but I have been told from many people that they have them around here and there. One person I met tried it - blachhhhhh!!!

Oh, and tomorrow I am going to the Handsome Furs show in downtown Daegu at a place called Club GUESS. I'm super excited to have some good music coming through Daegu! Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade is the lead singer - it's going to be a great show. From what I've seen of past shows, it looks like we'll be getting a good show about once a month, I'd say. 8)