Good Morning, Vietnam!

I haven't been too successful in keeping up with the blog as I had promised myself I would be. Vietnam, Cambodia and more of Thailand came and went, but I'm going to attempt to backtrack and document those weeks.

From Laos, Amy and I took a prop-plane by Lao Airlines to Hanoi.

We were conveniently greeted at Luang Prabang airport by a lady promoting a new hostel in the backpacker district - old quarter - of Hanoi. Although we were skeptical of her offer, as we are of most everybody's, we agreed to accept the $3 cab for a 45-minute ride into town. The cab took us to May De Ville Hotel with no obligation to stay, with a special offer of $18 per night, including a nice breakfast. The rate was discounted from the original $30 per night, but since we were picked up in Laos, we got this great deal. The "hostel" was really a fabulous hotel. We were more than pleased. The rooms were gorgeous, new, clean, white linens and towels, toiletries, flat-screen TV with every channel, hot showers, laptop with internet in the room, etc. It was everything you could hope for. We knew this luxury wouldn't come around often, and we cherished every moment of it. Breakfast was just as satisfying - eggs made to order, any way you want, including omelets with vegetables or cheese of your choice, fruit, toast, pastries, the works. The staff was also excellent.

We arranged our boat trip to Halong Bay through the hotel as well. It was $75 for two days and one night on the boat, including meals. The food consisted almost entirely of various fried seafood. It obviously wasn't ideal for me, so I stuck to fried rice for dinner, and some toast and fruit for breakfast.

Halong Bay was beautiful, the emerald waters were nice, and the limestone formations everywhere reminded me of Thailand's west coast islands. We went into some caves and kayaked around a floating village. 

Our company was less than thrilling. There were 13 of us - myself and Amy, a cool Indian-American couple that was picked up in Luang Prabang airport with us and a Chinese family of nine that spoke no English. It definitely wasn't the party boat, and we longed to be on one as our boat sat peacefully near Cat Ba island opposite the party boats. 

We didn't have great weather for our two days, but we managed alright and returned to Hanoi to finish sightseeing.

We walked around the lake, all across town and went to the Museum of Literature and to Hoa Loa Prison. In the evening, we walked through the night market and then caught a water puppet show, which was interesting and worth the $5. We didn't go to the Mausoleum as Ho Chi Minh's body had been sent to Europe for preservation a week prior. So I still have only one preserved communist leader on my list - Chairman Mao.

The madness of a big city was a nice change of pace after nearly two weeks in chilled-out Laos, but we were ready to move on after the four days there.

Next stop - Hue!

12 days in Laos

After Korea, the travels started with a short week in Thailand - 2 nights in Koh Phi Phi, 2 nights in Railay Bay, 1 night in Krabi and 2 nights in Bangkok. Maybe more on that later. It was a great start, relaxing, beautiful and delicious food! Then I met up with two friends from Korea, Amy and Misha, and we headed to Laos on a 16-hour bus from Bangkok.

The bus to Vientiane wasn't too horrible. It left at 6pm and we arrived around 9 or 10am the next morning. It was nothing like what we would later experience. We didn't spend any time in Vientiane. We immediately got on another bus to Vang Vieng for another 4-hour trip. Vang Vieng was a cute town, but full of young tourists that seemed to be looking to party. Not quite what we were looking for, but we were up for it. We rented some tubes and headed to the river for the notorious tubing.. and it was nothing like I had expected. It reminded me of what I'd picture a spring break in Cancun with young kids looking to get trashed. Kind of a waste of being in a beautiful town in a beautiful country, in my opinion. You get to the river, jump on a tube and make a zig-zag from bar to bar. People were swinging into the river from ropes, or going down some waterslides. We found out once we had arrived that this tubing thing is actually very dangerous, and 14 people have died this season alone. During the rainy season, the current can get very strong, and when kids have been drinking all day and taking tubes back after dark, things can get dangerous. We headed down the river in our tubes just as the sun was setting. Luckily, a few young boys that had done this tubing thing a few times already grabbed on to our tubes for a ride and helped us find our way. I got stuck going the wrong way at a fork in the river and had a really hard time fighting the current. It was also getting dark and was starting to rain, and after all of the stories, I was pretty terrified. These boys helped me though, and I finally made it to where I needed to go. I did find out the next day that either way at the fork would be okay, but at the time, I thought I was in some serious danger. Basically, the tubing was my least favorite part of Vang Vieng.

The next day, we did a full day tour for about $10. We went kayaking down the river for a few hours, went tubing into a cave with headlights strapped around our foreheads while holding onto ropes to get through and had an amazing lunch before having to kayak back to where all that tubing happens. Great day for $10! Our final day there, we rented bikes and went all around outside of town and found some kids playing in the river. We parked our bikes and went down and joined them. It's not rare for kids to be running around and jumping in naked, but some of them had little underwear on. Then, they disappeared and came back with some fruit that we wanted to try. They led us to the tree and helped us knock some fruit out of the 50+ foot tall tree and opened the fruit up for us. I think it was a pomelo, or definitely in the family. It was a really nice day, until I left my iPhone at a restaurant and didn't realize until we got on our horrible bus ride.

We got picked up for our bus to Luang Prabang at 9pm on the side of the road instead of at the bus stop. We definitely got screwed somehow. When I stepped onto the bus, I noticed it was a bus full of sleeping Laotians with babies sleeping on them, mud and water all over the floor and cargo boxes filling up the back half of the bus. No chance we were meant to be on that bus. It had been storming and parts of the road to Luang Prabang had been washed out. We heard some horror stories about this bus ride anyway, but we popped some sleeping pills and hoped for the best. It had just finished storming badly when we left Vang Vieng, and I was already upset about losing my music and iPhone. To make it short, it was the worst bus ride ever. The size of the potholes on this road are unimaginable, the roads were covered in wet mud that we were sliding down as our large bus was winding around the mountains. It actually crossed my mind that no one would know if we didn't make it because we had been put on this local bus that we shouldn't have been on. Our bus broke down at 2am and we waited on the bus for 2 hours or so until a foreigner bus passed and picked up the 3 of us. It was still a terrible bus though and was leaking water from the storm through the roof. After all that, we finally made it to beautiful Luang Prabang.

We spent 3 nights in Luang Prabang before taking a minivan to Nong Khiaw, a small town 3 hours north. We spent 2 nights there and took a 1-hour motorboat ride to a smaller town called Mong Noi. Luang Prabang is a really nice, touristy town that's more expensive than most other places we have been to so far, it's lovely though. It has tons of beautiful temples, great views and sunsets, it's right on the Mekong River, and it has a cute French influence. Nong Khiaw was a much quainter town, but it was nice as well. And although we only spent one day in Mong Noi, I really liked it there. There is one dirt road, some guesthouses and a few restaurants. It's beautiful there, and it's a much smaller town still than the one before. This was the first place that we had no air-con or fan because the electricity is only on from 6:30pm-10pm at the latest. We weren't well-prepared having no flashlights or candles and only dead iPods and small lighters. The mid-night trips to the toilet were a slight struggle, but a fun experience nonetheless. All in all, Laos was great, and we met some very cool people the last week there and we hope to meet up with them on the next leg of the trip in Vietnam.

Posting pictures has been a challenge so far since the Internet speed in Laos is so slow! I'll try posting some in Vietnam maybe!

Off to Hanoi tomorrow!

Bittersweet Goodbye

It's been a while, but I felt that I had to post a conclusion for Korea before starting to write about my Southeast Asian travels.

Goodbyes, of course, are usually bittersweet, and this one was of no exception. I made some really great friends in Korea, and saying goodbye to them without knowing when or if we'd meet again was sad... to say the least.

The last few months were very busy trying to cram in a few more weekend trips, sightseeing, extra jobs for extra travel money, doctor appointments, goodbyes, packing, mailing boxes, getting rid of unnecessary possessions, etc. Korea showed me an amazing year. I am so happy to have had this experience, and I will continue to recommend it to friends that are considering going there.

I have already been traveling for more than 2 weeks, and I want to get those stories up before I forget them. So this one will be short and sweet.

Korea and friends... you will be missed, but I hope to see you again soon.

x

Shalom, Israel!

Two months ago, I took a couple weeks vacation from work and met my parents in Israel. It was an amazing break from teaching and a great time seeing my family again. It had been more than 7 months since I had seen my parents (and brother, who came out for part of the time I was there) and 3 years since I had seen the extended family.

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't as hot as I had hoped for, but it was still enjoyable in comparison to the cold, Korean winter. This was my first time in Israel not during the summer. We spent most of our time in Herzeliya, some time in Tel Aviv, a couple days in Eilat and a day at the Dead Sea. Dale Chihuly (the man responsible for the blown glass ceiling at the Bellagio in Las Vegas) had an art gallery in Tel Aviv that we got to go to. His blown glass art is absolutely breathtaking. I hope one day I will be able to afford a simple paper weight. I also was able to soak up enough sun in Eilat to get a little sunburn and attempted to heal it in the miraculous minerals of the Dead Sea. I covered my whole body in the mineral mud, as I do upon every visit, and rinsed it off in the salty sea.

After a few days of bonding with my parents in southern Israel, I finished off the trip back in Herzeliya spending some time with my brother and the rest of the family. It was also my parents' 37th anniversary as well as a big birthday for my mom. I was happy to be there to spend it with them.

The food in Israel was spectacular... even better than I remembered: every kind of cheese imaginable, tzitziki, tabouli, hummus, falafel, Israeli salad, passionfruit, starfruit, etc! That probably has a lot to do with being in Korea for half a year. The produce and dairy products in Korea and very disappointing. They have such simple foods here and a very small variety of fruit and vegetables with little flavor. I've definitely been missing the food!

Before I knew it, I was back in Korea. It felt like I had been away for a long time, but it only felt like I had spent a short time in Israel. I returned to face the butt end of the Korean winter and the same group of Korean children I taught before I left. The twelve months I signed up for was then down to five and now just over three! Wild.

In five weeks, my sister will be visiting, and then a mere two months until I start my travels in Thailand. I can hardly wait!

We Are Trees - "Sunrise, Sunset"

Spring Forward...

I've been living in Korea for just over seven months now, and I know I've said it before, but every month gets busier than the last! To be honest, January didn't have too much excitement going on. Most everybody had "intensives," which is essentially a second job - winter camp classes every morning before going to our regular jobs. It is easy extra money though, and that's hard for most people to turn down.

I'm pleased to say I eased through the frigid winter, which in retrospect doesn't seem that bad, but who am I kidding? It was beyond frigid, not to mention it also came with bronchitis, tonsillitis, 21 pills a day for 7 days at a time, 2 shots in my ass, a sick day and at least 10 rough days at work. But, spring, I can feel you creeping up already.

February brought a lot excitement but took a lot of sleeping hours. The beginning of February was Lunar New Year, and an abnormally large group of us went to Hong Kong together. I really, really loved Hong Kong. I thought it was an amazing city with a ton of diversity. It was so refreshing to get out of Korea and see so many different faces and different foods from all over the world. It was also nice to get some familiar snacks and a lot of British snacks that my friends had been raving about. Korea can really start to feel like a little bubble world sometimes. I can hardly go anywhere without hearing someone uttering "wae-gukan" (Korean word for "foreigner") while pointing in my general direction. I definitely started to consider the potential of living in Hong Kong for a bit.

Lunar New Year there was also pretty cool. I did have a lot of friends that made it to China, which clearly can't be beaten, but I'd say Hong Kong must have been a good second - not close. There were thousands of people crowding around Nathan Road to watch the big parade. It was impossible to get a view without camping out there for hours, which we weren't going to waste. Luckily, one of our friends had a hostel room overlooking a great part of Nathan Road. We watched the whole parade from the comfort of their beds. The next night, there was a big fireworks show over the harbour. During the days, we made it to Stanley Market and Victoria's Peak. We didn't have enough days there, really.

One of the days, we also took a one-hour ferry ride over to Macau - basically Vegas hotels without the club scene. We did some gambling, partying, gambling, eating and I made $2000 HKD playing roulette. Then, unfortunately, we couldn't get a ferry back to Hong Kong until 7am the next morning, day of our flight. We had to take a nap at the ferry terminal, rush back to our hostels, take a quick power nap and head to the airport to come back to Korea. The trip had its drawbacks being there with so many friends and wanting to be a tourist while being with everyone and waiting for moves to be made... but it was nice, nonetheless. See some of the pictures from the trip. 

Next came Red Day, also known as Valentine's Day, where in Korean tradition, girls give boys chocolates. Somehow, I still got a good amount of chocolates from my students, which definitely made up for Pepero Day (11/11)! That weekend, we went on a snowboarding trip to High 1 Ski Resort - a mere 3 or 4 hours on a coach bus. We lucked out with gorgeous weather as the weekend before brought fresh powder. However, one of my friends had to show off his snowboarding skills, or lack thereof, and ended up in the hospital with a broken collar bone, or something worse. After being taken down the mountain zipped up in a body-bag, He then spent 3 nights in the hospital in Daegu after having surgery with an expected 6-month recovery.

That weekend was also my birthday weekend... nothing too crazy, but some friends did help make it a memorable one. After a couple frisbee games the morning after a night out, we had a chance to make it to the last few hours of a Trick Art Gallery that had been in Daegu for a few months. I thought it had also been gone for months! Check out some of those pictures as well.  It was pretty awesome!

There's too much  to catch up on now, but I'll do my best to keep up with it. I've also got a trip to Israel to post about!

I have way too many photos to choose from as is.... and this layout will never seem to do what it's supposed to do.

Machu Picchu - The Strokes (new album Angles)

Christmas and New Year's.

The days and weeks just keep getting busier and busier. Christmas and New Year's both came and went, and now January 2011 is about to join them in history. Our work Christmas Party (on Christmas Day) was an extravagant one to say the least. Apparently, it was held in the most expensive reception hall in all of Daegu at the Interburgo Hotel in Manchon. The party included a terribly sub-par buffet, a talent show with pyrotechnics and lighting effects, irrelevant power-point presentations and ₩600,000,000 in bonuses. We would say that it's about $600,000, but the actual conversion is more like $540,000.

The buffet looked like it had solid potential, but it turned out to be nothing but 50 feet of table space covered by a variety of pastas and Korean dishes that had gone cold sans a flame below them. It wasn't until about 45 minutes into the meal that we noticed another table that has some cold turkey and mashed potatoes as well as a person making made-to-order stir-fry. Still, I'd rate the meal a 5. Not too great for the priciest ticket in town.

The talent show had some high points and low points. There were some acts that I could not make any sense of - for example, one that was a 10 minute skit in Korean that half the room didn't understand, followed by 5 minutes of them passing chewed gum from mouth to floor to mouth,  and finally into the boss-man's mouth. They won second place bringing in ₩4,000,000. I'm still confused. There were other notable acts, like my co-worker who sang and played an acoustic version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" and a couple that did a salsa dance. I, of course, played piano as my fingers nearly shook right off my hands from nerves. I have never played in front of so many people. I was on stage, front and center, and then they felt it necessary to point a spot light right in my eyes, blinding me and leaving the piano keys in the shadows; not a good combination. I didn't place in the top 5 out of 18, but I still got a ₩500,000 prize, as all participants did. It was definitely the fastest 500 bucks I've ever made, but can't say it was completely painless. 

Following the party, which lasted from 5pm to close to 11pm, everyone fought over cabs at the hotel to get downtown as soon as possible and join our non-co-workers. It was a pretty fun night as everyone was out and looking to have a good time. I sensed that some people were a bit nostalgic and missed Christmas with their friends and families at home, but everyone seemed to enjoy themselves quite a bit. 

The next day, apparently known as "Boxing Day," some friends had another Christmas dinner party. This meal was delightful with a scrumptious turkey, delicious and healthful salads, pesto pasta, endless vino, and of course, the mash. We finished off the the night with apple pie and too many rounds of Apples-to-Apples. That meal trumped the Interburgo.

The following weekend was obviously New Year's. Most of Daegu went on a ski/snowboarding trip a few hours outside of Daegu. They stayed local for the countdown to midnight and were all on a bus by 1am. I heard some pretty eventful stories from their weekend in the mountains, but Daegu was a lovely weekend as well; when in good company. We celebrated with some champagne and other cocktails. All was good until I realized my wallet had been stolen before 3am. The night took a small dive as I rushed home to call 4 credit/debit card companies. Nothing was charged, but that wasn't going to bring back my $100+ that was stolen. I ended up getting my wallet back a couple days later with everything as it was, minus the cash. Oh well, 2011 - at least you redeemed yourself a bit. What else do you have for me?

 I leave you with Nathan Paagard's acoustic version of "Bohemian Rhapsody"