How to avoid a $1,500 overweight luggage fee – Dutch style

On Sunday, I departed Korea after a wonderful year of priceless, changing experiences. My final days were full of stress and love as I tied all the loose ends with Froebel and said goodbye to my kids, co-workers and my friends. The very last day with Elgar class, we had a pajama party! Complete with pillow fights, snacks and of course, a movie! It was so great to be able to spend the entire last day with them, not to say I didn’t love the other classes I taught as well, but as their homeroom teacher I spent much more time getting to know them. After our afternoon of “Finding Nemo,” it was time to say goodbye. Each kid came over to give me one last hug and halfway through, as you can imagine, I started to tear up. “Teacher, why crying?” they asked me. And somehow I managed to choke out that it was because I would miss them so much and that I was SO proud of them. I’ve told them before that I would be going home to the States but I’m not sure they fully understood what that meant. Monica made me a very nice card that said “Meghan Teacher. Go To America and leave happy.” And also Monica told the other kids in the class that I was going home because I missed my mommy (not altogether untrue, of course! Haha).

So anyway, while I was hugging them all one last time, a few tears managed to escape from the corners of my eyes as much as I tried to keep them in. Before I knew it, Monica had gone over and gotten some tissue and came up after I hugged the last one. She came over and started dabbing the tears off my face with the tissue. It was probably the sweetest thing I’d ever experienced.

As they lined up to go home, I told them that if they were ever in the US they should call me (hehe) and then Monica said “but Teacher, I don’t have your number!” (she’s a smart cookie if you haven’t picked up on it yet!) and so I told her that Debbie Teacher (my co teacher) would give it to her mom and she could call me anytime. And so I did –so that maybe someday, Monica will give me a ring J

Fast forward to Saturday night. Rachel and I agreed that for my last dinner, we’d go out to a galbi restaurant by her new apartment that looked good. It had some of the BEST kimchi I’ve had in Korea and also some of the best galbi too. Not a bad way to end my year I have to say! Also, the server there gave us some free pepsi and a heart sucker. Oh, how I’ll miss getting free stuff in Asia! Afterwards we headed back and it was time to get my birthday present from Rach. She made me two K-Pop CD’s with music from the past year (asa!) and a video with pictures by month of our year being crazy together across the world from home. As we watched it, I had several moments (as she mentioned as well) of thinking “wow...I REALLY did this.”

Sunday was the big day. Rach and I headed out to try to get my 3 bags to the airport bus through the massive maze of the subway station Kyodae. As the bus approached I realized I would have to say goodbye to my partner in crime, the person who’s known me the best the past year, and one of my truly best friends (for over a decade and counting!). I’m really proud of her for staying in Korea and I know she’s grown so much this past year...I’ve seen it! So I wished her luck and got on the bus, and took in the last landscape of Korea before arriving at Incheon international airport to begin another adventure- Holland!

I arrived at the airport over 2 hours early...thankfully because the line to check in was the longest I’ve ever been in, I’m quite sure. After waiting for what seemed like forever, I finally get up to check in and the clerk realized my foreign registration card had expired a week before. Froebel told me that this wasn’t going to be an issue, so when she told me I had to go see the immigration office, I was quite perturbed. Turns out they only needed to put some stamp or sticker in my passport and all was well and I went back to check in my bags.

Now, when we came to Korea from the states we were allowed to bring over 2 suitcases of 50 lbs each. Going to Holland, I was only allowed one bag of about 45 lbs. So after being in Korea for a year, I had to shed basically half of my weight. She checked in my bags no problem and so I went through security and all that jazz. Made it to my gate in which what should have been JUST in time, however, people were still in line boarding (which was good...until I arrived in Beijing...late).

After landing in Beijing I went to transfer, and the people looked at my ticket and immediately got on their walkie-talkies. I never even checked the time since my layover wasn’t cutting it close. The lady came back and simply said “that plane already took off.” Um...what?! “Oh ok, well is there any way I could get on the next flight out?” thinking calmly because it wasn’t really the end of the world if I were delayed a couple hours or so. “The next flight leaves tomorrow at 2:40pm.” Hahaha ohhhh wow. My first thought was “where the heck am I going to sleep?!”but thankfully, they airport arranged accommodations for me and even gave me meal tickets to eat at the hotel for free.

So I took a shuttle over to the airport hotel, checked in and sat down on the bed. It was about 4:30 in the afternoon, Beijing time. What now? Determined not to waste a free night in China (especially considering that usually US citizens have to pay for an entry visa for about $135), I hopped on a bus to go see a few things that WEREN’T in Beijing the last time I was there...the Olympic buildings! I made it there (after the bus driver stopped the bus cold and searched for me to tell me that this was my stop, haha) and it was really humbling to be in the presence of history like that, especially because it was so recent and I watched most of it happen in summer of ’08. The weather was awful (snow/rain) and it was freezing. I was very unprepared for the weather but I took some cool pictures and took it all in before finding a cab back to my hotel.

The next day I woke up and got ready to deal with the airport all over again. I could have never been prepared for what was going to happen next!

I went to check in my luggage and apparently in Korea, they let the weight of my bags slide...hardcore. My bag was 50kgs and I was only allowed to check in 20. I knew if my bag was overweight I might be charged a fee (expecting like $50 or something) but no. Turns out that it was so many Chinese RMB per kilo....and translated to USD it would cost me $1,500. WHAT?! Look at me! Does it LOOK like I have that kind of money?! Haha oh my gosh. I was upset because if my plane had been on time the day before, my baggage would have been transferred plane to plane in Beijing no problem. Now I was faced with two options: 1) pay a ridiculous amt of money OR 2) get rid of over HALF my stuff. Near tears b/c of the last couple days of airport fiascos (I JUST WANNA GO TO HOLLAND WHY IS THIS SO HARD?! Lol) I sat my bags down and tried to figure out what I would be throwing in the trash.

This is where nice Dutch man comes in. He asked the check in people if I could have his extra weight because he only had a light bag. They agreed. I was still grossly overweight. So he says “bring your bags over here...I have an idea!”So we brought my bags to the side and he looks at me and says “ok...they never weigh your hand luggage so transfer everything heavy into your carry on and all the light stuff in your big bag.”Hmm he could be onto something. So all said and done, after about 20 minutes and him carrying some of my clothes in his carry on, haha, we go back to the check in people. I put my bag on the scale waiting for judgement. We SUCCESSFULLY shaved 30 kgs off my big bag. The people were so impressed we pulled it off they didn’t charge for the 1 or 2 kgs it was overweight and I was able to get ALL my stuff on the plane free of charge. Un. Freaking. Believable.

So after we checked in, the Dutch man and I got some some coffee and he told me why he was in China (for business) and we talked about his family and my experience in Korea and why I was going to visit Holland. If it weren’t for him, I’m really not sure what I would have done. Shown up to Frank in tears maybe haha I don’t know.

The flight went by quite fast considering it was 10.5 hours (thank you Heroes) and once we landed I reordered my baggage and thanked the man about a hundred times for saving me from utter disaster. When I walked through the doors and Frank saw how much stuff I had he was just floored. “How did you get all that stuff over here when you can only take 20kgs?!” and then I introduced him to my friend Doug. Frank knows adventure often finds me and so he just started laughing when I told him the whole story...but I doubt he was altogether surprised :P

It was SO great to see him at the airport. I hadn’t seen him for about 2.5 months, but once I ran up to hug him, it didn’t seem like that long at all. We drove about 20 minutes to his hometown of Waddinxveen and I went in to meet his family. They are all super nice and I’m very thankful to have such a warm family to stay with these next two weeks. His mom gave us some dinner when we got back called andijviestampot. It was REALLY good. I think I’m going to like Dutch food!

Frank is in the middle of moving to his own apartment in a nearby city Rotterdam (where he goes to school) and so we will be going back and forth between his house and his apartment. So far I’ve sat in on one of his university classes in Dutch (Business Information Management...fun stuff :P ) and it was really interesting because the slides for the lecture were in English, but the lecture itself was in Dutch. About half of his classes are taught in English, and half in Dutch. Bilinguals are so cool. I need to get back to studying Spanish – I’m sick of being only able to speak one language!!! I was also able to meet a few of his friends so far and they are also really nice and welcoming. Frank said that they were all pretty curious about the American girl he met in Korea J

Last night we went to a town nearby named Gouda (like the cheese). He showed me around some historical sights and this area really struck me as “Holland” as I’d pictured it – just the little shops all next to each other with a square in the middle with a beautiful old church in the middle. I even saw my first windmill! We at some waffles that originated in the area called stroopwafels - they are thing and crispy with a kind of caramel syrup in the middle. And I found a cheese shop and bought some Gouda cheese from Gouda (yes this is where it originated!) so that was fun.

Today we are going to spend the day in Rotterdam and I get to see his new apartment/help him decorate since he told me he need’s my help...desperately, hehe. And tonight I think we are going to go to a Korean restaurant nearby...you know...like the good ole days! Tomorrow it’s off to Amsterdam for a couple days to explore the capital! Saturday Frank invited his friends over for a birthday party for me. I’m really excited :D

Well that’s all for now, clearly I’ll keep you posted on our other adventures. It’s really great to be here and I’m very lucky to be having such a fantastic experience here, living with a Dutch family and making friends with some young Dutch people. I can’t wait to see what the next week and a half will bring!

The end of year one: A look back

There it went. I officially start my "new" contract on Tuesday. I have seen my babies through their first year of English and despite all the struggles with them, remain amazed at how far they have come. I can still remember meeting them on day one, many of them unable to recognize their English name when I said it, let alone speak to me. My babies left me on Wednesday, all of them able to sound out basic words we had been working on, write simple words I segmented out for them, perform basic addition and subtraction, and some of my girls were even starting to read simple sentences! It was more than just the learning they did that amazed me though - it was the relationships I was able to form with them, even though they didn't understand a lot of what I said. Seeing little Irene, who cried every single day for the first 2 months and wouldn't even look at me, turn into the girl who ran over every morning to give me a hug and always climbed in my lap when I sat on the floor. Hearing Ally, who wouldn't talk to anyone (in English or Korean) for the first 4 months saying "good morning Teacher" every time I came into the classroom and wrapping herself around my leg while smiling up at me. Laughing with Audrey when I would call her a goofball and she would respond back with "no, you goopball!" Sean coming up behind me and "styling" (aka, rubbing it all over and flipping it over my face) my hair whenever I was sitting on the mat. Justin pinching my checks like he was my grandma whenever I would pick him up. Hearing Kelly's infectious laugh and not being able to keep my own laugh in. Seeing Yoo-Jin's guilty face (her big doe eyes and adorable smile that covered her face) whenever I would catch her speaking Korean. Having Katherine run over to my side whenever she saw I need help with anything. Chatting with Shine about her weekend every Monday during play time. Doing a fist pound every day with Andy before he got on the bus. Having Jessica speak "dog" to me when she couldn't figure out the English words she wanted.

Not saying I won't miss my other kids - I grew to adore my ESL K kids and had a good time with my BC kids as well. I just spent so much more time with my Nemos (such is the scheduling at CIS) and the morning kids are really the school's main focus. All my classes and students have tried my patience, taught me lessons, and helped turn me into (I hope) a better teacher.

It is hard to put words to all the experiences from the past year. All I know is that I did some incredible things - some that I would never dreamed I would do in my lifetime and others ones I had hoped to do but didn't know if they would be possible. While making a video montage of photos from our year abroad for Meg's birthday, I was able to go through and reflect back on all the insane, outrageous things I did - and it made me realize what a fantastic year it has been. Easily the best one of my life to date. I still look at some of my pictures and think to myself "I was really there? I really saw and did that?"

I know that in the past year I have grown enormously - I have become more independent, assertive, adventurous, and wiser. I think it is safe to say that some of you won't recognize me when I get home (and not just because I have significantly lightened the color of my hair). When I arrived in Korea, I was filled with a mixture of fear and excitement, and not sure at all what to expect. Never once in those beginning months did I think of staying for another year. And even when I did start thinking about it, I always attached the phrase "I would only stay if Meg did" to it. Yet, here I am. I have said goodbye to Meg and feel more than ready to embark on this next year of my Asian journey without her.

Not saying that I won't miss her terribly. She was a big factor in getting me over here and the two of us made a great team when traveling and helped each other get the most out of our experiences. And it will be nice to have someone back home who understands what I am talking about when I need to vent about a pushy adjema on the subway or the tragedy of the GS 25 being sold out of Almond pepero. But going at this alone doesn't seem like a big deal at all after experiencing a year with her here.

I cannot wait to see what the next year has in store for me and share all my experiences with you! If you keep reading, I will keep blogging. So here we are - to 365 more days of crazy adventures, strange experiences, and immersing myself in the culture of Korea and other Asian countries!

Happy Chinese New Year – Year of the Tiger!

(that's us all you 1986'ers!)

Sunday:

Thankfully, we woke up to some nice, sunny weather! Really excited because this meant we could potentially go paragliding, I ran downstairs to our hostel desk and asked him to call the guy for us. We were able to get a spot at noon, but even still I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high because the weather forecast was more than grim and I knew that with a slight change of wind, my hopes could be crushed.

We went out to get some breakfast and coffee, and then headed to the bus station to get our ticket. The day before a guy at the Taipei Main Station information desk wrote a bunch of Mandarin on a small piece of paper. This piece of paper was all the bus info we needed to go up into the mountains. I presented it to the lady behind the counter and she asked a couple questions (apparently there were two different destinations on there…one was the name of the stop we needed to get off at and one was the end of the route) but after a few shrugs and a couple laughs at the fact we had no idea what the other was saying, she printed off some tickets and we got in line to wait for our bus. In line we met a really nice Indonesian woman. She was 26 and had already spent 8 years working abroad in Singapore, and now Taipei. Her English was excellent, and we later found out her Mandarin wasn’t bad either! Also in line we met a Taiwanese woman who was wondering where we were getting off the bus. We told her the name of the stop and made a joke about “we’ll see if we can figure it out” and all kinda laughed. After another 5-10 minutes the bus arrived. As we were boarding, the Taiwanese woman ran up to us and handed us a piece of paper with Mandarin on it and explained that it said “we are getting off at ‘insert name of bus station here.’ Please remind us when to get off, thank you.” We thanked her about a million times because otherwise, we may have missed our stop, and hence, could not have the amazing paragliding experience I will be telling you about in a minute!

About an hour bus ride in to the mountains, the bus driver remembered to remind us where to get off, and soon we found ourselves on a small road in the middle of a mountain town. At this point we were instructed to “call Peter.” Hmm. We didn’t have a cell phone so we went into the 7-11 to see if we could use their phone or someone’s cell phone. After a rousing game of charades, we were finally told there were payphones….directly across the street. Haha, whoops. So we make our way over and put some coin-age into the pay phone and call the digits to hopefully reach “Peter.” A guy that was not named “Peter” answered the phone, and asked us where we were. We had no idea and so I just told non-Peter that we went to the bus stop we were told to go to and then called him. He told me to give me the phone to anybody around so that he could ask them our location. Fair enough. The only people around were 3 pre-teen boys. I looked at one of them and pointed to the phone. He kinda looked around as if he was unsure I was talking to him, and then hesitantly approached the phone. He put the receiver up to his ear, didn’t say anything (and therefore didn’t hear anything), shook his head, and went back to his friends. At this point the money was starting to run out, and for some reason putting more in wasn’t giving us any more time. At the very last minute I said “we’re across the street from a 7-11!” and he responded “Ok! I know where you are I’ll come pick you u---“ click. So we went to sit on a bench, hoping that non-Peter would show up soon.

Shortly after, a huge, rusty, very un-safe looking van pulled up with a faded picture of a paraglider on the side. Excellent. We hopped into the back where there we no seat belts. Hopefully this wasn’t going to be a bumpy ride. Well…it wasn’t “bumpy” per say…we were just whipping around curvy mountain roads sliding across the backseats falling on each other. We finally made it to the take-off sight, and it WAS a sight- beautiful ocean and city from a windy cliff. Once we got there, it was pretty much strap- in and go! The instructors put the harness and helmets on us, hooked us up to the parachutes and told us to “run, don’t stop running.” We literally had NO time to think about anything before they were shouting “go go go!” I was first. I started running with my legs bouncing off the ground every once in a while when the wind caught the chute. We started flying up up up…and then down…down…uh oh! Before I knew it my coach and I had crash landed in the weeds. Very tall weeds!

Never thinking that crashing into 7ft weeds after running off a cliff was ever a possibility, I just looked at my coach who was trying to unhook us from the chute and started laughing. Attempt #1: fail. We made our way back up the hill with minor scratches and muddy jeans and prepared for attempt #2. This time, I ran like I’ve NEVER ran before. For some reason, I wasn’t scared of crashing again, or crashing farther down the hill or anything. So we tried again, and this time the wind caught us and took us up. We were REALLY high, flying above the ocean and the city, looking down at the tiny little cars through the green laces on my shoes. It was a fantastic feeling being up there in the wind-and with my coach being able to steer us around it was almost like having wings.

After about 15 or so minutes in the air we made our way back to the take-off point for our landing. Rach had already landed so I was calling out to here as we came down. My landing was actually quite smooth and the moment my feet hit the ground I felt heavy with gravity once again.

Rach and I came together and the main guy in charge came over and as we were laughing telling each other about our experiences he told us that we reminded him of a movie with Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. “The Bucket List!” he finally remembered. Haha, it was probably the best compliment I’ve ever gotten while traveling. He then invited us over with our coaches and some of the other people to have a beer and some local snacks. Since we weren’t in any sort of hurry we gladly accepted and talked with all of them for a while over some beer, pig stomach that is “best with beer” according to him, a fruit I can’t remember how to pronounce and other various dried snacks. It was really nice to relax on the cliff top for a while. The guy told us that we should come to Taiwan to teach English and leave Korea because Taiwan is better, haha. He even told me that if I came to Taipei I could come and train to be a paragliding coach and fly all the time! I said I’d definitely keep my options open and took his card in case I ever wanted to come back and train :P

We told him we were looking to maybe go to some hot springs and so he recommended a place that was close by and told us he could help us get there. I thought, sure! I mean, if you can get a recommendation from a local might as well give it a shot, right? So he took us down to the bus stop and told the bus driver where we wanted to go. Literally 10 minutes into the bus ride, the fog and the cloudy skies set in, so the short window of great weather we had was the ONLY time we could have gone paragliding on our trip. We lucked out BIG time. We kinda made some friends on the bus. There was a group of Taiwanese teens, and one of their cell phones went off. The ring tone just happened to be my FAVORITE K-pop song, Sorry Sorry! Rach and I started grooving a little bit and they kinda looked as us like “how do these white girls know this song?!” haha. We made eye contact with them and laughed a bit and bonded over the Korean pop song. Then one of them started to play another song on his phone, “Yeah!” by Little John and Usher and we all started dancing a little bit on the bus. Good times, haha.

After quite a while on the bus we were starting to get a bit concerned since it was supposed to be “close.” We got to a stop and the bus driver looked at us like “Why aren’t you getting off the bus?” and so we took that as our cue that this is probably where we were supposed to get off. We had no clue what to do at this point so we called the paragliding guys on a pay phone once again. This time we found a lady who was willing to take a random phone call, and he explained to her the name of the place and asked if she knew where it was in relation to where we were (or so I think that’s how the conversation went). Anyway, she hangs up the phone and tries to draw a map for us. We attempt to follow it down the street but just to make sure we were heading the right way, we decided to stop in an electronic store we passed to ask. The guy didn’t speak any English, and after a failed attempt to explain to us where to go on the doorstep of the store, he went inside and opened up a brand new electronic translator/dictionary. Good thinking, sir! I guess the electronic stores are where it’s at when you’re lost in a strange Taiwanese town! Ended up we were heading in the right direction anyway, so we continued down the road until we found the place. We were disappointed to find out that the hot springs were essentially the same thing as the jimjilbongs (bathhouses) in Korea and that since it was a holiday, their prices were sky high. So we decided to just head back to the city.

We ended up having dinner at a traditional Chinese restaurant that was recommended to us and had some d-e-licious food! Rach got the spare rib in orange sauce (very very orange-y!) and I got prawns and walnuts in spicy bean sauce. To drink I ordered one of the strangest things I saw on the menu – coconut milk with red beans and herb jelly. It was exactly what it stated, coconut milk with red beans floating around and squares of jelly. Not too bad.

Monday:

Monday we went to go up Taipei 101. Taipei 101 was until recently, the tallest building in the world standing at 1,670 ft (101 stories above ground) and also still holds the record for the world’s fastest ascending elevator at 55.22 ft/s. In July of 2009, it was surpassed in height by the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. Even though it was still a bit cloudy, we decided we should go up, you know, while we were in Taiwan and all!

It was a little bit dizzying being up at the very top outside looking up at the top spire that was only about 20 ft or so away while remembering how high it was when you were standing on the ground. We were quite literally in the clouds and we still got a decent view of the city.

Afterwards it was time to head back to the airport. Our long weekend was coming to an end, as well as our last trip in Asia together. Upon arrival to the airport, it took a bit longer to check in than usual. After a couple phone calls made by the attendant, she informed us that we were being upgraded to business class since it was such a full flight. NICE! Neither of us had ever flown business class before, especially not on an international flight. From the moment we heard the news, we were suddenly sad the flight was only about 2 hours long!

We got into business class and saw that each person had their own sort of long pod. The seats reclined all the way and there was a foot rest so you could basically have a bed to sleep on if you wanted. We put all our stuff in the overhead compartments and then the stewardess came over with none other than glasses of champagne. We both took one and toasted to our past year of excellent adventures together – what a fitting way to end our last trip! It was great just relaxing, eating truffles and a 3-course meal while watching some “Sex and the City.”

The flight landed, we took our airport bus back to our apartment area and walked home, knowing that once we got there we’d have to hit the ground running…even though it was about 10:30pm. We had to pack up our entire apartment by Wednesday evening - giving us about 2-2.5 days to roll our lives for the past year into a couple suitcases before we had to move out – Rach to her new apartment and me to a motel Froebel was providing for me since we only had an exact year lease on our previous apartment. Needless to say, it’s been quite the crazy week. More on that soon!

Pictures of Taiwan HERE

Gallivanting around Taipei!



I apologize for the delay in this post, since returning from our trip my life has been frantic with packing and moving (both my apartment and my classroom). But more on all of this on another day, for now, onto Formosa!

Well it happened. Meg and I made it to Taiwan, officially having set foot in 8 countries since February 2009. The trip got off to kind of a rough start, leaving us a little leery on what was to come, but it ended up being fantastic and very fun. We left our apartment on Friday morning around 6:15 am. When we were waiting to check in for our flight, I looked over to my left and to my shock, saw pandas in the airport! Animal hats are all the rage in Asia right now, and 2 kids were hiding behind luggage with only their panda hats sticking out. This sight made both Meg and I giggled and we were off to a fun start.

Meg had Friday off from work, but I did not. So, I was using one of my sick days. The thing is, in Korea personal days don't exist. If you are calling in to miss work you had better be really sick. So as much as I didn't like doing it, I needed to call into work and tell a little white lie in order to have my vacation. Problem was, I couldn't call into work until I was already at the airport. While going through immigration Meg and I were discussing options on where I would find a quiet place to call. I cleared immigration and turned around, only to find Meghan getting sent over to an office. Confused, I waited for about 10 minutes until she came through. Turns out her visa was expired so she needed to get a single-entry visa to be allowed back into Korea. It turned out to be really simple, but this was our first "uh-oh...this trip isn't going quite as smooth as we hoped" moment. From here we started walking the corridor, looking for a spot for me to call CIS. We finally stumbled upon a separate handicapped bathroom and figured this would be perfect. We went in, locked the door, and I got my boss on the phone. Then it happened - the intercom came on with a message about a flight boarding. In a panic, I HUNG UP the phone on my boss. I looked at Meg in shock, I believe saying "I am so fired" as she started laughing. My boss called me back, I waited until the intercom went silent, and then I picked up apologizing that my phone cut out. I finished my conversation, not quite sure what she would say to me upon my return on Tuesday (for the record, nothing happened) and Meg and I were finally off to board the plane.

We arrived in Taiwan to temperatures in the low 50s. Gray skies. Clouds. Wind. Although disappointed with everything (except the temperature) we were sure that the weather would clear up at some point in the next 4 days (and were praying so because we had plans to go paragliding if the weather cooperated) so off we went to get a bus to the city. We landed at the bus terminal in Taipei, armed with a map to our hostel courtesy of the airport help desk. We started off walking and soon realized that something was not right. Our supposedly 10 minute walk was taking much long and we weren't passing any of the landmarks we thought we would. We finally ran into a really nice man in a back alley way who spoke English. He called our hostel and then went into his apartment building and printed a new map off Goggle maps for us. Turns out the lady had told us the wrong way to turn after crossing a bridge, turning a 10 minute walk into an almost hour long ordeal. We arrived at our hostel (complete with a key code entry for the front door AND our room door) only to discover that we were literally the only people staying there. I think we saw two other people the entire time. Our hostel was nice enough, we had two beds and the bathrooms were just down the hall, but the staff was very unhelpful. We asked for assistance with things to do, places to eat, or other general questions multiple times and never got any real answer. This might have had something to do with the fact that English was less widely used. The metro had English of course, but in general not very many people seemed to speak English, or knew just very basic English. Of course, this is not to say that people weren't nice. The people of Taipei were very friendly and welcoming to us throughout the entire trip.

From here we went to a nearby food court to find a late lunch/early dinner. There were several restaurants to choose from, but none of the menus had English on them. Finally Meg and I both settled on pointing to pictures and ended up with some delicious soup for our first Taiwanese meal. As we were leaving the building with the food court we saw a group of people following someone, as well as some policemen and a camera crew. Curious, we joined the fray. After walking a few meters, a guy asked us if we wanted to meet the mayor of Taipei. Of course, we said yes and we were immediately thrust into a circle of people to shake his hand and pose for pictures. He asked where we were from and when we told him Minnesota he said "Oh! The Vikings. Minneapolis and St. Paul...I have been there!" So perhaps Meg and I ended up on the Taiwan news that night or will be in a promotional brochure for the city.

We ended our first day by going to a small street food market by our hostel. We wandered around for awhile but it was pretty dead. We ended up stopping at a nearby 7-11 to buy some hot chili squid chips, seaweed chips, and Taiwan beer to eat in our hostel and called it a night, praying that Saturday would bring us better weather, which would allow us to go paragliding. We woke up on Saturday morning to....rain. Disappointed, we went to the bus terminal to get a leisurely breakfast of coffee and doughnuts. We decided that since the weather was gross we would go to the National Palace Museum, which has been called one of the five most important museums in the world. The museum is technically an art museum, having a permanent collection of over 650,000 Chinese artifacts spanning 8,000 years of Chinese history. At any given time, only about 1% of the museum's collection is on display. The displays are rotated every three months, meaning it would take 12 years to see the entire collection! We took a bus over to the museum and two little kids ended up sitting behind us with their dad. They were probably a mix of Chinese and European decent and were infatuated with us. They spent the whole bus ride sticking their little faces between and over the seats playing peek-a-boo with us and giggling hysterically. Meg and I were practically in tears by the time they got off and they definitely helped brighten an otherwise dreary day!

While meandering through the museum and taking in all the history, an announcment came on the loud speaker telling us that the air circulation system was going to be turned on in order to prevent the spread of H1N1. Meg and I had a good giggle about this as we headed on to our next destination - the Miramar Ferris wheel. The Ferris wheel is 70 meters in diameter, making it the second largest in Taiwan. It is attached to the roof of the Miramar shopping complex, making it 100 meters tall and the second tallest in Taiwan. We thought that being so high up we would be able to get a good view of the city, however, given the gray clouds and location, the view was less than spectacular (a parking lot and driving range). We were also the only people on the ride (I can't imagine why given the gorgeous weather) but we still had fun. By this time, the rain had stopped, so we decided to head down to Taipei 101 to see if the sky would clear up and we could go up the tower. We also were hoping there would be a Chinese New Year's celebration going on (since Saturday was New Year's Eve), and since Taipei 101 is right by the City Hall, we figured if there was a party anywhere, it would be there. Unfrotunetly, we were wrong on both counts...there was no party and the sky was still to foggy to make it worth going up in the tower. Disappointed, we decided to head over to the Shilin night market, one of the biggest in Taiwan.

The market was HUGE and full of knick-knacks to buy, street food to try, and those stupid arcade claw games to play (literally, there were stalls and stalls of them). Meg and I dove right into the food and had a street food dinner that lasted about 3 hours. We tried a wide variety of food - sugarcane juice, yams with peanuts, quail eggs, a huge chocolate crepe, fried condensed milk, an avocado milk drink, candied strawberries and candied tomatoes stuffed with something, stinky tufo (smells TERRIBLE but tastes not too bad), a frog egg drink, and congealed pig's blood pudding (which was rolled in peanuts and cilantro). As you can probably guess from reading the list, some of the food was delicious whereas others...well. We also ran into a glass blower on the street. Meg and I watched him work for awhile and both decided to buy a souvenir from him. The guy was really nice and knew a little bit of English. He decided he wanted to give us each a small gift for free, so he let us pick one of his smaller glass pieces out to keep. As he was showing us the various things we could choose from, he picked up a small Santa Claus and started humming 'Jingle Bells' as he danced the Santa towards us. Meg and I both found this hilarious, and the whole thing was made even funnier when he called "thank you! Merry Christmas!" after us as we walked away. We both ended up choosing small glow-in-the-dark puffer fish for our free gifts by the way. We wandered the night market for a little longer before heading back to the hostel, once again, praying the weather would clear up.

One thing that Meg and I quickly noticed was the amount of rules in Taiwan. There were signs everywhere about things you couldn't do or you would get fined. For example, eating and drinking on the subway. There were also signs simply telling you not to do something, but not spelling out consequences for example, a sign on a bus door that said "No birds allowed". We also saw etiquette signs, such as one about the proper use of cell phones on the metro which included bullets like 'speak quietly' and 'send a text message instead!' Furthermore, the escalators all had announcements that played when you got on that said "Step firmly on the platform" and there were signs running up the sides of the escalators telling you 'to hold on', 'not run', and 'watch your children'. We both found this rather odd, partly because Korea really has no rules, and because these were so specific. We were also slightly worried that we would get fined for breaking a rule we didn't know existed since there seemed to be so many strange ones.

Meg and I were also surprised by the lack of people. Granted, it was Chinese New Year, so apparently a lot of people go home to visit family, but the city just felt deserted to us. We could walk streets without getting pushed. We almost always had seats on the subway (and speaking of the subway, people actually WAITED IN LINES to get on it and boarded it in an orderly fashion...something you will NEVER see in Korea). We were simply amazed with how empty and quiet the city seemed. Upon returning home we discovered that the city only has 2.6 million residents, which explains a lot since we are used to a city with a population of 10.3 million. Of course, this means that when we make it into Apple Valley were are going to be beyond confused by the lack of people running around.

Meg will give you the run-down on our final two days in Taipei, Sunday and Monday, soon. Then we will be writing some posts about moving out (and for me moving in) and reflections back on our past year in Korea!

STA World Traveler Internship - how ME is this?!

Hello everyone! Recently, a friend alerted me to an internship he thought would be perfect for me, and I couldn't agree more! It is the STA World Traveler Internship. Check it out HERE. I mean...seriously. It doesn't get any more perfect than that! Perhaps my dreams of having my own travel show aren't as far fetched as I thought! :P

Sooooo I spent some time figuring out how to say WHY I love to travel, WHERE I've been and HOW I would be the best person for the job - all in about 3.5 minutes. Wowsa.

I took advantage of being in such a fantastic city and went out to do some shooting! The result of my late nights and too many diet-cokes can be viewed on youtube HERE. I really hope you enjoy it, and if you get the chance, please vote for me (and/or leave a great comment, hehe) HERE!

Thanks so much for all your support over the past year - - - - - coming up: our adventures in Taiwan for lunar new year! (I know we've been back for 4 days w/no post, but we've been packing and moving out of our apartment so sorry for the delay!)

I'm 100% Positive You Will Find These Kids Adorable

Today at Froebel we had a very special day in honor of the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday this weekend - traditional day! All the kids came dressed up in traditional Korean clothes which are usually very bright, embroidered, and stunning. The dress for the women, as we've mentioned before, is called a hanbok. These traditional clothes are worn semi-formally or formally on special occasions, events and festivals.

I was really excited to see all the kids dressed up, and they did NOT disappoint! I am not sure I've seen anything cuter than a bunch of these Korean children in their traditional outfits. It was also a reminder of where I am and how much amazing history this culture has.

So basically all day we played Korean folk games, such as hitting a spinning top with a rope, throwing thin arrows into a bucket, arm wrestling (which was hilarious), and a game that resembled hacky-sack. Determined to capture how alive my kids were on film (a tough feat at times since when they see a camera they either pose or look like deer in high-beams), I set out to be a stealthy sniper photographer.

The results of my super-spy, 007 photo shoot are HERE!

At the end of the day we brought all the 6 year old classes in the gym and had chicken fights! Two kids faced off and they had to hop on one foot and kinda bump into each other. The person who lost their balance and put two feet down (or fell down on the mat, haha) was the loser. All the kids were cheering for the person they wanted to win as loud as they could and it was really fun watching all the kids try to bounce around and throw each other down haha. After all the kids had gone, Melissa, Mary and I all had the same idea at once: TEACHER BATTLE!!! The kids, of course, went crazy when they saw Mary and I taking off our shoes and getting onto the mat to face off! It was so much fun and I ended up winning the first match. Then I had to battle Melissa and after a very good match, she was the victor! You can see the video of some of the kids and also Melissa and my battle in the same photo album. All-in-all, it was a fantastic day at Froebel School :)

It was great to spend the whole day with Elgar class, since I have a limited amount of days remaining with them. I'm really not looking forward to saying goodbye because let's face it, crying hysterically at your workplace isn't really the most natural thing...but I've come to accept it as an inevitability. Should make for some great embarrassing pictures haha :P

It doesn't quite seem like a reality that I will be jetting-off in about 17 days. What happened to 2009? I'm CONVINCED time moves faster in Asia...I'll find the science to back that up but in the meantime, I guess you'll just have to take my word for it that this year FLEW by - we're talking breaking the sound barrier speeds here.

This past week I've been reflecting on all the little things I'm going to miss about this place. The high-fives from the corner fruit sellers. Getting extra sprouts from sprout lady because I'm there every-other day (I mean, if they have sprouts in heaven, this is what they'd taste like!). The occasional random conversation with a Korean wanting to practice English. Listening to the alley cats fight to the death outside my apartment window. Calling my friend Mark when I need him to call and order a pizza for me. Falling half asleep on the subway. My kids yelling "MEGHAN TEACHER! SCIENCE!" like they just found out ice cream was for lunch because they know I'm not the teacher that makes them trace letters.

Clearly there are tons more but lately I've been really stopping to think of where I am and exactly how lucky I am to be here. Even the sounds and smells of the city, the Korean language dancing incomprehensible around me will be something I'll never forget.

BUT enough about the sad stuff for now... it can wait another 17 days or so! TOMORROW we are going to Taiwan for our Lunar New Year vacation. We have to be up bright and early, but what else is new? As long as I'm getting on a plane or going somewhere awesome, name the time and I'm ready to go! Its also Rach and my last Asian trip together this year. Hard to believe after being travel partners for the past year and seeing/doing so many incredible things.

So for now, we're off - but keep your eye out next week when we get to tell you all our stories from our time on the island. :)