Bubble show and open class

Swine flu madness has hit Korea and let me tell you, it is getting a bit old. CIS instated a policy this week that if a student leaves the country they are not allowed back at school for 7 days (which many Korean schools have also put in place). But don't worry, staying in Korea is fine, apparently you won't catch Swine Flu within the safety of SoKo. Also, there have been daily temperature checks of all kindergarten students (but for some reason not of any of the afternoon students...). Likewise, two new teachers arrived today at CIS this week from America and both of them were at school within 12 hours of landing...hmmm. Basically, the policy seems to have been put in place to please the parents and has resulted in me missing lots of students, for many days. Last Thursday, we got to go another field trip with our kindergarten students. We went to the Fan Yang bubble show which was much cooler than the last field trip to the fire station. The show is actually world famous (seriously, google it) and is currently playing here in Korea. The staff members were all a little skeptical at first but ended up being pleasantly surprised. The guy did some really awesome stuff with the bubbles like putting bubbles (and people) inside bubbles, filling the auditorium with hundreds of bubbles, making them change colors and freezing them, etc. He even made a bubble wall at one point out of a HUGE bubble. My Nemos ate it right up and it was pretty adorable to watch them try to catch bubbles and pop them as they floated over their heads!

On Monday I had the dreaded open class with my Nemos. Twice a year at CIS we do open class with our kindergarten classes. This is when all the parents get to jam themselves in my classroom and watch me teach for 45 minutes. The irony is that I am supposed to teach as if it is a "normal" day. Of course, you can guess that kids, especially three year old kids, don't act "normal" when their parents are there watching (plus 11 other sets of parents). My class went much better than I had expected, most of my kids sat properly and listened attentively (of course, it helped that one of my biggest trouble makers was gone, another student was absent, and one girl was sitting on her mom's lap because she was sick. 9 students versus 12 makes a HUGE difference) and my crier didn't start crying until about 30 minutes in. I did about 25 minutes of circle time (where we talk about the weather, date, season, and so forth) and then did about a 15 minute math lesson with the kids. I am also pleased to report that I even managed to keep the parents entertained with my stellar understanding of Korean. Since my kids still speak quite a fair amount of Korean, I have learned to recognize several phrases and can respond back to the kids in English with what they should be saying. One of my kids said something to another in Korean and I whipped around and told him the English phrase. Many of my parents laughed and commented later on my "great understanding of Korean".


Last Friday, I experienced one of the funniest episodes in recent memory. I was waiting for the subway to come home from work and it was quite crowded at the station. When it gets crowded, people tend to become very pushy because they want to make sure that they get on the subway. So anyway, as the subway arrives people began pushing forward in a massive surge. Just as I am approaching the subway door the lady behind me steps on the back of my flip flop, pulling it off my foot. Unfortunately, she doesn't realize that she pulled it off my foot, so when she shuffles her foot forward, she ends up kicking my $5 purple Old Navy flip flop...into the subway track. The lady knows no English so she gave me a little shrug as we boarded the train. She then pointed at my foot and laughed. I proceeded to rid the subway home wearing one purple flip flop, feeling like I was getting more stares than usual. I had sent Meg a text to see if she could bring a pair of flip flops to the station so I wouldn't have to walk through the alleyways in one shoe, but as she was preparing dinner she did not receive this. I showed up at home, with one shoe, but with a lovely home cooked meal waiting for me. Really, I couldn't even be mad about this whole thing, it was just one of those things that you have to laugh at because of the absurdity of it all!


In the past week we have also had to do some creative problem solving, mainly because we made a trip to Costco and our stomachs are bigger than our freezer. We were ecstatic to discover that you can buy frozen Eggo waffles at Costco. What we didn't consider was that with the purchase of frozen chicken breasts, mandu, and some steak, the 60 waffles would not fit into our freezer (you may recall that we have a fridge/freezer slightly larger than a typical dorm size). We crammed in as many packages as we could, ate some straightaway, and then, since we can't let outstanding American food like this go to waste, Meg took the rest into work for storage. Crisis averted.

Meg and I both had staff members finish their contracts on Friday. Sadly, our first friends in Korea, the MN couple, have officially left the country. It seems odd that we are at the point in our contracts now that they were when we arrived. Just goes to show how fast time flies by. We also inherited some new stuff, among the best being a smaller rice cooker and a swiffer (completely necessary, the amount of dust in this country is unbelievable)!

My parents are slated to arrive in Korea tomorrow (as well as the suitcase of American goodies they are bring us)! I will be sure to update you on their trip in the future!

So Froebel blew up.

Not literally of course, but we have added a bunch of new classes and have taken on quite a few new foreign and Korean teachers as well. All the commotion is a bit strange and having new people on staff can dramatically change the dynamic. So far though, all the new teachers seem pretty fun and chill which is good news.

I am still in charge of 6 year old drama and still co-teach 5 year old drama. The subjects I teach haven't changed, it is just more of them now...which is alright I suppose. Especially cooking class :) That class especially never really feels like work!

We are in the middle of the school year now, so we have a lot of things going on - meetings with parents, schedule changes and all that other stuff I already mentioned about new kids and staff so it has been pretty crazy around here the past week or so.

Anywho, in other news last weekend our friend Ashley who lives down south in Gwangju came up to Seoul to hang out for the weekend. He introduced us to a really great all-you-can-eat Brazilian steakhouse. A-mazing. I was surprised they not only had beef, but all different kinds of meat. And all of it was delicious! We even got to eat kangaroo! On the way out, I was looking at all the different kinds of wine they had just for fun, and then one of the servers came up and gave me a bottle of red Spanish wine (my favorite!) completely free. Still unsure why, but hey, free bottle of wine!

After the meal, Rach had some stuff to get done and decided it best she got going, but Ashley and I went to a really nice 찜질방 jimjilbang (bathhouse). We decided to take about a half hour to do the baths that are separated by gender and then to meet back at the main lobby to check out everything else the place had to offer. This jimjilbang had a swimming pool on the roof, tons of different saunas (some with hot rocks to lay on, some with lofts, and some with tvs!), an ice sauna (there were snowmen in the corners and ice on the walls!), and also areas to lounge and snack. They also had a bar/snack area on the roof and a big screen where they occasionally play movies. People also sleep at the jimjilbang since they are 24 hours and they have special places where you can get some rest as well. This is actually how some people travel - the jimjilbangs are cheap (7,000-12,000 won usually I believe...which is about $5.50-10 maybe?). We had a great time just hanging out there and I plan to bring my mom and grandma to that jimjilbang when they come!

Lately Rach and I had been feeling a bit "blah" and decided it was time to get some excersize. Both of us tried running outside, but it is toooooo hot and tooooo humid and tooooo crowded it basically drove us both insane. Our friend and my co-worker Tim had belonged to a gym near our house so we decided to give it a try! We went in to register and were both very surprised at how nice this place was. Each treadmill has its own personal tv that you can plug your headphones into. I guess my first time running I got too excited about it and pulled the remote off the treadmill with too much force because I dropped it onto my treadmill and it went flying behind me. As if I didn't stand out enough already, here I am dropping stuff onto high speed conveyors and laughing at myself. Rach tried her best not to double over as the trainer guy came over to ask if I was ok.

The guy registering us didn't speak much English, so he pulled his much-better-at-English friend out of her workout to talk to us. All said and done, we got a month free, free yoga (we didn't get the package that included group exercise so this was really nice!), and he even offered to help us out weight training if we ever wanted a free session of personal training. Awesome! We are currently doing yoga twice a week. Its interesting because we have to watch a bit more than usual since we can't understand her instruction...but we both get along just fine due to we both have a background in yoga already.

I suppose that's about all for now! We are currently figuring out where we are going to go for our long weekend coming up in October. Its either going to be Jeju or Busan, depending on what we can pull together!

건배 to 180 Days Of Living Life The Korean Way!

As we rapidly approach the halfway mark here in Korea (Friday will be officially 6 months since we boarded our flight at MSP) I have become increasingly aware of what coming to Korea entailed. We both remember signing our year contracts thinking, "what is a year in the grand scheme of things?" and while I still feel that way, I am definitely stating to feel slightly nostalgic for all the things that I am missing at home. Don't get me wrong, I do not regret my decision to come here in any way, shape or form (and I am fairly positive that Meg does not as well) but sometimes, you wake up in the morning, and the thought of walking to the subway/bus in the pouring rain instead of getting in your comfy car or not being able to end a rough work day by texting all your girls for a girls' night makes you want to board the next flight home. But don't get your hopes up loyal readers! We are staying till the end as there are still many adventures to go on and many more life experiences to be had!

Last weekend Meg and I headed to the southern tip of Korea for a White Lotus Flower Festival and some beach time. We had booked the trip through Adventure Korea (AK) and true to form, the trip started out with a bang. We arrived at the pick-up point only to discover that only Meg's name as on the list. Apparently I had transferred the money, but thought Meg was confirming me (to which she replied "why would I confirm you?") so I technically didn't have a spot on the bus. Luckily, the AK guys love us (a couple of the leaders have learned our names by this point) and we got it all sorted out. From here we boarded the bus, only to discover that there were not two seats together anymore. Meg was fortunate enough to end up sitting by a really nice lady named Kathy who was fun to chat with. I on the other hand ended up spending the 5 hour ride sitting on a quarter of a seat as the guy next to me was quite large. Definitely not the best bus ride experience I have had in Korea. We arrived at the festival and disembarked the bus, the cameras rolling the entire time. Literally. We discovered when we arrived at the bus that this particular AK trip was being followed for some documentary or something (we aren't quite clear as the guy who explained it wasn't the best English speaker). Some of our friends from the southern part of Korea met up with us at the festival as well, which was fun.

Anyhow, at the festival we got to try making onion kimchi (which I was recorded doing and then interviewed about afterward), making lotus leaf wrapped rice (which apparently you were supposed to fry, but Meg and I just ate uncooked...whoops), Korean drumming, and tasting lotus tea and beer. We also took a boat ride through the lotus leaves and got to wander around the festival enjoying the sunny weather (the heat this weekend was reminiscent of Thailand). After the festival we headed to dinner and then to the pension where we were staying. The pension was a typical Korean style place (sleeping on the floor and all that jazz) but it did have an outdoor swimming pool, which was fabulous! We got up the next morning to head to a small islet for a couple of hours. The islet literally disappears when the tide comes in so we had a limited amount of time here but we made the best of it. Meg and I did some clam digging, got to swim in the VERY salty ocean (with some fish guts as some Koreans were cleaning fish right there), and even took a ride on a banana boat. We also got some quality sun, which hadn't happened to us at a Korean beach yet!

This past week has been pretty typical. I have been frantically preparing my classroom for open class/conferences which are coming up a week from tomorrow (more on these after they occur). I decided to rearrange the entire thing, strip all my walls and redecorate them, and clean out all my cupboards and shelves. While this has been very time-consuming and frustrating, I am pleased with the (almost) final result and am happy to report that after 5.5 months my classroom finally feels like my own! My parents are arriving in about 2 weeks for a week long visit and then we are only a few weeks away from our 3 day Chuseok vacation and the visit of Meg's mom and grandma! More on all this and more to come soon!

A final note as monsoon (we hope) has winded down here in Korea. Not only are Koreans afraid of fan death and the sun, they are also afraid of rain. We have learned that you will get many strange looks if you walk in the rain without an umbrella (even if it is barely sprinkling). Koreans believe that the rain is acid rain and will cause their hair to fall out as well as other various problems. Of course, you can imagine how hard it is to walk on the sidewalks when all 10 million people who live in the city need an umbrella open at the same time. Also, getting places on rainy days takes quite a lot of extra time as every person comes to a dead stop at the top of the subway stairs in order to open their umbrella before even a drop of rain lands on them. This causes a huge traffic jam and general frustration on many of the foreigners' part. Going along with this, you think a country that had a monsoon season would be smart enough to not use slippery materials to build their sidewalks. But no. Whatever material Korea uses to pave the sidewalks is probably the slipperiest thing I have ever walked on when wet - especially in flip flops. Meg and I have both had moments of almost falling and having to catch our balance - and within the last month we have both had moments of completely falling on our backsides in the middle of the sidewalk - luckily hurting no more than our pride!

Friday and Saturday -

Chiang Mai

Friday:

Friday was a day we had both been looking forward to for a few months, as we booked it shortly after booking our plane tickets. We were to go elephant trekking through the jungle, bamboo rafting, exploring a cave and visiting a village.

The most anticipated part of the day was of course, riding elephants! On the way to the elephant training camp, our guide decided we would stop at a local market to try some fruits and other things that the 5 of us in our group had voiced we hadn't experienced yet. She mentioned "insects" but I kinda though "oh ok, I'll finally get to eat chocolate covered ants" or something along those lines. WRONG! We got to the market and our guide took us over to a lady that had bags (and bags and BAGS) of different insects. Just you know, fried. Not even deep fried or in a batter or anything. My stomach got queasy as I realized I would have to try them...I can't ever really pass up an opportunity to try a new thing (unless of course, its genuinely unsafe) and with that, Rach and I both picked up a cricket. A whole cricket.

Armed with Rach's camera in my hand, I watched as she first looked at the little critter with an expression in her eyes like "why, oh why, am I doing this again?!", and then with a swift motion put it in her mouth and started chewing it. I managed to capture the face that was the epitome of "ew" as she felt what she later described as its antenna and legs running down her throat. After seeing that I knew I was in for a treat so to get it over with I quickly grabbed my doomed cricket, posed for a quick picture, and then into my mouth it went. When I bit down I tasted a salty juice ooze out of its body. Now don't get me wrong, it wasn't even a terrible tasting salty juice...just not the best thing I've ever eaten.

That experience behind us, we were introduced to a couple new fruits including durian and mangosteen . The durian had the consistency of mashed bananas and had an interesting flavor, but I fell in love the with mangosteens as they were tiny and delicious!


We got the elephant camp full of new foods and couldn't wait to get up close and personal with them! First on the agenda was a show that displayed elephant logging techniques. The elephants could move large parts of trees with their trunks, and could also pick them up with their tusks to stack them. The elephants could also retrieve items dropped by their trainer - at one point the elephants picked up the trainers hat and put it back on his head. One of the most impressive things though was an elephant painted a picture of a tree. No joke.

After the show we were able to feed a few of them bananas, including a little baby elephant who took the time to peel the bananas with her snout! We also got to observe them taking a shower in the river and spraying water on each other and the trainers with their trunks.

Finally it was time to ride them through the jungle! Rachel and I boarded our elephant which I lovingly named "Stampleton" and it was off through the jungle we went! We walked up a narrow stream to a small village and then looped back around. We even went walking through the river - I got excited thinking the elephant might spray us but it didn't.

It was a really cool experience to get so close to all of these huge and graceful creatures and I can't wait until the next time I get to make friends with an elephant!

Not sure if the rest of the day could top that, we were off to our second adventure which was exploring Chiang Dao Cave. The caves are located in the Doi Chiang Dao mountain, which is one of the tallest in Thailand.

These caves are sacred and contain many buddah images and are the subject of many local legends. Some of the caves are lit with electric light and some you need a local guide with a lantern to help you through the pitch black, sometimes extremely narrow and sometimes vast pathway. We went through one of each.

The cave was cool and humid with lots of little creatures running around. We were impressed with some of the rock formations and I tried to remember all I could about stalactite and stalagmite from 8th grade "Earth Science" class with little to no luck. At times we had to walk down naturally made narrow stairways, crawl through small passageways to get to the next cavern. Some of the "rooms" were very large with high ceilings where groups of bats were hanging out. I enjoyed the lantern tour because the dim light combined with the smell of the air and the echo of the large rooms made me feel like I was in a hollywood film...most likely a horror film but I tried not to think about that part too much, haha.

After the cave we took our air-con van over to a stream where we got on two-by-two on bamboo rafts (literally just long pieces of bamboo strapped together with a make-shift bamboo bench to sit on). We had a lady with a large bamboo stick and awesome hat take us down the stream and it was quite a relaxing trip. The scenery was unbelievable. Tall grasses, trees and a purple mountain with smokey clouds kept me fascinated throughout the hour long journey. I kept trying to get good pictures but in reality the 2-dimensional capture of light was in no way comparable to the beauty I was able to see with my own eyes.

Along the way there was one point that had "rapids" (a very small area where water was running over rocks). We saw the boat ahead of us pass over no problem, and Rach and I joked about how INTENSE these "rapids" were and how we should probably hold on or we might fall off the raft, etc, etc. We soon ate our words as our raft hit a group of rocks and got stuck. Since thats the very last thing we expected on our peaceful ride, we both lunged forward and then started laughing hysterically as we realized we did, in fact, get beached. The couple on the boat in front of us who we had made acquaintances with throughout the day looked back laughing and taking pictures of our sad little raft stuck on the rocks, and the two girls in fits of laughter. We were finally released from the rock's fury and had a pleasant rest of the journey. After rafting was our final stop, the Karen Long-Neck village.

The Long-Neck women famously wear brass rings around their necks. This distorts the growth of their collarbones and make them look as if they have long necks - which they don't. This row of brass rings do not actually stretch their necks but in fact squash the vertebrae and collar bones. A woman generally has about twenty or more rings around her neck. This neck ring adornment is started when the girls are 5 or 6 years old. The rings on the arms and the legs are not quite as prominent as those on the neck simply because the neck rings are so pronounced. However, these rings are just as important. The rings on the arms are worn on the forearm from the wrist to the elbow. Those on the legs are worn from the ankles to the knees, and cloth coverings are kept over most of these rings, from the shins down to the ankles.

It was an interesting experience to see them, but the village was set up specifically for tourism reasons and because of that, both Rachel and I felt a bit uncomfortable taking pictures as we didn't want to make them feel like they were on display.

That night we packed up our stuff because we had to check out of our hostel the next morning. We had another full day in Chiang Mai though before our flight left around 9:15pm Saturday night to head back to Seoul.

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Saturday:

Saturday we had signed up to take a Thai cooking class, and after eating fabulous meal after fabulous meal I was SO excited to learn how to make some of these delicious foods.

First stop was to a local market where our guide/instructor gave us an introduction to thai spices. I had little knowledge of what sort of spices grew in this part of the world and it was really nice to have this introduction before we actually started cooking with them. Some of the spices/ingredients we learned about were:

Galangal (Thai ginger) ข่า
Lemon grass ตะไคร้
Kaffir lime มะกรูด

Turmeric ขมิ้น
Thai ginseng กระชาย
Sweet Basilใบโหระพา

Holy Basil ใบกระเพรา

Lemon Basil ใบแมงลัก

just to name a few. Also involved in a lot of dishes is coconut cream. We each made 7 dishes and were extremely full by the end of the day! Rachel made pad thai, fried cashew nuts with chicken, thai red curry paste/thai red curry soup, chicken coconut milk soup, mango and sticky rice and a spicy papaya salad. I made spring rolls, holy basil with chicken, jungle curry paste/jungle curry soup, bananas in coconut milk, spicy chicken salad and hot and sour soup with chicken.

We had a great time chopping, mixing, frying and of course, eating! We will get a recipe book soon in our email so we can attempt to re-make all of the delicious concoctions at home and perhaps for YOU if you're lucky ;)

It was finally time to say goodbye to Thailand and head to the Chiang Mai airport. We got to the airport in plenty of time to make sure we didn't miss THIS flight (haha) and had 2 hours to kill in one of the smallest "international" airports I've ever seen. We had to fly to Bangkok first and then catch a connecting flight to Seoul from there. With very few restaurants we decided to wait until Bangkok to eat. Our flight ended up being delayed about 15 mins, which meant our layover in Bangkok would be shorter than expected.

After getting to Bangkok we found a restaurant but had very little time to eat. We ended up racing to finish our dinner to get to the gate for boarding for our flight back to Seoul. Unfortunately we hadn't really planned to have to go through security again, and so we both started to get a bit stressed about getting to our gate on time. Determined NOT to miss this flight, we were prepared to do whatever it took to get on that plane! After getting through security, we realized our gate was down an escalator and on the complete other side of the terminal! We hurried down the stairs and then over the intercom heard "last call for flight so-and-so leaving for Incheon." It was at this point when I started BOOKING it. Rach was a bit behind me since she had a bigger backpack on than I, but I knew if I got there I could tell them to wait! I have run for planes a few times before, but never quite like this. It was like I was running to escape a charging rhino as I flew through the terminal (getting some looks I'm sure) hearing them repeat the last call for our flight over the intercom.

I finally make it to the gate as the last people were boarding. We would have had a few more minutes time and perhaps the sprinting was unnecessary but after missing our flight in Chiang Mai there was no way we were going to let that plane fly w/out us on it!

Our experience in Thailand was an unforgettable adventure. We decided early on in the trip we were very happy with our decision to spend our first of two week-long vacations in Bangkok and Chiang Mai. We will start planning our next vacation (which starts Christmas Eve) very soon and we'll keep you posted!

Sawadee-ka Thailand! Perhaps I'll see you again someday!

Same Same, But Different: Wednesday and Thursday in Chiang Mai!

A few general notes about Chiang Mai. Our hostel was located in the old part of the city, which meant there were lots of wats around and it had more of a small town feel. This part of the city also looked more run-down and older. Once you passed the old city walls, the city looked more modern and up-to-date. There were a lot less tourists in Chiang Mai than Bangkok, which made for a nice change. People still knew English fairly well and were very helpful. I definitely felt like people were trying to scam us less (probably due to the less touristy nature of the city). The city itself was also much cleaner than Bangkok.

We arrived in Chiang Mai late on Tuesday, so allowed ourselves the luxury of "sleeping in" on Wednesday (we were still up by 9) and having a leisurely (free) hostel breakfast of toast, eggs, pineapple juice, and bacon/ham. We had set plans for Friday, but other than that we had decided to fly by the seat of our pants while in Chiang Mai. The hostel we stayed at was really nice - fairly new and run by a very nice and helpful staff. We spent about 20 minutes after breakfast talking with one of the ladies about what to see in the city. She suggested some wats for us that were nearby, so we decided that it would be Wat Wednesday. The hostel also offered tons of discounted tour and attractions so on the off chance that we would get lucky, we asked about Muay Thai. Turns out, there just so happened to be a match that night and the hostel offered tickets for 350 baht (waaaay cheaper than the Bangkok stadium). We snatched up a pair of those and then hit the streets. We hit around 4 or 5 wats by mid-afternoon, many of which looked very similar to each other and whose names I can not remember.

One that I do however remember the name for and also looked different from the others, was Wat Chiang Man. This wat is actually the oldest in Chiang Mai, supposedly built by the city's founder over 700 years ago, on the spot where he stayed while planning the city. The wat itself was made up of several small buildings, but the most interesting feature (in my opinion) was the chedi (or pagoda), the base of which is lined with plaster elephants. None of the other wats, in Bangkok or Chiang Mai, had decorations like these. Several of the wats in Chiang Mai also had signs with what we assumed to be Buddhist teachings on them posted. We hadn't seen these in Bangkok and some of them were rather interesting to read.

Finishing up our wat tour and having some time to kill before we headed over to the Muay Thai stadium, we decided to get another traditional Thai massage. The lady at our hostel had told us about a place nearby that had all ex-convicts as the masseuses. The spa had been started by a lady who had worked with prisoners before and knew how hard it was for them to get jobs upon their release from prison. So she started a program where the prisoners can get the required training and then come to work at the spa upon their release in order to earn a honest living. The massages here were reasonably priced (it actually cost the same as the one we got in Bangkok) and were excellent! Meg and I both agreed that these massages were much better and did more of the moves that you think of when you hear Thai massage (like the weird twisty yoga poses and using their elbows to knead your back).

After a quick dinner we headed over to the boxing stadium. We were really unsure of what to expect, not really knowing much about boxing in general, much less Thai boxing. There are no real rules in Muay Thai, pretty much anything goes. It is a much more graceful form of boxing than western boxing and is sometimes referred to as the art of eight limbs as contestants can use their knees, shins, hands, and feet. Meg and I stayed for most of the fights, but eventually it got to0 late for us (all those early mornings were finally catching up to us). We were getting ready to leave, but decided that if the contestants for the next round looked good we would stay for one more. Turns out it was a Thai guy versus a white guy. Wait...what? A white guy? This we had to see. We were a little nervous at first because the Thai guy seemed to have the upper hand, but in the end the white guy let him have it and won the match. As we were getting ready to leave, we noticed that the white boxer was chatting with some other foreigners by the exit. Well, this was an opportunity we could not pass up! On our way out the door we stopped and snapped a few pictures and gave our congratulations to the white boxer (who we learned was from France).

On Thursday morning we had decided to get up and go visit one of the most important wats in Chiang Mai, Wat Prathat Doi Suthep. This temple is actually one of the most revered temples among all Thais and is a major pilgrimage site during important Buddhist holidays. Why so important you ask? Turns out that has a lot to do with the legend of its founding. The legend says that a Buddha relic magically replicated itself jut as it was about to be enshrined in the Chedi at Wat Suan Dok. The duplicated relic was placed on the back of a sacred white elephant who was allowed to roam free. The elephant climbed to the top of Suthep Mountain where it trumpeted three times, turned around three times, knelt down and died. This was taken as a sign that this was the location where the relic was supposed to be so King Ku Na Nan built the original chedi at the end of the 14th century. Unfortunately for Meg and I, we did not receive the memo that this wat was at the top of a mountain. Thinking it was only a 15 minute walk from the base, we started up an enormous hill, only to come across a sign after about 20-30 minutes that said something in Thai and then 11km. Well, this didn't look good. We flagged down a songthaew (a red pick-up like truck with benches in the covered bed for you to sit on. It is like a tuk-tuk in that you barter your fee in advance, but like a bus in that many people going to different locations can all ride together) that was heading up the mountain for the rest of the ride. Which was a good thing, because it still took at least another 20 minutes by car once we got in.

After climbing the 309 steps to the top and "renting" an appropriate skirt for me (as Meg mentioned, the wats have dress codes. And it was just to hot for me to fathom wearing anything but shorts), we explored the area. The main area looked very different, lots of gold everywhere, and there was a large amount of shrines and statues. We were also able to get a pretty nice view of the city (despite some haze) from our perch atop the mountain. After negotiating our fare down, we hit up our second destination of the day - the Chiang Mai zoo. The zoo turned out to be a really fun experience. It is set up very different from any zoos I have been to in the states. There were very few walls and cages. Mostly everything was open and you could get pretty close to the animals. We happened to arrive at the area with the giraffes right as feeding time came around, so a zoo keeper gave both Meg and I a bunch of bananas to feed them. We also saw a fair amount of animals that would not be seen in zoos in the states - white tigers, giant pandas, koalas, crocodiles, ostriches, zebras, camels and rhinos to name a few!
At this point, we had been doing a LOT of walking (did I mention that the Chiang Mai zoo is huge?!) and were starving. We went to grab a late lunch back near our hostel when it started to pour. Seeing as we didn't want to explore in the rain, we did the next best thing. We went to a nearby place that was advertising manicures and pedicures for 100 baht each (Roughly 4,000 won or $3). We spent the rest of the early evening getting pampered by some really nice Thai ladies. They didn't speak a lot of English, but they made sure we had a good time by giving us fresh watermelon and dragonfruit as well as blasting a CD with some fabulous tunes for us (some that I remember include Footloose, My Heart Will Go On, and Ghostbusters). We rounded the evening out by eating dinner at our hostel (I had pineapple rice with ham and Meg tried the hostel special of dry curry) and then went to bed as we actually did have to be up and ready to go early the next morning.

There are two days of our trip left, which turned out to be action packed! Meg will be updating you on these soon!

Monday and Tuesday in Bangkok!

Bangkok Pictures HERE

MONDAY:

As Rach mentioned, we were unable to go to the beach on Monday so we decided to go to a floating market a bit outside the city. The place is exactly what it sounds like - they have a canal where boats float down (some with thais or tourists, some retail boats selling hats, souvenirs, and other articles, and some boats even had food!) and you can stop your boat at anytime to barter for a good deal on something you want.

The canal was also lined with shops so you could walk around and look at all sorts of thai arts and crafts. We ended up getting a few things, but I think our favorite purchase of the day was coconut ice cream served in a small coconut. There were big chunks of coconut shavings in it and on an extremely hot day it was quite a treat! In general, we decided that adding coconut (more specifically coconut cream) to anything makes it taste amazing. I think I could just drink coconut cream and be happy!

Speaking of coconut, on the way to the market we stopped at a sugar factory. Well...that is what they called it but it was really just a bunch of people in a medium-sized tent boiling and mixing and whatnot. I guess when I thought of "factory" I was assuming (assuming was a bad idea to begin with!) that it would be a large, metallic, sterile building full of workers in long white over sized jackets and masks over their mouths). But that definitely wasn't the case. It was interesting to see how they make sugar from coconut flowers. We got to taste some and it was quite delicious.

After we returned to Bangkok, it was off to see some of the city's rich Buddhist history. Our first stop was Wat Po.

Here is a little about Wat Po:

Wat Pho (วัดโพธิ์)is mainly famous for the huge Reclining Buddha statue it houses. At 20acres large, it is the largest Wat in Bangkok, and is technically the oldest too, as it was built around 200 years before Bangkok became Thailand's capital. However, today the Wat bears virtually no resemblance to that originally constructed, as it was almost entirely rebuilt by Rama I when the capital was moved to Bangkok. It holds the dual honors of having both Thailand's largest reclining Buddha image and the most number of Buddha images in Thailand.

The highly impressive gold plated reclining Buddha is 46 meters long and 15 meters high, and is designed to illustrate the passing of the Buddha into nirvana. The feet and the eyes are engraved with mother-of-pearl decoration, and the feet also show the 108 auspicious characteristics of the true Buddha.

The reclining Buddha is massive and quite beautiful! Since it is enclosed in the building so tightly, its virtually impossible to get a full shot of it.

After Wat Po, we went down by the river to take a ferry boat to the other side to see another wat, Wat Arun วัดอรุณ which is also known as the "Temple of Dawn." This wat was both our favorites, as it towers over the river bank and gives great views of the city. The stairs were very steep but worth the climb!

After Wat Arun, we wandered around the city a bit and ran across a huge flower market. There were tons of people with little stalls making flower bracelets, necklaces, statues and other things with all parts of the flower. Even though it wasn't on our "to see" list, I'm happy we ran across it!

Pretty exhausted from the long day, we got some delicious food before we headed back to the hostel to pack our things and get to sleep. I had shrimp with chili and basil, and Rach had fried rice with veggies and chicken. Also with almost every meal we had fruit shakes, which were basically fresh fruit (coconut, mango, papaya, watermelon, pineapple, banana, etc) blended together with ice. They were very delicious and perfect for the hot and muggy weather!

TUESDAY:

Tuesday was the first day of our trip where we slept past 6:30am! We got to "sleep in" until around 8 and took advantage of our free breakfast at our hostel. On the agenda were the Grand Palace which is host to the Emerald Buddha, The Golden Mount and the Giant Swing.

The Grand Palace พระบรมมหาราชวัง was quite overwhelming! It is a complex of buildings and served as the official residence of the Thai Royalty since the 18th century. They strictly enforce dress codes here and women are not allowed to be sleeve-less or show any ankle. It was basically torture to wear full-length pants and a sleeved shirt since it was incredibly hot, so we brought shorts and tank tops to change into after our temple exploring. After the Grand Palace we tuk-tuked it over to the Golden Mount.

Here is some info on the Golden Mount:

It was started by King Rama III early in the 19th century, who wanted to build a large chedi on the site to mark the entrance to the city. However, the soft marshy ground could not support such a large structure and it collapsed before it was completed.

Later on, Rama IV built a small chedi housing a Buddha relic on top of the mud and brick mound. The chedi was rebuilt again towards the end of the 19th century by his son Rama V when the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon, made a gift of a Buddha relic excavated from the town where Buddha was believed to have been born. The concrete cap was built during WW II to keep the artificial hill from eroding further.

We were able to get some good city-scape pictures from the Golden Mount as well. After the Golden Mount we went over to see what is called the "Giant Swing." It was pretty cool to see, but no action really in or around it so we quickly moved on back to the area near our hostel.

Since we had been on our feet for about 4 days straight, we decided to treat ourselves to a foot massage since they are so cheap (around $3 for an hour). We ended up getting a half hour foot massage and it was just what we needed to get out of the hot weather (they had AC in the massage place) and rejuvenate ourselves.

While walking down the street Rach and I got offered "buy 1 get 1 free" wedding dresses. Gotta love that!

It was finally time to head to the airport to catch our flight to Chiang Mai. We got a bus to the airport around 6, since it takes about an hour or so and our flight was supposed to leave around 8:40. We get to the airport and look on the big board to find out where we were supposed to check in, and noticed that our flight number was not on it. Clearly, this had to be a mistake. We were light-hearted and joking about how we probably missed it, or it got cancelled or some other event that seemed just as unrealistic.

To see if my paperwork had any helpful information, I pulled it out of my awesome around-the-neck passport holder I always wear when I travel (Rach thinks I'm a nerd :P ). I scanned down the paper for the flight and noticed the departure time read 19:15 (7:15pm). It was currently about 7:30pm....ummm whoops! I read it again, and to make sure I wasn't just reading it wrong/going crazy I gave it to Rachel. "Please, PLEASE tell me this doesn't say 19:15." Then I started laughing.

"Omg Meg!" and with that I knew we had officially missed our flight. Even though we are both experienced travelers (myself having doing a lot of independent traveling through Europe when I studied abroad), this had never happened to either of us. I couldn't help but keep laughing as we made our way over to the check in area to see what was going to happen next. Missed our flight. Are you serious?!

The lady at the counter looked at our terribly folded and worn piece of paper with the flight #'s on it, found our flight to Chiang Mai and went "ooof." Not exactly what you want to hear. Expecting to stay overnight at the airport, or pay a huge fee, or whatever else airlines usually do in these cases, we both were waiting in suspense to see what our consequence would be for not re-checking our flight time.

Thankfully, Thai airlines is AWESOME and the lady simply put us on the next flight out. Took less than 5 minutes to sort it out and the only thing lost in the entire experience was a few hours of sleep (since we would be getting into Chiang Mai a bit later than expected). I told Rachel I felt like it was too good to be true, too easy. I am supposed to be learning a lesson from this! Although I suppose the "oh crap our airplane is probably at 30,000ft while we are sitting down here like suckers" was good enough to make sure we ALWAYS triple, no, quadruple check flight times from now on!

And with that - we were on our way to Chiang Mai in northern Thailand!

วันเสาร์และวันอาทิตย์ในกรุงเทพฯ
(Saturday and Sunday in Bangkok)

We made it! Our first week long vacation has come to an end and we made the best of it! Despite some unfortunate situations (more on these to come) we both feel that we had an awesome experience overall (or as the Koreans would say, "assssa"!) Meg and I are each going to post on two days from Bangkok and two days from Chiang Mai in order to give you a complete picture of our trip. The goal is to have all these posted by Friday since we have a trip planned to a beach in the southern part of Korea this weekend that we will want to write about next week! As always, check out our webshots for all the photos from this trip!

Saturday started out bright and early as we headed out the door around 7 in order to get to the airport in time. As Meg wheeled the suitcase (we shared one big one) through our back alleyways on our way to the airport bus, we quickly discovered that a wheel was broken. Of the four large suitcases we have sitting in our apartment, we happened to choose the one with a broken wheel covering. Seeing as we couldn't go repack everything, this meant that instead of being able to pull the suitcase behind us the entire trip, we had to push it in front of us. This would be unfortunate situation #1. Our moods quickly improved when we got on our flight and discovered that Thai Airways offers free alcohol on international flights. Meg and I both had a screwdriver with our mid-morning snack of roasted almonds and Meg had some red wine with her lunch (we both had some tasty airline bibimbop with a REAL pastry for dessert!)

We arrived in Bangkok about 1 pm, cleared immigration and customs, and then were on our way to find the airport bus that would take us to central Bangkok. Upon stepping outside we were immediately hit with a wave of heat and humidity. The heat in this country was simply unbelievable. We have become pretty accustomed to humid weather (or so we thought) in Seoul, where the humidity level usually hovers right around 85%. However, nearly the entire time we were in Thailand the temperature was in the low to mid 90's with the humidity level hovering in the 90th percentile as well. Before we could even adjust to the wave of heat, we were quickly bombarded by tuk-tuk and cab drivers wanting to bring us into the city. We had been warned about this but we were still slightly unprepared for the onslaught. A tuk-tuk is used similar to a cab in Thailand but you negotiate your rate with the driver before you get in and go. Because of this, they often target foreigners because the driver figures they can scam them into paying more money. We also learned that drivers often will try to bring you to a different place that they have worked out a deal with. For example, at one point a driver agreed to bring us somewhere for a very low fare if we agreed to let him take us to a certain jewelry store first. Meg and I quickly learned the ins and outs of the system and I can honestly say that I don't believe we ever got scammed. Meg and I enjoyed tuk-tuk rides greatly (it is kind of like riding in a convertible) and used them as our main source of transportation throughout our trip! We also got pretty good at negotiating fares (we learned that walking away usually gets the driver to agree with you).

After taking the airport bus into town, we got into a tuk-tuk to get to our hostel. This journey taught us the problem with Thai ba ht (the money). Thai baht comes in 1, 5, and 10 piece coins and then 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1,000 bills. Since we changed over a fairly large sum of money each, we ended up wi th a lot of the larger bills. We didn't think this would be a problem, until we realized the price of things. For example, an average meal would be about 85 to 100 baht. A

tuk-tuk ride usually only cost us 15 to 30 baht each. However, many people (especially the street ven dors and tuk-tuk drivers) don't carry change on them. After having a difficult time paying the tuk-tuk driver (because the smallest bill we had between the 2 of us was a 50) we learned that we always needed to have some 20s and 10s on us for situations like this. Our hostel was really nice. We had a two bed room with a private bathroom and air conditioning and a little balcony. We also got free breakfast every morning, which was delicious - lots of native fresh fruit like pineapple and dragon fruit.

We spent some time searching a Bangkok map to figure out our game plan for our time in the city and decided that we would get tickets to go to a Muy Thai boxing match that night. Before we headed to the stadium we spent some time exploring Khao San Road, which was about a 15 minute walk from our hostel. This road is a really cool place to hang out and was jammed with foreigners. There are tons of bars/restaurants and lots of sidewalk stalls to shop from. After buying some souvenirs and cool jewelry, we got into a tuk-tuk and made the drive across the city towards the stadium. Upon our arrival, we learned that tickets for the match were way more expensive than what we had read online (the cheapest seats were about 1,000 baht or 40,000 won). Disappointed, we headed over to the nearby night bazaar to find somewhere to eat and reevaluate our plans. We ended up eating at a really chill outdoor restaurant, basically under a tree. I had delicious pad thai (เบาะไทย) and Meg tried tom yum goong (ต้มยำ), a hot and sour shrimp soup that Thailand is famous for. After dinner we ended up wandering around the night bazaar until we ended up in a courtyard surrounded by outdoor bars with tables in the middle. There was a music performance going on (half Thai-pop, half American pop) so we grabbed a bottle of Chang beer and enjoyed a glass while watching some of the show. Completely exhausted, we negotiated our fare back to our hostel and called it a successful first day.

Sunday morning we woke up bright and early (again) for our first planned adventure: zip lining through the Thai jungle! We managed to meet up with our tour relatively painlessly (we had to ask about 3 different people for directions and walked up and down a particular street about 4 times only to discover the place we were looking for was on the opposite side of the road...whoops) and then headed about an hour and a half outside of Bangkok to the Chompoo Nature Preserve. Our group (us plus 4 other English speakers and a family of 3 whose native language we couldn't figure out) arrived and got suited up. The course is over 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) long and is currently the longest in Thailand. It included 26 platforms and one of the zip lines is over 300 meters (about 984 feet) long. T he whole experience was really cool and super fun! Meg and I managed to get some great shots of each other (and the amazing scenery) as well as some videos. We had great guides who made the whole experience really fun and the other people on the trip were fun to hang out with. One of the coolest things about the course was that it wasn't just zip line after zip line. There were stairs to climb, swinging bridges t o cross and at 2 points we even got attached to pulley systems and lowered to the ground. After we finished the course we were taken back to the starting point for lunch. We had a really good stir fry, fresh fruit, and some soups, one which was an amazing green curry soup. It was a little spicy for me to eat all of mine, so Meg (who fell in love with it) finished it off for me. As we were leaving the preserve, we drove through an open zoo on the grounds.

Although we didn't get to get out of the van at all, it was cool to see as neither Meg or I have never experienced something like that before .

After arriving back in the city we were going to try to visit some wats (temples) but it was too late in the day (everything closes around 5 pm). Instead, we decided to go figure out our plans for the next day - going to a Thai beach. Unfortunately, we discovered that getting to the beach would require longer than we thought (about a 6 hour bus ride) and we would need to stay overnight and wouldn't make it back for our flight to Chiang Mai. As much as we wanted to spend time on a Thai beach, we had to accept the fact that it just wasn't in the cards (unfortunate situation #2). Instead, we walked to the nearby tourist center and booked a half day trip to a floating market. This had been something we originally wanted to do, but cut from our plans due to time because we were going to go to the beach. So I guess in the end, it all really worked out perfectly! From here we decided to treat ourselves to the first of multiple Thai massages. Thai massages (which are full body) can best be described as yoga, but without the work. The person giving the massage does all the work, twisting you into weird positions and moving you around. They also do all kinds of weird things to you, using their feet, elbows, arms, etc when giving the massage. When we arrived at the massage place, we were first told to sit down while they washed our feet for us. We were then given really fashionable outfits to put on and laid down on mats on the floor. The massage lasted a hour, after which we were given tea to drink. It was also at the massage place that unfortunate situation #3 occurred - Meg's camera broke. 2 days into our trip and she was getting a lens error message. After trying to locate a repair shop in Bangkok with no luck, she got the address for a Canon store in Chiang Mai and grudgingly accepted the fact that she would have to share my lowly Kodak with me for the time being. From here we headed to a nearby place to eat dinner (which ended up being a guesthouse. But the food was cheap and amazing!) I went for the sweet and sour chicken (ไก่เปรี้ยวหวาน) while Meg tried Tom Ka Gai (ไก่และกะทิซุป, chicken and coconut milk soup). The soup was spectacular, we both ended up eating it multiple times on the trip. We treated ourselves to desert (กล้วยทอด, fried bananas) and then headed home to get some sleep for the next (early) morning.

Some interesting things to note before I turn this over to Meg to fill you in on the rest of our time in Bangkok. The city itself is very dirty, much more so than Seoul, which I was surprised by since Seoul is home to over a million more people than Bangkok. Homelessness was much more present here, seeing people sleeping on the streets was very common at all hours of the day. There was also a lot more garbage around the streets. The city was overrun with stray cats and dogs. They were everywhere - including sitting on the bar at the outdoor bazaar we went to. Interestingly enough though, I felt that the air was actually cleaner and there was definitely less smog than Seoul. I was also surprised by the number of Thai people who spoke decent English. We rarely had any communication problems and it was quite easy to understand their accents. That being said, I was surprised by the number of foreigners who didn't speak English as their first language. I guess we have just become accustomed to all foreigners speaking English since every foreigner we meet in Korea is here to teach English. That being said, many of these foreigners seemed to be bilingual, or at least know a reasonable amount of English.


I leave you with this situation, which happened fairly frequently. Like, every time we got asked where we are from by a Thai person.
Thai person: "Where are you from?"
Us: "America"
Thai person: "OBAMA!!!!"