Thailand

First of all, let me just state the obvious and say that Thailand was amazing and I did NOT want to come back here! You cannot compete with a place where the first thing you notice is the smell of flowers and where you can lay in bed and listen to waves rolling onto the beach!

But let me start at the beginning, in which case I should say that I am so OVER the whole flying experience. I used to enjoy it and couldn’t understand why some people didn’t find it a delightful process, and then. . .

After 3 hours on a bus and 4 hours of sleep, the mini flying marathon began on Christmas Day. Our first flight to Shanghai was uneventful, besides my discovery that while Christmas music had the power to instantly make you feel joyful and festive the whole month before Christmas, when that day actually comes and you’re sitting on a plane, the music somehow loses that effect. It’s not that it made me sad or nostalgic for home, it’s just that it felt off- like blasting hard-core rap while doing yoga. It just didn’t fit.

In Shanghai, while we were being transported to our connecting flight via an airport shuttle which took us away from the main terminal and to deserted tarmac, I hypothesized that this was the airstrip for all the derelict planes, because there would be fewer people around to see the planes if the crashed and burned during take-off or landing. I wasn’t really convinced of the validity of my own hypothesis until we ended up sitting on the plane for over two hours while it was repeatedly announced that there was going to be a “few minute delay” due to mechanical problems.

When we finally landed in Bangkok and got a hold of our luggage, we had 30 minutes until our third and final flight took off. Let’s just say there was some Amazing Race-esque full-out running and careening through that airport, with some encouraging/insistent shouting of "Run! Run!" from gate agents thrown in for good measure. However, when landed on Koh Samui and encountered the glorious smell of flowers and a temperature well above -6, the stress and frustration of traveling dissipated at record speed.

When we arrived at Amity Bungalow in Lamai Beach late Christmas night, I reveled in the fact that I had to walk over sand to get to the bungalow I was sharing with Mary. Then as I was sitting on my bed I finally placed that unfamiliar noise and turning to Mary I said incredulously, "I can hear the ocean from my bed!"

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I lived on the beach! The view from my porch.

I ate my first meal in Thailand (pad thai, of course) at 10 o'clock at night sitting at a table on the beach listening to the waves, feeling a warm breeze and with countless stars visible overhead. Ah, Thailand, how I loved thee!

You remember that one morning when you were kind of startled awake and you were laying there trying to figure out what it was that woke you up and then you realized it was your dad nudging you and telling you you were late for work because your alarm didn't go off and then suddenly you were wide awake (when usually it would take a hot shower, a silent breakfast where no one talks to you because they know you hate mornings and a 20 minute commute to wake you up)? Well, that sort of thing happened to me my first morning in Thailand, only it was the unfamiliar smell of flowers that startled me awake and I didn't have to speed to work- instead I took two steps off my porch to Amity's open-air restaurant and ordered a breakfast of French toast with honey, a fruit salad, and freshly squeezed orange juice. . .

. . and this was my view. Every meal was like this, but one - literally on the beach or a few steps of it. Speaking of eating, I'm officially in love with Thai food. . .spring rolls, pad thai, Thai curry, fried egg noodles, fried rice, fresh fruit. . .

We spent Sunday uneventfully lounging on the beach and went to Lamai centre that evening for some shopping at the Sunday night market before we checked out Rock Bar- which is literally a bar on the rocks-and watched an amazing(-ly shirtless, well muscled and tattooed) Thai fire dancer.

Monday was another beach lounging day, although it wasn't so uneventful as the previous day due to a certain "large waves vs bathing bottom" episode that happened to a person whom shall remain nameless and which, once it was over with, was admittedly quite a hilarious incident. That evening we tested out the famous Thai bucket and checked out Swing Bar, which like Rock Bar, was true to its name. It had swings instead of stools at the bar- although you can't really swing because you just end up smashing into the bar, but I applaud the originality of the idea.

Tuesday morning we headed out on an excursion which involved. . .

. . .eating and drinking from a coconout. I like sunscreen, but I don't like drinking it.

. . .holding a sticker-eating baby monkey after watching a monkey show, a.k.a. a trained monkey on a rope climbing a tree and throwing down coconuts

. . . RIDING BAREBACK ON AN ELEPHANT!! I didn't have to share my elephant, so I was able to ride on her neck the whole time! She was 8 months pregnant, by the way, which made me feel a little guilty.

. . .and finally, we went to a couple Buddhist temples/shrines. No sock comments necessary.

Wednesday was another beach lounging day, with a little market shopping thrown in. Nothing noteworthy happened.

On Thursday we went on an island boat tour to Ang Thong National Marine Park where we. . .

. . . hiked to Thale Nai, the beautiful salt water lagoon in Koh Mae Ko.

. . . then made our way to Koh Wua Talap where we didn't end up snorkeling thanks to a recent monsoon which left the water less than clear. We did hike to Bua Boke cave which had stalagmite and stalactite formations, then lounged at the beach and watched a Thai versus Indian pick-up volleyball game.

After making our way back to Koh Samui (via a boat ride with some pretty consistent pitching and rolling. Unaware of what we were to experience, we initially claimed spots on the flat roof of the boat and were, from the moment of departure, committed to said location because walking upright was basically impossible and crawling wasn't much less of a potentially humiliating option) we went out for dinner where I had my first encounter with one of Thailand's infamous lady-boys, who was our waiter (waitress?) and saw a cabaret show at Chaweng Beach which ended splendidly with some ABBA!

Friday was another beach lounging day (yes, I realize I've been using "lounging" a lot, but it just describes so perfectly- kind of like the word "hunkered"- haha) which included an amazing Thai massage. That night we made our way to the New Year's Eve Full Moon Party at Haad Rin Beach on Koh Phangan which involved waiting on a beach for an hour for our numbers to be called for the speedboat and then assertively keeping our places in line to get on the boat so as not to be pushed out of the way by aggressive line-cutters (Seriously, even my 5 year old kindergarteners know line-cutting is not acceptable, and at the very least if there's any dispute there should be a rock-paper-scissors throw down to determine who stays and who goes to the back of the line!) We eventually made it to Haad Rin Beach by 10:30pm to join the party of 10 000 people and then left by 1:00am before the real craziness started. We didn't make it home til 3:30am due to the line up for the speedboats and the fact that I was unwilling to fight for my place against aggressive drunk people for fear that either they would fall of the dock or push me off. During the wait I did meet some nice, sober Americans and had some intellectual conversations- as a result of which I am now somewhat converted regarding my opinion of the American health care system.

At midnight. He's a photo-crasher.

Saturday was our last day which involved getting my hair cut and lounging (snuck that in there one last time) on the beach before leaving at 7 pm for our, thankfully, uneventful 18 hour journey home to the cold.

Christmas

I realize I haven’t blogged in a long, long time but that just goes to show you that a) time is flying over here, because it feels like I just wrote my previous blog and b) my life in Korea can be as routine and un-noteworthy as my life back home in Canada, which I would never feel the urge to blog about.

That being said, seeing as I missed Christmas with you all back in the home country, I thought I would share with you about Christmas celebrations here. They started the last week of November when Sonya and I started drilling our kindergarteners for their Christmas presentation on December 9th. That whole process and presentation was not comparable to anything you can envision from an elementary school in Canada. There was a lot of stressing, shouting, bribing and demanding that these children memorize faster, sing louder, dance better, smile bigger and generally perform like they were 15 and not 5 years old. Seriously, the first time we rehearsed on stage I kept having to turn away laughing because it was just so hilarious to watch their serious faces as Sonya kept up a constant stream of “No, other way. . .why are you standing there. . . sing louder. . .LOUDER. . .I can’t hear you. . . move over there. . . I still can't hear you. . . what are you doing?!?!” But by the time the performance came around, I was fully committed to this method (My favourite tactic being guilt: “Do you want to make your mom sad? Pretend I’m your mom right now. . . I can’t hear a word you’re saying- see, I’m crying!” ) Sorry, not photos of this, I was busy wildly gesturing and stage-whispering to my students from the side-line.

These photos are actually from Christmas Eve Day- when our students had to sing for their presents from "Santa".

Although it's only indirectly related to Christmas, I can't forget to mention December 16th, the day that it snowed, because we all know the festive feelings softly falling snow evokes. . .although in Korea it evokes a few other things as well, such as the appearance of umbrellas, see below (which I must confess I initially made fun of, but later realized the ingenius practicality of it- no snow melting on your hair and rendering time spent straigtening it moot) and lengthy delays in traffic (buses arriving half an hour late at school, which I also made fun of and will continue to do so).

The weekend before Christmas, our directors offered us their time-share rental near Muju Ski Resort. So we spent Saturday there eating a Christmas dinner and then spent the evening snowboarding (boys) and sliding (girls). A certain person kept bailing right out of the gate, which led to a humiliating experience for us Canadians as we were repeatedly “taught” how to properly use our sleds.

Just a festive photo of the SLP ladies

On Sunday, we returned home and it was literally straight on to another Christmas gathering for the Redeemer girls with more food and the added bonus of presents.

Another festive photo of some different ladies

On Thursday, aka Christmas Eve Eve, we had our staff “meat party”, which ended up being an enlightening experience in regards to some Korean drinking traditions. I won't get into my thoughts regarding this particular evening as this blog is public domain and no photos I have adequately depict the tone of this evening, so we'll leave it at this brief mention and you can ask me about it later.


Christmas Eve was spent working until 5:40pm and then rushing home to multi-task last minute emails, a Skype conversation, dinner and apartment cleaning before I left at 7:00pm to catch the bus for Incheon, which was 40 minutes late on the coldest night ever.

I spent most of the ride trying to cling to the spirit of the season by listening to Christmas music on the iPod I received as a surprise gift from my family and naughtily opened weeks before Christmas. Note the engraving

When we arrived at our airport hotel at about midnight, Kristin, Anna, Mary and I exchanged Secret Santa gifts, so my tradition of opening gifts on Christmas Eve remains unbroken.

Christmas Day, on the other hand, was a whole other story. . .

October Happenings

How is it November already? Only 38 more days until Christmas, a.k.a. 38 days until I leave for vacation in Thailand! It will be my first vacation of life where I'm not running around trying to see and do as much as humanly possibly!

I arrived here in July, in the midst of literally unceasing heat and now the weather brings to mind the fact that I absolutely hate being cold and the only reasons I tolerate winter is because snow is beautiful and Christmas is the best time of year, ever– but it doesn’t snow much in Korea, and Christmas is the opposite of popular here. What am I going to do??

Anyway, the true purpose of this blog is to recap the busyness of October. (Please note that this will be largely a photo-blog, mostly because this should have been written weeks ago, and I've finally found the slightest inspiration to finish this thing thanks too my procrastination impulses- I have kindergarten reports due tomorrow, so let's see if I can bang this thing out before I lose it again. . .)

October 9th was Sports Day for SLP kindergarten. This day was begrudged by many teachers, but not myself, because, hey! I had enjoyed playing games as a camp counsellor and we were getting paid for it, so how bad could it be? Also, I ran in the relay race in front of all my students, their parents, my co-workers, and my bosses, and didn’t fall on my face! Of course my team won, largely due to my participation, and having nothing to do with the fact that we had a pro-baseball playing father on our team.

I wore this and posed willingly. I was in the midst of being over-fed with pizza, chicken, and donuts, so of course I was so happy I would've done almost anything!

Don't worry, if he does this in class, he gets in trouble. I'm a good teacher.

October 17th was a belated Thanksgiving celebration. We had everything a Thanksgiving dinner needs, courtesy of Costco, except it was chicken instead of turkey.

Our school let us foreign teachers use the school roof for our dinner and even decorated the table and gave us wine!

Mmmmm.... (Sorry, I didn't know what else to say. I mostly added this photo because I know some people would prefer to see photos with me in them. You're welcome.)

One Friday, Sonya and I took our kids to the park, which isn't all that noteworthy, but I want to show off how cute my kids are:

I'm biased, but they're adorable!



Gets me every time- SO CUTE! She's the baby of the class, turning 5 on December 26th. She was also the only student in the class who knew why camels have humps. I would steal this one.

So serious looking here, but he's got the most charming little grin which will likely never be captured on film because Koreans usually try their best to look serious for cameras.

October 23rd saw me committed to a 12 km hike up and down Songnisan Mountain with Heather’s fellowship group. Why?????

Of course, we don't look miserable here -there's nothing excrutiating about posing for picture.

I learned a few things that day. First, I enjoy hiking flat trails. Mountains make hiking not fun. Second, the best part of hiking a mountain is before. Third, apparently I suffer from memory blocks when it comes to physical pain, case in point being the very next weekend, when I voluntarily hiked Gyeryongsan mountain.

The crew of SLPers who didn't back out the night before (the rest of you know who you are. . . shame, shame).

Then there was Halloween. . .

I don't want to overload you with pictures of my kinders, because I know I'm biased about their cuteness, but I just had to share this. Yi An was so serious about this one, and it was all I could do not to laugh!

Sonya was a ghost, or a zombie, or a zombie ghost?

The SLP foreign teachers were invited to (crashed?) a party at KAIST.

There's a story behind that "tatoo" entitled "Lost in Translation". Certain people find it funnier than others.

And that was October.

Finally, Beijing . . .

Our Beijing trip started off with some dramatic running about, which should have been a sign of things to come. . .

Kristin spent the night at my place because Anna's sister and niece were staying in Kristin's apartment. The next morning on our way to the bus stop, Kristin stopped by her place to grab her passport at which point she discovered that Anna's sister was nowhere to be found. Trying not to panic we started a search, which thankfully ended almost before it began and, passports in hand, we were off!

My first view of China was surprising. . .I looked out the windows at Dalian airport and felt as though I was somewhere in the UK- rowhouses, rain, and fog.

A few hours later, upon arrival in Beijing, this image was replaced by a much different, dirtier, more crowded, less English-speaking one (also, MUCH cheaper- 30 cents for a subway ticket? Yes, please!). Being the brilliant travelers that we are, we easily made our way to our hostel, but not before walking down a rather sketchy-looking side street and thinking, "Oh man, this could be BAD!". Thankfully, the images on hostelbookers.com had not been deceptive, and our hostel turned out to be something of an oasis in the middle of this previously-described city.

The front entrance. . . looked very promising. . .

For $9 a night, I approved!

Because we arrived rather late, all we did our first day was walk around the area looking for food. And so began the first of many food scavenging escapades. . .

We were starving and couldn't find a single restaurant, let alone one with English! Finally, FINALLY we saw a department store in the distance and gained some hope. Then, just as we were about to cross a street I saw the Pizza Hut sign and freaked out and grabbed Kristin so hard she thought I was rescuing her from being run over (which was a very legitimate possibility- in Beijing the green walking man is a trickster and apparently means "Force cars turning right to stop by walking in front of them and praying they stop on time". Needless to say, we spent the majority of our road-crossings piggybacking with some experienced Chinese person or other). Anyway, we ended up going to the KFC at the same department store, because we are thrifty people. (Sidenote: KFCs are rampant in Beijing- I mean they're like the Tim Hortons of China. On a related note, coffee shops are the opposite of popular there. Which was a culture shock in itself, because you could be blind, deaf, and searching for a bar and still end up in a coffee shop in Daejeon).

The next day we set off early to trek the Great Wall. Being the aforementioned stellar travellers and thrifty folk that we are, we decided to go it on our own, instead of doing the tour offered through our hostel. It would've worked out fine, if people in China spoke English as much as I assumed they would (go ahead, accuse me on insularity, but come on, they just hosted the Olympics. . .) Anyway, for a number of reasons, including the decision not to risk wasting any more time getting unlost, especially because it would apparently take 3-4 hours to get there, we decided to hit up the Beijing Zoo and see the pandas. . .

. . .who were all napping, along with most of the other animals, including the Procyon lotor (aka the raccoon) and the Mephitis mephitis (aka the striped skunk).

Thankfully, on our second walk-around they decided to feed the pandas. Seriously though, I have pictures to prove the inordinate number of sleeping animals in that zoo!

This was the time the random stranger wasn't caught taking a picture of me.

I was happy the elephant was up and moving!

After that, we raced back to the hostel hoping to catch the group bus to the kung fu show, but were undaunted when we didn't. Starving from having not eaten all day we made it to the Red Theatre on our own 5 minutes before the show began and grabbed up some last-minute cheap seat tickets, which ended up being front row-middle seats (six feet away from rock-solid abs = good deal)! It was an awesome show that made me embarrassed to feel accomplished over the fact I can now touch my toes after two months of yoga.

After the show, we were exhausted and hadn't eaten in 9 hours. On our way back to the subway station there was literally nothing open and so on the subway we decided we didn't care if we ate KFC two days in a row and I literally prayed to God that it would be open. And it was.

The next day, we conquered the Temple of Heaven, Tian'anmen Square (massacre, what massacre?), and the Palace Museum (aka the Forbidden City). It was all very impressive looking, but it was also all "Ming this, Qing that", and I so didn't really have any context to put any of it into.

The Seventy Year Old Door at the Temple of Heaven. The door was there exclusively for emperors of 70 or older. It was made especially for an old emperor who was taken there to walk a much shorter way towards the Hall of Annual Prayer. He didn't want his descendents to be lazy so he made a rule that an emperor had to be 70 to use it.

Tian'amen Square

The Forbidden City. Dang, I didn't see The Karate Kid til after, or I would've known to rub the golden knobs on the door for good luck!

On our third day, we decided to take it easy, especially because we had both started limping around with a shin splint on my part, and bloody and blistered feet on Kristin's part, so we went shopping. This is significant because it was at this time that I bought the first ever under-analyzed purchase of my life (I barely looked at the price tags- what!) It was, of all exciting possibilities- a jacket and scarf from H&M because I was cold (under-analyzed, but still pratical- I hadn't completely lost myself!)

In the afternoon, we checked out a Buddhist temple where I was intrigued by the people taking Buddha seriously and the endless number of Buddhas- apparently "there are more buddhas in the universe than grains of sand in the Ganges river".

The Yonghegong Lama Temple where you are constantly prompted by signs to burn three sticks of incense in honour of every buddha there. Whose idea was this I wonder? The guild of incense vendors lining the street outside, perhaps?

That evening we strolled around Wangfujing, a popular shopping area with streets of tourist items where you only dare give items a fleeting look out of the corner of your eye while walking briskly past for fear of otherwise being hounded to death to buy it.

A picture with the Wangfujing sign, I suppose as proof I was there. Also, please note my spontaneous purchases. Disclaimer: KFC capture was unintentional and unavoidable.

Wednesday was the day we conquered the Great Wall! It was a spectacular day, although it started off as complicated as ever. We had previously found the right bus to get us there, and so headed out bright and early, anticipating the 3 hour trip. When we got to the bus station we spent 20 minutes standing in a line wondering why people kept standing in line for 5 minutes and then walking away, until someone kindly informed us via minimal English and extensive hand gestures that this was an express bus for which they needed 45 people, which we were never going to get because people kept leaving the line. So we followed our kind Chinese friend to another bus station down the block and finally were on our way. The best part was that the supposed 3 hour trip was actually only 1 hour!

Upon arrival in the gorgeous Chinese countryside, we realized that we were underdressed for the second day in a row as the wind whipped through our thin sweaters. So we were off shopping again, this time for some lovely tourist hoodies that read "I climbed the Great Wall".

Here I am!

We climbed UP!
We met a fellow Canadian traveller named Jodi who joined us on our trek and whom we ended up spending the rest of the day with (capping off our last day in China by eating Italian food!)

The Great Wall of China. This doesn't do it justice, it's only a miniscule fraction of the 2 000 km that remain of the once 6 500km wall.

And that is that! The next day we headed home, and Korea really did feel like home- it had signs with letters I could read, even if I didn't know what the words they spelled meant; and a language that sounded oddly recognizable, even if I only knew 20 words; and coffee shops; and food that is now familiar; and now waiting five minutes at a crosswalk isn't such a big deal, because I know that when the green walking man finally does appear, I can trust him.

Life at the Sogang Language Program Institute in Daejeon!

I know some people want to find out about my work life at SLP, so. . .

I take a 10 minute walkd to get to school at 9:10-ish every morning (yes, I'm a teacher and I get up at 8 am), and classes begin at 9:40. From 9:40- 2:10 I teach Rainbow Bridge to two second-year kindergarten classes (Korean age 6, Canadian age 5) of 10 students each, rotating between them with my Korean co-teacher, Sonya. My students are essentially fluent and very bright, so it’s quite easy (although, it’s a bit ridiculous when I have to teach them what “laboratory”, “broadcasting station”, “antenna”, and “disc jockey” mean), plus the lessons are pre-made, and I have a helper teacher to help with the students behaviour and hand out supplies! I don’t have any “favourites”, but I do have a favourite class, because this one class is much more enthusiastic and lively than the other (Today, they randomly broke out humming "If all the raindrops. . ." while colouring). Here is my favourite class in their hanboks for our Chuseok celebration (Korean thanksgiving)today:

Yi An and Soo Ah. This is not a good representation of Yi An, who is is forever kissing the girls at break time.

Sung Hun and Amy.

Tae Hee.

Sun and Seung Yeon. A completely unprompted engagement-esque photo. I could barely hold in the laughter.

Hyun Jin and Se Yeon. Again, unprompted.

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I teach a Milestone class from 2:30-4:00. This is a class of (Canadian age 7) students who did SLP kindergarten, and now take afternoon classes at SLP. They are not as enthusiastic about coming to SLP as the kinders, that’s for sure, so I’m try to lay down the law against their counter-productive behaviour.

On Tuesday and Thursday I teach Hi, Kids! levels 2 and 3 to classes of 12 and 8 students from 2:30-4:00 and 4:10-5:40.These are 7/11 year old students who didn’t do English kindergarten and know very little English, so this is where I have to simplify my English and use lots of hand gestures. Also, the SLP rule is “no speaking Korean”, but that just doesn’t happen in these classes.

On Fridays, after my Milestone class, I teach an Aim High class from 4:00-5:40. However, the 4 students in this class have completed Aim High and are now using textbooks that are preparing them for the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). However, these texts cater to university level students, and as fluent as these students are, the language is a bit challenging (examples: a scientific discussion of genetically modified food; an analysis of invasive species) for these 10 and 12 year olds!

That's life in brief at SLP. The days and weeks are flying by, and I still love my job!

As a special treat, and because I've already been tagged in photos while wearing it on Facebook so I've decided it's no use trying to hide, here is a photo of me in my hanbok:

Sonya, my co-teacher, and I.