Chuseok Vacation part 3

I've rediscovered Saves the Day. That's what my vacation has become.

I went to E-Mart and bought the fixings for meat sauce spaghetti (with 한우!!!) as well as mac and cheese. That should keep me fed for a couple days.

I bought cakes for 부's family. I need to come up with a good English nickname for him. Anyways, I'm going to his grandmother's house on Thursday. I'm only moderately terrified, which is an improvement from utterly terrified which is how I felt when he initially asked me. You see, this is a big step, and I don't want to fuck it up by saying the wrong thing to his parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles and cousins while I'm there. They will all be judging me and not only do I have no idea what I'm going to say or do, I also have no idea what to wear, and no idea what they will think of me.

It's pouring outside. I'm listening to the Through Being Cool album. FML.

On the bright side, I found the oven I want to buy at E-Mart. It's bigger than all the others I've seen (but still maybe 1/4 the size of a regular american oven), and it's about 300 dollars.  And I may have found the perfect first baked good on the Cupcakes Take the Cake blog:

Chocolate Chip cookie dough cupcakes with cookie dough inside and a cookie on top. HOLY HELL I MUST EAT THESE ASAP.

xoxo
A

My adoring fans and readers

My bad on not posting for a long time. It's just that I've been busy being in the United States and eating obscene quantities of food (mostly in the form of cupcakes or mexican tortilla-wrapped foodstuffs) and traipsing across New York City/Gainesville/Wellington. You know, it's a tough life, being a globe-trotter.

Here's a brief summary of my vacation. In numbers:


3 dresses I bought during vacation (thanks to Gap, that rando boutique in SoHo with the guy who said, "wear it with just a black bra, it's sexier that way," and Target)
4 sangrias I drank at Calle Ocho during the all you can drink brunch
5 meals I averaged per day on my vacation
9 planes I took in the course of my 2 week vacation
11 planes I had to purchases tickets for due to a big fuck up by Expedia.
14 dollars- the price of one bottle of soju in NYC's Koreatown
17 apps that I've downloaded for my brand-new ipod touch (any suggestions)
23 cupcakes (some mini, some regular and some jumbo sized) that me and my friends inhaled during my two-week vacation
24 dollars- price of my prix fixe lunch at Cafe Boulud on the Upper East Side. Thanks Restaurant Week.
40 hours I was actually in Wellington.
48 crazy bands purchased by me and sarah. They are in the shapes of "lil monsters" and "crazy pets"
86 floors ascended in the Empire State Building. It was cloudy so the 102nd floor didn't seem like a good idea, especially given the additional 20 bucks you had to pay to go there.
105 steps to the top of the Jupiter Inlet Lighthouse, which I trekked up with my family in tow.

That's all I can come up with off the top. But, I guess I'll also add: Sarah and Matt have two doggies each of which are adorable and staying with them made me really really really really look forward to their wedding, and me helping Sarah in every way I can. Plus, omg, Diane is the best ever (along with her roommate) for letting all of us stay in her apartment and being such a gracious and fun host. Plus, I wrecked people at Ping-Pong. Plus I missed Korean food. Good Korean food. Oh. Plus, omg Moesssssssssssssss. And La Tienda. And Flacos. And the Top. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Now, I'm back at school in Korea. A bunch of my students seemed almost surprised that I was back. I don't know where they thought I was, but it's like I had come back from the dark ages.

Evidently, while I was in America, I was on Korean t.v. A student showed me the video. It's really embarassing. I looked like a fool. It was during the Se7en fan signing. I was interviewed and said some stupid shit like oh my god oh my god oh my god, I met Se7en! I love Se7en! I love YG! Also, evidently a lot of people saw that shit. My students took videos on their phones of me on the t.v. gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah. So terrible.

Also, I bought tickets to see Taeyang. I will go to both of his concerts, but my seats aren't very good for either day. So sad. T_T I'm not sure who I will go with yet. My co-teacher is trying to get tickets again on Sept. 2nd, but if she can't, she'll go with me on Sunday maybe. And then I'll go on Saturday with someone. idk who.

I'm signed up for Seoul ultimate fall league, plus a hat tournament in September for Soongshil University, which is the boo's team (but not uni, because he goes to Jung-Ang)

It's good to be back. Really good to be back.

xoxo
A

Shanghai China Day 2

Well, I figured it's time for me to actually talk about ultimate now.

The tournament seemed to be relatively well run and organized. One note I'd like to make about my experiences with Asian Ultimate Frisbee tournaments: they are significantly more expensive than American tournaments. You may wonder, "why are they so much more expensive in Asia if Asia is SO much cheaper than the States?" Well the answer, my friend, is double-sided.

1. Cost of field space. In the U.S. generally speaking, it is not terribly difficult to find space for 5, 10, 15, or ever 20 teams to play. There are, of course exceptions to this rule: NYC, LA, etc. But most average college campuses have enough field space to host at least 8 teams, often many more (see: College Southerns, UF's Florida Winter Classic, and NCState's wolfpack, all usually held on campus and hosting between 10 and 36 teams). In Asia, any city that is easily accesible by air (a necessity as ultimate in asia is still relatively small and hasn't penetrated beyond the largest, ex-pat laden cities throughout most of Asia) has almost now green space whatsoever. Look at Seoul for example: our team can barely find a space big enough for a single field twice per week for our practices and our small 4-team league.

2. Amenities. At a standard U.S. tournament, you will receive maybe 6-8 games, depending on performance, bagels in the morning with peanut butter, water at the fields, and one party Saturday night which consists of x number of kegs. At a standard Asian tournament you will receive a disc (and often a swag bag like I did at Bangkok hatter and Jeju-- t-shirts, water bottle, stickers, lotion, sunscreen, power powders, etc), bagels/peanut butter in the morning, a lunch on Saturday and Sunday (always quite tasty and plenty filling), Dinner on Saturday, a registration party Friday night, water during play, 6-8 games, a tournament party Saturday night (typically with all you can drink beer... sometimes more, see later Shanghai), and beer up the ass during the day at the fields. All in all, the extra 20-40 dollars I pay for the tournament fee covers every last penny I might spend at the tournament and thereby helps me to actually save money instead of spend it.

bekah and I sure are glad we didn't have to worry about food

Anyways, Shanghai was well run. The fields were nice, albeit cut a bit short and therefore a bit dead-ish and scratchy. We had 4 games on Saturday. We played Singapore Disc Knights first. We won 11-7 or so. Then we played Shanghai-B, which we won 11-1. Then we played Hong Kong, our first true test, where we won in a hard fought game 11-8 or 9. Then we played the Philippines, Sunken Pleasure.

A note about ultimate in the Philippines: Manila has probably the single best ultimate scene in Asia. The sport is exploding in popularity due to various celebrities (news anchors, models, actors) playing the sport competitively. One girl who plays for the Team Philippines is sponsored by Nike, which is possibly the tightest thing ever. Another guy is an actor and lives in a mansion on the side of an inactive volcano. Additionally, almost all the people who play in Manila are Filipinos, which is impressive as the majority of the Asian ultimate community is ex-pat.

The Philippines team was good. They were REALLY REALLY fast. We played this team in Manila in November and got wrecked because they were so much faster. However, this year our team was greatly improved, with all of our best players present, and we won the game 11-7 or so.

Because we won our pool, we got a first-round bye the next morning, which was awesome.

Saturday night we went to the party extremely briefly because it kind of sucked. However, it should be noted that each team received two bottles of liquor (vodka and whiskey). Plus unlimited beer. Our team didn't really use hardly any of our supply. Instead, we went out and walked around a bit through the fancy shopping district near the party. Chanel, Coach, Ferragamo, Fendi. I was in 7th heaven. I just wanted to buy everything.

Shanghai China Day 1

Today was my first full day back in Korea after my too-short trip to China.

Frankly before going, I wasn't all that excited about going to China. I've never really been that interested in going, but now, having gone, I'd like to go back. Besides, everything is so cheap that why not?

Anyways, to recount my time:

Friday: I left school early and took the bus to the airport. Got to the airport with plenty of time to spare. Me and another guy on my team were on the same flight. Our flight was about 20 minutes earlier than almost everyone else in our group who had gotten a group ticket booked. So, we went through security after agreeing to meet near the baggage claim at Shanghai's Pudong Airport. The flight was just under three hours, which Mike and I spent talking about a whole slew of things. We arrived at the airport, and went through security without any hassle. Mike bought some bourbon at the duty-free shop, and we sat down by the immigration counters and waited for our friends. After checking the boards we saw that two different flights from seoul/incheon (in addition to our own) had landed. We figured the one after ours had to be the right flight, so we waited and waited. Still no friends. After continuing to wait nearly an hour, we were severely confused. Where are our friends? Did they collectively miss the flight? HOW? We finally asked someone at an information booth (which was incredibly difficult to find, by the way), and then we discovered that there were in fact two terminals, each with domestic and international flights, which is completely counter-intuitive and annoying. We had figured that they had left, but went to terminal two to try to figure out. There was no sign of our team so a woman helped us get into a taxi which took us to our hotel.

Now, at the hotel, the Jinjiang Inn, there was a nice gentleman who spoke only a very little English. We indicated that we were with the Korean frisbee team and would like to check-in to our rooms. The clerk kindly asked us for the password. "Password?" I asked, "I don't have a password." He looked bewildered as he asked incredulously, "you don't have a password?" Now hopefully my frisbee team hadn't already checked in and left Mike and I stranded by making up a password that I didn't know. "KUPA" I said hopefully, thinking maybe they had chosen the name of our ultimate association. The clerk just looked at me in disbelief.

We asked to call a contact we had at the Shanghai tournament. Upon calling, I said to him, "the front desk clerk is asking for a password." The TD replied, "Password? What password? Just say Korean frisbee" which we had already done twice. He asked to speak to the desk clerk. They spoke in Chinese for a short time and he was put back on the phone with me. "Password? I thought you said password! Sorry. Just give them your password and you'll be fine." Wait, excuse me? Did I misunderstand? Is this gentleman telling me to give them the password that I already told him I don't have? What the hell? "I don't have a password." I reply calmly. "YOU DON'T HAVE A PASSWORD?" he asks in shock. At this point I began to wonder if I had mysteriously entered some kind of fourth dimension of three stooges whose on first routine. "No, I don't have a password, how can I get my room?" I ask nervously. "Well, if you don't have your password, you'll have to go to the police station." he said. "THE POLICE STATION??" I practically yell into the receiver. Mike, in the

HELLLLL YES!

SHANGHAI TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS!!

대한민국!!

Holy crap, it's so exciting.

Details to come tomorrow. Maybe pictures (not from the tournament).

Election Day

Today was election day, which means that we have no school. It's a pretty awesome concept. Encourage people to vote by giving them the whole day. Now you can vote, do errands, enjoy some time outside, and relax a little. No stress for voting. However, with the no voting stress, you may forget to vote altogether. This seems to be a common problem as the voter turnout is still really low, especially when you consider no one has to actually make time to do it.

Anyways, since the big frisbee tournament is this weekend and we had no work today, we all met for practice in seoul at 9:30. I spent the night at bek's because 7:00 a.m. on a no-school day would have killed me.

Practice was small (only 10 people) but it was good. After we got sandwiches at this great little place near Ichon Station (이촌역). The place was called Tomati, and they had club sandwiches, and salads and all kinds of things. A roast veggie sandwich for vegetarians even; and it got good reviews from our resident veg-head, ADrews.

After practice I came home with the intention of going to E-mart to pick up some groceries. Before leaving for the store, I bought my plane ticket to NYC!!! So excited for that. My first trip to the big city where I can pretty much decide to do what I want to do. hehe. Anyways, then I walked to E-Mart (the day was GLORIOUS, warm and breezy). I did my shopping, went to the checkout line, got everything on the conveyor belt and suddenly realized that i had left my wallet at home. blaaaaaaaaaargh. I had to ditch all my purses and walk home defeated. I bought nothing today. hah.

Then I went to Bupyeong for dinner with Miranda and Christi. Had 닭야채볶음밥 which is chicken and vegetable fried rice (spiiiiiiicy) and 막국수 which is a spicy-ish cold buckwheat noodle soup. LOVE it. Then we went shopping a bit. I bought a hot pink t-shirt on sale at Codes Combine.

I also decided to try my hand at gardening. When I was about 13/14 years old, I had a garden. And by had a garden, I naturally mean that I picked out and helped plant the seeds and then let my father do all the weeding and watering and feeding and fertilizing and tending, and then I picked the veggies and took all the credit for MY garden (it was my idea, at least). So to get back in touch with my gardening roots I bought a plant. Okay, so, it's a cactus. Okay, so, cactuses are like the single easiest thing to care for. But, you gotta start somewhere, and I don't exactly have the space for some tomato plants or whatever.

I also bought some silver glitter french manicure nail polish, new eye liner and a new eyeshadow brush.

Anyways, my one goal for the day, to do laundry, did not happen. oops.

xoxo
A

Wacky Week and Shanghai

After having an incredibly wacky week last week, I'm very much looking forward to the very very relaxed upcoming week I have ahead.

Last week, my schedule was thrown curveball upon curveball at my school. Monday morning, my co-teacher tells me, hey Wally, "tomorrow's classes are all going to be 70 minutes long instead of the standard 45 minutes. There are listening tests, so there had to be a schedule change."

my typical class schedule

Oh, okay, cool, 70 minute long classes. Not that I'm prepared to teach for a 70 minute time block, but sure, no problem. Luckily, I discovered that my activity in class took much longer to do than I had slated, and the students didn't get to finish the backs of their worksheets. Problem solved.

Well, later that day I'm informed that due to the 70 minute classes, 5th and 6th periods were cancelled on Tuesday and students were released slightly early. Oh, great, cool, I get a whole extra afternoon free as a result.

Well, still later, my co-teacher hands me a copy of the weeks schedule which is as follows:
Monday: regular classes.
Tuesday: periods 1-4, 70 minutes, period 5-6 cancelled
Wednesday: periods 1-4, normal times, periods 5-6 cancelled.
Thursday: all classes cancelled, Monday classes periods 1-3, Tuesday periods 5-6 during periods 4&5, Wednesday periods 5&6 during Thursday periods 6&7 (on Thursdays only this semester, classes start 40 minutes early and we have an extra period)
Friday: normal classes

An exact copy of the schedule change my co-teacher gave me on Monday around noon.

wtf? So now, as a result, two of my four monday classes are a week ahead, and my two thursday classes are a week behind. My school claims that this is to enable the classes to make up for missed days, but I was able to condense or expand my lessons to keep everything on track, and now my school does THIS. bla&*!sdlk%#roa#@itg;kfja! Anyways, my Monday classes will be corrected next week because there is a holiday. However, my Thursday class (as well as my Wednesday classes due to Election day, a holiday here in Korea) will be a full week behind. Thanks a whole effing lot.

Anyways, on the brighter side, I have no school on Wednesday because of Election Day. My co-teachers were shocked and appalled to discover that in the States people have to work on election day. they also admitted that even with a full day off work, none of them ever vote. wtf? I voted even when I didn't have a day off. How can that even be?

Plus, my Korean class got cancelled because we were supposed to have a week of vacation during the six months, but our teacher never did it, so here we are, two weeks left in the semester, and the second to last one she has to use for vacay. Unfortunately she gave us a crapton of homework that I can't do because it's too difficult.

PLUS, Friday afternoon, I'm flying to Shanghai, China, to compete with KUPA at a frisbee tournament. I'm really looking forward to it, and I think our team has a shot at doing pretty well. Keep your fingers crossed for us this weekened! We play Saturday and Sunday and then I leave Monday afternoon. I'm hoping to at least have time to see SOMETHING in Shanghai at least early in the morning before I have to run off to the airport.

This is the riverside promenade. This is my Shanghai goal. Even if I have to wake up at freaking 6 a.m. I'm going to see something in Shanghai.

xoxo,
A

My School Trip

I think people are literally drag racing outside my apartment.

Anyways, I made a new movie on iMovie to compile all the video clips I took during my school's student trip. Unfortunately I couldn't include any pictures of teachers playing go-stop and drinking soju for two reasons: a) my students will probably see this video and b) I didn't actually take any pictures of those things.

Here is the video, and below that some pictures that didn't make the cut. Enjoy the music, it's from my latest music hot list. *^__^*

This is an idea of what me and the teachers did all weekend. Eat food. Drink alcohol.

A lake in Jaecheon right across from the retreat place where we stayed.

Me (middle, in case you mistook me for a korean) , Kim Bomi (p.e. teacher, Left) and Kim Hyo Jin (English teacher, Right)

My students also go to do paintballing. I'm jealous. I could have played but I didn't bring shoes.

xoxo,

A

School Trips and Winning

Today I'm off to Jaecheon with my grade 1 &3 middle school students. I'm really excited, especially since my co-teachers have indicated that we teachers just stay in a hotel room playing card games for money and drinking.

Also, I won a contest. It's not a really big deal. My favorite rapper, Dumbfoundead sometimes does contests and he did this photo contest where you had to submit a where you're from/where you're at picture. There were lots of really really great pictures, and Dumbfoundead chose one of mine. In fact, he chose my picture of me with a group of my students taken on my laptop in PhotoBooth. It's a really fun, real picture. I'm pretty excited. I am gonna get a free cd from him. I already have all the songs from the album on my itunes, but the album artwork is tight, and it's free. Plus, I love love love love Dumb. *^___^*

xoxo
A

Melina's Visit Pt. 1

Melina came and while she was only actually in Incheon/Seoul for a mere 4.5 days, it enabled me to get to see some of the touristy sites in the beauty of spring, which certainly was nice. The weather has been positively glorious and sunny and warm and breezy. Perfect, imho.

Anyways, I'll start with some funny pictures from our trip into Bupyeong for kalbi dinner with Stephen. Stephen, being the douche-y friend he is tried to (awkwardly) talk to the waiter on my behalf (he was cute, but only 19 years old). It was horrifying. After dinner, we went to the weirdest makgeoli place (막걸리집) ever. Typically these places are rather traditional looking-- dimly lit with lots of wood and quiet traditional music and seating on the floor and stuff. This place, on the other hand, had disco balls, a dj and blaring Korean music. Plus, you could write on the walls. Which, of course we did.

Melina had this problem where she got drunk and dropped like 15 chopsticks. Also, we bought 떡 at Sinpo Marker (신포시장) and it was filled with black bean paste. Too much black bean paste.

 

Melina, Allison + Stephen 4E. Also I really do <3 Young-Bae a lot. And a funny pic of Melina and Stephen.

I actually effing hate Stephen. I can't stand him.

Our websites, plus dumbfoundead. I rep hard for DFD these days. Also, tryin' to promote my site, you know, get my readership up.

Anyways. The next day, Saturday, we did a lot of things, but I'll save that for my next post, tomorrow morning. Now, I'm effing exhausted. Funny how Mon-Thursday of 12+ hour work days (if you count korean class as work) plus a 9 hour day Friday will wear you out thoroughly.

Word.

Children's Day

Today is Children's Day, which means I do not have school which is a tremendous relief. I woke up late (9 a.m.) and did a load of laundry and cleaned my apartment (FINALLY). At about noon I left my apartment to go to 근린공원 for a Children's Day festival thing that my friend Julian's school was holding for students. It was really fun. I got there right at the break time (hahaha, typical) and so I got some capri sun and one of those rice ball things that I STILL don't know the Korean name for, (주먹밥) and it was delicious. Then I walked around the park, which was really pretty. Will have to go back when I remember a camera sometime. Then helped make clocks with children while dancing to kpop songs. Walked to 동인천역 with some of Julian's students. Their English was SO good.

Got home, and discovered this:

I'm SO going! In case you can't read Korean, it's for the R16 World Bboy Masters Championships. July 3-4. If any of you want to come with, hollllllla!

Now, I'm off to a tutoring thing and coffee.

Then, I'll pick up Melina at the airport!! *^_____^*

Vanity of vanities

So I just added a live traffic feed to my blog so that way I could look and see about how many hits my blog is getting on any one day in particular. I think I'm becoming more and more like Joe at www.joseph-gutierrez.com in that I am becoming more and more interested in becoming an internet superstar. Unfortunately I'm pretty certain that no one reads my blog. Bummer. But maybe one day I'll become popular, after extensive k-pop blogging and other meaningless drivel that the larger population usually deems interesting.

Also, this week I've been getting Birthday things! Last Friday I got my first card. Then, yesterday, stuffed in my little mailbox which, by the way, is perhaps the least secure way of sorting and providing mail that I have ever seen, was a package from Paigey! I haven't opened it yet, and I haven't even cheated and read the customs form yet so I can be surprised by the package on my birthday. I did notice however that there was some strange tape job on the envelope that seemed pretty uncharacteristic of my meticulous, if not somewhat obsessive-compulsive friend, Paige, so I looked and that and discovered that this package had the honor of being the first package sent to me that was opened and searched by customs agents. Paige assures me that there is nothing in that package search-worthy, but I suspect it was probably the crack pipe she sent me along with the hash she packed into a stuffed teddy bear. I told her it wasn't worth it, but people just don't seem to listen to me...

Then today at lunch, a lady who works in our main office came up to one of the Korean English teachers and whispered somethings and my co-teacher told me that I had a package in the office. In fact, I had TWO packages: one from Sar-bear and the other from the 'rents. The package from Mom & Dad was big, but not too heavy, which is a relief because when they shipped Christmas stuff, it was so heavy. I cheated and opened a couple of things, but I won't say what because my parents read this (I think) so I don't want them too know too much.

Anyways, my apartment is a wasteland right now. So much laundry to do before I jet off to Jeju this weekend.

Yep that's right, I'm headed off to Jeju this weekend, suckers! The Hawai'i of Korea, as it's so famously called, where I will get to kick back and relax and enjoy my time... oh, no, wait, that's right, I'm going to play in a savage nines tournament and get my ass kicked by the weather and the exercise and the work and the drinking. Perfect.

This is the part of Jeju I won't see.

This is what I will see.

xoxo

A

My 100th post, and Day 1 in Bangkok.

Congratulations to me for hitting post 100 here in Korea. It's been a good run so far. Today I talked to a friend about how it's entirely possible that I will never leave this country. Ever. Maybe not likely, but possible. What does this mean? a million more blogposts from Yours Truly.

So anyways. On Thursday morning, we slept in until about 9:30 a.m. and grabbed breakfast. Checked out of our bungalow and got a taxi to the pier. Waited at the pier for about 10 minutes before catching another long-tail motor boat back to Krabi Town. Hopped in a taxi to take us down the bus station where we would *hopefully* drop our packs and wander around a bit for the 8 hours or so we were prepared to have before our bus headed out. Instead, we had a bit of an almost disastrous experience with that as the taxi took a meandering route, stopping to drop off propane tanks and finally dropped us off NOT at our bus station. Instead, it took us to some tourist information center who called our bus station which said, "oh, we can send a taxi over to pick you up at 4 (It was 11:30 or so at the time). We had decided pretty unanimously that we didn't want to do anything strenous and the information center told us we could leave our bags there. So we did just that and found a coffee shop/restaurant that served the following: REAL milkshakes, ice cream sundaes, spaghetti, thai food, iced (and hot) coffees, club sandwiches and GRILLED CHEESE, with bacon. Can you guess what I ordered? It was delicious. Grilled cheese, and a chocolate sundae. Ain't nothing better. We had about 4 hours to kill but were pretty tired and Bekah was feeling pretty sunburnt at that point, so we didn't want to walk around too much. So what did we do? Only our favorite activity of the trip: Uno. For like 2 and a half hours. The other hour and a half were spent napping or eating, mostly eating. Our taxi finally came and then stopped to pick up some 8 or so other people from various hostels in Krabi.

Got to the bus station still a full hour early. at this point, we started to throw around a bit. Threw for quite some time, but I was getting really hot, so I relaxed in the shade for the last fifteen minutes until the bus arrived, a full 30 minutes late. We departed roughly an hour behind schedule and hoped on the bus. 2 hours to the same place we went before. Then 11 more hours to Bangkok. We got into Bangkok around 5 a.m. There were very few cars on the road, and it was exceptionally dark. We wandered around for a bit (we didn't exactly have anywhere to go, unfortunately. We decided, hey, we should go to the national park. That's probably a good place to relax and maybe catch some z's before the sunbreaks. So we head over there, pausing for mobile toilet buses and photo ops with Korean language signs. As we approach the park we discover that it is a place for rest, if you are a stray animal, trash, a tourist bus, or homeless. There was virtually no grass and the whole area was simply depressing to walk through.

However, we passed the "park" and hit the wall that surrounds the National Palace and watched the sunrise over the palace. We then went for a walk to see what our breakfast options to discover no restaurants open till 8 a.m. and it was only 7. So we walked around the city for some time. we stumbled upon a port area market, where they were selling tons of fruits, drinks and other things. Also, We saw dozens of Buddhist monks walking through the area and watched as numerous buddhist followers purchased foods and offered them to the various monks walking around, bowing at their feet and giving them flowers. It was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful.

Then, while walking, we saw this stunning walled in area with beautiful statues, and such. It looked a lot like a wat, but we couldn't find any religious markings. Then we discovered it was an elementary school. We walked inside and just enjoyed how beautiful everything was. The intricate painting of the moldings and undersides of roofs, the colorful spirals of tile leaping up buildings. It was stunning. And to think, a group of 5-9 years olds call this place their school. It was amazing. Positively amazing.

Then, hungry as can be, we headed back to this thai restaurant near the entrance to the palace, and we grabbed some thai food for breakfast and took our time relaxing in a/c and peace. Then we headed out across the street into the national palace area. I was wearing a knee length skirt and bekah and adam, shorts, and we were all turned away, instructed to change into pants. Luckily, our packs were with us and we were able to just throw on the one pair of pants we brought with us to Thailand. We entered the area, and saw a small guard changing march and then discovered that tickets to see the grand palace were 350 baht. That is only 10 dollars, but we were running a bit low on cash (I have about 1000 baht left for three and a half days, and 350 baht was a lot) Plus our packs were heavy and it was incredibly crowded. I'd have liked to have gone, but it just didn't work out for us. Instead, Bekah and I headed outside, bought some ADORABLE matching sundresses (complete with elephants on them) and then hopped in a taxi to head to our hostel.

Our hostel, Suk 11, was AMAZING. It wasn't the cheapest hostel in bangkok, those are on khao san road and run you as like as 4 dollars/night, but my single room (oh my gosh, a whole room, bathroom, shower all to myself!) was 500 baht, which comes to about 13 bucks per night. Not too bad. Also, Suk 11 probably has the best ambience I've ever seen in a hostel. It was SPECTACULAR. I loved staying there. Plus our rooms had a/c. A double was 900/night, and they had triples as well. If you are ever going to bangkok and are looking to stay away from, crowded, dirty, noisy khao san road, I'd highly recommend Suk 11, on Sukhumvit Soi 11.

Got into our hostel, and basically passed out. Mind you, we had taken an 11-hour bus ride through the night to get to Bangkok and arrive at 5 a.m. and had been up for pretty much the whole thing. I slept, and then woke up and got some subway, for the first time 6 full months. Came back, showered, napped more, and then got ready for the tournament registration party.

En route, we stopped at this fantastic, albeit slightly pricier restaurant and ordered sandwiches, my first real sandwich (excluding pb) in 6 months. Mine had fried egg, delicious cheese, and ham, on foccacia bread. Oh. My. God. Delicous. It was probably the most satisfying meal we'd eaten because it was huge and we were really really hungry. Plus, sandwiches are tough to come by in Korea.

Then headed to restaurant for registration. Checked in and in line met this guy named Sam who happened to have traded jersey with adam at college nationals the previous may. What a small world. He lives in Northern Thailand, working for a non-profit, installing renewable energy on the burmese-thai border. He went to Stanford and looked freakishly like TJ McCourt. He was super cool and ended up kind of hanging out with us for the whole weekend. Had a beer, chatted it up, and then headed back home around 11 to get some sleep.

That's it for now... Tournament weekend coming soooooon!

Poor posting- Days 3&4 in Koh Yao Noi

So I haven't been quite as efficient as I'd hoped in my posting about Thailand, but that is largely because I got really quite sick last night, running a fever, not sleeping at all and then proceeding to take a 4-hour nap in the middle of the day today until RIGHT NOW. But I'm back on the scene, bitches. I will finish up with my time in Koh Yao Noi the best I can. This post will include LOTSA video.

On Wednesday morning I woke up quite early (as I did all vacation) and I headed to the beach to write in my journal. I sat on a swing and just kind of soaked in the fact that I was in Thailand, on this beautiful island. I had just missed the sunrise, and I vowed to myself that I would wake up even earlier the next day in order to see it. It was beautiful outside that morning, just starting to warm up, but not too hot just yet, to make it uncomfortable.

Most of the day Tuesday we just bummed around the beach doing a whole lotta nothing. Enjoyed being in the sun thoroughly, even though I was slightly burnt from the day before. Luckily, I lathered on the aloe and sunscreen the rest of the week and managed to get wonderfully tan without any burning. We threw quite a bit on the beach (we did this pretty much everyday I think). Drank delicious fruit shakes. Lazed around all day. I believe this is the day I got my first ever Thai Massage. It was AMAZING. Here are some pictures, and a video of the ocean & beach that I took that morning:

 

 

Also on Tuesday, I spent some time by myself relaxing and enjoying the island without Bekah and Adam (who spent an awful lot of time sleeping and doing NOTHING on the island). I laid out on the beach for a little while and then headed to the beachside food vendors for a fruit shake. While drinking the shake a young Thai boy came up to me, speaking Thai, and decided he would play at my table. He and I built this rock/shell/extraneous trash pathway. It's hard to explain, but he was adorable and sweet and just wanted someone to play with him, which is exactly what I did. ^^

Wednesday was the most fun day we had, in my opinion. I woke up extra early to see the sunrise, sometime around 6 a.m. Before heading to the beach, I took a quick video of the roosters that woke us up bright and early every morning. You can't see them, but you can definitely hear them. Ignore my crazy voice. I was really tired and had JUST woken up.

I headed to the beach shortly thereafter and sat on "my" swing and took in the sunrise while journaling some more. The colors were beautiful and we had a perfect view of the sun rising over the island cliffs in the bay. It was at this moment that I realized, "oh my god, my life is so good." Also, I thought a bit about how lucky I am with my job in Korea and my overall situation. Some of my friends don't like their jobs, their schools, their apartments, their co-teachers, or whatever, but my life in Korea really is pretty satisfying on the whole. Here are the pictures:

 
We rented kayaks in the mid morning and kayaked over to Koh Nok, which means Outside Island. It was not too far from the beach where we were staying. It was just far enough to be moderately strenuous to get there, but not exhausting. Bekah and I were together in one kayak and Adam handled the other one.I had to do the steering, which turned out to be much harder than I anticipated, but I got a hang of it about 3/4 of the way through, hah. While kayaking, we saw two jellyfish, one that was super tiny and another that was pretty decent sized. When we got to the island we discovered that it was positively stunning. Unlike the rocky low-tide waters of our "home beach," this beach has perfect sand, and cool, clear water. There was only a small patch of beach, and the rest of the island was bordered by steep, sheer cliff drops into the water. There were two other semi-attached island type things that were also stunning. Shortly after we arrived, Adam spotted a baby octopus that had washed ashore. He was trying to make his way back into the water and we watched anxiously, prepared to help if he couldn't make it. After struggling for about 2 minutes against shallow breaks, he finally caught a larger push of water and jetted off into the great blue sea. It was awesome. Then we waded over to the outcropping of islands to take some pictures and explore a bit. In the water, we saw tons of fish, and even when the water was hip high, we were able to see clear down to our toes playing in the sandy bottom. We also saw numerous sea slugs lounging on rocks in this area. We couldn't go too far because it looked terribly buggy. However, we were able to get some really great pictures:

 

 

After that, Bekah and I laid out a bit while Adam explored the island. Then we threw for about a half hour or more. It was pretty sweltering at this point and we decided to head into the shade for some snacks. We ate sugar crackers (big thick square crackers topped with plenty of sugar-- so good!) and potato chips and relaxed for a little while, cooling off in the shade. Then we decided to head back to our home beach as it was late afternoon and we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time to get back and relax. Kayaked home, and returned the kayaks, showered and headed to "The Little Place" for dinner, which was a small roadside outdoor restaurant that was really cheap and DELICIOUS. I had the best fruit shake EVER there, and had the best pad thai of my life there.

After dinner, we headed back to the beach because there was a small beach party going on. They had laid out lots of blankets and tables and set up a makeshift bar, and had music playing and a big fire and tiki lights and the waves were coming in for high tide and the stars (which you never see in Korea, EVER) were out and bright, and it was so cool/relaxing. We didn't stay too long, maybe an hour, before heading back. We were pretty exhausted from our day out.

That's it for days 3&4. Soon I will be posting about the journey back to Bangkok (horrible), and the hat tournament we played in (amazing).

xoxo
A

Koh Yao Noi Days 1&2

So we got to Krabi by bus around 9 a.m. and took a longtail motor boat out to Koh Yao Noi which took about 30-45 minutes. It was hard to tell exactly how long it took as I spent the entire vacation without a watch, and with my cellphone not working at all (it wouldn't even register the local time, so it was 12:00 a.m. always). I loved that I didn't have a watch and it only became nerve-wracking/possibly deleterious during the weekend when we were playing in the hatter and I was in a single room alone and had to wake up at 6:20. Actually, my body clock worked just fine as I woke up almost every morning between 6 and 7 a.m. (which is between 8 & 9 am Korea time). On the boat was this cute little goat, which was all tied up in a bag, presumably in order to prevent it from walking around and bugging the passengers, which consisted of me, Adam, Bekah and one older Thai man. The boat trip took us through Phang Nga Bay, which is situated between Krabi (on the east) and Phuket (to the West). In Phang Nga Bay alone there are over 60 small islands laden with steep, rocky cliffs and small patches of beautiful white sand beaches. The boat ride, needless to say was pretty cool, and I kept thinking to myself, "oh my god, I'm in Thailand," and more than that, "holy shit, I'm only here because I'm teaching English in South Korea." I don't think anything has made me more grateful for my life in Korea than this trip. And this is not because I didn't like Thailand and Korea is much better or anything, just because I am so incredibly lucky to have the opportunities I have had through my job. Seriously.

Anyways, we landed on Koh Yao Noi and took a taxi to a bungalow place called Coconut Corner. However, they were all booked for the next couple days, so we were a little nervous about having a place to stay. Luckily, the old woman who worked at Coconut Corner told us she had a friend who had bungalows and that the taxi driver would take us there. HOORAY! The bungalows were 800 baht/night (just over 20 bucks/night) but that was for all three of us together, so it was about 7 USD/night, which is outrageous. We had a private shower and bathroom, plus plenty of room and a REFRIGERATOR.

Took it pretty easy on Day 1. Scoped out the beach and had some food. We also napped quite a bit because the busride was not particularly restful, given the bumpiness at 3 a.m. and the cramped quarters for 14 hours. The beach near our bungalow was just okay, really rocky at low tide and the water was really salty, warm and a bit murky, but frankly, I was just thrilled to be out of 0 degree (Celsius) temperatures for once and the beach didn't bother me one bit. Some pics from day 1 at the beach:

The next day we decided to rent bicycles from this place called Sabai Corner, which is run by an Italian ex-pat and is the oldest still-running bungalows on Koh Yao Noi. We did a half-day rental, and started biking. What Bekah and I hadn't previously realized was just how hilly Koh Yao Noi was. I was at a distinct disadvantage given my bike being entirely too small for my 187 cm frame. With the pedal down, my legs were still thoroughly bent, meaning I had to work twice as hard to pedal, and on the lowest gears, my feet kept slipping off because there was no resistance. gah. Anyways, we hit one big hill in the first 20 minutes or so, and Bekah and I both had to get off our bikes and walk them to the top of the hill. The downhill portion was pretty easy, though. We got to the pier where we had been dropped off the day before and spent some time relaxing and taking lots of pictures:

 

Then we continued northward, and hit an even larger and steeper hill. It was at this point (halfway up the hill, walking defeatedly, with no peak in sight) that Bekah and I realized that the north only got hillier and more difficult to bike and that it would be better for our self-esteem (and my impending asthma attack) to not continue on. Adam was bummed, but he went on without us and we turned around and biked down the hill and on towards our bungalow. We stopped at our bungalow and got our beach towels and put down some empty water bottles and hit the road again, this time southward. We were wearing just our bathing suit tops and shorts because it was so hot and we didn't want farmer's tans, but as we continued southward, we began to feel a bit uncomfortable as the women became more and more veiled (the island is predominantly Muslim) and seemed to stare at us as we biked by. After a little bit, we turned around and headed back to the beach. We biked towards our bungalow and hit the beach for a little bit. Laid out some, swam/floated/waded in the water a bit, and then headed to a beachside food vendor for some fruit shakes (fruit smoothies, really). Adam met up with us then.

We returned our bikes and ate dinner at Sabai corner that night. I had mediocre pad thai, but Adam & Bekah had otherwise very good dinners. Went back and slept at the bungalow after a long, hot (30+ degrees C) day of biking and such.

Actually, that night Adam and Bekah went out to the beach, where I discovered this lovely friend, who was a lot larger than the picture makes him look. I had to wait for Adam and Bekah to get back because I was a bit afraid. T.T Look closely!

Days 3 & 4 on Koh Yao Noi coming up soon!

xoxo
A