6000 Miles Later

Malaysia, Truly Asia

2007-08-03T05:12:00.000-07:00

Maybe it was the people. Maybe the food, or the wildlife. Or maybe it was the damn CNN commercials that played incessantly while we were in Korea. Someway or another, I really liked Malaysia. In our 3 2.5 weeks there (thanks Air Asia) we saw orangutans, went on an amazing jungle trip, did 15 dives each at one of the worlds best dive sites, AND (although this really shouldn't be the highlight, it was really cool) spent a night on Pulau Tiga: Survivor Island. Since 90% of you will be sick of our stories in about 120 hours from now, I'll just put a few pictures up for now.

Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary

Orangutan! Although the homo sapiens here outnumbered other primates 5 to 1, it was really cool to get this close to them in the wild.

Uncle Tan's Wildlife Tours

Pretty good digs for being in the jungle. The meals weren't bad either, so long as we could collect enough ferns and catch enough fish and ...

...prawns. Otherwise, it was noodles.

Lots of wildlife to see: wild cats and pigs...

...snakes, scorpions, and spiders...

...crocodiles, skinks, and monitor lizards...

... luckily they gave us these large knives to protect ourselves. The Korean Immigration police were kind enough to let us know these weren't allowed into the Republic of Korea.

Back at base camp. Had a simply awesome experience at Uncle Tan's.

Scuba Diving Pulau Sipidan with Scuba Junkie
www.scuba-junkie.com
Diving, diving, diving. Diving was awesome. No diving pictures right now, maybe later. If you want to see what we saw, do a google search for "sipidan pictures". Note the abundance of sharks/turtles.

Spending a night on Pulau Tiga: Survivor Island

One of the deadliest snakes in the world. No antidote. I also saw a bigger one while doing a night dive. The dive master said: "If you get bit there is only one thing to do: take a deep breath and wave good-bye." Fortunately, they are the calmest snakes in the world.

Most surprisingly awesome thing I have done: swam in a mud volcano. Way better than it looked on TV.And she gets mad at the little bits of dirt I sometime track in on my shoes...

For when SPF50 just isn't enough... shot taken on Pagong beach.

Our last day in Bangkok. Ended up spending a LOT more time there than planned.

Anyway, back in Korea now. Feels really good to be back here, all the familiar food/buildings/accents/etc although at the same time strange because there is no familiar job/apartment/faces. Really going to miss this place. Not sure when we'll ever be back again, but who knows what will happen in the next few years.

Anyway, Tara is working on a post to sum up the jungle trip. We'll be home soon, see you then!

In the Jungle (A-weema-weh, A-weema-weh....)

2007-08-03T04:21:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!

As I'm writing this we have less than 5 days until we're back on Canadian soil. It's unbelievable how fast the last 11 months have gone, and especially the last 4. This year has lived up to what we hoped it would be and more. However, in saying that, we're absolutely dying to get back to friends, family, familiar smells, our mom's cooking, and to stop living out of our backpacks (which are in need of a professional cleaning!).

So, I thought I would update you all on our jungle trip in Borneo. We spent 6 days wrestling giant lizards, fighting off scorpions, and at war with an invading tribe. Okay... not quite. The trip, however, was nothing short of an adventure, and definitely something we'll never forget.

Day 0:

After a 3 hour flight from Bangkok we caught a night bus to Sandakan. We had heard horror stories about bus rides in Malaysia being packed, freezing (they love their air), and ridiculously fast on very dangerous/curvy roads. The ride definitely lived up to it's reputation. We spent 5 hours being tossed from side-to-side as the bus wound around mountains. I got up to use the toilet at one point and ended up sitting in a local man's lap. I don't know if he was more surprised or I was! Needless to say, after about hour 4, Andrew and I were both pretty sick.

We got dropped off at the side of the road and told (most people in Malaysia speak perfect English) to walk towards a dimly-lit building in the distance. We grabbed our bags and walked towards the building about 100 meters before about a dozen dogs (or more) started barking and walking towards us. Scary! We were about to start walking (running!) away when we heard "hello?" Luckily someone at the hostel was sitting outside and waiting for us - with his large pack of dogs, apparently!

Day 1:

After a great sleep at the hostel and a really good breakfast, Andrew and I headed to The Sepiloc Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. Borneo is one of the only places in the world with a healthy population of Orangutans. The problem is, however, that logging and plantations have ruined their natural habitat. There's also a problem with people (usually farmers) stealing baby Orangutans or trying to take care of them after their mothers have been killed. Obviously the animals can not be domesticated and end up having serious mental and physical problems. The Rehabilitation Centre basically rescues the babies and puts them in a "natural" environment while slowly training them to be able to survive in the wild alone. Anyway, it's actually a really neat program and you can really see that the animals are benefiting from it. Andrew and I spent the morning watching about 12 orangutans (and lots of monkeys as well) playing, eating, and socializing. I know everyone says this, but it's really amazing how human-like they are. Even their facial expressions are so familiar. I think they knew we were watching though because some of them were showing off a bit. One little guy did about 30 somersaults around a platform for no apparent reason. It was pretty cute. Anyway, the whole experience was definitely positive and eye-opening.

After lunch we took a 1 1/2 hour bus ride, and then a 1 hour boat ride to get to Base Camp. The camp was more-or-less a camping area for people wanting to get out and see nature. The camp had toilets, running-ish water from 2 big tanks that you could use to flush toilets or bathe, and about 5 or 6 cabins that housed about 8 people each. Everything was pretty rustic but for some reason it didn't matter since we were in the middle of the jungle. The staff at the camp was really helpful and knowledgeable. We didn't see too much wildlife in camp besides a few wild pigs, a monitor lizard, and a community of Macaque monkeys that were obsessed with invading camp and stealing stuff from the cabins. They would seriously plan an ambush every couple of hours. Andrew and I thought it was pretty funny until they stole our peanuts - which, by the way, were stuffed in the side of my backpack with about 5 other things.

We got to bed early on the first night since we were leaving pretty early in the morning to go on the 2nd part of our jungle trip.

Day 2 - Day 4

After breakfast we loaded up our "gear" (drinking water, rope, first aid, a change of clothes, mosquito spray, some pots, some rice, etc.) and headed out into the jungle with a guide and another couple from the UK. We followed the edge of a lake about a kilometer or so, until we found a good camping area. After finding all our necessary "equipment" we started building our shelter. After about 3 hours of pounding sticks, tying ropes, and wondering what the heck we had gotten ourselves into, we finished! The shelter was actually pretty cozy. There were 5 separate "stretchers" each fitted with their own mosquito nets, and a big tarp to protect us from the rain. It felt like such an accomplishment to get it built!

After we finished our shelter we were all pretty hungry and ready for lunch. When we signed up for the camping trip we were told that there would be no "frills" and we would be in charge of catching, collecting, and cooking all of our meals. I think we all sort of went into it thinking they were just trying to scare us and that we'd end up getting pretty good food. Well, we were definitely wrong! After a lunch and dinner of instant noodles we decided that the next day we were going to find some real food!

We basically spent the next 3 days learning to fish like the locals do. We would first catch bait or shrimp using a big fishing net that you have to throw while standing in the middle of the lake with mud up to our knees! Then we would tie the bait to the end of a string attached to a 2 L pop bottle and throw it out into the lake and hope that something would bite. It was the most exhausting thing in the world!

The first day that we went fishing we all decided to walk about 2 kilometers to a channel where our guide said we could get a lot of fish. We spent most of the day walking, fishing, and walking some more. We only caught around 2-3 small fish and a few shrimp! As difficult as it was, and as tired as we were, we had an absolute blast! I spent most of my time screaming actually, but hey, it was still fun. The couple we were with were absolutely hilarious and such fun.

So, we didn't really eat more than rice, a few small fish, shrimp, and some ferns for the first 2 days, but on the last day I caught a HUGE catfish. Andrew thinks he caught it - but I'm almost positive it was my 2 L pop bottle. Anyway, I'll give Andrew the credit for going out into the water and actually picking it up!

Doesn't look like Tara is going to finish this, so I'll take over here. I DID catch the fish. I walked across the waist high mud lake to get a bottle that was swimming around. One of the worst things I have had to do on this trip. Anyway, it was delicious. We stuffed ourselves with food that day, as the guide had caught some large prawns as well.

The next morning we had to head back to camp. However much fun we had, it was definitely one of those places that you were more than ready to leave. The normal package just does 2 nights in the base camp. We did those, plus 3 nights in a jungle camp. When I asked the guide what is the longest anyone stays in the jungle he said 3 nights. I asked him if many people do that... he said "No, you are the first." Apparently a lot of people leave after the first night.

Back at base camp we spent the day relaxing and talking with other people there. I played a game of soccer with the guides in the pouring rain; Tara played some cards with some other travelers. We met some really nice people there, including a few couples that were also going to be diving with us the next week.

One thing Tara didn't touch on was the massive amount of monkeys in the area. We saw three types of monkeys and in total we probably saw over 200 monkeys. They were everywhere: on the shores of the lake, the river, and around the base camp. Sometimes a little to close for comfort.

At one point when we were fishing, I was walking around the lake to retrieve a bottle. I heard something rustling in the trees so I crouched down to get a better look. I then saw a long tail walking along the jungle floor, and I first thought it was some kind of cat. As they got closer I saw that they were long-tail macaques. For some reason, no one bothered to tell us that they were aggressive. Anyway, one of them saw me and they all ran back through the trees. Or so I thought. Faster than I could realize what was happening, two macaques bounded out towards me, their hair standing on end, chests puffed out, and teeth bared.

One was quite small, but the other was a full grown macaque. From my years of elk ranching/black bear guiding/wilderness survival training I thought the best thing to do would be to try to look really big, yell, and charge at the monkey... then maybe try to hit it with something. It worked with larger animals... Unfortunately the yelling didn't work and the larger monkey charged me, stopping only about two meters away. I thought it was going to jump on me or something... was going through in my head all the things Tara was telling me you could catch from a monkey. I did some more yelling, slowly retreating, and was feeling the ground to try to find a stick. I got about 6 meters back and the monkey charged again, this time stopping only one meter in front of me. Either my yelling finally worked, or the monkey thought he had proved his point, and allowed me to retreat back further this time. I walked back to the camp from there, and Tara ran up to me thinking I had been bit by a snake or something. So, if anyone should be stuck in this situation... actually just stay away from the macaques. Or carry a stick around to hit them with.

So, to sum up, this is all the cool stuff we saw/did in the jungle:

Saw:
long-tail macaques
proboscis monkeys
silver leaf monkeys
crocodiles
water monitors
wild pigs
a civet cat
black scorpions
numerous spiders/tarantulas
kingfishers
centipedes and millipedes
two types of snakes
bats

Did:
Caught fish using a net and also with pop bottle floats
Collected jungle plants to eat
Drank water from a vine
Bathed/Swam in murky and muddy lakes which at some points of the year contain crocodiles
Saw the most amazingly starry night I have ever seen
Attempted to Tarzan across a small and very dirty stream... didn't go so well, but we got it on video.
Went on numerous treks/boat rides to find wildlife

Needless to say, it was a really great time and one of the best parts of the trip. Tara now thinks she might be ready to go on Survivor. This might just be the last post until we get home, but you never know. Take care everyone,

-Andrew and Tara

Re: FWD: FWD: FWD: FWD: Travel Quiz - fill it out, add some, and send it back!

2007-07-25T03:17:00.001-07:00

On 7/25/07, *Andrew Donovan* <acd333@gmail.com > wrote:

If you don't send this back within 1 day you will have bad luck
shopping
for the rest of the trip!

What was your favorite country, overall? Laos both for the people
and the sights.

Malaysia has been pretty awesome.

What was your least favorite country, overall? Vietnam both for
the people and the sights.

Yeah, I'd have to agree with you on that one.

What was your favorite city, overall? HoChiMinh or Bangkok

I also liked Bangkok.

What was your least favorite city, overall? Vientiene

Sapa, Vietnam

Which country had the best food? Vietnam

No way! Korea!

Which country had the worst food? China

No way! Vietnam (except Hoi An)!

Which country had the nicest people? Laos or Malaysia

Malaysia Truly Asia.

Which country had the most unfriendly people? Vietnam

Vietnam. Although we did meet some really great people there.

Which country was the cheapest? Laos

China was quite cheap for a lot of stuff too.

Which country was the most expensive? Thailand - due to us shopping

Or Malaysia, with all the diving.

Which country would you most like to go back to? China

China

Which country will you never go back to? None of them.

I think it will be a while before I head back to Vietnam.

What are your top 5 experiences in Asia? 1.Korea - Taekkyon 2.China - Great Wall
3. Cambodia - swimming in Crater lake 4. Laos - Biking on the Bolaven Plateau OR swimming in the waterfall near Luang Prabang 5.Malaysia - waking up in the jungle with a two foot long monitor lizard under my hammock OR catching that big
catfish.

1. Uncle Tan's jungle trip (www.uncletan.com)
2. Taekkyon
3. Tubing/rope swings in Vang Vieng
4. Scootering around the Bolaven Plateau
5. Scuba diving Sipadan

What are your worst 5 experiences in Asia? 1.China - booking train
tickets, AND 2. When that crazy lady accosted us by that temple in Chengdu. 3.Vietnam - hearing 'hello moto?' every 2 seconds 4.Cambodia - skidding across
gravel after we crashed our motorbike 5.Bangkok - realizing we'de
spent nearly 4000 dollars in a week.

1. Arriving in Sapa, realizing I was nearly robbed by a hill-tribe lady
2. Nearly running over a small Cambodian girl
3. Nearly every time we got in a tuk-tuk or taxi in Vietnam
4. Watching a hill-tribe lady in Sapa try to sell me drugs when her kid is right beside her
5. Walking through the mud/water/sludge in the jungle to get dinner

Name 3 things that you never would have pictured yourself doing a
year ago. Sharing a bathroom with a tarantula, swimming in
brown muddy water and finding it 'refreshing', eating tarantulas,
crickets, grasshoppers, and frogs.

1. See #5 above
2. An amazing belly-flop
3. Eating goat udder.

Worst bus ride? China - when we were in the back of a rusty bus on
a bumpy, curvy, gravel road for 10 hours and there was a guy eating
a chicken and throwing the bones on the floor, which ironically was
next to the cage that housed the live chickens.

Definitely from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan... Tara was throwing up, I had my head between my knees... things weren't so good.

Best use of money? Chinese spa and Thai massages

Our 1$ accommodation in Don Det, Laos.

Biggest waste of money? Halong Bay

I second that. Although there were a few hair salon appointments that cost more....

Best tour? The Mekong Delta from HoChiMinh to Cambodia

Tubing in Vang Vieng.

Worst tour? Halong Bay

I'd go with the great wall 'tour'. Getting a tour guide who only spoke enough English to tell us to pay the road tolls and lie to us and say the vehicle needed to be inspected so we had to wait in this jade store....

Which tourist attraction overwhelmed you the most? The Killing
Fields in Phnom Penh.

Buddha caves, Datong, China

Which tourist attraction was the most disappointing? The Forbidden
Palace in Beijing.

Yeah...

When were you the most tired? In China.

Yesterday night, after 10 dives in 3 days.

When were you the most hungry? In China

Most of Thailand...

What do you regret doing the most? Nothing

Well... a better trip would have included more China, less Vietnam.

What do you regret missing the most? Dalat in Vietnam

Climbing in China.

What is the most important thing you learned on this trip? That I
have the best travel companion in the world!

If I let Tara spend money on her hair, she thinks I'm great.
But seriously: communism just doesn't work, and a lot of bad stuff happened over here during the Japanese occupation, Vietnam war, and Khmer Rouge rule of Cambodia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korea_under_Japanese_rule
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanking_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Killing_Fields
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Railway
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandakan_Death_Marches

How many times did you wish you were back at home? Only a handful
of times... =p

Hmmm....

How many times did you wish you were back in Korea? Whenever I think about Taekkyon and all the friends we made.

Every time I think of kimchi or bibimbap.

What is the first thing you want to eat when you get home?
Tarantulas... oh we can't get them there can we? Okay, then, good
bread, cheese, and blueberries!

Brown bread, red wine, golden olive oil, and pink salmon. And my own cooking.

To the nearest hundred, how many people said 'hello' to you? About
3,500

Counting every annyong-haseyo/ni hao/sabaydee/sawatdee/etc I'd say closer to 3600, about 30 a day.

Out of the 120 or so nights spent in various forms of
accommodation, how
many would my mom have deemed acceptable? nice? luxurious?
Acceptable - 50%, Nice - 20%, Luxurious - 0.0083%

10% - 5% - 0%

What was your favorite dish? Green Mango Salad or Vietnamese
Spring Rolls

Cao Lao, in Hoi An.

What was your least favorite dish? Chinese vegetables sitting in 2 inches of oil.

Rice noodle soup just doesn't do it for me.

What part of the trip changed you the most? Experiencing how
people with virtually nothing can be so happy.

Definitely the teaching in Korea. Nice to feel like you make a difference.

To the nearest ten, how many times did you (Tara) drop/break/step
on/spill/lose
something? no comment... Andrew.

To be fair, it was probably about 30 times.

To the nearest ten, how many times did I (Andrew) wake up
yelling/sleepwalking/talking/etc? Probably once a week. I only slept walked once in our hostel in Bangkok. I woke up standing out in the hall wondering why Andrew was making such a big deal about me being out there!

I didn't, however, wake any other people up on this trip.

What were the three most interesting animals you saw in the wild?
Orangutan, Monitor Lizard, Leopard Shark

The monitor lizards were awesome, as was the civet cat, and the scorpions.

Just finished up our diving here in Semporna, Malaysia. Absolutely amazing... we saw just about everything there was to see underwater. Definitely would recommend Scuba Junkie (http://www.scuba-junkie.com/) to anyone else who is planning on diving Sipadan.
Well, days are getting short now. I think we are under two weeks till we are home. Hope all is well with everyone and we will see you soon. I will also try to get some pictures up from the jungle.
-Andrew

Thailand, "The Land of Smiles"

2007-07-09T03:59:00.000-07:00

To sum up our time in Thailand, north, central, and west: we shopped. When we finally crossed the Mekong into Thailand 2 weeks ago among the first things we saw were a 7-11 and an ATM. It was then that our trip ceased to be a backpacking-across-Asia-adventure and became basically a two week Visa-fueled shopping bender. I'm not exaggerating either. We justify doubling, tripling, or quadrupling our 50$ a day budget by saying things like "Well, I need it anyway and it would cost 'x' times as much at home".

Our first stop was Chiang Mai, the second largest city in Thailand. Among other things, we met up with one of Tara's high school friends for a couple of days, took in a dinner show, 'learned' to cook Thai food, and shopped. Our shopping consisted of: one MAJOR department store, one weekend market, and two trips to the night market. We had to 'save' some more money by getting our teeth cleaned in Thailand (15$! cheap!) to make up for what we spent.

One of the coolest things we did there was went to the Chiang Mai Night Safari. It is basically a massive zoo with three parts: a walking trail around a beautiful lake, a Savannah safari, and a predator safari. It is probably the closest thing I have seen to a humane zoo (especially compared to anything in Asia!... except maybe the panda place). The first part, walking around the lake, was amazing. Just enclosure after enclosure of exotic animals, from chimpanzees to hippos. The best part was there were no other tourists so all the animals were out of hiding and near the walkway. For the safaris we got on a tram car and drove past countless larger animals.

We stayed in Chiang Mai for about a week before heading to Bangkok. We spent another week in Bangkok, half of it wandering the city from guest house to guest house, and the other half in one place to rest up. Our last resting day consisted of: 20 minute walk to the canal to catch a boat/10 minute boat ride/sky-train to the weekend market/wandering the weekend market for a few hours/sky-train to another shopping district/lots of shopping/running down Silom Road in the pouring rain to catch.../one last 20 minutes boat ride to get us back to our guest house.

Here is a quick list of 'sites' we saw in Bangkok:
1. An old Thai house
2. The Grand Palace
3. And that is about it.

Here is a list of the malls/markets we have been to:
1. MBK: 7 stories of shopping stalls plus a department store
2. Paragon: 5 stories of high-priced stuff
3. Chidlom Center: See #2
4. Center Mall: See #2
5. Siam Discovery: See #2
6. Chatuchak Weekend Market: Largest flea market in the world, connected to a great (cheap) mall.
7. Khao San Road: Largest backpacker ghetto in the world... lots of shopping.
8. China Town: Nice and cheap... found two cheap department stores here.
9. Silom Road: A road chock full of gem shops, and high priced clothing stores.
10. Night Bazaar: Another HUGE market, with tons of shops selling to tourists.
11. I could go on.

The way I see it, all of these nice places will be there when we head back to Thailand in 10 or 20 years. The shopping will never again be this good. And after being exposed to Asian prices we definitely won't want to buy anything once we get back to Canada.

Bangkok has definitely been expensive. We got out yesterday (thought we'd save some money), to spend two days in Kanchanaburi, the site of the famous Bridge on the River Kwai. It is really nice here. Yesterday we arrived to little huts connected by a wooden walkway, 6$ Thai massages, and even cheaper shopping. Today we managed to blow our budget again... although I definitely won't need any more khakis for a long time.

It seems we can't really go anywhere without buying stuff, so to finish our trip up we are heading to Borneo. Our itinerary there: hack our way through the jungle for a week, scuba dive for a week, then climb the tallest mountain in S.E. Asia. Hopefully that will help escape the shopping. We'll head back to Bangkok tomorrow for one more day, then fly to Kota Kinabalu. Three weeks in Borneo, then heading to Korea for 5-6 days then home.

Anyway, we should be home in about a month. We're going to be flat broke so bring us some fruits and vegetables (don't even want to think about how much they cost in Canada) and we'll trade you for Asian souvenirs. But you'll have to look at a lot of pictures as well.

Oh, and to explain the title: we have definitely been putting smiles on the faces of a lot of shop keepers.

Hope all is well!
-Andrew and Tara

2 weeks of Sundays

2007-07-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Well there is no question that we are dedicated bloggers because we are currently sitting in one of the best/cheapest malls we've both ever been in and we're blogging! Thanks for the posts, every one of them makes our day! We miss you all so much!

Our experience in Laos was nothing short of amazing. The people were incredibly warm and inviting and always had a smile or something nice to say (even if it was just "hello!"). It was really humbling to see people who according to our "western" standards have next to nothing but seem to be some of the happiest and satisfied people we've ever seen. Most of the people living in the countryside live in tiny straw shacks on stilts, drink rain water, raise and kill their own livestock, and for the most part live pretty similar to how life was 100 or so years ago. Elephants are still used for transport, people walk rather than drive, there's no electricity in some places, kids play with straw soccer balls, and everyone wears traditional clothes. There's definitely an emphasis placed on family and friends rather than higher education and wealth. The guidebook says that Laos people actually feel sorry for those who "have to think too hard." With all that said, you get really laid-back and content people. We often walked into markets or small stores and people would be just sleeping or reading magazines rather than yelling at us to buy something. All-in-all Laos was incredibly refreshing and a great place to soak up the atmosphere and recharge our batteries. Oh, and the food was fabulous!

Vientiene

After our unsuccessful (but fun, nonetheless) coffee search, we headed up to Vientiene. Besides being a pretty nice, laid back city, Vientiene lived up to its name of being one of the most boring cities in South East Asia. There just wasn't a whole lot to do there. We spent most of the day reading books and eating carrot cake (there was, however, a great bakery there!).

Vang Vieng

Vang Vieng, on the other hand, was fantastic! It is a little backpacker town that is surrounded by Karst mountains and beautiful scenery. We went on a caving tour one day to 3 different caves. One of the caves was inhabited by around 250 people during the war. They lived in the cave for around 3 months and basically caught and ate anything that happened to go into it (snakes, dogs, spiders, etc.). Fortunately, most of them survived, but they left their names written on the roof of the cave in smoke. Very eerie.We also went into a "water cave" which basically involved attaching a battery-operated light to our heads (safe? Glad there was an electrical engineer on hand) and paddling through the cave on a tube. There were spiders and webs all over the roof, and at times if we leaned all the way back on the tube the roof was literally touching our noses. At one point we got off our tubes and crawled (slithered) through some really small cracks in the stalactite. Definitely not a tour for the claustrophobic!

After the cave tour we did something that pretty much every tourist who comes to Vang Vieng does - we tubed down the Mekong for a few hours and drank some Beer Lao. It was a blast! There were bars every 1/2 kilometer or so where you could dock your tube, get more drinks, and go on giant rope swings.
It was one of my highlights of the trip. You start about 10m up and you swing quite a ways. I'll put a video up on YouTube once we are out of Thailand.

Andrew, of course, took advantage of the swinging (someone else was taking advantage of the $0.60 drinks!)
and ended up doing the world's worst belly flop! He was literally black and blue for a few days. Ouch!
See, Tara got it all wrong. This was the best belly flop ever. It was a little scary the next day when the other side of my stomach started turning yellow, but I regret nothing.

We had a fantastic time though, and it was an amazing experience floating down the Mekong and taking in all of the beautiful scenery.

Luang Prabang

After all the drinking, tubing, and belly-flopping fun we decided to make our way to the ancient capital, Luang Prabang. There are around 33 ancient temples in the city which are still inhabited by the monks. We went and checked out a few of the temples and walked up the "sacred mountain" called Phousi. The monks in Laos wear these bright orange robes (the colors range from almost yellow to rust, depending on rank) and look really striking next to the gold temples. Apparently every Loatian male is expected to spend some time in a monastery during his life. It is quite strange to see these 8 or 10 year old boys walking around wearing bright orange robes.

We relaxed a bit more in Luang Prabang (we needed it!), but ended up climbing up a waterfall one day (no, Andrew didn't practice his gymnastics this time!).
The waterfalls were absolutely gorgeous.
We walked up about half an hour or so and there were little pools all the way up. The water was crystal-clear and sooo inviting after the sweaty climb up the fall. We ended up sharing one of the pools with about 20 Lao kids who were swinging from vines by the water. They were adorable and incredibly brave. They would start out swinging from the highest branches, flip around mid-air, and then somersault into the water! Scary!

After Laos we went on a 3 day boat/bus trip into Thailand. I'll leave it to Andrew to fill you in on all the details tomorrow. Our shopping trip is getting a little out of control, so we haven't been updating as much as we had planned.

We're missing you all and hope everyone is doing well. We have just a little over a month until we're back - can't wait!

Love,

Tara & Andrew
XOXO

Long time no see!

2007-06-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

Well we survived Laos and Northern Thailand and are now in Bangkok. We're about to embark on a 2-3 (or more?) day shopping trek around Bangkok. So we should have some downtime between malls to update our blog! Our plan is to walk about a kilometer from here, take a boat down a canal about 5km to the 'big' shopping district (basically a kilometer of massive stores). We will find a hotel there to leave our stuff and then head north about 10km to a massive weekend market. Once we are too tired to walk anymore we will head back to the shopping district and check out the sales for tomorrow. I never saw Tara get ready as fast as she did today.

In the meantime, I'll fill you guys in on part of our Laos experience. As we said last, we headed out for 3 days on a scooter to tour the coffee region of Laos. It is called the Bolaven Plateau and it produces some of the 'best' coffee in the world (Asia seems to be full of superlatives). As well there are some amazing waterfalls there.

We spent the first day traveling with a Brazilian guy who is traveling around the world, by bicycle, as part of a social project. The first waterfall we visited it was just the three of us. Tara left her bathing suit on the bike so she had the prestigious job of photographer. That small white speck to the left of the waterfall was me. It took me 5 minutes to get Tara's attention to take the picture. I couldn't whistle because of the wind from the falls.

The next waterfall was a little more inaccessible. We made it down as far as we could to take some pictures. The drop is apparently 120m.

The third waterfall that day was more like the first, but with more people. I was in a bit too much of a hurry on the way to the bottom and slipped on the rocks. After bouncing off rocks in 4 places and falling about 10 feet I landed on my feet, covered in mud and blood.

Just flesh wounds, but kind of scary considering how far we were away from medical care.

We arrived at our first stop about 30 minutes later. We had been going the whole day and really needed... some nice coffee. It was actually pretty awesome so we were excited to go to the market the next day to buy some beans to take home. We parted ways with our Brazilian friend here and had an amazing sleep.

The next day was a lot less eventful. We wandered the market and couldn't find a single coffee bean: only ground stuff. We drove around town trying to find coffee beans (it was supposed to be the coffee capital of Asia!!) but had no luck. So we set off again determined to keep our eyes open for anything that could be coffee.

By the end of the day we had visited 4 markets, 2 coffee shops, and countless villages in search of coffee beans. It was all to no avail. The Java gods were against us.

We stopped for some lunch in the shade of a bamboo grove. When we stopped an old lady walked up to us. She was wearing only a black bra and a long skirt. She said something in Lao, laughed, and then walked into the field beside us. About 10 minutes later she emerged with some mushrooms wrapped in a banana leaf. I'm not sure if she was trying to sell us them, give us them, or explain the unique chemical properties of the mushrooms but we had a 5 minute conversation with her without understanding a single word.

We arrived at the final waterfall of our trip: Tad Lo. There, we booked an elephant ride and got an awesome deal on accommodation.

We had a large bungalow, fully modern, built with beautiful wood. And it was only 10$ a night. And it was right on the edge of the waterfall.

The next day was again spent traveling and searching for coffee. We even followed some signs that pointed to a coffee plantation (13km from the main road - about 25 minutes on the scooter). No beans. We ended up where we started, back in Pakse at the coffee place and we bought some beans there.

This is Tara, quite angry about the lack of coffee beans.

That night we jumped on a bus for Vientiene, still frustrated about the lack of coffee beans.

Tomorrow (I hope!) we will post about Northern Laos and our (painful) adventures there.

Loads of Pictures!

2007-06-09T07:18:00.000-07:00

Well, we are now in Laos. And it is HOT here. You just sweat constantly. All day, all night. We are going to head a bit higher to coffee country for the next few days to try to escape the heat.

And yeah, maybe we haven't put up pictures in a while. But this should make up for it. I tried to follow Tara's last post but there is some random stuff in here as well.

Hoi An: At the tailors. This lady was amazing.

Hoi An: Also an amazing lady - Ty taught us to cook some Vietnamese food.

Saigon: Touring the Viet-Cong tunnels

Saigon: Just me, some army dude, and an AK-47...

Saigon: They had to widen these tunnels substantially for foreigners... but there was still no way I was going down there.

Mekong Delta: I left for 20 minutes and some snake was putting the moves on Tara

Mekong Delta: This is the dinner with the Icelandic couple... "udder"ly disgusting?

Good times in Phnom Penh

Sad times in Phnom Penh

There was a pagoda filled with thousands of skulls, all victims of just one Khmer Rouge death camp.

And some happier times:

Angkor Temples: So many massive temples... so few tourists

Some of the temples were being reclaimed by the jungle

Kratie: We had arranged to be driven to the next town in a pickup truck. We bought the whole front of the cab in advance so we'd have enough space (ordinarily they would put 6 people in 4 seats). This is what we found when they picked us up.

Ban Lung: It was so hot here we went swimming in an old volcano to cool off.

Welcome to Laos!

Don Det: Our first stop in Laos. 1 room on stilts + 2 hammocks + 1 gas lamp = 1$

Well, we are off for a few days to coffee country, supposedly the best in the world is grown in this region.

Hope everyone is doing well.

A BIG UPDATE!

2007-05-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys!

Hope that title got everyone's attention! We were just thinking that it's been such a long time since we posted, but actually I think it's just that a lot has happened since we last did. Anyway... I will warn you in advance that this is going to be a long one!

Hoi An

We went to Hoi An planning to only spend a night or two but ended up staying 7 days! It's the longest we've stayed in any place since we started traveling, so it was a really nice break. The city had such a good atmosphere, the food was great (seafood galore!), and accommodation was really cheap. Best of all though was that there were tailors every 2 or 3 steps that design and custom-make clothes for really cheap. There were also shoemakers that did the same. Needless to say, we ended up sending a 13 kg package home that included (among other things!):

- silk-lined cashmere suit
- 5 pairs of pants
- 2 jackets
- 6 shirts
- 2 pairs of shoes

Even Andrew was excited about the shopping, and that says a lot!

I also decided to do my scuba diving course. It ended up being fantastic and I even got my own personal diving instructor (AND he spoke English!). We did 4 open water dives and Andrew came along for the last two. It was a lot of fun and I managed to not do any emergency surfacing (as I unfortunately did a lot when I was practicing in the pool). We didn't get to see a whole lot of big fish, but the coral was really beautiful. We're looking forward to doing some diving in Thailand later on... although I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to spotting any sharks. I have a bit of an overactive imagination and had nightmares of shark attacks all the way up to my open water dives! I'm definitely my mom's daughter!

Mui Ne

We caught a 14 hour bus to Mui Ne hoping to spend some time on the beach. Unfortunately, when we got there we realized how hot and humid it was, so beaching-it wasn't really appealing. We booked ourselves into a tour right away to go see a stream and some sand dunes. We waded 500 meters through the stream to go see a tiny little waterfall. It was neat to see all of the local kids playing in the water, but the stream itself wasn't so interesting. The sand dunes, on the other hand, were amazing! We went first to the white sand dunes, where we had a scorching walk to the top (it felt like we were in a desert!) and then sledded down (or rolled down, in my case!) on some crazy carpets. Then we went to a red canyon which was much easier (and cooler) to walk up. The sun was going down when we were at the top so we got some really good pictures. We decided to hit the beach at night and spent an hour or so wandering around and seeing what the tide left behind. We only spent one night in a small bungalow beside the ocean (without air-con!), and headed out first thing in the morning to Saigon.

Saigon

We read that Saigon was crazy busy and we weren't let down. It was an adventure even crossing the street. Motorbikes would be flying towards you and you couldn't do much more than put on your game face, head down, and make a steady jaunt across the road. At times we'd be stuck in the middle of the street not able to go in any direction.

We didn't do much in Saigon either than shopping in the main market and visiting and the War Museum and the Cu Chi Tunnels. The Cu Chi Tunnels were used by the Viet Cong army against the American army during the war. The tunnels are this massive network of tiny paths underground where soldiers would live and fight. We were shocked at how small the entrances were to the tunnel (Andrew just fit!) and even more shocked at how tiny the actual tunnels were. I crawled through (Andrew declined) about 100 m and had to literally squeeze through some parts. And these tunnels had been made substantially larger to accommodate tourists. It was pitch black too, which didn't make the situation any better! It's amazing that people lived, had babies, and fought a war in those tiny little spaces. Makes me think I shouldn't be complaining about lack of air conditioning!

Mekong Delta

In Saigon we met up with some people and booked a 3 day tour through the Mekong Delta to get into Cambodia. The tour itself was really interesting and we got to see some really amazing scenery. The first day we went to a coconut candy factory (does it get any better than that?!) and a floating market.

The third day we woke up at 6 am and headed out to a big floating market. It was huge and there was pretty much anything you could ever think of buying available. The people live on the boats, which was different than the other market that we went to. Andrew actually hopped on another boat and watched a woman prepare some pineapples (which were delicious). After the boat ride we took the boat a bit further until we hit another village. We had some lunch and Andrew went for a bike ride. I stayed back and ended up holding a 30 kg Anaconda snake! It was pretty cool actually until it started drooling (I handed it off and backed away slowly!). That evening we we jumped onto a bigger boat, had some dinner, watched the kids playing in the water, the fisherman rounding up their nets, and the sunset. Absolutely beautiful...

The third day we stopped in a small village that has mostly Cham minority people living in it. We checked out a mosque and handicrafts, but mostly just wandered around and talked with the people. It was very sad actually because some of the children in the village are physically or mentally disabled from inbreeding. The community was really poor as well, which makes the situation so much worse. The afternoon was spent mostly travelling in order to get to the Cambodian border before it closed.

We had a really interesting time getting to Phnom Penh. First of all, a motorbike randomly started on fire (Andrew - it was REALLY on fire) on the Cambodian side of the border. Everyone ran out to help (those that were through the border anyway) and it got put out in a minute or so. After that, we were told to go check our bags through a security belt. We waited at the belt for nearly 20 minutes and no one showed up. Finally someone came around the corner and said that they didn't want to do it today. Um... okay?! Guess we're not in North America anymore! After we crossed the border (which was no problem) we got shoved in the belly of a boat for 2 1/2 hours. There was absolutely no air flow so it was scorching. We both ended up with heat rash! Anyway, just when it started cooling off, a really bad storm hit. The windows that were previously too tight were suddenly too loose and letting in way too much water! Needless to say, we will always remember our trip through the Mekong Delta!

Phnom Penh

Every traveler we've met so far has told us to get in and out of Phnom Penh as quickly as possible because it's dirty, dangerous, and hot. We found it pretty much the opposite, besides the hot part. We ended up hooking up with a bunch of people from England and Iceland and had a really good time.

We went to the Killing Fields and the War Museum on the first day. The Killing Fields were really enlightening but absolutely heartbreaking at the same time. It's unreal how many people were actually killed, but yet it's not as publicized as the Vietnamese war or WWII. The fields themselves were little more than open spaces and dozens of holes where they dug up the bodies. The only thing that showed that you were standing on ground that was once used for one of the most massive genocide sites in history was that there were pieces of clothing sticking up out of the soil everywhere. I guess people still find bones and teeth that come up after the rains. So sad. They actually erected a tower filled with about 8000 skulls from the mass graves that they excavated. You can stare up the tower and all you see is skull after skull. It takes a minute to actually internalize everything and realize what it is you're looking at.

After the War Museum we headed to the S-21 Prison. This is where the Khmer Rouge tortured and imprisoned most of the political "criminals." The beds and the rooms are exactly how they were found, and there's a picture in every room showing the state of the last victim that was murdered there. Also, there was a room filled with mugshots from all of the prisoners that were held and killed there. I'm not sure exactly how many pictures there were, but there were 2 big buildings filled with the pictures. There were photos of babies all the way up to old men. There was an old lady and a monk wandering through the rows of photos and it looked as though they were looking for someone. It was so unbelievably sad. I just kept on thinking all day how incredibly lucky we are to come from such a stable country where we our safety and freedom aren't ever compromised.

Siem Reap

We decided to head to Siem Reap a little earlier than we initially thought so we could go explore Angkor Wat. Angkor is this massive site that has over 1000 temples and most of them are close to 1000 years old. One of the temples, Angkor Wat, is the largest religious monument on Earth. We spent 3 days there and only went to about 15 temples. A lot of the temples have been really destroyed (pretty much piles of rocks), but some of them have been really well preserved. You can still see some of the engravings and statues in and on the temples. Andrew and I are sort of "templed out" (as bad as that sounds) from Korea/China, but we were really wowed by Angkor. The best moment for me was walking into one of the temples at 7 am and we were the only people in there. We had literally about a kilometer radius of temple all to ourselves! It was nice to not feel like we weren't part of the tourist mob for an hour or so. Speaking of tourists... there were a lot! We ran into about a million Koreans, which was nice. In all of our conversations we ended up talking about food (good thing Angela wasn't with us!)

Speaking of food... today we had no tour or anything to do for once so we decided to take a cooking class. We went to the market and bought all of our goodies and then went back to the "studio"and cooked up a bunch of yummy dishes. We made two salads, two main courses, and two desserts. The food wasn't especially spicy but has a lot of flavor..mmm! We will be cooking up a storm when we get home I'm sure, so if you're game for some "Amok Curry," let us know!

Again, speaking of food.... we've eaten a fair amount of things in Cambodia so far with legs (gasp!) and more than 2. We ate some goat udder in the Mekong Delta. It was more of a dare than anything, and Andrew almost ate the most out of 4 people (Andrew - Seriously, we were out with another couple and we went for the strangest thing on the menu - the other choice was fried field mouse. We asked for 1 plate but they brought us a plate EACH). It didn't taste bad really, but the thought that I was eating goat udder just didn't sit right with me! I ended up eating only one piece. In Phnom Penh we went to a night market and ate tarantula and frog (Andrew wimped out on the tarantula!) Then in Siem Reap we had a snack of grasshoppers. I thought they were actually kind of tasty. They do eat bugs here, and we've discovered that they're not shy about it. It's the wet season right now, so there are lots of crickets and cockroaches. The other day we were in a store and there were cockroaches flying around and hitting us in the face and legs (not nice). I was sort of skipping around and trying to use Andrew for cover when one of the employees came over to me and said something along the lines of "we just eat them if they're bugging us!"

Anyway, we're heading out to Kampong Cham tomorrow and are hoping to see a little bit of the countryside before we get to Laos. I'm sure there will be lots of good stories coming so keep tuned!

We miss you all so much! Send us an e-mail or a post if you can. Hope all is well...

Only 2 months + 1 week until we're back on Canadian soil!

Love, Tara & Andrew
XOXO

Ps. We'll post some pictures (we've got some good ones!) as soon as we get a chance.

Beautiful Vietnam...

2007-05-12T03:07:00.000-07:00

Hey Guys!

Thanks so much for all the posts! It's so nice to to know that people are reading this and we always get so excited whenever someone leaves us a post, so keep em' coming!

We're just sitting in a little cafe in Hanoi waiting for a bus to take us to Hue tonight. It's an overnight bus that takes 12 hours, so hopefully tomorrow morning comes quickly! Anyway, I thought I'd update since, well, there's lots to talk about!

So... we left off at Sapa last time:

We ended up just staying for another 2 nights, even though we had planned to stay for another 3 or 4. Sapa was absolutely gorgeous, but we kept looking at our timetable and all of the bazillion things we want to see and do and just decided to keep moving. We didn't do too much in Sapa except check out a few markets and went motorbiking for a day to check out the countryside.

We ended up making our way to a small traditional village and a little town. In the little town we decided to have some lunch and ended up sharing our meal with some hilltribes ladies (they didn't know the culprit who picked Andrew's lock). We had a yummy meal of vegetable Pho (noodle soup) with some tofu and other good stuff. Also, we tried corn wine for the first time which was the most potent thing we've both ever tried. They poured us about 1/2 an ounce (I was thinking it was a little measly!) and we could barely finish it.

After Sapa we took the night train to Hanoi. We didn't get much sleep since the train was hot and there was a really (and I mean really) loud snorer in our berth. Also, I ended up on the top bunk (there are 3 beds to a bunk) and ended up with less than a foot of room between my nose and the roof! Definitely not the best sleeping arrangements for anyone who's claustrophobic. Also, the Vietnamese were playing a very famous and sneaky game with us that we learned in China: Each bunk in the berths have different prices with the bottom being the most expensive and the top being the least (for obvious reasons). The game has three steps. First, the person will try to steal the bottom bunk by pretending to be sleeping in it when you come into the room. Think, stretched out with the shoes off and everything! If you make enough noise though you can push the game onto step 2. Step 2 is what I like to call "oblivion." Basically the person will "set up shop" by putting his/her bags on the bed and acting almost like it is you who is invading the sleeping quarters. The last step is a little tricky to get to, but if you achieve it you will actually win the game. You have to first befriend the person (the phrasebook is key!) and then after a while act really sleepy and do the international "I'm tired" signal. Usually this works, and a few smiles and laughs are exchanged. The game is won fair and square. Anyway, we're getting really good at this game and ended up playing it for a little while on our trip to Hanoi. We won the bottom bunk, but Andrew ended up winning it from me.

Hanoi was/has been the craziest and busiest city we've ever been in. The population is only 4 million (maybe not only) but there are 2 million motorbikes! That, combined with the fact that the streets are exceptionally narrow makes for a really chaotic atmosphere. We stayed in the Old Quarter in Hanoi which has all the same (or mostly the same) french architecture and city set up that was present 800 years ago. It's one of the few cities that remained untouched (or nearly) during the war. It's almost like stepping back in time, despite the motorbikes. The streets are all really narrow and the buildings are called "tube houses" because the citizens were once charged taxes based on how much property was facing the roads (not on square footage). The buildings were also prohibited from being over 2 stories tall. So, yes, the buildings look like tubes! Another really interesting thing is that each of the streets used to manufacture or provide a specific product. So, there's a street called Grass Mat street(in Vietnamese though!), Shoe street, and various others. It's was really neat to explore around and guess the names of the streets. We even found Tombstone street!

We also visited Ho Chi Minh's Mausoleum one morning. For those of you who don't know, Ho Chi Minh started the Communist Party in Vietnam and is regarded as a hero here. We went to the Mausoleum first thing in the morning hoping that we'd be one of the first. Well we were wrong, and we ended up in a line that was about 300 meters long. The whole process of getting in and through the building was incredibly regulated. We went through 2 security checks and had to drop off our backpack and our cameras at each one. They then made everyone go into a theatre to watch a movie about Ho Chi Minh's life. Of course, it was in Vietnamese, so Andrew and I thought we'd go outside and look around a bit. As soon as we stepped out of the building two different people told us to "please go back inside." Yikes! After the movie we had to walk about 500 meters or so in double file to a warehouse-type building. Entering the building was almost as strange as seeing the body itself. There were guards every 5 strides or so with knives and bayonets. Seeing the body was pretty much how I imagined it to be, but I spent most of the time watching how the Vietnamese were reacting. They were all so solemn and you could just see the admiration and respect in their faces. It was really a surreal experience.

After that experience we were feeling slightly out of place, so we decided to go where else, but the Canadian Consulate! We spent a good 20 minutes or so reading pamphlets and relaxing in the air conditioned room. Ah... almost like home. We tried to go outside and snap a picture but the Vietnamese guard wouldn't have any of it! Guess were not quite home yet...

We also went to the Water Puppet show one night in Hanoi. It sounds like something we would have enjoyed in Kindergarten, right? Well we were actually some of the youngest people in the crowd. The puppet show works by people standing behind a giant bamboo screen so the puppets look like they're dancing on water. It sounds silly, but it was actually really entertaining. The music was live and they had really neat traditional instruments.

We left the next day to on a tour to Halong Bay which is about 3 hours East of Hanoi. We booked a 3 day/2 night tour thinking that it would be nice to just relax on the boat for a few days. Well, we were right! Even despite the weather (rainy and cloudy) it was completely enjoyable and relaxing. Halong Bay is famous in Vietnam for it's Karst formations. Karst formations are mountains made of some strange rock (I forget the name) that were eroded down to smooth rocks during the last ice age. The rocks/mountains sort of jut out of the sea at all different angles. It's really breathtaking to see it actually. Also cool was the fact that there are a bunch of caves in the mountains. It's strange to think that there were fish swimming in there at one point in time!

So the first day in Halong Bay we just relaxed on the boat (since it was raining) and went and explored a cave. The cave was really artificial (neon lights everywhere!), but really beautiful. We met a really nice Israeli couple that were in our tour, so we hung out with them most of the time. They taught us an awesome card game called "Yaniv," which we ended up playing both nights until pretty late. We didn't get much sleep the first night on the boat because there were rats alllll over. They weren't in our room (luckily) but they were running all through the walls. They were squeaking, chewing, and having a bit of a rat party I think. At one point in the night we both woke up and were like "they're in here!." I don't think the saying "as quiet as a mouse" makes any sense! Also, on top of the rat problem, the roof to our cabin was leaking from the rain so all night we heard "drip, squeak, drip, drip, chew." As you can imagine, we got a great sleep the first night!

The second day we went trekking and went and visited a traditional house/bee farm (yay!!). Actually it was a lot of fun (despite the humidity being almost 85%!) and really neat to see the countryside. We drank some honey and some honey wine as well which was delicious! After that we went kayaking for a while. It was pretty cold out so we pretty much had the sea/beaches to ourselves. It was really nice!

That night we got to sleep in hotel and we slept really well. All-in-all Halong Bay was definitely worth it and a lot of fun to see. It was pretty touristy, but I think everything in Vietnam will be. Actually there was a couple from Belgium on our boat who tried to find some "untouched" areas in Vietnam via motorbike and ended up being basically escorted back onto the tourist trail by someone from the military! Guess we'll have to save exploring for Laos or Cambodia.

Anyway, that's all for now. We're off to Hoi An to get some clothes made and to go check out some temples.

We want to wish all the Mom's out there a Happy Mother's Day(!). Especially, we want to say hi to our Mom's and Grandma's - we love you lots and wish we could be home to treat you today! Hugs all the way from Vietnam...

Miss you all!

Love, Tara and Andrew
XOXO

Ps. We're going to post some pictures tomorrow, so check back later!

The wild (south) west!

2007-05-04T21:06:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

Here's some pictures for you! Check the previous post too for a bunch more!

Well we made it safely through China and just arrived in Vietnam last night. China was amazing and we really didn't even have enough time to scratch the surface. It's huge! Traveling alone took up most of our time. Even in the last five days we only went through 2 provinces, but we spent over 20+ hours on buses (or minibuses with about 10 more people than could actually be seated!) But all-in-all, it has been extremely interesting and absolutely shocking at times. It truly is a different world over here.

So, where did we leave off....

From Yangshou we headed to Nanning. Nanning was a really big, modern looking city, which was a little strange for it being in western China (it's noted for being wild!). We found a really cheap hotel in Nanning and just planned to stay overnight. We figured out quickly that we weren't just staying in any hotel by the various "toys" in the room and the glowy pink room at the end of the hall with a bunch of girls waiting around! I bet you guys get the picture.... needless to say we were out of the hotel first thing in the morning!

We caught a minibus to a little town called Shalong. We found a mototaxi as soon as we got there and pointed to "hotel" in the guidebook - we ended up being taken 14 km to a waterfall! We found out (after a little panicking!) that we were in a tourist place called Detian which is right on the border between China and Vietnam. We calmed down a bit and found some dinner (we actually got to go into the kitchen and point out what we wanted!) and a cheap hotel (not so sleezy this time!). We woke up in the morning and hiked down to the waterfall and then hiked up to Detian peak (about 2 1/2 hours).

The scenery was beautiful from the top and we could see little Vietnamese villages off into the distance. We went wandering a little bit and ended up accidentally crossing over to Vietnam (shhhh!). They have all these pictures of surly looking guards holding up "criminals" by the back of their shirts and I had images of the same thing happening to us! No guards though, only people selling stuff.

From Detian we went to Jingxi by minibus. The scenery was absolutely stunning: a mix of rice paddies, farmers, oxen, and Karst mountains.

Near Jingxi there was a little place called "Love Ball Village," so we headed there the next morning. It's called Love Ball Village because the women sew these little balls with woven symbols on them. They throw the balls at boys that they love and then the boy wears it around his neck. Sounds a little complicated to me, but it's a really cute tradition nonetheless. We ended up recruiting about 20 middle school kids that lived in the village to be our tour guides for the day. We walked up to a temple together and they helped with our love ball choosing. They had a camera and each of them wanted at least one picture with each of us, as well as the combination of us 3. It's so funny to be a foreigner in places like this...

Speaking of that: We went to Funing the next day as part of our journey into Vietnam. When we arrived at the hotel the manager almost burst he was so excited to see us. There was a massive picture of another foreigner on the wall sitting on his bed in the hotel room with his name written underneath. The manager said the guy was "famous," but by famous we think he meant white. Anyway, the staff absolutely bent over backwards for us and the next day we had a photo shoot with the staff and the manager in front of the hotel and in the lobby. I was giggling the whole time - here we are scruffy backpackers and we're going to end up in the Hall of "Fame" in a big hotel. Oh, so funny. If you want to feel like a celebrity go to Funing for a day!

From Funing we went to Wenshan. The bus trip was only supposed to take 3 or 4 hours but ended up taking 8! The area was really mountainous and the whole day was spent swirling around hills (thank goodness for our lifetime supply of Gravol!). We got stuck in a 3 hour traffic jam because a vehicle had gone over the side of one of the cliffs. It was such an awful feeling to know that we were stalled so close to the accident scene. Also, there were huge trucks transporting bee hives that were stalled as well so there were bees everywhere. And you all know how much I like bees! Anyway, it was a really long day.

We were planning on only staying one night in Wenshan but ended up staying 2 since we couldn't find a bus to Hekou (the border town to Vietnam). It ended up being the most relaxing day we've had since we got to China. We just walked around the town and went exploring a cave in a park. Also, there was a spa in the hotel we were staying at. Before I go any further let me explain that we're definitely on a backpackers budget and most of our accommodation is about 8-9 dollars CDN a night. Everything is just way cheaper in the small towns than in the cities so we just end up staying in nicer places (which is fine by me!). Anyway, we took advantage of the spa and got pampered for a good hour or so. We got steamed, massaged, scrubbed and fed all for about 10 dollars each! They had 5 people waiting on us plus 2 people massaging us. I felt so guilty!

So that brings us to yesterday... after an 8 hour bus ride to Hekou we crossed the border into Vietnam. We had absolutely no problems at the border (despite everything we had heard about the Vietnamese charging non-legit fees), but we had a really hard time exchanging our RMB for Chinese Dong. We went to the Bank of China and just ended up getting really frusterated and confused. We had no problem changing the money on the Vietnamese side though, so that was good. We took a minibus up to Sapa (and almost got robbed by a hilltribe man!) and got to check out some of the scenery. It's absolutely unreal here - we're really high up in the mountains, so there are clouds rolling over everything and there are minority groups everywhere. We checked into a hostel last night and woke up this morning to geckos, mountains, dew, coffee, and good bread! We're really happy we're here, now to find a guidebook...

In closing I thought I'd make a quick list of the animals that we've shared a road or a busride with in the last week:

Horses

Oxen

Chickens

Chicken feet

Pigs

Cows

Geese

Puppies

We miss everyone so much! We are thinking of you all every day.

3 months until we're home!

Love,
Tara and Andrew
XOXO

China so far

2007-04-27T03:23:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone,

We have been BUSY. Tonight is our first night staying in one place for two nights in a row since leaving Beijing. The little map on the website will show you where we have been.

We are currently in Yangshou, Guanxi. It is a 'sleepy' little backpacker town on the Li river. I say 'sleepy' because everything in China seems go-go-go. Even this place is crazy. Out the window here there is a traffic circle that is just constantly full of buses, taxis, cars, bikes and scooters weaving in and out and honking. Just beyond that there is a night market starting to set up. There are a few tent covered stalls cooking up (with a lot of flair!) everything from "field snails" and "beer fish" to tofu and eggplant.

We ate there last night and it was delicious. Even the field snails were good. And it was cheap.

We have been spending way too much money. When budgeting for China we forgot to include all the clothes, souveniers, and tours. They really add up. It is nice to stay here for a few days: we spend 6$ a night on a nice hotel room and a few dollars for each meal. Tomorrow, if the weather is nice, we will rent bikes for about 2$ each for the day and cycle around the rice paddies. Really nice change of pace because this is what we did since we left Beijing on the night train to Datong.

Datong: Datong is a coal mining city with lots of history nearby. We toured a hanging monastery (literally hanging off the side of a cliff, about 50m above the bottom) and these AMAZING caves filled with very large statues of buddhas. We stayed only for the day and took a night train to Taiyuan.
Taiyuan: Another coal mining city. I had a business meeting there and Tara got to relax for a few hours. We had an English student to take us around to try some local food and show us what the prices of street food SHOULD be (they try to overcharge us 2-4x usually). The next morning we took the train to Pingyao.

Pingyao: This small town is still surrounded by original Ming dynasty walls. Most of the housing is original and the streets were all cobblestone and all that. It was quite touristy but the city still functioned as a small Chinese town so you'd see old men with old donkeys pulling old carts right beside a brand new BMW full of tourists. We left that night for Xian.

Xian: Xian is a large (~6 million) city that is famous for the terracotta warriors. We stayed there one night. We had a really nice room with all stone floors and a stone bed and it was only about 20$ a night. We saw the terracotta warriors, which were pretty cool (but not 8th wonder of the world cool as the signs claim) and rented bicycles to go around the city walls (about 14km). We left the next night for Chengdu.

Chengdu: A 'smaller' city (about 2 million) famous for the giant panda research facility. We stayed there for a night and went to see the pandas in the morning. They were quite cute. You actually get pretty close to them and they aren't behind bars or glass or anything. The baby pandas were of course the best. We watched one of them climb a 20 foot tree only to break the branch and fall to the gasps of all the tourists snapping photos. We left the next night for Guilin/Yangshou.The red pandas were my favorite. Some people were paying about 7$ Canadian to get their pictures taken with them.

Yangshou/Guilin: We stayed in Guilin for the night and headed out to Yangshou (an hour by bus) as quickly as possible. We really like it here. Like I said, just a small town on the Li river. We were planning to go to Yunnan province next but it will be another LONG train ride and then some long bus rides to get to the places we want to see so we decided to just relax here for a few extra days. We would stay here for longer but the prices will go up 2x-8x for the May1-7th holiday. So after this we will head south and stay in a quiet border town or maybe head into Vietnam about a week early than we planned.

China is really big. Even with the sleeper trains and going at the pace we have been a month isn't even close to enough. We have been going non-stop and having to miss things along the way just to see the few places we have seen. There's just so much history everywhere; so much natural beauty as well to see. I think the next trip to China will have to be 2 months or longer.

Anyway, we'll get some pictures up as soon as we can. Hopefully tomorrow. Hope all is well with everyone!

-Andrew

About to leave Beijing

2007-04-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

We had a really good trip to the great wall. It was a little sketchy at first actually - we (and a Scottish guy) booked ourselves a trip on the street. The guy was pretty strange.. anyway we haggled him down the price of the ticket from 800 RMB per person to 200 RMB per person (about 30 dollars Canadian). This is more expensive than normal, but we got a private car/driver to a less touristy part of the wall. The next morning we met him and the Scottish guy at 7 am around Tianamen Square (our hostel was right next to the square). We walked a few blocks and then a car pulled up with our tour guide 'Lily' (who couldn't speak a word of english). Anyway, we got in and traveled like sardines all the way to the great wall (about 3 hours).

On the way we got a phone call from the 'guide's' manager. She said the car had to be inspected for 35 minutes to make sure it could go to the wall. Having been a tourist in latin america I knew this would mean a stop at a 'special' store. It was a jade shop and we made it out only spending about 18$ canadian.

The wall was absolutely beautiful. The scenery was just amazing - there were green mountains just about as far as you could see and a green lake flowing through everything. We took lots of pictures and we will post them when we get a chance.

We went shopping to a clothing market when we got back to Beijing. I had an absolute blast and haggled until I was ready to drop. I think I should put my services up for hire because Andrew now uses me to buy things for him - "I want those pants so go see what's the best price you can get me". The shop sellers always start out at really ridiculous prices - like 850 RMB (120 CDN) for a pair of obviously fake shoes (even though they say "Goodie, goodie for you!") or a pair of pants that say "FFashionable & Fitch"......hmmmm..... Anyway, it's fun and usually the sellers prices will drop further and further as you continue to walk away from the stall. All in all, we managed to get a pair of shoes, 2 pairs of pants, and a '100% silk' shirt for Andrew. Everything was about 60 dollars - so I think we did pretty good.

We went to the Forbidden city yesterday morning. It was about 100 degrees outside and it was really sticky and polluted. Andrew and I were both not that impressed with the palace. I think it's just because everything feels like a money grabbing operation. Just about every corner you turned there was someone there looking for money - it's really annoying. Also, everything was under construction (as with a lot of beijing, being refinished/demolished for the olympics) so it wasn't that nice. The size was impressive though...

We went to the summer palace today though and that was a whole different story. It was like a giant garden with a great big lake in the middle and a bazillion temples and buddas all laying around the outside.

Unfortunately, we had already checked out of our hotel and were hoping they would have luggage storage at the place. They didn't. So... we carted around three heavy bags (my stuff, tara's stuff, and souveniers) for 3 and a half hours. I think we are going to be pretty tired by Sunday. The most impressive thing about all these places is the size. I mean, we saw lots of temples in Korea... even some nice ponds and stuff. They are just a lot bigger here. On the downside, the smog is thick so the pictures aren't that great.

I don't really like Chinese food so far. It's really greasy, spicy, and salty. Everything is packaged as well. Andrew and I have been trying to eat only one meal a day at a restaurant and just eating fruits and granola bars for the rest of the day. It's not bad, except that I almost like our fruits and granola bars better than the meal that we eat at the restaurant. They say the food gets better as you head out closer to tibet.

The food is REALLY cheap though. Today we ate lunch in a touristy area.. well, chinese touristy anyway... tara had szechuan chicken, i had a large bowl of soup... and a bowl of noodles each, a tomato side dish and a large cold beer... all for under 4.50 canadian. But yeah, really greasy and salty (even for me!). The supermarkets we have seen so far aren't that great either - EVERYTHING is packaged. We were hoping it would be easier to pick up healthy food in the markets... maybe it's just the tourist areas. Or maybe we were just spoiled in Korea with everyone being a lot more health concious there.

So, we're taking a train tonight to Datong (about 7 hours away from Beijing). We're hoping to hop on a tour tomorrow morning to see the caves in Datong (it's supposedly a really dirty industrial city) and then hop on another train tomorrow night. That means 2 nights no bed and no shower - ewwwww!

Pictures to come soon! Just been go-go-go since we got here. Good to hear from everyone.

Ji-Hyun: Say hi to everyone at taekkyon for us. We are REALLY missing practicing with you guys.

Tara and Andrew

Slow boat to China...

2007-04-15T05:56:00.001-07:00

Well, we made it. We got through all the good-byes, the bus ride to
Incheon, the boat to Tianjin, the bus to Beijing (barely), a taxi across
town and a moto-taxi to the hotel. It is quite a bit different in
Beijing... the streets are wider, the air is more polluted, the vendors
are more aggressive, and it is a lot more flat than Korea.

The boat was quite nice. We lucked out and got a 4 bunk room to
ourselves with a nice view of haze hanging over the sea. We played some
cards, ate our last Korean food, and even got to watch some TV. It was
really something seeing all the boats coming in to port in China.

We are REALLY missing Korean food. So far we have only managed to find
a lot of greasy and salty food. We did manage to find some cheap fruit
so that made us happy. And also really missing the sense of security we
had in Korea. I've already had to twist a guy's arm and yell at him and
his friends for trying to grab Tara's camera. Next time the Taekkyon is
coming out...

Today we just toured around Tianamen Square and the area around here.
We found a nice market where we picked up a hat, a flashlight, a
spotting scope, and an MP3 player with batteries all for under 40 CAD.
Nice stuff too. Most things are actually pretty cheap here except for
the hotels are a little pricey for the quality. Apparently everything
gets cheaper when we move out of Beijing. Which is good for us cause we
have already gone over budget every day so far.

Tomorrow we are heading to the great wall of China. We booked a bus
(the price was originally about 100$ per person, we got the price down
to 60$ for 3 people) to take us to a remote area of the wall which is
apparently really scenic and also a tough hike. Unfortunately, I
smashed my knee in the hotel room about an hour ago so it will be
interesting to see how far we make it.

Thinking of everyone, send us some emails!

Love,
-Andrew and Tara

Taekkyon

2007-04-09T07:24:00.000-07:00

Also romanized as Tekyon, Tekkyon, Taekyon, or Taekgyon... probably more. Anyway, Taekkyon has been the best thing we have done in Korea. Not only have we gotten healthier, stronger, and more flexible but we have made some really great friends as well.

Taekkyon is an ancient Korean martial art. It has roots dating back thousands of years. Although it has highs and lows of popularity in Korea the lowest was during the Japanese occupation. As with many Korean cultural icons that were burnt/destroyed/suppressed practicing Taekkyon was forbidden during this time. Apparently it only survived through one man who continued to practice in secret and after the Japanese were gone it thrived once more.

We are taught by a man we only know as Master Lee, or just Master for short (actually we know less than 5% of the names of the people we know here, either by just knowing their 'English names' or because we can't remember their Korean name). He speaks very limited English but we get by gestures, my limited Korean, or someone in class will translate.

Taekkyon starts at 8:30 every weekday. Since we work until 8:30 we usually have to run to not be too late. We start with a warm-up for half an hour or more. Sometimes we do nothing except for warm-up and breathing exercises. The last half of the lesson we practice various skills ranging from stance/moving skills to so-called "killing skills". The majority of Taekkyon is close combat, very different from Taekwondo or Karate which focus more on long range, powerful attacks. We practice a lot of kicking, attacking weak points, and evading attacks. While we aren't nearly this good...

...Tara has really done well with her kicks.

I won't have to worry so much about her getting lost somewhere. At least she'll be able to take care of herself. I just have to be more careful about not getting her angry.

Anyway, three more days of work/Taekkyon/our friends/our students/Bibimbap/our apartment/our lives here. I don't think I've ever said good-bye (forever?) to this many people at once.

By the way, we are probably selling our computer tomorrow so this MIGHT be the last post from Korea. We probably won't be able to read our blog from China, but we will still post and check our email!

Happy Easter!

2007-04-08T03:50:00.004-07:00

Hope everyone is having a good Easter!

As with every holiday, today was a little strange to get through. We actually did have a really good day despite being away from our families. We went out for some traditional Korean tea and walked around the university to take in the Cherry Blossom Festival. It was a BEAUTIFUL day and the trees were unreal.

Before I came to Korea I had this image of what Korea would look like. I imagined little traditional tea houses and cherry trees (not the thousand of high-rise apartments and smog). Anyway, today what I had imagined seemed semi-accurate. We were happy.

We've been really busy in the past week, and I have a feeling it's only going to get worse next week. We've been packing for 2 days straight, and unfortunately we have a lot more stuff than our suitcases can handle. The good news is that we've found someone to buy our computer and couch, so it'll be nice to get a little more pocket change for our trip.

A little "Boi Cha" to soothe our headaches (we overdid it a little on the rice wine last night)! The Hakwon owners and their daughter are in the background. (P.S. Notice the miniature cups?! So cute...)

These are two and Andrew and my students. They're sisters (obviously) and a couple of the best students in the school. The taller one constantly asks me, "When Andrew and Tara teacher get marriage?" I often say "tomorrow!" She never fails to get excited.

A random Tae-Kwon-Do match in a park. We told them that we know Taekkyon, and they took it as an opportunity to show us their "moves." This is pretty much all we saw. I could totally take them!

We just went to the Agro-fishery market and picked up some bamboo chopsticks/spoons and a couple of kimchi pots. Anyone up for a sushi party in August?

Love and miss you all...

Love, Tara
XOXO

Noeun-Dong

2007-04-07T16:35:00.001-07:00

Noeun-Dong

This little area has been our home for the past 7 months now. Noeun-dong (dong means area) is a suburb of Daejeon. It is quite a small area, the entire picture you can see is only about 4km^2. The populated area is about 1km^2. By counting the number of apartment complexes and number of apartments per building (100 complexes x 80 units per complex x 4 people per unit), and by asking people, I estimate there are between 25 and 35 thousand people living in this area. That makes it about 2 million times more densely populated than Nunavut. Or 20 times as dense as Saskatoon.

To make this work, obviously most of the people live in multi-story complexes. You can see lots of these in the north, center, and south west. They are usually at least 18 stories high, with four 'apartments' per floor. As I mentioned before, this area is also FULL of every type of business you can imagine. A lot of these businesses (especially on the side streets) have two - five floors of villas like ours above them. Like these:
Otherwise you get something like the buildings below, where you get a wide variety of businesses occupying the same building. The long white sign is our school. We are above a bakery, a donut shop, a pharmacy, a jewelry store, a oriental medicine clinic, and a bookstore. Above us is someone's villa (you can see little trees on top of the building). The greenish stuff in the top right of the picture is a driving range.

It is really set up so you don't need to leave the area at all. In fact, as I said before, we don't need to leave a 3 block radius from our house. The only thing we are lacking in Noeun-dong is a large department store/supermarket (which is about a 40 minute walk from our place).

To the west of us (the green) we have a nice 'mountain' where we go hiking often. Further west (about a 10 minute bus ride) is Gyereong-san National Park, the mountain where we enjoy hiking. There are also two parks you can see to the east that we go to quite a bit. Further east there are lots of farms and LOTS of greenhouses. All the buildings on the mid-right side are greenhouses, and they go on for quite a while.

Probably the nicest thing about the area is how safe it is. I'm sure you have already heard this but we are still amazed at how kids can walk around safe by themselves or with other kids all day and night. I feel a lot safer at night here than I did in Silverwood (but maybe that's just because I wasn't allowed out of Trotchie Court by myself until I was 10).

Every day is starting to feel like a huge step towards leaving... already missing this place as we say our goodbyes and the house gets emptier.

Four more working days...

2007-04-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

Living here for seven months has exposed us to a lot of Korean culture. We have been very comfortable living here but there are some things that still seem very different to us.

Opposites

Grading papers -- Check marks mean wrong, circles mean correct.
Food prices -- Restaurants are CHEAP (and no tipping... ever! It's considered rude. Makes sense.); grocery stores are expensive. On the plus side, taxes are included in the price.
Passing while walking -- People pass each other on the left, yet still drive your car on the right.
Eating -- Slurping and making other eating noises is considered more polite than being quiet. It shows you are enjoying the food.
Thriftiness -- Koreans seem to be just as thrifty as Canadians. But with certain things, such as hiking equipment and cellphones, people will brag about how expensive it was, rather than how cheap.
School -- Middle school and high school are hard (Anyone besides Angela remember studying 2-3 hours a day in grade 8?), while university is quite easy.
Skin colour -- Whitening cream is a big seller here, compared to the tanning cream used in Canada.
Beckoning to someone -- Always done with the palm facing down, with the palm facing up is very rude as it is how they call their dogs. Most of my students just say "Teacher, come on!"
Public transport -- There is actually a functioning, convenient, and cheap country-wide public transport system in place.
Birthday presents -- On your birthday you are supposed to bring small gifts for your friends.
Spam -- Spam is some kind of delicacy here. Seriously.
Engagement rings -- Typically, both the guy and the girl get a ring when you get engaged. The jewelry stores all sell "couple rings."

Strange Konglish

Housing -- Apartments "Aparta" are large, clean, and expensive condo like places. "Villa"s are small, apartment like places.
Free stuff -- "Service" means for free. We hear this one a lot at stores and restaurants when we are given free stuff.
Exit signs -- Exit signs in the subways are labeled "Way Out".
Various advertisements/slogans -- Example below.

Culture

Sitting/eating/sleeping on the floor is quite common here.
Restaurants pretty much always deliver for free. Not only that, but they bring everything (by scooter) on dishes. When you are done with the dishes you put them outside your door. They pick them up later.
Restaurants also tend to focus on one type of dish. Definitely not like Saskatoon where you can order chicken or a hamburger pretty much anywhere.
Crosswalks pretty much mean nothing.
People seem to be a lot more blunt about looks... I got a lot of "Teacher ugly" after I got a short hair cut.
You are ranked according to age and gender. The older and more male you are, the higher you rank. You 'cannot' be friends with someone of a different rank, or so the kids tell me (though this doesn't seem to really apply to foreigners). I think Korean has a different meaning for friend though, because I think people of different ages are still friends, just not usually close friends. This has been carried on from the days when Koreans practiced Confucianism.
When you are born your age is one. On January first, your age increases by one. I'm pretty sure this is due to the age ranking/respect/Confucianism culture, but if you are born December 31st you are two when you are only one day old.
You can put your recyclable garbage out on the street in a bag and people will come and take it. Unfortunately for us, they take it across the street to a sorting lot which makes the view kind of ugly.
Not really culture, but my students are taught there are only five continents. I can understand Asia/Europe, but America as one continent?
After graduating high school males must go for 2-3 years of military service. Makes sense.
There are some rules regarding drinking: you should pour other's drinks first, with hands positioned in different ways according to your ranking compared to the other person; you also are supposed to turn away from those higher ranked than you when you drink.
Sales, which never seem to end at some stores, are advertised with the highest discount first (i.e. 40%~20% off!)
Homosexuality and AIDS are considered by many to be a 'Western problem'. This has a lot of strange side effects. Guys are more inclined to wear 'girl colours' (sometimes matching their girlfriends clothes), hold their girlfriend's purse or stuffed animal, and hold hands with other men. It is common to see guys walking and holding hands (especially after a night of drinking). Also the no-clothes-spas.

Have a good Easter weekend!

Yellow Dust Season

2007-04-05T08:15:00.000-07:00

Well we ended up out late tonight eating and drinking with our Taekkyon friends so it's going to be a short post tonight.

Last week we supposedly went through what was the worst yellow dust storm ever in Korea. For those who don't know, yellow dust storms usually occur in the spring. They are caused by strong winds picking up dust/sand in the Gobi desert in northern China. It has become worse lately because of deforestation around the desert. The dust storms apparently raise the death rates in an area by around 2%. So anyway, all this dust blows over from China and what do we do? Go hiking!
So yeah, it didn't seem so bad when we were at the top of the mountain but in hindsight it probably would have been a day to stay home. For comparison, here is a shot in our area of your average everyday pollution compared to the yellow dust.

Daejeon is supposedly one of the least polluted major cities in Korea. I have really come to realize how much we take clean air for granted in Saskatchewan. Some days when it gets really windy the sky clears right off and it looks quite nice, but the air still doesn't feel very fresh.

Today it really has started to hit us how tough it is going to be to leave. I had plans to tell some of my classes today about leaving (we aren't supposed to tell the kids until a few days before) but I just couldn't. The kids have really grown on me. It's even worse with our Taekkyon friends. Tara said it best when she said how humbled we have been by the generosity of our friends. And I think that's really what it's all about. It is not about climbing mountains, seeing temples or taking pictures of tombs or waterfalls... it's really the people you meet and experience their culture with. And that is really the best thing we are going to take away from Korea.

Fashion

2007-04-04T05:38:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

Hope you've been enjoying all our posts lately. Now that we officially know what day we're leaving (Friday, April 13th - my mom's brought this to my attention numerous times) it's almost like we're in a race to do and see everything we may have missed out on in Korea. Also, strangely it seems like if we don't write everything down we might forget about it all as soon as we leave the country. I'm sure it's not true, but the sudden increase in blogging is definitely due to us feeling pressed for time.

Anyway, I thought that I'd blog about the fashion in Korea because it's not only unique but sometimes absolutely and utterly hilarious. I'll start from the basics:

Sizes:
I went from being a size 3/4 to being a size 95 in Korea. It's not really the biggest size, since I did manage to find a size 105 (the baggier, the better for traveling). It's probably the first time in my life that I've actually not wanted to go shopping. Who wants to ask for a "size 95 please." (Actually it goes down more like this - I hold up 9 fingers and then 5 and then say "choo-say-yo" which means "give me!")

Shapes:
Also, it seems like clothes are intentionally made too small or too short. Really, I've seen t-shirts that literally look like a giant balloon and come down to your knees. And, I've probably seen some of the shortest skirts I ever have in my whole life. Andrew and I always laugh because if there's a girl wearing a short skirt there always seems to be a Korean boyfriend following closely behind to make sure no one's getting an eye-full. Funny.

Colors
It seems like the color swatch is somewhat switched in Korea. Men wear pastel pinks, blues, yellows, and purples. Women on the other hand wear black, red, white, orange, and brown. I mean what girl doesn't love a striped orange and brown balloon t-shirt that comes down to your knees? Whenever Andrew and I have gone shopping I have instinctively gone towards the "girly" colors only to discover that it was a guys t-shirt. I have yet to convince Andrew that pastel pink is his color.

Styles
Also, Korea gets a winter, and it really does get cold here sometimes (ot Saskatoon cold, I should add) but you still see girls sporting miniskirts when there is a blizzard outside (again, not a Saskatoon blizzard!). I usually saw these girls this winter when I was dressed in about 3 layers and a jacket on top of that. And I was still cold. These were the days that I wished that I could speak Korean to A) ask the girl what inspired her to wear a miniskirt in a blizzard, and B) If she would like to borrow a coat, or some tights, or let me buy her hot chocolate, or something.

Korean women definitely have a heel fetish. You will see them sporting heels in the strangest of situations - like running, walking up steep hills (almost hiking!), or yes, in the winter con miniskirt. They're really pretty and fancy, but as a girl who has pretty much lived in runners her whole life, I just can't understand it.

Sayings
This is probably the funniest and cutest part of Korean fashion. You will see the strangest (and often most inappropriate) sayings on shirts that absolutely cause your jaw to drop. The funniest part is that you will see these "cool" Korean guys that are sporting shirts that have random sayings in English that either don't make sense (at all) or are rather feminine such as "Cutie University." It makes me smile every time.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. Andrew's got a blog "schedule" for the next week, so you'll be hearing from us a lot more!

We miss you all so much!

Love, Tara
XOXO

Food

2007-04-03T05:56:00.000-07:00

One thing we really enjoy is the food in Korea. Not only is it cheap and plentiful, but it's healthy! We've probably been scaring some of you with the strange food we have mentioned but most of it is actually pretty normal. On Sunday we went to Gyereong mountain. After a 4-5 hour hike we were pretty hungry (even though some people shared their lunch at the top with us!) and so we stopped at the bottom for some food.

After going through the usual 'Andrew translating/Tara deciding' we decided on mushroom soup/stew. It was about 10$ a piece, a little pricey, but the mushrooms are really tasty here.

This is what came out:

Starting bottom right we have kimchi. This is the staple Korean food, fermented spicy cabbage. The next column to the left of the kimchi is various types on vegetables from cucumber to mushrooms. A lot of them often look the same but they always taste different. The next column we have more vegetables, a vegetable/seafood/egg type pancake (they are really good!), and some fried fish. Further to the left we have more vegetable dishes, a large salad, and then a bunch more vegetable dishes. I'm sure it would be easier to remember the names than to remember what they all taste like. Oh yeah, and I forgot, the burner was for the mushroom stew which hadn't come out yet. Oh and some rice too. Starving as we were, we barely finished half of this.

All the food from restaurants which is unused is placed into large bins. The bins then supposedly go to feed livestock. So something ends up eating all this stuff that we don't. Anyway, this has been the typical experience we have in Korea. The night before we had a really elaborate meal. There were 4 of us and it all cost under 60$ complete with 4-5 course sushi/fish meal (including several unidentified seafoodish foods, and some live octopus!), tons of side dishes, and drinks.

Since we only have 30 minute dinner breaks, during the week we usually go to a small 'fast-food' restaurant called "Kim-bap-na-ra", which basically means rice and seaweed country. This restaurant serves various noodle and rice dishes. Their specialty is kim-bap which is like a sushi roll with vegetables, egg, and ham/tuna/beef or other meat inside. We usually order a dish called bibimbap. I'm pretty sure this means vegetables and rice. It is really just that: a bowl with rice and raw vegetables with an egg on top. For 3$ it is pretty tasty. It comes with soup and 5-6 vegetable side dishes.

Seven more working days left...

Eight more working days! / My classroom

2007-04-02T06:35:00.000-07:00

Well, we have exactly 1 Friday, 1 Monday and 2 more Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays left before we leave. To make up for a real lack of posts from Korea I will attempt to post something interesting for each day we still have in Korea.

This is my classroom. Well, most of it anyway. I spend 5-6 hours in this room each week-day. My name is on the door on the blue paper. Below it there is an orange sign that reads: "First we make our habits, then our habits make us." I'm pretty sure it's meant for the teachers rather than the students...

There are two rows of desks. The kids that sit in the far back row (where the picture is taken from) usually cause the most trouble because they are the hardest to get at and they can't be seen on the video camera (see top right). All the rooms (including the staffroom) have surveillance cameras.

Most of my/our classes are taught using the computer. They all have books (which they often forget, I seriously go through a ton of trees making copies in anticipation of this) that go along with the computer programs. The computer programs are pretty simple -- it just reads what is written in the books. This isn't really necessary for us other than to save our voice, but it does have one really nice side effect: if you turn the volume up loud enough the kids will stop and listen no matter how bad they are being. Seriously, I just put something on the computer/TV screen and the kids shut up. It even has a remote so I can be across the room dealing with particularly bad children while keeping the other kid's attentions with the computer.

There is an OHP screen and a whiteboard at the front. I use the whiteboard quite a bit as I usually write the answers to their questions for them. It's also another great way to keep kids quiet: just write something on the board and get them to copy it down. Although this usually takes some effort with some kids. For example:
Me: *writing on the board* "Okay guys, this is answer one. Writing!"
-Maybe half the students start writing... the others continue talking
Me: *going around to the students* "Number one! Writing! "
-About half of the remaining students start writing... by this time some of the students are already finished ("Teacher, finished!" ... or actually some of the students that have been around longer say something like "Teacher, finished, can you check it for me please?" ... can get annoying when I am in the middle of...)
Me: *individually to the remaining students* "(Students name), writing! Number one! Pencil!"
-There is still sometimes one or two students who don't write it down... can't win 'em all. They usually end up in detention anyway so they write it down then.

So basically, the challenge is that if they aren't occupied they will be noisy. And occupied means they must be either listening to the computer, writing something off the board, reading something from their books, or doing questions in their books. However, the book material is supposed to be gone through very slowly. Our books for the elementary students are intended to be taught over three classes but instead we have to make them last around 9-12 classes. Since the classes are 50 minutes long, even if I go over things twice as slowly as intended (which is very boring and difficult) I still have 25-30 minutes left after we finish the material. You can get through around 15 minutes of this just by getting them to read everything from their books as a review. The trick always is finding something to fill that last 15 minutes. I usually come up with something each week to entertain/teach the kids for this time. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out as planned. So I need backups. One thing that works amazingly well is giving the kids word searches. They call them "puzzle games". They work like invisible duct tape. It is not only a game that 99% of the kids like, but also the only game I have tried that doesn't result in someone crying or fighting.

Finally you might notice the papers above the whiteboards. They are some common words translated into Korean. There are also two dictionaries I use. This shows the different approaches Tara and I have taken to teaching kids words they don't know: I learned to read/write Korean; Tara has become very good at charades. So when the kids don't know a word in their books I usually grab the dictionary. It usually goes like this:
Me - "Okay, here, selfish is 'i-gi-jo-gin'" *as I pronounce each syllable carefully*
Students - "What?"
Me - *faster this time* "Igijogin"
Students - *look at each other with confused looks* "I-yu-tag-ya?"
Me - *fast and annoyed this time* "Igijogin!!"
Students - "Ohhhhh, igijogin!"
After this happening numerous times (even with words they have already learned!) I can only conclude they need words to be spoken to them forcefully to understand. Or maybe they aren't really paying attention to what I say. Or they are trying to see how many times the English monkey will try to speak Korean before he gets annoyed.
Probably the latter...

So this is my classroom. Although it might not sound like it, I really have enjoyed my time in there. Even in the above situations I have a smile and a calm disposition. As I said, 5-6 hours in here each work day... that means I only have 40 some hours left in front of these kids... it almost went too fast!

I'll try to put something up here every day until we leave. If you have any suggestions about things you want to hear about, let me know! (and no, still no dog soup, Alex!)

Surprise!

2007-03-24T18:03:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

(Tara)
Sorry for leaving you all in suspense for so long after our last post. It wasn't intentional, as a lot has been going on lately. We were also hesitant to write about our news since we've been dealing with some serious bouts of homesickness lately. We were considering coming home instead of revealing the "news," but anyway, it looks like it's a go!

So, after some careful consideration and deliberation, we've decided to leave Korea. I'm sure most of you already know about about this already - but for the others... suplise!!! Our decision was based on about a billion reasons, but main reason was the realization that if I get into grad school in September we might be forced to "settle down" for a while (yikes!). Also, we decided that we should take advantage of the opportunity to see Asia since we're here anyway. So... that brings me to my next point.

We've decided to spend all our money we've made (not sure if that's a good thing yet?) and go traveling for the next 4 months. We've decided to travel overland through China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. All in all, we'll travel around 6000 miles by boat/bus/train/who knows. We don't really have an itinerary whatsoever, so I'm sure there's a lot of interesting stories coming your way! The only things we've planned so far is a rough route, and some activities along the way, such as getting my open water certificate in Vietnam (can't wait!), doing some trekking in Laos, and doing some surfing in Thailand.

(Andrew)
So, of course we've been pretty busy lately. We've had to get all sorts of immunizations, visa, tickets, and still have a ton of stuff to send home. It's also been pretty stressful at work trying to get everything sorted out before we leave.

Spring has arrived here and there is finally some green/blossoms/flowers ... along with the extra pollution/yellow dust from China (and the illnesses that accompany it). Our Canadian friends left about a month ago so it is also pretty quiet around here. Well, if you ignore the techno music that has been playing below us for the past few nights... About a month ago they started building a restaurant below us. It looked really nice and everything. Then last week they had their grand opening. I will put a video of it up to see, there were girls dancing out front, disco lights, and giant balloons... all just outside our window.

On Friday, Tara and I took two of our classes outside to play some games. There was only 12 kids but it can get pretty crazy when they don't listen to you.! We played "What Time is it Mr. Wolf?" and "Red Rover"... the kids seemed to have fun. It has really been nice being around kids so much. We've been 'told' not to tell the kids we are leaving until 3 days before we leave. It's going to be pretty hard to leave some of the kids, and really easy to leave others. The English schools seem to have a pretty high student turnover, and they usually leave without any notice. So it's been sad sometimes to see the empty seat where your favorite student used to be. It's going to be really weird leaving all of them.

We've started to realize there are really going to be some things about Korea that we will miss. We were really excited about a lot of things when we first got here and are already taking them for granted. Things like:

Not having to drive... ever (though lots of people do anyway)
Buses every 10 minutes, with routes all over the city
Mountains within walking distance
The wholesale fish/fruit/vegetable market that is just a few minutes walk from our house (although we won't miss seeing the dead dolphins)
Having lots of gyms/supermarkets/convenience stores/coffee shops/movie stores/schools/academies/pool halls/ping pong halls/karaoke rooms/stationery stores/book stores/bakeries/parks/pet stores/clinics/pharmacies/shoe stores/clothing stores/greenhouses/bars/pubs/internet cafes/ and a few hundred restaurants, street vendors, and people out walking.... all within a 5 block radius of us.
Our work being 1 minute away, less if I run... though Tara still manages to make us late
Being around kids all day
Regular train service to pretty much anywhere
Good and cheap meals at restaurants (kimchi and bibimbap!)
Lots of vegetables to eat
Cheap booze
Cheap batteries ... seriously... been taking lots of pictures and it helps that AA batteries are around 20% of the cost they are in Canada (anyone need some batteries?)
Being a celebrity(apparently I look like Jude Law/Paul Bettany and Tara looks like a doll)/TV star (still trying to get that video for you guys)
We are especially going to miss Taekkyon

There are also things we won't miss...

Pollution
Traffic (when we take the bus)
The anti-Americanism -- I even had someone ask me if we felt unsafe being so close to the U.S., which brings me to ...
Being in the middle of China, Japan, and North Korea
Pollution
Expensive groceries (mostly due to high tariffs on imports)
Architecture... a lot of Korea really looks the same because of all the apartments that look very similar... it can ruin the beautiful scenery here
Being constantly under camera surveillance at work
Pollution... seriously really hard to get used to coming from Saskatchewan

I'm sure the next few weeks will be full of excitement, to say the least. We'll keep you all posted. We hope everyone is happy and healthy. We can't wait to see you all in August!

Love,

Andrew and Tara
XOX

Chinese New Year = Holiday!

2007-02-24T18:00:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone!

Happy year of the pig! The Chinese New Year fell on a Saturday, Sunday, Monday this year. Surprisingly our Hakwon gave us another 2 day holidays on top of that. It was so nice to finally have a REAL break from school and go sightseeing a bit. We traveled to Busan, which is the second biggest city in Korea and is located on the south most coast. It is the biggest port city in Korea and absolutely beautiful! We loved it. The temperature was 15 degrees, so we were wearing T-shirts (we're from Saskatoon here!). We got some funny looks since most people are still dressed in their winter woollies.

We went to a really big aquarium for a couple of hours and saw some really big/ugly fish and other unidentified swimming objects.

We spotted this ugly guy at the aquarium on Haeundae Beach. Look at those teeth!

After that, we spent an hour or so walking by the ocean and watching the local women and children grab shellfish and octopus out of the water as the tide came in. It was really neat, and gave us a little taste of what it's like living as a Korean in a port city.

The first night in Busan we stayed at a hostel about a block away from the beach. It was great! That night we were in a mad hunt for raw fish ("hwe"), so we managed to find some friendly (albeit crazy) ladies that cut us up some fish. It was pretty good, but after eating a KILOGRAM of raw fish we were feeling pretty sick. We spent the rest of the night holding our bellies!

The second night we stayed in a hostel close to the "Jalgachi Market". It's apparently the biggest fish market in Asia, so it was pretty smelly. There was about a bazillion stalls with different kinds of fish, shellfish, sharks, wales, whatever you could possibly want from the sea. Since we have a fish market close to us in Daejeon, we didn't see too much that we hadn't seen before.

In saying that, however, I saw the grossest thing I think I ever have. People love to eat eels here (there are 2 or 3 restaurants on every block), but we had never really seen them being prepared. Anyway, we watched a lady one day preparing them and it was horrible! They first cut off the heads, then they SKIN the eels live and throw them into a pot. The skinless, bloody eels continue to squirm around for a good 10 or 15 minutes before they finally die. It was awful! Needless to say, I had a really bad dream the following night that involved the ladies "accidentally" mistaking my arms for eels - you can imagine!

During the last day in Busan, we went to a tower up on top of a mountain that looked over the city. It's amazing how many buildings that they fit into such a small space. Take a look:

We met a really nice guy when we were in a park. He ended up taking us around in his car sightseeing for an hour or so. The kindness and hospitality in some Koreans totally takes me back sometimes.

We saw something interesting at the bus terminal before we left. We were both staring at a giant billboard trying to figure out why a certain man in the picture looked so familiar. Finally, I said "It's Paul Martin!." Andrew didn't agree, so after some more in-depth analysis we figured out that it was President McKinnon at the U of S! The world really is WAY too small sometimes.

The weather is finally starting to warm up here (stop reading now Saskatoonians!). We're both such babies about the cold in Korea, it's hard to imagine that we're born and raised in Saskatchewan. Brrrr! I don't know how we're going to handle -30 degree weather again next winter - and not even to mention the SNOW. I think we picked a good year to go work abroad.

Anyway, not much else is new. To leave you all in suspense, our blog is about to get a whole lot more interesting! Stay tuned!

Miss you all so much! 5 more months until we're home!

Love, Tara and Andrew
XOX

A very interesting weekend

2007-01-31T19:50:00.000-08:00

Well, we are now famous in Korea: we made the 7AM news.

Saturday we got a phone call from one of the Korean teachers, Claudia. One of her friends had invited her and her husband, James, to participate in a temple stay. A temple stay is where you go to a Buddhist temple and see how the monks live. Claudia's friend asked her to invite any foreign friends she had, so we jumped at the chance and invited our friends along as well. So at around 5PM on Saturday a van arrived to pick the six of us up and we heading to JiJang temple.

We were greeted by the monks and Claudia's friend. We found out her friend's husband was the monk who owned the temple. We also found out there was a news crew staying at the temple for the weekend!

First, we were given some clothes to wear. We looked pretty funny because they were a little small and.. well.. yeah you can see the picture of Tara, Christy, and Andrew on the right. That was about the time the 'interviews' began.

This was kind of strange. They wanted to interview on camera throughout our stay for the news program. Tara mentioned it felt like we were on some reality TV program. It ended up being pretty fun and we had a lot of laughs.

After dressing up we headed to the temple for some kind of ceremony. Not exactly sure what it was but there was a lot of bowing involved. Or what seemed like a lot of bowing at the time. There were about 20 other people there, mostly children and high school students. They were also there for the temple stay.

Next they served us dinner, and we ate our food according to how traveling monks would eat. When monks travel (we were told) they only brought four bowls, chopsticks, a spoon, and a kerchief. The bowls fit into one another and were wrapped together with the chopsticks and spoon using the kerchief. Because the monk would use these bowls for many days in a row, there was a procedure for how to set-up the bowls, serve the food, eat the food, and clean the bowls afterwards.

The food was quite good and, of course, we were interviewed about the food. The kids who were there were apparently quite good at the drums, so after dinner we were treated to a drum show. The kids were really cute to watch, and afterwards we had a chance to play the drums. Again, we were interviewed about the drums. For those of you who see this part of the video, try not to laugh. I was trying my best to speak in a way they could translate and stop from laughing at the same time. It came out kind of strange and for some reason it made it on the news.

After the performance we went back to the temple were we had a short yoga class, and then sang some songs around a camp fire. Between the six of us we couldn't think of an English song to sing, but somehow, after a lot of urging from the Korean children, we ended up singing "Lean on Me". I believe it was Tara's idea... she even had a little dance to go along with the song. Unfortunately the dance never made it onto the news... could have been a hit.

At the campfire we found out that the monk and the high school students were going to Canada for a couple of weeks. So after the fire we sat down and talked with them for a while. It is kind of funny to see the perceptions people have about Canada.

Around 11 we went to sleep... barely, only to be awakened by the monks at 4am. We trudged out of bed and, this was pretty cool, we got to ring a giant (2m) bell. Next we went to the temple and just sort of followed along in whatever they were doing. We first bowed and bowed for what seemed like an hour (we found out later it was 108 times... all the way up and down), then faced a partner and bowed to them for a good 5 or 10 minutes. During this time we were being interviewed and asked to act tired for the camera. Must have not done a very good job acting cause it was cut from the news.

Sunday was kind of hazy because of the lack of sleep, but we had breakfast (similar to the dinner actually) and then went for a walk. The walk was nice as it had been snowing all night. It's really different in Korea: there are lots of 'green spaces' and hills covered with trees but you can pretty much always see major power lines or a big highway. Or a military base. Well anywhere we have been anyway.

On the way back from the walk we had a staged snowball fight. Which was actually pretty fun because I can't really remember having an actual snowball fight since grade 4 or 5 when they deemed snowballs to be too dangerous.

When we got back to the temple we hopped on a bus and were taken to an organic strawberry farm. This was pretty amazing. They let us loose in the greenhouse and told us to eat as much as we want. Being fresh fruit starved English teachers we interpreted this as "as much as we can" and proceeded to gorge ourselves with strawberries. They were the tastiest strawberries I have had since we used to grow them in our garden at home. Of course we were interviewed here as well, with Tara and I doing one scene where we kind of poke our heads above the strawberries and make it look like we were really enjoying the strawberries.... yeah it didn't make the cut.

Well, fame has it's price, and after we got back we had to do some 're-shoots' cause some video didn't turn out or something like that. So we went through the drum performance again, and had to re-enact arriving at the temple.... all for 30 seconds of news footage. We were all exhausted after this and we thanked our hosts and headed back to Daejeon.

The show made it on the 7am news on KBS, for January 31st. I am trying to get my hands on a CD copy, but if you really are interested you can watch it on the KBS website. You first need to register here, then the video is here. Just click the little TV icon beside 7:00-8:00. There are two short commercials then there is an hour long newscast. Fast forward to 43:00. Enjoy. Laugh, but not too much.

Jellyfish, anyone?

2007-01-20T18:17:00.000-08:00

Hey Everyone!

Well 2 weeks down, 2 more to go. Intensive courses started two weeks ago and have been pretty stressful. I'm teaching a conversation class to 9 and 10 year olds for 2 hours every morning. They're really good kids and we have a lot of fun together, but an extra 10 hours of teaching a week is really draining. Usually by the time Friday comes I'm so tired that the kids are laughing at me because I yawn every 2 seconds. Andrew has a bit of a better schedule - he teaches a "news" class (fun, hey?) to middle school students.

Andrew and I have been very adventurous lately with trying new foods. I know most of you think we usually eat strange foods - but I really think Korea brings strange to a whole new level. To give you an example: Andrew taught a class on pets last week. He started it with "Who likes dogs?" The students either shook their heads or stared at him blankly. He then asked them "Who likes to EAT dogs?" Everyone yelled out an enthusiastic "Yeah!" And, the funny thing is that Korean's don't think that they eat strange foods at all. If you order fish stew you can be guaranteed that you will get EVERY part of the fish - intestines, eyes, bones, etc. To most people (including us) this is really unexpected and a little icky.

Anyway, as I was saying, we have been adventurous these last few weeks:
1. "Fish grapes": We went to a seafood noodle place with Christy and Andrew and of course ordered... seafood noodles! I was expecting shrimp, clams and maybe some seaweed. Nope, they included everything you can possibly find in the sea. The strangest was these little things that were about the size of a grape and if you bit into them you got this fishy-tasting liquid coming out of them. They weren't terrible, but I certainly wouldn't order them again.

2. Jellyfish: Maybe I'm just naive, but I thought you couldn't eat jellyfish because they're poisonous. Apparently that's not the case when they're cooked. Anyway, we ate jellyfish salad last weekend with Christy, Andrew and some of their Korean friends. It was pretty good actually, but they put the spiciest sauce on it that I've ever tasted. We all had tears running down our faces!

3. Larvae: We go to this one restaurant (Kim bap Nara) about 4-5 times a week and we've gotten to be pretty good buddies with the owner. He doesn't speak any English so we just usually communicate through hand motions. Anyway, we went to his restaurant last week just as he was polishing off a bowl full of larvae (Silk worms.. mmmm)

Well Tara's on the phone so I'll take over. The larvae were really different.. I'm sure it's a taste one could acquire but I wouldn't want to take the time to do so. We each had a few and the owner pointed to them and said "Vitamin number 1". I tried my best to show my appreciation.

4. More Seafood: We've got a pretty cool market close to here with lots of fresh seafood. They even have tanks with live crab, squid, and fish that you can get cooked up (or not cooked up!) and eat it right in the market. We've yet to try that - the language barrier is a little intimidating some times. I have tried to buy all different types of seafood and cook them up. I still have a long ways to go though - there are a lot of different fish there. I took a few pictures last time we went to the market.

Pictured above is Tara trying her best to look interested while we try to take a good picture. Below are some stingrays. I haven't yet, but if I get really ambitious some day I'll buy one and cook it up.

However, I did buy some squid a few weeks ago: 4 for 5$. They were gutted for us, but were still a little messy to cut up. I tried frying them and boiling them... both worked pretty good. . Below you can see squid in the sink, on the stove, and on the plate. Tara complained about the germs coming from the raw squid, the smell coming from the cooking squid, and the taste of the cooked squid. I, unfortunately, had to eat it all.

Sometimes when we go to the market they have dolphins or baby whales there. I tried taking some pictures last time but after I took the first picture my camera suddenly died. Then Windows ate the picture when I tried to download it from my camera. I'll try again next time. It's kind of weird to see mammalian organs coming out of a fish-like creature.

Anyway, just to show that we really do eat a lot of good foods here is a shot of the fruit market, tons of fresh fruit and no bad fish smell. There are six or seven aisles like this, plus four or five vegetable aisles. And just a ten minute walk away.
Anyway, Tara has been inactive all week due to her cold so we're going to go get some fresh air. I put up some pictures from a hike I went on yesterday - shows just how bad the pollution is here. Hope all is well with everyone, thanks for all your posts!

Busy beavers...

2007-01-05T05:02:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone,

Long time no blog! Thanks for everyone who leaves us messages and reads this. We miss you all so much!

We had a really busy December (hence the lack of blogging!). We went skiing one weekend, went to a Christmas party on another, and threw a Christmas party for the kids at school. Needless to say the two long-weekends in row were well received.

We went skiing with one of our fellow teachers and her boyfriend to Muju resort. It is apparently one of the best in Korea. It was my first time skiing, and although I did some token face-plants, I found it much easier than snowboarding. Plus, the next day I could actually walk and had only a few bruises. Another memorable moment from that weekend was when we went to go rent ski clothes. We both needed ski pants, and we were prepared to have trouble finding Andrew pants since he's like a foot taller than most Koreans. What we weren't prepared for was the fact that I couldn't fit a women's small, medium, or LARGE.... no folks, I had to wear a men's MEDIUM! It was great, Andrew and I wore the same pants that day. What a pair (of porkers!)!

We also had our staff year-end party a couple of weekends ago. We went to a seafood restaurant, which was delicious. I stuck to the things I knew were safe - sushi and veggies. Andrew, on the other hand, ate everything including live octopus. He actually had to pry it off the plate. The trick is to continually chew it so that the suckers don't stick to your throat! He said that it didn't taste too bad, but the thought of suckers sticking to my throat made me avoid it all. We also went to a nori-bang, which in English translates to "singing room." It is basically a room with a couch and a karaoke machine. I'm not much of a public singer (shh...) , but Andrew likes to sing (or is that a secret?), so I thought it'd be entertaining. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that they have a digital voice corrector installed because everyone sounded amazing, although a bit robot-ish. Anyway, we both ended up singing most of the night. It was highly embarrassing, but a good night nonetheless.

On December we had a Christmas party for the kiddies, which was really a lot of fun. We set up one of the classrooms to look like a market with toys and stationary stuff all over. The kids used their points that they earned (for good behavior in class) to buy things. We also had a student market and a food court. Andrew and I taught the older kids how to make microwave peanut brittle. There was a lot of food flying around the room, but it was a good time.

We went to Seoul Christmas weekend. We spent Christmas eve literally shoulder-to-shoulder walking down the main shopping area in Seoul. We had elbows in our backs for a solid 2 hours that we wandered around downtown. We had big plans of sitting in a pub all night and watching the crowds, but unfortunately every single bar we went to either had beer for $10 (we're on a budget here!) or had absolutely no room. We like to say it's because we looked too scruffy and no one wanted us. Needless to say, we spent the majority of Christmas Eve laughing, eye-shopping, and having a pretty care-free night.

Christmas day we woke up semi-early and went to check out one of the palaces. We got there just at the right time because they were just changing the guards. The palace was quite beautiful and absolutely huge. We walked around the grounds for a couple of hours and took it all in. It was one of those surreal "where the heck are we?" moments that you know you'll remember forever.

We came home that day but nearly missed our train. We were running through the subway stations like madmen decked out in our backpacks. I'm sure that we either looked like we were running from the law, or on Amazing Race. Anyway, we managed to make it home on time and safely.

New Years was also a really great time. Our friends Andrew and Christy came over for drinks and food and we went out to play pool. It was a really enjoyable laid-back time.

I finally finished my grad application and got it sent out. It's a huge relief to have it done. Unfortunately I have to wait until April to hear back from them. You all know how impatient I can be with stuff like that, so I hope April comes soon. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Anyway, it sounds like everyone had a fantastic holiday. We wished we could have shared it with all of you. Although it's a little belated - Happy New Year, and all the best in 2007!!!

XOX
Love, Tara and Andrew

We wish you a merry Christmas!

2006-12-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

Hope everyone is having a great day, we're thinking of you all. A longer post is to follow, but for now, here's a picture of us on Christmas Day.

The kids - The good, the bad, and the ugly

2006-12-01T23:18:00.000-08:00

One of the best and worst parts of our jobs is our students. Some brighten the day while others darken it. Some bow to us whenever they see us and others give us snotty looks and spout off in Korean if we give them homework. So last Friday I brought the camera to school and asked the students if I could take some pictures to show friends and family. So I bring you a glimpse into what we are up against Monday to Friday.

The Good:

I thought I should start with the best. Students like Izzy are few and far between. This guy tries hard, has a great attitude, and, by the looks of it, could probably kick my ass. Around 30-40% of my students are around this age.

Some more excellent students. Eve, on the right, will ask for permission before she leaves the room even when class is over or has not yet begun. Stacey, on the left, did a book report last week from a book that probably took her an hour to read, while other students her age take books with 30 words or less. By the way, one interesting part of our job is to give English names to the new students. So Stacey was the first girl that Tara named (after her friend, for those who don't know). I think I may start naming the new students after my cousins or something like that.
The Bad:
Now, when I say bad what I mean is bad behavior in class. Usually this just means excessive talking in Korean but, as I said above, some students are outrightly rude and disrespectful. Unfortunately, none of them wanted their picture taken.

Andy and Alex. Great kids. Great attitudes. But they won't shut up. Five minutes of quiet in the class would be a small miracle. Even separating them is noisy. They usually beg and beg for another chance after they already got five, and then hold onto their desks and refuse to move. When one is absent the other is very quiet and actually does work, funny how that works.

The Ugly:
Of course I don't think any of my students are ugly. But one of my students made a great face when I took his picture so I had to put it up.

June is actually a great kid although his English conversation skills are pretty much limited to talking about Pokemon. And hey, if that gets him interested in English, great.

Well there you have it, a few of the 80-90 students that I teach. I'll throw up some more pictures on flickr. Hope everyone is happy and healthy.

A weekend in Seoul

2006-11-18T18:50:00.000-08:00

Hello Everyone!

Sorry that it's been so long since we posted last. We had a busy week since report cards were due on Tuesday (blahhhh). Anyway, I thought you'd all enjoy a re-cap of our weekend in Seoul last weekend.

We left Saturday afternoon, which was a little later than expected due all of the buses being filled up. There's a bus that leaves every 10 minutes or so, and every one of them was filled up for a couple of hours. I simply forget sometimes how many people live in Korea!

We got to Seoul around 2:00, and were instantly amazed at the number of high-rises and smog that covered the city. As soon as our bus started approaching Seoul both of our eyes started stinging, ay yi yi I don't know how people spend their lives in that! Anyway, we managed to figure out the subway system (Andrew's innate sense of direction, so he says!) and made it to our hotel.

First we went to Itaewon, which is apparently the foreigners district in Seoul. I wanted to go there to look for a winter jacket (it's starting to get cold here!). It was such a wierd place actually. There were people from all over the world. For the first time since we got here we didn't feel like the foreigners! Anyway, they had some "normal" food, like pitas, pizzas and stuff like that. Also, they had a STARBUCKS which was very exciting to see! The American military is stationed really close to Itaewon, so you saw a lot of soldiers hanging out as well. The area is apparently really dangerous at night, so after it got dark Andrew and I hung out in Starbucks to wait for our friends to come meet us. After we all went out for supper, we headed to Nanta.

The show was absolutely AMAZING! It was super high-energy, and there was a little bit of everything in it. The "cooks" used real knives and were making music on pots, cutting boards, and metal bowls (basically anything you can find in a kitchen) while they were singing, dancing AND cutting up vegetables. It was unreal actually! I'm so surprised that they have all of their fingers intact. Two of our friends we went with (Christy and Andrew) got pulled up on stage at various parts in the show. It was great!

After the show we all took the subway to the "entertainment" district. It was basically a lot of neon lights, bars, people, karaoke rooms. We went into a Hof that one of the guys we were with said was good. Hof's are sort of like pubs with western-style food (nachos and wings) with beer. Anyway, the Hof we went to managed to be almost smoke-free and there were no fluorescent blue lights in them (it seems to be a trend here). Needless to say we had a fantastic time! We stayed at the Hof until almost 3am, which as you know is pretty late for Andrew and I!

The next morning we all hit the streets (for shopping, of course). We went first to Dongdaemun market, which is Korea's largest market. It was HUGE and had just about anything you could think of possibly wanting to buy (including dogs, awww). Anyway, we managed to score a few good deals after spending around 4 hours or more looking through the market. Also, we managed to lose each other at various points, which was a little scary.

After the market, we headed to Insadong, which is a market that specializes in silver and other types of Korean handicrafts. The stuff is really expensive but it was beautiful! Andrew loved it. We could have spent our paychecks there, but common sense ended up kicking in! It was great. Before heading back to Daejeon we grabbed some food from the street (vendors!) and had some squid balls (They're disgusting, but Andrew seems to like them), omlette sushi (it was as wierd as it sounds), and good-ol'-corn (although mighty chewy). I promised myself that I wouldn't eat from the vendors in Korea, since they're slightly sketchy. But, I must admit that it was pretty good!

After eating, we headed to the train station to go home. Unfortunately, when we got there we found out that the fast train was filled up and that the slow train had only standing seats available. We had no choice but to take the train standing - and it was brutal! About 30 minutes into the trip Christy and I resorted to sitting on the floor, which I guess was a lot better than standing for the whole trip. Anyway, we made it back to Daejeon safe and sound, but with very sore legs. All-in-all it was a really fun weekend!

This week was really tiring. I think we were tired from report cards, tekkyon and our weekend in Seoul. Tekkyon is starting to get really hard! We're learning kicks and other defense moves. I learned just the other day that Tekkyon was banned in Korea for short period of time because people deemed it too deadly! Who knew?! I managed to roll my ankle on Wednesday, however after thoroughly freezing it (with liquid nitrogen, I'm sure of it!), getting on-site acupuncture, and getting it wrapped, it seems to be alright. There is never a shortage of help or attention here in Korea!

Yesterday Andrew and I headed to downtown Daejeon for some exploring. We managed to find a market where we purchased our first Christmas tree and some decorations! It's only about a foot tall, but it'll do. We had a strange (yet hilarious) experience that I thought I'd share with you. We came across a huge group of people who were all cheering in a circle, and in the middle of the circle was a man holding a sign that said something in Korean, and underneath, "FREE HUGS." Anyway, Andrew and I were giggling for a minute or so before one Korean guy quite forcefully pulled Andrew into the centre of the circle. Everyone in the crowd went crazy while the guy and Andrew gave each other a slightly awkward hug. Anyway, I thought it was absolutely hilarious. You never know what to expect here I tell you!

Last night we went all the way to Sintajin to visit our friends. We went out for supper to a dog/chicken restaurant. Don't worry, we made absolutely SURE that the Korean word for Dog was not said in the restaurant. I was so worried that they would mix up our orders. Anyway, the entire chicken is served in a big black pot boiling in some sort of rice/ginseng soup. It was actually really delicious! After supper we played a couple of games of poker. I won some won! The downside of winning however, was paying for the taxi home - so expensive! Anyway, it was a really good day.

Anyway, we're completely out of groceries so we have to go hit the agro-fishery market.

We miss you all so much!

Love, Tara and Andrew
XO

Almost 2 months down!

2006-11-04T19:16:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone!
Well, guess what today officially marks? 8 weeks of living, surviving and (surprisingly) liking Korea! Everyone tells us that the 3rd month is the worst, as far as constantly having the nagging thought "Where the heck and I, and what am I doing here?" But, I'm going to be optimistic (an eternal optimist, I know) and state that maybe the worst is over? We still get bouts of homesickness, but they seem to be quieted a bit by our little weekly routine. I'm sure next month will test our patience a bit with this place, since it will be Christmas and all... but we'll see.

So, we have posted some pictures from Halloween (most of you have probably seen them already). It was a fun day, but it was also ridiculously exhausting! The kids were all bouncing off the walls (literally!), so after 11 hours of working you can imagine how tired we were. Anyway, I must say that celebrating Halloween in Canada is much more exciting than in Korea.

If you're wondering where the pictures from Gyeryon-san mountain are, there aren't any. We forgot to bring our camera last weekend, too bad. We had a good time hiking with our directors, their kids, sisters and another foreigner. It was good times. The weather was absolutely perfect for hiking - really crisp but still pretty warm out. We loved it.

We had a pretty busy week at school. Our report cards are due on November 15th, and Andrew has 10 to do and I have 11. So, any spare time we had at work this week was spent writing up report cards. I find that report cards are really a waste of time. First of all, most of the middle school students don't even show their parents the report cards from English school. Also, we aren't supposed to use any negative words or give the kids any bad marks on their report cards. So, it becomes ridiculous writing a report card for a kid who never does his homework, doesn't pay attention in class, fails tests and makes the other students cry. Anyway, I guess it's part of the job and the culture.

Taekkyon is going great! We're both enjoying it so much. It's so incredibly challenging, it's awesome. This week we started learning how to use a weapon called a ho-pay (that's what it sounds like anyway!). It's sort of like a flat block on the end of a string. Anyway, I'm pretty terrible at it - I have next to no muscle in my arms (as you all know) so I don't have any power behind it. (Needless to say, there won't be any videos of me with my ho-pay posted) Maybe in a year though I'll be able to look fierce with it! Just maybe....

We've had a busy weekend so far. We went hiking to Gyeryon-san again this weekend (we're becoming regulars!) with one of the guys from our Taekkyon class (Ji-Hyun). We walked to the second peak yesterday which was MUCH more difficult than the first. The second peak is more like "rock climbing" than hiking. At parts we were literally scrambling over boulders next to big cliffs, so scary! Anyway, we made it to the second peak safe and sound. It was a really good hike. Andrew's pretty tired from it today. Anyway, I put up a few pictures of it on our flickr page.

Then, last night we met a couple of our friends (both from Canada!) downtown. We went to an English bookstore, out for supper, and then on a mad search for poker chips. The search for poker chips somehow lead us to a bowling alley, which was a little unexpected. Korea makes such good use of it's space, so a bowling alley seems a little counter-intuitive I think! Anyway, we had a good time. I'm so happy we're starting to meet people, it makes our weekends SO much more interesting!

We've been getting a little antsy to do some traveling like some of our friends and families have been doing lately, so we've planned a trip to Seoul next weekend. Not too sure what we're going to do there yet - probably do some serious shopping as I think we're due. Maybe start picking up some Christmas presents. Also, I found a really cool show for us to go to on Saturday night. It's a non-verbal sort of cooking show where the people use pots and pans to make music.... okay it sounds a little wierd, but everyone says it's amazing. Check out the link if you're interested! http://www.nanta.co.kr/

We're thinking of you all doing midterms (glad it's not us!), traveling, working, and just being busy with your own lives. We hope everyone is doing well!

We miss you!

Love, Tara and Andrew
XO

P.S. I'm making Pumpkin Soup tonight, isn't that Martha Stuartish of me?! I'm pretty excited!

Korean holidays, strange but true...

2006-10-27T21:07:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone!

In anticipation of Halloween, I thought I'd make a post about some interesting things that I have found out about a couple of the Korean holidays. I have had many conversations about holidays with my students, and have found that there is no one holiday that stands out as a favorite. This is strange, since in Canada it seems like everyone's favorite holiday is Christmas hands down. In Korea, however, some of the favorite holidays are "Arbor Day" (Tree-planting holiday), "Korean Independence Day" (August 13), and my personal favorite, "Chocolate Dipped Cookie Day." That's right - they have a holiday devoted to nothing else except chocolate dipped cookies. It makes me think we might be missing out on something in Canada!

"Pepero Day" falls on November 11, which of course, is also the Canadian Remembrance Day. I had a bit of a blonde moment the other day when I asked one of my students why he wrote an essay about eating chocolate cookies on Remembrance Day... oops. Talk about a look of confusion! Anyway, apparently Pepero Day is a bit like Valentines Day. You give out cookies (chocolate-dipped, of course) to your boyfriend/girlfriend. I have insisted that Andrew and I follow the Korean tradition this year. And, there will be no forgetting!

Halloween is next week which is pretty exciting for me. Halloween has always been one of the holidays that I anticipate the most in the year. I'd like to say that it's the kids in their costumes, or the excitement, but to be honest, it's probably just the candy! We usually have a "stash" of candy in our house after Halloween until the end of November. Also, it reminds me of going out trick-or-treating with friends when I was little. I'm sure every kid did this, but we would start at like 4:30 and go until 9 or 10. I am really appreciative of the parents (including my own!) who got dragged around with us for all that time. Although, I'm sure every parent stole candy (as a "reward") from their kids, like my parents did.... right? My "tootsie rolls" and "Reece's Pieces" would always go mysteriously missing shortly after bringing them home.

Anyway, as I was saying... Halloween is next week! Koreans know what Halloween is, but they don't really do anything for it. Some kids dress up in costumes (we've seen some costumes for sale anyway) but they definitely do NOT go trick-or-treating. I explained to them last week how in Canada we go from house-to-house yelling at people in exchange for candy. They thought this was ridiculous! They were like "teacher, do people get mad?" It was funny. Anyway, Andrew and I have planned a Halloween party for the entire hagwon on Monday. It has been a lot of work since we not only have 200 students, but also have students which range in age from 7 - 17. This, combined with the fact that they only speak very basic English, makes for a tough task! Our games are pretty simple - bobbing for apples, scavenger hunt and listening to Halloween games and songs. Anyway, it should be a lot of fun BUT a lot of work. We're going to work at 10 on Monday and are staying until 9 or so at night. The teachers are going "trick-or-treating" to some of the students houses later at night for fun. I knew I'd get some candy somehow!

Anyway, I hope everyone has a good Halloween! Make sure to have some candy!

Love and miss you all,

Love, Tara and Andrew
XOXO

By the way, Tara's 'flu' turned out to be a mild case of pneumonia! She is all better now, but (probably due to the stress of taking care of Tara) I have come down with a cold... Maybe soon we will get a weekend where one of us isn't sick. We are going to go hiking again tomorrow up Gyereon Mountain, so we will put up some pictures of that, and the kids on Halloween as well. So, we'll post some pictures soon!

-Andrew

Hana, Dul, Set.... Hana, Dul, Set

2006-10-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

Hello friends!

Well we came to the realization yesterday that we have been here for over 1 month already, hard to believe isn't it? It has actually gone by quicker than I had imagined. I guess that's easy enough said with only one month down and 11 more to go - but, here's for hoping!

So, we started something new last week. It's probably something that you would never in a million years see me (and Andrew, for that matter) doing. No... it's not eating dog! We actually started taking a martial arts class. It's called Taekkyon. We started taking it last Tuesday, and every day since then we both feel like we've been hit by a bus. It's incredibly intense! First of all, we have to stretch in ways that I don't think either of us ever have (think: basically the splits but only one leg juts out to the side. Also, you have to remain upright). Once you think you've got the stretch down, the "Master" comes along and pulls your extended leg out another 4-6 inches! Everyone usually has tears running down their faces by the end of the class. Secondly, we have to move in the funniest ways. We have only learned one step, so far, but it has pretty much left us counting, "hana, dul, set" (one, two, three) in our sleep. The "basic step" (did I mention the class is all in Korean?) is pretty much like dancing. "Dancing" automatically means that I've got a hand up on Andrew in this department. Andrew says it must be due to "all" the nights I spent at the Sutherland!

So, we're taking the class 5 days a week for 1.5 hours each day. We should be lean, mean, fighting machines by the time we get back home. Okay, I KNOW that you're laughing at us now. We'll send some videos as soon as we have some skills to show off! I'm glad that I'm a girl because they go A LOT easier on me than they do on Andrew. At one point last week the "Master" was trying to explain to us (in Korean, of course) a move where you sort of "leap" from side to side. He turned to Andrew and said, "go!" just before he started kicking at Andrew's head. NOTHING can get you to master a move than if a foot is flying at your head! I actually just about screamed! (It was honestly crazy, I had milliseconds to jump from side to side as he kicked the air where I had just been -Andrew)

We went to the World Cup Stadium on Sunday to try to go swimming (to sooth our aching muscles!). The World Cup Stadium is only about a 10 minute walk from our apartment. When we got there, there was a soccer game going on. It was only a high school game but the energy in the crowd was HUGE! I found this so funny because Koreans are pretty reserved. Anytime we've ever seen a performance of some type, Koreans just sort of smile and give a polite clap at the end. In Canada there always seems to be a lot of yelling, cheering (especially at Rod Stewart concerts!) and just generally a lot of energy. Anyway, I guess that soccer is a whole other ball game (no pun intended) for Koreans. Anyway, we had a lot of fun, and just sort of cheered for both sides (hey, we're foreign!). We also went swimming, but it was definitely NOT as enjoyable as the soccer game. It was lane swimming with about 15 people per lane. Also, as per usual, Andrew and I seemed to attract the majority of the kids into our area!

I have unfortunately caught my first Asian flu (no, not THE Asian Flu, don't worry!). I have been achy and coughing since the weekend. I went to the doctors tonight and got a shot in the butt (first time since I was 5 years old I think!) and got multitude of pills to take. Anyway, the doctor says I should be feeling better by the end of this week. I like how my flu has gotten me out of "dish duty" for the week, ahhhhhhh.

Anyway, we are still doing well. We miss everyone so much. Your posts have been so great. They all make our day! We check the site about 5 times a day. I'm not joking!

Hope everything is well with all of you,

Tara and Andrew
XO

Happy Thanksgiving

2006-10-08T03:27:00.000-07:00

Well, after 5 days, 4 nights, 3 taxis, 2 bus trips and 1 train ride our short vacation is over. We went from Daejeon to Andong for the mask festival and then to Gyeongju for sight-seeing. I think we did more walking than anything and I don't know how I will stand all day tomorrow because my feet are killing me.

Andong was pretty cool. The mask festival was kind of like FolkFest. In addition to the displays from across Korea they had different dances from all over the world - Latvia, Slovakia, Costa Rica, Mexico.. etc.. Except in Korea they actually bring dancers in from their respective countries (maybe because there really aren't any Latvians here). We stayed in a homestay in a small, slightly touristy, 'authentic' village about 40 minutes away from Andong. The village, Hahoe (Ha-hway), also had a stage there for the mask festival.

For anyone who doesn't know, a homestay is where you stay with a local family. We had a small... tiny room that was really just a wall papered cube with a wood/paper door that opened to the outside. It was actually pretty comfortable... but I think we were a little late in booking the place because some of the other homestay places looked a lot nicer.

We arrived at our homestay at around noon on Tuesday and headed back into Andong to watch an event called a Chachan-nori (or so I think). It was pretty cool.. some kind of pseudo-fight between two teams. Each team carries a man wearing impressive armour on a log platform. They fight it out in a kind of pushing contest. I will put up a picture or two of this. We wandered around for a few hours and barely caught the last bus to get back to Hahoe. We had been given a bus schedule but when we asked bus drivers about when the bus was coming they would make an X with their arms to indicate that the bus was cancelled.

So yeah, caught the very last bus that night. Supper was pretty decent - had some fish and soup... pretty typical Korean food. After supper we took a quiet walk around the town - it was really a beautiful little place. As the town was pretty much dead after 7pm we had a pretty early night. Now as you will see in the pictures, there is no bed in the room... only some thick sheets that lay on the floor. It wasn't too bad... not really something I would want to do long term though. But anyway, I woke up after maybe an hour of sleep to find I was really, really hot. Now after trying out the saunas I realize that Koreans really like the heat, but this was ridiculous. So after throwing off the thin sheet and still being way too hot I thought maybe the floor would be nice to sleep on. Wrong. The floor was actually too hot to touch for longer than a couple of seconds. It was like sand on a beach on a hot day. I don't know how people can be comfortable like this.

We planned to spend the next day/night in Hahoe checking out the village and the mask dance events. So we got up in the morning and quickly realized that there was really nothing for breakfast. The fried fish and soup from the night before really didn't look as good for breakfast as it was for supper. We spent a loooong time looking for something to eat that was somewhat 'breakfasty'. We finally settled for some kind of peanut/nougat candy, a few cans of orange juice, some rice cakes, and some bibimbap (if I haven't explained before, some seaweed and noodles in a bowl with an egg on top) without the egg. For the rest of the day we explored the town, went across the river by pole boat to see an old temple/residence, and took in some Mexican and Slovakian dance shows... then spent another night in the sauna cube with the hot floors.

The next morning as we were trying to leave the homestay we found that the only family member around was the grandmother (or maybe housekeeper.. she seemed to be doing all the work) and she didn't speak any English. Since we weren't sure how much we owed so this was kind of difficult. After ten minutes of trying to communicate to her that we were leaving and wanting to pay I finally just gave her a bunch of money, she smiled, and we left. We spent the rest of the day walking around Andong and taking the train ride to Gyeongju.

We got to Gyeongju around 5 and by the time we were settled into our hotel it was 6 or so. We took the bus out to a ritzy area known as the Bomun Lake Resort. There were a ton of fancy hotels with rooms starting at $200 a night (and going up to at least $3000) and they were packed full of Koreans taking advantage of the holiday. After walking for about an hour trying to find a place to eat with food that A. We wanted to eat and B. we could afford we found a nice restaurant that had a few appetizing dishes in our price range.

It was kind of funny - it was a really fancy restaurant, with French doors, chandeliers, bells to call for the waiters etc etc. Tara ordered a fish cutlet... and we were kind of anticipating maybe a nice filet, some rice maybe... what came was: two fish sticks with bbq sauce and tartar sauce, a few mexi fries, and some corn. It is really funny when they try to make 'Western food' at some of these places.

Anyway, the next day we went to a number of really nice Silla (one of the various empires that existed in Korea around 1500 years ago) and Buddhist tourist sites including some tombs, temples, and other old things. The tombs were pretty interesting. They started by making a 3m x 3m x 1m wooden box and placed inside the deceased important person with all his belongings. They then piled about 4m of stones all around and on top of the box to form a mound. The mound of stones was then covered with 1/2m of clay. They clay was covered with 5m of earth. Apparently the method worked really well as most of the tombs were untouched when the archeologists of the 20th century started digging them up. There were a lot of these tombs too... maybe 20 that we saw, all over the city just popping up all over the place.

The next day was spent just walking around the city as there was a large shopping area. We probably walked for about 8 hours. I was really ready to leave by the time when headed back to Daejeon. We arrived back around 9 and today we went to downtown Daejeon. It is pretty impressive (minus the smog). There is a huge underground shopping area... I mean huge. It stretches for blocks and blocks. We went there with some people we met in Gyeongju who are also teaching in Daejeon. They also took us to Costco which was pretty nice. Managed to buy some things we have been missing - black beans, nachos/salsa/guacamole, dried blueberries, spices, cereal, and lots more. Unfortunately they didn't have any chickpeas...

So anyway, I'm sure this is long and boring enough. Hope everyone has a good Thanksgiving!

P.S. I've uploaded a bunch more pictures for your viewing pleasure!

Well... that was... different

2006-10-01T03:40:00.000-07:00

Hey everyone, my turn to put up a new post...

It has been a fairly slow week. Probably partially due to the new computer, or maybe because we're in shock at how much money we've spent so far. Way too much.

We have been exploring our area (Noeun) quite a bit and yesterday we went for a short hike through some nice hills that are only about a 5 minute walk from our place. We hiked for an hour or so, stopping to chat with some Koreans, as well as some other foreign teachers. As was the case with Gyereongsan (the mountain we hiked last weekend) it seems like Koreans really like the whole outdoor/hiking thing. And since we found out that there are at least 8-10km of trail right by our place... we don't really have any excuse not to get into good shape. It was really quite nice there too... lots of trees, and a few nice places to take in a good view of the city.

So for anyone who didn't know, today (Sunday, October 1st) is Tara's 22nd birthday. To celebrate Tara's day we had a nice day doing whatever Tara wanted. This is usually the case anyway (not that I'm complaining... ), but she liked the idea. And so did I, because I haven't had a chance to buy her anything.

So, the day started off with a nice relaxing morning while we decided which of the many, many spas we should go to. We live in part of the Yuseong district which is supposedly world famous for its hot springs. So we decided to go to the spa in the hotel Yousung, one of the older spas. We hopped on the bus (let me sidetrack a bit. The bus system here is great. You never have to wait more than 5-10 minutes for a bus and the fare is only around 20 cents per person.) and were on our way. We got to the spa at around 1:40... the admission was pretty cheap, ~5$ each, and the spa had separate areas for men and women. We decided to meet back in an hour.

I have to say I was a bit apprehensive. I had heard stories... and yeah they were pretty much all true. The change room was fairly standard - you get a locker for your shoes and a locker for your clothes. The spa is basically a large room with a number of wading pools - some hot, some cold, some with different herbs infused into the water. There was also an outdoor area with a few small pools. There were around 7 or 8 rows of showers. There were also two types of saunas (both extremely hot... breathing if my head was held too high felt like my lungs were being cooked). And there were naked men, young and old. Everywhere.

As I said, I was a bit apprehensive. But really, it just seemed really normal. Everyone just kind of did their thing... and hey, when in Rome. The most uncomfortable part was worrying that I wasn't following proper etiquette somehow. Or that I was white and got at least one really disapproving glare. Everything went fine though, and I came out feeling refreshed. Maybe I'd even go again. Maybe. I made it out 10 minutes earlier than was planned, and Tara was already waiting. From what she told me, the womens side was similar. Only the naked women on her side tried to engage in conversation with her. I felt pretty happy to have been spared that.

So, we walked around looking for a decent restaurant... and when we didn't see anything particularly exciting we took the bus back (20 cents each! I love this whole not driving thing) and continued the dia de la Tara.

So anyone who knows Tara can guess what came next. Hair salon time. I have to admit, I was pretty impressed. It was a really nice looking place: Tara got a nice haircut/styling and hand massage while I waited at a table beside her eating complimentary popcorn/fruit and drinking complimentary juice. And Tara was happy with her haircut... which is important to her. And it was cheap... which is important to me.

So as far as interesting things go, that's about all I've got for now. This week we have 4 days off while the Koreans celebrate Chuseok (kind of a Korean Thanksgiving). We head out on Tuesday morning for a 5 day trip to the eastern side of the country. We'll have lots of good pictures and stories from that I'm sure. It has been nice to read all the comments everyone has been leaving. Keep it up! Tara checks the blog for new comments probably as much or more than some people check the blog for new posts.

So look for a new post next Sunday. Merry Chuseok everyone!

Two weeks down...

2006-09-26T06:19:00.000-07:00

Yay, our shiny new computer has arrived! Well to be honest, it's not very shiny or new (since it's used) - but, it's arrived nonetheless! We are very excited that we won't have to frequent the smokey internet cafe's anymore. Anyway, I think you will be "seeing" quite a bit more of us!

Well we're settled in now, and actually this little apartment is starting to feel like home. You'd all be so impressed at how clean we're keeping the place - no creepy crawlies here (well at least that we know of). The job is also starting to become a bit easier. The hardest part is getting yourself organized every day. It's like this: We have to send out report cards every month and we must have at least four test results for each class. It gets a little confusing when you have lesson planning, marking, book orders, book reports and monthly schedules to do on top of making tests and doing report cards. Then repeat for each of the 15 or so classes we both have. Luckily we don't have to do report cards until next month. We haven't been fired yet, so we must be doing something right (orrr, maybe they're giving us ONE more chance!)

Last week was FANTASTIC! I must admit that we had some very strange experiences but I'll let you be the judge. I'll give you all a play-by-play:

Ping-Pong: So, the week before last we kept on hearing what sounded like ping-pong in a building across the street. So one night we ventured up to the 4th floor wearing our work clothes and were pleasantly surprised to find an entire gym of ping-pong tables! Slightly distracting was the fact that all of the "pongers" (apparently that's what they're called) were dressed in uniforms. So, not only are we the whitest, tallest and gangliest people in the room - we are also the most unappropriately dressed. Anyway, we sucked it up and rented a table. Until the first serve was played out (compliments of moi) you could have heard a pin drop - and I'm pretty sure I heard one cricket chirping. Anyhow, we showed them pretty quickly that we indeed did NOT know how to play ping-pong. They, on the other hand, were AMAZING! They moved their whole bodies when they hit - very cool!

Seafood Restaurant: On Friday night our director let us leave half an hour early to go out for supper. She recommended a seafood restaurant that was about a 10 minute walk from the Hagwon. I must explain that in Korea seafood restaurants are just about on every corner (in between each corner there are another 5-10 non-seafood restaurants). The problem with the restaurants is that while indeed they have giant eels and fish swimming around in tanks in front of the restaurant, they look a bit grungy. And of course me being a Microbiologist, I have slight reservations against eating seafood in a place where there is more scum in the tank than I've seen in any toilet.

ANYWAY, we took our directors advice and went to the restaurant. So first impressions were good - lots of people and the tanks were really only slightly scumy. The menu came and of course it was all in Korean. So we pretty much did the "eeny-meanie" thing and landed on something that cost 30,000 dollars... I mean won. Within a few minutes about 15-20 dishes arrived. There were 6 or 7 different types of fish, soup, kimchi, salads, vegetables.... everything! Just as Andrew made the comment "If one more dish comes I think I will scream", another 10 dishes came out. We soon found out that the first 20 dishes were just appetizers. Needless to say we enjoyed it thoroughly and were very, very, very stuffed.

Made a Friend: One of the most surprising things to me since I've been here is the total lack of foreigners living in our area. I've only seen two so far. But, you will be all very happy to hear that we made a friend! There is a guy that lives near the World Cup Stadium (about a 10 minute walk) who is from California. On Saturday night he and his wife showed us around the area. The best part about it was that now we have finally met a foreigner who is completely happy living in Korea. Before I left I was so worried that Andrew and I wouldn't like it here and we'd sort of be "stuck" in our jobs. So, it was nice talking to someone who likes it and plans on staying here for a while (he's already been here 3 years).

Hiked a Mountain: This was my personal highlight of the week. On Sunday morning bright and early we hiked one of the mountains (I don't know the name) that is about a 5 minute drive from our house. It took us about 4 hours total and it was absolutely beautiful. Andrew will put some pictures up of the hike. We did one of the easier hikes as we are not in the greatest shape. Maybe in a month we will try a harder one.

Well, so far things have been great. This weekend I think we might go to the spa (world famous Yuseong Spa!) for my birthday, and next week we only have to work on Monday. There is a Korean holiday next week and we are going to take off for 4-5 days to see more of Korea. We plan to go to a Mask Festival in Andong (www.maskdance.com) and then to Gyeongju. Gyeongju apparently has a lot of things for tourists to see.

Being busy has helped us keep our minds off of being homesick, but trust me, we are! Send us a post or an e-mail if you get a chance. We miss you all!

Tara and Andrew

Rain drops are falling on my head...

2006-09-17T00:55:00.000-07:00

Hello!
I thought I'd update the blog quickly to let you all know that we are alive and well. Actually "well" only pertains to me at the moment because Andrew has unfortunately caught his first cold here in Asia. He's doing alright though - no need to worry (mom's and dad's!).

The rest of our work week went suprisingly well! I'm starting to get used to the kids and the culture... well slightly anyway. I've started to make some "buddies" in my classes and I must say it's nice to have some allies! This one little girl I teach named "Kally" brings me doughnuts or cookies every day - such a cutie. On the other hand, I've made a few enemies as well. Andrew caught me telling this one boy ("Terrence") on Friday that if he continued to punch his friend and throw gobs of fun-tac at the girls that I was going to call his mother. If the kid only knew that I can't speak a stick of Korean, so calling his mother will never happen! Oh well, the fear tactic seems to be working quite well on him anyway.

You all may find it very funny and surprising that Andrew thinks he's found his "niche" teaching in Korea. He loves it! I had thought before coming here that I was going to end up liking the job much more than Andrew did. But in all honesty, I think he's enjoying it more than me. Needless to say, I may have to drag him kicking and screaming home at the end of this year. Time will tell anyway!

We didn't end up doing too much this weekend - partly due to the rainy weather (Korea got a typhoon yesterday!) and partly due to Andrew getting sick. We did, however, go downtown for the afternoon yesterday. It's quite scary leaving our little district not knowing any Korean. Me being the worrier I am, always wonders "what happens if we need help?!." I need to get over this paranoia I think since we both want to venture into Seoul in the next couple of weeks. Downtown Daejeon was pretty quiet actually, nothing like what we saw of Seoul. We went to a few department stores and into a few malls.

I had sort of a funny experience the other day in one of the malls in our district (about a 2 minute walk from our apartment). I was looking at a pair of jeans and a sales lady came up and started talking to me in Korean. Then she sort of did the "once-over" and grabbed the biggest size on the rack! I must say that even though Andrew and I are pretty large here - we definately won't fit the largest size! Anyway, that was pretty funny for both of us. We were joking that maybe I should just buy 2 pairs and get them sown together and hopefully that'll fit. Oh, funny stuff.

Anyway, I should get back and tend to the "sickie." We're going out with our director for supper tonight.

Hope all is well with all of you!

Love, Tara

Well it could be worse, right?

2006-09-12T18:19:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone!
Well I think today was the first day that we had the sudden and disturbing thought of "where the heck are we and what are we doing here?" Homesickness is creeping up on us fast. We're just glad that we're in it together!

So, we had our first day of teaching two days ago. It started out well - we went for supper at a traditional Korean restaurant with Ms. Kim and one of the foreign teachers we are replacing (Conor). A traditional Korean meal involves sitting on the floor and barbequing meat/vegetables in the middle of the table on a grill. The amazing part of the meal though is the number of side dishes that come with it. There were probably 20-30 different side dishes that accompany the meal. There was so much food, it was unbelievable!

After the meal were both pretty excited to start work. We got to the school and were shown how to use the computers to teach the classes - no problem, right? Maybe not for a computer scientist, but for me it was a very steep learning curve. Then, at around 1:30 one of the Korean teachers came running in on Andrew, Conor and I and told us frantically that I had to teach a class. Talk about being unprepared!

The first class didn't go so bad because Conor helped me out. It was just amazing to me how much of a language barrier there was. The simplest words such as "purse" involve props/pictures/sherades... very complicated. The kids are good for the most part, but there are definately a few monsters in the crowd. Those few kids are usually the smartest ones in the class and seem to also be the leaders. There have been various occasions in the past couple of days where you say something to the class and one kid will yell out something back in Korean. This usually results in all of the kids laughing hysterically at you while you're just sort of standing there thinking "what the heck just happened?" Anyway, the past few days have definately erased the sterotype that asian children are well behaved, disciplined and extremely curtious to their "elders."

Other than that, Andrew and I are starting to adjust to our new surroundings. We've located the nearest grocery store, found garbage bags (sorry fruit flies - your home is now elsewhere), found a coffee shop, a really beautiful park and a mall. This weekend we're just planning on exploring Daejeon - maybe take a trip to those glorious hot springs everyone talks about.

Anyway, we miss you all.... please e-mail us, WE'RE LONELY!!!!

Love, Andrew and Tara

And 6000 miles later here we are!

2006-09-09T21:47:00.000-07:00

Check out our photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/21121589@N00/

Well, the plane ride went really fast, as with the 3 hour busride to Daejeon, our employers seem really friendly, and our apartment is nice! So far, so good!

We arrived at 3pm Korea time (midnight our time) and got on a bus at about 4pm. I'm sure it would have been a very interesting bus ride but we were both so tired we hardly stayed awake for more than an hour of the trip. I think we have figured out how they manage to have 21 million people in the Seoul area - thousands and thousands of massive apartment buildings! (I will try to get pictures up of this).

We arrived in Daejeon and Mr. Moon and Ms. Kim (our employers) were waiting for us at the bus stop. They were both very friendly and spoke English well enough to ease our fears. They took us first to the school - very modern and clean. We each get our own classroom and desk! Since by that time it was around 7pm in Korea - 4am SK time we went to our apartment from there. Which happened to be extremely close to the school. Maybe 50m. From the school we walk through a short alley and half a block down the street and bang-there we are.

Anyway, we were quite happy to see our apartment is pretty reasonably sized (maybe 500sq ft?) and quite nice. It has a small deck and spacious kitchen/dining room. The only things that are really small are the appliances (i.e. the fridge/freezer is maybe 3 feet tall). It also has two bedrooms (which Tara is happy to report are both larger than the one she left at home), one with attached bathroom, and another larger bathroom. The bathrooms are pretty interesting but I'll let Tara describe that.

Okay... so the bathroom is pretty much a tiled room with a toilet (western style - thank god!) and a shower - which is attached to the sink. As Andrew put it so eloquently "This is awesome - I can use the toilet, brush my teeth and shower all at the same time." I can't say I'm as enthused as he is... it'll definately be something to get used to! Other than the wierd bathrooms, however, the apartment is really nice. It's clean (no unwanted roomates so far) and pretty cosy. We have a TV, phone, dressers, desks... life is good.

So today we woke up REALLY early.... like 7 am. This was after forcing ourselves to go to sleep for another few hours at 4am. I keep thinking about the time as in Saskatoon time - so at 4am it was actually 1pm. Anyway, we got up at 7 and had some peanut butter/banana sandwiches (compliments of Ms. Kim) and spent a few hours unpacking and cleaning. I cleaned those bathrooms top to bottom - they were a bit grungy. After that we (I) got ready and set out to get groceries. We got to the corner and were standing in front of a giant map looking like confused tourists when a man stopped his SUV and came up to help us. Koreans are probably the most helpful/kind people I have ever met. There is the biggest language barrier, yet the second you start looking confused they are right there to help you. Anyway, we somehow got the message across to him that we were looking for a grocery store named Carrefour. He told us where it was but said it was too far to walk - and then offered us a ride (which we happily accepted)!

The grocery store was something else. The store itself was on the 2nd floor, but the rest of the building was a mall. It was beyond overwhelming! Even finding the simplest thing - say, garbage bags (which we still don't have) took forever as the packaging for goods is usually entirely in Korean and the pictures offer no help as to what the product is - maybe a cute cartoon character/space ship on a carton of cleaning supplies. We were basically like spinning around in the aisles looking clueless. We did manage to get cleaning supplies (Andrew's got some tidying to do), some cooking supplies and I found a FABULOUS straightener (cheapy, cheapy). The seafood section was AMAZING - it was all fresh, cheap and in HUGE amounts. There were fish in there that I had never seen in my life. We're definately going to be cooking some of those up when we get more settled in.

So, we took a cab back from the store and dropped our stuff off and went to 7-11 (7-11!!!!) to buy phone cards. Butttt, we realized that there were no public phones in sight - so we'll have to wait until our phone is hooked up to call home.

We just came from a restaurant which was recommended to us last night by Ms. Kim. It was quite good and very cheap. I had my first taste of Kimchi (Andrew already has eaten it).... it was good but very interesting. I think we'll both have to watch that we don't eat too many spicy foods for the first while.

Well that's all we have for now. Hope to hear from you all soon!

Miss you already!

T minus 35 hours

2006-09-06T20:48:00.000-07:00

My intentions were to start this blog when we received our plane tickets. For the past few weeks we were under the impression we were leaving on Sunday, Sept. 10th and our tickets (the school is paying for these) would arrive 1-2 weeks in advance. Well this morning (Wednesday the 6th) I awoke to an email with e-tickets saying we are leaving on the 8th... giving us barely 48 hours notice.

So right now this is our situation:
We are leaving for a year to teach conversational English to 6-15 year olds. The city we are going to be living and working in is Daejeon, South Korea. It is in the middle of South Korea, which will be really nice because we would like to travel around the country as much as possible when we are there. In addition to paying for our airfare the school is also providing us with accommodations. We were told it will have two bedrooms, one living room/kitchen, and two bathrooms (two bathrooms?). Our teaching hours are between 12:30 and 8:30PM and this also includes prep time.

So, barring any more last minute changes, we should arrive in South Korea on Saturday the 9th. We really want to hear from everyone throughout the year, so email us or post comments. We'll try to keep this updated as much as we can. Also we will set up a photo gallery as soon as we get to Korea and get some pictures taken. Have a good year everyone!