Closing Thoughts and China Pics

Here’s what I did in China:

Veg dumplings – devoured for 5 days straight

did not eat

Met random English-speakers who took us to a traditional tea ceremony.  It was fun, these guys were awesome

Forbidden City.  This took forever.

the Momma Lion

flag lowering ceremony.  the crowd was insane.

notice the nip.

BATHROOM

the crowds and the weather really dampened the experience. =/

my fave pic of the wall

Summer Palace

new shoes =]

1 hour line +  no more than 10 seconds in the presence of “Mao” (it looked like a wax figure) =one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever done.

 

 

 

Some closing thoughts . . .

Two more weeks to go.  The current concern is what comes next, will I ever decide on a “career”, and when and where do I “settle”.  A few have suggested that I could get sucked into the DC Metro area once I get back.  My friend Joey suggested not staying home for any time at all, when my hope was to work a temporary job to save a little as a base for traveling and teaching again.  I suppose there’s no way to know where my head will be once I’m back, but I’m assuming I’ve been bit by the travel bug and this year of living abroad will serve as a buffer to the “vaccum” of the DC Metro area/ living at home with the parents.  It’s been suggested that Korea or anywhere abroad is “living in a bubble”, but truly our passports are the only thing on earth that would earn it such a title.  Is the one place where you don’t need a Visa to legally live the only “real world”?  Maybe that place is the true bubble, eh???  I just blew my own mind.

Abroad is still the real world.  Duh.  Seems I’ve lived more here than I ever did back home.  I joined clubs, traveled like crazy, made real attempts to enjoy every possible site, festival, museum, bar, etc.  It’s been a lot easier to make friends here – the whole process of meeting people, getting to know them, and filtering out the ones that don’t suit you – it goes by a lot quicker in a situation like this.  So where is the real bubble?  And why do people get sucked into their hometowns?  I understand the level of comfort, and I can really understand those who have a defined career goal, but people like me who’s “career” goal had always been journalism a.k.a. most likely living in poverty, wallow in the ”I don’t know what I want to do” notion.  Anyway, I guess my point is from here I want to pop all bubbles and avoid getting “sucked” into anything.  Technically maybe I’ve been sucked into traveling.  Either way my goal remains to stay comfortable whereever I am. 

 

Next up – Euro Trip with Ronald!

7/28/09

Monday, Monday, Monday . . .

One of the toughest in a while.
Weekend consisted of overpriced and unimpressive Weezer with a dash of impressive Fall out Boy. How does that work? And then hanging out with a friend from home, Michelle. She’e here visiting family and I got to spend Sat with her and her friend plus random Korean men. It was interesting and a bit exhausting after a while. For example the meat discussion had to happen and one of the men was overly amused by my laid back style and at one point called me a gangster because I slouched and kept my hands in my pockets all day.
Sunday was lonely unicycling day where I realized I’m way out of shape. I don’t think I’m signing up for Tae Kwon Do again in order to pinch pennies. It’s really fun and it’s not way expensive, but I’m traveling a bit soon and I should get some more use out of the unicycle.

Anyway…
The next two weeks are English Camp with 1st-2nd graders. I officially like my Special Class a lot better. I can’t get these little ones to remember three sequential alphabet letters after 30 straight minutes of repeating. I thought these kids were sponges? If you’re looking for a test of your patience, teach kids whose language you can’t speak. With all the Buddhist reading I’ve done, after three hours, I’m pretty rattled.
And after camp, Monday still offers After School Program! Which means the same crap all over again with some of the same kids. By the second class of After School Program, I learned to let go. I need to keep that attitude. Let go of the desire for control in the class. Let go of the hope that they will remember anything you just taught. Expectations are getting lowered for these guys. For the 2nd class, the class started and ended with some Keyboard Cat videos and then a load of ‘people falling’ videos on youtube to boost my spirits and they enjoyed it. The class was also interspersed with snacks as rewards for not confusing L and R, and also I was just plain hungry. Terrible teaching style? I dunno. Maybe it’s senioritis. Either way, I wasn’t as stressed. Maybe every class needs a Keyboard Cat installation every 15 min or so. He really does take the pain away.
I’ll take it as a lesson learned: let go. Just let go.

Check my facebook for the latest Korea album.

I’m reading the last Harry Potter book. I have to. That movie got me good. Gotta know what’s up.
I found a couchsurfing host for Beijing, stoked.

This was kinda random.

I’m going to be

1. Interviewing bands for punknews.org (I hope some of you understand how exciting this is for me)

2. Going to this random rock concert tomorrow to see Weezer and Jimmy Eat World (and Fall out Boy . . .)

soon Beijing.
soon Euro trip.
soon home. =]

The Past Two Weekends . . .

Have been awesome. Last July 4th was possibly the best yet and I didn’t witness a single firework. Wow.

Ok, June 28th weekend I saw as much of the Osaka area as I could. It’s actually not terribly big and full of sights, so it’s doable in a weekend depending on your intrests. I even traveled an hour out of Osaka to Himejijo to see the biggest castle in Japan – it was intense. I was stoked because I rented a bike to get to it from the train station – btw It was the fastest train in the world supposedly, a really smooth ride though.

Himejijo was the first site I saw after waking up at 6 and heading out from my hostess’ place in Izumochuo. That castle took me over 90 min to see and it was awesome.  From there once I was back in Osaka, I went to an open air farmhouse museum, which seemed a lot more appealing in the Lonely Planet than it actually was. It was similar to a Colonial Williamsburg or something, but it was nothing but farmhouses. It was cool in the aspect of seeing how the everyday peasants worked, using rice as currency and all. That museum was tucked back in an awesome park that reminded me of home – there were BBQs and kickball and kids playing with water guns and best of all, I caught two little girls with unicycles. Go Japan.
From there I headed to the Aquarium which is supposedly the world’s largest Aquarium. I set my expectations pretty high, and it turns out that this place was just about on par with Baltimore’s Aquarium. There was no dolphin show, but they balanced it out with Otters of all shapes and sizes. The theme was “Ring of Fire” – “Circle of Life”. It was pretty awesome. It was all wild life from the ring of fire. As it was considered to be a huge aquarium, I was still let down by the sizes of the tanks. =/. Better to be caught and ate or caught and cooped up in a cell? I dunno. Moving on . . .
I then headed back into the city and went to the big “nightlife” area and shopping district – Dotomobori. I had no desire to spend much money so i just looked around. I ended up getting some awesome Thai food there for dinner. I peaked at a cool moss covered shrine in that area and then headed to the Umeda sky building. The sheik atmosphere made me feel a bit out of place. I was probably the only loner there as it’s a prime date spot. It’s arcitechture is renown and despised by locals, I read. It’s the tallest building in Osaka and the elevator ride up was slightly uncomfortable for me – haha. The view was great, but by this point I should’ve been on my way to this bar to meet my couchsurfer roomie and her friends at a “show”. I booked it there and it was extremely confusing. I was so frustrated but most people were willingly to help. My Japanese was limited to “Excuse me”, “where is this?”, “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, “goodnight”, “who?”, “I don’t eat meat”.
Anyway I found this place and her friend’s band was playing – Whip Lash was the band name . . .
Their interests included covering Metallica and Nickelback. Whip Lash and I don’t have similar interests. haha. Not to mention I was half-dead by this point. I managed to do a whole lot of walking that day. Back at my “couch”, which was actually just a floor with sheets and was on the very last subway stop to the south east of Osaka, Bara and I finally got to sleep after 1 am and after a long stretch of talking instead of actually falling asleep like most sleep overs go.
Couchsurfing.org ishighly recommended. What’s better than a free place to stay no matter how far out of the city? It was on the subway and her place was nice and tidy. I brought her a bookmark with Korean traditional designs on it – that was my only fare. I’ll now find it hard to travel any other way.
My plan was to get up at 6 again, but Bara suggested I’d already seen the best stuff and I should probably have some rest. Well I took the advice and wasn’t out until 10. Oh well. I only had time to see Osaka Castle which wasn’t as impressive as I would’ve thought. It was originally built in the 1300s, but of course like every other building in Japan it was burned down at least twice. Once in a battle, once it was struck by lightning, and in 1945 it was again destroyed by a bombing raid.
The structure there is actually from a 1995-97 reconstruction. Nevertheless it was awesome and the museum inside was interesting. From there I booked it to the airport. I felt accomplished squeezing Osaka into a single weekend. I was also disspointed in the amount of money I spent. That trip made me realize how expensive Japan really is. It was mostly the transportation that ate it all up.
Again I’m overly impressed with that country though. The Osaka and Kyoto area has got to be the best place to visit – it’s full of culture and history. I won’t make it to Tokyo during my time over here, and that’s fine because I feel I’ve seen the most interesting stuff in Japan history-wise.
PICS:

Bike rental was free!!

Himeji jo

All the seals are different.  The reperesent the various Lords who’ve occupied the castle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Himeji_Castle

(wikipedia)

does this look familiar?  Totally inspiration for Darth Vadar.

longest suspension bridge in the world from the fastest train in the world – hard to get a good shot =/.

I spy with my little eye the coolest little Japanese girl.

I like this pic a lot.

mmm celemony.  Isn’t that good with peanut butter?

outside the Aquarium.

ring of fire

I almost squeal every time I see this pic.

and this one.

I’m impressed with my photography here.  This is their selling point – the white whale shark.  tank was way too small for this guy. =[ ugh.

this reminds me of that characture of me from Sea World.

my fave section of the aquarium

you gotta love the touch tank.  Especially when you’re there alone and everyone around you is half your age at least.

I wonder if they like being touched.  They headed straight for people and kinda presented themselves.  Their stingers were removed of course.

Pachinko – gambling plinko style.  I wish I had played.

Vertigo much???

some random amazing architucture.

two castles in less than 48 hours.  alright.

trying to get comfortable with flying before takeoff.  No use.  I ended up grabbing the stranger’s hand next to me subconsciously during takeoff (this is one reason traveling alone is lame).  Oops.  Lukily she was a flight attendant and was just traveling in economy class because that flight had no business section.  She immediately sparked a convo with me and tried to calm me down.  She rules.

July 4th weekend

Another meetup.com event.  Familiar faces from this area went on the trip and there were other meetup regulars there.  Joey, Clint, Sally and SHaun joined me for this venture.  Unfortunately the night before was a friend’s going away party and I think I had a total of 3 hours of sleep.  Oh well.  We headed to the province next door to the east for rafting and river trekking.  Our rafting was probably les than 90 min total which was a shame because I LOVED IT.  I’m telling you when I’m back home I’m bugging all my friends to go rafting with me.  There has got to be some places in MD – especially Frostburg area or maybe Loch Raven-ish areas.  Who’s with me?

We got to stop and jump off small cliffs a couple times too.  Our lodging was awesome – we had another veg BBQ with good cooks and good options.
Everyone stayed up till 1ish I heard.  Me and my previous 3 hour sleep were in bed at 10. 

Sunday, yesterday, we “river trekked”.  I wasn’t sure what exactly this would be like.  I learned a couple things – to invest in good water shoes and how to tell the slipperiest rocks in a stream.  My hiking boots were terrible footwear for this venture.  I fell, no exaggeration, at least 20 times.  A few friends can atest to this.  It was hilarious for the first 2.5 hours, but by the second 2.5 hours I wasn’t laughing anymore.  I preferred to swim or float when it was possible and there were a few good natural waterslides.  Again there was some cliff jumping.  One in particular I did 3 or 4 times. 

My attair for that journey was stupid and hilarious.  After the initial steep climb up and down to the start, I had to take my shirt off and when we got to the water I was just down to my bathing suit and boots.  Shaun declared my name was Laura Croft for the rest of the journey.  I told him he was my butler.  I’m pretty sure I was the only girl with no actual shorts on, and this must’ve been offensive to the Koreans hiking because they kept asking me “Aren’t you cold?”  Haha.  Anyway, after a rough waterslide I had to put my t-shirt back on when some Korean hikers saw more of me than I had intended.  Shaun tells this story really well.  “They were all like ‘CHIIN-CHA?!’”

(“Chin-cha” is basically Korean for “ORLY?!” )  I find this story to be hilarious.

Anyway, I developed terrible blisters on my feet and they still hurt to flex in anyway. 

We were the last to finish the trek.  How embarressing.  I think we spent too much time dilly dallying in the waterfalls and floating.  The trail on the side of the river woul’ve been faster.  It took 5 hours.  I’d love to do it again with proper attair and a shorter trail.

PICS:

Last one on the bus has to sing.  Acapella.  this is Joey.  “It’s Raining Men” perhaps..

No one is particularly attractive in those helmets.  Most of us crushed on the tour guide though.

Shaun & Joey

Sally and a friend we made on the bus, Mavish.

Me concerned for my safety around a very rambunctious Joey…

Clint and I lined up to jump

finisheeee!

I am one of these ghosts.

Shaun

Laura Croft aka me.

Joey

Joey: “it feels so good on your legs come in!!”
*Insert life-threatening current here!!!*

I mean this looks like a scene from Titanic.

The organizer – William. He’s the man.

The bus ride back was the absolute best bus ride of my life…

NOREBANG ON THE BUS

Osaka!!

Mom and Dad – I made it here safe and sound.
expect a big update next week. I get back Sun evening.

omg. Expat-ism.

Random update.
Today I was walking in my neighborhood home from TaeKwonDo and as I came upon a conveince store there were three westerners sitting outside having drinks and snacks. I said “Hello” and they asked me to pull up a chair. After about 45 min of story swapping we were disbanded when a likely drunk older man blew his bloody nose into his hands at the table next to us and then proceeded to stand up and wave his hands at us shouting something. He was possibly asking for a tissue but I told him “Up-so-yo” (empty/ nothing)
We all remained calm for about 2 seconds before we were out of our chairs and inching away.
It was the most hilarious meeting and disbanding in the history of meeting fellow expats in your neighborhood.
I had to stifle laughter the rest of the way home.
Just had to take note.

Jeju and Beyond

Today marks 9 months.

Jeju Island was amazing.  Somewhere between Thailand and Nova Scotia (quite literally), and the most beautiful place korea has to offer.  Its about the size of the greater Seoul area – so a fairly small island.  It’s basically all volcanic rock and features a world heritage site in the middle – Mt Hallasan, this includes awesome lava tubes – but we skipped over that.

It features a lot of beaches and tourist traps.

The schedule that we stuck to . . .

The trip is made of 3 themes:
1. Biking around the famous Sung San Il Chull Bong and Udo Island area on the East Side. (Or scooter on Udo)  *I biked and might I add all the unicycling has improved my biking skills especially on uphills. *
2. Watching sunset and relaxing and swimming at the famous Hyop Jae Beach on the West Side
3. Chartered Bus Tour of Some of the Best Places around Jeju before heading out to Airport

SATURDAY 6/13

7:00AM
Everyone must arrive by no later than 7:30AM to Gimpo Airport at Eastar Airline check in area. I will be there by 7AM so please come early. (You should bring stuff to eat)

8:15AM
Plane departs from Gimpo Airport on Eastar Airline

9:25AM
Arrive Jeju Airport

11AM
Arrive by charter bus to Sung San area and receive bikes and get on 11AM ferry ride if possible. If we miss the 11AM ferry we will go to top of Sung San dormant volcanic peak to see amazing views and then take Noon ferry. *We were behind schedule so we finally got on the ferry after noon.

Bikes will be delivered to us. There is no bike renting place in this area so we will be the only ones on bikes.

12 NOON
Take ferry to Udo Island (10min) with bikes on board. 1000 won charge. Return ferry available every 1 hour. Up to you when to take the return ferry. (Lunch is on your own)

We then hiked up Sung San volcano.

4PM
Return bikes by 3:55 and leave Sung San area at 4PM sharp.

4:30PM
Horse Riding

*This was sad.  We rode around in a circle fo less than 10 min each.  We weren’t allowed to touch the reins, and then your pic was available to pick up afterwards like a damn amusement park ride.  So unimpressed.

6PM
Arrive at Hyob Jae Beach where we will have our lodging. We can watch sunset (7:43PM) and have dinner at the lodging place. Relax by the beach. Possibility of small bon fire on the beach.  Sunset over the Sea for the first time ever *  Also, I FOUND A HERMIT CRAB at the beach****

8:00PM
Pork BBQ Dinner ****Plus a veggie meal for all 5 veggies on the trip.  That was nice of our organizer to set up.

Afterwards there was drinking and a bonfire on the beach 

SUNDAY 6/14

Morning swimming.  Water was freezing, but it was so beautiful it was worth it.

11:30AM
Leave Beach

12PM
Buffet Lunch (Included)

1PM
San Bang Gool Sa and Song Ak San – This was a small beach alongside some cliffs featuring manmade caves used by the Japanese to attack American troops during WWII

3PM
Happyland Performance Show – Acrobats.  Pretty impressive.  The grand finale featured 8 motorcylces around one big steel cage.  I was breathless.

4:50PM
Loveland – very impressive and innapropriate theme park featuring statues in various sex positions and all kinds of random stuff.  Only in Korea.

6:20PM
Shopping – Had to get some orange chocolates.  Jeju is known for their oranges.

7PM
Arrive at airport

7:45PM
Depart Jeju Airport

8:50PM
Arrive Gimpo Airport

 

That was typed up by the fantastic organizer, William.  Dude was like a ball of zen.  He was calm and hilarious Korean-American.  Awesome guy.

Pics:

 

 

 

Mind the Volcanic rock!!! how awesome!

these statues are all over Jeju

top of the volcano. 

sup, Pale-y McGee?  How awesome is that beach?!

other beach with manmade caves

Volcanic rocks

It’s beautiful and then you remember it was used to fire missiles at US troops.  hmm.

Ok…just one pic from Loveland.  This is one of the tamer sculptures from the park . . .

my fave in a series of penis statues.

 

In 2 weeks I’m going to Osaka for the weekend.  The travel agent charges no fee and she was really helpful.  The original option was cheaper and offered me a longer stay, but the airplane was an Airbus 330 so I said no way.  How wussy of me.  Oh well.  I’m pretty sure I’ll try to spend a half day at Universal Studios on that Sat. – do I really need to explain why?  There’s a certain ride there that you can’t find anywhere else.  Aside from that I suppose there’s a couple cool sites to see =].

Worked for the Weekend

I’m about to get 3 hours of sleep before heading to the airport and Jeju-do in the morning. Going with a meetup.com group and I hope to meet some nice folks. I’m going it alone but there’s a group of 32 going. We’re hiking, biking, beaching, and horseback riding.
I truly know the meaning of “working for the weekend” these days, and assuming this trip will be awesome, I want all of my last weekends here to be as awesome. 3 monther is next week so I am officially running out of weekends. I spent a lot of weekends being lazy (not in a bad way – in a relaxing way), so i haven’t seen enough. I am officially starting Operation Milk My Weekends.
I’m planning a weekend in Osaka very, very soon. July 4th I’m going rafting/ hiking/ etc. July 11th is Mudfest. Daegu and Busan will soon be visited. I need my fill now. Workin’ hard to get my fill, everybody wants a thrill!

I just got done packing for this weekend after returning from a last supper with my buddy Adam who abruptly quit his job and is heading home to FL. In some ways I’m jealous. I hope he enjoys his summer in the states.
This is kind of my first summer that doesn’t feel like summer. It’s my first indoor employeed summer. I can’t believe it’s June just because I’m cooped up all day in a classroom. I need to initiate some outdoor lessons for special class. Any ideas?

3 months. Euro trip. and home. Yesss-uh.

Last Saturday I saw “Jump!”, the martial arts play that is pretty much the coolest thing you will ever see in Seoul. It was so action-packed, hilarious, and thrilling. You will want taekwondo lessons afterwards. BTW, I’m learning Yellow Belt moves now! Roundhouse kick! Hiiiya!

later.

It’s June?

Apparently. Time flies. I haven’t seen as much of Korea as I imagined I would’ve. I haven’t made particularly good use of my weekends travel-wise. I hope to squeeze in a couple weekend trips during these LAST 3.5 MONTHS.
This Sunday I’m hiking Dobongsan mtn. So I’ve comitted myself to this area, but the next weekend I’m headed to Jeju Island with a meetup group tour. We’re biking, playing at the beach, and horseback riding. I hope to see more of the beach in addition to this trip.
I also tossed around the thought of a weekend in Osaka, Japan before my time is up. Then of course I will have some summer vacation to play with.
And then of course I’ll probably stop off for a quick romp in Europe before I’m back in the states. I guess I decided travel in Europe outweighs Blink 182, anddddddd Paige only got 2 tickets. haha.
But, it still remains tentative as I analyze finances. =/

I’m editing my resume so I can post it somewhere in hopes of some kind of seasonal job once I’m home. I’ll also consider bugging the Ice Rink in College Park, but probably just consider…
I don’t want to commit myself to anything long term as I’m looking to the Czech Repub. to teach next.

This upcoming weekend might be my most hard-earned weekend yet since I’ve been here. After working all day last Saturday, co-worker tensions this week, and deeply slicing my finger with an Exacto knife, I just want hang outs, sleep-ins, and some booze.

I’m gonna do some more research on flights to and from Europe and train travel within Europe before heading to TaeKwonDo tonight.

later.

5/28/09

More stoked on going home these days.  North Korea’s threats have gotten to be less and less of a worry to me, but they’re going pretty far lately.  I have more faith in the American military than ever before at this point.  SUPPORT OUR TROOPS.  Since Monday’s nuclear test, they’ve tested 6 short range missles. I’m within 35 miles of the border.  I wear headphones to sleep because I want to drown out helicopters overhead, otherwise I freak out.  I’m pretty sure it’s the Army doing their drills.  It’s kind of nerve-wracking.

Tomorrow is Saturday and I’m working a city-wide school festival.  I’m not excited about a full day in the heat treating my native language as a gimmick.

There was a plan to play volleyball in Jeju Island that fell through recently.  I’ll have to arrange a trip there soon.  It’s beach time.  Not to mention crazy lava tubes.  I have really failed to travel much around Korea, and that dissapoints me.  I have a friend in Busan that I ought to visit soon.

Tonight Nick came over and we watched “Little Miss Sunshine”.  Nick is awesome and so is that movie.  I’m glad he called because this week has been strange.  Tensions with the North, tensions between me and my coteacher, and 5th graders driving me up the wall today.  Uggghhhh.  I was doing fine and I lost control over them today.  Alex has been out of the class all week conducting English interviews with the kids.  I was all alone this week which was awesome till today.  Nothing was working.  I hate punishing kids that aren’t doing anything wrong, so I just ended up driving myself crazy.  Now i understand every time I had to come home and write some kind of “I will not” phrase 100 times.  There’s just no other option for teachers.  They don’t respect me since I can’t repremend them in their language and they probably say terrible things about me to my face. 

Less than 4 months. 

Anyone who really knows me knows how much of a dilemma I’m having right now. Blink is touring the states and I could be home in time to catch a performance by them in October, but I was kinda planning on traveling a bit on the way home from Korea. Trans-Siberian is out, they won’t pay for that.  I get compensated for my journey home OR journey to a nearer country.   I was considering a slight Euro trip, maybe see Prague and some German cities and visit a friend in Holland.  But the cheaper, much cheaper, option would be to go straight home, see family, and see Blink.  I’m completely torn.  I don’t know when or where they’ll tour again.  And of course Europe will always be there.  Everyone says to travel, but in my mind it almost seems like the Blink show is the smarter option.  Input, pllllllleeeease!!!!

This is will be my next step.