Singapore

Malaysia

Leaving Daegu

SO LONG DAEGU AND GOOD BYE!

Farwell Office Party

GIRLS...LET'S DO KAREOKE AFTER THIS!

I THINK THAT'S AN INTERESTING POINT OF VIEW

HAPPY TIMES

YOU TAKE MY BREATH AWAY

WILL YOU MARRY ME?

Downtown Saturday Night

The big night in Daegu is Saturday. A lot of people go out to eat, visit friends, and head downtown. It is always crowded and busy downtown on Saturday, as you can see from the video. I have also added some shots of Chilseoung market. Check them out on the left.

North Korea

Before we leave Korea we will be visiting the DMZ. This will be the last thing we do in Korea before leaving for Thailand. We were interested in doing a tour to North Korea, but decided against it because you are not permitted to actually observe the daily lives of the people. The tour has one purpose: to take tourists to see Geumgangsan Mountain, which every South Korean dreams of visiting at least once in their lifetime. The tour bus doesn't take you into town and only drops you off at the mountain and your hotel. The hotel is owned and managed by a South Korean Company (Hyundai) and resembles an all inclusive resort with shopping,golf,tennis etc. You never have to leave the industrial complex- good thing because it is forbidden. From what I read, its sounds like a little S. Korean micro-city transported to the mountains of North Korea. Too bad, we really wanted to visit N. Korea and see the contrast to S. Korea.

In December 2007, the N. Korean Government opened a tour to Kaesong City. It is quickly booked up.

I highly recommend looking at this link to see illegal photographs taken of North Korea by a Chinese tourist.
PicturesNorthKorea

Big Bang-Lies Koh Jid Mal

Lauren digs this song.

Big Bang - Farewell

Big Bang is a boy band here and all our little girls are in love with them. The middle school kids don't care for them that much.

Jewelry- One More Time

The little kids love this song. In the last scene the group does a dance move where they reach over their heads and touch both of their fingers together. Our students crack up everytime and say "baby one more time".

Hitting Students

Koreans have a different approach to disciplining kids at school. In the States teachers are not allowed to touch a student without getting slapped across the face with a lawsuit. Not the case here, I have personally seen my manager smack a middle school student for making a smart remark towards her. Korean discipline style varies from teacher to teacher but here are some common ways to shape up kids:

The head shot - I was wondering why my kids always say "head shot" in my class. It finally clicked when Heather (foreign teacher) asked her partner(a Korean teacher) about the crack in her red Bic pen top. Her partner said she cracked it when she pulled back her pen with her fingers and flicked a students head. Hence, the head shot! She said it was the third one she had broken that day. Heather asked "why do you do that?" Her reply was "Because they couldn't answer the question".

Standing - The Foreign teachers are trained to have their students stand up at their desks if they are misbehaving. The Koreans take this to a whole new level. Today, I saw a student in the hall holding his hands above his head. He was in front of the classroom window waiting for the teacher's permission to enter the room again.

The cheek pinch - After class, teachers grab their students cheeks and pinch them tightly as they yell at them.

Squats - the hall monitor makes the kids do squats with their hands out if they are acting up.

Re-test - This is the most feared punishment. It is a study room where students are sent if they fail a test. They must go to this room to master the lesson. They cannot leave until they have proven they have learned the material. Teachers can also send students to re-test for an hour if they speak Korean or are misbehaving.

Homework - This is the worst punishment and everyone gets it regardless whether or not they are good or bad. From now on, I will laugh at any student form North America that tells me they have too much homework. We have students at our Academy until midnight doing re-test because they failed their English tests.

The English Academy we work for gives about 4 hours of homework per week. This does not sound that bad, but you have to consider that academies are after school learning centers. The children have their normal school workload to do as well. Plus, on average, a Korean student goes to three different academies. The most popular academies are English, Math, Science, Japanese, Piano, and Chinese. Of course, English is by far the most popular. And on top of all this, they spend two Saturdays a month at school for four hours.

When we ask students what they want to do on Sunday or for their day off they all say "take a rest". Dana: "What do you mean take a rest, you don't want to play?!?!?" Students: "No, just take a rest and not study."

Nurse and Chicken Intestines

As we all know, in life there are highs and lows. Lauren and I had a real doozy of a low that blindsided us, knocked us on our backside, and left us down and low for three weeks. One cold winter night, Lauren and a space heater developed a close bond which resulted in weeks spent at the lovely Fatima hospital. Because she slept so close to the space heater, she had to battle an infection, get a skin graph, and recover from third degree burns far from the comfort of the United States. It was a difficult period - adjusting to hospital quarters(Lauren slept in a room with 5 other women), medical practices (Tylenol is considered a powerful painkiller), doctors(respect them and don't ask questions), and nurses. However, during that trying time we met and befriended a lot of good people including a small boy named Yong Han, Dr Hong, Dr Cho, and our adorable nurse Hibis.

We have stayed in touch with all of the medical staff after leaving Fatima, especially "OUR NURSE", as she is commonly referred to in our small group of friends. I mention Hibis because of the strange times we have shared with her. She is very lonely and is trying very hard to find a boyfriend. As a gesture of appreciation for taking such good care of her while in the hospital, Lauren promised Hibis that she would introduce her to some boys. On the first night we hung out with her, Hibis had a huge craving for chicken intestines and pushed us to eat them with her. We politely refused, even though she made it sound appetizing. The intestines are flavored in hot chili sauce and cooked in such a way that makes their walls crunchy and their insides chewy. Our refusal did not get us off the hook though, because the next time we hung out she was still craving those intestines! This time, however, I didn't disappoint her. She was exactly right, they are chewy but at the same time crunchy! I have a new love for intestines and last weekend we went out for dinner again and this time we had grilled pig intestines. I prefer chicken!

Spring Fever

You know it's spring in Korea when the Cherry blossoms are blooming. I took pictures of them near the park by our house. This is where all the old men hang out and gamble.

We have less than a month left in Korea so I have added some random pictures of Daegu. We are getting excited to leave but we will miss our country of residency for the past year and a half.

Fish Food

I have always been curious about the thought processes of the human brain. For example, how could the ideas of the water bed, the vacuum haircut, and the whoopee cushion possibly be conceived? How is it possible to envision such wild ideas? And how on Earth was it determined that using fungus eating fish would be an excellent way to clean feet? Did some genius's brain say "Hey body, here's an idea, put your foot in that fish bowl and see if they'll suck on your big toes!" This must have happened or otherwise we wouldn't have Dr. Fish Spa Books.

In Korea it is completely normal to visit with friends over a cup of coffee, maybe browse over some books, and if you have time dip your feet into a small pool of fish. That's right...for about two bucks you and your friends can spend quality time together getting your toes nibbled on by fish. That's if you can get past the idea of literally becoming human fish food. Lauren couldn't overcome the idea, but for Barry and me it was easy! We giggled like school children as slimy fish lips sucked the dead skin off our dirty little feet.

Lunar New Year Trip - It's the Year of the Rat

Trip around Korea for Lunar New Year. We are trying to get out more and see Korea before we leave. This trip took us up to Chunju, Danyang, and Suanbo. There is beauty in Korea, you just have to go out and find it, then crop out all the ugly parts in the picture.

Longest Commercial in History

Lauren's 30th Birthday

I am extremely late in updating the events that occurred for Lauren's BIG 30. I think Lauren handled her birthday well. The crying was limited because she had family and friends cheering her up with a number of wise-cracks and jokes. This helped make light of this melancholy birthday, she especially enjoyed her re-gift of the coffin with the black rose. Liz, nice return! I have never seen her laugh so hard.

We celebrated Lauren's birthday on the Saturday before January 15th with our friend Barry, who's birthday is just a few days before Lauren's. We left Barry's apartment around 8 after giving our gift to him, which was a skinny belt. Korea has been very good to Barry's waistline. We headed to The Holy Grill, which now serves a decent burrito. It is decent food, considering that the owner is Canadian and the Korean cooks have just learned how to make some tacos! We cut the birthday boy and girl's cake and started indulging in libations.

Berkley was the next stop -- this bar is owned by an elderly eccentric Korean who has a hairstyle similar to Albert Einstein’s. The name of the bar is fitting, like Berkley, California, the bar is very laid-back. There are a ton of cozy couches and a variety of chill music to be heard. This is by far Lauren's favorite bar in Daegu, ironically, it is also the only bar in town where you can get a bottle of white wine.

After meeting a few friends at Berkley, we decided to change the scene and headed to the military bar called Itaewon. This joint is notorious for fights breaking out and for the occasional head-butt from random guys. More often than not, these fights break out because you happen to be talking to someone else's girlfriend. I guess we were looking for some entertainment when we decided to go to Itaewon and lucky for us, we were not disappointed. At Itaewon we met a guy named Wolf and a guy who took his scooter a little too seriously. Plus, low and behold, a fight broke out!

Our next stop was, Old School. This joint is a popular watering hole of ours. They have an enormous projection screen that shows the latest music videos from the states and they serve 30oz steins for 3 bucks. We received an extra treat that night-a bunch of dudes with their shirts off, getting their freak on. Seeing that was the least of our problems, we were about to meet Chris, one of our managers at Moon Kkang. He is from Newfoundland and if you are Canadian, you know what they say about Newfies and if you're not, I will fill you in:

Newfoundland is a region known for its population of die hard drinkers and partiers. Once you have made contact with a Newfie, you are immediately held hostage and are forced to drink at their command.

By the time we met Chris it was 4am, our senses were already weakened, so our attempts to resist his invitations to eat were futile. And thus, we fell into the Newfie trap!

We walked what seemed like an eternity, then got into cab, and then walked some more before we arrived at the secret after hours Korean restaurant that never closes. Mind you, we were still in the presence of the Newfie so the Soju was flowing like water. Shortly after sitting down and having our first bottle of Soju, two large stew bowls arrived. From what I remember, it looked like someone hacked the spine of a cow in half and then threw them into a pot of boiling water with some veggies and red pepper paste. I picked at the bone for small chunks of meat with chopsticks, while Lauren starred at me with disgust.

The night wasn't over after our delicious meal because we were still in the Newfie's grasp. He invited us to his apartment to watch the sun rise over Daegu. It was there on top of his roof, looking over Daegu, that we ended Lauren's 30th birthday celebration.

Sky Jump Into 2008

We celebrated the final days of 2007 by jumping off of WooBang Tower. Guess who's idea this was? Every year Lauren tries to find new and exciting ways for me to lose my lunch. This year we walked out of a tower onto a steel platform and jumped 123 meters down to the ground.

We felt like stunt men when we changed into our flashy jump suits. Then we felt like celebrities because a small audience gathered to watch us make the plunge and children were cheering for us as we reached the bottom. It was a lot of fun and at the same time scary. The best part was watching Lauren dangle from a steel rope in mid air while saying "I'm scared".

Happy Belated Birthday Dana!!!

Dana's birthday was December 6th and here's how we celebrated the beginning of the end...well, the end of his twenties! For his birthday, I took him out to Outback (a major treat in Korea!). We had a nice meal and then I sneaked off to ask the waiter to bring out a slice of cake for his birthday! It took an awfully long while and I had to convince Dana that I wasn't feeling well...so we could stick around the restaurant. Eventually, the cake came, but not just one slice! The waiter actually ran down to a bakery down the street, bought an entire cake with candles and served it to us! It was so sweet!!! The staff then proceeded to sing Happy Birthday!!! They even took a picture of us and printed it out in a card -- the total royal treatment at ole Outback! After that, Dana got a mini party at work...with another cake!!! On Friday, we met Barry, Cass, and Barry's girlfriend up for some mexican food (another major treat in Korea!). Plus, he got another cake!!! So, 3 cakes and 2 homestyle meals!!! Not so shabby for partying in Daegu!

Muju Mountain

The only benefit of living in a cold country surrounded by mountains is, of course, the ability to ski in the winter. Around the first of December, the thought of skiing down a snow covered mountain fills us with excitement, which makes up for shivering every time we walk out the front door. However, during this same time period our brains start going into a hibernation and our ability to reason suffers. For some reason, we don't think it is going to be cold while we imagine ourselves racing down champagne powdered slopes. Doesn't it stand to reason that if we are cold in the city, then we will be much colder a couple thousand feet higher on top of windy mountain? Of course, you idiot, but that didn't stop us from going to Muju Mountain again this year.

We decided to take a day trip up to our local ski resort this past Saturday. It was a rough day that started with a 5am rivalee and it was followed by a 2.5 hour bus ride up to the mountain. We slept most of the ride up. After getting geared up, we took our first run down the baby slope to get warmed up and to get comfortable on skis again. We soon found out that the baby runs were as advanced as we were going to get for the day. There wasn't enough snow on the ground for them to open the lifts on top of the mountain. Depression soon set in upon this discovery, followed by numbness in Lauren's fingers and toes. To make things worse, it started snowing! There is only so much Lauren can take before she is warming up next to a fire in a lounge complaining about how much she misses Florida.

The Importance of Winning in Korea

The following is an email I received from a member of the Moon Kkang Reinforcement Staff:

Hi Everyone! Our Reinforcement Team has a new member again, his name is 'HYUK'.
He was a professional soccer player, so he didn`t study English very much.
However, he is currently studying English and will try his best.
If you have a chance to meet him, please give him a warm welcome.
Soon you will meet him on December 8th.
Anyways, take care of your health.
Enjoy your week Hyun ^^

The Reinforcements Staff's role is to help foreign teachers with housing and daily issues related with living in Daegu. It is obvious by the email that winning in the Daegu soccer tournament is extremely important to our employer. I feel he has hired a professional soccer player, solely, for the purpose of playing soccer. This winning attitude plays a huge part in Korean culture. GO MOON KKANG - FIGHTING!!!

Wonder Girls - Tell Me

If you catch me singing in class it is to this song. The kids love my moves!

Turkey Day

We had another Thanksgiving dinner in Korea without any turkey. We wanted to carve a 10 pound spam into the shape of a turkey, but the 10 pound cans were all sold out at Costco. No turkey, no cranberries, no squash, no stuffing, no spam - I'm sure your spread was much more enjoyable than ours. Just look at what we got served to us at our local restaurant. Please notice the hot dog on the grill - it was very depressing. We made light of the situation and joked about how it doesn't feel like Thanksgiving unless we have ours mothers home-cooked kimchi. You haven't lived until you've had my mom's kimchi on Thanksgiving!!

We also have a random video of a crazy street vender that caused a whole bunch of noise this morning. We could hear him from our apartment because he had his speakers turned up to full blast.

Space Bunnies and Witches are Sighted in Daegu

Halloween marks our one year anniversary in Korea. This time last year we had many questions running through our heads: Why is everything so confusing? Why am I shocked about our living standards? Why did we come to Korea in the first place? These questions can finally be answered now that we have immersed ourselves in Korea for a year. The answers are - I don't know!

Just because we are walking through life clueless doesn't mean we can't have fun, and our idea of fun is scaring people. We made it our mission on Halloween to scare as many Koreans as possible in a cultural exchange. We exchanged screams for laughs! Lauren, Heather (another teacher we work with), and I ransacked our supermarket for costumes. Fortunately, we came up with some good ones with the limited options. Lauren won first prize with her very scary witch costume. The character came naturally to her. Heather won second place. She had the kids running and screaming from her all day at school. It is sad to say, but I received last place. I couldn't decide if I wanted to be an alien or a bunny, so I fused them together and became a space bunny.

We had all the kids frightened at school because Koreans don't celebrate Halloween. They were all taken back by the experience, especially the little ones. My ears still hurt from the screams Lauren and Heather received. My kids just called me crazy and laughed at me, which isn't any different from a normal day at school.

I felt a bit inadequate because my costume wasn't scary, so I had to figure out a way to really scare the kids. I decided to abruptly fling open my fellow teachers doors while they were teaching class, yell at the top of my lungs and throw candy at their kids. It worked like a charm and all of the kids and teachers jumped out of their shorts! I was also able to scare the devil out of Lauren and her kids as well.

After school we went to our corner store to scare the owner, Mina. I don't know what scared her the most: jumping out and screaming at her, the way we looked, or thinking that she was about to get robbed.

We continued our night of horror by jumping and screaming at unsuspecting Koreans. As a result of our night, I mastered a surprise attack technique. I quietly sneaked up to people and looked over their shoulder with my alien mask. This technique almost got me in a fight, but it was well worth it because the screams from innocent Korean girls were well off the Richter scale. Hehehehehe....HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

How We Survived Japan With a 7 Day JR Pass

PLAY THE BELOW VIDEO BEFORE READING




Japan- the land of the rising sun. Been there, saw it rise, and survived! That's because we were up before the sun, chasing down trains. It was a mad dash to see how much of Japan two people could possibly squeeze in a course of seven days. Well, the answer is "a lot" and we were only equipped with a Japan Rail pass, an outdated Lonely Planet, and two bad senses of direction.

We started off the trip in Pusan, a port town an hour away by train from where we live. We did the research and found it more economical to take the ferry to Fukuoka, Japan rather than flying into Tokyo, so we set off to fight the high seas. The Sea of Japan was a little too rough the day we left, which made Lauren second guess our decision to take the ferry. Our boat rocked back and forth as it crashed through 6 foot swells, which caused Lauren to turn blue and green in the face. She spent the entire ride next to a trashcan waiting to revisit her breakfast. Three hours later we reached Japan.

We noticed a clear difference in our setting upon landing in Japan. There weren't anymore more Kias on the streets, just Toyotas! Joking aside, there was a huge difference in scenery. Everything seemed orderly, the streets were new and clean, the architecture was simple, and there was no garbage to be found. Plus, everyone was so polite and courteous. We didn't stay in Fukuoka long because it was just a starting point for us. We only stayed the night in Fukuoka because the ferry trip included a 1 night hotel with the package. We used our time in Fukuoka to acquire our JR passes and to let Lauren recover from her seasickness.


The next morning our intense schedule began. We rose with the sun at 6:00 am with high spirits and a need to cram as much sightseeing in as possible. We left Fukuoka and hopped on a train to Hiroshima to visit the site where the atomic bomb was dropped. I must be a masochist to have put myself through the painful sight of such a horrific tragedy and a sadist to make Lauren come with me. The museum left its visitors with a powerful message - stop the use of nuclear warfare.

We left Hiroshima and sought out a hotel in Kyoto. This was the beginning of our navigation problems. Lauren was at the helm and I was no help to her! Kyoto is the second largest city in Japan and has a labyrinth of streets with Japanese street signs. Just to let everyone know, we didn't take an introductory Japanese language course before we left, so Japanese street signs were useless to us. Add to the equation an outdated Lonely Planet, two headstrong individuals being completely confused, and the result is a lot of choice words thrown at each other. Here are some examples: "You just don't listen to me!", "I don't know, you figure it out!", "I told you I was right!" and "No, it's this way!". We eventually settled into a Japanese style hotel that cost about 70 bucks. The English translation for a Japanese style room is a 10x10ft straw matted room with two blankets and two pillows. The room doesn't include a bathroom or a shower because you have the pleasure of sharing those amenities with the rest of the hotel guests. These things don't bother us anymore, because we have been living in Asia for so long, but it was the price that got my goat.

The highlight of Kyoto was seeing the geishas. They are like celebrities so everyone stops to take pictures of them. We were walking down a small street in old Kyoto when we saw a crowd gather outside a building where a taxi was idling. Curiosity got the best of us and we began staring at the door waiting for something to happen. The crowd grew larger in size and finally a geisha appeared. It turned out that we were waiting outside a geisha house and that the taxi was there to chauffeur her off to a client. It was pretty cool to see. I started thinking about how honor is perceived in Japanese society and how only their culture could make prostitution an honorable profession.

The next leg of the trip will be called "Flying Monkey, Running Deer, and the Evil Castle". I'm starting to realize that Lauren just wants to go to the circus on vacation because that is what the next part of our trip felt like. We headed to Nara to go to the world's oldest petting zoo. The deer in Nara are considered sacred and are free to roam the grounds. They just hang out and get fed by tourists who go to see temples, museums, and Japanese gardens. What a cushy life! I can honestly say I have never seen so many tame deer in my life and been so close to them. However, there were manicured gardens and temples in the background, which made it a perfect day in Japan.

After the deer in Nara, we went to Matsumoto to see a castle. This castle has weathered over 400 years of hardships. However, it has never been attacked. We got a tour from a retired volunteer who was more that eager to use his English. He chased us down and insisted that we take a tour with him. I was on my guard and refused the tour, but Lauren accepted. It turned out that he didn't want any money and just wanted to help out, which really confused me. You wouldn't be able to tell that he wasn't getting paid by the way he ran to get his bag and then ran back to meet us. You could really feel the Japanese willingness to help.


Finally, the monkeys- we can't visit a new country without seeing a monkey. We headed up to the highlands of Japan to see crazy monkeys in Yudanaka. It was a change of pace, things moved slower, and we got a break from our hectic traveling schedule. The best part of our Yudanaka trip was the country feel we got from the town and enjoying the hotel spa. We were traveling in the slow season so there was only one other guest staying with us and the lodge owner's dog. It felt good just to relax up in the mountains with our new monkey friends and the owner's dog. LIVE MONKEY CAM

After chillin' with the monkeys, we made a brief stop to see a ninja museum and walked through a forested path to a temple in Togakushi. Our next stop was the bright lights of Tokyo. We arrived in Tokyo at night with no accommodation. Not a good idea! We were exhausted and needed a beer, so we stopped at a British pub for a drink to discuss our sleeping arrangements. The best solution, that we came up with over a few drinks, was a love motel. These "hotels" can be rented by the hour or by the night between the hours of 10PM-9AM. There was nothing lovely about this hotel at all. A key was handed to me through a small window and I was told to check out by 9am. We felt disgusted, but it was cheap and we only needed a place to crash for five hours because we were going to see the fish market in the morning. I still can't believe Lauren didn't scream more than she did!


We were anxious to leave in the morning so we quickly showered the filth off of us and ran out of the love shack (I think I remember throwing the key at the desk attendant). We were also in a hurry because according to Lauren we were going to miss the morning fish arrival at the market. She was screaming at me to move faster at six in the morning, "We are going to miss the fish, HURRY UP, all the fish come in before 7am!" Please keep in mind that I don't function well in the morning, especially in a foreign country with only 4 hours of sleep under my belt, but somehow she got me moving. From what I recall from my dazed sleep walk, we were hopping on trains left and right. Lauren was like Rainman with a map! We were getting on a blue train, then a red train, and then we got on a completely different rail system with more colored trains. It was very confusing and the whole time I was thinking that the map looked like a really complicated mathematical matrix - it could give a rocket scientist a headache. I already had a headache because Lauren kept on saying "We aren't going to make it, the fish stop coming at 7:00 am, HURRY UP OLD MAN!" It turns out that the best time to see the market is before 8 am. I could have killed her!


We walked the streets of Tokyo the rest of the day in search of the Sony building, the Leica gallery, a sushi restaurant, and a cafe. We found all them with ease besides the Leica gallery. The problem with using an outdated travel guide is that sometimes you end up looking for places that have moved locations or gone out of business. The Leica gallery had moved locations and a few more choice words were said that afternoon while we tried finding a place that was no longer on the map. The same problem happened two days earlier in Matsumoto, but that time the hotel we were looking for at midnight, had gone out of business. We went searching for other hotels in the area, but the map in the Lonely Planet was terrible. We didn't check into the Ace hotel located right next to the train station we arrived at until 2am. I want those 2 painful hours back from my life Lonely Planet!

We spent our last night in the big city near Ueno and went out to a Turkish restaurant. Why were we eating Turkish food in Japan? I have no clue, but I am glad we did because I never laughed so hard in my life. The owner was half Japanese/half Turkish (1/2 Japanese + 1/2 Turkish = full entertainer). We all sat on the floor and got served a meal that could feed an army. Everyone in the restaurant paid a flat fee of 2,000 yen and then the food started arriving. There was Turkish salad, Uzbekistan salad, dates, pickled mango, regular pickles, olives, beef soup,a whole chicken, beef triangles, fish, bread, tea, yogurt, Turkish delights, etc.. The owner would head into the kitchen and come back bearing a tray full of food. He must have come back with ten different courses before we had to start refusing him because we were too full. To top the night off, there was also belly dancing. We left early and he was still serving up more food.

We stopped by a random pub before heading back to our hotel. It became the climax of our evening because it was so unique and inviting. It was smaller than a walk in closet and there were three local DJ's hanging out inside together. The guys looked like they were in their late 20's or early 30's, but the music started playing and their true age was revealed. We were rocking out to the sounds of Unlimited Touch, Billy Ocean, Robbie Dupree, and Gino Soccio. May disco live on forever!

That concludes our trip to Japan. We spent the whole next day traveling back home. Oh wait..I wanted to get a glimpse of Mt. Fuji but the clouds were to thick, making it impossible to see in the town of Fuji. Guess we have to go back now.

Funniest part of the trip: Lauren saying "I can't figure out the toilet, it is too confusing, their are too many Japanese buttons to push"

The tune to our trip: "We fought Japan and Japan won!" (sung to the tune of "I fought the law and the law won".)

Most unusual part of the trip: Sitting at a street vendor restaurant eating cow tongue.

Happy Chuseok in China

We are back from Beijing after spending 5 days of touring. Here are the things that I liked about the trip:
1) The Great Wall of China.
2) Sleeping in a bed that doesn't have metal springs piercing into your back. The beds at Loong Palace Hotel felt like fluffy clouds on my back. Plus, they had complementary white robes.
3) Having water pressure in my shower again!
4) Meeting a traveling Irish couple that we shared countless laughs and drinks with. Thank you truck drivers of America for all the dirty jokes you taught me while I worked at C.H. Robinson. They finally came in handy - Irish people thought they were funny, but then again, they did laugh at Lauren's rat poison joke.
5) The Courtyard Restaurant where I ate the halibut and Lauren had the giant prawns. The Lonely Planet can be deceiving, especially when it comes to it's choices of restaurants. We went into the Courtyard Restaurant expecting a casual setting with reasonable prices. We didn't think much about our clothes, obviously, we were wearing flip flops and T's. Imagine our surprise when we sat down and saw all the rich business men seated with their arm candy, dressed in suits and evening dresses. Talk about feeling out of place! Here is a more accurate description of the Courtyard Restaurant found on the Internet: Previously rated as one of the top 50 restaurants in the world by Conde Naste magazine, The CourtYard has a heralded reputation in Beijing as a first-class dining establishment. It is certainly designed to impress, making it ideal for a romantic rendezvous or important business dinner.
6) The Lebanese restaurant Lauren, Barry, Olivia, and I ate at after a night of high pressure bargain shopping. It was a strange feeling to be surrounded by middle eastern business men smoking hookahs, eating baklava and hummus, while sitting outside on a street patio in downtown Beijing. In my best Konglish "Very Strangey".

The worst things about the trip:

1) The tour that we eventually dipped out on. If you want to feel like a sheep in a heard (Baaaaa)- Join a tour to Beijing with 200 hundred of your closest friends.
2) The annoying tour guide that said "Yeah Yeah" after every sentence.
3) Canadian flags on backpacks. Dude, we get it....you're Canadian. You don't need to put five different Canadian flag patches on your backpack.
4) Trying to find contact solution in Beijing. We had a staff of 4 Korean people working on it, who would then each ask two Chinese hotel staff, who would in turn try to find someone who spoke English. After a taxi ride to 2 different pharmacies, I eventually struck gold at an optometrist, which luckily was still open after midnight.

The funniest thing I heard on the trip:

Chinese people will eat everything with 4 legs besides a table, everything with 2 legs besides a human, and anything that flies besides an airplane. We are glad that we saw China while living so close the it.

We really enjoyed seeing one of only two man-made ojects visible from space. We had good weather, watching the city prepare for the Olympics was cool (Shaina and Shaun- the swimming pool was a trip to see), being in a luxury hotel felt amazing, and we had a lot of laughs with friends and friends we met on the way.

What To Do On A Rainy Day

Across the street, there is a carport, which is covered by a large apartment building. I mention this carport because there is always some kind of daily activity going on there when I look out my window each day. During the hot summer months, the elderly sit on their mats, play cards, and watch their grandchildren. It must be too hot in their apartments to sit inside all day while everyone else is at work. Well today, they picked up a new activity to do -cleaning chili peppers. What else is there to do on a rainy day?

New Music

Top Korean Pop Song

Click the link above. This song is really popular right now. We call it the "Canary Song" because it reminds us of two singing birds in a cage competing for the loudest voice.

Which Way to Gatbawi?

The weather here in Korea has been less than desirable. We haven't had a day without showers since September started. However, this weekend we finally had a break. The skies cleared and the sun started shinning again, so we took it as an omen to go hiking.

We hiked up Gatbawi to pay our respect to Buddha for answering our prayers - thank you, the rain has stopped. Legend has it that this Buddha hears at least one prayer from each individual, so it is worth the 850 meter hike up. Our legs don't agree because they are still aching with pain. It was a long hike up but it was fun being outside on a crisp fall day.