Last night in Thailand!!!

Sa wat dee ka, everyone. That means "hello" in Thai. I have yet to use it on a native because I'm really self-conscious. Chris said: Now you know how I feel when I try to speak Korean. Yes, well...

Anyway, we took a 6 hour bus ride back from Koh Chang. We left our bungalow around 9am, and waited on the side of the road for a passing taxi to pick us up. Luckily, we only had to wait about 3 minutes. However, we got stuck in Sunday traffic - everyone's trying to get on the ferry to go back to the mainland. It was so bad that we all ended up getting off and WALKING to the ferry with our luggage. Thankfully, it was only a 1.5 km walk, but still with the ever-present humidity it felt longer.... we were dripping in sweat and our shoulders ached from the weight of our baggage rubbing against our sunburns. :(

The ferry ride was about half an hour, and then we ate a late breakfast at the bus stop. We also had ice cream to cool down. Then, around 11:45am we boarded the bus and...we arrived back at Khao San Road a little after 6pm. -_- We should've gotten back sooner but our two rest stops ended up being half an hour each - I don't know what it is with Asians always shopping. At the first rest stop, practically every Thai person went grocery shopping.. it took forever for the bus to hit the road again.

And when we did, it started pouring which wasn't a big deal until the water started leaking from the overhead lights onto me. Some of the other passengers were also getting wet and we started using the curtains to catch the droplets. *sigh* However, the curtains would begin to sag with all of the water weight and begin to drip again. I couldn't even take a proper nap because water would randomly drip on my leg, arm, or head. I took out a plastic bag and used it to catch the water.

In addition, during the bus ride a foreigner started vomiting. Thankfully, he had a bag to catch it but then it started leaking...errr.. and then the smell started wafting over.. GAH. I really felt for the guy because of what I had to go through on the plane.. but at least I was able to make it to the bathroom. (Although, on the bus ride to the airport I puked in a bag as well -_-) Also, I think I was a little more sympathetic because I thought he was cute..hehe.

I mentioned earlier that we're sunburned. We went on a 4 island tour a few days ago and went snorkeling all day, so basically it's our backs that are burned. Mine isn't too bad; I'm more tan, but Chris is pretty red and he has sun blisters. :(

Well, soon we will walk around and enjoy the last night here in Thailand. Can't believe we've been away from home for over three months! I miss everyone, and everything. Chris and I always talk about which foods we want to eat when we get home. We've been really good at being up-to-date with the show Lost but we haven't been able to catch the past two weeks' episodes. So, on Wednesday night we'll have to watch those AND the two hour season finale. We already planned what to eat for dinner: buffalo chicken calzone with french fries from Spinner's. Haha..

Koh Chang, Thailand

Chris and I have been on Koh Chang since last evening. As usual, I have quite the story to tell... this one would pertain to the trip itself. I don't have time to relay all the details in this particular post because we're not going to be in the internet cafe for long. Chris really wanted to see if the Celtics, Sox, and Bruins had won their last games, and I needed to check my email and Facebook.

Okay, so the weather is the same ol': unbearably muggy and hot. Today, we actually had a thunderstorm and everyone vacated the beach. Chris and I returned to the water, along with a few others, to swim in the rain. But when it started downpouring, we left as well. I took a short nap in our bungalow, and when Chris said it was sunny again we went back to the beach to lay out. We're desperately trying to get color onto our pasty skin, but perhaps the SPF30 is too strong(?) When I went to Mexico on spring break last year, I burned because I used SPF4, so I thought I'd play it safe. I really want to get tan! My face is already, and my back is a little bit not enough. Many of the girls sunbathe topless, and after a while I took to it as well. Tan lines stink!

Tomorrow, we may take a day trip to 5 islands. I'm hoping that we get to have time to sunbathe - yes, I really want to get tan! We'll see if we do this.. we also rented a motor bike today. It's really fun and relaxing to cruise around an island. I feel like I'm in a movie or something. ^^

Well, we're here in Koh Chang until Sunday morning. Then, it's a 10 minute ferry ride to the mainland, and a 5-6 hour bus ride back to Bangkok. GAH... having fun (despite the infinite mosquito bites - oh my goodness, I have about 40 or so and Chris has 2), but can't wait to go home...

Bangkok, Thailand!

Another day, another scorcher. Chris and I arrived in Bangkok on Sunday evening around 6:50pm. The night before leaving, we had been out with a bunch of friends to hang out for the last time. Usually, Chris is the one that wants to stay out late and get drunk while I opt to go home early. However, it was the other way around this time. :(

We spent the day shopping in Myeongdong with Lisa, her friend from the states, and Ben. I bought a t-shirt for James, a shirt for Jen, and a few hair clips for myself. We also ate dak galbi for the last time - Chris's favorite food in Korea. It also began to rain while we shopped and the five of us crowded under Ben's huge umbrella for a bit before I discovered a discarded umbrella (I swear) from under a clothes rack and "borrowed" it. (Later, I returned it to the same spot when Chris said that someone may have been looking for it.) After shopping, Chris and Ben went to COEX Mall so Ben could get a birthday present for a friend and Chris wanted to look at guide books for Thailand. The rest of us, along with Ruth, went to Gangnam to meet my friend Hyung-woo. We went there and also met up with John - then, all of us went to go eat dinner at a galbi place. I had 3 or 4 shots of this red rice wine or something which wasn't strong. Then, we separated from Hyung-woo and I said I'd meet up with him later. We ended up going to Ben's apartment to get Gail's suitcase and transfer it over to Ruth's. Little did we know that this would take nearly two hours. We took the cab to Apgu to meet up with Ben and others, but we ended up leaving to go back to Gangnam. Outside a convenience store, we took several shots of soju (which I hate and should've been a sign for what was to come) and said farewell to Chris (he wanted to stay).

Gangnam - we ended up separating. I went with Hyung-woo and his friends, and the rest of the group said that we'd meet up later to drink. Olivia was also there and there were other people waiting for them. Hyung-woo knows, like everyone else, how much I despite soju so he got me a beer. Silly me, thinking "oh, this is my last day - I'll live it up" kept taking shots of soju and using the beer as a chaser. We ended up going to another bar where I knocked back more shots. The rest of the night is really fuzzy - I remember it being daytime (!) and saying good-bye, and all of a sudden Chris and I are walking with our luggage to the bus stop. Turns out, I got home after 6am where Chris let me sleep for a half hour while he packed up all our belongings (he forgot his Macbook charger, though). During this time, I also puked my brains out (sorry). I remember still being drunk on the bus ride to the airport and was holding a shopping bag Chris had given me in case I threw up again - which I did. Oh, and I threw up four times on the flight to Malaysia, and once more to Bangkok. I don't know how I survived those plane rides... the worst day of my life. I never want soju again.

Bangkok- we're staying at a decent guesthouse. The first night, we had stayed at a really low budget one where we had to throw water into the toilet to make it flush and there was an ant infestation - the floor was literally crawling and we kept having to flick them off our beds and shake them off our belongings! I have bug bites all over my legs and one on my back - why do bugs always like me?- from the ants or the mosquitoes, I don't know. We saw a lot of temples yesterday, and though we tried to drink often we were so dehydrated from sweating that we didn't have to use the bathroom once. :X

Today, we're going to the Floating Market which is about an hour away. Tomorrow, we leave for Koh Chang, an island that takes about 5 hours to get to. We're really excited - it's supposed to be really quiet and relaxing. Our bungalow is a one-minute walk from the beach.

All right, well, I should go now. We have yet to eat breakfast. It's just too hot to be in the mood to eat. Yesterday, we ate breakfast around 10 and didn't eat again until 6:30 or so. By the way, the food is delicious and really cheap.

Bye for now!

Gyeongju, South Korea

Happy Earth Day! Whenever it's a holiday or a some sort of special day, I like to go to Google to see what design they put up. I must say the ocean with its creatures and the green land with a waterfall is pretty.

It's always so hard for me to write a new post. I do have free time, but after all of the day's activities I'm usually too exhausted to rethink what I did and to attach photos. I do end up putting nearly all of the photos on Facebook, though -_-;;

Well, the trip to Jeju Island was fun, but tiring. We were part of a tour group so we had to wake up early (the first day I woke up at 6:30am!) and ride a bus full of middle-aged women, along with a tour guide yelling into the megaphone. The best part of the trip was when we walked along the beach for 45 minutes and we also got to go on a bumpy boat ride. We ended up going to a bunch of museums and shopping places since "ahjumas" tend to love to shop. We were stuck in rooms for up to half an hour at times while a salesperson tried to sell us roots, horse bone powder, and other things. And of course the ahjumas were whipping out their wallets to buy anything and everything. I wish we had seen waterfalls up close (we saw one from afar on the boat ride), hiked up Mt. Halla (our bus took us to 600 m.), and that we had gone on Mysterious Road. There is this road in Jejudo where it seems to defy gravity. Cars or anything else that go down seem to be going up. I really wanted to see this "phenomenon".  There is also a park called Loveland where couples go, but there are a lot of statues in erotic positions. There is even a rocking car with moaning noises coming from inside. So weird, especially in a country where people are really conservative about sex.

However, it was fun to hang out with my cousins and their friends. We went to dinner, and afterwards bought tons of snacks and beer to play card games. Chris and I taught them how to play casino blackjack and Circle of Death, and we also played hwa-tu, a Japanese card game using small red cards.

We actually left Seoul on the 11th. During that weekend, we went down to Yesan to see my aunt, cousins, and their friends. Sunday, the 12th, was the 5th annual Cherry Blossom Marathon and we ran it! There was the half, 10K, and the 5K - we did the 5K. Chris was first among our group and finished in 32 minutes or so. I was third with 40:33. I guess that's decent for not diligently jogging as I usually do back home. Chris and I were really pumped after participating in the 5K, and we look forward to doing more in the future. I'm sure Andover has one in the summer; it may be early fall, though.

After Yesan, Chris and I went to Gongju for three days, Buyeo for three, and Jeonju for three. In Jeonju, we stayed at Seunggwangje, a traditional guesthouse in the Hanok Village. The owner is the grandson of the last king of Korea; he's lobbying to partially restore the monarchy to get recognizance. Good luck to that... Jeonju was really fun. It's about three hours south of Seoul and is somewhat of a quiet city. Jeonju is known for their take on bibimbap, but I thought it was just okay - definitely overrated. I think mine just had too many bean sprouts and the vegetables to rice ratio was really off. My friend, Lisa, also lives there; she teaches high school Chemistry. She's going to come back home in July, but after she goes to England, Ireland, Germany, and France! Since we knew someone there, Lisa was able to take us out and we were able to meet a lot of her friends because it just so happened that girls from her sorority came down to Jeonju from different cities in Korea.

Now, we are in Gyeongju, a city that is close to the East Sea (or, the Sea of Japan). We have been here since Sunday night. It was a long 4-hour bus ride from Jeonju. -_- Right after we put our things in the room, we went out to eat. Gyeongju's an even quieter city than Jeonju. It's funny to say "quiet" because all of these cities are actually pretty big - Gyeongju's population is over 200,000 but it's all so spread out that it just seems like a big countryside until you get to the downtown area. Even there, it's nothing like Seoul; there are colleges nearby, but the streets always seem deserted. We didn't do much on Monday because it was pouring. We did walk around for awhile because we wanted to make the most of our stay but we ended up coming back because we were wet from sharing an umbrella. 

On Tuesday, we went to Tumuli Park, which is basically a park full of dead people. We wanted to go inside one of the tombs, but there was such a long line. Lately, everywhere we've gone, all of the places are crawling with elementary-age children. They're all taking field trips and it seems like the entire schools are coming along! There are just so many kids everywhere. It gets so loud, and Chris gets so annoyed when one of them yell out "hi!" to Chris for the millionth time. We left the park and walked to another one that has the famous observatory built during the 600s! We did a lot of walking, as usual, and went to Anapji Pond, the National Museum of Gyeongju, and took the long route back. I was so tired by then, but Chris wanted to go see another temple so I went home first.

Today, we woke up at 8:30 to get out earlier. We took the bus to Bulguksa, one of Korea's most visited, if not the most visited, temples. After walking around, we took a 2.2 km uphill hike to go to Seokgulam Grotto. This grotto has a statue of Buddha that is most revered in Asia, and a glass wall separates viewers from it because it being exposed to the elements for so long has damages it. Though when we saw it, it still looked pretty good. We saw why this statue is so famous because the chamber around it was all white stone and carved too. It was really nice to look at, but again, those zombie children were coming so we had to escape.

Now, we're back in our room and have been resting for an hour and a half. I've been reading Anywhere but Here by Mona Simpson. I was lounging in the common room a few days ago, and I saw this book so I took it to read. I'm flying through it - on page 283 already. During my stay here I've read Revolutionary Road, Neverwhere, one of the Calvin & Hobbes Anthology books, Pride & Prejudice, Nine Stories, and now this book. Pretty good considering we usually have a busy itinerary. 

All right, Chris is really hungry, and I guess I am too. We want to go find a galbi place which really won't be a challenge to find. We had fried chicken (again) last night. I can't get enough, and hey the last time I ate it was the last week in Seoul...

Jeju-do for the weekend!

For those of you that are wondering, Chris is well! He has regained his healthy(?) appetite. :) I apologize if some of the former posts alarmed any of you...I had just wanted to update people on what was going on.

Tomorrow, around 2pm, my cousins, their friends, Chris, and I are leaving to go to Jeju-do, or Jeju Island. Jeju is a small island off the southeast coast of Korea. It is the top honeymoon destination for South Koreans. Dong-jun, the guy I tutor, told me that the top three things Jeju is known for are: fish, women, and the wind. The women because they were the main breadwinners several decades ago. They would dive into the far depths of the sea to catch various sea creatures. This was a dangerous occupation because they would dive without proper scuba gear. Not too many women pursue this today, understandably.

I'm really grateful because this is actually an all-expense paid trip. My aunt arranged the itinerary which consists of a tour during the daytime, the flights, and the accomodations. Chris and I had been hopeful of going to Jeju-do, if we were able to financially, and now we are. I'll be sure to take a lot of pictures (I'm bringing an extra battery, a charger, and a power converter.) If you'd like to learn more about Jeju, there's always Wiki.

Have a great weekend!

Be careful what you eat!

So, it turns out that Chris's illness is food poisoning. I explained all of his symptoms to a guy that works at the guesthouse, and he proclaimed it to be food poisoning as he had suffered it last year by eating contaminated peanut butter. My research online confirmed this, as well. Poor Chris slept all day last Thursday without eating, or drinking, anything. Even a sip of water would send him running to the bathroom within minutes. Initially, we doubted it was food poisoning because Chris and I usually eat all of our meals together, and generally similar foods. Then, we discovered that Ben has been sick since last Wednesday as well; he had to keep going to the bathroom in between teaching and called out of work on Thursday. By the way, they met up for dinner last Saturday and ate pork - aha! It was probably undercooked or improperly handled. In any case, I'm really glad it's not me, but I feel bad for Chris. Even as I type this, and having consumed a breakfast of cereal and half an apple, he is laying in bed. He's probably lost more than five pounds, by now. If  you thought he was skinny before, well, let's just say you haven't seen anything yet. My parents stopped by a few days ago to go out for dinner and were shocked at his gaunt appearance. 

Hopefully, he's better by the time we go to Jeju-do on Saturday! My parents are there right now, and will return Tuesday evening. Then, we'll meet up on Wednesday to go shopping at Dongdaemun and eat dinner.

It was nice out yesterday - 50 degrees and sunny. We went to go lounge by the Han River with Ben, Jennifer, and Jessica. Apparently, half of Seoul had the same idea. A lot of people picnicking, biking, rollerblading, sunbathing, and doing all sorts of various activities. Has spring arrived? >.<>

R.I.P. Grandma

On March 24th around 6:30pm, I received a call from my aunt informing me that my grandmother passed away. I really wish my parents had arrived, at least, the day before so my mom could've seen her. The next day around 8am, my aunt called again to ask if I would be able to make it down to Cheonan that afternoon. Of course I'd be able to - I just needed to cancel a tutoring appointment and dinner plans. The problem was in honor of my friend Eunah's last day in Korea - she went back to Japan - Chris and I ended up going to bed at 7am. Surprisingly, I woke up at 12:30pm and Chris got up shortly afterwards, so we showered, grabbed breakfast, and took the train down.

The grieving process in Korean culture takes place for about three days. The first two are held at a place called a 'jang rae shik jang' which is sort of like a funeral home. This place has a small open room with the deceased person's portrait, white roses, incense, casket, and the sons standing by. The family members wear black of course, but the women wear a type of hanbok in a lighter fabric, I think muslin. Then, people stop by all day to eat food that is served, pay respects, drink (of course), gamble (eesh), and then leave. It's an exhausting three days, I can imagine. Chris and I were nodding off because we had gone to bed so late, but my poor aunt, cousins, and other family members had had very little sleep since guests keep coming up until around midnight and linger around to drink. I helped serve tables for a bit, but Chris was sitting by himself so I joined him. Eventually, an old man beckoned us over and made us drink. -_- Chris had to take six shots, and I got by with one (thank God). In Korea, you HAVE to drink even if you don't want to. Poor Chris.

The night was a long, noisy one. We tried to go to sleep in a separate room, but it was so noisy with people yelling and talking, and others coming in and out of the room. In addition, around midnight or so the family members turned on the light to use our room to count the money that people had donated. Korean culture has people paying their last respects by giving any amount of money to help pay for the funeral services. I think this is a really good tradition. Anyway, it was so difficult to sleep with people talking and counting and recording money while a guy operated a money counter. We were woken up around 6:30am to wash up, change, and eat. I wasn't really that hungry, but my parents had arrived(!) so I ate with them. Unfortunately, Chris is pretty sick. Again. Now he has an upset stomach, a slight fever, and is dizzy. We ended up coming home early and skipping the funeral. Chris also suggested taking a cab back from Seoul Station instead of taking the subway because he figured it'd be quicker, but it wasn't. Then, we got out a little too early and ended up walking back to the guesthouse getting soaked by the rain. *sigh Chris has been sleeping for about an hour now, and I've been using the Mac in the common room. What a gloomy day..... I hope my mom's okay, and that I get to see my parents tomorrow.