Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Big Adventures in Small-Scale Farming...
The view from where I sit? From my current location at the dining table of a 29’ travel trailer parked on a small hill – I see tall cedar and pine trees and beyond that, a lush green pasture backed by a small mountain. There are several such mountains on all sides of Ranfurly Farm, nestled in Turtle Valley, near Chase, British Columbia - our new home for the next 5 months.
We (Derek and I) arrived here from Calgary AB around 5:30 pm on Thursday, May 3rd, following a marathon 4-day road trip across the country to get here (Day 1 – Thunder Bay, ON to Winnipeg, MB; Day 2 – Winnipeg, MB to Saskatoon, SK; Day 3 – Saskatoon, SK to Calgary AB; Day 4 – Calgary, AB to Chase BC). After a whirlwind month of moving, packing and preparing for this farming adventure, the trip was actually a nice break in a way. When we would reach out destination in the evening, we could actually relax a little, not run down another “to do” list or complete a few hours of chores. We had the pleasure of staying with Derek’s relatives in Saskatoon and Calgary, who fed us wonderful meals and gave us a comfy place to lay our weary bodies down for the night. Even Mokah, my finicky cat, seemed grateful and at ease in their homes.
On Day 4 of the trip, Derek let me be a passenger most of the day so that I could enjoy seeing the Rockies for the first time without crashing the car because I couldn’t keep my eyes on the road. We’d had gray, rainy weather for most of the trip, but thankfully it cleared up enough for us to have some great views of the snowy peaks and rushing rivers of western Canada. We saw mountain goats, deer and a large black bear on our way to our final destination.
Words could not express the relief we felt when we arrived. Mostly, because we were shocked that we had actually arrived. We could hardly think at all except to unpack our bags and know that we did not have to get up and drive anywhere the next day. We probably looked and seemed like zombies but our hosts warmly greeted us and fed us a delicious dinner of beef curry /w chick peas and homemade cheese. It was the perfect meal for the end of a long journey.
Derek and I have decided to jointly blog about our new adventure on a new blog. You can follow our journey at: http://woeaydt.blogspot.ca/
I may periodically post here still, but the majority of our new farming adventure will be there. :)
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Unremarkable day...
I overslept this morning. And struggled to wake up from a nightmarish dream about travelling, ice-tunnels caving in on us in the sewers of Italy (and nobody could help us because they didn't speak english), hippies stealing hemp hats from a eco-thrift store, accidentally smashing a patio-door I borrowed from someone (???) and movers ruining furniture (also borrowed from someone). I get anxiety nightmares before a major change happens. Leaving Korea in 6 weeks means they'll just keep getting weirder.
Today for lunch we had chop-chae sausage, egg and onion soup, spam fried rice and 3 kinds of kimchi, with unripe peach sections for dessert.
My classes went excellently. I'm still stunned by how well behaved my classes have been this week. Sometimes a simple lesson plan is the best lesson plan I guess.
It's been raining on and off all day. Right now, it's raining so hard outside that the rain itself is creating a breeze. I love it. But, it's a bad day to forget your umbrella at home (which I did).
Today for lunch we had chop-chae sausage, egg and onion soup, spam fried rice and 3 kinds of kimchi, with unripe peach sections for dessert.
My classes went excellently. I'm still stunned by how well behaved my classes have been this week. Sometimes a simple lesson plan is the best lesson plan I guess.
It's been raining on and off all day. Right now, it's raining so hard outside that the rain itself is creating a breeze. I love it. But, it's a bad day to forget your umbrella at home (which I did).
Monday, January 25, 2010
Sabah, So Good!
Selemat Petang! Wow - time flies! Already so far behind in the blogging!
I'll try to update you as best I can on how we spent the last few days we had in Sabah, the eastern province of Borneo, Malaysia. I'll save the recent excursion to Miri & Mulu National Park for the next entry.
Our second full day in Borneo was a full day indeed. Because of the wet weather (see previous entry) we decided to for-go a two day hike up Mt. Kinabalu and opted for the less exciting, but convenient day trip offered by most of the tourist operators in the area. The tour took us, a middle-aged Japanese man, and a family from India with two adorable little ones in a groaning minivan up into the Kinabalu mountains (and the clouds) before going into the park's Botanical gardens for an informative introduction to rain forest flora. After which we enjoyed a tasty Malaysian lunch before driving to the Poring Hot Springs for a fantastic walk through the rain forest canopy via a suspended walkway. Then AA, SB and I took a dip in the hot spring tubs. By mid-afternoon the rain had moved into the mountains and we spent most of the 1.5 hour drive home slowly winding along the mountain roads covered by clouds. When we arrived back in the city, we hit up an Italian restaurant across the street from our hostel for some fantastic thin-crust pizza (I'm on a vacation from Korean food, not Canadian, after all).
The next day was the big highlight of our short time in Sabah. We were pick up early by Mini-van and drove 3 hours through the stunning countryside to the tiny town of Tenom, where we got on an old rickety train to get to the launch point for white water rafting on the Padas river! The course boasts level III and IV rapids, but thanks to all the rain the day before, the guides advised us that we would actually be navigating level IV and V rapids instead. In the minivan, the only folks who appeared to be rafting were the three of us and Ronnie, our guide. The other men in the van were simply catching a ride to Beaufort en route. However, when we arrived at the train station in Tenom we were joined by 40 Brunei soldiers on an Adventure Training course (a break from their usual boot camp routine). Needless to say, we were a popular addition to the group. The muddy Padas river was all riled up from the rain and after some brief safety instruction and strapping into our jackets and helmets, we hit the river. It was the most exciting, heart-pounding experience of my life. Our raft capsized once in a really tough section of rapid, only Ronnie managed to stay in the boat. Most of my raft members resurfaced close to raft and scrambled back inside quickly. However me and one of the soldiers found ourselves quickly being swept down river away from the boats, struggling to hang on to our paddles and figure out which direction our boat was in. We followed Ronnie's urgent advice to swim right toward the bank and it wasn't long before we were back in the boat and back in business. We rafted for about an hour and a half before stopping in a (relatively) calm stretch for lunch at a stilt-home of faded clapboard. Toddlers chased puppies and chickens around the grounds while we chowed down on some delicious home-made Malay food. It was exactly the break (and fuel) we needed before we went back out on the river to finish the course. Our second time round, our team seemed to hit our stride, navigating the rapids with more confidence and grace than the first time round. Near the end of the course, the river calmed significantly and we were able to hop into the river for swimming/body rafting. I climbed out of the raft onto the bank thoroughly soaked on rubbery legs and feeling elated.
(I'm sorry, I have to interrupt the narrative here for a moment: Korea has been following me everywhere on this trip! K-pop has just started blaring in this cyber cafe - the group 2NE1 for those of you who know who that is, if you don't just Youtube 'em - which reminds me that I forgot to tell you about the 100 or so Korean tourists who managed to find us on Mamutik island. They were impossible to miss - all wearing matching baby pink polo shirts and big sun-visors and staying far away from the beach. Oh gawd, why? Instead they blared bad Korean music, Noraebonged and played coordinated group clapping/towel waving games on a green space near the public toilets...oh Korea, if you're going to follow me all the way to a beach in frikkin' Malaysia, at least try to enjoy it! We've also met folks from Korea at nearly every stop - though thankfully they are the more adventurous type!)
Anyways, we all made it out of the river alive, feeling fantastic. We had another rocking, rickety train ride to Beaufort I believe and then a shorter ride back to KK. One of the guides of the trip, Angelo, rode with us and AA and I really enjoyed chatting with him about his rafting experiences, and some Sabah environmental and political issues.
Arriving back in KK, we debated about heading out to see some of the nightlife (which would include partying with those Brunei soldiers, a few happened to be staying at the same Hostel as us) or getting up real early to catch the ferry to Brunei. We wound up doing neither. The plan to go to Brunei got kaiboshed when I did a little online research around 1am and found it really difficult to find availability to Mulu National Park in Sarawak, a fly-in only location which we were really looking forward too. We decided it would be better to stay in KK at least one more day and get that part of the trip sorted out, rather than delay booking it and miss the opportunity. So we weighed our options, talked to a few airlines and managed to get some flights but they meant taking a flight to Miri in Sarawalk that night. So we're skipping Brunei this time. To be honest, we were mostly going for the stamps in our passports and since Brunei is quite a bit more expensive than the rest of Borneo, we felt it was better to spend that cash in Sarawak where we would get the most out of it. After all the tickets were bought, it was still only lunch time, so we grabbed some grub and our bathing suits and hopped on a speedboat to Sapi Island, another island part of the same park as Mamutik. This island had much better snorkelling and assortments of fish! I still had the bottle of fish food (re: breadcrumbs) from Mamutik and had blast starting a literal feeding frenzy around me in the bright teal water. (You'll love the video, once I get it posted!) Amanda and I took a short hike through the interior of the island to the other side, where we enjoyed a fantastic view of the sea stretching out to the horizon. Then we headed down to the abandoned beaches of the island accessible by hiking trail, but not by boats. We found several fresh monitor lizard tracks in the sand. And a few hops and scrambles-over-rocks later, we found 3 of those giants slowly lumbering across the sand. Two of them quickly slipped behind some rocks and into the forest (I'm sure they'd heard us coming a mile away), but a slowpoke patiently waited in the sand for us to go by (we had to go waist deep into the water to give him his space, we didn't feel like testing how aggressive monitor lizards are). We caught our speedboat back to the jetty at 5 pm, enjoyed a dinner of delicious Arabic food on the wharf and finally got to watch a spectacular KK sunset, which all our guidebooks had raved about, but we'd seemed to miss every night so far. As the brilliant golds and oranges began to fade into magenta and purple hues we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and head to the airport.
As our plane lifted off, I felt reluctant to go. I know that Sabah has so much more to offer, so much to see and do that we simply couldn't get to because of time and budget constraints. It's definitely on my list of places to return to. Kota Kinabalu turned out to be a great base-camp for our day-trip excursions and a good introduction to Malaysia, a great place to get our feet wet (Literally and figuratively). At the same time, I was so eager to get to Miri and head on to Mulu National Park - we had seen so little of the Borneo rain forest, soon we would be flying into the heart of it!
I'll try to update you as best I can on how we spent the last few days we had in Sabah, the eastern province of Borneo, Malaysia. I'll save the recent excursion to Miri & Mulu National Park for the next entry.
Our second full day in Borneo was a full day indeed. Because of the wet weather (see previous entry) we decided to for-go a two day hike up Mt. Kinabalu and opted for the less exciting, but convenient day trip offered by most of the tourist operators in the area. The tour took us, a middle-aged Japanese man, and a family from India with two adorable little ones in a groaning minivan up into the Kinabalu mountains (and the clouds) before going into the park's Botanical gardens for an informative introduction to rain forest flora. After which we enjoyed a tasty Malaysian lunch before driving to the Poring Hot Springs for a fantastic walk through the rain forest canopy via a suspended walkway. Then AA, SB and I took a dip in the hot spring tubs. By mid-afternoon the rain had moved into the mountains and we spent most of the 1.5 hour drive home slowly winding along the mountain roads covered by clouds. When we arrived back in the city, we hit up an Italian restaurant across the street from our hostel for some fantastic thin-crust pizza (I'm on a vacation from Korean food, not Canadian, after all).
The next day was the big highlight of our short time in Sabah. We were pick up early by Mini-van and drove 3 hours through the stunning countryside to the tiny town of Tenom, where we got on an old rickety train to get to the launch point for white water rafting on the Padas river! The course boasts level III and IV rapids, but thanks to all the rain the day before, the guides advised us that we would actually be navigating level IV and V rapids instead. In the minivan, the only folks who appeared to be rafting were the three of us and Ronnie, our guide. The other men in the van were simply catching a ride to Beaufort en route. However, when we arrived at the train station in Tenom we were joined by 40 Brunei soldiers on an Adventure Training course (a break from their usual boot camp routine). Needless to say, we were a popular addition to the group. The muddy Padas river was all riled up from the rain and after some brief safety instruction and strapping into our jackets and helmets, we hit the river. It was the most exciting, heart-pounding experience of my life. Our raft capsized once in a really tough section of rapid, only Ronnie managed to stay in the boat. Most of my raft members resurfaced close to raft and scrambled back inside quickly. However me and one of the soldiers found ourselves quickly being swept down river away from the boats, struggling to hang on to our paddles and figure out which direction our boat was in. We followed Ronnie's urgent advice to swim right toward the bank and it wasn't long before we were back in the boat and back in business. We rafted for about an hour and a half before stopping in a (relatively) calm stretch for lunch at a stilt-home of faded clapboard. Toddlers chased puppies and chickens around the grounds while we chowed down on some delicious home-made Malay food. It was exactly the break (and fuel) we needed before we went back out on the river to finish the course. Our second time round, our team seemed to hit our stride, navigating the rapids with more confidence and grace than the first time round. Near the end of the course, the river calmed significantly and we were able to hop into the river for swimming/body rafting. I climbed out of the raft onto the bank thoroughly soaked on rubbery legs and feeling elated.
(I'm sorry, I have to interrupt the narrative here for a moment: Korea has been following me everywhere on this trip! K-pop has just started blaring in this cyber cafe - the group 2NE1 for those of you who know who that is, if you don't just Youtube 'em - which reminds me that I forgot to tell you about the 100 or so Korean tourists who managed to find us on Mamutik island. They were impossible to miss - all wearing matching baby pink polo shirts and big sun-visors and staying far away from the beach. Oh gawd, why? Instead they blared bad Korean music, Noraebonged and played coordinated group clapping/towel waving games on a green space near the public toilets...oh Korea, if you're going to follow me all the way to a beach in frikkin' Malaysia, at least try to enjoy it! We've also met folks from Korea at nearly every stop - though thankfully they are the more adventurous type!)
Anyways, we all made it out of the river alive, feeling fantastic. We had another rocking, rickety train ride to Beaufort I believe and then a shorter ride back to KK. One of the guides of the trip, Angelo, rode with us and AA and I really enjoyed chatting with him about his rafting experiences, and some Sabah environmental and political issues.
Arriving back in KK, we debated about heading out to see some of the nightlife (which would include partying with those Brunei soldiers, a few happened to be staying at the same Hostel as us) or getting up real early to catch the ferry to Brunei. We wound up doing neither. The plan to go to Brunei got kaiboshed when I did a little online research around 1am and found it really difficult to find availability to Mulu National Park in Sarawak, a fly-in only location which we were really looking forward too. We decided it would be better to stay in KK at least one more day and get that part of the trip sorted out, rather than delay booking it and miss the opportunity. So we weighed our options, talked to a few airlines and managed to get some flights but they meant taking a flight to Miri in Sarawalk that night. So we're skipping Brunei this time. To be honest, we were mostly going for the stamps in our passports and since Brunei is quite a bit more expensive than the rest of Borneo, we felt it was better to spend that cash in Sarawak where we would get the most out of it. After all the tickets were bought, it was still only lunch time, so we grabbed some grub and our bathing suits and hopped on a speedboat to Sapi Island, another island part of the same park as Mamutik. This island had much better snorkelling and assortments of fish! I still had the bottle of fish food (re: breadcrumbs) from Mamutik and had blast starting a literal feeding frenzy around me in the bright teal water. (You'll love the video, once I get it posted!) Amanda and I took a short hike through the interior of the island to the other side, where we enjoyed a fantastic view of the sea stretching out to the horizon. Then we headed down to the abandoned beaches of the island accessible by hiking trail, but not by boats. We found several fresh monitor lizard tracks in the sand. And a few hops and scrambles-over-rocks later, we found 3 of those giants slowly lumbering across the sand. Two of them quickly slipped behind some rocks and into the forest (I'm sure they'd heard us coming a mile away), but a slowpoke patiently waited in the sand for us to go by (we had to go waist deep into the water to give him his space, we didn't feel like testing how aggressive monitor lizards are). We caught our speedboat back to the jetty at 5 pm, enjoyed a dinner of delicious Arabic food on the wharf and finally got to watch a spectacular KK sunset, which all our guidebooks had raved about, but we'd seemed to miss every night so far. As the brilliant golds and oranges began to fade into magenta and purple hues we headed back to the hostel to pick up our bags and head to the airport.
As our plane lifted off, I felt reluctant to go. I know that Sabah has so much more to offer, so much to see and do that we simply couldn't get to because of time and budget constraints. It's definitely on my list of places to return to. Kota Kinabalu turned out to be a great base-camp for our day-trip excursions and a good introduction to Malaysia, a great place to get our feet wet (Literally and figuratively). At the same time, I was so eager to get to Miri and head on to Mulu National Park - we had seen so little of the Borneo rain forest, soon we would be flying into the heart of it!
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Coming at Ya from Borneo Malaysia!!!
Hey All - I guess I spoiled the surprise, but I'm writing to you from Malaysia!!! Yesterday we (Amanda A, hereafter AA, and Shari B, hereafter SB) flew from Seoul to Kota Kinabalu, the capital city of the Sabah province of Borneo Malaysia. The plan is to travel west from here through Brunei and the Malaysian province of Sarawak, then hop on a boat or a plan to Singapore and explore some of Peninsular Malaysia. Well that's the first 3 weeks. I'm splitting off from the girls in Kuala Lampur to fly to Chiang Mai Thailand, for a week at Elephant Nature Park (you may recall me gushing about this place last year).
Now I realize that my last entry ended in November. I've decided I'm not going to write up a huge thing about December/New Years. One of my goals for the New Year was to update this blog more frequently, therefore have shorter entries, easier for ya to digest. A comment I just had from my mom confirms this as a good idea. Here's the highlights from the end of 2009:
- weekend Christmas shopping in Seoul (ate 2.5 feet of subway sandwiches while there, I'm not ashamed!)
- finals at school + Christmas holidays coming up = lots of watching "Merry Christmas Mr. Bean" and singing carols in the classroom
- had a REAL turkey dinner at Jodie and Stephen's place with a few friends, soo soo good!
- Skyped with family back home
- toured around SK with my friend Mike (who was visiting all the way from San Francisco!), showed around Gwangju, Suncheon and Seoul. We went up Namsan Tower (the Seoul equivalent of the CN Tower) and did a temple stay at HwaGaeSa.
- Snowball fight with Zen Master and 3:00 AM meditations at HwaGaesa
- 5 days of "Additional In-Service Teacher Training" at Seoul's NIIEC centre
- Desking warmingin a cold teachers office (but you've heard my take on that!)
Here's the pics from it all, they tell the story better than I do anways. December
Also, here's some pics of me teaching (as you requested Uncle Mel!), a cornucopia of hilarious Korean signs/stuff, and the outcome of a funny student assignment. Enjoy
We now return to your regularly scheduled programming...
Ok, so landed in Kota Kinabalu around 3:45pm local time. Getting off the plane, the humidity and sweet smell hit me immediately. My guidebook gave us a good tip on looking for 'minibusses' (ie. minivans) to get into town for 2 Ringgit (60 cents) rather than taking a private taxi from the airport for 30 Ringgit ($10), so we hopped in one going the right direction. One of the passengers was a friendly local who helped us get on the correct city bus to get to the heart of downtown KK, where we could walk to our hostel. Everyone here is really friendly, and in a sincere way (as opposed to the "Friendly" people in Thailand who were happily trying to con you). We're sticking to a budget this trip, so we're staying in a dorm-style room with bunkbeds for 10 people and only fans, no air-conditioning. No privacy, but you meet lots of backpackers from all over. After checking into our hotel and changing out of our winter layers (because it was -5 when we left Seoul), we deided to hit the waterfront nightmarket for some local food for dinner. We ate fried noodles w/ chicken and veggies for $1/plate and drank ABC Miah's, the wierdest thing I've ever tried to suck through a straw. Ingredients included canned corn, condensed milk, grenadine, chopped nuts and some green stuff soaked in syrup for good measure. Shari and I also tried some mystery meat - the vendor told us it was pork, so our best guess is that we ate sections of pig tail. We wandered through the craft market and the fruit market in the hot rain. I tried two new tropical fruits: Mangosteen (very sweet and strange looking) and Duku-langsat(which is like a big grape except that you peel it and the inside comes out in sections like a citrus fruit). We loaded up with fruit to eat for breakfast the next day and made our way back to the hostel. I was exhausted - the trip had started at 10:00pm in Suncheon to catch a midnight bus from Gwangju to Seoul and then get on a Plane at a 11:00am. I'm a light sleeper so I really didn't get much if any sleep on the bus or plane. I decided to hit the showers (a good way to keep cool at night is sleep with your hair wet after all. When I got in, a little pink gecko clambered up the wall away from me. I kept my eye on him as I soaped up, and good thing I did. The little bugger climbed until he hit the ceiling and then started making his way across the ceiling directly above me. He lost his grip right above me, naturally. He landed with a loud splat at my feet. I very gracefully squealed and huddled against the door. We stared at eachother dumbfounded for a moment. Then he spotted the exit, which I just happend to be blocking. I squealed again and hopped to the opposite side of the shower as he scooted out under the door.
Today we headed to Mamutik island by speedboat from KK harbour. We thought we would get rained out, but those ugly storm clouds stayed near the mainland and we got to enjoy some swimming and snorkelling (though, as can be expected in a public swimming area, almost all the coral was dead from being stepped on), Tom Yam Soup for lunch (spicy tomato and herb soup with veggies and chicken) and happened upon a HUGE monitor lizard lounging on the rocks. No seriously, HUGE. HUUUUGGGGGGEEEE! We thought at first he was Komodo dragon. Yeah, that big.
I just finished a big dinner at the food court of a big shopping complex and am heading back to the hostel to relax for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we going to Mt Kinabalu park to do alittle touring of the area (the wet weather makes any serious climbing too much trouble for us) and check out the poring hot springs! I'll let you know how it goes. I cannot WAIT to get into that beautiful jungle that is just pressing itself up against the city. Cross your fingers for me that the rain stays away!!!
Now I realize that my last entry ended in November. I've decided I'm not going to write up a huge thing about December/New Years. One of my goals for the New Year was to update this blog more frequently, therefore have shorter entries, easier for ya to digest. A comment I just had from my mom confirms this as a good idea. Here's the highlights from the end of 2009:
- weekend Christmas shopping in Seoul (ate 2.5 feet of subway sandwiches while there, I'm not ashamed!)
- finals at school + Christmas holidays coming up = lots of watching "Merry Christmas Mr. Bean" and singing carols in the classroom
- had a REAL turkey dinner at Jodie and Stephen's place with a few friends, soo soo good!
- Skyped with family back home
- toured around SK with my friend Mike (who was visiting all the way from San Francisco!), showed around Gwangju, Suncheon and Seoul. We went up Namsan Tower (the Seoul equivalent of the CN Tower) and did a temple stay at HwaGaeSa.
- Snowball fight with Zen Master and 3:00 AM meditations at HwaGaesa
- 5 days of "Additional In-Service Teacher Training" at Seoul's NIIEC centre
- Desking warmingin a cold teachers office (but you've heard my take on that!)
Here's the pics from it all, they tell the story better than I do anways. December
Also, here's some pics of me teaching (as you requested Uncle Mel!), a cornucopia of hilarious Korean signs/stuff, and the outcome of a funny student assignment. Enjoy
We now return to your regularly scheduled programming...
Ok, so landed in Kota Kinabalu around 3:45pm local time. Getting off the plane, the humidity and sweet smell hit me immediately. My guidebook gave us a good tip on looking for 'minibusses' (ie. minivans) to get into town for 2 Ringgit (60 cents) rather than taking a private taxi from the airport for 30 Ringgit ($10), so we hopped in one going the right direction. One of the passengers was a friendly local who helped us get on the correct city bus to get to the heart of downtown KK, where we could walk to our hostel. Everyone here is really friendly, and in a sincere way (as opposed to the "Friendly" people in Thailand who were happily trying to con you). We're sticking to a budget this trip, so we're staying in a dorm-style room with bunkbeds for 10 people and only fans, no air-conditioning. No privacy, but you meet lots of backpackers from all over. After checking into our hotel and changing out of our winter layers (because it was -5 when we left Seoul), we deided to hit the waterfront nightmarket for some local food for dinner. We ate fried noodles w/ chicken and veggies for $1/plate and drank ABC Miah's, the wierdest thing I've ever tried to suck through a straw. Ingredients included canned corn, condensed milk, grenadine, chopped nuts and some green stuff soaked in syrup for good measure. Shari and I also tried some mystery meat - the vendor told us it was pork, so our best guess is that we ate sections of pig tail. We wandered through the craft market and the fruit market in the hot rain. I tried two new tropical fruits: Mangosteen (very sweet and strange looking) and Duku-langsat(which is like a big grape except that you peel it and the inside comes out in sections like a citrus fruit). We loaded up with fruit to eat for breakfast the next day and made our way back to the hostel. I was exhausted - the trip had started at 10:00pm in Suncheon to catch a midnight bus from Gwangju to Seoul and then get on a Plane at a 11:00am. I'm a light sleeper so I really didn't get much if any sleep on the bus or plane. I decided to hit the showers (a good way to keep cool at night is sleep with your hair wet after all. When I got in, a little pink gecko clambered up the wall away from me. I kept my eye on him as I soaped up, and good thing I did. The little bugger climbed until he hit the ceiling and then started making his way across the ceiling directly above me. He lost his grip right above me, naturally. He landed with a loud splat at my feet. I very gracefully squealed and huddled against the door. We stared at eachother dumbfounded for a moment. Then he spotted the exit, which I just happend to be blocking. I squealed again and hopped to the opposite side of the shower as he scooted out under the door.
Today we headed to Mamutik island by speedboat from KK harbour. We thought we would get rained out, but those ugly storm clouds stayed near the mainland and we got to enjoy some swimming and snorkelling (though, as can be expected in a public swimming area, almost all the coral was dead from being stepped on), Tom Yam Soup for lunch (spicy tomato and herb soup with veggies and chicken) and happened upon a HUGE monitor lizard lounging on the rocks. No seriously, HUGE. HUUUUGGGGGGEEEE! We thought at first he was Komodo dragon. Yeah, that big.
I just finished a big dinner at the food court of a big shopping complex and am heading back to the hostel to relax for the rest of the night. Tomorrow we going to Mt Kinabalu park to do alittle touring of the area (the wet weather makes any serious climbing too much trouble for us) and check out the poring hot springs! I'll let you know how it goes. I cannot WAIT to get into that beautiful jungle that is just pressing itself up against the city. Cross your fingers for me that the rain stays away!!!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Thoughts about Spring 2009
Ok, I'm trying to catch up, I really am. Over the next few days/weeks I'll be posting shorter entries about stuff that's happened between March and now. Hope you like...
When I returned to work after my two-month hiatus, I had a hard time getting back into the swing of, you know, working. Plus, my school asked me to start teaching classes on the 3rd day (the nerve!) so I was throwing lesson plans together in record time. I was excited. The first year students I had last year would be returning as second years and I felt I built a comfortable repoire with them. I was a little more nervous about the 1st year students. Whatever impression I made, these are the kids I would stuck with all year, and next year too. I seem to have done ok. All reports I receive from my principal and vice principal are that the students love me. Yeah, I'm pretty rad.
In March, the weather warmed up and brought with it "yellow dust" from China and subsequently I was sick for most of them month with what felt like a stubborn head cold. The drop in the quality of air had the same effect on a lot of the foreigners living here. Apparently it happens every spring. Still, it was an enjoyable month. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at Elvis bar with our fellow expats (and a number of sleazy sailors, yeesh...). I also took in the Apricot Festival in Hadong with Jennifer. We had a great time walking around, enjoying the blossoms and snacked on Octopus Jeon (potato pancake). Every weekend there were festivals celebrating the arrival of spring and it's many flowers/blossoms.
Near the end of the month, my school held "Student Sports Days" for 3 days, where all of the student classes competed in such physically challenging events as Dodgeball, Tug-o-War, Dance, and Kick Baseball. It was a lot of fun. The weather was hot and sunny for all three days and the students really enjoyed the break from their normal routine. I really enjoyed it too. The students at my school are always enthusiastic about competitions, sunny weather and assemblies, so these sports days sounded like a Big Bang concert non-stop.
My birthday arrived, as it always does, on March 30th. I went out with my friends to dinner at restaurant that specialized in marinated pork and beef dishes. Very delicious, but unfortunately there was a miscommunication about the price of the meal and it was quite a shock to receive the bill afterwards. That weekend, my friend Jodie invited me to her apartment to help her with some baking she promised to do for a friend. So I put on my best sweatpants and headed over to her place with a couple of friends (suspiciously dressed very nicely, but I thought nothing of it). When we walked in, confetti canons exploded and I was shocked to see about 20 friends crammed into the Holmes apartment wearing a "lion" or "lamb" caricature around their neck. They had planned a surprise birthday party for Lindsey (who's Birthday was at the beginning of April) and I, following the old phrase about March: "in like Lion, out like a Lamb." I was a little embarrassed to be so under dressed for the occasion, but very grateful and genuinely surprised. We had a lot of fun!
See pictures of the party and other spring stuff here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2235464&id=122614903&l=386c8b11ba
This semester, I've been learning a lot more about just how hard high school students work in South Korea. In one class assignment I had the girls completing poems where they write about their past, present and future. More than one student likened their new high school life to prison. The students have to go to school for 8am and remain there until 10 or 11 pm (unless they have a private school to go to in the evening). The competition is intensely fierce for spots at the top Korean Universities. Students don't have part-time jobs, don't go to parties, and rarely (if ever) date. Extra-curricular activities are limited because students fill so much pressure to spend their free time studying. The high school at which I work is an Academic High School, so there are girls who have moved to Suncheon and live in the school dormitory's because their parents believe they will be able to get into a better university if they graduate from this school. Also the students sleep about 4 hours a night, especially before exams. There is actually a Korean rule of thumb here that parents tell their children: If you sleep for more than 4 hours a night (and therefore miss out on time to study), you'll fail. Now that it is close to exam time again, I'm letting my students watch movies during my class. They NEED a break.
When I returned to work after my two-month hiatus, I had a hard time getting back into the swing of, you know, working. Plus, my school asked me to start teaching classes on the 3rd day (the nerve!) so I was throwing lesson plans together in record time. I was excited. The first year students I had last year would be returning as second years and I felt I built a comfortable repoire with them. I was a little more nervous about the 1st year students. Whatever impression I made, these are the kids I would stuck with all year, and next year too. I seem to have done ok. All reports I receive from my principal and vice principal are that the students love me. Yeah, I'm pretty rad.
In March, the weather warmed up and brought with it "yellow dust" from China and subsequently I was sick for most of them month with what felt like a stubborn head cold. The drop in the quality of air had the same effect on a lot of the foreigners living here. Apparently it happens every spring. Still, it was an enjoyable month. We celebrated St. Patrick's Day at Elvis bar with our fellow expats (and a number of sleazy sailors, yeesh...). I also took in the Apricot Festival in Hadong with Jennifer. We had a great time walking around, enjoying the blossoms and snacked on Octopus Jeon (potato pancake). Every weekend there were festivals celebrating the arrival of spring and it's many flowers/blossoms.
Near the end of the month, my school held "Student Sports Days" for 3 days, where all of the student classes competed in such physically challenging events as Dodgeball, Tug-o-War, Dance, and Kick Baseball. It was a lot of fun. The weather was hot and sunny for all three days and the students really enjoyed the break from their normal routine. I really enjoyed it too. The students at my school are always enthusiastic about competitions, sunny weather and assemblies, so these sports days sounded like a Big Bang concert non-stop.
My birthday arrived, as it always does, on March 30th. I went out with my friends to dinner at restaurant that specialized in marinated pork and beef dishes. Very delicious, but unfortunately there was a miscommunication about the price of the meal and it was quite a shock to receive the bill afterwards. That weekend, my friend Jodie invited me to her apartment to help her with some baking she promised to do for a friend. So I put on my best sweatpants and headed over to her place with a couple of friends (suspiciously dressed very nicely, but I thought nothing of it). When we walked in, confetti canons exploded and I was shocked to see about 20 friends crammed into the Holmes apartment wearing a "lion" or "lamb" caricature around their neck. They had planned a surprise birthday party for Lindsey (who's Birthday was at the beginning of April) and I, following the old phrase about March: "in like Lion, out like a Lamb." I was a little embarrassed to be so under dressed for the occasion, but very grateful and genuinely surprised. We had a lot of fun!
See pictures of the party and other spring stuff here: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2235464&id=122614903&l=386c8b11ba
This semester, I've been learning a lot more about just how hard high school students work in South Korea. In one class assignment I had the girls completing poems where they write about their past, present and future. More than one student likened their new high school life to prison. The students have to go to school for 8am and remain there until 10 or 11 pm (unless they have a private school to go to in the evening). The competition is intensely fierce for spots at the top Korean Universities. Students don't have part-time jobs, don't go to parties, and rarely (if ever) date. Extra-curricular activities are limited because students fill so much pressure to spend their free time studying. The high school at which I work is an Academic High School, so there are girls who have moved to Suncheon and live in the school dormitory's because their parents believe they will be able to get into a better university if they graduate from this school. Also the students sleep about 4 hours a night, especially before exams. There is actually a Korean rule of thumb here that parents tell their children: If you sleep for more than 4 hours a night (and therefore miss out on time to study), you'll fail. Now that it is close to exam time again, I'm letting my students watch movies during my class. They NEED a break.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
SE Asia, Chapter Two: Elephant Nature Park
I have no idea how I am going to write about this part of the trip. There are no words or pictures that will do it justice. The experience is lodged in my guts and my bones now. But I will try. I will just preface it by saying, my week at Elephant Nature Park as a volunteer was the best week of my life.
After signing some additional paperwork, donning our free t-shirts and playing with the office puppies, Amanda and I got in a van with about 8 other volunteers and our guide, Brad. Brad does his best to warm us up, but his jokes are stifled by a mix of eagerness and summer-camp-esque self-conciousness from being around new people. Well I speak for myself, Amanda was shaking hands and introducing herself to everyone like a prostar! The 1.5 hour drive to the park went by quickly, I was engrossed by the beautiful scenery of small rolling mountains and lush jungle encroaching on plantations and farmers fields. Imagine how much more beautiful it must be outside of the dry seaon!
As we come around the last bend in the battered road, the park reveals itself like the "Great Valley" at the end of "The Land Before Time": nestled between jungle-covered mountains and a river running through it that reflects the morning sunlight beautifully.
The park's mandate is to promote ethical Elephant Tourism in Thailand, where the wild Asian Ele has dwindled to as little as 1500, and the domestic Ele population has the same legal protection as any livestock: none. The economics of the Ele tourism industry combines with tribal traditions for "taming" the elephant to create conditions that are truly cruel and apalling. An unaware rich tourists create demand for it by going to elephant trekking camps, watching elephant shows, buying elephant paintings or buying food for "street elephants" in the larger cities. The crazy part is that none of these Ele Tourism options offer the level of interaction with these beautiful animals that a visit to ENP does. I won't go into it at great length, but there are some excellents videos worth watching on the subject that feature the work the Park and Lek, ENP's founder. You can see once released by National Geographic here:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0510/feature5/video.html
At the park, the elephants are never forced to perform circus tricks or trek for miles with guests on their backs. Instead, guests and volunteers are involved with basic elephant care by feeding the elephants by hand and bathing them in the river twice daily. And in participating in these activities, guests can get the kind of up close and personal contact they want but would never get on a trek or from watching a show. On my first day, I quite literally hugged an elephant while I scrubbed it's hide in the river, as it calmly lay in the water. At the end of the day, Amanda and I sat up in our bamboo hut, thrilled we'd be there for six more days, and the other girls had extended their stay for another night.
The entire week we ate amazing food, the best food we had the entire time we were in south east Asia. And we learned alot. As volunteers, Amanda and I had signed up for pitching in on chores and projects that the park needed some extra hands for. Our daily tasks included:
1) Participating in an Elephant rescue from a trekking camp just up the road from ENP. Two of the elephants there had fallen very ill from malnutrition and a skin fungus infection. The manager of the camp had asked Lek to care for the sick elephants, as ENP also acts as a free hospital for these gentle giants. Providing free medical care ensures the Eles will get the care they need and creates opportunities for Lek to influence trekking camps and teach them about humane Ele care. As with every elephant that comes to the Park, Lek will try everything to buy the elephant from the owner so that it can stay at the park. Sometimes she is successful and the animal never goes back to work. Sometimes though, the owner knows they can still make money by leasing the elephant to a Tourist camp and won't sell her until she is too old to earn any money. Going to this camp, after spending just a few days at ENP, was heartbreaking. The elephants were kept chained in close quarters when they weren't trekking, babies chained to their mothers and working alongside them. Many of the elephants were underweight, often kept this way so that they are not too fat for riding. Our first rescue, named Golden Leaf, went into the truck without a fuss and we successfully transferred her to the park without a problem. After the vet had a good look at her, we bathed her in the river with medical soap and then rubbed a medicated location on her skin to treat the fungal infection. The next day, the second elephant was brought to the park and both Ele's were docile and subdued as we bathed and treated them. And several of the resident elephants insisted on joining us in the river, in order to meet the newcomers. However, Amanda and I weren't actually there for the second rescue because....
2) We went up to the Elephant Haven overnight. Elephant Haven is where Lek began, with four Elephants she had rescued from tragic circumstances (Two babies and two aunties, three of which accompanied us: Hope, Mae Perm, and Jokia. Another family of four, Mom and two aunties of baby Aura, also went with us.) It is a small bamboo hut nestled in the jungle on a mountain side that is a 2 hour hike from where the park now exists. Here the elephants can roam in the jungle and forage for food naturally. It was surreal enough hiking along with the Ele's, but it was a real treat to go out at night to find Hope with the mahouts, as Hope sometimes wanders too far from the safety of the Haven mountainside at night. We located him fairly quickly, but discovered it was best friends Mae Perm and Jokia (blinded by her previous owners) who had wandered off. No problem. Hope's mahout, Dam, tracked them down within a few minutes, stopping to show us the snapped vegetations and tracks in the ground that led the way. Nothing but moonlight, jungle and a couple of the worlds largest mammals. The mahouts also played music for us after cooking an amazing dinner. That night we slept on the floor, under mosquito nets, listening to Hope's family trumpeting from above us back and forth with Aura's family, who had settled in further down the mountain for the night. On the hike back the next morning, we were given orange scarves blessed by buddhists monks to tie around the trees around the haven to protect them from logging.
Other park highlights:
Album #1 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2229057&id=122614903&l=8b5dbaa399
Album #2 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2229061&id=122614903&l=89a17a8668
There were so many special moments, I'd be happy to recount them for you at any time. I just need to bring this entry to a close. I know I will return to the park. Being there was like realizing a childhood dream. I hope after I have paid off my school debt, I will be able to stay there and work there for longer than a week.
Stay tuned for Chapter 3: featuring pick pocket monkeys, reclining Buddha's, tourist scams and drag shows!
After signing some additional paperwork, donning our free t-shirts and playing with the office puppies, Amanda and I got in a van with about 8 other volunteers and our guide, Brad. Brad does his best to warm us up, but his jokes are stifled by a mix of eagerness and summer-camp-esque self-conciousness from being around new people. Well I speak for myself, Amanda was shaking hands and introducing herself to everyone like a prostar! The 1.5 hour drive to the park went by quickly, I was engrossed by the beautiful scenery of small rolling mountains and lush jungle encroaching on plantations and farmers fields. Imagine how much more beautiful it must be outside of the dry seaon!
As we come around the last bend in the battered road, the park reveals itself like the "Great Valley" at the end of "The Land Before Time": nestled between jungle-covered mountains and a river running through it that reflects the morning sunlight beautifully.
The park's mandate is to promote ethical Elephant Tourism in Thailand, where the wild Asian Ele has dwindled to as little as 1500, and the domestic Ele population has the same legal protection as any livestock: none. The economics of the Ele tourism industry combines with tribal traditions for "taming" the elephant to create conditions that are truly cruel and apalling. An unaware rich tourists create demand for it by going to elephant trekking camps, watching elephant shows, buying elephant paintings or buying food for "street elephants" in the larger cities. The crazy part is that none of these Ele Tourism options offer the level of interaction with these beautiful animals that a visit to ENP does. I won't go into it at great length, but there are some excellents videos worth watching on the subject that feature the work the Park and Lek, ENP's founder. You can see once released by National Geographic here:
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0510/feature5/video.html
At the park, the elephants are never forced to perform circus tricks or trek for miles with guests on their backs. Instead, guests and volunteers are involved with basic elephant care by feeding the elephants by hand and bathing them in the river twice daily. And in participating in these activities, guests can get the kind of up close and personal contact they want but would never get on a trek or from watching a show. On my first day, I quite literally hugged an elephant while I scrubbed it's hide in the river, as it calmly lay in the water. At the end of the day, Amanda and I sat up in our bamboo hut, thrilled we'd be there for six more days, and the other girls had extended their stay for another night.
The entire week we ate amazing food, the best food we had the entire time we were in south east Asia. And we learned alot. As volunteers, Amanda and I had signed up for pitching in on chores and projects that the park needed some extra hands for. Our daily tasks included:
- scooping elephant and buffalo poo and cleaning shelters
- cutting down spent corn fields with machete's for Ele dinner
- working on the fire break (cutting an 8 foot path through brush to stop fires from crossing into park land)
- dismantling bamboo rafts to use as building supplies at the park
- cutting down banana trees (with machete's once again!) for Ele dinner
- hauling rock and reinforcing a water resevoir
- shucking corn in the elephant kitchen
- picking up garbage around the park
- teaching at the nearby village elementary school
1) Participating in an Elephant rescue from a trekking camp just up the road from ENP. Two of the elephants there had fallen very ill from malnutrition and a skin fungus infection. The manager of the camp had asked Lek to care for the sick elephants, as ENP also acts as a free hospital for these gentle giants. Providing free medical care ensures the Eles will get the care they need and creates opportunities for Lek to influence trekking camps and teach them about humane Ele care. As with every elephant that comes to the Park, Lek will try everything to buy the elephant from the owner so that it can stay at the park. Sometimes she is successful and the animal never goes back to work. Sometimes though, the owner knows they can still make money by leasing the elephant to a Tourist camp and won't sell her until she is too old to earn any money. Going to this camp, after spending just a few days at ENP, was heartbreaking. The elephants were kept chained in close quarters when they weren't trekking, babies chained to their mothers and working alongside them. Many of the elephants were underweight, often kept this way so that they are not too fat for riding. Our first rescue, named Golden Leaf, went into the truck without a fuss and we successfully transferred her to the park without a problem. After the vet had a good look at her, we bathed her in the river with medical soap and then rubbed a medicated location on her skin to treat the fungal infection. The next day, the second elephant was brought to the park and both Ele's were docile and subdued as we bathed and treated them. And several of the resident elephants insisted on joining us in the river, in order to meet the newcomers. However, Amanda and I weren't actually there for the second rescue because....
2) We went up to the Elephant Haven overnight. Elephant Haven is where Lek began, with four Elephants she had rescued from tragic circumstances (Two babies and two aunties, three of which accompanied us: Hope, Mae Perm, and Jokia. Another family of four, Mom and two aunties of baby Aura, also went with us.) It is a small bamboo hut nestled in the jungle on a mountain side that is a 2 hour hike from where the park now exists. Here the elephants can roam in the jungle and forage for food naturally. It was surreal enough hiking along with the Ele's, but it was a real treat to go out at night to find Hope with the mahouts, as Hope sometimes wanders too far from the safety of the Haven mountainside at night. We located him fairly quickly, but discovered it was best friends Mae Perm and Jokia (blinded by her previous owners) who had wandered off. No problem. Hope's mahout, Dam, tracked them down within a few minutes, stopping to show us the snapped vegetations and tracks in the ground that led the way. Nothing but moonlight, jungle and a couple of the worlds largest mammals. The mahouts also played music for us after cooking an amazing dinner. That night we slept on the floor, under mosquito nets, listening to Hope's family trumpeting from above us back and forth with Aura's family, who had settled in further down the mountain for the night. On the hike back the next morning, we were given orange scarves blessed by buddhists monks to tie around the trees around the haven to protect them from logging.
Other park highlights:
- traditional Thai massage for $4/hr
- over 50 dogs to hang out with
- cuddles from Mae Keaw and Kha Moon and others
- waking up to the sunrise hitting the Ele shelters behind our hut
- baby elephants checking us out freely on our Park walk around.
- learning the elephant song and legend from Pom, Lek's second in command.
- welcome ceremony including music performed by village teenagers and a blessing from the Shaman.
Album #1 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2229057&id=122614903&l=8b5dbaa399
Album #2 - http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2229061&id=122614903&l=89a17a8668
There were so many special moments, I'd be happy to recount them for you at any time. I just need to bring this entry to a close. I know I will return to the park. Being there was like realizing a childhood dream. I hope after I have paid off my school debt, I will be able to stay there and work there for longer than a week.
Stay tuned for Chapter 3: featuring pick pocket monkeys, reclining Buddha's, tourist scams and drag shows!
Friday, March 13, 2009
South Asia: Chapter one
"Alright, Lisa. Smarten up. It's halfway through frikkin March and you STILL have not written anything about your travels through South East Asia in February on your blog. Your family and friends have been very patient with you so far, but I'm pretty sure they will get their virtual torches and pitchforks out soon if you don't get off your lazy butt and starting writing!"
My conscience may have a point.
There are many perks to living and working in South Korea: free rent, tasty foods (most of the time...), a great expat community and mountain ranges far as the eye can see. And if you are one of the fortunate folks to have a contract with the public school system, the greatest perk is undoubtably the five weeks of vacation time written into your contract. If your school is nice (like mine) you'll get more vacation than this, but you aren't technically supposed to leave the country except for vacation time as indicated in your contract. Four of the five weeks in the contract are allocated to Febuary while schools are on their winter "break" (which includes January for the lucky folks). Myself and four other Canuck gals working in SK decided this opportunity to travel was not to be wasted. We found ourselves planning to spend our 26 days in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam in a whirlwind cross-country adventure sure to be the trip of a lifetime.
My travelmates were Amanda, Jennifer, and Ali who all live in Suncheon with me, and our friend Susan, who is working in Wando. Of the five of us, I was the least travelled. I had never been anywhere besides Canada and few of the northern states of the USA. I hadn't even seen the ocean! Well, technically I guess I saw it when I was in NYC, but I don't feel like Manhattan harbour really counts. So I did a whole lot of prep, like picking up a copy of Lonely Planet's "South East Asia on a Shoestring" two days before departure and sewing shut a large whole in my $30 backpack at 3 AM the night before departure.
Side note: My cat Mokah was looked after by my good friends Stephen and Jodie while I was away. While I was very grateful to them for this, Mokah was less gracious, and after about a week of destruction and noise in their apartment, she was moved back to my place where Jodie and Stephen visited her frequently. Our seperation and reunion were much more emotional for me than I had expected them to be. Strange the way your heart becomes attached. The poor schmoe's out there who have tried to date me know well that I can be a cold-hearted wench when I should be filled with affection. My friends and parents can vouch for the fact that I often keep people, including those I love most, at arms length when my emotions are running high. And for some reason, this crazy little furball has got my heart. I cried like a baby when I got home to her.
Korean Air Flight KE667 was right on time and delivered us to the Chiang Mai airport in northern Thailand at 12:30 AM on February 1st. Our taxi successfully dropped us off at the hostel we were booked into, but when we arrived we found the office locked and no employees to be found. We soon discovered that the hostel thought we were arriving at 1PM on Sunday, not 1AM. We were SOL in the middle of the night in Chiang Mai city with no map in a part of town low on hotels and taxis. Ali had kept her eyes open on the drive from the airport (thankfully) and remembered seeing an upscale hotel down the alley from where we'd been dropped off. We gratefully crashed there for our first night in Thailand at $12 each.
Eating my continental breakfast of fresh fruit and toast on the patio the next morning and staring at the hotel's beautiful gardens, it hits me: I'm in Thailand. Not thinking about it, not talking about it. I'm here. We found ourselves falling quickly in love with Thailand during our first day in Chiang Mai. The heat, the vegetation, the friendly people (who speak English without fear or hesistation!) and the food, oh my goodness the food! After getting Suze, Ali and Jennifer booked in for their overnight at Elephant Nature Park (Amanda and I had already booked our 1 week stay), we hired a guy named Beer to show us around a few of the local Temples. All five us piled into his tiny toyota sedan (Amanda and Jennifer shared the front bucket seat) and sped up a winding moutain road for 30 minutes to see Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai's most famous Temple which overlooks the city from the north. The steps leading to the temple were lined with vendors selling souvenirs, jewellry, fresh fruit, and anything else that might fetch a price. The main stairway had railings made of dragon scales. We paid a donation of 30 baht (approx $1 CDN) to enter the temple. I let the pictures do the talking:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2230910&id=122614903&l=4bba8
We removed our shoes and were given scarves to cover bare shoulder and low necklines. Beer was indespensible as he explained the offerings of insense, flowers and money and prayers made by the local Thai people, and showed us how to participate in a monk's blessing and show respect inside the temple rooms. After the monk blessed us with holy water, a white string was tied around our wrists, the threads has been blessed to give us protection and good luck and we are instructed not to take it off for three days. There were bells everwhere (rung for good luck) as well as dogs sleeping throughout the complex who were cared for by the monks. Children played music and danced for donations to their schools. The scenic lookout reveals a smoggy Chiang Mai and some beautiful mountainside vegetation. On the way back to the city, Beer tells us that the other temple we want to see inside the old city is closed today for the Sunday Market, and just as our guidebooks predicted, instead takes us to a silk factory. We are given a demonstration of how silk is traditionally made from start to finish and then have to walk through the large store to exit. It was cool to see, but we knew the real reason we were there was that Beer would collect a comission for taking us there, becuase the owners are hoping we'll spend our money in the overpriced shop. He also tried to detour us to a tailor shop but we tell him we're tired (which we are) and are ready to head back to our hotel. Once we get back to hotel Suze, Amanda and I decide we want to check out the Sunday Market inside the old city, and we make plans to meet Ali and Jennifer for dinner at Riverside restaurant.
Chiang Mai's old city is surrounded by a moat and some ruins of the old walls and gates still remain, the most famous of which is Thai Pae gate, which is also the entrance to the popular Sunday market. It was a blur of colours, sounds and lights. It was the best shopping we found the entire time we were in Thailand and I quickly found myself snapping up jewelry, bags and clothing, unable to avoid being sucked in by the price. I also found myself enjoying bartering with vendors. We were also bumped into by a pretty convincing pick-pocket who took a nasty spill into us from behind, and after we helped him up, he hobbled along with his cane and then did the same thing to a wealthy white couple about 60 feet ahead of us. Thankfully we didn't keep anything worth snatching in our pockets.
We hopped in a tuk-tuk, a 3-wheeled motorized vehicle with a bench seat in the back, and headed to Riverside to meet the girls for dinner on a boat. It was delicious food and lovely view of the riverside night life. Our hotel was nicely situated within the city's night market district, so we did some more shopping before calling it a night. Jennifer and I also enjoyed 1/2 hour foot massages for about 3 bucks each. We went to sleep excited to head to Elephant Nature Park the next morning.
To be continued....
My conscience may have a point.
There are many perks to living and working in South Korea: free rent, tasty foods (most of the time...), a great expat community and mountain ranges far as the eye can see. And if you are one of the fortunate folks to have a contract with the public school system, the greatest perk is undoubtably the five weeks of vacation time written into your contract. If your school is nice (like mine) you'll get more vacation than this, but you aren't technically supposed to leave the country except for vacation time as indicated in your contract. Four of the five weeks in the contract are allocated to Febuary while schools are on their winter "break" (which includes January for the lucky folks). Myself and four other Canuck gals working in SK decided this opportunity to travel was not to be wasted. We found ourselves planning to spend our 26 days in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam in a whirlwind cross-country adventure sure to be the trip of a lifetime.
My travelmates were Amanda, Jennifer, and Ali who all live in Suncheon with me, and our friend Susan, who is working in Wando. Of the five of us, I was the least travelled. I had never been anywhere besides Canada and few of the northern states of the USA. I hadn't even seen the ocean! Well, technically I guess I saw it when I was in NYC, but I don't feel like Manhattan harbour really counts. So I did a whole lot of prep, like picking up a copy of Lonely Planet's "South East Asia on a Shoestring" two days before departure and sewing shut a large whole in my $30 backpack at 3 AM the night before departure.
Side note: My cat Mokah was looked after by my good friends Stephen and Jodie while I was away. While I was very grateful to them for this, Mokah was less gracious, and after about a week of destruction and noise in their apartment, she was moved back to my place where Jodie and Stephen visited her frequently. Our seperation and reunion were much more emotional for me than I had expected them to be. Strange the way your heart becomes attached. The poor schmoe's out there who have tried to date me know well that I can be a cold-hearted wench when I should be filled with affection. My friends and parents can vouch for the fact that I often keep people, including those I love most, at arms length when my emotions are running high. And for some reason, this crazy little furball has got my heart. I cried like a baby when I got home to her.
Korean Air Flight KE667 was right on time and delivered us to the Chiang Mai airport in northern Thailand at 12:30 AM on February 1st. Our taxi successfully dropped us off at the hostel we were booked into, but when we arrived we found the office locked and no employees to be found. We soon discovered that the hostel thought we were arriving at 1PM on Sunday, not 1AM. We were SOL in the middle of the night in Chiang Mai city with no map in a part of town low on hotels and taxis. Ali had kept her eyes open on the drive from the airport (thankfully) and remembered seeing an upscale hotel down the alley from where we'd been dropped off. We gratefully crashed there for our first night in Thailand at $12 each.
Eating my continental breakfast of fresh fruit and toast on the patio the next morning and staring at the hotel's beautiful gardens, it hits me: I'm in Thailand. Not thinking about it, not talking about it. I'm here. We found ourselves falling quickly in love with Thailand during our first day in Chiang Mai. The heat, the vegetation, the friendly people (who speak English without fear or hesistation!) and the food, oh my goodness the food! After getting Suze, Ali and Jennifer booked in for their overnight at Elephant Nature Park (Amanda and I had already booked our 1 week stay), we hired a guy named Beer to show us around a few of the local Temples. All five us piled into his tiny toyota sedan (Amanda and Jennifer shared the front bucket seat) and sped up a winding moutain road for 30 minutes to see Doi Suthep, Chiang Mai's most famous Temple which overlooks the city from the north. The steps leading to the temple were lined with vendors selling souvenirs, jewellry, fresh fruit, and anything else that might fetch a price. The main stairway had railings made of dragon scales. We paid a donation of 30 baht (approx $1 CDN) to enter the temple. I let the pictures do the talking:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2230910&id=122614903&l=4bba8
We removed our shoes and were given scarves to cover bare shoulder and low necklines. Beer was indespensible as he explained the offerings of insense, flowers and money and prayers made by the local Thai people, and showed us how to participate in a monk's blessing and show respect inside the temple rooms. After the monk blessed us with holy water, a white string was tied around our wrists, the threads has been blessed to give us protection and good luck and we are instructed not to take it off for three days. There were bells everwhere (rung for good luck) as well as dogs sleeping throughout the complex who were cared for by the monks. Children played music and danced for donations to their schools. The scenic lookout reveals a smoggy Chiang Mai and some beautiful mountainside vegetation. On the way back to the city, Beer tells us that the other temple we want to see inside the old city is closed today for the Sunday Market, and just as our guidebooks predicted, instead takes us to a silk factory. We are given a demonstration of how silk is traditionally made from start to finish and then have to walk through the large store to exit. It was cool to see, but we knew the real reason we were there was that Beer would collect a comission for taking us there, becuase the owners are hoping we'll spend our money in the overpriced shop. He also tried to detour us to a tailor shop but we tell him we're tired (which we are) and are ready to head back to our hotel. Once we get back to hotel Suze, Amanda and I decide we want to check out the Sunday Market inside the old city, and we make plans to meet Ali and Jennifer for dinner at Riverside restaurant.
Chiang Mai's old city is surrounded by a moat and some ruins of the old walls and gates still remain, the most famous of which is Thai Pae gate, which is also the entrance to the popular Sunday market. It was a blur of colours, sounds and lights. It was the best shopping we found the entire time we were in Thailand and I quickly found myself snapping up jewelry, bags and clothing, unable to avoid being sucked in by the price. I also found myself enjoying bartering with vendors. We were also bumped into by a pretty convincing pick-pocket who took a nasty spill into us from behind, and after we helped him up, he hobbled along with his cane and then did the same thing to a wealthy white couple about 60 feet ahead of us. Thankfully we didn't keep anything worth snatching in our pockets.
We hopped in a tuk-tuk, a 3-wheeled motorized vehicle with a bench seat in the back, and headed to Riverside to meet the girls for dinner on a boat. It was delicious food and lovely view of the riverside night life. Our hotel was nicely situated within the city's night market district, so we did some more shopping before calling it a night. Jennifer and I also enjoyed 1/2 hour foot massages for about 3 bucks each. We went to sleep excited to head to Elephant Nature Park the next morning.
To be continued....
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Out with the old Year, In with the new!
Well, it's been far too long since I updated my blog, I know! No need to shout and throw things!
The rest of December was wonderful. Classes were sporadic at best with final exams, school festivals, school tours and Christmas interrupting things. I taught my students Christmas Carols and played "The Snowman" for them. The student were so exhausted from studying from finals, you almost felt bad for expecting them to keep their eyes open for cartoon in class! "The Snowman" actually went over really really well, only a 20% mortality rate (on avg. 8 of 40 students asleep by the end of it). And I heard the most hilarious rendition of the 12 days of Christmas ever thanks to an enthusiastic student who without pitch or rythym yelled out the words at the top of her lungs and threw everybody else off. I couldn`t keep a staight face no matter how hard I tried.
About two weeks before Christmas I recieved two amazing parcels from home filled with Christmas decorations, goodies and presents. Christmas spirit exploded onto my desk when I opened them. So I couldn`t help but spread it around a little. I held movie nights at my apartment to watch `A Muppet Chistmas Carol`(my favourite!) and also a non-denominational Christmas carol singing night where we also read the Nativity story from the Bible. My students were confused at my excitement. In Korea, Christmas is a Christian holiday or a day to give your BF/GF a gift, much like valentine's day in North America. It's not a big family affair unless you're Christian and even then. It made no sense to them for me to be so excited when I didn't have a boyfriend. December 22nd and 23rd was my schools "Festival" which was two days of dancing and singing by the students, much like Christmas concerts at schools in Canada except for the concert stage lighting, sound system and flame canons. (yeah you read that right!)
On Christmas Eve I invited 3 other Canadian girls living in Shidae to stay over at my apartment. We went carolling to other foreigners in Shidae (and frightened a few of the Koreans who bumped into us)then settled in to our PJ`s, sipped hot cocoa, watched Home Alone and told stories of our favourite Christmas memories. We had bought stocking stuffers for eachother, so in the morning we opened our stockings together before splitting off to talk to our families.
It was really neat to have two Christmas mornings as it was still Christmas Eve when I called home to Dryden at 11 am.
Dean and Mandy (the suncheon Co-ordinator for foreign teachers and his wife) very generously invited us to their apartment for Christmas brunch and served us such a amazing things as eggs benedict, bagels and salmon, crepes with fruit, and huge assortment of cookies, pies and other desserts. And if that wasn`t enough, in the afternoon we went to a Turkey pot-luck dinner at Elvis Bar with 50 other foreigners for a meal of Turkey, Stuffing, gravy, porogies, salad, veggies, potatoes of every variety and buffet of desserts.
At around 4 pm I came home totally stuffed and had a blissful Christmas nap. I called home again at 10pm and was able to open my presents with my family via webcam and watch the Christmas morning excitement in Canada. It snowed here just a little that day. However, I was a bitter girl going back to work on Boxing Day - my body knows after 25 Christmasses in Canada that it is supposed to sleep until noon and laze around in pajamas the day after Christmas, and it could not be fooled despite how much I tried to tell it to be energetic at work.
My last class was on December 31st, and my students had as much enthusiasm for the "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" as bread dough rising. Me too, kids, me too. I spent new years Eve at Jodie and Stephen's with about a dozen awesome ex-pats (I am actually in love with the term "ex-pat", it makes me feel I dunno...European?)eating great food and goofing around. I didn't stay out too late, I think I went home around 1AM, and was greeted by thick, lazily falling snow.
It feels so good to be in a new year with a fresh 12 months ahead of me. When I checked out of 2008, I happily left my baggage behind. The month of January has gone by very quickly, as often happens when the days are lazy and unstructured. My only semblence of productivity is found in the online teaching pilot program I have been participating in Monday - Friday from 9-11AM. The program is testing a new Microsoft program that creates a virtual classroom for students who live in remote areas and islands and don't have access to English education with a Native English speaker. I have a Korean co-teacher and five students, though only 4 have been reliably able to connect to the classroom environment in the last week. It's been a learning experience for me: using a new program, learning how to make power point presentations, teaching 8 years olds with very little english, following a curriculum (I make my own for the HS students), etc etc etc. I might mention I am also being paid very well for being part of the pilot project on top of my monthly salary (yeah I'm bragging alittle bit, sorry...). And now that the school board has announced that they are launching the program in March for all 5 school boards, it means that I can significantly increase my monthly income and pay off my debt even faster!
On January 31st taking my 26 days of official vacation to travel to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam with 4 other ex-pats (hehehe!). I've never travelled abroad before (Korea being my first time on another continent) so it really feels like the trip of a life time. For the first week I am volunteering at an Elephant Sanctuary in northern Thailand near Chiang Mai city. The rest of the trip is mostly unstructured. We are planning to travel south to Bangkok, spend a few days on the beach, make our way to Cambodia and see Angkor Wat/Siem Reap/Phnom Penh and then head to Vietnam for about a week for more beach time and sight seeing around Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) before flying back to Korea on the 26th. I will do my best to update this blog throughout the month as we stop in internet cafe's in Southeast Asia!
The rest of December was wonderful. Classes were sporadic at best with final exams, school festivals, school tours and Christmas interrupting things. I taught my students Christmas Carols and played "The Snowman" for them. The student were so exhausted from studying from finals, you almost felt bad for expecting them to keep their eyes open for cartoon in class! "The Snowman" actually went over really really well, only a 20% mortality rate (on avg. 8 of 40 students asleep by the end of it). And I heard the most hilarious rendition of the 12 days of Christmas ever thanks to an enthusiastic student who without pitch or rythym yelled out the words at the top of her lungs and threw everybody else off. I couldn`t keep a staight face no matter how hard I tried.
About two weeks before Christmas I recieved two amazing parcels from home filled with Christmas decorations, goodies and presents. Christmas spirit exploded onto my desk when I opened them. So I couldn`t help but spread it around a little. I held movie nights at my apartment to watch `A Muppet Chistmas Carol`(my favourite!) and also a non-denominational Christmas carol singing night where we also read the Nativity story from the Bible. My students were confused at my excitement. In Korea, Christmas is a Christian holiday or a day to give your BF/GF a gift, much like valentine's day in North America. It's not a big family affair unless you're Christian and even then. It made no sense to them for me to be so excited when I didn't have a boyfriend. December 22nd and 23rd was my schools "Festival" which was two days of dancing and singing by the students, much like Christmas concerts at schools in Canada except for the concert stage lighting, sound system and flame canons. (yeah you read that right!)
On Christmas Eve I invited 3 other Canadian girls living in Shidae to stay over at my apartment. We went carolling to other foreigners in Shidae (and frightened a few of the Koreans who bumped into us)then settled in to our PJ`s, sipped hot cocoa, watched Home Alone and told stories of our favourite Christmas memories. We had bought stocking stuffers for eachother, so in the morning we opened our stockings together before splitting off to talk to our families.
It was really neat to have two Christmas mornings as it was still Christmas Eve when I called home to Dryden at 11 am.
Dean and Mandy (the suncheon Co-ordinator for foreign teachers and his wife) very generously invited us to their apartment for Christmas brunch and served us such a amazing things as eggs benedict, bagels and salmon, crepes with fruit, and huge assortment of cookies, pies and other desserts. And if that wasn`t enough, in the afternoon we went to a Turkey pot-luck dinner at Elvis Bar with 50 other foreigners for a meal of Turkey, Stuffing, gravy, porogies, salad, veggies, potatoes of every variety and buffet of desserts.
At around 4 pm I came home totally stuffed and had a blissful Christmas nap. I called home again at 10pm and was able to open my presents with my family via webcam and watch the Christmas morning excitement in Canada. It snowed here just a little that day. However, I was a bitter girl going back to work on Boxing Day - my body knows after 25 Christmasses in Canada that it is supposed to sleep until noon and laze around in pajamas the day after Christmas, and it could not be fooled despite how much I tried to tell it to be energetic at work.
My last class was on December 31st, and my students had as much enthusiasm for the "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" as bread dough rising. Me too, kids, me too. I spent new years Eve at Jodie and Stephen's with about a dozen awesome ex-pats (I am actually in love with the term "ex-pat", it makes me feel I dunno...European?)eating great food and goofing around. I didn't stay out too late, I think I went home around 1AM, and was greeted by thick, lazily falling snow.
It feels so good to be in a new year with a fresh 12 months ahead of me. When I checked out of 2008, I happily left my baggage behind. The month of January has gone by very quickly, as often happens when the days are lazy and unstructured. My only semblence of productivity is found in the online teaching pilot program I have been participating in Monday - Friday from 9-11AM. The program is testing a new Microsoft program that creates a virtual classroom for students who live in remote areas and islands and don't have access to English education with a Native English speaker. I have a Korean co-teacher and five students, though only 4 have been reliably able to connect to the classroom environment in the last week. It's been a learning experience for me: using a new program, learning how to make power point presentations, teaching 8 years olds with very little english, following a curriculum (I make my own for the HS students), etc etc etc. I might mention I am also being paid very well for being part of the pilot project on top of my monthly salary (yeah I'm bragging alittle bit, sorry...). And now that the school board has announced that they are launching the program in March for all 5 school boards, it means that I can significantly increase my monthly income and pay off my debt even faster!
On January 31st taking my 26 days of official vacation to travel to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam with 4 other ex-pats (hehehe!). I've never travelled abroad before (Korea being my first time on another continent) so it really feels like the trip of a life time. For the first week I am volunteering at an Elephant Sanctuary in northern Thailand near Chiang Mai city. The rest of the trip is mostly unstructured. We are planning to travel south to Bangkok, spend a few days on the beach, make our way to Cambodia and see Angkor Wat/Siem Reap/Phnom Penh and then head to Vietnam for about a week for more beach time and sight seeing around Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) before flying back to Korea on the 26th. I will do my best to update this blog throughout the month as we stop in internet cafe's in Southeast Asia!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Reunions and Rockin 80's Tunes Revisited
Tonight I sit in my apartment, letting Sarah Slean, candles and mini Christmas lights set the ambience. It has been a lovely, lazy weekend and so easy to enjoy because I still don't have to be back at work until Wednesday. Mokah was attacking my feet for a while, but the Ondol (floor heating) has lulled her into yet another nap. I submitted some photos of her to Cute With Chris (http://www.cutewithchris.com/) so who knows, maybe soon she'll be famous on YouTube. OW! Ok no, not napping as much as I thought, hold on....
Last night was another fun night of Noribang, the Korean Kareoke. You get a private room for you and your friends equipped with its own kareoke machine, two mics and some disco lights thrown in for good measure. Being a zero hero myself, and big car/shower rockstar, its my ideal night out because is actually a fun activity going on besides just the entertainment that occurs when you're wasted (fun for the drunksters but for us zero heroes, we just don't follow down the rabbit hole). Drinkers are welcome to bring their own booze and with a bottle of soju costing less than a bottle of cola, you can understand why Noribang 
is widely popular. It's also great because you are singing in front of your friends instead of strangers, and the scoring system on the machine is based on volume and not key/pitch of the singer! My friends in Suncheon have proven multiple times to be a great Noribang group, we often go until 4 AM and always have a great time. It must be that we share a love for cheesy ballads and rocking 80's (does Kenny Loggins count as rocking?). You can see some pics of Noribang and food fun herehttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2213823&l=7fe47&id=122614903.
is widely popular. It's also great because you are singing in front of your friends instead of strangers, and the scoring system on the machine is based on volume and not key/pitch of the singer! My friends in Suncheon have proven multiple times to be a great Noribang group, we often go until 4 AM and always have a great time. It must be that we share a love for cheesy ballads and rocking 80's (does Kenny Loggins count as rocking?). You can see some pics of Noribang and food fun herehttp://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2213823&l=7fe47&id=122614903.The weekend before my good friend Kristen and I got to hang ou
t for the second weekend in a row! Kristen was my roommate for two years in University and I guess you could say she is to blame for me being in Korea. She was the first person I knew to pursue it and she recommended Canadian Connections (http://www.canconx.com/) to me, which worked out really well! We had some great food (korean porridge and doc galbi!) and had a great time at Noribang with some friends. The highlight for me was going to the Sauna though. The Sauna always wins with me, hands down. And it was great to have a friend to go with. A lot of westerners here are shy about the sauna, especially about going with someone they know. 
It's one thing to go and let a bunch of strangers see you nekkid, but it takes a little more gumption to go with someone you know. I'm not sure why, I guess people don't like the idea of crossing that line. Afterall, the list of "people I've been to lunch with" is a considerably less exclusive list than the list of "people who've seen me naked". If you are one of the ones it freaks out, let me offer a few words in defense of the Korean public bath. The sauna beside my apartment building has 5 baths: hot, luke warm (with massaging jets), ice, green tea (very hot) and cedar (also very hot). It also has two sauna rooms: salt and crystal. Nothing is as relaxing as going from a sauna to a cold bath to a hot bath and back again, it chills me out like nothing else. And really, once you just get over the fact that "yep, these people are going to see me naked" it's a breeze. Afterall, they're all naked too and (surprise!) nobody looks like a supermodel, not even skinny korean women! Also, the showers have way better pressure than the one in my apartment!
t for the second weekend in a row! Kristen was my roommate for two years in University and I guess you could say she is to blame for me being in Korea. She was the first person I knew to pursue it and she recommended Canadian Connections (http://www.canconx.com/) to me, which worked out really well! We had some great food (korean porridge and doc galbi!) and had a great time at Noribang with some friends. The highlight for me was going to the Sauna though. The Sauna always wins with me, hands down. And it was great to have a friend to go with. A lot of westerners here are shy about the sauna, especially about going with someone they know. 
It's one thing to go and let a bunch of strangers see you nekkid, but it takes a little more gumption to go with someone you know. I'm not sure why, I guess people don't like the idea of crossing that line. Afterall, the list of "people I've been to lunch with" is a considerably less exclusive list than the list of "people who've seen me naked". If you are one of the ones it freaks out, let me offer a few words in defense of the Korean public bath. The sauna beside my apartment building has 5 baths: hot, luke warm (with massaging jets), ice, green tea (very hot) and cedar (also very hot). It also has two sauna rooms: salt and crystal. Nothing is as relaxing as going from a sauna to a cold bath to a hot bath and back again, it chills me out like nothing else. And really, once you just get over the fact that "yep, these people are going to see me naked" it's a breeze. Afterall, they're all naked too and (surprise!) nobody looks like a supermodel, not even skinny korean women! Also, the showers have way better pressure than the one in my apartment!The weekend before that was my first time seeing Kristen when we reunited in Seoul, the capital city of South Korea! It was a very quick visit, didn't do alot of sight seeing, but I got to eat a 
Subway Sandwich! And buy christmas presents for everyone! And get the dead skin on my feet eaten off by little fishes while drinking tea! AND saw Cirque du Soleil's Allegria! It was a fantastic time. I can't wait to go back and see some of the museum's and temples (and you know, write a proper description of what I saw/did...I'm sorry it's late!). Here's a couple of pics, you're the first to see em, I haven't put them on Facebook yet!
Subway Sandwich! And buy christmas presents for everyone! And get the dead skin on my feet eaten off by little fishes while drinking tea! AND saw Cirque du Soleil's Allegria! It was a fantastic time. I can't wait to go back and see some of the museum's and temples (and you know, write a proper description of what I saw/did...I'm sorry it's late!). Here's a couple of pics, you're the first to see em, I haven't put them on Facebook yet!
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