In Transit

Hello Everyone!


We are currently in Phnom Penh getting ready to head our for our third day here. We leave tomorrow morning for Ho Chi Minh. We will try to get some blog(s) and pictures posted tomorrow. So far our hostels have limited our internet access to little or none. We are having a wonderful time. We are getting used to the heat. We went from 0 centigrade to about 32 when we went from Seoul to Siem Reap. Ok, we are off. Check back in th next 36 hours for updates.

Sam and Alison

Last Post From Seoul

Alison and I are currently sitting a few hundred meters from our gate, awaiting the boarding call for our flight to Cambodia. Last night was a fantastic last night!! We went to small local bar that is just up the street from school, so many of our co-workers, friends, drinking buddies, traveling buddies, and neighbors came out to send us off. Saying goodbye was sad, and it was not forever, as we will see some of our friends again when we come through Seoul on our way back to Texas.

I guess our blog title will no longer be appropriate after today, but we will continue to post our travel thoughts and pictures here over the next two weeks as we travel through Vietnam and Cambdodia.

We are happy to announce that we will continue blogging about life in general after we are back in the states. Keep checking back in the coming months for our new website. We actually bought a domain name and I am working with Rapidweaver to develop our very own website. Keep checking back in the coming month or so and I will provide a link. Until then, keep checking back here to keep up with us.

Sam

You May Snow Fight with Firefighters...

I've had these gems saved on my work computer for forever and came across them while cleaning things up a bit on my break. (You know, since we're leaving and all... ahhhh!) I had one of my upper-level classes write poems about their favorite season and thought these 3 on winter were pretty amusing and a little odd...

Winter
by Han Ju

You may fly a kite in the white garden
You may make a snowman with man’s help
You many snow fight with firefighters
You may drive car to white garden.

Winter
by Daniel2

White snowy day
It is the heart by me
I want to get that white heart inside
I want to be a inside person in outside
I want winter because the snow day makes me to be happy
I think the sky is very beautiful

White Snow
by Daniel1

The winter come with witches
The witches come with a white snow
“Wow! What a white snow!”
One Wednesday everybody whistle
They wonder when the snow will stop.

Gross

Oh, Yu-Na Kim... you are an amazing figure skater, you running around and sweating is kind of inspiring, and the music is good... but I can't get past the concept of this commercial that's on all. the. time... just wait for the end!

Yeah, nothing's better than chugging milk from the carton after a tough work out... barf-o-rama!

(Have I mentioned that I will actually miss Korean commercials? Sigh.)

Japan Day 3

We started off a very busy day very early in the morning at the Fish Market. This place was nuts and so much fun to wander around! We spent a long time in the tightly packed aisles dodging minitrucks and motorcycles and workers carrying freshly packed fish. (If dead fish bother you, you might want to skip towards the end!)



Then we stopped for the. best. sushi. ever. I've never had sushi for breakfast, but this was seriously so delicious and fresh!

From the fish market we walked basically across the city. It took for-ev-er, but at least the views were nice! Here's the moat around the palace.

Our next stop was Yasukuni shrine, which is a bit of a controversial place. This is the memorial shrine to those who died in the Japanese military wars. Because of Japan's dicey history with many other Southeast Asian countries when dignitaries stop by the shrine during official visits it creates tension in their home countries.

At the shrine there was also a warm museum that focused heavily on WWII. Let's just say that getting the Japanese perspective on the pre-WWII "Korea incident" and the "American War" was interesting. No photos were allowed inside the actual museum, but here's Sam next to a steam engine they had on display.

Then we stopped off for a little bit coffee to refuel and hit up the Sony building, which was lots of fun. We got to see all of the prototypes for their newest stuff, play with cameras and computers, etc. After walking alllll day long and starting so early we ended up just heading back to the hostel and calling it a night!

Alison's Korean Favorites

We had our "official" going away party last night, and I think it made me feel nostalgic. So, I'm jumping on Sam's bandwagon and making my own list as a way to recap the year... and possibly to avoid packing. In no particular order at all, here are my fav. things about Korea.

1. Noreabang! This one is fresh in my mind since we were just there like 10 hours ago. I know they have them in the states, but these are literally on every street corner here. The noreabang is karaoke, but in a private room and with full control over the song selection. Glorious!

2. Public transportation. Dallas needs to get on this, stat.

3. Mandatory recycling. Most apartment buildings and public places make it ridiculously easy to do this, which has made me be more concious.

4. Our friends. I haven't had a job where I worked with so many people my own age in a long time. And with everyone living so close together it's a little bit like college again, and who didn't love college?? More than that, though, we were lucky to work with a really great group of people, all of whom I actually like! Plus we have some rad not-school-associated friends.

5. Korean kids. Sure some are punks, but so are 12 year-old boys everywhere. They make me laugh every single day. And while I don't think that teaching is my "calling" I have really enjoyed it this year. Plus Korean babies are THE cutest.

6. Not understanding what's going on around me. Sometimes this place still seems like an adventure. But mostly it's a LOT easier to deal with people yapping on their cellphones in public places when you have no idea what they're talking about. And also it's really fun to shock people when you DO know what they're talking about.

7. Olympic Park. I love having a park within walking distance. I'm really sad I won't get to enjoy another spring/summer there.

8. Sharing food at restaurants. It makes meal times so much more fun and festive feeling. And you get to try more food! It might not be the most hygenic, but it's scientifically proven (by me, obviously) that sharing germs builds community. I apologize in advance if we're at home and I randomly take things off your plate without asking.

9. Express buses. I guess this goes along with public transportation in general, but express buses have Greyhound beat like nobody's business. Big cushy seats, lots of leg room, they make a cross-country trip an actually pleasant experience. Plus, they're cheap and leave a convenient times.

10. The hoses hanging from the cielings at galbi restaurants. So genius! I mean, you can have 20 in-table bar-b-ques going at once in a relatively small space and it never gets smoky in the room. Plus, they are cool to look at. I also just realized that I've never really taken pictures at a galbi restaurant. We'll have to remedy that this week!

11. Markets. There just isn't really anything like Dongdaemun or even Insadong at home and I can wander these places for hours just looking!

12. Won. It's prettier than the dollar.

13. Pretty much everything Sam said, too.

Okay, after I eat some lunch I'm REALLY going to start packing. For real. Because we leave in a WEEK, people! Seriously, this time next week I will be waking up in Cambodia. And I haven't even finished the Japan recaps yet!

Sam's Favorite Things About Korea

As I was riding my bike to work today, I began thinking about the things I am going to miss.  Here are 10 things in no particular order.

1. My bike - I love my bike!! I did not buy it until about 4 or 5 months ago, but I can count the days I have not ridden it on 2 hands.  I am looking forwarding to driving again, but I will miss riding my bike everywhere.

2. The food - I got stuck on some dishes early on, but have since branched out, and just tonight tried something new still.  Food is the one part of Korea that I feel I have not adequately explored.

3. Drinking Korean beer on the sidewalk - There are no public consumption laws in Korea, so most convenience stores have plastic tables and chairs out front.  They sell beer in 2 liter bottles, as well as little paper dixie cups, and of course tons of snacks. Drinking beer on a summer night was relaxing and great times with co-workers, not to mention cheaper than a bar.

4. Alison - haha, I am not leaving her behind, but our relationship was different this year from the first two.  We went from living 30 minutes apart in Dallas, to two desks apart at work, and two flights of stairs apart at home, and now we are going home and will once again be separated until after the wedding. 

5. Ondol floors - I LOVE MY FLOOR HEAT!  and i pay for it.  My gas bill has been almost double Alison's some months because I love to turn on my floor heat and sit on the floor while eating, reading, surfing the web, etc.

6. Chopsticks - This is a weird one.  I eat every meal with chopsticks. Even most of my meals at home where I could use a fork, I now choose chopsticks.

7.  Cutting meat with scissors rather than a knife - It's just a Korean thing.  They cut their meat up with scissors while it is cooking, and then serve it.

8. Food - Wait...I said this already

9. My students - A few of my students, I will not miss.  But many of them I will never forget. 

10. Caramel World Cone - I have never eaten so much ice cream in my life.  Korea has the greatest selection of cones that are sold at every convenience store.  The Caramel World Cone is the Pinta Island Tortoise(click here to google it) of the ice cream cone world.  We only know of one store near us that consistently has it(but not always)stocked in their freezers.  It just blows everything else away.  If there was a way I could send home a box of dry ice filled with Caramel World Cones....I would send home three boxes of dry ice filled with Caramel World Cones.  David and I always stop and look in the freezers on the street to see if we can spot a green wrapper......Most of the time we fail, which makes the successes that much tastier.

2 weeks to go, 4 weeks til home.

Yep, that's right.  We just have two weeks left at our jobs.  Last week went by incredibly fast and were thinking that the next two will fly by as well.  Leaving is going to be bittersweet.  This has been our home for the past 12 months, and now we are in the process of packing it up.  Two weeks until we are finished with work and have to be out of our apartments, but that is not the end of our excursion.  I will post a detailed plan of our SE Asia travels later, but here is the preview.  Feb 20 is our last day at work.  The next morning we will be on a plane at 10:35 in the morning heading for Cambodia.  Over the next 13 days we will make our way down through Cambodia and up through Vietnam where our flight leaves Hanoi on the evening of March 5th bound for Seoul.  We get into Seoul super early on the morning of the 6th.  We will then make our way back into the city to claim the suitcases that we will have stashed at co-workers apartments, have one last meal with friends and say our last goodbyes, then back to the airport to catch a 6:30 flight to Dallas, through Vancouver and Denver.  If we live through March 6th, it might be a miracle.  Scheduling our flights into and out of Seoul on the same day was not intended, but we must make it work.  

We will spend next weekend hitting up the last few things we want to do here, and spending time with friends.  Surely our last week will be rather hectic.  Hopefully one more blog entry before we are off to Cambodia.

K-Pop

I know you were probably not expecting to see this blog come from me.  But I think it could turn out to be one of the more entertaining entries from this year.  K-Pop is the phrase used to refer to Korean Pop music.  When a song is big here, it is played everywhere, and all the time.  We have shared a-lot about Korean Culture historically, but this will give you a glimpse into the music scene.  All of these songs have a bit of English mixed in with the Korean.  The English phrases are always the catchiest part of the song, and every single one of these songs has gotten stuck in my head over the past 12 months.  There are also catchy dance moves that our students teach us(Alison will be glad to show you all of these upon our return) Please let me know if any of these get stuck in your heads. haha.  Enjoy.....

"Tell Me" by the Wonder Girls.

"So Hot" by the Wonder Girls

"Nobody" by the Wonder Girls(Let this one run its course, it starts out with a guy singing, but then he gets stuck in the bathroom.  This is when the girls come in and save the show.

"One More Time" by Jewelry

"Lies" by Big Bang

Big Bang is HUGE here.  Seriously, 99% of the kids at our school will say that they like them.  

If you hit this one up at 1:25 you will hear what our students sing to us every time they forget to do their homework.

"Look At Me" by Tae Yang

This is one of Alison's favorites. 

Japan Day 1

Look at me, getting this blog up just a week after our trip!! (If you saw exactly how many photos I had to sort through to bring you this post you would be excited for me, too!) Just to reiterate Sam's earlier entry, we had an a-mazing time on our trip!

So, here we are on the train to our hostel from the airport. The subway system in Tokyo is much more confusing than Seoul, but we literally had NO problem getting to Asukusa Smile!


Mkay, y'all, I'm not gonna lie. Our room was tee-niny. I would have had Sam stand in the room while I took this, but then the picture would have just been a photo of Sam's chest... let's just say I took this standing in the hall, and that suitcase is pressed all the way up against the wall. However, other than the small-ness of the room we really enjoyed our hostel. The showers were hot and clean, the lobby/lounge was nice, and the location was actually pretty good!


After we checked into the hostel we hit the road pretty immediately and headed out to Harajuku. It was packed on a Saturday night, and we had a lot of fun people watching. I couldn't stop staring at everyone who was dressed so differently from each other! I mean, I love Seoul's style, but things are pretty mono-chromatic here and everyone pretty much sticks to the same general style, but in Tokyo there was so much color and variation!
After passing like the 12th crepe stand we gave in. We went for the strawberry/chocolate/ice cream/whipped cream variation there.

I apparently loved it so much I had to make crazy eyes while eating it.

But Sam loved it enough to wear a tiny bit on his lip. Needless to say it was de-licious! (This picture also demonstrates that Sam is still really tall and I'm still short.)

The crepe served as a nice appetizer and as we walked we discussed what we should have for dinner. In the course of conversation we wondered whether Tokyo had different western chains than Seoul. Sam actually said, "Oh man, if they have Wendy's or Taco Bell I would probably have to eat there!" Well, wouldn't you know what we saw when we turned the corner! So, yes, we ate Wendy's for our first night in Tokyo. Feel free to judge.

Then we just continued to wander and wander and wander. Lonely Planet gave typically crappy directions, but we were having a good time just soaking in a new city so it didn't perturb us too much.

We were pretty beat by this point, and new that we were going to have an early date with the snow monkeys the next morning, so we headed back to our bunks for a good night's sleep... thanks to our ear plugs :)