Cambodia, Kingdom of Wonder!

~~ " ...There's no such things as time. IT'S OUR TIME." ~~

Jack Johnson

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Our first stop in Cambodia was to participate in an Ultimate Frisbee Hat Tourney in the capital city of about a million and a half people, Phnom Penh. If you remember from November or so, a hat tourney is one where you register as an individual and are later broken up into teams 'randomly' but also as evenly as possible according to your reported skill level. We wouldn't know anyone on our squad and that's kind of the beauty of the event – watching a rag-tag group of strangers from all over the world's Ulti communities to come together and become a TEAM within the time frame of their first day together.
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Not surprisingly, Muc and I ended up on separate teams and scheduled to face-off against each other at the end of the first day. Before we had even met our teams, we made a bet that I would whoop his little behind – the loser to perform a full-fledged Buddah bow and smootch the other's cleats at midfield after our game!!
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Muc and I in good spirits despite being a few minutes from the end of our game against each other. I think the score was TIED at this point if I remember correctly!

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The tourney was light-hearted – serving free beer all day, blasting music and then throwing a party every night after the action. The only downfalls might have been serious dehydration, smashing my head off of our low ceiling exit to our hostel bathroom (twice) making it even more lumpy than it already was, losing to Muc's team by exactly one point and making a spectacle of myself in paying off our little bet. We met a ton of great people, spread some hug-fives around, caught a few scores each and won a handful of games. The event was ultra well-organized from start to finish and absolutely a riot through and through!
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Thanks in no small part to a perfect huck (long frisbee toss) from 'Peach', I haul in a long score during the semi's.

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After getting knocked out in the semi's by the only undefeated team, we decided to settle our final score for 3rd place by dominating the gray team in an old fashioned beer chug-off! A fitting end to the day since there was basically NO ONE left physically able to play another game at that point. :)
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Boat race to determine 3rd place in the Phnom Penh Hat tourney 2011. Note how the green team DOMINATES the grey guys!

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After a packed weekend of out-of-shape Ulti in the steaming hot jungle, it was time for some serious relaxation. We headed south for the dumpy tourist port city of Sihanoukville. Luckily that was not our final destination. We found a place to crash, and the next morning set out on a 2+ hour boat ride not really knowing what we should expect from the private island resort of Lazy Beach, Koh Rong Saloem. It had been briefly recommended months ago by a South African friend in Korea, but if the stay was to be anything like the boat ride out there, we were in big trouble! We were in a tiny, rickety, homemade looking piece of wood in the middle of the ocean. The waves were ridiculous and almost half of the 10 or 12 other people on our boat ended up sending the contents of their stomachs over the side rail. Water poured on board every few minutes when the boat would rock from left to right, bags were falling and sliding arond the deck. It seemed endless and for some reason the theme to Gilligan's Island kept playing through my head.

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This had better be one hell of an incredible stay to make up for this, I remember thinking to myself; and IT WAS!! Finally we landed in heaven on Earth. This resort, it's 10 villas and bar/restaurant were literally the ONLY structures on this entire island! We had no reason to look at our watches for the four days to come and couldn't have been more stoked.

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We learned a new game from the bar-tenders there which occupied plenty of our four days - Monopoly DEAL (if you're at Kilworry this year, you WILL learn this game!) We also dedicated time to some volleyball, floating, beach-bumming, good eats and cheap drinks. I was SO impressed that, despite having the ability to literally charge any prices they want for food and drink (as they had the ONLY source on the island) things were very reasonably priced. Thanks for not price gouging, Asia!! :)

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Private beach resort on an undeveloped private island for $6 a night each!

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There's me - well, about one fifth of me - enjoying my paradise!!

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Our canadian buddy, Jason, who we picked up along the way in the frisbee tourney. He was traveling alone and didn't have much of an agenda so we invited him along to the beach!

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One of the days found Sarah feeling really sick with a 24-hour bug. She was barely able to move the entire day, but luckily, she had no reason to do so anyways. I used the day to plan out the final execution of my secret plot I had been brewing for months before. It was to be her Chirstmas, 1 year dating anniversary and birthday presents all rolled into one, so it needed to be good!

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Broey and I scouting out the perfect spot and plotting the secret plan for my sick girlfriend whenever she would start feeling better.

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The following day, she was feeling much better and up to a short 'sunset hike' as suggested by me. We made our way slowly up the steep train I had discovered the day before. After about 15 minutes, the trail ended at a flat rock platform that overlooked the entire island. The sunset was beautiful, we'd taken a couple of pics and soaked it in. Then, perfectly, the only other guy that had been there decided to take off. It was time.

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I told her we should take a self-timer pic and showed her where to stand. I arranged the camera and pushed the button. When I came back to take my place, she mentioned that the timer wasn't blinking on the camera. She started to realize that I was shooting a video – not a picture – when she looked over and I was down on a knee at her side. I took her hand and said, “Baby, I've loved you as long as I've known you. I promise to always do everything in my power to make you happy. Will you marry me?” I tried to look her in the eye but she was staring at the ring and trying to wrap her brain around what was happening. She smiled and nodded excitedly so I put the ring on her finger and we shared the moment.

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Muc shot about 5 mintes of footage to add to the video that I took of the proposal itself and a couple dozen pictures. Armed with just that, he put together a really touching and incredible engagement video for us within a couple of hours! Most people reading this would have surely already seen it, but for the sake of commiting it to the record: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wx2FzDPZvl4

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After gathering ourselves, it was time to head back down to our friends who were waiting for us with a table, bottle of champagne and their congratulations. We were ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED!! Everything went as smoothly as I could have hoped and we have truly enjoyed and appreciated all the online support of our decision from our friends and family though most of them have never met one or the other of us! Thank you all, we love you!! :) No date or even time frame picked yet, but we'll be sure to let everyone know as soon as we know. If we had to make a ballpark guess for now, we'd say summer 2012.

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The next day we woke up early and settled our long tab with Lazy Beach; all food, drinks and accommodation for 3 nights and 4 days on a private island came to less than $90 per person!!

As you can tell, dollars go along way in Cambodia since unfortunately, the average wage for a working person seems to be less than $5 per day. That means that whenever they see tourists, they literally NEED your business - even if it's only for a dollar worth of bracelets or post-cards. This makes for VERY aggressive sales tactics and even being just plain bothersome to tourists anytime they see one.

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Another tactic is for disabled parents to beg in nightlife areas with their small children. It puts you in a kind of a guilt-ridden predicament. It's tragic to see the unhealthy and dirty children, but I also always fear that any money tourists give them may very well not be going to the child, but to support parent's booze, drug-habit or who knows what else.

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One night, Sarah and I found a way around this when we bought some milk and tiny little 'Pooh' stuffed animals for a couple of such little girls. I have litterally never seen such a simple and small gift be so massively appreciated and it made us both feel really deeply good about what we'd done. If only there were a way to start doing this on a much larger scale; these situations are far too common in our world as people in the western world complain about their mocha espresso not having the correct sweetener. Sarah and I did NOT put an end to world hunger or poverty that night, but we certainly did put a smile on a couple of kids' faces!

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The cutest little girl ever posing with Sarah and her new gifts. She would smile enormous and wave at Sarah from across the bar for the rest of evening! SO adorable!! :)

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So anyways, it was time to head out of our island paradise. The boat ride was certainly not enjoyable, but nor was it the disaster that the original had been. We waited in Sihanoukville for our long over-night bus and arrived before dawn the next morning in Siem Reap; home of Angkor Wat! Angkor is an old and impressive temple complex that dates back more than 1500 years when it was built as a Hindu worship site. The Buddhists would later take it over and change it's purpose. Maybe a century after that, it was abandoned and forgotten there for a long period of time before being rediscovered, refurbished and converted into a major attraction for travelers from around the world. It is massive and in some places overgrown by jungle and trees.

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Angkor Wat. Seim Reap, Cambodia.

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Most historic sites are more like museums where you have a set path that you're asked to walk, being pushed along by other tourists directly behind you. I've always felt kind of uneasy in those places – like you're being slighted a bit and not able to get the full experience. That was NOT the case at Angkor Wat. There were essentially no rules! Run, jump, climb up, go wherever you think you can safely go with no one bothering you! Of course, there were tons of other tourists there, but the place was so massive – a number of miles – that you could almost always get the picture you wanted and take as little or as much time as you wish at a given site. The whole complex was one of the most impressive awe-inspiring places I've ever seen – far blowing away Athens' Acropolis or even Rome's Coliseum!

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The most impressive and awe-inspring day of the trip.... maybe EVER??

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Other than that, we did only very little in Siem Reap. There is a tourist trap called 'Pub Street' with lots of bars, restaurants and quirky little things to do where we entertained ourselves with Dr. Fish and a few beers. My main complaint of the stay there was clearly the overly pushy up-salesman at our hostel who literally thought that we OWED him more business because he had picked us up from the bus station as their guest house had promised. It actually got ugly when he came into our room and kept at it as Muc and I basically told him to take a walk. It came to shouting and cussing by the end of it and made the rest of our stay there really uncomfortable.
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We stayed only 2 nights and that was enough. Overall, the beauty of old Angkor Wat prevailed and we really enjoyed our time in Siem Reap for that reason.
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Our time in Cambodia came to an end that day as we boarded a bus due for Bangkok, Thailand. From frisbee with the foreigners, the serenity of Lazy Beach and the wonder of Angkor Wat all at incredibly cheap and welcoming prices, I think it's safe to say that Cambodia proved to be one of the most UNDER-RATED tourists destinations in Asia. If I had to guess, I would say that 20 years from now, it will be rivaling Thailand in popularity! We were very lucky to get to visit now before the crazy development and price inflation takes place.

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The 'Nam

~ I try to write not about things that I do; rather things that I learn. ~

Aside from a brief delay in Guangzhou, China and getting ripped off major for our meal there, the first LOOONG day of travel went off without a hitch. We arrived in Ho Chi Minh (or 'Saigon' interchangeably) late at night where we were met by our next big rip off when we accidentally paid triple for our 'taxi' from the airport. Live and learn!

We got to our hostel and were working on blind hope alone that it would be open and able to let us in (it was now about 1 in the morning) and that Muc would have found his way there already as we had planned. To continue our early smooth roll of impressive fortune, BOTH turned out to be true with no hassle at all! We caught up with Muc over a 40-cent beer or two and headed off to bed in our beautiful high ceiling room at the Diep Anh Guesthouse on backpackers' row, old town Saigon.

The next morning we got up early and explored the city by foot. Ho Chi Minh is extremely busy, but is also very accessible. Almost all of the attractions seem to be located within a few blocks which makes for some insanely bustling streets in the downtown area. There are more motorbikes at every intersection than in the entire state of Minnesota, I'm convinced. We had a terrific day exploring the central market, their Notre Dame Cathedral, Vietnam War museum (from the other extreme point of view than we are accustomed to) and a few other popular sites all within a few minutes.

In front of the old City Hall in Ho Chi Minh City. Fresh off the boat!

Vietnam's Notre Dame Cathedral.

We had been previously warned that if you try to wait for a break in the action, you'll literally never cross the road. The only way to get where you need to go is just to step fearlessly into traffic walking slowly but steadily directly through it. Crazy as it sounds, as long as you don't stop, slow down or start to run frantically, your path will be predictable and the 600 motos will pass right by you without incident.

Here is the M.U.C crossing the road in Saigon. Do NOT try this at home!

Since we had only a handful of days in Vietnam, we figured that we would have to decide between a jungle exploration at the Mekong River Delta or the beaches, resorts and famed sand dunes of Mui Ne. But when the time came, we realized it was potentially our only time in Vietnam (ever?), so we decided to cram them both in. We found an abbreviated 1 day tour version of the Delta and left ourselves 2 nights for Mui Ne's resorts, beaches, impressive sand dunes and 'fairy stream' walking.

Paddling down a tiny inlet of the Mekong River near it's delta. A slightly fabricated experience but it was still a really cool day!

Just the fellas hanging out in the 'Fairy Stream' area just outside of Mui Ne, Vietnam.

Our good friend and trusty cousin, Broseph.... riding an ostrich! This little experience set us each back a full dollar!

The Vietnam Austria Guesthouse in the beautiful resort town of Mui Ne. The beautiful paradise resort ran about $7 per person each night.

Even through our side trips, we remained based out of the Diep Anh Guesthouse in Saigon. We just couldn't get ourselves to move from there for its comfortable and private rooms, cheap drinks and surely the most genuine and helpful owners/staff that I have EVER encountered. They arranged all of our excursions we were interested in – and for dirt cheap, kept our bags safe for days at a time while we were away and just generally wanted to make sure we didn't have a care in the world while we were staying at their place. Still not convinced? On our last day there, Joe asked the owner where he might be able to purchase a guitar for cheap. He started to draw a map but then realized it might be a little bit complicated and crunched for time, so he dropped everything, pulled his motorbike out and drove Joe to the guitar shop personally! You just don't see that kind of extreme service – wait, I mean CARE – anywhere else!!

Us and a portion of the staff at the Diep Anh Guesthouse. 10 out of 10

In typical Muc fashion, he put together a mega-rad video to summarize the great times that we had in our week there in Vietnam. Please enjoy it by clicking the youtube link here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPjb1TKv4VI :)

Our time was up and we would head next for almost 2 weeks in the Kingdom of Wonder; Cambodia!!!!

Broey in Korea!

~~ Obviously travel is about going new places; but the more you do it, the more you realize, it's so much more about the people you meet along your way. ~~

Which brings me to Friday, February 18^th ; 3AM.

I was awake well before dawn and on my way to the bus station heading north to meet good old cousin Joe at the Incheon Airport! He thought that he would be meeting Sarah for the first time (in person, although they had talked and exchanged messages online for months) there in the terminal when he arrived. What we didn't tell him though was that Sarah, being the incredible and selfless person that she is, offered to cover work for me so that I might have the honor!

When he came out of the terminal, I snuck up on him with my camera rolling and gave him a loud, “Let the mayham!!.....” In his delirious and jet-lagged state, it took him a long moment of staring at me blankly before he realized what was going on. After about 5 seconds, he smiled and said in a confused voice, “Begin!?” - That's an old thing we picked up from our first back-packing venture years ago. :)

Joe was reasonably WIPED OUT, but we had a serious errand to take care of before we could get him to our hostel in Seoul to relax. We had exactly a one-day window to get our India visa applications turned in and on their way to approval. We had to leave our passports there for 'at least a week' which meant if things went perfectly, we'd still only have a one hour opportunity to pick them up the day before we were scheduled to leave for Vietnam. We had very little room for error.

It ended up taking us a full four hours to get through the whole process. We couldn't find the office, Broey had the wrong passport photos, and the lobby was PACKED, but we toughed through it and nervously left our passports with the embassy just 8 days before we were leaving for a two-month excursion.

Finally, we checked into our hostel, ate a big traditional Korean lunch (including Joe's first real experience with chopsticks) took a long nap and then showered. We felt like new men and were ready to go and meet Sarah at the subway station. She had finished her day covering for me and everything had gone wonderfully smooth!

We decided to dedicate some hours to partying with our new hostel-mates we had met – namely, Luce from France and Leena from Finland. We guzzled 3-foot tall margaritas, sang in our karaoke room for hours and headed for Shisha in the busy college town area of Hongdae, Seoul. This particular shisha house had a new trick for us though and brought us a small dish of bubble soap to blow giant smoke bubbles with. We found this to be wildly entertaining and stayed there into the early hours of the morning. We were enjoying the company of our new-found friends so much that we ended up continuing the party at our hostel until 6 something in the morning.

Finally stumbling to bed, we'd left ourselves about 2 hours to try and sleep before we needed to be at our bus pick-up spot for our scheduled Adventure Korea temple stay at Geumsan-sa. This would be a totally new experience for all of us and we were excited for it, but left ourselves little chance to be feeling good for the event.

Luckily, I was sleep-talking so loudly that I woke Sarah up across the dorm-style hostel room which caused her to note the time and the fact that we had completely overslept. We drunkenly threw our things together and ran to catch our bus. We made it, but in a very fragile state of life.

It turned out to be a really unique and eye-opening learning experience for all of us where we learned some of the ideas, customs and moral-sets that drive the Buddhist lifestyle. We practiced bowing, meditation, and traditional eating style. I had to beg out of a couple of the activities to get my hung-over self caught up on sleep, but overall really enjoyed the first day at the temple.

The main temple at Guemsan-sa. Adventure Korea temple stay February 19th, 2011

After a long morning of similar activities, it was time for everyone else in our group to go, but we stayed behind. Since we were already very near to Daejeon, it didn't make sense to take the train all the way to Seoul. Our plan was to take a city bus from the temple into a near-by town where we could get on a train to Daejeon, but then Stonehead (our grandmaster monk that had been our host all weekend) invited us – in very broken and limited communication – to stay for a quick scenic hike and then tea in his personal chamber! Although we were more than ready to be on our way, there was no way to pass this up. This little bonus quickly proved to be the overwhelming highlight of the weekend for all of us!

Broey and 'Stonehead' up on the viewpoint above his temple complex.

Homemade tea in the grandmaster monk's personal chambers! A really unique experience!

Stonehead brought us to the train station personally and saw us onto our train. Hours later, for the first time, we brought Joe into our temporary hometown of Daejeon. I still had a busy and VERY full week of work left in front of me. Sarah was done with work but had precisely one million things to do in terms of cleaning, laundry, packing, moving out of apartments, sending boxes home, travel plans, doctors' appointments, etc. We felt a little bad that we couldn't be better hosts to Broey during his visit. It turned out to be less vacation and more witnessing our daily lives in Korea as he helped Sarah while I was at work, shadowed me at school for more than a full day, partied with my co-workers and sang plenty of Karaoke.

It was a full, action packed week. We partied lots, worked hard, slept very little but somehow in the end... we got it all done and got to enjoy a nice farewell party with most all of our Korea friends on Thursday night. We had a great dinner at Taco K and one last hurrah at the Shisha House. It was a fun, but very emotional night of memories and good-bye hugs. We were truly blessed to have met such incredible people all year and we'll not forget you guys!!

One last go-round at the Shisha House; Aussie Nic, Northwest Vin and BC Woody. Our going-away party, 02/24/2011

Friday, I headed into my last day of work with backpacks strapped on. Sarah and Joe would later wake up, polish off my apartment (which was THE apartment at this point – tight fit!) and head up to Seoul. They had to be at the Indian embassy between 4 and 5 pm in order to pick up our passports. If there were any hitches in that, our passports would be locked up in Seoul for the weekend and we would be forced to miss our flight to Vietnam and rearrange the first bit of our Southeast Asia trip.... naturally, I was a bit nervous about something going wrong, but I wouldn't know the outcome until they sent me an update online or I met them in Seoul later that night.

School was a laid-back last day. We had our graduation ceremony where I barely got 4 words out of my mouth before I started to cry while Tommy and Sannah giggled to see me reduced to tears. We gave a few tests, played a few games and said many tearful good-byes to my little tykes! I checked facebook one last time to see if I had any updates from Sarah and Joe. Nothing. The embassy had been closed for an hour and they didn't send me anything?? That didn't leave me overly settled but I tried not to worry about it before I knew what the situation had become. Suddenly, the day was over and I was no longer employed by Kids College. I was on my way to Daejeon station for one last time – indefinitely at least.

Me with a big pile of kids taking a break from my last class at Kid's College. Man, I miss these little guys already!!!!

The train station was as jammed as I had ever seen it. I barely got standing room on an already over-booked train and had something of a miserable ride. I hadn't slept all week, was hung-over, worried about the visa and now was to be wedged tightly between 4 Korean strangers for the next hour plus. One nice side-effect of being so crammed in there was that I could actually fall asleep standing up; and did! Soon, I was in Seoul and heading for our hostel.

It took about 40 more minutes of subways and a short walk, but there were Sarah and Joe in the lobby waiting for me; visa'ed passports in hand!! It was a major relief, and they gave me just a moment to enjoy the fact that we had them before adding the details of just how close we came to blowing it! All trains had been sold out, they had to transfer across town the other station where they were able to beg and connive their way onto their own over-booked train. They had to borrow cell phones to contact the embassy and tell them they would NOT be there before closing time. Luckily, the merciful people there agreed to stay open for them. Joe had to run from the taxi and bang on the door frantically, but in the end; we got our passports back at the LAST POSSIBLE MOMENT! With that massive weight off our shoulders, we enjoyed our last night in Seoul (ever?) with our same friends from the week before in that same hostel, Luce and Leena who happend to be back/still at that same hostel!

The next morning, it was off to the Incheon Airport to begin a brand new chapter! Our hope would be to meet Muc at our decided hostel and let the mayhem continue, but a LOT more still had to go perfectly our way for that to happen.

Korea wrap-up

As usual, it's been a healthy long while since I've written so there is far to much to recall the details of what has happened in the last few months. They have been busy; far too busy to ever feel even close to caught up. Life included a good deal of indoor climbing, my first ever ice-climbing adventure and a 'rec' volleyball tourney that turned out to include all of Seoul's best v-ballers and even this Russian team that seemed they hadn't done anything EXCEPT play volleyball for the past decade or two – our ragtag squadron didn't fare too well in that one, but we had a riot as always!

Anyways, instead of trying to recall details of stories too far removed from even my own brain, I should formally wrap up my time in Korea with a pro's/con's list of my view of Korean culture and my experience teaching here for the year. Let's start with the cons and then finish on the positive side:

Things I'll NOT miss about living in Korea. (Not for the sake of bitching; rather explaining cultural differences that some people may find interesting). :)

10. No clothes driers – I have only been able to hang dry my clothes all year. It takes a day and a half eats up any and all space you may have had in an already miniscule apartment.

9. Pushy people – One cultural observation that seems immediately apparent in Korea is the need to literally shove people out of each other's way – a firm hand in the middle of your back has become normal. If they didn't do this, no one would get anywhere so I understand it, but am ready to move on from that one for sure.

8. Oblivious pedestrians – This one drove me crazy. People rarely pay attention to where they are going and almost never give the right of way. Groups in front of you will span the entire sidewalk, swerve randomly, stop unpredictably, make you slam on the brakes as they slowly roam out in front of your bike, and on it goes. You have to develop an extreme patience or you'll go totally bonkers. I usually chose the second option. :)

7. Sickness – Blame the pollution, yellow dust, DRY air, or unfamiliar food and bacterias native here, but many of my friends have not felt fully healthy for months (or longer).

6. Brutal street crossings – Stop lights in Korea for some reason like to take sometimes over 3 or 4 minutes to let the pedestrians cross. Even where there's not a car in sight, most Koreans will stand obediently on the corner and wait for the little green man – making you feel like a guilty disobedient foreigner if you break the rule. It always confused me in a country where cars can run red-lights freely, but the people are not allowed to jay-walk.

   Side note. The lights are also a detrimental stride-breaker for a runner!

5. Lack of public bathrooms, drinking fountains, etc. - Most shops will have a bathroom for their customers, but almost always without toilet paper, hot water or even soap. As you can imagine, this usually means, 'When you gotta go; you gotta go ELSEWHERE.' The lack of hygiene can be not only annoying, but often frightening as well. “The guy cooking my food used this same bathroom??”

4. Water heaters – Very few (if any) buildings have central air or heating. Mostly floor-board heating and individual heating units are used to keep places warm. This system doubles to provide shower water since there are no reservoirs. You get used to having to switch on the hot water and mess with it for maybe 10 minutes every shower but I'm really looking forward to not having to do that anymore!

3. Intense pressure on the children – Parents in Korea have VERY high expectations for their children. In short, most of them think that their son or daughter is and should continue to be INFALABLE. Getting 94 out of a 100 on an exam might get a young child in scolded and punished. Further, they often attend 3 or 4 schools starting as early as 3 years old!! (School, English, Chinese, piano, violin, taekwando, etc) This places extreme pressure on the students and leaves them little time to play and ever actually be kids. It's often said that parents' retirement funds here are raising their children to be millionaires.

This work-ethic and intense drive has contributed greatly to the development of the country, but tragically is also a big factor in Korea having the highest suicide rate among youth in the world!

2. Garbage!! - The system of garbage disposal here is to purchase these little green bags which are the only ones to be used for disposing of non-recyclable items. You pay about 50 or 60 cents a bag but really you're paying for the service rather than the bag itself. Seems like a great system because then people only pay for what they throw away, right? You might think so, but this is not the case at all. The real result is that people used to just dump their trash at businesses or any public container which in turn resulted in businesses and the government to stop offering containers! Now the whole country has no convenient place to put their garbage and so throws it anywhere they want. In Daejeon at least, there are disgusting garbage piles all over the city!

Another contributing factor to the garbage problem is that companies are allowed to (and do every single day in reams) just randomly throw their fliers all over the streets as advertisement!! This one pissed me off all the time!!!

1. K-Pop!!!! - Ah, the horrific music scene of Korea. Inspired by America's garbage pop music industry, Korea has thousands of femme looking doods, or trampish little girls parading around every billboard, television, poster, you name it! Completely talentless, cookie-cutter puppets of their producers; I cannot express how happy I am to cut ties with that scene!!

Wow! What an angry rant that must have seemed like. But the truth is, the positives hugely overpower the negatives.

10. Interest in our life-style – It'll be tricky to explain this one without sounding too vain here... but, foreigners are generally found to be of interest to the people; sometimes being offered favors that others wouldn't get. For a prime example, Muc and a couple of our other buddies were driving around a new city and asking someone where to find a hotel. Instead the family offered them a place to eat and stay at their own house with their family! Within 10 minutes, they had the family's kids dumped in their lap for photo shoot. It's kind of fun!

9. Free climbing wall – Daejeon is the only city in the world that I'm aware of who decided that a climbing wall was a necessary enough part of life to include it into the tax budget! There free for use anytime! Loved it!! Maybe St Paul will catch on??

8. Service – Korea is famous for world-class customer service without being bothersome to the guests. There's no dopey guy in suspenders and a funny hat checking in on you and trying to sell you more crap while you only want to eat your food. When you need something, you push a little button on your table and they come running. I've become a little bit jaded on American style service I'm afraid.

7. Not needing a car – I haven't driven a car since last June but have never had to worry about getting where I needed to go. Between the subways, trains, buses, taxis and my bicycle; it has been AWESOME to not have a car. Imagine never trying to find over-crowded downtown parking, filling up a gas tank or paying an insurance bill!

6. Global friends – You guys have been awesome!! I've been learning not only about Korean culture this year, but Australian, Irish, South African and more as well. I have good friends from all over the world and will hope to host and be hosted by them for many decades to come! (You would be further on the list if I didn't feel too lazy to re-number everything here just now, guys.) :)

5. Loose liquor laws – Buy it, carry it, drink it where and when you want. Don't act like a jackass and you're allowed to make your own decisions; isn't that the way it should be?? Real freedom!

4. No price gouging – Not only do they not charge you 7 dollars a beer at the baseball game (for example) you can bring your own in with you! You won't pay $12 for a sandwich just because you're at the airport and they have a captive audience – the people of Korea just wouldn't stand for it!

3. The most rewarding job off all time – I think I've said enough about this one over the last blog entries, but life has been good here! I LOVED my job and the satisfaction that came from helping these little tykes grow up! What a wonderful experience and a nice feeling to seem over-paid for the first time ever! :)

2. Almost NO CRIME or frivolous law-suits!! - It changes how people are able to interact and what you're able to do when people are not constantly worried about getting sued for their whole livelihood ever minute. Here, you take your own chances and your own responsibility for what happens as a result – truly great!

1. My kids! - And of course; my little Korean nieces and nephews!! I would have adopted 10 kids while I was here if they had let me! I will never forget them and hope that we stay in touch! I have often wondered over the year, “Who has learned more? Them or me??”

Thank you Korea! Quite possibly the best year of my life! Maybe we'll see you again!! :)