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!! :)

Is Korea right for you??

Considering teaching English in South Korea for a year?? My goal in this entry is to give an unbiased yet thorough review of my one-year experience living and teaching in Daejeon, South Korea. I am an American (St. Paul, Minnesota to be exact) in my late 20's. I am optimistic, love kids and love travel. All of these factors played a major role in sculpting my experience here. Yours will be unique to your personality and perception of the world (of course), but I hope that you might benefit from hearing mine.

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IS IT FOR YOU?

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I have met every kind of person from all over the world during my time here and it seems that most fall into one of two major categories. The first type is someone who comes here looking for adventure, cultural immersion, travel, new people and teaching experience. These are the optimistic open-minds that love the idea that everything here will be totally different from any lifestyle they might be accustomed to. People in this category generally have wonderful experiences here and get exactly what they came for. These are the kinds of people who may discover that a year is not quite enough to take it all in.

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Conversely, many people come here expecting to find out that another version of their hometown exists in Korea. They aren't interested in exploring Korean culture, they don't embrace change - hell, they may or may not even like kids! They often subtly rank themselves as superior to Koreans (or maybe everyone). This type of person may be running away from problems back home or just has just come to find that they aren't the same god-like being now after college as they were to their little frat-buddies.

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People in the second category rarely last a few months in the country. They are miserable and make everyone around them the same. Search your soul for a moment and make sure that you're in the first category before continuing to consider this kind of lifestyle change any further.

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So, you're still reading? I guess that means you've passed what I believe to be the ONLY thing really necessary to absolutely LOVE your experience here!!! You might have the same major concerns that I had when I was pondering this decision.

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1. "I have no teaching experience, isn't that a big problem??" NO. I have a degree in Hospitality and Tourism. All of my professional experience has been in casinos and other service industry positions. I had nothing to suggest that I would be a good teacher other than the fact that I love kids and that I dedicate myself fully to any job that I take on.

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When I first got here, my boss told me at a dinner, "The only thing that will matter is that you truly want the children to learn. With that piece in place, you will be successful." I took that to heart and buckled down to work. Not just for the sake of bragging, but my kids love me, the parents love me and my school loves me! I have never had a job that offered this kind of satisfaction and pride in what I'm doing!

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2. "I don't speak a word of Korean." When I arrived here, my friend gave me a piece of paper that showed me how to say "Hello - an yeong ha say yo" and "thank you - kam sam nee dah" and I made my way through just fine. Now, would learning some tidbits of language have been extremely useful before I came? Absolutely!! ... but it's far from a deal-breaker if you don't get the chance to do so.

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People here generally know a few key words of English, especially those in service industry jobs. People who work at airports and train stations almost always know enough to get our dumb-asses to where we need to go. One important thing to remember though of course - it's your fault you don't speak the language; don't get upset with them when the communication breaks-down!!! As obvious as this seems, we all need reminders sometimes.

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3. "$2000+ a month cash, furnished studio apartment, no experience required, airfare, bonus month salary after your contract, vacation time to travel around Asia... come on, what's the catch??" My dad asked me this when I was considering my decision and my best answer was... "They really like native English teachers." I was kind of guessing (hoping that I was right) when I said that mainly to alleviate his concerns, but I would later find out I had nailed it. Are there some things you will have to get used to? YES. Occasional chaos and disorder in every school I have heard about? YEP. Sporadic worries about border tensions? YOU KNOW IT. etc... but, hey. You're a 'type-1' person from above, right?

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WHERE TO LIVE.

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Maybe you're considering Daejeon specifically and wanting some feedback? Truth be told, Daejeon is a pretty good place to live! There is decent night-life, a solid foreigner (that's us) contingent, and enough to see and do. It doesn't have the super-bustle, pushy nature as much as Seoul and being located directly in the center of the country makes it super easy to get anywhere in Korea within a couple hours (or much less). Also, Daejeon is the ONLY city that I've ever seen to provide a free, full-scale outdoor climbing wall! (If you're into that sort of thing.)

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It's downfalls are there as well however - only one subway line, no coast and no real MAJOR attractions to boast. Every city you'll find will obviously have a different set that it's offering, and I find Daejeon to be a nice average balance. Some other wise choices might include:

1. Seoul can be overwhelming a bit (more people and nearly twice as dense as NYC), but is a really fun and exciting option. All the friends that I've had there seem really satisfied with their choice.

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2. Busan if fabulous down on the beautiful beaches and with its slightly milder weather; but it comes at a price. The average monthly wage for a teacher there is about 200,000 won lower (almost $200) than less-popular inland cities. With the lower wage, it's still easy enough to make a nice living though, so if money isn't a major factor, think beaches!!

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3. Daegu is similar to Daejeon in many ways but just slightly bigger and seemed like some better night-life in my very short time that I spent there. The couple of Daegu friends that I have love it!

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Everywhere else will just depend on what you're looking for. I've met people who live and teach on barely-inhabited islands where they are the only foreigners within 50 miles. Some people pick their location based on their hobbies. For example, the rock-climbing, outdoorsy type might want to consider somewhere like Sokcho up in Kang-wan-do (which I'm told translates to something like 'Lakes and trees Province'). You'll have to do some more homework in this category though - I don't want to over-step my bounds on stuff I know little about.

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Everyone is different and hoping for certain things. Think about what exactly YOU WANT in your Korea experience and try to choose a city accordingly. Your location WILL play a massive role in the unique experience that you have.

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PRIVATE SCHOOL (Hag-won) VS. PUBLIC SCHOOL (Hak-gyo).

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Ah, the great debate. I think everyone you talk to will tell you something very different on this one, but I would estimate that public would be the more-sought after. I personally think private is the way to go, but I'll do my best to outline the pro's and con's of both as I see them through talks with friends. Remember that these are only based on generalizations so you'll have to scrutinize your own contract offer for the specifics.

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Private pros: higher pay and significantly smaller class-sizes (my main class has 2 students!!)

Private cons: less vacation (you should be able to find an offer with 2 weeks a year), evening hours, and can sometimes feel more like a business than a school

Public pros: more vacation time (often up to 6 weeks a year!), usually day shift hours and a lot more prep time for your classes

Public cons: significantly larger class-sizes (up to 30) and slightly less pay

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University: Of course, if you can score a university job, it generally would demolish either of the other two options above. I have friends that get 5 months a year paid time off and work 20 hours a week the other 7 months of the year. These jobs often require ample experience, certificates, a bit of luck and sometimes just knowing the right person.

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MISC ADVICE.

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Getting off the ground may be nerve-racking! The process of my arrival was shoddily organized at best! I was lucky enough to have a good friend here already who could steer me in. Without him, I would have bailed last minute due to the confusion... AND IT WOULD HAVE BEEN A MISTAKE. He convinced me to just get on whichever plane they bought me a ticket for and that everything would be fine.

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You may not be lucky enough to have such a friend here, so I'll fill that role (if I may be so presumptuous). When it's time to go, you'll have already made up your mind. Don't let the butterflies steer your path. My best advice to you is to echo what my friend told me: "Get on whatever plane they buy you a ticket for and everything will be fine!" :)

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Prepare to be frustrated. There will be a lot of things you'd change if you could. Work days can (and frequently do) range anywhere from incredible to impossible. You will find some days that kids don't have the right books, the schedule changed for no reason, the science kits for the month haven't arrived and you have class in 2 minutes, etc.... It took me a while to get good at this, but RELAX; roll with it!

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This job is easily the most frustrating AND most rewarding I've ever had! The relationships that you will develop with these awesome little kids, the way they run up excitedly and give you hugs each morning and the little pictures and cards they draw you will pay you back for all of your frustrations ten-fold or better!!

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It all comes back to what my boss told me when I first got here. Do the best that you can with what's in front of you! 'If you truly want the children to learn, you will be successful.'

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Fight for your rights. First though, I should point out. If you're here, you're likely over-paid and under-qualified. It's also likely your boss can't really afford you. If your boss (who is generally good and fair to you) has to ask you a favor or two to help the school, DO IT! And don't complain - join the team!

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However, many bosses here (it seems to be cultural) recognize and toy with the line that they can cross with you. They may see how much they can milk out of you before you start to complain. Knowing when to (professionally) put your foot down will be a major asset to you. Watch for the big things: trying to skip out on buying you health insurance (which is required by law and your contract), chomping into your personal time by adding duties, taking away vacation time, adding hours without adding pay - these are the kinds of things that you may be wise to squash out or they will continue to expand.

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Be smart here. Realize that there's a fine line between being a team-player and just blatantly getting pushed around and dumped on. I'm not sure if I know anyone whose contract was followed with pin-point accuracy. Be an optimist, but choose your battles.

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CONCLUSION

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There is so much more I could say, but I think I've already written too much. Much of the fun for me this year has been learning, exploring, making mistakes and embarrassing communication mishaps. I feel like I would be robbing you of that experience to tell you any more. If you like what you've read, have no strings attached and you're ready for an adventure; 'Just get on whatever plane they buy you a ticket for!!'

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I hope you found this useful and would love to see any feedback, questions, other experiences and opinions (complimentary or contrastingly). Feel free to comment below or send me an email at andrewwind83@gmail.com.

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CHEERS!

aw

Holidays Abroad

~~~ Having everything has nothing to do with 'things' after all. ~~~

Reading my last entry, you might think I forgot that I was writing a casual 'online journal' and somehow thought I had an audition for Runner's World magazine. Now, that I got that out of my system (still no call from Runner's World by the way :P) I can actually tell you some of the things that happened this month.

The charitable effort didn't end that day with the Gapcheon 10K. We continued into the night by playing dart and poker tournaments at one of our favorite local bars here in Daejeon. 8 of us entered the dart tourney - mostly our good friends. 2 groups of 4 set out side-by-side in cut-throat cricket. The top two from each game would advance and play a championship round. It ended up being Sarah, Vinnie, Nic and I ... so the finals were set and included 4 of the same people we always play with on a given night at the bars! I guess all of our practice has been paying off!

Vinnie accused Sarah and I of teaming-up and not going for each other, but his conspiracy theory proved short-lived when I had to bump my own lady-friend down into last place (by accident, babe ;)) just before closing out the game. It came down to the last few throws, but I was able to fend them off and claim my prize of wine and Bailey's! I now had won the race AND darts for the day! I was going into the poker game looking for the illusive triple-crown.

Poker was a well-organized but light-hearted game amongst 20 friends. I worked my way to the final table with a decent chip-stack but started to run a little bit low around the final 4 or 5. One of the guys commented that if I were to win all 3 events for the day, they would each get to take one free kick at my gentile area. It seemed worth the risk, but I fell short and finished in 3rd place.

In the end, the whole event was a TON of fun and raised almost 2 million won (about 1800 dollars) for MS research!

After that weekend came the Daejeon Rock Gym Bouldering Competition. I entered and climbed fairly well for my own personal level but was nowhere NEAR any level necessary to compete with these guys! Two foreigners - both good friends of mind - made their way into the final round so we got to cheer them on but the local pro's crushed everyone and gave us an amazing show in the meantime! here is a quick facebook video of the comp winner climbing the final route! http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=645575311592 I'm not sure if the level of difficulty will show through, but let me assure you, this is SICK (maybe world-class) climbing! He gave one more attempt after this and actually finished the last move - the hardest boulder problem I've ever seen sent!

Then came the big 'Drama Festival' for my school. This is really a big deal every Christmas season as it is the best chance to demonstrate to the parents (and community members too) how awesome and wonderful the students are. Of course then, their success represents the awesome-ness of both the educational system and teachers. :) We dedicated almost half of our classes in December to preparing the various skills that would be put on display! We all worked hard and everything came together really beautifully!!

When the night of the big show finally came, they all wore elaborate costumes and fancy make-up (yeah, at 4 years old!) and went to work! My kids, as the oldest and most advanced kindergarten students got to play the role of hosts and hostess by dressing up and giving the introduction and closing speeches! They did an AMAZING job and I was extremely proud of them!

Here are my little kindergarteners, Tommy and Sannah as the hosts of the Drama Festival! Their speeches included words like 'demonstrate', 'experience' and 'prepared'. Some of the smartest 6 year olds I've ever known!! :)

They also performed their ballet routine they had worked so hard to perfect! Look at these little angels! 0:)

After the play, Santa came to visit! let me just say... he's lost weight! I absolutely LOVE how happy little Jason looks in this picture!

Me with some of my girls at school.

Before it was all said and done, they sang and danced to Christmas carols, did a ballet performance, a theatrical presentation of Little Red Riding Hood and speeches! They were awesome. Easily the best part of it all for me was how clearly excited and satisfied they were from the whole experience. They worked hard all month and now had a finished product that the could be (and were) genuinely proud of!! I was really lucky to have been a part of it all!!

A few days after the Drama Fest, came our much anticipated (and much NEEDED after the stress of the month) CHRISTMAS VACATION!! Because of the magnitude of the trip lying in front of us, Sarah and I decided not venture far from home for this week off. We stayed in Daejeon and got some serious work done. We both cleaned and combined a bunch of stuff and sent two massive boxes back to Alabama where we'll catch up with them in early May. Then we researched and booked endlessly for our trip and tackled some housework too!

My big project for my apartment was to clean a nasty patch of mold that had been growing in the corner. As it would turn out though, this was no 'spray and wipe' job. I scrubbed through one rotted layer of wallpaper, and the next, and the next, and so on all the way to the cement wall!! To understand how this is possible, you have to know a little bit about my tiny little Korean apartment. It is set up (like most others as far as I can tell) so that all the steam from my shower, moisture from drying my clothes on a rack in the middle of the room and just condensation from the temperature difference along the outside wall have no place to go! Without so much as a bathroom fan to circulate some air, the walls are damp all the time and the only thing to do about it is to open your windows and doors.... only problem being, it's 5 degrees outside and I'm paying to heat the inside so of course opening the windows doesn't happen as much as would be advised. In the end, there was a decade worth of mold that had obviously been covered up and ignored by the building owner forever. Fed up with it, I dug in!


The project was not one I would EVER want to repeat... but I was able to extract one important lesson from the fungal event - vinegar kills mold! And without all the nasty and harmful chemicals that bleach leaves behind in your apartment. Who knew? I also got the satisfaction of fixing problem instead of covering it up. That's the only way I've really known!

Strips of rotten moldy wallpaper laid out and my fan on full blast after scrubbing away for hours! In case it's hard to tell, this is supposed to be plain off-white color. All the dark dots are fungus. I took the pics just for the landlord sake but thought you might want to see too. :)

Christmas was spent with good friends relaxing, having dinner, a few drinks and a round or two of catch phrase. This pic accidentally ended up looking almost identical to one that muc and I took on my first night out in Daejeon.

Thursday night allowed me to get a good workout at the bouldering gym here in town with some good friends. It was the first time I had climbed in almost a month and kicked my butt pretty good! Either way, it was some badly needed exercise and also carried the good fate of getting invited on a day-trip to Muju Ski Resort the next morning - New Year's Eve!! I jumped at the chance and we were on our way less than 8 hours later.

무주리조트 Muju Resort!

I had been warned to expect terribly dense crowds of inexperienced skiers and snowboarders cutting you off and ramming into each other everywhere. I had heard so much of this talk that I was a little reluctant to even waste my money and head out there. But, this would likely be my only chance to get on a mountain all season, we'd just gotten healthy snowfall and it was a weekday morning. It seemed like this might be the ideal shot!

We nailed it! I found a beautiful day with a couple of awesome doods, ample fresh powder and minimal crowds on the holiday morning!! It was a glorious day on the slopes!!!

A view from the top; no crowds here! :)

After snowboarding, I'd rest up and then Sarah and I would join up with our crew for some get-down throw-down kinda partyin! Dinner at "Eat Me" (inappropriate, Korea!) and then Yellow Taxi for darts, drinks and Jenga all night!

Looking back, of course I wouldn't change a thing about 2010! Hundreds of lessons learned, new experiences, a lion share of awesome life-long friends from all over the globe made, the basics of Korean language and culture in the bag, a reborn passion for teaching and of course........

SARAH! :)

Now suddenly, it's time to go back to work in the morning with less than 2 months to go here on the Korean peninsula! I'm trying hard to view my time left here in Korea as a gift rather than a countdown, but that 'now' lifestyle that I strive for gets harder and harder as the trip draws nearer. These next six months are going to be teeming with LIFE from every pore!! Stay tuned! :)

Thanks for reading! Happiness and love to you for 2011 (and way beyond that, too!)

aw

Why I run.

The 1st Annual Gapcheon 10K was an event hosted by friends of friends here in Daejeon to raise money to help research and fight against MS here in Korea. It would be a small, casual and friendly group of local foreigner (that's us) runners just out for excercise and to help a good cause. It would mean slightly more for me however, since it was the best i could do to compensate for having missed my marathon that I had been training for in November. 45 of us toed the starting line on the beautiful sunny - but frigid - December morning.

So off we went; many of us friends and acquaintences from the various athletic cliques around Daejeon. without really knowing what to expect from the competition that day, I jumped out to my moderate 7-minute mile goal pace and was slightly surprised when I led the way still a couple of kilometers in! I remember wondering how long it would take before one of the guys trodding along on my back shoulder would make his move and effortlessly fly past me, never to be seen again.

But a few K's later, their move still hadn't come and I was feeling strong in the cold weather so I turned it up a bit to see if they'd come with - to my delight, they didn't! i had led the race the entire way and that lead was now widening by the step!! for the first time it occured to me... "I might actually win this race!" I pushed harder and could feel my lead growing though i never looked back.

Around what must have been the 7K mark, I came up on a bridge which I just knew had to be my turn-around so I scoured it with my eyes looking for an arrow, sign, flag, cone - anything, but there was nothing there. i was so sure that it was the right one, but had to pass it. i remember distinctly saying to myself, "I'd rather lose because i went too far than to win by acidentally cutting the course short." There was another bridge a few hundred meters ahead; that would have to be it or i'd know i did something wrong. But as i neared it, i could see that it was under construction and would be impossible to cross. I realized that I had blown it and passed my unmarked turn-around bridge!

at exactly that moment, I heard my named called loudly from behind me. The 2nd and 3rd place runners had the course memorized, noticed my mistake and motioned me back. Just as i was not-so-mildly cursing myself for not having followed my gut-instinct and taking the bridge, (thus flushing my first real chance at winning any race) i realized something amazing. The two were waiting for me before they would cross the bridge! it was an act of sportsmanship unlike anything i'd personally experienced in 20 plus years of athletics! At the time however; I thought it would be wasted since I'd now accidentally given up my 100+ meter lead, made my race course 10.3K and totally demoralized myself while they got a breif rest. How would I ever hold them off now??

Then, just as I was at my worst self-pittiful, pessimistic, internal-whine moment contained in my memory, something jarred back into place in my brain and it came over me, "Na, screw all that! There's still a mile left in this race and I'm one meter behind the leader... I'm still going win this!"

New fate decided, I increased my pace steadily. Dan (an old climbing buddy who was the one that had called me back to the turn-around) dropped back into third place, but the tall guy stayed right there over my shoulder with me as I sped up. His breathing was strong and controlled just behind me. For a brief moment, I weakened again and felt as if he'd called my bluff and that he might just be toying with me, waiting to hammer down an incredible finish with his extra long legs.... but with only a kilometer left, I couldn't really afford to wait around and test out my self-doubting theory.

I thought back to high school cross country as I tried to gather the heart to drop him - when you pass someone (or attempt to pull-away in this case), doing so gradually will pull a strong runner right along with you. You have to demoralize him in the process - break his will by taking off suddenly and in as close to a full sprint as you can muster. This demonstrates to your would-be competitor that you have plently left in the tank; as false as that may be. If I sped up gradually (like I'd done in my prior attempt), he'd almost surely just pace me without hardly even noticing I had made 'a move'.

It's a bit like the old adage, I suppose: 'If a frog is placed in cold water and heated slowly, it will stay in even to its boiling point and death; but if placed directly into boiling water, it will jump out immediately'. I knew I needed the boiling water to make this guy bail out! (Coach Boyle would be so proud!) :) All doubts aside, I blasted off away from him without warning.

When I took off, I could tell that I'd created separation, but without looking back, I wasn't sure if I could still hear his footsteps somewhere behind me or if my mind was just playing tricks. Either one was enough to keep me near a dead sprint as roared through the finish line in first!!

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FINISH!

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As you can see above, there was no great crowd, no tape to break and certainly no champagne bath waiting for me at the finish line. And my time of 44:09 (a course record since this was 'first annual', but one that will certainly be shattered the very next time someone runs it) was nothing to really brag about - far from my personal best even. So, given those facts; why write a lengthy blog about the morning, then? I mean, who really cares that I beat a handful of charity-driven foreigners, right??

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Because I pushed and I dug deeper. When my body wanted to just slow down, give up, or just stop altogether faced with pain, mental mistakes and a significant detour; I instead went faster. These are the moments that runners live for. Any run, (or anything for that matter) whether it's a weeknight jog or The Badwater Ultramarathon, is a chance to exceed your previous limits - and, in doing so, prove to yourself that what you thought were limits, in fact don't exist. You find them, and then you shatter them; one after another. In this way, running doesn't just improve your ability to run, it makes you a stronger person. It offers countless opportunities to conquer mental and physical barriers. At the end of a race, you can look back and think, "I've accomplished things - using only my body and this ratty old pair of Brooks - that I used to consider to be impossible." It's a feeling that I'm addicted to and is a driving force behind much of how I live my adult life.

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This is why I run.