The Return to and (Eventual) Exit from Taipei

I decided to try a different hostel than before. Motivation one, was my curiosity of what other hostels were like in Taipei; motivation two, was I wanted a more central location; and motivation three, I had heard a few good recommendations for this particular place, Eight Elephants Hostel. Upon entering the hostel, there was a slight theory of the business model of this place (that would later be corroborated by others). Hire only females and make sure they are attractive ones. There were four people working, and they all fell into this category. Anyway, the place was pretty lively and an invitation was immediately extended for Friday night festivities. I'll fast forward since there isn't anything terribly exciting except going to an all you can drink bar, me subluxating my shoulder, witnessing a fight between an expat and a Taiwanese guy and then having the misfortune of still being around when the police showed up, all capped by an eventual 7am bedtime and an Egg McMuffin!

I slept in late on Saturday but was completely fine with it, the week had caught up to me. I had evening plans to meet up with Debbie (from my first day in Taiwan) to get a feel for the nightlife like the Taiwanese do it! We met up at Ximending (the trendy bustling area mentioned in an earlier post), and as soon as I exited the subway, I was greeted by Debbie with a bubble tea in hand for me, so nice! We grabbed some famous noodles (that weren't anything to write home about), walked around, then stopped at a giant courtyard of outdoor seating for various establishments. It was a very lively atmosphere and they also had BOGO drinks! We decided to continue exploring and headed to the nightlife area of City Hall where I was able to witness some of Taiwan's finest folks entering and exiting the place. No attempt was made on our part since I was sporting the sneakers! We hopped for a bit, but finally got comfortable at Roxy Roots listening to live music, having a few, and eating again! I didn't want a late night, since I had to catch my 1pm flight the next day. Fast forward again, heading to the airport on Sunday when I realize my flight is not 1pm, but 1am. No matter, I think to myself, I'll just be 12 hours early, I'll kill the time in the airport. Quickly I realize that 1am actually means I've already missed my flight by 12 hours. So while I was jamming to the tunes at Roxy Roots, my plane took off, without me, oops!

I was already on the bus to the airport when I realized this, but figured I'd just talk to the ticket counter when I got there. However, low cost airlines, don't really have ticket agents and everything has to be conducted by phone. Thank God for Skype and free wifi, otherwise how else could I easily and, relatively, cheaply make a call to the Philippines! Anyway, if I wanted to fly that night it was going to cost me over $200, but if I waited two days, I could fly for $90. What a great opportunity for me to see more of what I haven't seen, is what I told myself! I decided to change hostels again since I was too embarrassed to say hello to everyone that I had just said goodbye to. I did learn some interesting stories about Eight Elephants that would be worth sharing sometime. Nothing bad but kind of interesting!

The Cats Pajamas was the next hostel I decided to try. When I arrived, I ran into some Spanish friends that I knew from Manila, truly a small world! They were catching the return flight that night (or actually morning), but they invited me tag along on their random shenanigans. Those guys truly kept me entertained, as soon as we all finished lunch, all (and I mean all) of them were looking for a bakery to get some desserts. Once they found desserts, they did not hesitate to dig into each other's choices without asking. I thought that was kind of cool. Once dessert was finished, they were looking for a coffee shop. Quite frankly, I'm not sure how they got to see any of Taipei. Eventually, we all returned to back to the hostel, they packed their stuff up to get ready to leave, while I watched some of the guests and staff sing karaoke. I didn't know this, but you can turn any computer into a karaoke machine with only a microphone. The program needed is called UltraStar and in addition to providing lyrics, it shows you where your pitch needs to fall as you sing. One thing I noticed throughout my time in Taiwan is how many young expats are able to speak Mandarin like nobody's business. It's quite a sight to see, and is always refreshing to see that westerners are so willing and able to learn a complex language like Mandarin!

The next day I just took a stroll by one of the major rivers of Taipei with a bubble tea in one hand and a couple dumplings in the other. I had just remembered that my phone can be used as a radio, so I listened, walked, sipped, chomped then chomped, sipped, walked, listened then repeated, for a good part of the day. Oh yeah, I also almost stepped on a snake!

Determined not to miss my early morning flight to Manila again, I got back to the hostel swatted a few mosquitoes with an electric racket/swatter (a very unique experience), swapped a few stories with a Thai girl and a couple Canadian guys, then headed for the airport around 9pm--a good 4.5 hours before my flight would take off! I arrived to my apartment in Manila close to 4am, but not before walking by another 7/11. This time I gave it a miss!

In the Company of Kaohsiung

The next few days around Taiwan involved me heading further south to a town called Kaohsiung. The goal was to make it to Kenting National Park, but I was running out of time (or so I thought. More on that later)! I took a train from Hualien to get to Kaohsiung (later than I would've liked due to my indecisiveness) and arrived in the afternoon. After exiting the train station and pausing to get my bearings, I was approached my a university student that attempted to voraciously sell me pen, yes a pen! He said it was to raise money for his tuition, and I might've been inclined to assist him except the pen he was trying to sell me (more like steal from me) was 300 TWD or almost 10 USD. Maybe he thought I was some fresh off the boat/plane/train idiot that didn't realize the conversion rate. So anyway with my new pen, I headed to the hostel, just kidding! The hostel, called Cozy Planet, was a converted 3 bedroom flat that was kept in pristine condition. I literally arrived, threw my stuff down, then asked the owner Sam about taking one of the loaner bikes they had for an evening tour of the city!

I got lost! No matter, I finally made it to the former British Consulate all while befriending an equally lost Australian fella!

We didn't spend too much time there but next headed to the famous river walk, which was a bit difficult to enjoy since it began to rain . . . hard!


We wanted to eat dinner somewhere, but couldn't find anything except TGI Friday's and Outback, which I refused to eat at. So, we settled for a mixture of a Taiwanese mall food court, street food, and 7/11. I biked home, met my dorm mate who was on the tail end of her travels before heading back to the US, exchanged stories, sampled some Taiwanese wine and liquor the hostel provided, then hit the hay!

I woke up fairly early Friday morning to take the bike and do more exploring. This day was a fairly relaxed one, but one that covered a lot of ground, and one that I enjoyed a lot. I went back to the river walk which has a nice trail and just biked biked biked until the river turned away from the city. The day wasn't super sunshiny, but it was perfect for bike




I should say that I almost ended up on the "interstate" flyover with my bicycle due to some poor shortcut calculations and some bad map reading. Fortunately, disaster was averted, but I did have to physically carry the bicycle over some concrete barriers and by some puzzled (or angry) police officers. I headed to Lotus Lake and leisurely biked all around the lake.



The lake is rather large with many statues and temples



and I decided to stop at one of the cafes to have some bubble tea and admire my trustworthy companion!



I planned ahead and took a direct non confusing route from the lake and biked back to downtown to see the Love Pier (which I didn't find all that lovey or romantic) and Taiwan's second largest building called the Tuntex Sky Tower

and a random building that I thought was kind of strange. It's design is such that as you are on higher floors, the amount of room decreases significantly (my guess is each floor is 1/3 less than the one below it). I wonder what the purpose of this design was or the incentive to live on a higher floor is.



Biked back to the hostel, returned the bike, then hopped on the bullet train from Kaohsiung to Taipei (a 90 minute ride instead of 4 hours). Nobody sitting next to me, which allowed me to enjoy my 7/11 boxed meal without any embarrassment from accidentally flinging food while using the chopsticks!

Scoot Scoot Coasts and Mountains of Taiwan

Definitely disappointed in myself because of last night! After getting back to the hostel, we had a few drinks, K had a few more than I. He didn't want to drive, and I didn't blame him, so I became the DD except it was on a scooter. I don't know if anyone reading this (if there even is anyone reading this) has ever had a passenger on a scooter/motorcycle/bicycle (passenger slightly under the influence, nonetheless), but it's not really easy to stop/go/steer freely, particularly when your comrade doesn't trust your driving (brief introductions in hostels don't do much for trust issues)! Anyway, after searching for a particular restaurant that we never found, we had to opt for McDonald's due to restaurant closing times. Can you believe it? I ate at freaking Mc'D's in Taiwan, what the heck? I was determined to start AND end TODAY on a much better note!

7/11, as usual, was the first stop then we headed straight for Highway 11 which is the coastal highway on the eastern side of the island. The day was beautiful and the ride and views were phenomenal.

Laughing at the helmet is acceptable!



Unfortunately, photos and words can obviously do no justice. The waters around Taiwan tend to be rough, particularly during the early part of the year, so no swimming was attempted. After riding and stopping every 10-20 miles along the coast, we took one of the east/west windy roads to get to highway 9, which heads through the mountains.



The colors of the fields in the valleys were a shade of green to remember



On one of our many stops to take in the view, I remember telling my riding companion, Kewin, that two things would make this already awesome experience even better. One, if I had some tea to drink while enjoying the view, and two, instead of Kewin along for this ride, a lady! Fortunately, I was able to remedy one of the two dilemmas when we stopped at WuHe tea farm to sample a crapload of tea (maybe even two of the dilemmas were solved as tea clerk was indeed female). I was easily sold, and after drinking literally 10 cups of tea (they are small cups), possibly more since I would sneak pour more if the lady was taking too long to refill my cup, I bought a tin of tea and we began our return trip back to Hualien after a quick stop at, you guessed it, 7/11



The route we took

Scoot Scoot Taroko

Waking up early has never been a strong suit for me, particularly on misty drizzly days! However, I was determined to put my two full days in Hualien to good use. Another one of the hostel guests, Kewin, and I haphazardly created a sore excuse for an itinerary. Today was touring Taroko Gorge and tomorrow would be down the coast and up through the mountains. We knew there was a plethora of scooter rental shops near the train station, so after stopping by 7/11 for breakfast we headed towards the station. Consulting Lonely Planet for the scooter shop they recommended, we quickly saw how fast an LP pick goes to a store's head. There prices were significantly higher than everyone else and they required more paperwork and documentation. Fortunately, we found another store down the street that requires only passports (no license required, crazy) and the payment in cash! We negotiated for a two day rental which cost us about $10/day per scooter. Off we went to Taroko Gorge, fortunately, the rain had let up (first a quick stop at 7/11 again to stock up on water and snacks, of course)!

The gorge was a perfect place for a scooter or motorcycle. There were plenty of windy roads to test your tire traction with bits of straightaways to let loose on the lovely 125cc scooter (as I'm typing this I'm laughing to myself because 125cc is tiny BUT surprisingly those things haul ass more than you'd think). You did have to mind the countless number of buses that would be weaving through the lanes, particularly when heading through narrow areas. Buses don't slow down or yield in Taiwan (it seems to be a very common trait in all of Asia). We stopped briefly at the next major "town" for a quick bite then headed back towards Hualien. On our way home we decided to take the scenic route and saw a random assortment of villages and coastal areas and even got funny looks from the coast guard as we rode up right to the beach! For giggles, I found a nice dirt patch where I thought doing donuts would be a good idea. I almost broke multiple bones in my body by nearly falling down a ravine, but by the grace of whoever you believe in, I didn't! I was humbled for the day as I rode back to the hostel!





Links to the Taiwan Albums with all the photos:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2484180&id=14815291&l=c9cb42fcc7
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2484737&id=14815291&l=6253c1ca32

Dumplings Help Me Feel Complete

Up somewhat early to hit up a bank and grab some coffee for a big walking day! Part of my motivation was dumplings, more specifically xiaolongbao, from Din Tai Fung. My first tourist spot, however, was Taipei 101. It used to be the world’s tallest tower before the Burj Khalifa shot up over everything else! I decided to skip going to the top of the tower since admission was about 15USD. If it had been the world’s largest tower, I’m sure I would’ve gone up, funny how the mind works!

Since I love walking, I decided to hoof it to lunch while taking my time to stop and see anything else that caught my eye. Taipei is truly a lovely city, it’s laid out fairly well, with good public transportation, and of other importance, it has awesome parks with ponds scattered throughout the city. I stopped at more than one to relax and people watch. After zigzagging my way to lunch (on purpose, in case you were wondering), I finally arrived to Din Tai Fung. I planned for a late lunch/early dinner since this restaurant absolutely buzzes during the lunch rush. After reading my little instruction guide on the proper way to eat xiaolongbao, my food arrived and was absolutely wonderful.

If you ever have the chance to eat there (or a similar type place, as I’ve been told they are everywhere if you know where to look), I would definitely recommend it. On my walk, more like waddle, home, I decided that I was going to forego another night in Taipei and head to Hualien for a few days in search of a nature check. Ran to the hostel, grabbed my stuff, went to the train station, arrived in Hualien, where the hostel owner and a guest picked me up, had a very creatively named beer (called Taiwan Beer) at the hostel bar, and then called it a night!

Taipei Exploring Continued

(by popular demand, this will hopefully be my last long winded post as I will attempt to shorten them significantly and focus on the highlights. Man, I'm doing it again, I'm rambling on in my disclaimer that my future posts will hopefully be shorter. Keep your fingers crossed for me please)

My second full day in Taipei, Sunday, I decided to tackle on my own. After waking up a bit late but sleeping better than the previous night, a little factoid I didn’t share was the people who were sharing the room with me the first night had stinky clothes and bags or perhaps feet. Quite frankly, I’m not at liberty to discuss where they were from since I don’t want to generalize about Swedish people, but they were nice folks, haha! In any case, they were NOT there the second night and I was relieved. I first headed to the CKS Memorial via MRT. It’s a giant square courtyard with a few buildings where kids practice their hip hop dancing and families just stroll and sit. The memorial building itself houses a giant statue of CKS himself and the ground floor has lots of pictures and his two bulletproof Cadillac limos he used. The design of the courtyard and the buildings were quite awesome, but overly nothing too mind blowing. I did enjoy sitting and people watching, though! From there I intended to walk to Longshan temple but a nice fellow who noticed I was trying to get my bearings (with a map, thank you) advised me against it. Back on the MRT I went and decided to postpone Longshan Temple and head to trendy Ximending which was on the way and is where the “young and trendy folks” hang out.

Ximending proved to be exactly what I had imagined. Lots of stores, food establishments, high end shops, tattoo parlors, and other things you’d expect in the trendy part of town. I walked the full bit of it, observed a concert, found a nice outdoor patio area, and then decided to walk to Longshan Temple. Now it really wasn’t that far of a walk BUT the signs weren’t very clear so it took me three requests for directions and multiple looks on my map and a bit over an hour to get there but I finally did. The temple was having a special festival where they were giving out free oolong tea which was amazingly awesome. The temple, in the middle of the city, managed to have a few waterfalls that pleasantly fell into the ponds below them. It was a welcome escape from the hustle of the city, but only vehicle hustle as there were loads of people walking all about. I paid my respects to the gazillion statues and dodged the fiery flames of people holding incense sticks by the fistful and proceeded to head to Snake Alley down the way. I did have to make a brief stop for a girl playing music on a saw, quite neat, oh yeah stopped for a dumpling as well, delicious, oh yeah, and a sugarcane juice, also yummy!

Snake Alley, which apparently has gone down in popularity the past few years, is a street where they are known to dramatically kill snakes and other animals. I wasn’t really keen on seeing this but figured I should at least pass through. Fortunately, they don’t start the “show” until 7pm and I arrived shortly before that. I did see some disturbing sights including live snakes piled into solariums ready to be killed and live turtles that have been removed from their shells. That pretty much made me want to leave and I did. I decided to walk around the other part of the market a bit to get my mind off of the ghastly scenes. I contemplated getting a foot massage but thought I might be too relaxed to get home after one. Instead I perused sunglasses, belts, and other knickknacks till I found another dumpling stand. I ordered and the lady kept pointing and saying something but I couldn’t figure it out until after I left. She was trying to ask me what priced dumpling did I want. Oh well, it was still delicious and energized me for my trip home. When I got back to the hostel, my horror as who was back but one of the “stinky folks” and he was staying in my room again. I had to leave so I went to a teppenyaki place which is the Japanese style where they cook in front of you for some lamb, soup, veggies, rice, and unlimited coke that I don’t drink. Sleep followed . . . in the stinky room!

First Days in Taiwan

Though I’ve skipped a boatload of updates from Korea and the Philippines in my sporadic blog updates I wanted to write about my trip to Taiwan before I forgot too many details about it. To start out with, it’s my new favorite place. It's the type of place that renewed my travel energy, much the same way Japan started my travel bug. Korea and the Philippines are also great, but they took a bit of time to grow on me; Taiwan, not so much! I knew I wanted to visit there, but didn’t think the trip would be so soon. Basically, while in the Philippines, I needed to pay about $70 to extend my visa. I’m a bit bitter about that since it’s pretty much a scheme to collect money. You get 21 free days when you arrive then need to pay $70 dollars to give you another 38 days then another $70 for another 59 days. In any case, I figured I should just take a trip to another country for a “few more” dollars instead. Looking at Cebu Pacific Air (a Philippine low cost airline) I checked the prices of Singapore, Kuala Lumpor, Thailand, and a couple other countries that aren’t coming to my head right now. China and Vietnam were out for this round since I only noticed my visa was about to expire about five days before the actual date which didn’t give me enough time to secure a visa for those countries. A trip to Taipei proved to be the cheapest at the last minute with a RT ticket running about $215. The crazy part about it is if I had planned even more in advance I could’ve gotten a RT ticket for about $50 to $60 (gotta be lucky for those ones) or for $120 if I had a bit more time. I gave myself “9 days” in Taiwan and you’ll soon learn why the 9 is in quotes.

My flight took off from MNL around 10:40pm on Friday, April 09, 2010 and arrived around midnight early Saturday morning. Unfortunately, there was no bus service at this time but surprisingly my lack of planning self did have foresight and talked to the hostel owner where I was going to be staying and she reserved a hired car for me. The hour trip to JV’s Hostel in Taipei took about an hour and cost me 900NTD or about $30. Obviously, I associate this cost with my airline ticket since if I arrived earlier I could’ve taken a bus. So now the price of my flight just went up from $215 to $245, haha, I’m so Indian! Everyone was still up or out when I arrived so I got the quick tour, chatted it up with the other hostel folks, and called it a night around 3:30am.

I had posted a thread in the Taipei Couchsurfing forum a few days earlier asking if anyone had suggestions of things to do while I was in Taiwan. A girl posted a response and suggested I go to Danshui, a town about 40 minutes or so north by public transportation, to meet up on a photography walk. Even though I’m not amazing at photography, I had no plans so I said why not. It ended up being a group of three people and me, two Taiwanese girls, Jessica and Debbie, and a guy from the UK, Nick. Everyone was so nice and welcoming. We sort of casually strolled around the town, stopped by a few sites, and even managed time to scale a rock climbing wall. Jessica suggested I try a-gi and bought a bowl for me. I’m not sure how to really describe it except that it’s a steamed/fried tofu ball with glass noodles inside served in a broth and a spicy sauce and that it was quite delicious! We had some tea at a lovely tea stall then did some more walking around.

Sort of lost track of time and Jessica wanted to show me Fisherman’s Wharf and its lovely sunset but had run out of time due to a prior engagement. Here’s the crazy nice part, because she wasn’t able to, she volunteered her other friend, Debbie, to show it to me instead. In any case, we didn’t actually make the wharf from a mixture of running out of time, it being kind of far, and us getting lost, however, we did catch the sunset along the river nonetheless. Heading back to the MRT, we walked through the food street, and Debbie suggested I try taro covered durian and mountain bubble tea. The former was interesting (if you don’t know what durian is, it’s the “stinky” fruit) and good, and the latter was awesome, tea made with edible seeds from some tree. We both decided to take the MRT back to the city center but on our way we had an impulse decision to head to the famous Shilin Night Market for even more food, because you KNOW I love to eat . . . and I eat a lot . . . and I can’t stop . . . and I have a problem :( kidding, kidding. So we actually got a bit lost again, but it really wasn’t our fault since we got off at the Shilin MRT spot BUT the market is actually the stop after it with a name not even similar to Shilin (further in our defense, the market has moved over the past few years), honestly I don’t get lost much, well not THAT much, but sometimes, from time to time, I like maps and how does a guy that likes maps get lost? If you do figure that out, let me know please! The night market was a smorgasbord of food but we only settled for an oyster omelet, a couple of sausages where the ‘bun’ was made out of seasoned rice, a couple juices made with bitter melon (good for the blood), and a giant chicken fritter. After our meal we had just enough will in us to ‘roll’ around the streets and visit the other aspects of the night market with everything from a giant pet market, clothing market, carnival games, bowling, the list goes on and on. We finally got ourselves on the MRT, headed back into the city, and called it a night! I am not sure I could’ve navigated my way as functionally around the market without Debbie. The niceness of Taiwanese peoples, so thanks Jessica, Debbie, and Nick!

As usual, pictures are (or will be) on my Facebook account!

The Rest of the Weeks in Gwangju – Weekends Two through Four

I’m not even sure anyone is reading this blog anymore since I’m so damn slow in writing it, but I shall keep going. It’s funny because I’m actually sitting in the Philippines writing about quite a few months ago, to properly document this for me and my 2-3 (maybe 0) followers I will continue. So, the rest of my weekdays with the English camp were like the first with only the weekends to really differentiate the weeks (keep in mind it’s one day weekends, too).

I did notice certain matters of interest that anybody who has lived in Korea will probably recall the first time seeing them and being a bit surprised. Now, of course, it’s nothing new and possibly quite boring. However, here I go: people run red lights in Korea, stopping at them is optional and often times discouraged, as I drove some months later I, too, was encouraged with the words “go go go, what are you waiting for” so off I went through the red lights; interestingly, there are lots of traffic cams that monitor your speed and where you park but interestingly not if you are going to run a red light, hmmm; almost every restaurant has a call button, you need something you push the button, it’s easy, it’s efficient, I love it; couples love to match each other hats, clothes, shoes, even purses; brings me to my next point, some men in Korea have purses, not the manly satchel thingies but proper purses, some look like bowling bags, some look like large makeup bags, but ALL look like purses; Korea takes their recycling seriously with most public places having 4-5 different containers, the challenge lies in reading the Korean text and figuring out what to put where, I’m a fan of all the recycling, though; Koreans advertise by throwing flyers on the ground, this doesn’t really make sense to me since they are pretty big about recycling but it is what it is and is a bit upsetting to me; there is no open container law in Korea so many people buy beer and drink outside the convenience store or wherever they please; everyone has a GPS device and they are so advanced many people drive and watch TV, yep, figure that one out (coupled with people running red lights, too); if they aren’t watching TV on the GPS, they are watching it on the mobile phone, they can also video chat on their mobile phones, pretty neat; their internet speed is blazingly fast, I hear you can download hundreds of MB in a few minutes, not too shabby! There are plenty of other things, but I’ll let you come to Korea and experience them for yourself.

Since I couldn’t read Korean at this point, when my colleagues and I went out for dinner we would just randomly pick one item each at various price ranges and share them. We successfully did this on 3 or 4 occasions never really getting anything we didn’t like. Pretty damn lucky if you ask me! Other highlights include me successfully staining each one of my white work shirts (4 in total) by various methods, most of which are food related. On the other end of the spectrum, I setup the dorm shower room to provide me with a 4 showerhead shower. I can tell you there isn’t quite anything like it! The remaining weekends included seeing the Boseung Tea Fields, the southern tip of mainland Korea, hiking up a mountain then wading through a river, and a trip to the Indian restaurant buffet. Each class had to put on a final presentation for the rest of the camp and their families. My classes had to perform Cinderella where in one of the two performances Cinderella was played by a boy. It was very well received, surprisingly, haha! The last Saturday of the camp was a huge celebration for us all, but mine had to be cut short since I had to report to another camp up in Seoul the next day . . .

The Rest of the Weeks in Gwangju – Weekend One

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The rest of the weekdays in Gwangju were pretty standard with the first week. The only real exciting events were the one day weekends where we, as a group, usually took full advantage of our time off. I just checked my previous posts and noticed that I never mentioned the people that I work with. There are six English teachers in all, 4 foreigners and 2 Korean, and 6 Korean teaching assistants. Of the 4 foreign teachers, 2 were a British couple, Jonny and Jessy, who were spending a year traveling the world together (so cool, here is their blog: http://www.globenotes.com/travel-blog/jonnyandjessy/1684/1/) and two Americans, me and a married older guy from Oregon, Peter. The first weekend started with a traditional Korean BBQ on Saturday night (which is essentially our Friday). Only four of us went, Peter, and I along with two Korean TA’s Suji and Amy. The Korean girls helped us order everything, and I had to snap a photo because of all the side dishes that accompanied our meal (hopefully I can figure out how to insert the photo in the blog).

The food was so delicious, marinated pork and was a lot of fun to eat . . . until my amazing chopstick skills landed a piece of meat on the shoulder of my white polo! This would foreshadow the many stains to show up in the upcoming weeks! The BBQ place was also where I first was introduced to and began to love sesame leaves, which have a little peppery flavor to them. You are supposed to wrap a piece of meat and some other accoutrements (haha, I’m so refined using that word) in the leaf and eat it, but I enjoyed eating the leaf plain. Weird, I know! Then there’s the story of me eating and finishing the ‘salad’ at the table only to find out it’s actually what you’re supposed to put in your leaf wraps and not the salad, oops!

After dinner, some of the other TA’s joined us for drinks and karaoke, or as they call it in Korea Noraebang (literally translates to singing room). Not gonna lie, I gave it a go singing I’m Yours by Jason Mraz. I can’t remember my percentage scored but it doesn’t matter, right? It was actually pretty addicting singing. 

 I also learned you can make beer/soju/coke shots, hmm! The night ended kinda early, I suspect because the TA’s had enough English speaking for the day, and because we, the teachers, had to be back to the dorm by midnight—curfew, haha! Interestingly, one of the TA’s offered to give us a ride back, which we gladly accepted. We all of a sudden stopped at an intersection and were just waiting. I was a little confused, but didn’t really want to ask questions since she was on the phone. Turns out her mom picked us up and gave us a ride, whoa! Anyway, ended up really working in our favor as they offered to scoop us up again Sunday morning and show us around the area! We said, “Hell yeah!” (not those exact words despite the quotation marks) and attempted to head to bed early to rise early!

I actually got ready on time and headed downstairs early to meet our guides for the day. However, I went to the wrong meeting point and eventually ended up being late. So it seems my punctuality is forever doomed. Anyway, our TA, Tiffany, her brother, and her mom drove me and Peter all over Gwangju and the surrounding areas. They were amazing hosts for the day taking us to so many places and not letting us pay for anything despite our repeated offers. We finally snuck in the tab for some coffees and teas, which made Peter and I feel a little better! Some of the highlights of the day were amazing bamboo and zen gardens, eating steamed corn on the cob, coffee/tea at a hotel spa, the Gwangju Democratization Uprising Memorial, a canopy of trees park complete with bike ride, and an amazing dinner of fish and mixed rice baked in bamboo! The memorial was a very sobering experience and very well nicely done. The short story is that starting on May 18, 1980 for a period of 9 days, the people of Gwangju rose up against a military dictatorship. They were ultimately defeated by the army but they are forever seen as heroes of democracy and ultimately their actions helped restore it. In 2002, they created a memorial for them. The casualties and atrocities committed during this time, including a pregnant woman being shot, made me quiver. It turns out that many of the soldiers that committed these crimes were actually told by their superiors that these people were actually barbaric/evil and not innocent.

 A much happier place was in an area called Damyang which had a walking trail with a canopy of trees where you could rent bikes or mini power vehicles and just ride along a path. It was quite entertaining to see grown adults ride these mini power vehicles obviously designed for children.

  Before heading back for the day, I had some Minute Maid aloe vera juice that was super delicious!

*All my photos can be found on my FB account

Week One of the Summer English Camp

So we actually teach two camps that meet every other day, one camp meets MWF and the other TThSa. It seems that most of the teachers prefer the second set of students. They just seem more polite and interested in learning. We quickly find out that most of the kids, as you can imagine, have no desire to be at the camp. It took me a bit to come to terms with this, but when you consider this is supposed to be summer vacation for them and many of them continue to go to evening classes, I finally did and even felt bad for them. The kids ranged in age from 5-12 years old and the camp actually took place at Chosun University in Gwangju. Most of the kids were really cute and all the foreign teachers would always be amazed at how black, shiny, and healthy their hair looked. We all got lovely T-shirt to wear as the uniform. The camp gave us lunch M-F, which was fairly decent. I quickly found out that Koreans do not really drink water or use napkins until after their meal. I, however, had to keep a stash of my own personal napkins to tend to the messes I made.

Other general happenings during week one: I left my toothbrush in the shower the first morning and when I went back later it was gone. I did ‘find’ the toothbrush about a week and a half later sitting on the utility sink. I chose not to reclaim it! Smart I forgot to use the voltage converter one early morning and so my electric razor was fried. I also found out sort of the hard way that the girl’s dorm was right across from my window. After I realized that, I then began to change with the lights OFF! Mosquitoes in Korea can be pretty brutal. Even though our rooms were decent, it seemed that mosquitoes from time to time would come out of the A/C vents. After being bit countless times, I decided to buy a mosquito plug in coupled with me blasting the A/C and fans to create a less than favorable environment. It sorta worked! I also discovered my favorite toilet stall in the bathroom which had a heated toilet seat, lovely! We also setup mini bars in our respective rooms which included an array of cheap Korean wine, plum wine, soju, and maple soju. Beer had to be purchased on an as needed basis as there were no fridges. The Korean wine was surprisingly bad. It tasted like grape juice and more like grape flavored medication. I guess that’s what happens when you purchase wine that costs about a buck and half!

The only bad experience I had was when, one evening, I was looking for a cheap alarm clock to purchase. I went to a ‘mom n pop’ shop, greeted the cashier, and then started looking at the clocks. They were all on display with batteries in them and ranged in price from $1-2. As I picked one up, the cashier lady started yelling something at me, ran over, grabbed the clock out of my hand, and proceeded to take the battery out of that clock and every other one on display. She then went back to the register, while I sat there dumbfounded for thirty seconds. I just left after that! I still am not completely sure what happened there, I guess I have my theories but whatever!