Berkeley & San Fran Sandwich

If you would have asked me anytime before this trip if I had relatives living in Berkeley California I would have answered no. But that answer would have been wrong. As it turns out I have two cousins living in Berkeley with their families. Cousins Jon and Billy Witort and they were most accommodating to my travel plans.

It's funny how things turn out really. I planned on traveling alone on this trip and planned to see amazing natural wonders, special things I thought I should stop and take notice of on this planet before it's too late. But one thing I learned in Berkeley is that family is a special thing, and one you can experience in much the same way as many of the worlds natural wonders.

Seeing the beauty that this world has to offer makes you feel like you're doing something right. It makes you feel like you belong in that place for that moment that you discover it. Well my cousins (along with their parents while I was in Portland) made me feel as if I belonged when I came to see them. Even more so it seemed as if there was an instant connection. As if there was no judgment, no predispositions, just a discovery of not something wonderful, but someone wonderful. I feel so blessed to have a family that I love, and who loves me, but I've come to realize that the circle of family that I thought I had is actually much bigger than I first thought.

Berkeley was a great stop though, even more so than just being able to spend sometime with some wonderful people. I was able to visit UC Berkeley and walk around a beautiful college campus which always puts me in a good mood. Anything that can bring memories of 4 years at Penn State to my mind always makes me feel great. I was also in town for another birthday party, Jon's, which was fun, but what I will remember most about it was the group of hippies that we shared the park with. Classic...

Berkeley really seemed like a different place than anywhere I'd ever been before though. On the surface it was just like any other nice, well to do area where people have money, and live what appears to be carefree lives, but if you look a little closer it's has something different about it. My first hint was when I got in Billy's car and he said it ran on vegetable oil, and my second was when Jon's car didn't make a sound. Not only did these people have money, but they were eco-friendly too! There were recycling bins for every type of material you can imagine, solar panels, hybrid cars, community cars, and some people even rode bikes! Honestly, I used to think that America can change with time, that someday in the future we can be more conscious of our effects on the environment, but I was wrong. It doesn't need to happen "someday" it really can happen now. It already is, in Berkeley.

Berkeley was also my jumping off point for San Francisco. Billy lent me his bike and I rode around the busy streets of San Francisco for a whole day like I was Kevin Bacon from "Quicksilver". I usually love walking around big cities but this bike experience was great. I went all over from the Pier 39 to the Golden Gate Bridge, beach front parks to AT&T Park to catch a free baseball game. This was the best city experience I had on my trip.

All that and they had a dog I could play with too. What more could I ask for, right? Well Billy ended up trumping all of that by giving me the best advice for where I should go when I get to the Grand Canyon. I will always be indebted to him for that. "If you wanna just look at the Canyon, yeah, go where everyone else goes, but if you want to hike it, go here." Man was he right. But you'll have to wait to hear about that place later because I wasn't off to the grand canyon yet.
Next stop Santa Cruz!

The Land of Oz

What better to take the sting out of leaving Korea than a trip down to Australia to see some old friends? I didn't think there was anything, so I left Korea to visit Jimmy, who moved to Australia about 8 months earlier. He lives in Sydney and two other great friends, Chris and Joe, also decided to take this perfect opportunity to visit Sydney at the same time. You never expect schedules to work out like this, but as we found out, luck was on our side.

Sydney was a beautiful city. Just flying in on the plane I started becoming jealous of Jimmy and his location choice for ex-patriot living. I did love Korea, but I'm not about to tell anyone that it has great weather. I became so used to the grey ski, so used to cloud cover, and by the time I left I didn't even really notice China's "yellow dust" that blows over anymore. Well the crystal clear sky, warm sun, cool breeze, and white puffy clouds of Sydney quickly made me remember all the things I've been missing. It made me realize that there is some innate connection between people and the condition of the weather. I can have a good time on a rainy day, but seeing the sun shining already makes it a great day, and it was shining the entire time I was Australia.

As soon as I walked off of the plane I realized I was in a different world than the one I had become accustomed to in Asia. Just feet from the plane's gate there was a man on a microphone announcing the duty free deals of the day. That alone was something I've never seen or heard before, but there were other parts of it that made it stand out even more to me because I'd been living in Korea for a year, like he was announcing in ENGLISH! There were also lots of women with bright blond hair walking around. People looked taller than me. It seemed like there were obese people everywhere, and while all those things reminded me of America, everyone sounded like Crocodile Dundee, just to remind me I wasn't home yet. All the little differences seemed to stand out so brightly to me. The things I had gone a year without seeing were normal everyday things to you, but nice little surprises to me.

After arriving a few minutes before Joe at the airport we both took a taxi ride to Jimmy's apartment, in Woolloomooloo, to meet up with Jim and Chris. *Note to other travelers: There is no tipping in Australia, so don't listen to the taxi driver if he tells you there is, he's just being an Ass* Seeing Jim, Chris, and Jimmy's girlfriend Erin was really nice. I always thought that being apart from friends would somehow make it seem different when you met up again, but it's not. As soon as we saw each other it was like we were never apart. We still looked the same, acted the same, told the same jokes, and referenced Seinfeld episodes as much as ever. Even though I've been missing Seinfeld reruns for a year, I can still remember them pretty well.

We spent the first few days of the trip hanging out, catching up, barbecuing, seeing Jimmy's office, Sydney's streets and sights, and yelling lines from Gladiator at Russel Crow's mansion. It was everything I'd hoped for. But we did have one big trip planned, the 3 day excursion to Fraser Island. It's off the east coast of Australia and it's the largest all sand island in the world. Now what does that mean, "all sand island"? I wondered the same thing when I read it, but it means there is no rock formations, no roads, and that the ground beneath you will always be some type of sand while you're there. That is a little more understandable to imagine, but there are areas of the island that look like beach front (obviously), desert oasis, and rain forest. A rain forest growing out of the desert is something I had to see to believe.

Fraser Island was exactly what the type of thing I was looking for. It is a vacation spot, but you don't just sit around. There are no hotels, no spa's, or resorts, it forces you to have an adventure, and in a place that at times looks like it could be another planet. There are only sand roads that and they go up and down like crazy. Driving is part of the adventure because it's dangerous. You have to be worried not to crash the car as you're going over humpty-doodles (sand mounds), and crossing washouts, or just getting the car stuck in deep sand (like we did 4 times). I have no hesitation saying that the four guys from Jersey highly underestimated the seriousness of journey we had embarked on.

We planned out our route as we went along, bought food at the last minute for rock bottom prices, didn't realize we had no way to light the grill until almost nigh fall, thought we didn't have poles to set up the tent, couldn't find a campsite that we were legally able to camp in, found out we couldn't make a fire outside of the campsites that didn't allow us in, couldn't stomach the food we did buy, didn't bring Pepto-Bismol, didn't know how to dig a truck out of the sand, didn't bring enough lights, and I'm sure the list goes on but I'm starting to feel like I'm making us out to be a bunch of idiots. The thing is, none of this really effected the entirety of the trip at all. We were able to see more spots on that island than anyone else I've talked to that has visited there. Getting stuck was part of the adventure, running into a Dingo or two made things more exciting, the bad food made us feel like we were roughin' it, we found matches, and the tent poles, and made due without a fire. We were a bunch of idiots, but luck was just on our side.









On Fraser Island we went to a white sand, clear water lake that was empty. Yup, easily one of the most beautiful beaches I had ever been on, and it was deserted. Not a single person showed up in the entire afternoon we were there. Of course we played football in the white sand, if you know us you could have guessed that, but it was perfect. We walked in areas that felt like the desert. Saw lakes that seemed to be coming right out of the desert. Bathed in areas of water along the shores that bubbled up when the waves hit the rocks segregating them, earning them the name of the "Champagne Pools". We also climbed to beautiful lookout points, hiked cool trails, saw strange animals, drove on the beach, camped in the wild, and all around had an experience that none of us could have imagined.







After the trip to Fraser Island we thought the best of the trip was behind us. How could it get any better than beaches, fresh water lakes as blue as the sky, white sand, Champagne pools? Well no one saw this one coming but a night at the Sydney Casino turned out to be the one night of this trip none of us would ever forget.

Summer Vacation in Southeast Asia

It only seems like a few days ago when I got back from France, but now I'm back from Thailand and Cambodia.

One of the main reasons I thought teaching abroad sounded like an enticing idea was VACATION TIME. You know, enlightening the young minds of the world, passing on knowledge, helping the youth of the world grow into respectable, well rounded, English speaking young adults, taking in the richness of a new culture, and then of course, VACATION TIME.

If you were unaware of my teaching situation for the nearly 6 months that I've been here it has been 8 AM to 4 PM Monday through Friday. During which, I teach 17 (45 min) classes a week to classes of 30 to 35 high school aged students. However, during the summer for two weeks my teaching hours were 9 AM to 12 PM, where I usually only had to teach for half of that time to classes of 2 to 6 high school students. It was basically heaven in comparison, if there is really any comparison at all. I mean, heaven and hell are both places you spend your eternal afterlife but the comparisons seem to stop there. And that's not to say that teaching for around 13 hours a week is hell either, it's that the summer classes were just THAT GOOD! I was in such a good mood I even carried all of our luggage when it started raining.

Small classes are wonderful. I can almost remember the students names. The students actually listen, speak, and sometimes even learn. We can play, have fun, and joke around when the classes are small, but when the class size is between 30 and 35 it's hard to do anything. Even the best laid out lesson plans can crumble in presence of 30 Korean students, 60 busy hands, 300 grubby little fingers, and from what I've heard they must be hiding more mouths somewhere because I can count no less than 1000 voices in those rooms sometimes. That is when they are speaking Korean, of course, when English is being spoken I need only to look in a mirror to see where the noise is coming from. But that was all forgotten for the summer. Two weeks with good students, good lessons, great hours, and more free time than I knew what to do with.

After those two glorious weeks were over the real summer vacation began; 2 weeks off. I chose to visit two countries in Southeast Asia on my two weeks of freedom, Thailand and Cambodia. I would have preferred to do the whole tour of Southeast Asia; Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, and Singapore, but the two week constraint made me focus my efforts. So I chose one of the wonders of the world "Angkor Wat" in Cambodia, and the world renowned beautiful beaches of Thailand. Check out the excitement on my face on the plane ride over there...do not disturb me while I'm sleeping.

I am here to tell you that Thailand and Cambodia are great too. If you get the chance, GO! If not, well then I have roughly 500 pictures that you can look at and live vicariously through here.

We flew out of Seoul and into Bangkok where I just barely missed Carmen Sandiego. We strategically (accidentally) planned our visit to coincide with the "Mo Chit Weekend Market" in Bangkok, the largest outdoor market in Asia (so we were told). It was huge though. As Rachel put it, "It has everything you'd ever want, ever!", and it was extremely cheap. But all I wanted was the t-shirt that said "How's your day go?" for my Italian friend Karl but those Thia's don't sell a shirt larger than a boys medium. So I'm looking good in it now, and Karl has to do without, it's bitter sweet. The night in Bangkok was even odder than I can go into here on this blog, and they don't let you take pictures, but there really are some places on this planet where rules just don't seem to apply. It's like the Thunderdome, only anything can go in and out, 2 men, 3 women, it doesn't matter. The next morning it was a 5 hour bus ride to the Cambodian border.

Angkor Wat is one of the wonders of the world, what more do I need to say? It's really interesting. Whenever ancient civilizations create huge buildings and tombs and then fall off the face of the earth without explanation they leave behind ruins for travelers like myself to climb all over, and tell their friends about how cultured they are for visiting ancient ruins. It makes you feel like a little kid when you're in places like that. Everything you look at is interesting, and you want to check it out, and climb on it. We also had our own personal "Tuk Tuk" driver for our 2 days there, who drove us anywhere we wanted to go, and then waited for however long to take us back. It's like getting a taxi in New York City but your his only client until you leave and he comes up to you right after you cross the George Washington Bridge, oh yea, and he only costs 25 bucks.

We ended up flying out of Siem Reap airport the day after visiting Angkor Wat because the only road that leads to and from the border is the worst road on the face of the earth. On the way there 3 hours of bouncing up and down, ducking my head, hitting my head, biting my tongue, and sharing the road with farm animals was the kind of experience your happy to have done once, but don't ever want to do again.

So it was back to Thailand, but this time to the beach. And I don't just mean "to the beach" I mean actually to where they shot the movie "The Beach", a film about finding a legendary island paradise (heaven on earth type of place).

Yeah, I did that. I also played with monkey's, rode elephants, climbed dangerously unsafe rock faces in sandals, went kayaking, ate exotic foods, drank enough fruit smoothies to kill a lesser man, and got a little tan. And in case you were wondering two weeks is just enough time to get sunburned, have the sunburn fade into a dark tan, and then peel so you lose your tan by the time you return home. Wear sunscreen.

Then I finished off the trip with another movie island visit, "James Bond Island". The 1974 film "The Man with the Golden Gun" was shot on what is now know as "James Bond Island".

So Now I'm back home, or well, back in Seoul at least. The weather here has been surprisingly nice since returning, which is really sweet considering my friends told me we left Korea before the worst week of weather all year. Alright, I need to get back in the swing of things here but there will be more posts about Korea to come, I shouldn't be visiting anymore countries for a little while now :/


P.S. - Mr. Jong, probably my best Korean teacher friend here, who can barely speak English dropped this gem of a word on me in conversation today:

floccinaucinihilipilification: "the act or habit of estimating or describing something as worthless, or making something to be worthless by deprecation".

With 29 letters, it is the longest non-technical word in the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

We can't have a coherent conversation about the color of billiards balls, but he knows this word. I try to teach him things like "Hello my name is Mr. Jong", but I guess he feels floccinaucinihilipilification for my teaching.

Mud Fest '07

While some people might "take it easy" or relax a little after returning from a trip like mine to France, I did not. My first weekend back in Korea I had plans to attend the 9th annual Boryeong Mud Festival, and I was not going to miss it. So while my body was still confused as to whether it was on Korean time or French time I totally threw it off by staying up all night partying on the beach.
What is a Mud Festival? Well, I guess it kind of explains itself, huh? People get together and play in the mud, what more do you need to know. However, this isn't just any mud festival, it's a Korean mud festival and now that I've been here in Korea for over 4 months I can tell you a little bit more about the history of the event.

It was made for foreigners, by foreigners, to make money off of foreigners, and to spite foreigners all at the same time. In case you didn't know, when I go outside my house here for shopping, school, or just to visit the mall, I am the only white person. Check that, I'm the only non-Asian person. I don't see any whites, blacks, or Latinos, coloreds or albinos, it's just thousands of Asians and me; the tall, bald headed white guy. However, at Mud Fest, I was just another muddy body in the crowd, and it was great.

I think every foreigner in the country might have been there, which means roughly around thirty of us, for one day, became best friends. That is of course besides the US Military personnel that also invaded the beach that day, I'm leaving them out because they're not really foreigners. They spend most of their time on US land in Korea, and from the ones I met, I wish they would have stayed there.

No offense to the military, but the ground force of 12 that took the beach by train that day, were not so ummmm, stealth? They sat only a few seats from us on the 3 hour train ride there. They initially gave up their location with loud cheers, usually having to do with some sort of alcohol. Upon further inspection the 'no neck' look, that is so hot in the military right now, gave away a few others in the surrounding brush areas. Not like they were blending in with their surroundings anyway (12 large, loud, drunk, round-eyed, whites amongst a train of Koreans), but they were in uniform too. Not a uniform I'd ever seen before, but black shirts with an odd hand signal pictured on them with the word "Shocker" in bold letters below. Undoubtedly, this must have been some sort of search and destroy souvenir battle t-shirt they all got after boot camp, but they all wore it proudly, like an American beacon of light. Yet, as if all those things weren't enough, the kicker was the game they played on that fateful day our paths crossed. The game was called "celebrities", yup "CELEBRITIES", where the ummm (cough, cough) challenge of the game was to name a celebrity. The only thing more sad than the fact that people actually got kicked out of this game for not being able to think of a celebrity was that when the name "Barack Obama" came up, these fine military personnel couldn't get 2 people out of the group of 12 to corroborate who he was, what he did, and thus his status as a celebrity was denied. I thought about stepping in at this moment, but the rules were clearly stated only minutes earlier during an argument about "ODB" (aka Dirt McGirt) and well I'm not one for breaking the rules, or showing off, so I decided to stay out of it.
The weekend was great though. We met a new friend, Alex from Iowa, and also met up with our old friends from Gumi. We played in the mud, ate, drank, and shot off fireworks. And even though I now have a burnt hole in the back of one of my favorite shirts, I wouldn't have changed a thing. Now after all that, maybe now...it's time to relax.
More Mud Fest Pics Here