Back in the States, Start in Seattle

I'm back! I can't believe it's been over a year since I stepped on American soil. I've seen so many things while away, and lived such a different lifestyle that things that seem so normal over here now seem foreign to me. Do you notice how many over weight people are walking around this country? I do! Do you stare at people with blond, and red hair? I've been staring at those people like they've got two heads lately. Is it me or are there homeless people asking you for money on every corner? That's what it feels like to me, and they're not even trying to sell you souvenirs. What about young Asian American kids who speak perfect English? Boy does that one throw me for a loop. After traveling Asia I espet ebery persum of Ashan decent to have a wittle dipperent speaking style, but then a 10 year old tells me "I am pleased to meet you, and I'd love to chat but I have to work on my calculus homework." I feel like a kid again. All things look new, and all things taste new. noo one ever told me that the food tastes better when you get back home. All the things I'd been craving early in my trip to Korea, but then forgot about after I settled in, all taste like I'm eating them for the first time in my life all over again. I've announced to others that "these are the best oranges ever!", "the chicken sandwich at that bar was amazing!", "I haven't had a bowl of cereal this good in my life!" and the list goes on: Strawberries, pasta, burgers, fries, etc... they all taste amazing. It's as if my taste buds were let out of prison and are enjoying the freedoms they once took for granted. But the food is just our regular, ordinary, run of the mill American food. Usually drenched in grease, salt, or butter, and you know what I realized? I love it. But it's not just that. American food has tons of "extras". You don't eat a ham sandwich. You eat a ham sandwich with lettuce, tomato, cheese, salt, pepper, mustard, and mayonnaise. Those little add ons are the things I didn't realize I had been missing, but now I can't help but recognize them and thank god for them every time I bight into my sweet sweet American food. I've heard some people say that when returning back to the states they felt the food tasted "artificial" and didn't like it after a year of eating natural and healthy food in Korea, but I'm here to tell you that there is nothing artificial tasting about a flame grilled burger, and when you deprive yourself of them for 13 months, your sensory system starts doing cartwheels when you reintroduce them. I've basically been on a high every breakfast, lunch and dinner since getting back, who needs drugs when you have a fat juicy steak?

Where was I? Oh yeah, Seattle. I had been wanting to visit Seattle for a while because my brother Kevin moved there a few years ago. So I figured why not now while I'm not tied down. I can fly into Seattle and then make my way back across the states stopping wherever and seeing whatever I want. I'd never traveled America and once you get to KOREA and people ask you about famous American sights, in my own country, and I have to say "I don't know, I haven't been there" they kind of look at you like your crazy. I mean who travels around the world to KOREA without seeing their own country first? I guess I do, but I think I appreciated America's beauty and differences a little more this way. So, anyway, that was the plan. Fly into Seattle, and travel across the country. Sounds pretty well thought out huh? Yeah it wasn't. Where do I start?

My flight from Hong Kong was basically one of the worst experiences of my life. Somewhere in between my snorkeling, volcano hiking, and villa living in Bali I was bitten by a super powered Indonesian spider. Not unlike the spider of the famous Marvel comic book "Spiderman" but instead of giving me super powers it gave me a super swollen, itchy forehead. I was so uncomfortable, I wanted to scratch my face off, but I had to sit in an airplane seat for 10 hours and try and look normal even though I looked like Hasim Rahman after his fight with Evander Holyfield. I did actually make it without going insane, and when I stepped out of the Seattle airport I realized my first mistake. I had packed my backpack for over a month of travel in Sunny Australia, warm Hong Kong, and tropical Bali. The cold misty breeze of Seattle rain was not something my short, t-shirt, and sandal wearing self was prepared for. After all of my brothers stories about hiking, boats, and other outdoor activities in Seattle I just kind of figured it was warm...I am an idiot.

So as if that wasn't enough, the icing on the cake would be that the first full day I spent in America in over a year was spent in the Seattle Washington Emergency Room. A real welcome spending that special day with some of America's finest in an over crowded waiting room while I was still in a case of extreme discomfort. The doctors didn't have a clue, and I couldn't help them much. Before the bump got all on steroids I just thought it was a mosquito bight. They gave me strong antibiotics and medicine for the itch and told me to pray. I was bed ridden in my brothers apartment for the next week. I considered buying a plane ticket to my parents home in Tennessee and canceling the whole trip. I don't know why I didn't do it, but I'm so thankful I decided against it.

I did come out of my funk, with only a few scars. I have less eye lashes today than before my trip, and a small section of the top of my head is missing, but overall I think having a permanant reminder of not giving up on something you want to do isn't such a terrible thing.

Seattle turned out to be a blast. My brother has a bunch of awesome friends out there, who I'm lucky to feel like they are kind of my friends now too. The city is pretty, has lots of things to do, yet also keeps a sort of homey feel. I walked around the city, went hiking, saw some sights, spent some time with some cool people, watched the NCAA Tournament Finals (Oh glorious March Madness), and saw a tulip festival. This was the first stop on a long American journey and it had it's road bumps but overall I'm so glad I persevered through it. I loved seeing my brother and his wife out there. They really love Seattle, and I loved being there with them. Also, the food wasn't bad either :)

Check it out...you know the drill.

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.

Parlay voo France?

I have been a little busy, and definitely slacking on the blogging, I'm sorry to anyone who is listening. Between teaching a few hours a day, eating, and sleeping I haven't been able to fit it in.
I know what you are thinking "my life is a constant trial". We should all be so lucky.
Either way, tomorrow I'm off to France. If you didn't know it, my older brother Kevin is tying the knot, and I will be in France for about 1 week enjoying all of the wedding festivities. Let me get the obvious questions out of the way:
1. No my family is not French
2. No we do not have any family in France
3. Because Kevin and Susie love to travel, and a friend offered a beautiful house in the French countryside as a venue for the wedding, as a wedding gift. So they took it. Who else has the option to get married in France? Wouldn't you?

If you don't know that much about France let me catch you up. I'm some sort of an expert on the subject because I've been eating French toast since the age of 3. Yup, that's right, my parents trained me to be cultured starting from a very young age. Muchos Grachas, Mamaia and Fadre.
The french eat a lot of fries. I think McDonald's might even be French for really, really, ridiculously good French fries. Wait...no yup, that's right. The French are also very sexual beings. They are always singing love songs, and when they aren't singing they smoke, and blow heart rings out of there mouths (some of the talented smokers, or as I kindly like to refer to them as "Le Smokairs", shoot arrows through the rings). They also invented kissing. Well, that's not entirely true, just a new twist on something that was getting a bit "old hat". But being that a child could read this, I will not go into details on that. Well, that's the long and short of it I think. I'm sure I will go to France, drink lots of wine, kiss many women, and eat lots of fries and toast. It will be a trip to remember, and I'll make sure to blog about it when I return, even though I think I've already covered everything pretty clearlyjust now.
Oh, and I have a stop-over in Moscow too, but I'll tell you more about the bitter cold drunks of Russia another day. Wee wee.

I've Made It...

Wow, what a trip. I left Newark airport at 8:25 AM on March 20th and took a 6 hour flight to meet my brother in Seattle. However, that didn't happen. It seems the flights to Korea don't get the best gate accessibility. I was told I might miss my flight if I tried to go have lunch (with a 2 hour layover), but I had left my cell phone in New Jersey. So here I am, waiting for my plane, not able to meet my brother, and not able to contact him either. Then I hear my name paged over an announcement, but the incompetent workers at Seattle airport didn't know how to contact the people who were paging me. I told them how it is supposed to work, they told me they knew, I replied, I don't think you do. So I had to unpack my computer, get Kevin's cell phone number and spend 2 dollars at a public pay phone (who knew they were still around?) for 4 minutes just to say I'm sorry to my brother. Hey Kev, I'm really sorry, that sucked, I wish I could have seen you. But moving on. While waiting for the plane I met another girl who was going to South Korea to teach for a year, Anand. We had a nice wait for the plane and met two guys who looked 15 years old, but were really 18 & 19 who were flying to Thailand for a Moy Thai fighting camp. I know it's a random thing, but these kids looked like the kids who are comedic side kicks in teenage melodrama's (ie: small, kinda nerdy, try to be cute) basically the opposite of what I think of when I think Ultimate Fighter. It was very weird, but I do wish them the best. It started already, I love meeting new people with interesting stories. Then the plane. It was a HUGE plane, but it was awesome. There were like 1000 movies on demand for free, free alcohol, free games, and apparently babies couldn't even cry on this plane, it was that good. Plus I got two meals, that I got to eat with medal silverware!!! A spoon, fork and KNIFE!!! They gave out two KNIVES to each person on one trip. My dental floss was confiscated on my trip from Newark to Seattle, but apparently it's the Thunderdome when you fly internationally. But after 12 long hours, and only one bathroom break (which was one more then I was hoping for) I arrived in South Korea. Two teachers were there with a sign that read "PAUL KROLL", of course I asked them if there car had Bud Light. They didn't get the joke, but I went with them anyway. On the ride to my apartment they made me really nervous, laughing when describing the size of my apartment as being very small. Also telling me I might not have a stove, and it's a 5th floor walkup. All news to me, and when you hear it in really broken English, it makes it sound even worse (Ex: "Room, BERY BERY SMALL, hahaha). So after getting caught in traffic for a professional soccer game on the way to my apt, carrying bags that weighed 55, 30, 26 and 24 pounds up 5 flights of stairs, almost 20 hours of being cramped in a plane, all while knowing I have to get up for school at 8AM the next day...The last thing I wanted to see was a terrible apartment. Well, I opened the door and I couldn't believe what I saw...