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I wanted to post a blog last night but when Nicole and I got into Bangkok it was almost midnight and we were exhausted so we just crashed. We thought there was wireless but we couldn't get it to work or something so I'm on one of the computers in the lobby of our hostel. Also, right now it's about 6:45pm here.
The two flights went well and there were no hitches. For anyone looking to fly to Southeast Asia from Korea I would recommended our airline, China Southern, which was cheap and totally fine.
Because our first flight was a little delayed, our layover was only about two hours but since we spent quite some time going through a security checkpoint, it was not long at all. I can now technically say that I have been to China. Even if it was only for that short time. I WAS outside (we took a shuttle bus from the landing strip) and I DID buy something (a Coke, for you Diana, if you're reading this) but I suppose it doesn't really count.
It was kind of nice to be somewhere where I can just entirely not understand the language instead of just half-not understand and then feel guilty about not understanding. No one expects me to know Chinese of Thai.
Nicole kept making fun of me one the flight for saying thank you in Korean to the Chinese flight attendants. They didn't seem to notice. I suppose at some point after working as a flight attendant you'd just tune it out.
During the second flight, which was in the evening and therefore mostly in the dark, we flew right through a storm cloud. I could see lightening moving from one cloud to another. I know it was certainly far enough away to be safe but it was still closer than I have ever seen lightening and was amazing.
Today was our day in Bangkok since tomorrow we'll be flying out to Chang Mai in Northern Thailand. We spent the entire day walking around following a walking tour map that Nicole had downloaded.
Bangkok reminds me somehow of New Orleans. I think because, like New Orleans, its always warm. The buildings and things around on the streets give you the feeling that someone just plopped them there at some point and then they've been there ever since. There's not too much to weather it like in colder cities. In New Orleans I remember Mardi Gras beads just adorning trees or weird graffiti/paintings on walls or tables in random places. Here its kind of the same. I found a cactus plant on the street with empty egg shells all over it decorating it. I don't know why. I get the feeling people just started doing it and then kept doing it and it just became a thing.
Things couldn't be much different from Korea. First, of course, its warm. Just more than pleasantly so but its okay. It's hard for me to fathom that just yesterday I was waiting for the airport bus in freezing spring rain. Now I can't even really remember what it feels like to be really cold.
People here are also so chill. They are friendly, but not frighteningly so. A lot of people are just sitting around, eating or talking or sleeping. We went to a couple parks and people are just hanging around. Korea is very coordinated sometimes. This place is not.
The currency of Thailand is the baht. One dollar is about 30 baht. I feel like I'm dealing with so much money all the time even though last week I was dealing with millions of won.
Anyway, on the walking tour we first saw a flower and vegetable market. Then we went to a Buddhist temple. Which was beautiful. We went to another one later in the day. There are golden Buddha statues everywhere and people burning incense and praying. In one temple there were huge murals all over every last inch of the walls all the way up to the (very) high ceiling. A guy was vacuuming the carpet and got mad when we stepped right where we had vacuumed. There are monks at all the temples all in bright orange clothing and with shaved heads. At the second temple I saw a bunch of them studying. Just sitting in long rows and studying as other monks oversaw them. There are some old monks but a lot of them seem to be young. Maybe in their twenties. In a open square in front of both a temple and the city hall building there was a young Thai guy with no shirt and a ponytail doing tricks on a bike for his friends as well as a couple of the bald, orange-clad monks. Maybe they were his friends too. For some reason watching him chat with them was somehow surreal. Bangkok seems to be many different places at once. I tried to think what those different places were but I couldn't put my finger on it.
I climbed up to the top of the Golden Mount. Over 300 steps to the top where a recording chanted and people prayed and walked circles around more Buddha statues and monks took videos with their digital cameras. I could see the whole city from up there and I stayed there a long time by myself as Nicole had gone back to the hostel to take a nap. You can see tall buildings here and there but they aren't grouped together like an American city nor are there the huge collections of apartment high-rises that dominate Seoul's skyline. There are also the brightly-colored, ornate roofs of the temples and the huge blocks of shops and homes in between it all.
There are also plants everywhere. On the streets in pots. Huge trees in random and awkward places that feel like they've been there for decades and you wonder how they've survived.
We ate lunch at this place on the street under a tent. The cook was so friendly and spoke good English and the food was so delicious. Everything for about $1. Food here is so cheap its insane.
That's all for now.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Goodbye Korea
I forgot how beautiful and nice Incheon Airport is and how it's the only airport I can think of that has free wireless internet. I'm sitting here at the gate for our first flight. We should have started boarding 10 minutes ago but the flight is a little delayed.
Riding the bus here this morning made me remember when I first arrived in Korea almost exactly fifteen months ago. I remember that the first thing I noticed being different about Korea from the US was the trees that I saw outside of my window on the bus. Today I saw those same trees again from the bus window. I haven't left Korea the entire time I have been living here. It's been my home and now I'm leaving. It's strange.
Nicole and I ate our last meal here. I had bibimbap which also happens to be the first Korean food I ever had and also, technically, the first food I ever had in Korea (on the plane coming here). Dolsot bibimbap is also my favorite Korean food.
Everything's coming full circle. Goodbye Korea.
Riding the bus here this morning made me remember when I first arrived in Korea almost exactly fifteen months ago. I remember that the first thing I noticed being different about Korea from the US was the trees that I saw outside of my window on the bus. Today I saw those same trees again from the bus window. I haven't left Korea the entire time I have been living here. It's been my home and now I'm leaving. It's strange.
Nicole and I ate our last meal here. I had bibimbap which also happens to be the first Korean food I ever had and also, technically, the first food I ever had in Korea (on the plane coming here). Dolsot bibimbap is also my favorite Korean food.
Everything's coming full circle. Goodbye Korea.
Postcards
It's about 10am and Nicole is out getting coffee. These are our last few house left in Korea!
So thanks to my dear friend Kenneth, I had a thought. Who wants postcards? If you'd like one, comment with your address and what country or countries you want to get one from. :)
So thanks to my dear friend Kenneth, I had a thought. Who wants postcards? If you'd like one, comment with your address and what country or countries you want to get one from. :)
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Introduction
So as I begin writing this post its currently about 7:45pm here in Korea. That means that exactly this time tomorrow (in the local time zone) I will be in Guangzhou, China getting on a plane bound for Bangkok, Thailand.
The past week has been so incredibly hectic its almost as if it didn't happen. All I can fathom that has happened in the last seven days is that I have gotten far too little sleep some way or another since at this point the only thing keeping me awake is a half-liter of Coke Zero.
With the exception of what I have here in my backpack every last thing I own has been shipped off in one of eight individual boxes which I carried, one by one, to the post office over the course of this week even though the heaviest of them was about 45lbs and the post office is about a 15 minute walk from my house. It wasn't that bad really. My arms don't hurt when I pick things up anymore like they used to... on Tuesday.
Throughout all of it I've still been going to work. It's kind of crazy how much energy you can muster up when you have to. My last day was yesterday. It was a little sad, but like with most other aspects of my life in Korea, it hasn't yet set in that it's all over.
Yesterday, being Friday, was also my last day to ship anything since my post office isn't open on the weekends. It also happened to be the day after the night all the teachers went out together. What that adds up to is me getting home around 4:30am and then waking up at 9am to walk my guitar to the big post office a half-hour walk away that can process over-sized packages... It also ads up to me spending last night sleeping on a bare mattress with my backpack for a pillow since my bedding, and everything else in my apartment that isn't part of the furnishings, is long gone. Adventures already.
And then this afternoon my landlord came by and finalized everything and then I was officially made homeless.
I'm now at the apartment of my travel buddy, Nicole. She's out somewhere having dinner and I'm here, exhausted, finishing up the last couple errands I have to do before my departure. One of which is re-start this blog.
I know I haven't written about Korea in a long time. To me it almost feels as though those old posts were written by a different person in a different place which is kind of weird. Since then, my life just became a normal life, at least from my point of view. It felt weird to blog about it.
But anyway, enough introduction! Now things are changing. This week has been crazy, yes. But it's over now. I'm so excited for tomorrow I think I would explode if I weren't too tired to explode. It hasn't sunk in yet. I'm still just in Korea where I have been forever. I think this time tomorrow I will be pretty shocked.
That's really all I have to say about it right now as I chill out here in my pajamas with my Coke. So, for those of you who don't know the details of my trip (which includes me, really)... on to the facts.
Nicole and I fly out tomorrow for Thailand. We will travel together throughout Southeast Asia for about a month and a half. Then we part ways mid-April. The original plan was to go to India and Nepal together at that point but, because of some visa issues, it was scratched. Instead, she leaves for Sri Lanka and then Eastern Europe while I continue around Southeast Asia and then on to Western Europe. Eventually, we both end up in Chicago at some point or another... in theory.
Anyway, to break things down. Here's the itinerary.
The Itinerary aka Operation Ridiculous
Sunday, February 27th
From 2:15pm to 5:10pm we fly from Seoul, South Korea to Guangzhou, China and then from 7:45pm to 9:30pm from Guangzhou, China to Bangkok, Thailand.
Sunday, February 27th to Tuesday, March 1st
Spending a couple nights in Bangkok
Tuesday, March 1st
From 8:40pm to 9:50pm we fly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.
Tuesday, March 1st to Thursday, March 31st
During this time we will be traveling around Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. While we have a ideas of how much time we will spend in each country, we don't have definite plans. Eventually we will end up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the end of the month
Thursday, March 31st
From 4:35pm to 7:20pm we fly from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then from 9:15pm to 10:15pm we fly from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi,a group of islands in Northern Malaysia.
Thursday, March 31st to Saturday, April 16th
We spend this time in Langkawi as well as traveling around Malaysia eventually ending back up in Kuala Lumpur where we part ways.
Saturday, April 16th
From 9:50am to 11:30am I fly from Kuala Lumpor to Surabaya, Indonesia.
Saturday, April 16th to Monday, April 25th
I spend the week with my friend Diana who has been living and working in Indonesia with the Peace Corps for the past 11 months. You can (and should, it's amazing) check out her blog here.
Monday, April 25th
From 8:50am to 12:25pm I fly from Subrabaya, Indonesia back to Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia and then from 5:50p to 6:30pm I fly from Kuala Lumpor to Singapore.
Monday, April 25th and Tuesday, April 26th
For one night (and one night only, unfortunately) I will be in Singapore visiting my friend Bryan.
Tuesday, April 26th and Wednesday, April 27th
From 9:20pm to 10:30pm I will fly from Singapore to Kuala Lumpor and then from 1:20am to 9:00am (Parisian time) I will fly from Kuala Lumpor to Paris, France.
Wednesday, April 27th to ???
I'll spend about a week or a week and a half visiting my friend Kenneth who is in graduate school in Paris. The ??? just means I haven't booked the flight yet.
???
After Paris I'll be flying to Dublin, Ireland for a few days. I just added this last stop a week or two ago when I realized that the cheapest flights to Chicago from Paris had a layover in Dublin. I figure, as long as I am there I might as well stay a couple days. They speak English there! It will act as my first step back into my old life. It's still just a tentative addition at the moment, since I haven't booked my flights.
?????
USA! Twelve flights later and I'll finally be back in the States. I'll let all of you guys in the US know my exact arrival date as soon as I know it myself but right now the speculative number is the 15th of May. No later than that anyway. :D
Woah. So that's it. I think that's the first time I have really thought about it all at once. It's a little overwhelming just looking everything written down. Ahh... it's starting to set in...
Wish me luck and I'll keep posting as often as I can.
Cheers.
Kate
The past week has been so incredibly hectic its almost as if it didn't happen. All I can fathom that has happened in the last seven days is that I have gotten far too little sleep some way or another since at this point the only thing keeping me awake is a half-liter of Coke Zero.
With the exception of what I have here in my backpack every last thing I own has been shipped off in one of eight individual boxes which I carried, one by one, to the post office over the course of this week even though the heaviest of them was about 45lbs and the post office is about a 15 minute walk from my house. It wasn't that bad really. My arms don't hurt when I pick things up anymore like they used to... on Tuesday.
Throughout all of it I've still been going to work. It's kind of crazy how much energy you can muster up when you have to. My last day was yesterday. It was a little sad, but like with most other aspects of my life in Korea, it hasn't yet set in that it's all over.
Yesterday, being Friday, was also my last day to ship anything since my post office isn't open on the weekends. It also happened to be the day after the night all the teachers went out together. What that adds up to is me getting home around 4:30am and then waking up at 9am to walk my guitar to the big post office a half-hour walk away that can process over-sized packages... It also ads up to me spending last night sleeping on a bare mattress with my backpack for a pillow since my bedding, and everything else in my apartment that isn't part of the furnishings, is long gone. Adventures already.
And then this afternoon my landlord came by and finalized everything and then I was officially made homeless.
I'm now at the apartment of my travel buddy, Nicole. She's out somewhere having dinner and I'm here, exhausted, finishing up the last couple errands I have to do before my departure. One of which is re-start this blog.
I know I haven't written about Korea in a long time. To me it almost feels as though those old posts were written by a different person in a different place which is kind of weird. Since then, my life just became a normal life, at least from my point of view. It felt weird to blog about it.
But anyway, enough introduction! Now things are changing. This week has been crazy, yes. But it's over now. I'm so excited for tomorrow I think I would explode if I weren't too tired to explode. It hasn't sunk in yet. I'm still just in Korea where I have been forever. I think this time tomorrow I will be pretty shocked.
That's really all I have to say about it right now as I chill out here in my pajamas with my Coke. So, for those of you who don't know the details of my trip (which includes me, really)... on to the facts.
Nicole and I fly out tomorrow for Thailand. We will travel together throughout Southeast Asia for about a month and a half. Then we part ways mid-April. The original plan was to go to India and Nepal together at that point but, because of some visa issues, it was scratched. Instead, she leaves for Sri Lanka and then Eastern Europe while I continue around Southeast Asia and then on to Western Europe. Eventually, we both end up in Chicago at some point or another... in theory.
Anyway, to break things down. Here's the itinerary.
The Itinerary aka Operation Ridiculous
Sunday, February 27th
From 2:15pm to 5:10pm we fly from Seoul, South Korea to Guangzhou, China and then from 7:45pm to 9:30pm from Guangzhou, China to Bangkok, Thailand.
Sunday, February 27th to Tuesday, March 1st
Spending a couple nights in Bangkok
Tuesday, March 1st
From 8:40pm to 9:50pm we fly from Bangkok to Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.
Tuesday, March 1st to Thursday, March 31st
During this time we will be traveling around Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. While we have a ideas of how much time we will spend in each country, we don't have definite plans. Eventually we will end up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia at the end of the month
Thursday, March 31st
From 4:35pm to 7:20pm we fly from Phnom Penh, Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and then from 9:15pm to 10:15pm we fly from Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi,a group of islands in Northern Malaysia.
Thursday, March 31st to Saturday, April 16th
We spend this time in Langkawi as well as traveling around Malaysia eventually ending back up in Kuala Lumpur where we part ways.
Saturday, April 16th
From 9:50am to 11:30am I fly from Kuala Lumpor to Surabaya, Indonesia.
Saturday, April 16th to Monday, April 25th
I spend the week with my friend Diana who has been living and working in Indonesia with the Peace Corps for the past 11 months. You can (and should, it's amazing) check out her blog here.
Monday, April 25th
From 8:50am to 12:25pm I fly from Subrabaya, Indonesia back to Kuala Lumpor, Malaysia and then from 5:50p to 6:30pm I fly from Kuala Lumpor to Singapore.
Monday, April 25th and Tuesday, April 26th
For one night (and one night only, unfortunately) I will be in Singapore visiting my friend Bryan.
Tuesday, April 26th and Wednesday, April 27th
From 9:20pm to 10:30pm I will fly from Singapore to Kuala Lumpor and then from 1:20am to 9:00am (Parisian time) I will fly from Kuala Lumpor to Paris, France.
Wednesday, April 27th to ???
I'll spend about a week or a week and a half visiting my friend Kenneth who is in graduate school in Paris. The ??? just means I haven't booked the flight yet.
???
After Paris I'll be flying to Dublin, Ireland for a few days. I just added this last stop a week or two ago when I realized that the cheapest flights to Chicago from Paris had a layover in Dublin. I figure, as long as I am there I might as well stay a couple days. They speak English there! It will act as my first step back into my old life. It's still just a tentative addition at the moment, since I haven't booked my flights.
?????
USA! Twelve flights later and I'll finally be back in the States. I'll let all of you guys in the US know my exact arrival date as soon as I know it myself but right now the speculative number is the 15th of May. No later than that anyway. :D
Woah. So that's it. I think that's the first time I have really thought about it all at once. It's a little overwhelming just looking everything written down. Ahh... it's starting to set in...
Wish me luck and I'll keep posting as often as I can.
Cheers.
Kate
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