Today, I was finally able to find the pool by my apartment and figure out the right time for lap swim.  (The only have open lap on Sat and Sun morning, and the pool is located in the basement of a shopping center. Very bizarre location!)  So I got to swimming this morning and then I bought some strawberries as a special treat to myself.  (They are really expensive here, so I’ve never bought them before.) 

Also, I found a great digital camera that I’m going to buy to replace my broken one.  So everything is working out great today!

My last few posts have been really negative about Korea and my job, and I think that I’m just getting really excited to do my big trip and get home.  It really helps me to vent on the blog, but I just wanted to let you guys know that I am still really enjoying Korea.  I just needed an attitude adjustment this week. 

I just finished spending 12 hours(unpaid) on a Saturday attending the kindy gradutation.  (btw I don’t teach any kindergarten and don’t know the kids at all.)  I was quite pissed off that I had to spend my free time going to the graduation but it actually turned out to be a little better than I thought.

We had to get to the auditorium by 9:30 in the morning for a 4 hour rehersal with the kids.  Basically all of the foreigners just sat there and got bossed around.  If we weren’t doing anything they would get mad at us, but if we tried to do something they just acted like we were getting in there way. Also, when the managers would tell us to do something, they would immediately contradict themselves.  One lady told me to fold the costumes, so I did.  As soon as I folded a pair of pants, another lady ripped them out of my hand and threw it on the ground and told me not the fold them.  So basically I tried to stay away from them all day. 

The actual ceremony was completely over the top!  They put a TON of money into this thing and tried to make it as elaborate as possible!  Each kid had about 3 or 4 costume changes (and we’re talking about professional costumes), plus they had huge props and backdrop things for the stage, strobe lights, fog machines, and a professionally hired MC guy!  (Remember this was all for some 5-7 year olds graduating from kindergarten!!)The kids were adorable and really impressed me with how well they could remember the cheoregraphy.  (They all had to sing, play drums, and learn at least 3 dances.) 

After the ceremony/performance all of the teachers had a work dinner.  The manager took us out for galbi.  It was delicious! Plus who doesn’t love free food and alcohol?!

The whole day really made me realize that I’m not working at a school, I’m working for a company that is all about making money.  (Yes, of course they also want the kids to learn some english, but they are definetly in it for the money!)  So many things about Korea seem really superficial, and this whole ceremony seemed sort of fake and just for show. 

Yesterday was Valentine’s Day.  (Not really a big deal for me.  I actually forgot about it until I got to school.)  But I thought you might be interested to know how it differs between Korea and the US.

In Korea only guys get gifts on Valentine’s Day!  (How stupid is that!!)  Also, it seems like everyone only gives chocolate.  No presents, no flowers, and no other kinds of candy seem to be given at all. 

They have a seperate holiday on March 14th for the girls to get there chocolate.  They call it White Day. The whole seperate holidays thing seems very strange to me!

Our manager and some of the Korean teachers gave all of the male teachers tons of chocolate, but the female teachers get nothing.  Very strange!

Last weekend I went to Daejon to visit Jen. (Daejon is the 4th or 5th biggest city in Korea and it’s about 2 hours south of Seoul.) 

Paul and I took the KTX train down to see Jen, because she is leaving at the end of the month.  On Saturday we basically just hung out and chatted.  (I haven’t seen Paul since August or September, so it was nice to see him again.)  The 3 of us went to Jen’s school and found out first hand how annoying her manager is.  Jen had been invited to a birthday party for her former boss, and he told her that Paul and I were welcome too.  Anyways, the new manager didn’t think that we should go, so she un-invited us even though it wasn’t her party.  (Oh well, we wouldn’t have know anybody there.  It probably would have been pretty boring.)

So Jen, Paul, me, and Marianne (one of Jen’s coworkers) went to see the movie “Munich”.  And then we ate some yummy pork galbi.  (That’s the barbaqued meat that you wrap in lettuce leaves with some hot sauce and spring onions.)  After dinner we went to the “foreigner’s” bar in Daejon, which is called Santa Claus.  We had a few drinks and talked to 1 weird older man that wanted to tell us how to live our lives. 

After the bar we went to a fun Norabong (kareoke) place.  The whole place was decorated to look like you were in the movie “Alien”.  There were 7 foot tall alien statutes and the kareoke rooms looked like alien pods.  It was very fun!

 The next day, Paul and I raced to the train station.  We got there with about 5 minutes to spare before our train left.  We had paid for the slow train back to Seoul.  (It takes an extra hour, but you save about $11.00 from the KTX, fast train.)  As we were waiting on the platform for our train a KTX train going to Seoul pulled up.  We figured we would jump on the fast train and play “dumb foreigner” if anyone asked us why we were on the wrong train.  You can tell me and Paul are real goody-goodies because every time someone looked at us or one of the workers walked by, we freaked out that they were going to yell at us or throw us off the train.  But no one ever questioned us, and we got an extra hour to our Sunday afternoon, that would have been spent sitting on the slow train. 

It was a good weekend.  I am going to really miss Jen when she goes bak to Canada!  She is definetly my best friend here, and we have had so many adventures together!

I just got back from a 2 day ski trip at Vivaldi Park.  I went with a bunch of my coworkers(Shannon, Kristen, Thomas, Gilles, John, Su Hung, Julie, and Jay + some of Jay’s friends).  I think we all had a great time! 

Vivaldi is only about 2 hours outside of Seoul and it’s pretty nice (definetly a lot better than anything in MN).  It was a chilly day but it was nice a sunny.  Also, it wasn’t as crowded as I would have imagined (since everything in Korea is super crowded).  There were probably about 10-12 runs, and we went down almost all of them.

After skiing we went to a fabulous dinner!  I was spicy samgebsal (sp?).  Which is basically pork marinaded in a spicy red pepper paste and then you cook it yourselve on little grills at your table.  It was really yummy!  The restaraunt is supposed to be a famous one in Korea, and this dish is their specialty.

After stuffing oursleves with pork we went back to our condo and relaxed.  We ended up playing a fun rock-paper-scissors drinking game.  (They love rock-paper-scissors in Korea.  The kids are always playing it.)  Then we streched out and slept on mats and blankets on the floor.  (They were typical traditional Korean style rooms, which basically means that the rooms basically have no furniture. So you sit, sleep, and eat on the floor.) 

It was a great weekend!  It was so nice that Jay organized it.  Her and her friends basically took care of us Westerns.  Setting up the rental, lift tickets, accomadations, food and driving us around.  They were so nice!

A few days ago at ECC they told us that the teachers were going to have to learn a dance routine and perform it at the kindergarten graduation.   I thought that it was stupid.  First of all, I don’t teach kindergarten.  So I don’t know any of the kids and I don’t even know why I have to go to the graduation let alone perform in it. 

We assumed that this dance would be with the kids and that all of the teachers would have to be part of it.  On the first day of rehersal, we found out that it was only for the foreign teachers (which really sucks). Then the manager played the video and we got to see the dance we were supposed to do in front of all our co workers, students, and at least 100 Korean parents.  Basically it was skipping around like retards while shimmying and shaking our butts in their faces.  We all just looked at each other, like this must be a joke.  Basically, the manager was trying to force us to make complete asses out of ourselves in front of everyone.

One of my coworkers said,”Why are you trying to humilate us?” to the manager.  The manager got really pissed at this and told us that we shouldn’t feel humilated.  When we told her we would all feel humilated and ashamed to do this dance, she stormed out and told us that it was cancelled.

Thank god!  There is no possible way I was going to do that. 

I hate how we are treated like props sometimes.  They baiscally just make sure that we sit around and look white and western whenever the parents will be at school.  The only reason I have to go to the graduation is so that they have another white face to show the parents. 

Well, that’s enough of my rant.  I do really like my job, but they definetly treat the foreign teachers differently than they treat the Korean teachers.   

Our last day in Vietnam was when we planned to see most of the tourist sites.  We woke up early, and after breakfast at our hotel we called our nice taxi driver from the night before to drive us to Ho Chi Minh’s Masoleum.  It was very interesting trying to talk to him on the phone, since he didn’t speak much English.  But eventually he figured out what we wanted. 

So first we went to the Masoleum.  (I have already been to Mao’s Masoleum in Beijing, so I sort of knew what to expect.)  They are very strict and regulate your every move. You need to have your bags checked numerous times, and leave your cameras and cell phones at a little booth before you enter the building.  This masoleum was basically like a big maze to get in.  First go to this building, then wind your way around a big path, next go to the next building to get checked out again.  But we finally got to the entrance, and of course the armed guards choose me to pull aside and search again.  Anyways, we got in and saw Ho Chi Minh’s body.  He has been dead since the late 1960’s, so it was surprising how good he looked.  He looked like he was just taking alittle nap in a glass case and would open his eyes any minute.  Creepy!

 Ho Chi Minh’s Masoleum

After that we walked around and saw the Presidental Palace, Ho Chi Minh’s house, the stilt house, and the one Pillar Pagoda.  It was pretty over run with tourists, but it was very pretty with lush tropical gardens all around.  The only interesting thing that happened was some random Vietnamese man told Shannon, Jen, and I that we weren’t allowed to walk by the Presidental Palace unless we bought a brochure.  Everyone around us was just walking in and he didn’t even try to stop them.  We couldn’t figure out why he had singled us out from all the other tourists, and we didn’t want to put up with his BS.  But while we were arguing with him, a super nice Korean tourist bought brochures for us, so that we wouldn’t have to put up with the stupid Vietnamese man anymore.  (Korean people can be so nice and generous sometimes.)

After that bit of sightseeing, we went to the Temple of Literature.  It was pretty with a bunch of interesting court yards.  But it had tons of tourists too, and we didn’t really know much about the significance of the buildings and statutes.  So I think alot of it was lost on us. 

After the Temple of Literature, we walked to the Old Quarter.  I was quite proud that we didn’t get lost, because it was at least a mile away, and the roads are so windy.  It’s pretty hard to navigate.  Anyways, we made it to the Old Quarter and had lunch overlooking the lake.  Then Shannon and I decided to try getting massages again.  We found a place that gave hour long massages for about $5.  We went in and sat in the sauna and then went for our massages.  It turned out that we were in the same room and they wanted us to lay there completely naked without even a towel to cover us.  So Shannon and I definetly don’t have anything to hide from each other now.  The massages were really rough and they didn’t use any lotion so it was a bit painful at times.  Also, we were quite weirded out when they sat on us to massage our backs (we were still totally exposed).  Very bizarre experience!  The massages only lasted about 20 mins instead of an hour, but that was ok with us since they definetly weren’t very relaxing.  But then the kept saying that we should give them tips if we liked the massage.  We didn’t like it much and we had paid for an hour, so we didn’t feel like we should tip them. 

After our massages we did some more shopping in the Old Quarter and then went to the Water Puppet show.  The show was very interesting.  Vietnamese people have been doing this kind of performance for more than 400 years, so it was cool to see alittle bit of thier culture.  Also, the music was very cool.  They had a small traditional band there accompaning the show.

Next we went to the West Lake.  There wasn’t much written about it in our guide book, but we had heard that they have some great floating seafood restaraunts on the lake so we decided to check it out.  We saw a pretty temple/shrine thing when we first got there.  There weren’t any signs in English so we don’t really know what it was, but it had some beautiful buildings and statutes. 

As we were walking by the lake we saw tons of really tacky photo booths set up.  It was so bizarre!  Basically it was huge cut outs of things, and big dirty stuffed animals you could pose with and then pay to have them take your picture with these ugly, dirty, tacky things.  Who would do that?  And why were there hundreds of them?  (Obviously they must get some business if there are hundreds of them.)

We ate dinner at the Potomac floating restaraunt on the West Lake.  It was the perfect setting and awesome weather.  They had a really extensive menu, with almost every kind of seafood you could imagine plus a bunch of non-seafood options (which made me happy since I don’t like fish).  One of the pages was devoted to ”Wild” game.  They had cat, porcupine, and snake on the menu!!  Yuck!  Needless to say we didn’t order any of those.  We actually had a great meal and relaxed at the lake for a while.

(This is a picture of the menu, where it lists cat etc. Hard to read on the blog though.)

Our trip was coming to a close, so we went back to the hotel to pack up.  We had arranged it so our favorite taxi driver would come pick us up and drive us to the airport.  He was so excited and happy that we kept asking him to drive us.  He even brought little wrapped gifts for each of us.  (They turned out to be little plastic dog figurines, hair binders, and wrapped packs of gum.  Very strange, but it was extremely sweet!) 

 Us with our sweet taxi driver, Long.

Our flight back went well. We lucked out and each got 3 seats to oursleves so we could strech out and sleep.  (Which we needed to do since we got into Seoul at 7:00 am and we had to work that same day.)

It was an awesome trip!  And something interesting happened nearly every hour.  I’m so glad that we used our few days off and left Korea!  Shannon and Jen were great travel buddies too! 

We woke up early at our hotel on Cat ba Island and went to get our complimentary breakfast at the restaraunt where we ate dinner the night before.  Our breakfast was 2 pieces of bread and about a teaspoon of jam. (Really filling!)  We did order Vietnamese milk coffee and  it was delicious! (It is really strong coffee with a chocolate flavor to it.) 

Then we went back to the boat.  We had about a 3 hour ride back to the marina.  After we got off the boat, we went to lunch at a restaraunt in Halong City.  It was basically more of the same (fish, squid, spring rolls, rice, and french fries), but we had a nice conversation with a guy from South Africa that had joined our group for the day. 

It is so fun being able to talk with people from all over the world who love traveling.  On the boat we talked to people from Norway, Germany, Ireland, Korea, and South Africa.  (There were also some older people on our boat ride back from France.) So we were really an international group!  And everyone had done a lot of traveling so it was fun to hear their travel stories from all around the world.

Once we got back to Hanoi, we decided to go on bicycle ricshaw rides around the Old Quarter.  It was a really fun way to see all of the shops and narrow winding roads, but we did feel bad that the men had to pedal our lazy butts around. 

   Jen and Shannon on bicycle rickshaw

We decided to go back to the hotel to freshen up before dinner, so we jumped in a taxi.  We just decided to pay the meter price instead of negotating beforehand.  That was a BIG mistake.  He definetly was a crook.  he had a meter that didn’t even make sense.  The numbers didn’t really correspond to Vietnamese money (which would have been in the 100,000’s and it definetly wasn’t in US $ either.)  So when we pulled up to the hotel, we just assumed it would be about 30,000 Dong like it had been the last 3 times we went there.  He told us it was 100,000 Dong.  We obviously didn’t want to pay him 3 times the going rate, so we told him we knew that price wasn’t right and gave 50,000 Dong and got out of the taxi.  He jumped out after us and started screaming and yelling at us.  Then he grabbed my arm and tried to pull me back into the taxi.  At this time a Vietnamese woman came over and just calmly watched while he screamed in our faces, and kept grabbing my arm and scratching it with his long pointy finger nails.  We told him to come into the hotel and we would straighten out the problem.  That made him even more mad!  He acted like he was going to hit me, so we just threw the other 50,000 Dong at him and ran away.  What a complete jerk!  That whole experience really set us on edge and made us notice all of the bad and annoying things about Vietnam.

After calming down in our hotel room, we decided to brave the taxis again.  We got one at the hotel parking lot, and we totally lucked out.  He must have been the nicest taxi driver in all of Hanoi!  His name was Long and he was studying English, so he was really eager to speak to us.  He was super sweet and even seranaded us.  (We grabbed a business card from him, and called him the next day.)

We went back to the Old Quarter and ate dinner in the the Kangaroo Cafe.  It was a great meal!  (I think the best I had in Vietnam. I had a chicken, veggie, and cashew stir fry.)  Shannon and I still really wanted massages so the 3 of us wandered around the Old Quarter looking for an open massage place.  But it was getting to late and a lot of business were still closed for the holiday, so we didn’t find one. 

Then we just went back to the hotel and crashed early. 

We woke up really early in the morning (we actually woke up by 7:00 every morning to make the most out of our short trip).  And ate a decent/free breakfast at our hotel.  Then the tour company picked us up for our 3 hour drive out to Halong Bay.  We drove there in a small van and it was packed with people and big backpacks.  Not a comfortable ride, but I did have a nice conversation with a girl from Norway who was in our group. 

The boat was pretty nice. (I was expecting the worst after paying $30 for a 2 day trip.)  It was a 2 floor Chinese Junk boat.  The bottom floor had all of the bedrooms, the middle floor had the eating area, bathrooms, and kitchen, and there was a nice sun deck on the roof where you could relax and really see the beautiful bay.

It was a little chilly, probably in the 60’s and a bit windy (so we didn’t get to do any swimming or snorkeling) but it was still a nice ride around the bay. And the landscape was absolutely amazing! 

Our lunch (and actually all of the meals on the boat) wasn’t that great.  We had some fish, squid, cabbage, rice, spring rolls, and french fries.  (For some reason they served us french fries and spring rolls at every meal!  I’m sure it was just to make sure that us Westerners would eat sometime.)  I found a long hair in the cabbage, so I basically just ate rice for lunch. 

In the afternoon we went to Amazing Cave.  It was a lot bigger than I imagined it would be.  There were 3 large caves linked to each other. The biggest one must have been about a 1/4 of a mile long, the roof of it was at least 2 floors up, and it was very wide.  The guide told us that there were lots of interesting rock formations that looked like other things.  There was a chicken, a budha, and a penis. For some reason they had a big red spotlight shining on the last one just to make sure everyone noticed it! 

 This is the view from the entrance of the cave. 

We went back to the boat and rode around the bay more.  Then we stopped at a small floating village so some of the people could kayak.  (I wanted to kayak, but the tour leader said I wasn’t allowed to go because I was staying in the hotel for the night instead of sleeping on the boat.  Which made absolutely no sense!  Because we just sat on the boat and waited them to finish kayaking before we went to the island. Whatever. There were so many bizarre things that Vietnamese people said to us on our trip, we just had to relax and go with the craziness.)

 Here’s 2 houses in the floating village.

After sunset we went to Cat Ba Island.  It is a small island (population 7,000), and half of it is a national park.  Shannon, Jen, and I were the only ones who choose to sleep on the island and we definetly lucked out!  The people staying on the boat didn’t even get to go to the island, and there was nothing to do on the boat so they all went to sleep at 8:00 while we had adventures on the island.

Jen, Shannon, and I ate dinner at a restaraunt (which was included in our package), so we didn’t get to choose what we ate.  It ended up being shimp, cabbage, rice, and more french fries and spring rolls. 

Then our tour leader took us to our hotel, which turned out to very nice and really clean.  We even got a view of the ocean!  Our guide even told us not to tell the people on the boat how nice the island and hotel were, because they would be angry that they paid more then us and then had to sleep in the tiny rooms on the boat!

We decided to explore the island.  We thought it would be fun to either go on a scooter ride or get massages, so we walked down the main road and tried to see if anything was open.  (It was Lunar New Year’s Day, and most of the stores were closed all over the country.)  The first thing we saw was a restaraunt that advertised scooter rentals, so we went in.  In the back of the restaraunt they had 6 or 7 gig glass jars with a clear lidquid in them.  Jen and Shannon inspected them and told me that they had small animals like baby goats and puppies in them.  Disgusting!  I didn’t even want to look.  (The next day our tour guide told us that it is wine.  They drink it to be stronger. Definetly no Vietnamese wine for me!!)  They ended up not having scooters available, so we kept walking down the road.

 The next interesting thing we saw was a massage place with a bunch of girls outside.  The gave us business cards and told us they had openings.  Shannon and I really wanted to get massages, but we thought something was very off about the girls.  They were wearing red dress and high heels and didn’t quite look like ‘legal’ massueses.  But we decide to ask them if they would do just feet massages only.  They said that was fine, and it would be about $3 for an hour.  They told us to follow them upstairs to the rooms, so we followed them up 3 flights of narrow stairs.  As soon as we got into the hallway, I knew that they definetly specialized in “special” massages.  There were 3 bedrooms on the floor, with red lights glowing in them.  As soon as I saw it, I just said “No, No,No.”  And Shannon and I turned and ran back down the stairs and out the door.  (Luckily we hadn’t paid them yet either.)  It was definetly a weird expereince!!!

 The “massage” place

After that we just decided to play it safe and we went to a cute little bar next to our hotel called the Green Mango.  It was so adorable.  We had some amazingly fresh Pina Coladas (made with fresh coconut and pineapple).  And we smoke a hookah. (It’s a middle Eastern pipe thing, and we had grape tabacco in ours.)  Don’t worry, I haven’t started smoking.  I have tried this only 2 times in the last 9 months. 

Then we just crashed on our amazingly comfortable beds.  (They were so soft and comfortable.  It was a huge change from the Korean mattresses, where it feels like your sleeping on concrete.)

I just got back from Vietnam a few hours ago, and I can’t believe how much stuff we were able to see and do in 4 days!  It was an amazing (and sometimes very bizarre experience)! I am so glad that Jen, Shannon, and I were able to go! 

We had a great flight over from Seoul.  It was a nice new plane with the little tv’s for each seat, so we watched movies and planned some of our activites on the way over to Vietnam.   When we got to the airport at 1:00pm they were basically shutting the whole thing down for Tet (Chinese New Year) there wasn’t a store or bank open, so we couldn’t exchange our US Dollars to Dong (but luckily US $ is widely accepted).  (We did change it later at our hotel.)  We got a taxi to our hotel and we were amazed at the amount of horn honking they do.  Instead of using a blinker they just honk their horns constantly while they switch lanes.  It was a little unnerving at first. 

We checked into our hotel fine and were quite happy with our rooms, even though the hotel was alittle bit away from the busy area of town.  We meet with a tour guide and set up a 2 day-1 night trip to Halong Bay.  ($30 for 2 days on a boat, with all meals, and a nice hotel room on Cat Ba Island!  It was insanely cheap!!)

Later Shannon, Jen, and I went to the Old Quarter to explore.  We soon had another shock when we saw how you cross the busy roads in Vietnam.  Basically you just step out into busy traffic and hope that all the scooters, taxis, and buses will swerve out of the way so you don’t become roadkill!  It was such an adreline rush, standing in the road while traffic zooms by inches away from you.  (And I heard Saigon is even worse, so it will be interesting to see if I make it home after my trip there in June.)

We basically just walked around the Old Quarter, which was surprisingly touristy (with tons of travel agencies, stores, and restraunts catering to all the tourists.) 

We ate dinner at a little cafe in the Old Quarter.  We ordered fresh spring rolls, a pork dish, stir fried veggies, and a rish dish.  We also tried a few Vietnamese beers.  The spring rolls and veggies were good, but for some reason they decided that they didn’t want to make our other food (and they never even bothered to tell us).  So we sat there for 2 hours waiting for our main course, but it never arrived.  (They kept telling us it was coming, but really they never cooked it.)  So we left still hungry, and ended up eating some dessert right by the big lake.