New beginnings and new experiences

This week marks the end of the last semester of this school year.  I don't really understand why Korean school is organized like this, but from March to the beginning of July is the first semester, then there is a break (in which the English Centre at my school does summer camp for intensive English training), the next semester starts at the beginning of September until sometime in December, then another break ensues (in which the English Centre does winter camp), until February where we have another two weeks of the regular semester, one week off (where the English Centre does spring camp), and then the start of the new year in March.  Now, if you read that whole long sentence and are a little confused, well, then you have a bit of an understanding what it's like being an English teacher.  In all honesty, it works I guess because everyone knows what is going on here.  But it doesn't always make sense to me.

But no matter... because this past week was the last of the regular semester, on Friday was the 6th grade graduation ceremony.  I went with Angela and Dahye to see the awards and what not presented to the 6th grade students.  It's always great when you see students who are such hard workers being honoured for their achievements.  It's also weird to see students being honoured who you know do not try for a moment in your class and you wonder who was in charge of giving out the awards!  But it was still an interesting experience overall.  Especially to hear all the students sing the national anthem, the school song, and another kind of folk song.  Some students look downright embarrassed.  It made me laugh a bit.

After the ceremony, my school treated all of the teachers to a special lunch down the street from the school.  After lunch, most of the teachers then piled into a bus and went on a little excursion to Songnisan, which is a mountain and town near my town.  We were going to go for a bit of a hike, have a snack at this checkpoint, walk back down, see the temple, and then go for supper in the town. 

It was kind of odd to me to all go on a hike together with all the teachers from Samsan Elementary school, but it was definitely nice to get out of the school and into the fresh air.  Plus Songnisan is beautiful!  I can't wait to go hiking to the top when there is a little less snow on the ground and the weather is warmer.

 And we're off!

 Angela, Dahye and Juhee are on their way.

 I asked why there were Chinese symbols on everything, and from what I understand they told me that a long time ago, Korea used the Chinese symbols to start to create their own way of writing their language.  I may have misunderstood... but I found that interesting.

 Dahye, me, and two other teachers from the school.

 Juhee and I are looking "natural" as we survey the scenery.

 Clearly having fun hiking!

 This was the point we stopped and then were served makkoli (Korean rice wine) and pajeon (pancake made with green onion and other ingredients, we had a seafood one).

 And, of course, some kind of kimchi.

 Angela and my co-teacher, Jenny.

 The men... well, not all of them, but a few of the male teachers at the school.  They were very sharply dressed for an afternoon of hiking!

 Some more of the teachers and administration.  The man on the left is the captain of the teachers and the one on the right is my school's Principal.

 Going to the temple.

 This is apparently the largest Buddha in Korea.  They told me it was the largest one in Asia, but when I researched it a bit, I don't think that is the case.  Anyway, this is Golden Maitreya Buddha of Beopjusa and stands at 33 m (or 108 ft).

 Guards of the temple.

 I like this statue...

 Inside the underneath part of the statue were all these little golden Buddhas.

 Up at the top you could light incense and bow on the mats if you wanted to.  Apparently bowing three times is for good luck.

After we were done hiking and looking at things, we went into the town and had mushroom jigae (which is kind of like a stew).  It was incredibly delicious!  It had something like 4 or 5 kinds of mushrooms.  I am definitely going back to that restaurant!

All in all it was very pretty and the weather and everything was just perfect.  It was again, kind of odd to go on an excursion like that with all the teachers, but on the other hand it was kind of fun!  I enjoyed the walk.  And, like I said, I am definitely going back when spring comes and I can climb to the top!  I guess after my Thailand hike, I feel like I can do more than I thought before.  That's a nice realization.  And, I like it more than I thought.  I think that's an even nicer realization.

That's one thing about my time in Korea thus far... my perspective of myself has changed.  I think this is a good thing.

The Land of Thai part 3

It is time to document the final leg of my Thailand adventure... Before I move on, I forgot to add this video from when we were around the campfire singing songs.  This is when the guys were trying to figure out what Nop meant by "Lemon Tree."  You can even hear Nop say a classic Thai phrase... same same, but different...  You can't really see anything important, but the conversation is hilarious.  And you can also hear Phil singing, who is clearly going to be a famous musician one day.

After Rochelle and I had our Chiang Mai jungle adventure, we boarded another night train that took us back to Bangkok.  We were to stay in Bangkok for two days and then fly back to our respective countries at night.

 It was kind of nice to be all showered and back to normal feeling after staying in the jungle.  Also I had bought a pair of these super comfortable Thai pants (which you can't really see in the picture) that made for a comfortable train ride.

The flowers were so beautiful in Thailand!

This is a tuk tuk.  It's kind of like a taxi, but a three wheeler and they try to scam you!  Make sure you negotiate a price before you board a tuk tuk.  When they see two white girls coming they try to charge you 400 baht... which is ridiculous!  More than 10 bucks!  So you just have to stick to your guns.  And when you're in one, hold on for your life!  I think Asia in general is making me super appreciative for traffic laws in Canada.  The taxi drivers in Korea will drive over 100km/hr in the middle of the city!  And run red lights.  Tuk tuks are kind of similar... scary!

I am so Canadian... this kind of thing freaks me out.  But at least you know what they serve.

We couldn't believe how many 7 11s were in Thailand!  They were everywhere!  And they even sold alcohol.  It was weird to me.

We had the cool opportunity to be in Thailand for Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year as it is called in Korea).  So when we were in Bangkok we headed to Chinatown to check out the celebration.

A temple in Chinatown.

I think this is a picture of the King of Thailand.  Rochelle had read that the King is really important to the Thai people and it's important to be very respectful as a tourist toward anything related to the King.

The temple was incredibly ornate.

All these  people were kneeling before Buddha and also bringing money to put in the safes in front of him.  I have been to Buddhist temples before, but it was definitely different actually being in Asia.

Everyone was wearing bright T-shirts of various shades of red.  I didn't even plan ahead but I was wearing a red shirt that fit right in!

I like the large Buddha statues the best.  He just seems happier or something.

They basically just cut off some of the roads in Chinatown and filled them with people instead of cars and tuk tuks.  On the sides of the road there were booths set up with food and places to sell various items.  People also just planted themselves in the middle of the crowd and started to lay out merchandise to sell.  It was PACKED!!!  It was one of the most heavily crowded places I have ever been.

Rochelle posing in front of the arch and the Chinese lanterns.

I have no idea who these women are, but they are super decked out!  And all the people were getting photos with them so I decided to take a picture too just in case it was important or famous or something.

Dragons were everywhere!

More of Chinatown.

There was this stage that had performers on throughout the night.  This girl was amazing!  She was doing Cirque du Soleil style stuff.

 

Various dancing and singing.

After we were in Chinatown, we headed back to Khosan Road where our Guest House was to do some shopping and hang out there a bit.  Then Rochelle decided to get her hair braided!  

 This guy seriously braids faster than anyone I have ever seen!!

The next day was our very last in Thailand.  We knew that we wanted to see the Tiger Temple, which was actually just outside of Bangkok, so we signed up for a tour with TAT to see the Temple.  What we thought we had signed up for was a tour to go see the floating market on the river, have lunch, and then go to the tigers.  But apparently we were on a different tour... First our tour van was an hour late picking us up from our guest house!  We were super nervous that this trip was just not going to happen!  But finally he figured out where we were and we were off... to go to the WWII memorial and then the WWII museum.  It's not that I wasn't interested in WWII... it's just that when you think you're on one kind of excursion and it turns out you're going to a museum instead, it's just not what we wanted.  But parts of it were kind of interesting...

I thought some of the inscriptions on the graves were really touching.  It was interesting to read them and to see the ages of all who died.  Most were in their 20s.  It was hard to take sometimes.

 This quote was at the museum itself... I thought it was profound.

 And then of course... a massive lizard.  I don't know why it was at the museum, but it was huge!  And it freaked me right out because I was not expecting it.

 After the WWII stuff, we had lunch on this floating restaurant on the river.  I miss Thai food...

 Tables were set, but only me and Rochelle and this other girl were on our specific tour.  So we had the place to ourselves.

 Looking good with the braids!

After lunch we went to see the waterfall.  Now, we had already seen the one waterfall when we were on our trek, but this was a different one.  And everyone said it was going to be awesome.  And it was pretty... just not as awesome as we were led to believe.  At least the rest of the scenery was beautiful.

 The waterfall.  More like a water trickle...

 I thought these roots were so cool...

 We hiked up to the top of the waterfall where the stream poured over the edge.

 And then we went into this series of caves, where there were statues set up here as well.

 The caves were pretty cool actually.

 The jungle parts of Thailand had trees that looked a lot like trees or vegetation in the Canadian forests.  Apparently Rochelle had read that Thailand is like a combination of vegetation found in Mexico and in Canada.  So parts of it looked a bit like home.

Finally we got the the tiger temple!  I was the most excited about this for the day.  I had wanted to go to the tiger temple for weeks!  What happens is that they set up the tigers in this area where they are chained up but that's it.  So you are led by one of the employees to go have your photo taken with so many different tigers that are placed in this one area.  They're not drugged or sleeping or anything.  Apparently because these tigers have been raised in captivity there is less likelihood of them attacking a person.  Of course... it is still intimidating when you're touching them!

 Waiting to go see the tigers

 There were monks and everything.  It literally was a tiger temple.

 OK I realize my eyes are closed, but I had to show one when I was holding his tail.  He whipped it away after this photo.  He's a big one!

 I was so excited!

 Giving him a good belly rub...

 They are so pretty!

 Big yawn!

 I was touching his tail... I don't think he liked it...

 A smaller one.

 A very lucky few who were chosen earlier in the day were brought into the toddler area to play with the young tigers.  I was so upset that we had gone and done all those other things we didn't care about as much and missed getting selected for it!  But at least we could watch for a bit...

 They play just like real little cats!

 I like this shot because you can see the monk as well...  And it was a baby one who was quite cute.

After the tiger adventure (which was AWESOME!!!), Rochelle and I went back to Kohsan Road, picked up our stuff, and then had one last meal in Thailand before we headed to the airport.

 Kohsan Road.  In general the "restaurants" in Thailand are kind of just on the sidewalks a lot of the time.  Some have inside parts, but it's not unusual to just eat at a table set up on the sidewalk, like in front of 7 11 or another random store beside a woman cooking in some makeshift booth.  It's quite the experience.

 A nice design for my rice.

My last meal of panang curry with chicken and assorted vegetables.  It was so good!  Definitely a great way to end the trip.

So that is the account of my two week adventure in Thailand.  I definitely did some things that I never thought I would ever do: trek through the mountains, have fish eat my dead skin, pet live tigers, sleep in a hut in the jungle, etc etc.  All in all, it was awesome.  I recommend everyone should experience Thailand!  And it was also such a blessing to experience all of this with a good friend from home!  So nice to be around someone I know from Canada.  So Rochelle, had a great time experiencing that awesome adventure with you!

Thanks for reading!