Oh lovely vacation. How you have afforded me so many opportunities to travel! Most recently, I jetted off to Thailand with my colleague Christine. We spent 11 nights and days in paradise.
We flew into Phuket and mostly stayed on the main island. The first two nights were spent in Patong, the Sin City of Phuket. This was not our favourite place. It was crowded, smelly, and very touristy (which it turns out, is all of Phuket). We saw a disturbing ping pong show, where strippers pull various items (read: ping pong balls, string, razors, fish, turtles, and birds) or shoot various items (like darts) out of their lady parts. It was scary. We soon came to realise that the sex trade in Thailand is so in your face, it cannot be avoided. Our hotel in Patong, the Sea Blue Guesthouse, was up to par, and even included a jacuzzi tub on the balcony! I took full advantage of this on our second night.
Crowds on Patong's main street
Strippers in plain view from the street
Jacuzzi on the balcony!
View from the balcony in Patong
We soon left in a tuk tuk (open air Thai taxi) for Karon and Kata beaches. These were our favourite places. Karon had a huge beach with lots of sand space for lounging by the ocean. Kata had an adorable, (albeit, expensive) little town center with cute shops and restaurants. We first stayed 3 nights at the Pachumas Mansion in Karon which was a little far from the beach, but super quiet. The restaurant across the street, the Elephant Cafe, had amazing sweet and sour chicken and pineapple rice. We ate here a few times. After we came back to Karon, we stayed closer to the beach at The Little Mermaid hotel and were a bit disappointed because our "city-view" room faced a club with bass pounding until 3am. Karon had some lovely markets where we bought lots of souvenirs (my apartment is now furnished with Thai accessories), ate well, and even experienced a Thai massage. One day we hiked up to the Big Buddha, which overlooked Karon and Kata beaches. It was a very hot 2 hour hike up, but the view was nice from the top.
Tuk Tuk ride!
Video from our Tuk Tuk ride
Panoramic of Karon Beach
Umbrellas on Karon Beach. Notice the Buddha statue at the top of the mountain.
That's where we hiked to.
Sunset on Kata Beach
Lunch at the Elephant Cafe!
Hiking up to the Big Buddha, ocean view
Panoramic of the view at the Big Buddha
Between nights in Karon we traveled to Phuket Town, where there was a more artistic and cultural feel. We used this place as a base for some day trips to James Bond Island and Ko Phi Phi. They did have some unique architecture!
Phuket Town at night
Colonial architecture in Phuket Town
James Bond Island was the location of filming for the 1974 Bond film Man with the Golden Gun. Yes, almost 40 years later they are still milking this fact for tourism. Our day trip included stops at the bridge that connects Phuket with the mainland, Monkey Cave, the Floating Village for lunch, James Bond Island, and canoeing around another island. We took a long boat with about 20 other people. It was very relaxing being on the water for a day, and the scenery was especially gorgeous. The rock formations in Thailand are unlike any other.
Our hilarious tour bus rules. No smoking, no lions, no alcohol, no chain saws, DVDs ok, sexy time, ok!
The largest laying down Buddha (maybe in the world?) in Monkey Cave.
Christine posing in the cave.
Indiana Jones!
Praying for fertility
On the long boat, headed to James Bond Island
Floating village where we had lunch
James Bond Island!
Crazy rock on JBI
Kayaking around some of the eroded islands
Long boat
The Ko Phi Phi trip had 3 stops: Khai Island, Maya Bay on Phi Phi Leh, and Phi Phi Don. The crowds of tourists in Thailand are a little overwhelming, so I decided to swim/snorkel around Khai Island just to get away from all the people. This was a great decision because I found some cool caves on the other side and I got to see some fish. The coral in Thailand is dying and apparently the Similan Islands are the best place to go - but we were a little far away from there. We also snorkeled at Maya Bay, a sheltered bay among enormous rock walls where they filmed the movie The Beach. Christine is afraid of fish, but she did well and we even got some underwater pictures with her camera!
Maya Bay - The scene from The Beach!
Beautiful!
Fishies!
Time flew by in Thailand. While I wouldn't recommend going to Phuket if you want a quiet, relaxing vacation, apparently there are many other places in Thailand that are more beautiful and less touristy. That's my kind of holiday! Hopefully JM and I will make it back there to do some snorkeling in the Similans. At least I came back with a killer tan. :)
Missing you all from Korea,
Jennika
Ps. I must give credit to Christine for the majority of these pictures. Her camera was not only better, but she is a great picture taker!
The biggest draw back about this whole setup Jennika and I have going is the mismatched holidays. It amounted to Jennika being able to go back home for about a month and to Thailand for 12 days. I might be a little jealous but there are still lots of perks to my gig.
While Jennika left the apartment didn't go to seed, but it wasn't spik and span either. It did afford me to indulge in some of my geeky tendencies. I read a few books; American Gods, Violencs: Six Sideways Reflections, God in Pain, and a nice scifi classic Ender's Game which I do highly recommend.
Read some comic books Prelude to Planet Hulk, Planet Hulk, and X-Men House of M.
And even watched some anime
Indulged in some RPG by playing the update version of Final Fantasy 2 on the ipad. The apartment had a high geek aura to it. I wonder what color that is?
The Korean bbq crew also morphed a bit to going out to eat twice a week, once for bbq and another time for anything non-bbq, which has been dakgalbi more often then not. I even managed to get a co-worker to come out to dinner with me because eating at home by myself made me miss Jennika. We went out every night.
I'm happy that Jennika is back in town and so is my wallet.
Not a day we have celebrated in the past (*cough* JM forgot), we decided to get dolled up this year and go out for a nice pre-Valentine's dinner in Cheonan before I left for Thailand. What started out lovely, ended up with me face planting on the icy sidewalk. But more about that later ...
We headed out to A Bis, a fancy Italian restaurant in Cheonan that has a unique atmosphere. The building is a house. A HOUSE. There are no houses in Korea that are traditional by western standards, but this building looks like a house/chalet from the Swiss Alps. And so, it became an Italian restaurant. The inside was so cute, with lots of period decor. We ordered a pasta and a salad to share and I was pleasantly surprised. The cheese was good, and the pasta was not over cooked (I like it al dente).
On the way home from our romantic dinner, my fears were realized. In Cheonan, the genius planners decided to line the sidewalk with marble. Yes, slippery when wet marble. So in the winters, or when it rains, the edge of the sidewalk is especially slippery. And you can imagine that on a fancy date night, I ate it pretty hard off the edge of the sidewalk and onto my knees. I could barely walk after and I had tears streaming down my face. Sadly, the evening was kind of ruined. But the dinner was good! :)
Today we attended the wedding of one of our colleagues. Gwang Ho is a biology teacher at the boys school and sits at the desk right next to mine. He is a good friend of Christine's (my other colleague) and through her (and proximity), I got to know him. We were the two teachers doing the neuroscience classes in the fall.
Gwang Ho invited us and, of course, JM and I accepted. We were thrilled to be invited, and even more excited to get a first hand experience at a Korean wedding. My students did a few presentations last semester about Korean weddings, so I had a bit of an idea what it would be like. Most commonly, Koreans get married in a wedding hall, where many weddings are happening at the same time. It is an afternoon event only. There is usually a quick ceremony and a (lunch) reception. A couple hours and everyone goes home. There is no dinner or dancing. Sometimes the bride and groom wear hanbok, traditional Korean clothing.
Me trying on hanbok (I'm dressed like the queen!)
Gwang Ho's wedding was a bit different. They had a full mass in a church with the wedding ceremony. They also wore western style wedding clothes (white dress and tux). When the Bugil crew arrived at noon, an hour before the ceremony, we were told to eat first. So before ever seeing the bride or groom, we all went downstairs in the church basement and feasted on the most elaborate buffet I've ever seen. Following lunch, we went upstairs to watch the ceremony. When communion time came around, JM and I decided to see what a Korean eucharist was like. I am happy to report that even on the other side of the world, the bread tastes exactly the same; mass produced edible cardboard. After the ceremony, some Bugil students, who are in the band with Gwang Ho, played some live music and sang love ballads.
Another interesting fact is that Koreans always give money at a wedding, never gifts, and always in a denomination of 3, 5 or 10. Acquaintances give $30, friends give $50, and family usually give $100. I gave $50 since I work with Gwang Ho, and JM decided to be anti-traditional and gave $37, just to blow someone's mind. He's cool like that. haha.
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