We have been in India for two days now (few Internet options so I'm writing this all up at once and am posting it when in Goa). We started out very early morning in Sri Lanka (4:30am I believe). Our flight brought us into Trivandrum India on the southern most tip of the country. We didn't have very long in Trivandrum because we were catching a train for Kochi later that afternoon. With that being the case we hopped on my favorite form of transportation, the Tuk Tuk, and raced off to the train station to check in our train's status. From there we walked across the street to this really cool coffee shop that dad had read about in a guide book...think the leaning tower of pisa, bot smaller and made of brick. As you enter you walk upwards in a spiral with booths along the outside wall. It seemed to be the rush hour in there so we ended up spiraling upwards for what seemed to be much of the tower! Finally finding an open booth we tossed our bags in and ordered two cold coffees and two bottles of water. I also scoured the menu for anything familiar because we had not eaten breakfast and it was getting close to noon! (normally I'd only eat this late because I just woke up then O.o ) after finding nothing besides omelets and toast that I was familiar with I decided to be brave and order something called Bombay toast!!! You know what they call Bombay toast in America?? French toast!! Oh dear, and here I was worried I get some strange curry or something :p it was very tasty though, so my hat's off to the cooks in Bombay know what they are doing!!
After food and drinks we had killed enough time so we headed back to the train station and prepped for our train to Kochi. The rail system in India (from what I've seen so far at least) is farm more extensive then anything we have in the US, maybe because most people in the US fly now, but still! They have about seven different classes of train cars on e rail line that we are using mostly. First class, second class AC, second-class three tier (sleepers), sleeper class (which I don't think the is really room for sleeping, baggage...and a few more on down the line. So far we've had two second class AC sleeper cars. Our train from Trivandrum to Kochi we had two of the side sleeper seats. They are on the side of the train by a window in a sort of bunk bed style. The top bed we piled up with our luggage and the bottom bed can fold up into two chairs facing each other. We kept it on this set up because we didn't need to sleep (it was mid day after all! Plus our train ride was only 4 hours!). The train ride was nice, getting to see the country side and small villages on our way north.
When we arrived in Kochi we hopped into a jumbo Tuk Tuk (much larger then others I'd been in so far...and faster too!) and speed off to our hotel to drop off our gear. We explored around town a bit on foot, but it was late, so many of the shops were already closed. We found a neat looking chines restaurant and decided to give it a try (dad is really trying to stay away from the Indian food as long as he can...good luck with that one!). The food was great though! Fresh prawns, hot and sour soup and pork fried rice...nom nom! After dinner we headed back to the hotel for some sleep, the next day we would be leaving town, but later on so we were going to check out some forts and try to get a sim card for our wireless Internet card.
The next day I felt right at home...yup it was raining!! This basically spoiled any plans to see some of the forts in the area because we were going to have to take the fairy over to some near by islands where the forts were located...so we spent much of the day, in vain, trying to get a sim card for the internets! Pretty much every place that we went to for a sim told us some other place that we needed to go to to get what we needed. After mot too long it seemed that were on a wild goose chase! We finally found a smaller office for BSNL the large government run cell carrier which we wanted to get a sim from, but they informed us that we needed to go to the main office which happened to be much closer to our hotel then we currently were...great! So back track we did to the main office only to find out that they wanted a reference from India...cause I know sooooo many people from India! Grah! No luck there, the though now is to try when we are up in Goa...
The other exciting note for the day was our train tickets from Kochi to Goa...we were both wait listed! Oh yes, we were waiting for an over night train to Foa that we didn't even really have tickets for!! We had to keep checking back at the train station to see if we had cleared for our tickets...finally about three hours before our train was to leave we cleared!!! Wait...actually only one ticket cleared (something dad had joked about earlier...not so funny now!! :( ). The train people told us that the best thing to do was just get on the train and see if we could share one berth (seat). Great! While on the ride up to Kochi, only 4 hours, we had sat in the same berth with the bed up and two chairs facing each other...we had our bags stored up in the other berth! Now for the over nigh we might be stuck with all of our bags AND both of us stuck in one berth...fun :p.
So at the railways advice we hopped on the train, managed to push and pack most of our baggage under the seats and at our feet (and on our laps!) and settled in for what might be a really long ride! Finally when the conductor came around he looked at his book, flipped through some pages and got be a seat in the compartment over on the top! Providence! While not together at least we would have a bit more room! So I moved some stuff over to my bed and then we set up my ipad against the window, closed off our sleeping curtain and watched the new Star Trek movie on the ol' iPad-aroo! Quite a good movie screening and a nice time killer before bed time! After the movie finished I popped over to my top bunk and settled in for a "good" nights sleep :p (could have been worse, least I could lay down!).
So our train arrived at our station and we piled out...nice to be off a train for a while! We hopped into a pre-paid taxi that looked like a mini double slug bug and zipped off towards our hotel. When we arrived we started to notice that the busy season here in Goa is far from started. Our hotel, and most of everything else around here, seems to be in a state of renovation. It seems that November to the new year is their busier season here so much of every thing is either being repaired and spruced up, or is just trapped over and waiting for the season to begin again! This did have a positive effect however for our rooms because, even though my dad and I have individual rooms for this week here, they upgraded us both to rooms with large beds and more space!!! Wooo, living it large for the next week! Next we decided to head down to the beach...check out the waves and such (more surfing for Bradley Fish??). When on the beach we discovered some weird black lines of crud washing up on the shore...not know what this was we walked along the water for a bit before we noticed that it was depositing some weird oily substance on our feet :( from here on out we tried to avoid this area! We explored two different beach front areas, and while one of them seemed to have a few bars/restaurants open for the most part much of the beach front areas were also trapped up! Bummer...did I mention the two squalls of driving rain that hit us while on our journey up the beach?? Good thing we had just come from the pool and were wearing dirty shirts and swim suits :p. After our beach adventure we rested up a bit before heading into town for some din din! We found a nice Italian place, mainly because we were going to walk farther, but another rain squall hot with out us wearing swim suits, so we ducked inside for dinner. One really interesting sight I caught a bit of video of on my phone was a herd of cows walking down the street with sheets of rain pouring down...silly holy cows! After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a nice sleep in beds! Yay!
Our second day so far in Goa has been about as eventful as walking into town and finally working out a way to get a wireless Internet card for dad's laptop. Which is actually a bit harder then you would think, but after bouncing back and forth from shop to shop we finally came to one place that told us that they couldn't sell us the sim we needed in India and that we needed to buy on here...great! While this might have been a ploy to get us to buy the hardware too we decided to cut out losses and just go with it! And now we have the internets! Sure we only have a 3gb per month card, but that should do for email and blog posts and the like...guess I'll just have to catch up on all my web omits when I get a free wireless connection :p. Any how...here we are now...Internets again and ready to explore!! More to come...stay tuned :)
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Saturday, August 28, 2010
Last day in Sri Lanka
Today we traveled from Koggala back up along the coast by train to Colombo. The train route was quite pleasant, however all the second class trains were full so we were forced to cram into one of the third class compartments. While this wasn't that bad it was quite a bit rough trying to get all of our luggage and ourselves into one seating area along with three other people! Needless to say much of our travel around Sri Lanka were quite cramped! Never though that I would be wishing for the leg room of a coach seat on an airplane :p but at long last the train arrived in Colombo where we hopped into a tuk tuk for an journey drive (putter?) to our hotel...which turned out to be the newest nicest building in Sri Lanka that I've seen! It is certainly a nice way to spend the last few hours in the country. Great pool, full menu, and even queen sized beds for my dad and I! I think just one of these beds is bigger then both of the beds at our last place :p
Boy, the dinner we had here was great!! Defiantly up to par with the best place that I've seen in Sri Lanka :p any how off to bed real soon because we have to leave real early for the airport tomorrow, then off to India! Who knows when I'll be able to post again cause we have some travel days and such, but not too long after that we'll be in Goa on the beach for more rest in the sun :p
Ps: sorry I wrote these each day but didn't really have Internet to use!! More as the internets come and go!
Boy, the dinner we had here was great!! Defiantly up to par with the best place that I've seen in Sri Lanka :p any how off to bed real soon because we have to leave real early for the airport tomorrow, then off to India! Who knows when I'll be able to post again cause we have some travel days and such, but not too long after that we'll be in Goa on the beach for more rest in the sun :p
Ps: sorry I wrote these each day but didn't really have Internet to use!! More as the internets come and go!
More sun...more waves
The color of the day is red! Actually I think that red will be color of my next few days! I guess that's what I get for surfing for three hours without wearing any sunscreen :( some lessons you get to learn many times in your life. A bit more lobster colored I set out once again today for some more waves!! This time I was quite a bit smarter on both fronts how ever. First i picked up a bottle of 30 spf lotion and second I borrowed a body board from the lifeguard! While surfing isn't a strong point of mine, I fancy my self quite able at body boarding. The surf right out in front of the hotel was quite good with waves breaking well over my head at time made for quite a good time. This provided quite a bit better time then surfing because I was actually able to ride waves in! (what a novel idea :p). Also did I mention that I was well slathered in sunscreen?? Cause I was...you can be sure of that! Any how battling the waves to get out to a good surf spot and ride in was still quite tiring, but I kept at it for a good run, and not falling off the board every few minutes was a big plus!
After a day of surfing followed by a day of body boarding my arms were feeling the burn (in two ways I suppose)! Relaxation, pool floating, and naps were in order! The rest of the day was devoted to enjoying the ocean on our last day down south.
Dinner was Sri Lankan style food, which I was quite disappointed to discover not that spicy (I'm sure they tone it down for us westerners, but Italian night was spicier!!). None the less it was a good final dinner and back to the room for some well needed rest! Tomorrow we train it up to Colombo for our last day in Sri Lanka.
After a day of surfing followed by a day of body boarding my arms were feeling the burn (in two ways I suppose)! Relaxation, pool floating, and naps were in order! The rest of the day was devoted to enjoying the ocean on our last day down south.
Dinner was Sri Lankan style food, which I was quite disappointed to discover not that spicy (I'm sure they tone it down for us westerners, but Italian night was spicier!!). None the less it was a good final dinner and back to the room for some well needed rest! Tomorrow we train it up to Colombo for our last day in Sri Lanka.
Great surf does not a great surffer make!
After a tasty breakfast today we asked the front desk about a place where I could take surfing lessons. While the place where I could get lessons was about a hour away, there was a much closer place where I could just get a board and surf! I though to my self "self, i've already had surf lessons once in my life, sure i can remember most of that!" so I choose the option that was closer and got me in the water faster! We took a tuk tuk up the road to a rental place owned by a polish woman who spoke little English, thankfully our tuk tuk driver spoke enough German (as did she) to work out the deal for renting the board for a few hours...she stressed the fact that if I broke or lost this board it would cost about 600 euro (which I doubt the bowed was worth!!). But wee took it and hopped back on e tuk tuk for the surf spot. Now when I say we hopped back in the tuk tuk, what I really mean is we hopped in while I hung onto the board along e outside of the tuk tuk (better be careful with a 600 euro board hanging out of a less then 600 euro tuk tuk!!). Though I felt as if my arm was going to fall off, we managed to get to our surf spot no problem.
Now surfing is much more difficult then I remember...and by that I mean to say that I suck at surfing! None the less, I spent the next three hours or so fall ing off my board, missing waves, and plain having a good time :p. While my surfing graces weren't really with me today, I did have a very good time. Heck, I even managed to kinda catch some waves. All the while dad was videoing me falling over and over again! On the bright side it will make a great bloopers reel and a very good instructional video of what not to do :p. The beach was beautiful and the day nice and sunny so I can't really complain too much...well besides the fact that it was nice and sunny! For right now I mustn't lay on my back because of my lovely red sun tan! Oh boy that'll hurt tomorrow! Someone's going to be sleeping on his stomach tonight...and I'll give you one guess :p. All in all though it was worth it!
While I had planed on coming back to the hotel and body boarding a bit here I decided that more sun on my already red back was outrageous, so I just floated around in the nice cooling pool for a bit. Boy could I use some aloe! Who knows what we'll be up to tomorrow, but I hope its in the shade :p
More to come :D
Me hanging out with my surf board and Tuk Tuk!
Wipe out!!!
one of my better shots :(
Now surfing is much more difficult then I remember...and by that I mean to say that I suck at surfing! None the less, I spent the next three hours or so fall ing off my board, missing waves, and plain having a good time :p. While my surfing graces weren't really with me today, I did have a very good time. Heck, I even managed to kinda catch some waves. All the while dad was videoing me falling over and over again! On the bright side it will make a great bloopers reel and a very good instructional video of what not to do :p. The beach was beautiful and the day nice and sunny so I can't really complain too much...well besides the fact that it was nice and sunny! For right now I mustn't lay on my back because of my lovely red sun tan! Oh boy that'll hurt tomorrow! Someone's going to be sleeping on his stomach tonight...and I'll give you one guess :p. All in all though it was worth it!
While I had planed on coming back to the hotel and body boarding a bit here I decided that more sun on my already red back was outrageous, so I just floated around in the nice cooling pool for a bit. Boy could I use some aloe! Who knows what we'll be up to tomorrow, but I hope its in the shade :p
More to come :D
Me hanging out with my surf board and Tuk Tuk!
Wipe out!!!
one of my better shots :(
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Sri Lankan Thrill Ride!
Oh dear! Today I went on the longest scariest thrill ride that I've ever been on...a 9.5 hour long bus trip from the center of Sri Lanka (Polonaruwa) to the southern shores (Koggala). Man oh man was this an adventure! We started out at 6:30am, heading into to town from our hotel. Once we arrived at the bus station we were directed to a bus that was headed to a town just out of Koggala where our hotel is located. Soon after our driver left us to catch our bus, that bus left. Herm, maybe a different bus we needed? Long story short we barely caught the correct bus because it not only had no name, but it was in a completely different area! Once situated on this bus (we got the last two seat, together thankfully!) it pulled away headed towards our destination! One thing you must know about Sri Lanka to really understand my thrill ride metaphor is that Sri Lankan's are the craziest drivers that I have ever seen! (For Casey and Court, that time I almost killed us coming back from the mountains...that was happening every 15 minutes or so!) But the way they drive is as fast as they can and swerving in and out of traffic lanes to get ahead of cars, busses, and motorcycles they deem too slow! Really, I think the center line is more of a suggestion then anything to follow! Also our bus driver seemed to be the most trigger happy horn honker that I have ever seen (heard I suppose). At one point I counted the times he honked up to 100, which only took a half an hour. And by honk I mean each burst of honks I would count as one (he would usually honk at least three to five quick blasts...and really long blasts if he was really annoyed with a slow motor bike). Averaged out, with 200 honks per hour (HPH) he must have honked his horn about 2000ish time in our long journey! Mind you this bus so packed much of the 9.5 hours that there were at least 3 to 10 people standing in the bus as our driver weaved in and out of the lane (which by american standards would have been a one way road, not two ways!). I remember one interesting moment where we were following another bus in the oncoming traffic lane passing not one, not two, but three other busses all while going uphill in a particularly curvy area! All we could see was the other bus, all the while our expert driver was blaring his horn :P Really this man was the best driver that I've ever seen...must have been an ex nascar racer or something! Really though, the train would have had much more leg room, but this experience was very exciting! I can say that I've never been in anything quite like that before! All in all after the long journey south we arrived at the closest bus stop to our hotel, popped out happy to be on solid ground, and only had a block or so to walk to our hotel. We did however enter through the wrong gate to find the hotel completely empty!!! Whaaaa? never fear though, because this was the other part of the hotel that was under repair...a short walk through that area to the next had us sipping welcome drinks and soon in our amazing room right on the beach! It didn't take long to hop into swim suits and col off after a very long and cramped day of bus travel! I'm quite sure that my dad and I were one of a very small group of westerners to take that form of transportation today, but it was well worth it once soaking in the pool overlooking some amazing waves! Tomorrow? Hopefully some surfing and wildlife...or something to that extent! More later...and pics to come of this great place!
Hill Top Ruin???
Today was our last day near Polonaruwa (which is the town near the center of Sri Lanka we have been at for the last few days). We started quite early heading to a rock top fortress called Sigiriya. Well less of a fortress and more of fortress ruins, but they were still amazing! The gist of it was that the king back in 450bc used this place to hold out in when the Indians came south to Sri Lanka to invade. The fortress is built on a giant hill rock thinger that made it very difficult to invade. The climb up boasted about 1500 stairs and those were the easy ones that they put in for us lazy tourist! Before that (back in the day) the stairs were just cut into the stone and were more like small foot holds! Two interesting features were the paintings of the kings ladies (about 500 back in the day, but only a few still remain) and the lion stair case, which was two giant clawed feet at the base of the main stairs. A few pics will be included at the bottom. After the long climb up we got a great view of the surrounding are, much like the king would have had to see where his invaders were attacking from. Though just brick foundation now, the rock top fortress must have been a sight 1500 years ago! Back down and back to the hotel we went...rest and relaxation before our long journey tomorrow to the south! It's been great up here though and hopefully just a nice down by the BEACH!!!! Oh YEAH!
The rock far away!
Two of the kings ladies! RAWR!
Lion Toes?
No throwing dad!
The rock far away!
Two of the kings ladies! RAWR!
Lion Toes?
No throwing dad!
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Sri Lanka! Land of tea and cricket, but not cricket tea!!
We flew out of KL at about 6am and arrived in Sri Lanka at 7am, this of course was with the time change. A very strange time chance because Sri Lanka and India are about two and a half hours different from Malaysia. I have been all over the world so far in my short life, gut i have never been any where that was off of a time zone by some increment of 30 mins...very strange if you ask me!! When we landed we gathered out bags and started to look for the train that was to take us to the larger train station where we would ride to the town nearest our first hotel. Sadly this train has already left (WTF?? We got in at 7am...no more trains for the day??). With the train gone we headed in the direction of the buses to get us to the train station. The bus situation was very difficult with us riding one airport bus to some small terminal, then hopping on another to take us to Colombo fort, the train station we needed! This bus had one of the local tv stations playing, so at least we had entertainment (though none that we could understand!) the bus was also packed to he brim with people and always stoping to try to pick up more people, even those that didn't seem to want on! After the 45 minute ride into the train station (passing it once because we had no clue where the he'll we were going!!) we were ushered off the bus. Though our stoping place was still blocks from the train station, we cut our losses gathered our bags and piled into a tuk tuk (small motorcycle thing with three wheels and a carriage type thing on the back) and rode the few more blocks to the station. Once there we bought some water and snacks and waited for our train to arrive.
Once on the train we sat back and grabbed some shut eye, watched the lush green countryside pass by, and watched a few episodes of arrested development on my iPad. At time we spotted monkeys or peacocks out the window and we were stopped for a while an hour at one intersection. After the 5 hour journey we had finally arrived at our stop...somewhere in the interior of the island (like I'm really caught up on my Sri Lankan cities!!). There our driver picked us up and carried us off to our hotel. One thing I can say about Sri Lanka is that the driving ranks amongst the craziest that I have ever seen! Motor bikes and tuk tuk's swerving in and out of traffic passing busses and cars where the streets would only be one lane roads in the states!! It's enough to keep your blood flowing that's for sure! While most of the buildings that I had seen so far were either old looking rundown concrete buildings or just plain shacks/shanties, the Royal Lotus (our hotel) was probably the nicest building I had seen in the whole country! They greeted us with complementary mango drinks and sat us down in the lobby while our room was prepared. From there we could see the outdoor pool which over looked part of the reservoir (which is giant!! Also it was man made, but done so 1500 years ago with nothing but man power! Quite an amazing feet even by today's standards!). From here we got our room, took our dinner and hit the hay after about 14 hours of travel from KL. The next day we would wake early to adventure to some cultural ruins!
We headed out for said ruins the next morning at 8:30 after a tasty breakfast. The area that we are in currently is know as the cultural triangle here in Sri Lanka, because there are many ancient ruins and the like spanning from around 500bc and on...all in, yes you guessed it, a triangle shape! Some of these ruins we were going to see! Many of them were temples of old ruins of palaces of kings long past. What really surprised me was that most of the structures were made of brick. Obviously in 500bc there were not any explorers that spread the concept or plans for brick and mortar to the native people here, but still they developed the exact same methods that were developed in other parts of the world! Crazy huh? Many of the structures we saw were quite old, but still very impressive, especially for their age! Quite a few Budas were in many of the shrines and temples and one place even used to house a tooth of buda relic! There were also some very large stuppas and a few larger buda statues! We also saw the oldest color paintings in Sri Lanka which retained a good amount of color for being hundreds of years old!
After the ruins we returned to our hotel where I driver told us that he had arranged a jeep to pick us up in a few hours to go to the wildlife reserve for our elephant safari, oh goodie!!
The reserve was about a half hour drive away zipping between cars busses and tuk tuk's. Once we got there we picked up a park guide and started out on the bumps park road to ht center of the reserve. Thankfully we lucked out and got a jeep with four wheel drive and a skilled driver! The last few days had been quite rainy for what was supposed to be the dry season, so not as many elephants had come out, but we didn't miss them! On the way to the elephant areas we say tons of different types of birds, a few that were endangered too! One crocodile, a mongoose (Riki Tiki Tavi) bunches of cows, and then yes elephants!! Our first group of elephants was about 6 strong with a large male a few smaller females and even a smallish baby :) we (a bunch of jeeps housing many different onlookers) all crowed as close as the jeeps would drive us and snapped away with cameras and just stared in awe at these amazingly large creatures in their natural habitat. Soon we pulled away in search of more. Not too long after we found two more, a female and a quite agitated male. When this male started to stalk out way our drive promptly turned our jeep around for a better position to flee if the elephant decided to charge...and charge he almost did!!! Not at us, no that would be far too lucky! But he did almost charge at this jeep ahead of us...boy did we want to get that on film, but I guess for the safety of those people in the jeep it was probably for the best...but damn it would have made for a good vid! After leaving the agitated male to his own devices we found two more elephants before we headed back to the entrance. Both male, but one of them had tusks! Yes while african elephants are the ones know for their tusks, apparently Sri Lankan males can grow tusks too, but only about 5% of them actually have them...making this elephant very lucky and us very lucky for finding him! With our elephant safari fulfilled we headed to the exit of the reserve and back to the hotel. While on the road back we came upon an area where three of four jeeps were pulled off to the side. As we passed we noticed about 5 elephants just munching away at bushes in the jungle! We pulled over to watch for a bit! Kinda funny cause wee almost saw a comparable number of elephants just on the road as in the reserve :p
What a great finish to a great day...tomorrow: relaxing by the pool and getting some photo work done!!!
More soon...
Once on the train we sat back and grabbed some shut eye, watched the lush green countryside pass by, and watched a few episodes of arrested development on my iPad. At time we spotted monkeys or peacocks out the window and we were stopped for a while an hour at one intersection. After the 5 hour journey we had finally arrived at our stop...somewhere in the interior of the island (like I'm really caught up on my Sri Lankan cities!!). There our driver picked us up and carried us off to our hotel. One thing I can say about Sri Lanka is that the driving ranks amongst the craziest that I have ever seen! Motor bikes and tuk tuk's swerving in and out of traffic passing busses and cars where the streets would only be one lane roads in the states!! It's enough to keep your blood flowing that's for sure! While most of the buildings that I had seen so far were either old looking rundown concrete buildings or just plain shacks/shanties, the Royal Lotus (our hotel) was probably the nicest building I had seen in the whole country! They greeted us with complementary mango drinks and sat us down in the lobby while our room was prepared. From there we could see the outdoor pool which over looked part of the reservoir (which is giant!! Also it was man made, but done so 1500 years ago with nothing but man power! Quite an amazing feet even by today's standards!). From here we got our room, took our dinner and hit the hay after about 14 hours of travel from KL. The next day we would wake early to adventure to some cultural ruins!
We headed out for said ruins the next morning at 8:30 after a tasty breakfast. The area that we are in currently is know as the cultural triangle here in Sri Lanka, because there are many ancient ruins and the like spanning from around 500bc and on...all in, yes you guessed it, a triangle shape! Some of these ruins we were going to see! Many of them were temples of old ruins of palaces of kings long past. What really surprised me was that most of the structures were made of brick. Obviously in 500bc there were not any explorers that spread the concept or plans for brick and mortar to the native people here, but still they developed the exact same methods that were developed in other parts of the world! Crazy huh? Many of the structures we saw were quite old, but still very impressive, especially for their age! Quite a few Budas were in many of the shrines and temples and one place even used to house a tooth of buda relic! There were also some very large stuppas and a few larger buda statues! We also saw the oldest color paintings in Sri Lanka which retained a good amount of color for being hundreds of years old!
After the ruins we returned to our hotel where I driver told us that he had arranged a jeep to pick us up in a few hours to go to the wildlife reserve for our elephant safari, oh goodie!!
The reserve was about a half hour drive away zipping between cars busses and tuk tuk's. Once we got there we picked up a park guide and started out on the bumps park road to ht center of the reserve. Thankfully we lucked out and got a jeep with four wheel drive and a skilled driver! The last few days had been quite rainy for what was supposed to be the dry season, so not as many elephants had come out, but we didn't miss them! On the way to the elephant areas we say tons of different types of birds, a few that were endangered too! One crocodile, a mongoose (Riki Tiki Tavi) bunches of cows, and then yes elephants!! Our first group of elephants was about 6 strong with a large male a few smaller females and even a smallish baby :) we (a bunch of jeeps housing many different onlookers) all crowed as close as the jeeps would drive us and snapped away with cameras and just stared in awe at these amazingly large creatures in their natural habitat. Soon we pulled away in search of more. Not too long after we found two more, a female and a quite agitated male. When this male started to stalk out way our drive promptly turned our jeep around for a better position to flee if the elephant decided to charge...and charge he almost did!!! Not at us, no that would be far too lucky! But he did almost charge at this jeep ahead of us...boy did we want to get that on film, but I guess for the safety of those people in the jeep it was probably for the best...but damn it would have made for a good vid! After leaving the agitated male to his own devices we found two more elephants before we headed back to the entrance. Both male, but one of them had tusks! Yes while african elephants are the ones know for their tusks, apparently Sri Lankan males can grow tusks too, but only about 5% of them actually have them...making this elephant very lucky and us very lucky for finding him! With our elephant safari fulfilled we headed to the exit of the reserve and back to the hotel. While on the road back we came upon an area where three of four jeeps were pulled off to the side. As we passed we noticed about 5 elephants just munching away at bushes in the jungle! We pulled over to watch for a bit! Kinda funny cause wee almost saw a comparable number of elephants just on the road as in the reserve :p
What a great finish to a great day...tomorrow: relaxing by the pool and getting some photo work done!!!
More soon...
To Malaysia...hung over but early!!!
Kuala Lumpur. I have spent many summers in Malaysia, but I had never yet ventured to the main city...until now! The first day I spent there was only a half day. I arrived at around 4:30pm, which was two hours earlier because of missing my original flight in Seoul :p My dad was waiting for me with a big hug once I came out of the baggage claim. From there we took a train into town and hit up our hotel located in china town on peddlers street, a street that filled up with carts of any type of ware from about mid day to later in the night. We took a load off in our room and then headed out to grab a bit to eat...Chinese food!! That pretty much took up the rest of our night because I was beat from traveling and not sleeping the night before and we had an early morning planned for our only full day in KL!
Full day! Yes we started outa at around 8am, hitting up a large shopping center for some kryspie creams and more importantly free wifi! Dad called my grandma (his ma) and told her we had arrived safe and sound, and then I called up my mother dearest and chatted for the first time since I had left (but I emailed her already...don't worry!). After that we headed out to check out the KL petronas towers, which were up to a few years ago the tallest towers in the world, but thanks to stupid India they are now only the tallest twin towers in the world! Tall is only really a word though cause these babies were gigantic!!! We snapped some shits and then headed inside to try to catch a lift up the the sky bridge connecting them at the center. Sadly we found out that they only have so many tickets per day and those were already gone!!! What??? So lame! So we trotted over to the other side to get a few more pics from the right angle with the sun and all, then headed back to the mall to look for a mobile 3G thumb stick for wireless internets on the go in India! After finding what we needed we piped over to the golden screen cinemas to get in one last bit of western entertainment by catching a double feature! The expendables and Salt...both great movies and what's more American then an action packed afternoon! To pack more action into the afternoon we decided to go to the largest indoor theme park in Malaysia...conveniently placed in that very same mall!! Go figure...we also had a theory that it was the only indoor theme park in Malaysia, but why ruin a good thing right?? So off to cosmo's world we went! By far the best part of this "theme park" was the roller coaster which Wasserstein actually quite impressive boasting two cork screws and a loop! We must have rode the roller coaster about 5 times or so and there weren't many people in the joint so we could just hop on when ever! I even managed to shoot video of the whole ride from the front with my iPhone, so I'll get that on youtubes when I get a chance!! The other notable thing about cosmo's world was the first thrill ride that actually made me wonder if I was going to puke! This monster was called the DNA mixer, and for good reason! The ride was basically two rows of seats on a platform that lifted off the ground and then spun around really fast at varying angles really fast! I was actually the only person on the ride because dad didn't want to ride with me and the girl operating the machine had to go and buckle every seat that wasn't being used...all but mine, so when (to my relief) the ride was over the girl asked me if I wanted to go again...while I wanted to get as far away from the machine as I could, I did feel bad for all the work she had to go through for just little ol' me, so I swallowed my pride (and my lunch) and took another spin (literally)! The other down side of this ride was the bar in-between my legs to keep you in the seat...well on every single revolution of the cursed machine my junk got slam slam slammed into that bar over and over!! So not only did I feel as if I was going to loose my lunch I also though I might loose my ability to have children O.o by the time the ride was over the second time I was sweating! But back to the roller coaster we ran :p after we had ridden out the theme park till it was dark, we hoped back on the metro and went back to the twin towers for some brilliant night shots! With the lit up tower safely stored in our camera's memory cards we headed back to china town for our hotel rooms and only a few hours sleep for we had to continue our travels at 3am towards Sri Lanka!!
More to come :)
Full day! Yes we started outa at around 8am, hitting up a large shopping center for some kryspie creams and more importantly free wifi! Dad called my grandma (his ma) and told her we had arrived safe and sound, and then I called up my mother dearest and chatted for the first time since I had left (but I emailed her already...don't worry!). After that we headed out to check out the KL petronas towers, which were up to a few years ago the tallest towers in the world, but thanks to stupid India they are now only the tallest twin towers in the world! Tall is only really a word though cause these babies were gigantic!!! We snapped some shits and then headed inside to try to catch a lift up the the sky bridge connecting them at the center. Sadly we found out that they only have so many tickets per day and those were already gone!!! What??? So lame! So we trotted over to the other side to get a few more pics from the right angle with the sun and all, then headed back to the mall to look for a mobile 3G thumb stick for wireless internets on the go in India! After finding what we needed we piped over to the golden screen cinemas to get in one last bit of western entertainment by catching a double feature! The expendables and Salt...both great movies and what's more American then an action packed afternoon! To pack more action into the afternoon we decided to go to the largest indoor theme park in Malaysia...conveniently placed in that very same mall!! Go figure...we also had a theory that it was the only indoor theme park in Malaysia, but why ruin a good thing right?? So off to cosmo's world we went! By far the best part of this "theme park" was the roller coaster which Wasserstein actually quite impressive boasting two cork screws and a loop! We must have rode the roller coaster about 5 times or so and there weren't many people in the joint so we could just hop on when ever! I even managed to shoot video of the whole ride from the front with my iPhone, so I'll get that on youtubes when I get a chance!! The other notable thing about cosmo's world was the first thrill ride that actually made me wonder if I was going to puke! This monster was called the DNA mixer, and for good reason! The ride was basically two rows of seats on a platform that lifted off the ground and then spun around really fast at varying angles really fast! I was actually the only person on the ride because dad didn't want to ride with me and the girl operating the machine had to go and buckle every seat that wasn't being used...all but mine, so when (to my relief) the ride was over the girl asked me if I wanted to go again...while I wanted to get as far away from the machine as I could, I did feel bad for all the work she had to go through for just little ol' me, so I swallowed my pride (and my lunch) and took another spin (literally)! The other down side of this ride was the bar in-between my legs to keep you in the seat...well on every single revolution of the cursed machine my junk got slam slam slammed into that bar over and over!! So not only did I feel as if I was going to loose my lunch I also though I might loose my ability to have children O.o by the time the ride was over the second time I was sweating! But back to the roller coaster we ran :p after we had ridden out the theme park till it was dark, we hoped back on the metro and went back to the twin towers for some brilliant night shots! With the lit up tower safely stored in our camera's memory cards we headed back to china town for our hotel rooms and only a few hours sleep for we had to continue our travels at 3am towards Sri Lanka!!
More to come :)
Korea continued: the revival of doodie and beyond!
Saturday ushered in the first day of doodie feeling better!! Providence!! Onward and upward from this point in my opinion. We all seemed quite beat and didn't really start the day off till about 3pm, but hey doodie really needed her doodie sleep after being bed ridden for a few days and not having the strength to eat much. Because of the late start we knew that we could only do a few things, so first and foremost get some tasty food in our stomachs! This goal was fulfilled greatly by e help of a very tasty Indian restaurant (the first of my trip, but surly not the last :p ) after stuffing ourselves on tasty Nan, chai, and other treats we headed out to Seoul on the metro in search of a hookah bar that may or may not be located in a cave! The hookah bar that we had found was not the same cave hookah bar, but still a very cool atmosphere any how. The service was slow for us white folk, but we got some drinks and awaited our hookah. The joint was called Gr8 hookah, and featured a neat logo that had the 8 as the base of a hookah with the stem coming out the top. After walking around the university area where gr8 was located we hoped in a taxi headed back for ansan. The metro doesn't run past 11 or so, so it makes it quite difficult to party up in the city very late with out spending a pretty penny on getting back to ansan, but some times it's worth it :). On Sunday I had planed a water park excursion, but then realized that it was shitty weather and that there might also be upwards of three hour lines for the rides, which was not a nice sounding plan...also it was Korea's independence day!!! To celebrate steph, caroling, and charis meet up with doodie and I and we all headed into Seoul to visit the aquarium at the cox mall (supposed to be the largest mall in Asia?) the aquarium was quite a sight...very Korean with silly aquariums made out of vending machines, lamps, and even a Little fish in a toilet! A very cutsie place, but they did have a cool shark tank! This tank also had e slowest moving side walk along it's viewing portals, but there were a bunch of different sharks, even a few sand tigers...scary as all hell by the looks of them, but quite nice over all. After the aquarium we headed up to the malls Todai's!!! Oh yeah! If you though the todai's in Portland was great then you have another hinge coming!! This one was at least twice as big and had the normal selection plus many more Korean dishes and even better sushi! For the price of $35 ish per person, and the longest wait for food in my entire life!!! This was agreed upon by the group....but a very worth it wait imo. What a great way to celebrate korea's independence from the japs!! Eating sushi :p
Monday was back to school for the SLP crew and back to soloing Seoul for Bradley fish! This was also my day to finally hit that sweet water park!! Unhindered by the crazy crowds flocking to the slippery slides and lazy rivers...sadly I was only hindered by the complete inability to figure out how to get there, the fact being that it was at least a 30 min bus ride out of Seoul, I was never able to find where the buss left from...fortunately not all was lost, because like a good boy scout I always come prepared!! The Seoul zoo was my back up plan!
I have never been to such a large zoo in my life. It is located in the Seoul grand park and as I rode the tram in we passed a large lake and some sort of amusement park, the entrance has a giant tiger statue welcoming you in. I must have walked at least 10k venturing all around the park, which is at least a kilometer from front to back. The zoo also has a chair lift type ride going from the bottom to the top, which I took later in the day just to get a nice top view of the park. While there I got to see the lion feeding, seal and dolphin show and just about every type of animal you can think of in a zoo, plus many more! They have a large botanical garden...this place kinda freaked me out though because for some strange reason the plant didn't have goggly eyes on them...so how was I to know where I stood with them?? After walking around for about 5 hours at the zoo I was getting quite pooped and ready to head back to ansan with dreams of tequila on my mind...thankfully these dreams became a reality when doodie and friends were all enthused to go out for drinks!! Steph, Caroline, Tyler, and David brody went to a bar across the street from SLP to get started. After a drink or two we started to talk about the tequila that was waiting at doodie's place...for free! Onward for tequila sunrises, Viso margaritas and lemon drink chasers for shots shots shots!
After getting good and i imbibed we headed back to the school are for a nori bang! (kerioke room) but first for a stop at the batting cages for a round of drunken baseball!! Quite good, but I was never very talented with a bat...the nori bang was very different then what I have experienced in the states. While alcohol is always good for this sort of thing, it isn't as required because you don't get up on stage in front of the whole bar, but rather you get your own room for your group where you can choose what ever song you want and have an awesome time with out looking like a fool in front of a bunch of strangers!! Well that is unless you drink too much and pass out in the hall way.... O.o can't say that I remember much of the nori bang, but it was sure a fun night!! The next morning I woke up still drunk and decided that since my reservation for my DMZ tour was full I would just go into work with doodie that day and see what this whole teaching English (engrish) was about!
SLP is a private school where the doodie and the other English teachers will have different classes ranging from kindergarten age to middle school...they teach them english. A very simple concept, but certainly can be taxing at times. Fortunately Tuesdays are one of doodie's easier days with only 3 different classes to teach. I can say for tuesday's kids at least that they were quite adorable! The first class was quite young...when the kids saw me come in with doodie their eyes opened up wide (well wide ish) and one kid asked "beard???" they were all very cute and it brought me way back to elementary school. For how young they are they behaved very well and even better when bribed with stickers or merit cards! After two sessions with this class we went on to some older students with two very funny chubby little Korean boys, one named gun ho and his fat partner who was a wonderful opera singer :p doodie tried to get him to sing for me and his class mates, but I think he was shy because I was there. She even tried to bribe him with merit cards and then 100 won, but it was no use. She even told him that he couldn't eat his snacks till he sang, to which he kept trying to sneak snacks, by trying to put them in his drink and even shooting his head into his backpack and pulling one out with his mouth! I think I laughed the most at this class cause they were a bunch of crack ups...though they didn't get much work done :p. Doodie's last class were two young boy who seemed to be arch rivals, because they always ha d to beat each other, quite a few laughs from this class too, but it was nice to see the end of the day and get some dinner! A day in the life of a doodie seemed to be quite good, though I didn't go on her busy days where she actually had to teach around 15 kids...I imagine that this is a bit more difficult, but all the kids I met were very nice...if not a bit energetic!
On my last full day in Korea I lazed around a bit and took my time getting things packed up and ready for my departure. I also headed to Seoul one last time to Lotte world, a giant mall and amusement park. If the aquarium was a silly place, lotto world was in the same vein, but more like the Korean Disneyland! Sadly it was raining in Seoul so the outside part of the park was all closed so the rides for older people weren't really open. I hit up the adventures of simbad, which was kinda like an Asian pirates ride...over all the amusement park was...amusing? But I had to head back to ansan because were were going out for my last night...and go out we did!! I liken the experience to doodie's last night in the states with regards to being up all night and partying then heading really early to the airport...but Korean style! Doodie really did it up great, when we left we had all of the English teachers that I had been hanging out so far during the trip plus Vanessa and a new teacher and then about 5-6 of the Korean homework teachers! In total we had 15 people in our group!
Doodie, charis, Tyler, and I split off from the main group to grab some Italian food while the rest when to Korean BBQ, what? I wanted some pizza! After the food was settled we went to a cool bar that sat your group in a personal room with a door bell thing to ring when you wanted service...soju!!!! Yes we got about 5 bottles to start with and two 3liter pitchers of Korean beer! While there the Korean teachers taught us a few cool soju drink ing games, one where you have to flick off the twisted end on the bottle cap and the two people on each side of the person to flick the cap deally off had to drink. We also did soju bombs and other neat tricks. One of the Korean teachers knew. Our waitress which managed to get us three free bottles of soju and there were fruit platters and bunches of snacks! After getting a good start on the night steph's friend james took us to a second bar where we found another group of English teachers chilling. This bar we stayed at till about 3am and we took it over!!! Literally! The bar tender showed me e computer where the music was playing so we put on everything we needed to hear and doodie...in grand fashion was pouring drinks behind the bar!!! Go figure! What a great last night, fun places and people! We got back to doodies place really early and I was planning to leave for the airport at about 5:30am. I tried to get a little sleep, but that didn't work that well...I was still very wired from the evening, I did however sleep a bit past my time frame and by the time I was totally packed up and ready to go it was 6:30!!! To avoid missing my flight (which I did) I took a taxi to the airport...getting ripped off by at least $50 but getting me there in time to stand in line for over an hour and missing my plane...the hang over was setting in and I had missed my plane, but the nice people at the airport pulled some strings and got me on a plane two hours later direct to Kuala Lumpur!! So not only did I miss my flint, but I didn't have to layover in hong kong for two hours, so I got into KL two hours earlier!!! Providence!
My time in Korea was fast leaving...I was tired and hung over but I had a great week!! I wish that I had more time, but off to other adventures I had to go!! Everyone that I met was very friendly and welcoming and I can't thank doodie's friends enough for everything that they did for me!! Most importantly doodie for letting me stay at her place and showing me a great time!!! Love ya all and I can't wait to see some of you in Oregon in the future!! Doodie! 9 months :)
Off to Malaysia for two days...and time to start my travels with my pops!! :D
Monday was back to school for the SLP crew and back to soloing Seoul for Bradley fish! This was also my day to finally hit that sweet water park!! Unhindered by the crazy crowds flocking to the slippery slides and lazy rivers...sadly I was only hindered by the complete inability to figure out how to get there, the fact being that it was at least a 30 min bus ride out of Seoul, I was never able to find where the buss left from...fortunately not all was lost, because like a good boy scout I always come prepared!! The Seoul zoo was my back up plan!
I have never been to such a large zoo in my life. It is located in the Seoul grand park and as I rode the tram in we passed a large lake and some sort of amusement park, the entrance has a giant tiger statue welcoming you in. I must have walked at least 10k venturing all around the park, which is at least a kilometer from front to back. The zoo also has a chair lift type ride going from the bottom to the top, which I took later in the day just to get a nice top view of the park. While there I got to see the lion feeding, seal and dolphin show and just about every type of animal you can think of in a zoo, plus many more! They have a large botanical garden...this place kinda freaked me out though because for some strange reason the plant didn't have goggly eyes on them...so how was I to know where I stood with them?? After walking around for about 5 hours at the zoo I was getting quite pooped and ready to head back to ansan with dreams of tequila on my mind...thankfully these dreams became a reality when doodie and friends were all enthused to go out for drinks!! Steph, Caroline, Tyler, and David brody went to a bar across the street from SLP to get started. After a drink or two we started to talk about the tequila that was waiting at doodie's place...for free! Onward for tequila sunrises, Viso margaritas and lemon drink chasers for shots shots shots!
After getting good and i imbibed we headed back to the school are for a nori bang! (kerioke room) but first for a stop at the batting cages for a round of drunken baseball!! Quite good, but I was never very talented with a bat...the nori bang was very different then what I have experienced in the states. While alcohol is always good for this sort of thing, it isn't as required because you don't get up on stage in front of the whole bar, but rather you get your own room for your group where you can choose what ever song you want and have an awesome time with out looking like a fool in front of a bunch of strangers!! Well that is unless you drink too much and pass out in the hall way.... O.o can't say that I remember much of the nori bang, but it was sure a fun night!! The next morning I woke up still drunk and decided that since my reservation for my DMZ tour was full I would just go into work with doodie that day and see what this whole teaching English (engrish) was about!
SLP is a private school where the doodie and the other English teachers will have different classes ranging from kindergarten age to middle school...they teach them english. A very simple concept, but certainly can be taxing at times. Fortunately Tuesdays are one of doodie's easier days with only 3 different classes to teach. I can say for tuesday's kids at least that they were quite adorable! The first class was quite young...when the kids saw me come in with doodie their eyes opened up wide (well wide ish) and one kid asked "beard???" they were all very cute and it brought me way back to elementary school. For how young they are they behaved very well and even better when bribed with stickers or merit cards! After two sessions with this class we went on to some older students with two very funny chubby little Korean boys, one named gun ho and his fat partner who was a wonderful opera singer :p doodie tried to get him to sing for me and his class mates, but I think he was shy because I was there. She even tried to bribe him with merit cards and then 100 won, but it was no use. She even told him that he couldn't eat his snacks till he sang, to which he kept trying to sneak snacks, by trying to put them in his drink and even shooting his head into his backpack and pulling one out with his mouth! I think I laughed the most at this class cause they were a bunch of crack ups...though they didn't get much work done :p. Doodie's last class were two young boy who seemed to be arch rivals, because they always ha d to beat each other, quite a few laughs from this class too, but it was nice to see the end of the day and get some dinner! A day in the life of a doodie seemed to be quite good, though I didn't go on her busy days where she actually had to teach around 15 kids...I imagine that this is a bit more difficult, but all the kids I met were very nice...if not a bit energetic!
On my last full day in Korea I lazed around a bit and took my time getting things packed up and ready for my departure. I also headed to Seoul one last time to Lotte world, a giant mall and amusement park. If the aquarium was a silly place, lotto world was in the same vein, but more like the Korean Disneyland! Sadly it was raining in Seoul so the outside part of the park was all closed so the rides for older people weren't really open. I hit up the adventures of simbad, which was kinda like an Asian pirates ride...over all the amusement park was...amusing? But I had to head back to ansan because were were going out for my last night...and go out we did!! I liken the experience to doodie's last night in the states with regards to being up all night and partying then heading really early to the airport...but Korean style! Doodie really did it up great, when we left we had all of the English teachers that I had been hanging out so far during the trip plus Vanessa and a new teacher and then about 5-6 of the Korean homework teachers! In total we had 15 people in our group!
Doodie, charis, Tyler, and I split off from the main group to grab some Italian food while the rest when to Korean BBQ, what? I wanted some pizza! After the food was settled we went to a cool bar that sat your group in a personal room with a door bell thing to ring when you wanted service...soju!!!! Yes we got about 5 bottles to start with and two 3liter pitchers of Korean beer! While there the Korean teachers taught us a few cool soju drink ing games, one where you have to flick off the twisted end on the bottle cap and the two people on each side of the person to flick the cap deally off had to drink. We also did soju bombs and other neat tricks. One of the Korean teachers knew. Our waitress which managed to get us three free bottles of soju and there were fruit platters and bunches of snacks! After getting a good start on the night steph's friend james took us to a second bar where we found another group of English teachers chilling. This bar we stayed at till about 3am and we took it over!!! Literally! The bar tender showed me e computer where the music was playing so we put on everything we needed to hear and doodie...in grand fashion was pouring drinks behind the bar!!! Go figure! What a great last night, fun places and people! We got back to doodies place really early and I was planning to leave for the airport at about 5:30am. I tried to get a little sleep, but that didn't work that well...I was still very wired from the evening, I did however sleep a bit past my time frame and by the time I was totally packed up and ready to go it was 6:30!!! To avoid missing my flight (which I did) I took a taxi to the airport...getting ripped off by at least $50 but getting me there in time to stand in line for over an hour and missing my plane...the hang over was setting in and I had missed my plane, but the nice people at the airport pulled some strings and got me on a plane two hours later direct to Kuala Lumpur!! So not only did I miss my flint, but I didn't have to layover in hong kong for two hours, so I got into KL two hours earlier!!! Providence!
My time in Korea was fast leaving...I was tired and hung over but I had a great week!! I wish that I had more time, but off to other adventures I had to go!! Everyone that I met was very friendly and welcoming and I can't thank doodie's friends enough for everything that they did for me!! Most importantly doodie for letting me stay at her place and showing me a great time!!! Love ya all and I can't wait to see some of you in Oregon in the future!! Doodie! 9 months :)
Off to Malaysia for two days...and time to start my travels with my pops!! :D
Korea come and gone!
Oh boy!! Korea went by in a hurry! I'm wishing that I had more time to be there, but onward and forward I guess! It was a great adventure to start this great adventure of mine!! Sadly to start it off becca, who from this point on will almost always be mentioned as doodie, was very sick for the first day and a half I was there. Some how she managed to rise from her "death bed" on the night that I got in, and ride a cab to the bus terminal that I was waiting at to pick me up and bring me back home to her apt! From there I got to meet her friend Stephanie whom I had chatted with many time over the interwebs, but never in person. We went to bed early that first night because becca was quite tired and I was traveling for over a day! The next day found doodie too sick to make it to work...which became evident after she was barely able to make it to the bathroom with out feeling dizzy and sick, poor doodie! Steph was super great to me that first day because she took me out and around ansan for food and the like while doodie was too sick to eat anything. Besides a few trips out for food I just stayed around doodies place helping her drink water or trying to coax her to eat mini nuts over chocolate (which is a Luna bar flavor for those of you who don't know that!!). Any how I got to try Korea BBQ that night and soju (a Korean alcohol that I probably can't spell correctly, tasted like a watered down vodka to me). Friday brought about the soldiering up of doodie to make it into work, and I ventured forth to the metro station not too far from doodie's school to go into Seoul!! The metro ride was about an hour and I had a few palaces in mind! Both of the palaces that I saw were pretty cool, though they had many buildings that, besides the size were very similar in style and look. I even managed to find free wireless at one of the palaces, where I was able to skype with a few people :p. After the palaces I still had a bunch of time to kill before doodie and friends were off of work, so I stopped at the Korean war memorial. This was an amazing experience, while I had seen the one in DC earlier this year, this war had niching like the impact that it did on us as it did the Koreans...quite breath taking!!! After walking around those grounds till it was dark I headed back to ansan to meet up with doodie and friends. Thankfully she was quite better, though after teaching kids all day I'm not sure how she pulled that off!!! Caroline, another teacher friend came over with steph and we all enjoyed some tasty treats I brought from the states...much better then Korean snacks :p and then called it a night, with plans to hit the city the next day...
And now I take a break because we only have 3 hours to sleep before we catch a plane to Sri Lanka tomorrow morning...I'll fill in the rest of Korea and more when I next get the Internet and free time!!! But Korea was great!! Already miss it :).
More when I return!
And now I take a break because we only have 3 hours to sleep before we catch a plane to Sri Lanka tomorrow morning...I'll fill in the rest of Korea and more when I next get the Internet and free time!!! But Korea was great!! Already miss it :).
More when I return!
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