A Few Everyday, Average Festivals

So far, I have realized that Korea likes to party. One aspect of this, is their large amount of festivals they hold every year. These are the few that I've been to already, and from what I've seen, I want to see a whole lot more. The best part is, all of these festivals are free, minus the traveling, sleeping, and hooch.

The first festival I went to, was when I was in Korea for only three weeks. My Canadian co-worker Mike invited me. It is the Boryeong Mud Festival. Supposedly, the mud in this area is supposed to be good for your skin. Mike thinks it's just a gimmick to get tourists to go to this beach. There is a big mud "health" spa in Boryeong that sponsors it. It was great for my first trip because a lot of foreigners go to this festival. Since I was brand new to Korea, this was awesome to communicate easily. There were also a lot of Koreans, and it is a family event even though it seemed to be a booze fest for Koreans and foreigners. It was so much fun, and very filthy (just my style).




The beach is where I spent most of my time. There were tables set up with paint brushes and pails of mud. You could go over there, and paint yourself up, or have a female do it for you.



There was live music acts. Certain times during the show, they would spray the crowd with mud through hoses. The mud was pretty fine, and really not too gritty at all.


Then, they had awesome firework shows at night. The yellow and purple colors you see are lights that shown down on the beach throughout the night. They alternated these two colors covering a huge portion of the beach. Here's the website if you want to see more. http://www.mudfestival.or.kr/lang/en/index.jsp
If I stay here in Korea longer, I am definitely going back. This time I will have a camera.

The next festival I went to was in the Fall. It was part of the Hi Seoul Festival. The Hi Seoul Festival goes for a couple of weeks, 4 times a year, for each season. They have different types of events all over Seoul for this. The only part of the festival I went to was at this gorgeous park in Yeouinaru right next to the Han River.



This is another Canadian friend of mine, Elizabeth.




The first act was this orchestra. You may notice some cranes in this picture.


Then came the parade.



Dangling from these cool looking balloons are trapeze artists, that were flipping around.


Next was this band. They are not Korean, but they are something special.


They are strapped in harnesses that allowed them to flip upside down. They were elevated by guys with weights climbing up the rafters on the sides, and then sliding down.



The band had the normal bassist, guitarist, and drummer, but the also had a fiddle player. It looked so bad-ass, rocking the guitar while swinging around high in the air while flipping, or being upside down (even the fiddle player looked cool, and that's hard to do). The poor drummer didn't flip. Ahhh!


Then there was a crazy Korean play with the characters from the parade, and some actors. I wish I had more pictures, but this is still the time when I didn't have a camera.


This was the finale of this particular part of the Hi Seoul Festival (not of the festival itself). It was a play featuring "monster trucks". I am pretty sure that's lost in translation because there were definitely NO monster trucks. It was really construction cranes. This part of the Hi Seoul festival was sponsored by Volvo. You could hardly notice because the cranes were painted to fit the play except for the huge VOLVO written on them. You can see it on the last picture. Yeah, so a play featuring cranes and a huge puppet robot. So what? That's been done sooooo many times. Oh Korea, when will you be original??????


This picture shows the puppeteers.


Several actors are on the stage in this picture. The play was basically a futuristic, man vs. machine struggle. Now that, really has been done before. They had words in Korean and English on the sides of the stage explaining the plot of each act.


This is the main "human" character that wins over the ruthless machines "hearts". She does end up caressing the machines arm. It's the green one on the right.


Then she gets scooped up. In the end, the main robot has a heart. Isn't that sweet? Everyone took a bow, including the crane operators. The green arm got to be the final solo bow. Was he the lead actor?


OK! Now, my third, and most recent festival, the Hwacheon Sancheoneo Ice Festival AKA the Hwacheon Trout Festival. The Sancheoneo fish is a trout. I went to this last weekend, and again, this Korean festival did not disappoint.


This is a cool little ice castle to walk through with neon lights in the ice.


Next we did some tube sledding.


A couple of our friends were hungry, and feeling adventurous. They actually tried this. It's a worm larvae. Street vendors all over Korea sell them. I would be adventurous too and try them, but the smell makes me want to vomit. They smell awful, and I think it's safe to say they taste that way too. I'll never know. Usually it's sold in a dixie cup, but the lady let the girls try a toothpick sample. Just so you know, they didn't end up buying a cup, but they didn't puke either.


Then we went off to ride 4 wheelers, quads, on ICE. This cost about 8 bucks, but was definitely worth it. It was awesome. A normal track on ice. Everyone was sliding out everywhere. It didn't take me long to figure out the trick. Go very slow for traction, and then slowly speed up. They also had go-carts on ice, but we opted for the bigger, faster ice sliding vehicles.


You can see from this picture, that there are tires as a bumper on the front of our quads. I took this as meaning they were bumper cars. I was nailing all of my friends. One of my friends had just spun out on a turn. I had just about reached full speed, then I hit the brakes and cut the wheel. I creamed him. I only got one warning. Some of my other friends, that weren't even trying to hit people got more warnings to slow down than me. Suckers!


Here's the Soju stage. These are Soju costumed guys on the stage. This was DEFINITELY a family event. There were kids everywhere. If you've read my other blog posts, you know a little about Soju. This stage area had music, these Soju guys dancing on stage, and a contest going on in front of the stage. The contest was a race with about five teams of two, usually a child and a parent. The kid would be put in this basket with a short rope. On go, the parent would run on the ice, dragging the kid, around a cone and then back. The parents really tried hard to win. It would end back at the stage, and there was some crashing with the parents and the kids with the stage. Nothing major, because the people in charge of the game were goal tending the stage. It was hilarious watching how hard the parents tried to win. And what do they win, you ask? The sweet, sweet, nectar of Korea, Soju. No wonder the dads were willing to fling their kids into the stage to win. They did tons of races, and even let two of us Waygooks (foreigners) participate in a race.


Next we made it over to this area. These were small rinks with goals on each end about a foot high. It was free. You just had to sign up. We played an awesome game of 3 on 3 ice hockey with no skates, no sticks, and no pads (we did have helmets). We kicked a puck around. As you can imagine, we all got a few bruises from this one, but it was worth it. It was so much fun. After our time was up, a couple of us had unknowingly signed up for a contest. You were supposed to kick the puck from half court into the goal. Since we were foreigners, they let my friend John here go twice, but previous Koreans weren't so lucky. On John's second shot, he made it (pictured above). This time, you don't win Soju. Don't be ridiculous! Obviously you win a live trout, put in a plastic grocery bag.


Here's John and his prize trout. There were booths set up that would cook your fish for you, but none of us foreigners are too big on eating fish with skin and bones, unlike Koreans. We had intended on going ice fishing too, but our time was getting too low. We had to start heading back for the bus. We did decide to go into the ice fishing area, though, and release this fish through an unused ice hole. He was probably caught again, but we gave him another chance to live. The ice fishing area had hundreds of Koreans fishing in this relatively small area. There was also an area where you could fish with your hands. It was a little too cold for that, thanks. I should be getting some more pictures of this soon, and I will add them later to this, or another post. Maybe in another festival post because, you know for sure, I'll be going to more.

To be continued.............

Thailand vs. Korea - We Have A Winner!

As many of you know, I just spent Christmas in Thailand this year. However, I wanted to keep with the theme of my blog "The Tales of Korea". Since I also want to tell everyone more about the culture here in Korea anyway, I thought comparing and contrasting that, with my even more recent culture experience in Thailand would be perfect. It will still, mostly, be about Thailand though, and I have a feeling it's going to be a long blog post because there is so much to tell, and so many pictures. Here we go, I hope you got a hot minute:

First, the whole airline system is crazy here in Korea, and I still don't understand how it works. I've heard conflicting reports from people I spoke with about whether a foreigner can even buy his/her own ticket. Regardless, almost all of the Koreans use travel agents to buy their airline tickets. Travel agencies are as common to see all over the neighborhoods as the local convenient stores. You reserve your tickets, but you can't pay for them(?) until about a week before your flight (this was not a conflicting report, but confirmed by everybody I spoke with, and was true for my friends and my tickets also). But, I believe I got a good deal, so I'm not going to complain. I'm just thought it was a weird system.

I traveled with two co-workers, Katie and Kristen. Kristen was at the end of her contract in Korea, could, and did stay longer in Thailand before returning to Canada. Near the end of Katie and my trip, another friend from Korea, Tasha, was meeting up with us, and staying longer with Kristen. We arrived at the airport, and Katie and I waited (unnecessarily) in a long line at the immigration office, while the short line at the check-in counter grew to be a very long line. We were told by our boss that we had to get a special stamp on our Visa so that we didn't mess up our working status. Well, our Visas already had the correct stamp for multiple entries. As frustrating and stressing as the domino effect of one long line making the other line longer by virtue of time, there was one gem that came out of it. Although we have no remaining evidence to show you, we saw the MOST amazing mole hair known to man. It was an Asian fellow probably in his upper 20's - lower 30's (you know Asians are hard to tell. For all I know he was 60). It was black and straggly near the bottom, but I bet if you pulled it down, it would have reached his collar line where a tie would be. It was disgusting, but we couldn't stop looking. I think he was from Thailand, and I'll explain why later. Anyway, despite the initial stress of us possibly missing our flight, we made it.

We arrived in Bangkok. Our plan was to head South East immediately to Thailand's second largest island, Koh Chang. We had already booked our first three nights at a bungalow on the island. We didn't quite plan our transportation to get to the island in advance (that's the nice way to say that we didn't plan it at all. I don't know who I'm being nice to. Am I trying to fool myself?). Unfortunately, we paid a little extra for that, but it was a nice comfortable trip, and very nice after a long plane ride (6 hours I think?). We hired a driver to take us to the ferry, and we were told that we would make it there before the last ferry. Do you see where this is going? First, the ride was awesome. Here are a few things that I noticed on the ride. There were small brush fires along sides of the roads. I was told by my co-workers that it is a normal practice where they are from (Canada and Arizona). I never saw that In Florida, unless it was a controlled burn of a huge area. There are pictures, monuments, and gateways over the highway depicting the Thai king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, and his family like this:


I saw several outdoor markets packed with scooters, and oddly, almost all of them had a big inflatable slide for the kids. It looked odd because these areas of Thailand are very poor. The markets were rows of wooden booths like an open air flea market. It was all on dirt with nothing else around. Everything was just brown, dirty, and old looking, and then there's this big bright red and yellow inflatable slide. I swear every market had one. There are Buddhist temples everywhere. Sometimes, seemingly in the middle of nowhere. They had a bathroom at the gas station like this:

It is a hole in the ground, a water basin, and a cup with a handle. What are you supposed to do with that? Fortunately, I never had to try to figure these types of bathrooms out. The bathrooms in Koh Chang and Bangkok were normal with the exception of a garden hose (for a bidet?).


It was about a 3 or 4 hour car ride. I was using my time on the plane, and a little in the car trying to read up on the customs, history, traditions, and language of Thailand from a Lonely Planet book. Many of the things I read are very similar to Korea. I know I am only referencing two Asian countries, but I would be willing to bet that many of the Asian countries follow similar cultural behaviors.

Things that are the same: when you call someone over to you, you put your hand out palm down, and flop it down. Doing it the way we do it (palm up) is considered disrespectful. They consider that the way you would call a dog to come over to you. They both take their shoes off in most places. They both order food to share with the table, and not just one meal for yourself. I know it's true in Korea, and it says it's true in Thailand in the book (but I don't think I saw it once), when you hand or receive something, you are supposed to touch your elbow of the hand doing the transaction.
Things that are different, or not related to Korea at all: first and foremost, the king. I read in the book, and I can see by the incredible amount of pictures, paintings, monuments, sculptures, archways, etc. of the king and his family, that you are never to criticize, or speak badly of him. He is the longest running head of state in the world, and he is highly respected, and praised in Thailand. Another difference is the way they regard the feet in Thailand. The head is considered the most important part of the body, and the feet the worst. But it goes further than that. Touching someone with your foot is insulting. Stepping on someone, or their property is insulting. Putting your feet up on a chair is insulting. In a temple, you are supposed to sit "mermaid style" with your feet pointing away from the Buddha statue. If you drop money, you have to pick it up immediately, without stepping on it. Every bit of money has an image of the king. Stepping on that would be very insulting. Next is spitting. Spitting is very much accepted in Korea. I don't know if it's acceptable, or not, in Thailand, but I didn't see anyone spit once. Normally this would not be something to mention, except that I am living in Korea. More on that later. It's back to story time.

Alright, we get to the ferry terminal, and we can really and truly see the last ferry pulling off of the dock, just like in the movies. I told the driver we could jump the car off of the edge of the dock, but he chickened out. Our options were pretty limited. We could stay in the town we were in, or try to hire a private boat across. Staying in town meant that we would have to pay for two hotels that night (because we had already booked a room on the island, and it was too late to cancel), and we would get a later start for the next day because we would have to wait until the ferry started running in the morning. We wanted to just get there to start our vacation, so we decided to try to get a private boat. The driver made some phone calls, talked to several people around the ferry area, arranged the deal, and waited for the guy to come with the boat. He was a nice guy, but I think he had drop us off somewhere, or with someone before he was allowed to leave. We had to sign some company paper when we were finally leaving. I know Kristen and Katie have better pictures of this private boat we got on. It sure was an old, small, rickety fishing boat.

This is Katie

This is Kristen, and I. We're a little nervous.

These are our bags pilled up. You can see the water, through the boat, at the boards by Katie's feet.

Fortunately, the water was extremely calm and flat, and we survived the slow ride to the island. We got that going for us. There were even small fish jumping around us. Plus we have a way better story for the start of our trip. Can you imagine how boring this part would be, if we just paid for another flight from the Bangkok airport to the airport near the ferry, and made it to Koh Chang easily? Boring!

We checked into our hotel, and started our vacation. This gecko you see here was enormous. I wish there was something next to him to put his size in perspective. He visited us every night on the side of our bungalow. There was actually an even bigger guy that joined him a couple of nights, and there were plenty of smaller ones all over.


Our first morning there, just after we woke up, a monkey visited us by our window. Unfortunately, he didn't stick around long enough for a picture, and he never came back. What a punk. Here are some pictures from our hotel the Chai-Chet.

Christmas in Thailand. We actually spent Christmas in Bangkok, but Koh Chang was in the Christmas spirit all the same.

They had cute little figurines all over the beach hotels. One of these guys was modest, while the other, let it all hang out.





This was not our pool sign, but we made use of rule #4 at our pool. Our pool had a swim up bar in which we did some drinking, and then "driving".


This is the beach by our hotel. They had several of these swings tied high up in the trees along the beach. There were also several spots to get cheap hour massages right on the beach, or at the hotels. I took advantage of this a couple of times. I don't have any pictures yet, but there were also several peddlers walking the beaches selling jewelry, wraps, hair things and such. Hopefully, Katie or Kristen have some pictures of my favorite beach bar by our place. They had the nicest people working there including a woman who's name was pronounced Beer. I could tell we were going to get along. I think she was about my age, or maybe a little older. We were sitting at the bar in the evening, when a peddler came up with a suitcase. He was selling all sorts of lighters. One type of lighter had a button that projected photographs of hardcore porn. We were all laughing as the guy showed us each one. To all of our surprise, Beer, bought one. Not only that, she bought the one with the threesome. She was definitely laughing about it, but we all thought it was hilarious that she bought one, and then that she bought that one! I actually would have bought some for some of you guys back home (you know who you are), but all of the porn people were white. If they were Thai people, a few of you might have gotten some great Christmas gifts.


Katie enjoying a swing.


Katie's addiction was insatiable. She bought several bags of coke every day. Take a close look. It's a bag of Coke with a straw hanging out.


I read in the Lonely Planet book that 90% of Thai people are Buddhist. These shrines are everywhere. Some are illuminated at night, and most have daily food and drink offerings placed on them. This was at our hotel.


This one was just off the side of the road, with nothing else around it, except for maybe the view.


This was one of my favorite places to go at night in Koh Chang. It's hard to see from my blurry pictures here, but there are rugs, tables, candles, and leaning mats. This bar had nightly fire shows (I have a video at the bottom of this blog), live music inside the only roofed area, and shisha to smoke out of hookahs. Shisha is a flavored tobacco. We smoked an apple flavored one right out on the beach.


Blurry, but I think you can see the coolness of the Sabay Bar. Another crazy part of this bar happens in the toilets (Thats what they are called in Thailand). It's not what you're thinking, so get your mind out of the gutters. While I was urinating at the stalls, an attendant comes up to you, places a hot towel on your neck, and proceeds to massage your back. Then when you get to the sink, he goes to town. They do a short round of smacking their cupped hands on your back, and then start cracking your neck and your back. All of this for the change in my pocket. That amount of money is almost worthless after doing the money conversion. It was quite an interesting experience to say the least. And then there's the hookers. I swear, if you saw a woman in Koh Chang that wasn't a tourist, I think there is a great chance that she was a hooker. At least at the bars at night, they seemed to be. On top of the hookers (great choice of words, huh), you have to watch out for the lady boys. I was warned about the lady boys before I came to Thailand. I was warned that there are a lot of them, and to be very careful. At one bar that I stopped in at, the pretty bartender asked me if I wanted to play pool. I knew she wasn't go to play with me, and I knew the pool was free, so I agreed. I thought she was just being nice, and offering it to me. When I turned around, there was a lady boy racking up the balls. (Wow! Another great choice of words). That one wrote itself, but it's the truth. I had already said yeah. So I played pool with a lady boy in Thailand. One game, and then I suddenly had to be somewhere. One last, possibly interesting note about Koh Chang, is that the majority of travelers there are from Sweden. I met several Swedes there. In fact, one of the bartenders on the beach, said that we were only the third group of travelers, that included Americans, that she's met.


This is a picture of the scenery on our elephant trek in Koh Chang.




Normally we rode on the seat, but the elephant guy got off, and let us move down onto the elephants head. He took the pictures, and grabbed a smoke.


This is one road obstacle I wasn't expecting to be avoiding. It's what you think it is. A big ol' elephant poo. Speaking of elephant poop, part of our trip was to go swimming with the elephants. They took off the seats, and left you bare backing it with one rope tied around the elephant. It was really more like the elephant dips under the water, with you holding on for dear life, rather than swimming with them. But the best part is, mine pooped in the water. Elephant poop floats, in case you didn't know, and guess whose elephant was downstream from mine. It didn't get on them, but it came dangerously close. Katie and Kristen were blaming me, like I took the poo. After they were done yelling at me, their elephant did the dirty deed too. So they stopped. Besides, they were still very distracted because they were almost falling off their elephant the whole time.


This is one of the views from high up in the trees at the Tree Top Adventure Park. It was awesome, awesome, awesome! It was like a jungle gym for grown ups. It was definitely a work out. They had zip lines, cargo nets, a couple of swinging ropes, suspension bridges, a tight rope walk, even a flying skateboard. There's a video of the highest and fastest zip line at the park at the bottom of this blog post.


This photo might be too small to see, but there is a tight rope walk starting from the bottom right to the top right. Then there is a suspension bridge from the top right going diagonally to the bottom left.



We rented scooters. This was Gromit's, I mean Katie's first time riding one. Of course they were fun and cheap. We had wished that we rented them a day, or two, earlier.

Hiking up to the waterfall can make you thirsty.


Klong Plu Waterfall


Jeronimol


These are just some pictures I took around the island.








Half of my trip is over now, and we are in Bangkok. We are staying near Kaosan Road. It's busy all day, and all night with clothing vendors, food vendors, and bars. This is a tuk tuk driver waiting for his fare to come back. These eager beavers will drive you everywhere for dirt cheap, or free. They never start out free, but they get paid commission for taking you to some places. Sometimes they'll stick around for their fare, and sometimes they'll leave to get the next group. They'll usually try to drive you all over, including several temples in the area. This guy wasn't our driver, but he was obviously waiting for someone to get finished with the temple we were near. Otherwise, he'd probably be out hustling, instead of relaxing. These guys are everywhere in this area of Bangkok.


This is Kaosan Road. I should have imported this picture at a bigger size.


This smiley guy was offering fancy rides down Kaosan Road.


Sorry it's blurry, but I just had to show this picture of these crazy looking mannequins.


These next pictures are of the Grand Palace in Bangkok. This palace is huge, and the intricate details of everything is unbelievable.




This is Kristen, with Katie behind her, wearing their rental clothes. Part of temple etiquette is to have your shoulders and legs covered, guys and girls. They rent clothes in front of the temple. I looked dashing with my rental clothes. If only I had a picture to show you.



This is the first tour out of Bangkok we took. It started here at the floating market.



Then we went to the Cobra Show.


Tasha was here for this part of the trip. She isn't the biggest fan of snakes, if you can't tell by her expression.


It was at the Cobra Show, that I started to not feel so hot. On the van ride to our next destination, which was lunch, I almost fainted. I was dripping in sweat. I started to see spots of colors, and I could feel my body about to shut down. I woke up the cool guy sitting next to me (in the background of the above picture of Tasha), and asked him desperately for his water. He gave it to me, and it saved me from loosing consciousness. We stopped at lunch, and I just sat with my head down, and tried to drink as much water as I could. My stomach was upset, and I felt very dehydrated, nauseous, and uncomfortable. We got back on the bus for our last stop of the tour, and I threw up once in the bus. They pulled over, and I threw up all the water that I just drank. They gave me a towel to wipe myself off, and gave me the front seat, when I said I was ready.

Tiger Temple, the last stop. Forgive me for the puke stains, my pale complexion, and my fake smile. The place was awesome though. The tigers were tied up for obvious reasons, but they had all sorts of other animals wandering around too. They escorted you to several different tigers laying around, and took the photos for you for free, or donations. It was a beautiful place, I just wished I was feeling better. I don't know what I had, but the worst of it was that day and night. I still felt crappy, and had an upset stomach for several days after, but I didn't let it ruin the rest of my trip.


This is the Weekend Market. There is no way I can describe how big this is, and there is no way I can show you with a picture, unless I take the picture from a higher elevation. It is enormous. I am so glad I still came to this market. I got to witness what I read about in the Lonely Planet. It says that twice a day, at certain times, they play the national anthem over the loud speakers everywhere in Bangkok, including the subways and this market. You are supposed to stop everything, and stand up. It was insane to witness all this hustle and bustle stand absolutely still when the anthem started playing. This isn't the picture of that. I wasn't supposed to move. What are you trying to get me in trouble?


Ahaa! Our second trip out of Bangkok. By this point, Katie has changed her flight, and left Thailand early. I forgot to tell you, she was out of money, and freaking out. She left while we were at the market, and left a note by our door. Enough of that, do you remember the mole hair guy I told you about at the beginning of this post? Check out our tour guide here. That's not spaghetti hanging from his chin, that's an incredibly awesome gray mole hair goatee blowing in the wind. He was a really nice guy and he moley moley moley moley moley.


So, the nice moley man tour guide was showing and telling us about the old capital of Thailand, Ayutthaya City. All the rest of the photos were taken around the city at different temples, most of them in ruins.




This guy was a former ruler of Thailand. To honor him after his death, they put all these cocks around the temples. The white temple in the first picture had hundreds of cocks lined up at the entrance, just like the ones pictured here.

Do not disturb

This Buddha statue was destroyed during a war, and only the head remained. The tree naturally grew around it.

The end of my trip had some stress too. It started with stress, was awesome, and ended with stress. My trip was an awesome sandwich on stress bread. My flight home was at 11 PM flight. This was partly because I wanted to make my trip as long as possible, and partly because I had little other flight time options. So, I got that nice last full day at the old capital before I left. However, this flight had little time to spare from when I was supposed to arrive, and the time I was supposed to work Monday morning. I was prepared all along to go straight to work, if I had to. I bought my shuttle bus ticket to the airport earlier in the day. Then, when it was time, I went to wait for the bus at the place I bought the shuttle ticket. The shuttle was running late. Plenty of people were waiting out side, going in, and then reporting back to everyone outside. The bus had broken down. I didn't go in to check because other people were doing it, and I hadn't seen any buses whatsoever stop to pick up people. The bus was over a half an hour late. Then after talking to some people some more, I realized that they are not waiting for the bus to the airport. I went inside to ask about the bus to the airport. She called someone to see how I got missed, while she asks me for my receipt. She says something to the person on the phone, hangs up, and the tells me I'm a moron. Well, not literally, but she tells me I'm at the wrong place. It was a different company. I walked out, walked past a coffee shop, and the next place, which is the same size and color as the place I was just at, is the place I bought the ticket. I thought, surely I still would have seen the bus for this company only two places down. Nope, they use vans. Of course, I missed that van because I was so late. I asked if they could put me on the next van, one hour later from the one I was going to go on. After a few phone calls to check to see if there was space for me, I got the OK. Now, I am getting stressed about the time. If I don't make my flight, there might not be any more flights until tomorrow. I would miss a day of work. Well, I get to the airport. I can't find my check in counter right away, even after asking someone. I finally find it. There is no line, which is worrying if you are running late. Then the guy tells me, after looking at my itinerary and confirmation papers, that he doesn't know why the itinerary says that date. The date in his computer says one day earlier. I would have to be put on stand by. I am told that I have to go to another counter, which of course, I can't find right away. After waiting, for what felt like a long time, they tell me they can put me on the flight, and give me a ticket. I did end up going straight to work after all. It just wouldn't have made any sense, and I would have to rush around. I was going to give the travel agent hell.....until I spoke with Katie. Katie was at work that morning, and told me that when she changed her flight to leave one day early, the people at the airport kept trying to include my flight also. She told me that she kept telling them otherwise. So, the travel agent probably didn't mess up, and all is forgiven. I'm just glad I hadn't made that phone call yet. It was a rough day at work, but I went home, and slept until work the next day.


Now for the battle for my favorite Asian country so far, all two of them.

Food: Hands down Thailand! Korean food is awful, Thailand has incredible food like phad thai, and different curries.

Weather: Hands down Thailand! I know it's not fair because I was in Thailand for less than two weeks, but the weather was spectacular. I'm sure the summers are miserably hot and rainy, but I'm used to Florida. I'm not used to freezing my butt off in the Korean winters. Korea's fall was pretty nice though, but I still have to give it to Thailand. One thing is for sure, the winters are better in Thailand. I was wearing shorts and sandals the my whole trip. It snowed for a few minutes while I was at work, my first morning back.

Scenery: I need to see more to be able to tell, but I think I have to give this to Thailand too. I definitely haven't been everywhere in Korea, but I have been to some places. Some of them are very beautiful, but so far, nothing as spectacular as what I saw in Thailand. Korea has beautiful mountains, parks, and trees everywhere lining the streets. I liked Thailand's beaches better. Thailand's temples are a million times better. Ask anyone in Korea. The temples might be in an extremely beautiful location, but the temples themselves, if you've seen one, you've seen them all. I almost forgot about Korea's pollution problem. The air quality here is terrible. It is a common site to see someone wearing a mask here in Korea.

People: Thailand, Thailand, Thailand! There are very plenty of very nice people in Korea, but ask any foreigner living here if they have ever been stared at, ignored, not sat next to in a bus or subway, or treated with less respect, and they will answer you YES. The Thai people were incredibly friendly. The whole trip, I was looked at in the eyes, was given a warm smile, was given a slight bow of respect, and said hello to in English or in the Thai language. I have never felt more welcomed in a foreign place anywhere else so far in my life. And the spitting!!!!! Korean people spit. Men and women do it. Young and old Koreans do it. It's my least favorite thing about Korea. When I first moved here, I actually considered it an inside joke of mine. I would here at least one Korean hauck a loogie a day. When I would hear it, I would smile to myself, and think there's my one for today. But now I'm just grossed out again. The bus drivers do it. The taxi drivers will open the door, when they actually do stop at a red light, and hauck one out on the street. I've seen a Korean man spit on the floor at a bar. I've seen women spit while waiting for a bus. I've seen a Korean guy spit every minute into the ashtray he's using for his cigarette. I've walked on the sidewalk, avoiding spit, at 9 AM on a Saturday. It's so nasty.

Please don't get me wrong. I am loving my experience here in Korea, and I am probably going to stay longer than my one year contract, but I am going back to Thailand before I leave. Thailand wins the battle!

Some more side notes:
Popular phrases and words that Thai people use are: "same same" and "impossible". If you go, you will hear these words frequently. If they say the price is 300 Baht, and you say "I'll give you 100", they will say "impossible". If you ask for a price of one shirt, and then ask the price for another, they will probably say "same same".

In the Thai language, there is a polite way to end your sentences. For a female it's "ka". For a male, like me, it's "krap". That's right, I was walking around Thailand the whole time saying "crap" at the end of my sentences. Well, I didn't really know any sentences, but I did use it at the end of hello - "sawat di krap". Kristen told me, near the end of the trip, that she found out that I was pronouncing it wrong. I still couldn't hear the difference. Besides, it was more fun saying crap, and the Thai people didn't seem to notice, or care. They just liked that I was trying to use their language. Crappity crap crap crap!

One last thing, if you want to see all my pictures of Thailand (so far) here's the link. There are almost 500, so make sure you have at least 42 hours of spare time.

http://www.dropshots.com/erikmeri
guest password: "Thailand" with a capital T