Ringin in the New Year: Thai Style

This holiday season was unlike one I've ever had before. Instead of ham and roast beef, I ate sweet and sour chicken and Subway. Instead of gifts under the tree and family, we had white elephant exchanges with Koreans and I spent it with friends and random travellers along the way! I can't say it was any better or worse than years past, just so different. I have definitely been missing my real home and my family a lot, it's that time of the year when family is what's cozy. But I'm lucky to have the people I have here and it was still a holiday season full of fun and good cheer. As sad as I was to be away from the Pac NW for Christmas and New Years, I was lucky enough to be able to replace the feelings of homesickness with anticipation of some Christmas fun in the sun! Myself and about 8 other friends from the Dongtan area travelled to Thailand for our winter break.



We spent the first night in Bangkok, two nights on the island Koh Samui, and then the remainder of the 4 nights on Koh Phangan. Here is the pictorial story of my vacation:



The Tuk Tuk: public transportation! It's just about as safe as it looks...



Cruisin the street shops in Bangkok.



Christmas dinner at Subway! We had reservations at this great restaurant for a Christmas dinner, but our flight from China (layover) to Bangkok was delayed 2 hours so we missed our reservation! And when I say delayed, I mean we boarded the plane and sat on the runway for two hours due to "mechanical problems". Not fun! But insignificant compared to the TWELVE hours my friend Josh spent on the runway before his flight to India (no joke- they sat on their airplane without moving for 12 hours). Also, I got pretty sick on the flight from China to Bangkok, something I ate in one of my meals during the flight. I was already a bit nervous about finding food in Thailand due to my peanut allergy, so I suggested Subway for dinner and the crew went along with it! Like I said, just a wee bit different than the holiday meal I'm used to!



Bangkok airport- beautiful isn't it?



The beach out front of our hotel in Koh Samui- I don't hate it!



Carly, Bri and I on the beach. Rough life!



Inside the restuarant of the Koh Samui hotel.





Another shot of our hotel in Koh Samui.



Prayer offering area on the way to the elephant ride.





Look what we found! It was so incredible to see these animals up close and personal, I fed them bananas and had to wipe all the elephant snot off my legs! It was also amazing to feel their skin, I don't even know what I could compare it to.





Obviously he was ready for his close-up!





Our guide- he was awesome! And really nice to the elephants which was good. I hear if you go for an "elephant ride" somewhere random and off the beaten path they can be pretty harsh to the animals, but these guys just used words and vocal sounds to guide the elephants around.



I thought this was kind of a cool picture, can you get perspective? It is looking down from the top of the elephant so you can see the ear and behind it is one of his massive feet.





By the ferry dock for our 45 minute ride to the next island over, Koh Phangan.



The view right outside our bungalow on Koh Phangan. Our bungalow may have been ghetto (4 people in one room, a showerhead dangling by its last screw on the wall, a sink that just drained onto the floor instead of through pipes... ) but this view definitely was not. I could wake up to this for the rest of my life!



The guys playing some volleyball on the beach! We spent a lot of time just right out front of our bungalows, there was a nice beach with volleyball and hammocks hanging from coconut trees, why would you need to go anywhere else? :)



View from the restaurant we stopped at along the way to our island boat tour! It was absolutely breathtaking, I dont have any pictures that actually do it justice.



Would you like to take a little trip up to the "View PINT"? Haha some of the translations were pretty funny!



"Please Take Off Your SHOSE". Oops I must have left my SHOSE at home!



This is Utopia, the restaurant we had lunch at before our boat tour and also home to that amazing view shown a few pictures above.



The beautiful fall-away pool at Utopia, with Ian and the ocean in the background.



Just an example of the kind of roads around Koh Phangan, steep hills in the middle of the jungle!!



Beauty.



Finally, we made it to the boats! We took the traditional Thai boats to a snorkeling spot and 2 other islands close to Koh Phangan.



Snorkel time! Andy and I in the waters right off Koh Phangan. I saw so many different and beautiful fish boasting the most vivid colors! Rainbow fish, fish with neon blue fins, bright pink jellyfish... I could go on and on. They also had amazing species of coral, kinds that looked like a blanket completely covering the underwater boulders. It was all pretty amazing! And mom and dad you can attest to this, I haven't always been the biggest fan of snorkeling. I still get a little jittery when I get caught in a school of fish or something but I am much more daring these days, I really enjoyed it!



Some scenery along the way.



The guys!



We had an hour or so to kill on the first island and it wasn't the nicest weather, so we played a rousing game of "coconut ball". :) I played for a long time but I was out pretty quick on the first round, which is why I was able to take this picture.



I took this picture on our way back in from the boat tour. These are some Thai fishing boats docked and what caught my eye was the amazing colors. Each boat was very brightly painted!





My ride for the week! This was one of the things I wanted to do most on my vacation, rent a motorbike. Don't worry, I wore my helmet each time and never went over 90 kmph! ;) Riding through one of the most beautiful places I've ever been, topping hills to find amazing views of jungle and ocean, was one of the most freeing feelings I've ever experienced. It was a blast!



Quirky little art gallery I came across on the ride to the south part of Koh Phangan. I stopped here on the last day on the island and picked up a few gems to bring home!

So there's a glimpse into my 2010 into 2011 holiday season! I am in the process of retrieving everyone else's pictures so I will put some more up in the next week or so!

Christmas Time in Korea!

Alright, I'm not going to say much to start this post out, I will just share with you all this picture:



Does anyone else find this as hilarious as we all did?!? Of course Ceasar is referring to the Woody doll from the movie Toy Story but could he have worded it any differently? On the Friday before break (Christmas Eve), we had each student write their wish for Santa on a card and then we hung them all on a Christmas tree in the lobby. Most of the kids wished to be princesses or for Lego sets, but Ceasar had to be an individual and ask for a woody from Santa. hahah sorry I know that's innappropriate but it's too funny not to share!!



Clara and I in front of the wish tree.



I had to help Clara draft her "wish". How CUTE is she?! I'm going to miss her so much when we leave in a couple months.



It's an LCI Christmas! This is all of us morning teachers and the LCI kindergarten students on Christmas Eve.

Tis the Season

The last few weeks have been full of delicious food, good cheer, and love is in the air! Us LCI teachers managed to pull off a Thanksgiving feast towards the end of last month and we had the amazing opportunity last weekend to go to a Korean wedding! Our amazing food! I cooked the stuffing, gravy, and Bapka's apple betty and the other teachers contributed the rest. Josh had to go onto one of the army bases to get the turkey, that is one meat rarely consumed here in Korea! For most of the Korean teachers, it was their first time eating turkey and trying gravy. Josh and I carving the turkey! Felt weird to be in charge this year instead of just eating! My first (and maybe last :) Thanksgiving eaten with chopsticks! Brianna, Katie and I. One of my partner teachers, Bora and I. Here's the little man! This is Isaac, Jade's son. He is too cute and he really likes me! So in the friendly Thanksgiving competitive spirit, I suggested we do trivia like we do at home. It was too funny! Here is the winning team, Jennifer, Ian, Katie, Nick, Lynn and Sylvia. .....and here's the losing team. Jade, Sue, Nick and I. We only lost by one point and if Nick would have listened to me and not vetoed like 4 of my answers we would have won! The gang's all here! This is the whole group of us LCI teachers. It was such a good experience to have shared that feast with each other. It was a delicious fusion of Western Thanksgiving food and Korean food, so much fun to see the Korean's reactions to our cooking! Well, we managed to pull of a Thanksgiving meal in the middle of Korea. I was surprised it all came together! Another big happening of the last few weeks was Lynn's wedding. Her and her boyfriend G-Money (that's not his real name haha that's just what we call him, I can't pronounce his real name!) of 8 years got married and were kind enough to invite all the teachers from LCI. Let me tell you, it was quite the experience! Such a different process than a western wedding. The venue was a huge convention center in Suwon that we nicknamed the "wedding factory", it was maybe a 6 story building with tons of rooms on each floor for different wedding ceremonies. There was a new marriage in each room every half hour or so, there must have been 20 other couples married at the same time as Lynn. Right after Lynn and G-Money walked down the aisle as a married couple, they were changing the coffee cups on our table and ushering us out of the room to make way for the next ceremony! Lynn sat in a beautifully decorated room for a couple hours while pictures were taken. She just sat on this loveseat thing and everyone would crowd around her for pictures. Lynn looked absolutely breathtaking, she was wearing the most stunning beaded and sparkling dress! The beautiful bride! Lynn with Katie. Check out Katie's new do! She has been blonde since 6th grade and just dyed her hair dark, she looks so different than what I am used to! Lynn and I. The LCI boys with Lynn. They all got bowties and suspenders for the wedding, clean up nicely huh! This is a picture of the stewardess-looking women who tended to Lynn all afternoon. Us girls, we clean up nice too, huh?! :) Here's the aisle, it looked more like a runway to me! Lynn and her father. After the ceremony, the bride and groom approached each set of parents and did the very traditional bow. Josh and I having a spot of tea!