this is the post i'd like to call "a fail of epic proportions"

part one: epic fail

on saturday, whitney and i had the brilliant idea to go to the beach in thailand. we were led to believe that there was a beach two hours away from bangkok--by bus. so that morning, we ate breakfast and got ready for a fun day at the beach. we headed down to the bus station and hopped on a bus that we were told would take us to pattaya [which is the beach we were trying to go to].

two hours came and went. no beach.

three hours passed. still no beach.

then, the bus driver dropped us off on the side of the freaking road and told us to get on a new bus. so we did. we rode on the new bus for another hour, before finally getting off, very tired and extremely frustrated. four other american girls got off at the same stop as us, and we were forced to ride in a sketchy open air taxi the rest of the way to the beach.

we spotted a subway near the beach, so we ate lunch there--after travelling for over four hours, we were very hungry. after eating, we immediately felt rejuvenated and ready to spend the afternoon at the beach.

the beach was SUPER CROWDED, but we managed to rent chairs right along the ocean. we put on sunscreen and were starting to relax under the warm thai sun, listening to the gentle sound of the waves.

and then, approximately 2.5 seconds later, it started raining--pouring might be a better word.

gray clouds completey blocked out the sun, and there were no blue skies in sight. we tried to escape the rain by running into the ocean, which we then discovered was completely littered in trash [making the environmentalist in me quite angry]. refusing to trudge through trash to cleaner, deeper water, i chose to stand in the rain.

we tried to wait it out, but 30 minutes later, there was no end in sight. so we hailed a cheap cab and were off to bangkok.

or so we thought.

turns out, the taxis from pattaya can only go to the airport. so that's where we went. this--ordinarily--may not have been a big deal...except that we had to go through the freaking airport to get downstairs to find another taxi to take us back to our hotel. still doesn't seem like that big of an ordeal, right?? wrong. we were wearing swimsuits and cover-ups, not to mention we were looking SUPER beautiful from having been rained on.

aigoo. [this is a word that koreans say--i'm told it has no real translation, so i assume it means something like this: asjdfklajsdfklajsdklfjerjklakljsdajknljasdfkljasdfklj!!]


part two: poverty leaves you stranded in bangkok during a storm for thirteen hours and five minutes

sunday. check-out day. and of course the hotel would be fully booked so we couldn't do late check-out, therefore forcing us to be out by 12.

no problem.

except that our flight wasn't until 1:05...AM.

soooooo, we had time to waste. a lot of time.

we went to the mall, and saw a movie--"cloudy with a chance of meatballs"--it was actually pretty good. we saw it in the imax, which was cool to me because i'd never seen a movie in an imax before. and then we had lunch and some white guy skipped me in line because i am invisible. and then we walked around the mall. and then we went to starbucks. for three hours.

for dinner, we decided to go to hard rock cafe because i wanted a t-shirt [especially since i had gotten one from the hard rock in ho chi minh city]. well, we had no idea where it was, and no one would tell us so we took a taxi. and the taxi driver drove us around in a big circle for 20 minutes and dropped us off about 100 feet from where he had picked us up. fail.

but, dinner was very good, and i got my t-shirt. so things were okay.

finally, it was time to go to the airport, which is where we did a lot of waiting in line. like a ridiculous amount of waiting in line. for two hours. only to find that our flight from bangkok to beijing had been...DELAYED...from 1:05am to 1:20am. well, 1:20 rolls around and we still hadn't boarded the plane. we didn't take off until after 2.

we thought this would be no big deal--it would just cut down on our layover in beijing. yeahhhh, we were wrong about that too. it turned out that our flight from beijing to incheon had also been...DELAYED.

aigoo.

part three: incheon, sweet incheon

sooo, don't get me wrong--vacation was great!! i think that both whitney and i had a lot of fun, and it was a really relaxing time...but i didn't expect to miss korea. at all.

but i did. a lot.

i'm sitting here at work, and vacation seems almost like it was a lifetime ago. but it's so good to be back. during english camp this morning, i realized that i had really missed teaching, and i had missed my kids. i missed being in a country that kinda sorta has traffic laws [guidelines may be a better word], where i kinda sorta understand what's going on. i missed kpop [just ask whitney...i got excited every time i heard a kpop song on the radio in vietnam and thailand]. i even missed korean food.

i think that being in different countries made me really grateful that i live [and work] where i do. i had seriously considered teaching elsewhere. i even applied to teach in russia--before i had applied for korea. i mean, i may get frustrated with korea sometimes, but overall it's a really great place to live. and work. [my current complaint is that i don't have a channel that picks up [american] football games. soooo, i have to miss the super bowl. and peyton manning is going to be in it. no fair.]

basically, this entire post was just to say: after 13 hours of being stranded in bangkok with no hotel, 2 delayed flights, 3 hours of sleep during a 36-hour period, and 1 meal during a 24-hour period, it feels so good to be back in korea.

aigoo.