vacay: filipino style^^

even though school is technically out for winter vacation, i only get 9 days off [sadness]. this year, i decided to go to the philippines with my friend jen, basically because it's warm and i'd never been there before. in hindsight, our vacation should have been more heavily researched [meaning: researched] prior to leaving korea. oops.

manila:
our vacation got off to an amazingly wonderful start. the lady at the ticket check-in counter was taking foreverrr to check us in, and we were starting to worry [i don't trust "e-tickets" haha]. as it turns out, it took so long because she had upgraded us to first class--probably because she thought we were pretty awesome. neither jen nor i had ever flown first class before, and it was quite possibly the greatest experience of my life. the seats are soooo big that i was able to curl up into a ball and sleep. also, the food is...edible. i don't think i can ever fly economy again.

after maybe 4 hours of flying, we landed in manila. the weather was hot and wonderful, and we were still pretty excited about our vacation. so, we hopped into a taxi and 30 minutes later the driver stops in sketchville and gets out of the car. we have arrived at our hotel. excellent...

our hotel was literally in the middle of what appeared to be a crime-ridden slum area. [i say this because it looked like a picture of the great depression-era hoovervilles that you see in history books, and there were people sitting on the sidewalks flipping knives.] also, i'm pretty sure we were the only guests staying in the hotel, and the workers definitely lived there. so that was kinda weird.

as it turned out, our hotel was a 2-mile walk from a big, nice shopping area, which is where we spent most of our time.

on our second day in manila, we decided to go sightseeing. luckily, we got the world's nicest cab driver, who [for a very small fee] played the role of tourguide for the day. he drove us around for about 6 hours, taking us to all of the interesting/historical places in manila. we started at intramuros, which was the old spanish fort/prison. it was really cool; you could climb the walls surrounding the fort and it offered a pretty good view of the city. from there we went to the gardens [conveniently located at another old spanish prison], the cathedral, chinatown [the oldest chinatown in the world...allegedly], and the U.S. WWII memorial. pretty interesting stuff.

oh yeah, i was also on tv. in the philippines. so, i'm kind of like an international superstar. [of tourism shows...i've also been on tv in korea twice, both times on tourism shows for the kpop segmentㅋㅋㅋ] at intramuros, a camera crew was set up, so i told jen to "casually" lurk in the background, and luckily my plan worked because the reporter came up to us and asked us to be on her show. jen didn't want to talk, so i did...just answering questions about tourism in the philippines [where we were from, why we were there, etc. etc. etc.]

cebu:
when the time came for us to leave manila [we were there for only 4 days], we weren't really sad at all...we were wayyyy too excited about going to the beach!! too bad we didn't know...

...that our hotel was lies.

ok, so before we went to the philippines we wanted to book our hotels to avoid hassle at the airport. so we researched the cheaply priced hotels we found using kayak.com [an excellent travel search engine], and we found one that we thought fit our standards. it claimed that it was merely 0.9miles from the beach and 3miles from the airport.

LIES.

it was 45 minutes from the airport and 1 hour from the beach. by taxi. pretty much it was the worst hotel ever. EVERRRRR. it was located in the middle of freaking nowhere. in an even worse area than our hotel in manila. [for real. we were awakened every night to the sound of sirens, and there were homeless people and hookers everywhere outside of our hotel. not okay.] even worse, our room was literally infested with ants and cockroaches. we told the people at the front desk about this problem...they looked at us like we were stupid, and they refused to let us change rooms.

also, the guard at the door seemed intent on trying to rip us off on cab fares. we had checked with the travel agent next to our hotel, and they told us what metered cabs would cost to get to various locations. they circled a nice beach on a map, and told us that the guard's job was to ensure that guests are not ripped off.

well, our first full day in cebu, we wanted to go to the beach. we showed the guard our map, and then he attempts to charge us 5 times what the metered fare should be. we argued with him for a while, and finally were able to bring it down to a more fair price. because of this, the cab driver starts off in an extremely pissed off mood. [which possibly explains what happens next...] the guy drives past the beach we had circled on a map and down a long unpaved side-street, overgrown with trees and bushes. we ended up in the middle of what appeared to be a run-down, abandoned resort. he pulled up the the beach area, stopped the car, and asked us to get out. when we refused, he actually got out of the cab and forced us out! then, he sped away, leaving us completely stranded. suddenly, about 10 guys came out from the abandoned hotel rooms [evidently, they lived there]. they started calling out at us, and i looked at jen and told her we absolutely had to get away. NOW. i remembered that there was a big resort nearby, and that if we could make it back to the main road, then we would probably be ok.

luckily, we walk fast and were able to make an escape. honestly, i've never been more frightened in my life [and i don't scare very easily...i mean, i've been followed at night and robbed at gunpoint. soo yeah, being frightened by this experience is saying a lot.]

apparently, there are no public beaches in cebu, and you have to pay to use any resort's beach area for the day. we were able to find one within our price range, and while we were there we asked the [thankfully] kind and helpful staff about public beaches. the lady said there was one, but that it wasn't safe, especially since we were white women travelling alone. her exact words were "getting kidnapped is probably something that would happen to you, as white women." awesome. she also indicated that it was in the direction that we had come from. more than likely it was were psycho cabbie had dropped us off.

the next day, to avoid the hotel and it's staff we spent the day island hopping. jen was mostly happy about being on a boat, and i was happy about snorkeling. it was awesome!! we collected sand dollars, saw blue starfish [they reminded me of papua new guinea!], and we got attacked by the same "ninja" fishㅋㅋㅋ

after one more miserable day at hotel hell-hole, we decided we could take no more. we decided to take the [monetary] loss and book a resort on the beach. luckily, i found a sweet deal online [$73 a night for a room that usually runs at $200/night--UMMHECKYESS], so we spent the last 3 days of our vacation blissfully sleeping on the beach. our resort was called costabella [i absolutely recommend it], and everything about it was beautiful, it had 2 pools, and a super clean beach area--white sand and clear water. sigh.

even though the vacation ended well, i think we were both ready to head back home to korea.

to our shock and surprise, we got upgraded...again!! for freeeee!! [happiness and joy!!]
sigh. i freaking love business class^^

all-in-all, an interesting vacation...with equal parts good and bad [and the good was VERY good...while the bad was also VERY bad]. not sure that i would ever go back, but then again, even if it was the world's most amazing vacation i still probably wouldn't go back...i'm far too interested in seeing things that i've never seen before, and going places that i've never been. [i have a list of 30 more countries that i want to visit...]

6th grade trip~

dear lovely readers: i sincerely apologize for having temporarily disappeared from the internet for the past week and a half. life has been [and still is] crazy busy. 아이고~~

wednesday, 13 october: "do you want to hear the fish death sound?"

almost two weeks ago, i had the chance to accompany the 6th grade on a three-day trip. since the 6th graders are my favorite students, i jumped at the opportunity. we went to 금산 [geumsan] which is a mountain three hours away from my school. [along the 금강 (geum river) which is apparently famous(??)].

i wasn't given a schedule for this trip, so i had no idea what to expect. it was much, much different from past school trips that i've attended in that, on those, we travelled from place to place to see museums and other national treasures. this trip was more like a camp. we stayed at the same place the entire time. there were counselors working at the facitility who were in charge of watching the kids, so the teachers went off and did their own thing.

the first day, i hung out with the other teachers. we went walking along the river and then hiking in search of chestnuts. as it turns out, i'm quite good at cracking open chestnuts with my feet. [i've got mad skills~~]

also, some of the teachers went fishing. since i have a [completely legitimate] fear of fish, i decided not to join them. however, i had no idea that they intended to catch fish for dinner. so i was completely surprised when a bucket full of fish was brought back to the room. apparently, a certain type of fish makes a "death sound". they happened to catch this fish, and all of the teachers held it up to their ears to listen. a coworker asked me if i'd like to hear it, but when i said no [and did the big "hand x"] she proceeded to shove the fish in my ear anyways.

congratulations coworker, i've been scarred for life.

thursday, 14 october: "teacher, you have a dolphin scream."

the other teachers decided to go hiking on thursday, but i wanted to spend time with my students so i hung with them for the day.

first, i was told that we would be going rafting. which i found out really only meant "row from one side of the river and back again." i shared a raft with some of my girls, and we were embarassingly lacking in directional skills. for some reason, we could only manage to go in a giant circle, and the counselor definitely yelled at us. oops.

next was archery. two years of working at a summer camp where i had to teach archery has let me know that i am completely untalented in this area. sooo, i didn't even make an attempt. instead, i talked to and played games with the kids that were waiting for their turn. one of the boys tried to throw a dragonfly at me, and when i screamed, other boys joined in by carrying grasshoppers and more dragonflies. so i screamed and ran away. [insects: another completely legitimate fear that i have.] when the boys had finally had their fun scaring the poor english teacher, they told me that i sounded like a dolphin when i screamed. excellent.

the camp had a huge zipline set up over the river, and i got to ride it! that was definitely the most fun thing i got to do that day. except that, at the end, i forgot to move the handles back and forth to brake, and i definitely ran into the counselor at the end. luckily, i shrieked a warning so he was prepared. oops.

also, i got to go with my students to "rec dance", and we learned the dance to bigbang's world cup song. yeah, i pretty much suck at dancing.

that night was the talent show [my students are sooo cute] and a bonfire. after the students went back to their rooms, i went on a walk with one of my fellow teachers, and we saw a shooting star!

friday, 15 october: crazy bus driver

i nearly lost my life on the bus ride home.

for real.

korea is infamous for crazy bus//taxi drivers, but this dude was BY FAR the worst [that i've ever ridden with, at least]. he was more concerned with changing the radio station than paying attention to the road. [and he kept the volume turned off, so i have absolutely no idea why he even bothered messing with the dial...] he also decided that he wanted to drive in the far-left lane, which was UNDER CONSTRUCTION, so he'd drive in there for a bit, and when he came to bulldozers or construction workers, he'd move back into the right lane. he definitely ran over at least 5 orange traffic cones by doing this.

his worst offense happened near the end of our journey. we were ON the INTERSTATE. he missed his exit. did he drive to the next one and turn around? of course not. instead he put the bus IN REVERSE. and BACKED UP. on the freaking INTERSTATE.

luckily, no people or vehicles were physically harmed during the duration of the bus ride.

pictures:

the long way home

a few simple rules govern my life:
1.) germs are everywhere.
2.) don't touch me.*
3.) gingivitis can kill you. probably.
4.) don't talk to strangers on planes.
*exception: if i haven't seen you in a really long time. like a year. or longer.

i observe the last rule only to avoid the inevitable awkward situation that arises when either they offend you, you offend them, or you arrive at the mutual [or not-so-mutual] agreement that you have absolutely nothing in common. uncomfortable silence follows for the rest of the flight, and now the minutes seem to pass by even more slowly. awesome.

now, i'm not so unfriendly that i won't acknowledge the person. there should be a greeting or something when you first sit together. maybe a short, surface-level conversation. an occasional joke about food quality, the flight, etc. and then the infrequent "excuse me, i'm sorry" when getting up to use the restroom. i mean, i'm not so rude as to ignore a person completely. polite, friendly, short conversation is acceptable. but i'm certainly not about to delve into your personal life.

well, on thursday, my vacation officially began. after waiting for an eternity, it was finally time to board the plane in seoul for the long flight to los angeles. and by "long flight", i mean, it was 11 freaking hours long.

and lucky me got to sit next to chatty cathy. seriously. homeboy asked WAYYYYYYYYYY too many questions. also, homeboy either:
1.) was not listening to any of the answers i was giving him. [which pisses me off. if i ask you a question, you had better believe that i care enough about your answer to listen to what you are saying. otherwise, i'm not going to waste your time and mine by asking you a stupid question that i don't care enough about to listen to your answer.]
2.) had short-term memory loss. [which i, quite frankly, don't have the patience to deal with on an 11 hour flight.]

so apparently, homeboy was a teacher in korea. a native english teacher, like me, just with a different program. also, whenever i asked a question to be polite, he would always give an evasive answer. or give an answer to a question i didn't ask. the following is the exact answer he gave to this question:
me: so, where in korea did you teach?
homeboy: i'm from l.a.
ok, so did i miss something?? how is that an answer?? does everyone from l.a. who teaches in korea all teach in the same place?? ahhh~~i don't understand!!

also, homeboy, who was from america by the way, didn't seem to realize that places outside of california exist.
homeboy: so is l.a. your final stop?
me: no, i actually just have a layover there.
homeboy: so where's home for you?
me: i'm from north carolina. charlotte.
homeboy: i don't know where that is.
me: oh. it's on the border of north carolina and south carolina.
homeboy: i've never been to northern california.
me: umm. me neither. i've actually never been in california except for the l.a. airport.
homeboy: so what's it like in northern cali.
me: i don't know. i've never been there.
homeboy: do you drive from northern cali to l.a. often?
me: no. i've never been to l.a. and i've never been to northern cali. i'm from the southeastern part of the united states.
homeboy: oh. so, where in cali is that?
me: AJFAKSJDFKJALDSFKJF I DON'T LIVE IN FREAKING CALIFORNIA AKJKFSDLJKFADKLJFSDADLJKDFLJK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

also, homeboy liked to ask a lot of prying questions. and then he criticize me. which pissed me off as well.
homeboy: so, what did you do in college. like, extracurriculars?
me: umm, i tutored elementary school students, played intramural soccer, and played ultimate frisbee.
homeboy: i've never heard of ultimate frisbee.
me: oh. well, it's really fun. it's kind of like football, except with a frisbee. and tackling is generally frowned upon.
homeboy: so, you just throw a frisbee to people?
me: well, yes. but it's more complicated than that.
homeboy: that sounds boring and stupid. people in northern cali have an interesting way of entertaining themselves.
me: for real homeboy? imma hit you in the face!!
***
homeboy: this flight is really long.
me: yeah, i know. 11 hours.
homeboy: do you want to talk to me for 11 hours?
me: nope. i plan on sleeping. and listening to music. and pretty much doing ANYTHING that's NOT talking to you. kthnx.

so i have a really really really hard time falling asleep sitting up and in public. making it virtually impossible for me to fall asleep on an airplane. so if i am lucky enough to fall asleep, you should absolutely not wake me up under any circumstances [unless the plane is either: 1.) on fire, or 2.) has a giant hole ripped into the side of it and people are getting sucked out.]
well, i had just fallen asleep when i felt a tapping on my shoulder...
homeboy: were you asleep?
me: umm. YES.
homeboy: well i just have a really important question to ask you. i've been thinking about it for a while and it's bothering me.
me: umm. ok.
homeboy: how many people went to your university.
in my mind, i punched him in the face. repeatedly.

he had such a hard time remembering anything that i had said, and i was super irritated, so i started to give him stupid, ridiculous answers to every question that he asked.
homeboy: what will you do at home?
me: just visit friends and family. i'm only on vacation for a month.
homeboy: why won't you get a job? that sounds pretty lazy.
me: umm. because i'm only going to be on vacation. for one month. then i'm going back to korea.
homeboy: i think you should get a job.
me: i have a job. in korea.
homeboy: but you're in america now. you should find a job.
me: ok. well i'm going back to korea in one month. i'm not going to find a job in america. i have a job in korea.
homeboy: so what do you do in korea?
me: well, as i said before, i am a teacher. so i'm going to teach english.
homeboy: so that's your job. in korea?
me: yes. and also i'm an actress and i date T.O.P from bigbang. and i was abducted by aliens when i was a child.
***
homeboy: who's your favorite kpop singer?
me: T.O.P from bigbang.
homeboy: so, who do you like better: T.O.P or g-dragon?
me: umm. T.O.P.
homeboy: who do you like better: T.O.P or seung ri?
me: umm. T.O.P
this went on for like 5 minutes...
homeboy: which is your favorite kpop girls' group?
me: 2NE1.
homeboy: so what you're saying is, you hate kara [another girls' group]?
me: no. just, 2NE1 is my favorite.
homeboy: why do you hate kara so much?
me: umm. i don't.
homeboy: yes you do. you hate them.
and this went on for about 5 more minutes. and his face got dark and clouded over and it was freaking scary.

so. that was my flight home.

the next flight from l.a. to charlotte was about 5 hours and completely uneventful. except that the man in front of me kept slamming his seat into my knees. and there was a baby that cried. THE. ENTIRE. TIME. at which point i decided that i like sleeping more than i like babies and if i ever get married i will be adopting teenagers or children over age eight.

fun in the sun ^^

since last wednesday was children's day, and i therefore had a three day break from school, i decided to go to jeju-do with my friends andre and coleen. [for those of you who don't know, jeju-do is a small island off the southern coast of korea.]

jeju day 1: thursday~~public transportation SUCKS.

we arrived in jeju city fairly early thursday morning. [i would not recommend staying in jeju city, we spent most of our time on the southern part of the island near seogwipo~~but yeha guesthouse, where we stayed, was pretty nice.]

since that day was cloudy and drizzly, we decided to hit up some museums and parks that the weather wouldn't really effect. first, we went to hallim park which is a botanical garden. it was pretty cool; the highlight was the bird that screamed "hello" in korean.

and this is when we learned that the public transportation system in jeju absolutely sucks. our taxi driver had promised to wait for us while we were at the park. [that's what allllll of the other taxi drivers were doing...] so, when we left the park, we were shocked to learn that he was nowhere in sight. in fact, he was close to ONE HOUR away [we called him]. luckily, another taxi driver [who was waiting] offered to call his company to send another cab.

our next stop was the chocolate museum/factory. or, more accurately "museum of random trinkets and knick-knacks that some pathetic person has hoarded for way too long". seriously. also, the fudge that they let us sample had entirely too much cocoa powder and not enough evaporated milk.

our final destination for the day was the soingook miniatures theme park, which featured miniature statues of many of the world's most famous landmarks. it was pretty cool.

but, once again, the jeju public transportation system failed us. first of all the public buses. the bus driver seemed to have no idea where we were going, or where we should get off of his bus. also, apparently the bus system is one way. because we were unable to catch a return bus. instead, the workers at the theme park told us to ride home with them in their work van. it was...interesting. to say the least.

at soingook theme park~~omygosh I LOVE SMURFS!!

jeju day 2: friday~~dolphins juseyo!

friday morning, we caught the bus to mount halla, korea's tallest mountian which also happens to be a dormant volcano. we had planned to hike to the summit, because the view is supposed to be spectacular. unbeknowst to us, it was a four hour hike--one way. sooo yeah. we didn't exactly make it very far. to be exact, we hiked 3.2 km. [out of the approximate 4 million it would have taken us to reach the top.]

that afternoon, we decided to go to pacific land. it's supposed to be a large aquarium with penguins and a dolphin show. coleen called the place before we left, just to make sure it would still be open. unfortunately, the guy could only speak korean. so when coleen asked me if i knew how to ask him "what time is the dolphin show?" i replied "dolphins juseyo". which is absolutely not right, because it means "give me a dolphin, please". also, "dolphin" is not a word in korean, but in my defense, i was put on the spot. aigoo.

unfortunately, by the time we got off of the bus at the pacific land stop, the park was already closed. however, we did take that opportunity to go to the beach, which was absolutely beautiful.

that night, we went to what was quite possibly the most ghetto noraebang ever. but, it did give me a 99 [out of 100] for my rendition of "heartbreaker" by g-dragon. which i sang in korean. heckyess.

jeju day 3: saturday~~possibly drunk ahjussi taxi drivers are freaking scary.

our last day in jeju, we decided to go to doma park for horseback riding.

and, once again, we were reminded just how much the public transportation situation in jeju absolutely SUCKS.

our ahjussi [a korean term for an older man] taxi driver was possibly drunk [according to andre] and definitely drove like a crazed maniac. also, he drove us around to sketchville, jeju in an effort to drive up our fare. also, he yelled at us a lot for no apparent reason, and when we finally got to the park, he followed us out of the cab and up to the ticket counter to scream at us some more. it was pretty scary, and i was fairly certain that he was either going to kidnap us or attack us.

the park was pretty fun after the scary cabbie left. we saw a horse show, and then we got to ride the horses. my horse, apart from being the prettiest one, was also the most homicidal. at one point, i literally thought i was going to fall off and die. the guy who was supposed to be leading my horse [he was also on horseback] decided that it would be fun to gallop instead of trotting at a leisurely, safe pace. bad idea. i barely escaped with my life.

also, part of "boys before flowers", my absolute favorite kdrama, was filmed here. awesome.

ji hoo~~i LOVE him.