South Korea Fun Facts #'s 3-9

I haven't done any South Korea Fun Facts in a while, so I'm going to go crazy and dedicate a blog purely for SKFF's. 

South Korea Fun Fact #3: Spit

Korean guys LOVE to spit.  It's fucking disgusting.  When I'm walking to and from work, I have to dodge spit pile after spit pile...not only stepping in it, but avoiding my crutches in the spit piles as well - spit is slippery!  Seriously, it's nasty.  Just this morning, I was waiting for the elevator in my apartment building when I heard a guy coming down the corridor, he hacked and spit a loogie...IN THE APARTMENT CORRIDOR!!  Then he joined me on the elevator.  Ugh!!

South Korea Fun Fact #4: Hair perms

It's almost like South Korea never advanced from the 80's with regards to hair perms.  They're so popular here...and not really in a good way.  They're so popular that when I go from having a straight-hair week to letting my hair go naturally curly, staff and students at my school always ask me if I've had a perm. 

South Korea Fun Fact #5: Car Lemmings

South Koreans are notorious for not embracing individuality.  They generally try to look the same (Korea is the country to come to if you're looking for plastic surgery); they rarely try to stand out in a crowd.  This even includes the color of their cars.  I would say about 85-90% of Korean's cars are either white, black, or silver.  If they're not white, black, or silver, they don't stray too far from those colors...maybe cream or gold.  Rarely do you see red cars, blue cars, green cars.  I knew my Korean co-teacher was a badass the moment I saw her car: sparkly orange.  Hers is the only car of that color that I've seen in Korea.

South Korea Fun Fact #6: Hello? Is It Me You're Looking For?

Because South Korea is a relatively small country with a relatively high population, it's built towards the sky.  The cities and suburbs are full of high rises which are full of intercoms.  This includes apartments.  Every apartment comes with it's own intercom speaker that, every now and then, likes to wake you up at 7am on a Saturday or Sunday morning with an important Korean announcement.  I just hope they're not announcing the apocalypse...I wouldn't understand a word of what was being said, therefore having no time to get my zombie apocalypse plan set in motion.  I'd be fucked.

The high rises of Hwajeong

South Korea Fun Fact #7: Smelly Kimchi

I'm not the biggest fan of Korean food.  It's either too spicy, too pickled, too bland, or too sweet for my taste.  But Koreans loooooooove their kimchi.  Spicy, garlicky, fermented cabbage.  They even have special refrigerators for it.  And it stinks.  When Koreans eat a lot of kimchi, which is pretty much all the time, the smell just flows from their pores and is gag-worthy.  Especially the older generation, I'm sorry to say they reek of smelly kimchi.  There's nothing worse than stepping onto a stuffy subway car crammed with older folks who smell like kimchi.  I need to invent something to insert up my nose to block out the smell of kimchi.

South Korea Fun Fact #8: You Can't Sit Here (said in the voices of the kids on the school bus in Forrest Gump)

Koreans generally don't like sitting next to me on the subway (I don't really like to sit next to them because of SKFF #7...).  If the subway car seats are full when I am sitting and a spot opens up at the next stop, nine times out of ten, Koreans who sit next to me will get up and move to the other open seat.  At first, I was slightly offended, and wondered if I have a weird American smell that they don't like.  But after a while (and when I realized they do this to my foreign friends as well), I didn't mind...actually, I was kind of grateful that I could stretch out a bit.  When I was coming back from the doctor last week, there was an open seat next to me.  Two ladies, not together, one by one stepped onto the subway, looked at me, looked at the seat, then walked to the next subway car were there were more open seats without any foreigners.  Whatever...more room for my ass!

And finally...
South Korea Fun Fact #9: An Endangered Species: The Book Reader

Koreans love technology.  It's the most connected nation in the world.  I read a percentage, which actually seemed quite low - and I can't remember the percentage, maybe 60%, of the amount of Koreans that have smart phones.  Even some of my students, who are like, 8 years old, have iPhone's or Samsung Galaxy's.  Sure, they're probably recycled from the parent's, but still!  When you step on the subway or bus, 95% of the people on it have their heads down in their smart phones playing games.  They even carry around extra batteries for their phones.  A rare occasion indeed is seeing someone with an actual, real, page-turning book on the subway.  When you see it, you have to document it.  It's like seeing an endangered animal in the wild.  Does it really exist?  Absolutely...and I only believe it because I photographed it.

An endangered species: The Subway Book-Reader

For South Korea Fun Fact #1, check out Doctor, my eyes... and you can learn about Fan Death.

For South Korea Fun Fact #2, check out It's a nice day, for a...white wedding and you can learn about smoking.

Happy Trails!

Wasting Time...in the Andaman Sea - A Photo Blog

Dreaming of sandy beaches and clear, turquoise waters, I bring you my newest photo blog of the few weeks I spent lounging on Koh Ngai in the Andaman Sea.

After I completed my TEFL certificate in February 2012, it was time to find a job.  Having imagined myself teaching wee Thai monsters in the mornings and spending lazy afternoons on a palm tree studded beach with a Mai Thai in my hand, I left Chiang Mai and headed south to Krabi to look for work.  I spent a few days in Krabi learning how to ride a motorbike and dropping off my CV at the schools in the area.  Meanwhile, my friend Laudi, who was a fellow student on my TEFL course, was living on Koh Ngai - a small island off the coast of Trang - with her diver-instructor boyfriend.  She invited me to come stay with them while I waited to hear about any job offers.  Her friend Laura was coming to visit from the Netherlands.  We spent the next few weeks lounging on hammocks and snorkeling in the beautiful Andaman Sea.

Catching the longtail boat from Trang to Koh Ngai

Sailors: Laudi, me, and Laura
(No, I wasn't intentionally flipping everyone off, I'm just no good at throwing "peace" signs)

Tu, preparing the fishing gear...I think.

First glimpse of Koh Ngai

Hanging out with the divers of Ronan Dive

Our first night, we headed to Koh Ra to snorkel while divers of Ronan Dive headed out for a night dive...
Overnight camping on a boat!

Beautiful Koh Ra

Storm brewing over Koh Ra...it was a doozy!

Waking up on a boat to this
Sunrise on the Andaman

From Koh Ra, we headed to Koh Rok, a national park

Beautiful beach of Koh Rok

Koh Rok

Looking out from Koh Ngai

Koh Ngai sunset

Sometimes, I sing on beaches

Enjoying a nice evening on the beach of Koh Ngai

Unfortunately, while I was in the south, I never received a call regarding a job in Krabi.  So, running out of money (because the south of Thailand is a bit more expensive than the north), I headed back to Chiang Mai...and 24 hours later was offered a job.  About three weeks after that, I received a call from a school in Krabi.  I'm still cursing myself that I didn't back out of my contract and head back to the beach.  Hindsight is always a bitch.

If you dig solitude and quiet beach life, check out Koh Ngai.  Additionally, if you want to learn how to dive, here is a link for my friend's dive shop, Ronan Dive.

Happy Trails!

And what's a beach blog without a little Jack?

Learning lessons the (very) hard way

I don't know why, but I was brooding on this last night...

I'm still walking on crutches and in a walking boot from my ankle surgery in December.  When people ask me what happened and I tell them the story about getting hit by a motorbike, nine times out of ten they always ask me if I got money for it.  No, I didn't.  I got a $2.50 taxi ride home from the hospital.  [insert their shocked expressions here].

In hindsight, obviously I should have received a little more compensation than a $2.50 taxi ride.  But let me explain my reasoning why I didn't pursue anything.

First of all, I'm a solo, white, female traveler.  I was alone at the time of my accident...I was taking a walk before meeting up with my friend later in the day.  Thai people have an extremely narrow view of the world.  Nothing against it, it's just how they are taught, it's part of their culture.  They believe that any foreign person that comes to their country must surely be wealthy because wealthy people can afford to get on a big plane and fly half way around the world.  Foreigners are overcharged for pretty much everything.  I call it Skin Tax.  My first week in Thailand, a guy that was on my TEFL course was involved in an accident.  He was on a motorbike, merging onto the highway when a young lady in a car hit him.  He was lucky to be alive.  When the police showed up, although it was ENTIRELY the Thai person's fault, the police made my friend pay her 1,000 baht for damages to her car.  This was the first thought that went through my head when I was hit.  Fuck you if you make me pay three underage, irresponsible girls for hitting me with a motorbike because I'm foreign.  Reason #1 why I didn't request to call the (corrupt) police.

Secondly, thinking rationally is pretty difficult to do after something like that happens to you.  I was in shock, in severe pain, and downright scared.  All rationality went flying out the window as fast as Indiana Jones goes running through a jungle being chased by a bunch of pissed of indigenous tribe members with spears, only to come back after it was too late to do anything about it.

Finally, I didn't know the rules of the game.  That sounds, and is, completely naive and foolish.  I should have known better or at least had the knowledge that there are police for tourists.  I should have taken the girl's name and number.  I should have called a friend when I got to the hospital.  I should have...I should have...I should have....You can say "I should have" about a number of things.  But the fact remains that I didn't and it is a lesson learned.  I can't change it, so I must move on.

Those girls got off cheap.  A $2.50 taxi fare when they should have fronted the $250 doctor bill and paid my substitute teacher for the time I had to take off from work (many schools don't give you sick time...if you're out, you have to pay the substitute out of your pocket...bullshit I know, but that's been my experience with teaching in Asia, so far).  When I pulled my insurance card at the hospital, those girls should have come forth and said it was their duty to pay.  But they didn't.  Maybe Karma will come back to them eventually.  It is what it is.

So no, I didn't get a big payday from any of this.  I'm still broke like a joke.  But invaluable lessons were learned.

My advice: know who is in your corner when you're traveling to a new country, especially a non-English speaking country.  Hopefully nothing will happen to you, but no one is invincible.  Make sure you have the right tools in your pocket!

Happy Trails!