Posts Tagged holiday

Thailand Day 2: Why Didn’t Someone Tell Me Thai Massages Could Be This Awkward???

Kate finally admits she’s wrong… and Jim says “Dang Straight!” Jim feels that women should be treated like “dainty morsels.” Craig and Jim’s new nickname becomes “Crim”… and by saying this, they have entered into a man-pact to hit me… HARD! Shelli and Kate have their first falling out on the trip.
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After a short sleep at the very nice hotel we snagged for $10 a night per person (I love how cheap things can be in Thailand) and a delicious omelet breakfast, we hopped in a cab and headed to the train station to travel to Kanchantaburi. Spirits are still high, but Jim continues to self-imposed his shun. Kate is scared of seeing rats on the train and is disappointed when she realizes she has already read the book she just bought. Shelli continues to be the mother and Brandon is in search of Amazing Race landmarks. Also, Craig smiled for the first time on the trip. All in all, everyone is happy that’s is 80 degrees and breezy… oh and that the sky is blue again. We forget that in Korea sometimes.

The 3 1/2 hour train ride was dusty, but relaxing. Craig worked on his right arm tan as he sat next to the window on the train.

Working on the tan...

Working on the tan...

We passed some lovely countryside views and pretty much everyone enjoyed the street meat that the ladies sold us on the train. Quite tasty, if I do say so.

Enjoying the countryside

Enjoying the countryside

Eating on the train

Eating on the train

We arrived at the Ploy guesthouse to find comfortable, but not as awesome accommodations as the website described (what happened to the outdoor garden shower? This is a doorway off the shower into the garden… not the same thing!).

There's no shower out here... unless you count the sprinkler system!

There's no shower out here... unless you count the sprinkler system!

Quite comfortable!

Quite comfortable!

But we couldn’t complain because the room was nice and very affordable… even the stick to bar the door at night.

We left to find sustenance and after walking quite a ways and Kate and Shelli being startled by a new doggy friend, we came upon a place that Shelli heard was pretty good called Apple Restaurant. It was the first of almost every meal that I’d take a picture of my food (I think everyone got to the point of ignoring it after a while).

YUMMMY!!!

YUMMMY!!!

I had a beef curry that was quite delicious. I could have taken it a little spicier, but now I know what Thai medium spice is for future reference. Unfortunately, my fresh pineapple juice tasted like the pineapple had been sitting out all day in the sun. No matter… I also got to walk barefoot in the grass, which is a rarity in Korea.

Can't find too many places to do this in Korea.

Can't find too many places to do this in Korea.

We headed back to the guesthouse and as we walked by every bar (there were about 15 in a row), Craig and I were propositioned by what we could only figure to be prostitutes all the way back. We finally found a prostitute-free zone and played some pool and Jenga.

Careful... careful!!!

Careful... careful!!!

After a tense 20-minute game of Jenga and Shelli cursing our names for not screwing up and leaving the tower standing for her knock over, I needed a break. While the girls played one round of pool with the help of the boys (in the time it took the boys to play three), I decided it was time to get my first Thai massage. For one hour, I was in heaven… or that’s what I kept telling myself. I was not expecting the hand crawling up my inner thigh. I just closed my eyes and prayed it would be over soon. Then she contorted my legs in ways I’d never thought would be flexible. By the end, I felt much looser. All that for only about $5.

Anyway, time for bed because we have an early morning at 7a that will take us on a Thai trekking adventure!!! Still… I have to sleep between Jim and Craig with one eye open.

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Thailand Holiday, Day 1: The World (or at least Thailand) is Waiting

Spirits are high, but Brandon did have to go out of his way to meet up with the rest of the group. No worries, though… my final destination is Thailand!!!

Meet the cast:

Brandon

Brandon

Craig

Craig

Jim

Jim

Kate

Kate

Shelli

Shelli

We’re all teachers in need of a break.

As we left the subway station, we implemented a 3-strike shun system to keep troublemakers at bay. Craig hit his limit 15-minutes into the subway ride (still in Seoul). Jim self-imposed his shun after looking into the wrong pocket of Shelli’s suitcase. Kate saw lots of shiny things.

The flight was long and Craig and I sat together in a part of the plan infested with children. Craig got a perfectionist child seated next to him. She was playing with a small Simpsons hand towel and had to continually adjust it until it was centered in her pull down cup holder. Lots of screaming and restless movement throughout the rest of our section!!! At one point, a child just started screaming and instinctively Craig and I put our headphones in simultaneously. Also, apparently Thai airlines doesn’t mind if you freely roam about the cabin… even if you don’t have to just go to the bathroom or are getting something out of the overhead bin. I soon fell asleep only to be jarred awake when the beverage cart ran over my foot.

The dinner of curry and rice was one of the best airline meals I’d ever had.

I fell asleep again and when I woke up again, the girl sitting next to Craig had turned into a woman. I tried to fall asleep again, but couldn’t sleep very well with the painful and traumatic memory of being run over by the beverage cart fresh in my mind and the fear of it happening again. I passed the remaining dark hour of the flight (an overnight flight thankfully means light’s out) by playing Sudoku on my iPod Touch.

As we were preparing to land, I looked over and noticed that the woman next to Craig had turned into a young teenage boy. Either this airline has a liberal policy about staying in your assigned seat or we were dealing with a shape-shifter. Also, the Christmas music they were playing was a nice mix that consisted mostly of Michael Buble’s Let It Snow Christmas album. Just during landing, 3 out of the 4 songs played were from this 6 song album.

Apparently, the rest of the group flew in peace and quiet in the “adults only” section of the plane. Jealous!!!

When the hotel sent a car to pick us up at the airport (we did get in at 1:30am), I got a lesson on riding in this country. Don’t get in on the front right side unless you’re about to drive.

We got to the hotel to find the guys were going to be occupying the pink room.

IMG_0781

This only made Jim more uncomfortable about having to share a bed with me and he used a towel rather than sleeping under the comforter. It was a decision he would regret by morning what with the air conditioning going full blast.

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Still in Awe

There are days in my life that I still look around at my surroundings and am in awe of how much my life has changed in the last few months. I never would have thought when 2009 began that my life would be transplanted in such a drastic way. I look at the high rise apartments, mountains and the fields. All I can think to describe it is… “WOW!”

I guess when I look back on my life… even back to my childhood… I never would have believed you if you told me that, at age 30, I’d be sitting alone on a subway train that’s traveling into Seoul, Korea… much less living in the country. Not that I was ever against the possibility… but how often does something like this happen?

This weekend is Chusok, one of the most sacred holidays on the Korean calendar. It is during this weekend that Koreans travel to the city of their origin and visit their families and graves of their ancestors to pay homage and worship them. Cemeteries have been being prepared for weeks in anticipation of this weekend. I’ve been told the closest thing to it on the American calendar would be Thanksgiving. While I’m not out here visiting my ancestors, I am visiting some teachers from another of the schools in our organization. It’s a chance to get away and relax before I have to potentially make some big decisions. I’ve been told Seoul basically becomes a ghost town and that’s something I just have to see to believe. I’m picturing “Omega Man” LA when I think about it.

I know this seems like a year end post, and that thought certainly went through my head the entire time I was writing this. But I think the magic of new experiences and the constant wonder I see around me still rings true. I don’t feel that this is still the “honeymoon” stage of my time here, but rather the fact that it’s starting to feel like home and I can finally take in my surroundings objectively.

Who knows… I still may re-post this on New Year’s Eve.

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