The First Time (not for the squeamish)

I had a first experience last weekend on an Adventure Korea trip. Every Adventure Korea trip starts the same way... EARLY! For someone who routinely wakes up at 1:00 in the afternoon, waking up at 5:30 in the morning is extremely difficult. This is how the nightmare usually unfolds: First comes anger associated with being tired and hearing an incrementally louder alarm clock. Then, I usually try to talk myself into waking up. I think to myself, "That alarm clock, on the opposite side of the room, will not turn itself off, but it might wake up the neighbors. Get up!" Or I'll think, "Hey, if you get completely dressed and brush your teeth, then you can lie down with your eyes closed for a solid ten minutes." When that doesn't work, then I bring out the big guns. "Come on. You already paid the non-refundable price to go on this trip.* If you don't start moving soon, Meg's going to be pissed." Finally, my last tactic is a huge dose of motivation. "If you get ready soon and forgo the shower,** there might be enough time for McDonald's."*** Of course that works, I love me some Egg McMuffins.****




* Nothing really quite motivates me like throwing money away except for...

** Skipping a shower is easily done, especially in the wee hours of the morning

***...McDonald's gut bomb breakfasts are probably the single greatest way to motivate me in the morning. Perhaps you need an example to illustrate this better. Let's say, I need to get to the airport at 5:30 in the morning. You arrange for an expensive limo, complete with all luxuries a man could possibly ask for, to pick me up at 4:45. The driver is the limo driver in The Big Lebowski my absolute favorite movie of all time. There could be a 1 ounce gold coin waiting for me. All I'm saying is that limo better have some McDonald'd hash browns in it, or I'm going to have a real hard time making the trip. Here's the reality though; I've only actually made it to McDonald's one time. I'm in a 1/15 slump. My average is dog shit. Will it lose it's motivating prowess, of course not!

****The whole episode is very similar to the way a parent has to handle a toddler in the grips of a tantrum on going to church. The big difference is...I'm 23.



To make matters worse, Meg and I decided to go see Transformer's II* the night before...at 12:30... at night. And I don't know if you realize this or not, (we did not) Transformer's has a running time of something like 4 hours. (maybe 2.5 to 3 hours but it feels like 4) I didn't fall asleep until after 4:30, giving me approximately 1 hour of sleep. Needless to say there wasn't enough time to shower or eat McDonald's.



*Make no mistake about it, Transformer's is not a "good" movie, but I was not expecting a "good" movie. My expectations were low, and the movie beat them. I had a good movie experience. Joe Posnanski has a great post about movie going experiences. If you're interested in reading it, skip past the OPS baseball stuff and the random other tidbits. For those of you who don't know Posnanski, he is a columnist for the KC Star, and also happens to be one of the best sports journalists in the nation. To some extent, I have modeled this blog after his, including all the Pozerisks, aka *. The definition of a Pozerisk is, "An aside that has nothing whatsoever to do with anything but is thrown into the middle of the story because the author thinks it’s funny." So far this * definitely qualifies, right? Using his "Movie Expectation Formula," Transformers is a plus 1.5 movie, or in other words pretty good.



Meg and I made it to the bus, which is about a 40 minute commute from our building. Hungry and rushed, we made it with no time to spare. About an hour and a half later, we stopped at a truck stop/gas station. My growling belly directed me towards the food line, where I ordered Korean noodles. I don't know what it was about those noodles, but I think it had something to do with the fact they were microwaved for over three minutes. These piping hot noodles got all kinds of gears turning in my body, and my stomach started growling once again. A different growl this time. A growl that rushed me over to the bathroom.



Oh, Korean bathrooms how I hate you. With a case of the screaming eagles, the last place you want to find yourself is in a Korean bathroom, especially a truck stop Korean bathroom, where the likelihood of toilet paper is roughly 15%. I'm in panic mode now with clenched buttocks. I'm thinking of John Roe;* I'm thinking drastic. I'm marching down every stall seeing two things: Squatters and no toilet paper. Now I start to think, "I've got to go buy TP, but I'm not going to make it. I'm going to be standing in line waiting to purchase TP crapping myself. Then I've got to ride on this bus with the same people, but they'll know I just crapped myself. Oh shit! I've got to steal it." As I'm heading out the door, I see a glorious TP packet left there for emergencies by God himself. I take the whole pack and head to do the unthinkable. I made it 11 months and 1 week without using a squatter.


*I miss John. He's been out of Korea since March. During a night of drinking with Meg and myself, he once infamously went into a Korean bathroom to go number two, because as he says and I now know, "When you got to go, you got to go." He had no TP. He had no toilet. What he had was a squatter and a pair of socks, he came out a legend with one sock. I believe I've told the story before.





















Remember, I'm on NO time here. I'm on the threshold. It's just me and a hole in the ground mono e mono, and I realize I have no idea on how to go about this. What side do I choose? Where do I stand? How do I aim? With no time to think, I just squatted down, and in no time I was finished. Everything was fine. No splatter. No mess. If I apply Joe Posnanski's formula to this experience, I come out with a 1.5 once again. Maybe even higher since my expectations were dreadfully low.

So I've probably just tortured you for about five minutes or so, and there doesn't appear to be a silver lining to any of it. I was laughing with Meg about this post. I joked, "If North Korea does go crazy and nukes/destroys Seoul, the last words I ever write are going to be about pooping in a hole. If I'm the only foreigner to die, I might get my 15 minutes of fame and people are going to READ THIS!"

So here's something for you all to chew on. I'm reading a lot about the unintended consequences of political decisions. For instance, if the government prohibits guns or drugs, they create a violent black market. This market attracts criminal minds, because it's illegal and they're large profits to be made from illegal activity. There are many deaths in this criminal world, too, because instead of marketing wars you have gun battles and turf wars. So violence in the country goes up and innocent lives are lost as a consequence to increased violence. Now, more police are hired to fight the outlaws, resulting in higher taxes for the citizens. Police capture many of the criminals, but the incentives of illegal activity are too great, and those captured criminals are quickly replaced. Jail cells now overflow with criminals, again resulting in higher tax payer dollars. All of these reactions happen from one decision, a decision that was conceived to protect people. Now whether that decision is right or wrong is a discussion for another day, I just want to illustrate the effect of decisions.

Here is an unintended consequence of toilets: Hemorrhoids. Think about it. You're not going to read the paper cover to cover while SQUATTING. Squatting is a workout. You have like a minute to go, and then your body gives out. Squatting is also natural. We were built to releave our bodies by squatting. It was what humans did for thousands of years pre-toilet. Beleive me, I'm still going to choose a toilet everytime. I'm just so fascinated with these unintended consquences. They're thousands of them just like this one. Can you think of any?

The Amusement Park

Does this look familiar? No silly, it's not Disney World; it's Lotte World!







Lotte World is the largest indoor theme park in the world. In addition, there's also a newer outdoor section with some exciting rides.

The indoor portion of Lotte World is huge. There are crowds everywhere! The park was built in 1989 and all the rides indoor date back to the park's founding. So, there weren't a lot of thrills. Koreans have a problem with originality. The music, the movies, the clothes, and the companies are spitting images of American pop culture. For instance, the first Korean movie I saw was, "The Good, the Bad, and the Weird" which was a spitting image of the old Clint Eastwood flick only modified to Korean history. There is a clothing company called Crocodile, which suspiciously resembles Lacoste clothing. Naturally, the rides at Lotte World are clones of Disney World rides. There is a ride in Lotte World named "Sindbad's Revenge" aka "Pirates of the Caribbean" at Disney World.

Outside is where all the fun is, and I sure loved it. There is this one ride called "The Gyro Drop." I'll let this video clue you in on the rest...




As you can see, it's equipped with a sizable drop. When the ride started to accelerate to the top, I looked over at Meg and saw little tears start to stream down her cheek. I made her go on this ride. She was starting to panic. At the top of the ride, when the ride stopped spinning, Meg began to lose it. She screamed, "We're going to die!" And in less than 3 seconds, it was over. Although Meg was shaking like a leaf during November, we lived.

We also got to ride the Gyro Swing, which might be the world's biggest, fastest spinning swing. (click the link for a video) This ride was the closest thing to flying I'll ever experience. There was one worthwhile roller coaster as well. It was a great day.

On to a random note...
Since Micheal Jackson's death, I've heard random Korean storefronts blaring his tunes constantly for the last two days. The guy was an international superstar. He is the one guy whose hit songs can ALWAYS get me to dance or at least drum my foot. I'll never forget the response Billy Jean got at Jimmy's wedding. Those guys who grew up with MJ (too lazy to type it out) made me wish that I grew up in that era. To see 40 year old Jimmy trying to do the splits to Billy Jean was hilarious. The music (and alcohol) motivated him to dance his ass off. His childhood friend, Tom, was singing and moonwalking around the dance floor like he was MJ. It was an awesome sight. The guy was a legend, and I'm a huge fan. So was I sad to here that he died... not really, not at all. He died to me a couple of years after the Free Willy song came out. After he started transforming into a creep, a clown. After he started dangling babies off balconies. After he was accused of multiple child molestations. In the later part of his life, he was overshadowed by the controversies that surrounded him. This is the MJ I know, the caricature version. I'm more bummed out about Billy Mays.

(cont)

Life really starts to get crazy once we get into Laos. Laos has a wretched infrastructure. Some of the huts/bungalows we'll stay at will be without electricity during the day and at night, they run generators. The roads are so bad. It takes hours to travel 40 miles. So, as of right now, I don't really have a definite schedule for Laos. But I do have three remaining musts on this adventure.

The Gibbon Experience



If a picture is worth a thousand words, than how many words are a video worth?

I'm going to be flying through the jungle on a zip line right next to the Mekong River, staying overnight in a tree house, and maybe looking at some apes. This is actually number one on the list of the four things I most want to do.


Elephants

I haven't decided if I want to ride an elephant or work with them. Many elephants are treated poorly in order to make a profit. They are usually beat into submission and forced to give rides, pan handle, paint, throw darts, and other various things to get money from tourists. So do I want to work with the abused in a national park, or do I want to go on a trek with them in the middle of the jungle? I can ride on their backs with one option. So I'm leaning towards that. Besides, who doesn't wake up in the morning and think, "Man, I got to ride on an elephant sometime in my life. " I know I do.

Floating

Okay, the depressing music is quite bothersome, but look at the size of that rope swing. Floating is one of my favorite things ever, so this could/will be the grand daddy of all them. Hope this also gives you a sense of the beautiful Laotian landscape. The best quote of the video, "So we've just come back to our bugalow for the night, where we don't have electricity, because it's... umm Laos." I'm so excited.

The Itinerary

Okay, this is a post for those of you who like to live vicariously. This is the sample itinerary: (requires reading links)


This is all subject to change.


July 15th: Leave the beautiful Incheon International Airport and head for Bangkok.




(image - Wikipedia)





Alright, this is a long flight with a long layover in Singapore. Is a 5+ hour layover considered long? Do we have enough time to go outside and see Singapore?*







*While I've been to Hawaii, I was only there for 2 hours and never left the airport, so have I been in Hawaii? Can I "count" Hawaii as a place I've been?

July 16th: Arrive in Bangkok and head to Kho San Road for a couple of hours.

Well, this is a place as Scott once told me, "It's illegal to have that much fun in America." As you see in this video, the street is swarming with white people in flip flops, hippies from every corner of the world, and Mormons. Yes, even Mormons make it out to Sinners Road. This video looks like a scence from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and is the first video I've ever posted. Some people come to Thailand on vacation and never leave, but don't you worry, mom, I'll be coming home. Hippies on drugs scare me.

July 17th: Head to one of the various travel agencies, pray to get a legit agent and not a scammer, and buy a one-way ticket to Phuket is our game plan for today. From what I've read, Phuket is famous for lady boys and the old dodgy bastards that are with the lady boys. Oh yeah, they are also a boat ride away from some of the world's most famous/infamous* beaches.

*There are a lot of people who HATE what 20th Century Fox did to the island during the filming of The Beach. They basically planted a lot of trees, bulldozed the beach, and spent thousands of dollars picking up trash that tourists left behind. Basically they made it paradise. But they altered it. And now they have lawsuits claiming to have done irreversible damage to the ecosystem.

July 18th: This will be a day to catch our wind. Nothing special is planned. Just a little R&R on the glorious beaches of Thailand.*

*FYI: The Prostitution in Thailand got a big boom during the Vietnam War, when US forces would head down to Thailand for a little R&R, or as what they called it I&I- Intoxication and Intercourse.

July 19th: Once again we tempt fate and put our lives/pocketbooks in the hands of a travel agent. You might be wondering, why not go to straight to the bus terminal/boat company? Apparently, the Thai travel agencies have a stranglehold on the market, so middlemen are required. But our reward for doing so outweighs the risk. Ko Pi Pi is home to some of the best looking beaches in the world, and infamously (as I touched on earlier) hosted the shooting of the movie The Beach. Here is a link to see some breathtaking pictures.

July 20th: We're just going to chill in our bungalow fifteen feet from the beach.

July 21st: This day will be special for me because I have four mandatory things for this trip. On the 20th, I get to accomplish the first one. Meg and I are going to camp out on Maya Bay. Check it out. The reviews people give this experience are amazing. I can't wait.

July 22nd: Today we'll choose between snorkeling, kayaking, swimming, deep sea fishing, rock climbing, or visiting Thai National Park uninhabited islands.

July 23rd: See above.

July 24th: See above.

July 25th: This is one of many hard days of travel. Meg's college friend, Michelle happens to be coming to Thailand on the 26th. She stays until August 1st. The plan is for us to meet up with her on the east coast of Thailand. Here is a map of Thailand:

(image- http://www.lonelyplanet.com/maps/asia/thailand/)

As you can see, Phuket is in the Southwestern corner. Ko Pi Pi (Ko is the Thai word for island, so anytime you see the word Ko you'll know we're on an island) is northwest of Phuket in the Andaman Sea. Phuket got rocked in the Tsunami of 2004 as well as Ko Pi Pi. Thailand's neighbor is Myanmar. Myanmar caught the brunt end of that natural disaster.

Sorry for the digression. Michelle is meeting us at Ko Samui on or around the 27th, so now we'll be on the east coast in the Gulf of Thailand. The Gulf of Thailand is supposed to have better scuba diving, so here is where we might go for a dive. Certifications are like napkins in the third world, so they're not required on most dives.

July 26th: I think (I have no idea) we'll still be traveling today, but we will arrive at Ko Samui and relax.

July 27th: Hopefully we meet up with Michelle today. Today we head north to Ko Pha-Ngam. Another island. More paradise. This island is home of the biggest beach party in the world. 30,000 thousand 20 year old somethings head here to dance and drink all night long. The party is called the Full Moon Party. Unfortunately/fortunately we're going to miss this monster of a party, but luckily we'll get to the watered down version, the Half Moon party on the 28th. By Half Moon party, I don't think 15,000 people will be there either, maybe 5,000. Google Full Moon party to see more if you're interested.

July 28th: Maybe scuba dive. I don't know. Who knows really? I do know that most of you back home will be at work in the middle of a hot, humid Midwest summer, while I'll be sipping umbrella drinks and lying on white sand. (That was just mean spirited, who knows the two Koreas might be at war soon and I'd do anything to be back in Missouri assuming a nuke doesn't vaporize me first) At night, we'll check out the drunken fest. Should be a good time.

July 29th: Back to Ko Samui for the beach life. In fact, I imagine we'll just sleep on the beach.

July 30th: Today we're heading back to Bangkok. Once we get to Bangkok, maybe after a night of sleeping, we're getting on a bus for Laos.

To Be Continued

Dr. Fish

I had an interesting weekend involving fish. Not raw fish, but actual live fish. I got a pedicure from two different types of fish. One was a sucker, the other a biter. Dr. Fish Cafe, which is really a bar, (with this fish gimmick) is home to this unique experience.





(Meg's feet)










These fish are called:




(Garra rufa)










These guys suck the dead skin off your feet. The fish are known as "Doctorfish" and are quite popular throughout the world. Some go as far to bathe with these little suckers. At the beginning, I was very squeamish, because these little devils tickle! But I've never been too keen at getting the toe jam out of my own feet, so I overcame the torturous tickling.






(Meg's feet to the left)










Yes those are inch long fish biting Meg's feet. These little biters are called:





(Well, if you have eagle eyes you can read it! They are called Chin Chin. (they don't have a wiki page yet))










(My ugly, not to mention hairy feet)










Chin Chin's were by far the better fish. You could feel them nibble away. I mean, you could feel them chomping down taking chunks out of your heel. Actually, you could just feel them nibble. My gigantic feet were the prize for them as well. I averaged twice as many fish per foot than other people around the fish pool. I thought letting the soap water rinse down the rest of my body in the shower was enough to get all the dead skin off, but apparently I was mistaken. (Does that even count as a washing?) Did it hurt? No. It was unnerving at first, but after three minutes the shock wore off and it became normal. Were your feet soft? My feet have never been softer.


This was an awesome experience that I recommend for anyone. In fact, what is better than sipping a White Russian while getting your feet munched on by tiny chomping piranhas?

Busan Pictures

It's not easy to make Zach look average or even small but I make it happen here. He must be on his knees.

We ate at our local mall today*. The food court of our mall is similar to the setup of a mall back home. And before my very eyes I saw the cutest thing. A little girl, maybe three years old, was running around the food court by herself. She then fell... hard. She began to scream, wince, and grab her knee. She yelled, "Oma, Oma!"** And her mom was nowhere to be found. She started to panic. After her tenth hysterical Oma bellow, we saw a little Korean lady run towards her child. The little girl was calmed immediately at the sight of her mother. It was pretty cute. If she could express her feelings, she would have said this: "I fell Mom! Right on my knee and it hurt so bad! I thought the pain was going to kill me! Where were you when I needed you? I know I just ran away, but I was bored! I hate that prison you call a stroller!*** I needed you, and you weren't there."

*The malls here are more like Department stores back home, only they are like 15 stories and not nearly as wide. The individual stores share the open space, so it feels like one store with different departments. It is hard to tell where one store begins and another ends.

**The Korean word for Mom is Oma. Dad is Apa. How similar are those to Ma and Pa? Now that I think about it, many languages share common sounding words for mother and father.

***Seoul is so dense so public transportation is rampant. That means less cars. That means more walking. That means you might need a serious stroller if you're a mother out shopping. The strollers in Korea are INTENSE. They look more like a 350 cc ATV than a baby carriage. They are designed to go through subway turnstiles, fold into pancakes, go over curbs, and ride escalators. They even have weather guarding plastic shields. The link does not due them justice. The wheels on these strollers exceed 12 inches!

The random thing I'm craving today: A Couch
It is 10:13 at night on Wednesday. I get off work in an hour. I really just want to channel surf while lying on a couch. But I have no couch. Nor have I been on a couch in a long, long time. There is not a lot of room for a couch, when you're living in a small apartment.

Busan

With the United States Armed Forces and the ROK (Republic of Korea) Army at Defcon 4, and my poor mother going months without a word from her baby boy, I figure now is a good time to update you about the happenings in Korea. North Korea is putting on a show, a full court press, to try and use their military might to leverage more drums of oil and bags of rice from China, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and the US. I’m wondering if the American media has shown the parades North Korea has been throwing; you know the ones with a bunch of poor North Korean men goose stepping with what appears to be a bunch of Sherman Tanks right in front of them. I don’t know how many Sherman Tanks would be needed to take down ONE Abrhams, but I’m starting the over under line at 50! Their aggressive actions don’t scare anyone in Seoul, except the foreigners. But here’s what is scaring the heck out of them, swine flu. And to be honest, I’m scared too!


South Korea is many things, but clean isn't one of them. The chance of you going to a bathroom that has soap in it is a perfect 50-50 shot. The chances of you going to a bathroom with a liquid dispenser or a clean bar of soap (translation- no small curly black hairs on the bar) are nil. It’s pretty amazing to me that I’m not sick more due to the fact that I work with children and our school is horrible with soap. Yes, in my own school, the 50-50 ratio holds true. (Although I just went to the bathroom to check out if there was soap or not, and there was TWO bars of soap!) For your information, the toilet paper in the stall ratio is an abysmal 20% here at my academy.* Howie Mendel would kill himself if he had to stay here longer than an hour. For the most part, it is foreigners that have contracted Swine Flu, or as they call over here SI. Contracting it first from their native countries and then testing positive for it over here upon arrival. Some foreigners were quarantined for an eight day adventure that you should read about that here. Our company has already given us orders to try and avoid the foreigner districts. I’ve heard of companies threatening to fire anyone who is caught in one of these foreign districts.

*I don’t know if I have mentioned this before, but South Koreans don’t flush their used toilet paper. They place it in a trash can.* I’m not saying this is wrong, because I vaguely remember watching a TV program on the problems that toilet paper and other wastes can cause on sewage systems; I’m just saying it is different. Especially in public bathrooms with heaping amounts of used TP.

**Many fancier places***, have trashcans that have a lids on them. You know the lids that flip over and turn in to the trash to open up. I simply refuse to use these lids. You push your trash on the lid. Gross. Then the lid touches more trash in the can. Gross.

*** Of course the fancy, fancy places, aka the western places, don’t even offer trashcans. You can simply flush without feeling guilty about it.

Last weekend took a toll on me. There was a Zach sighting! (Yes Aunt Susan I saw your boy, he is alive and well in Korea) Zach lives on a hill overlooking the ocean. His place is awesome. Like I said, Busan is known as the San Francisco of Korea, and the hills of that city overlooking the ocean have to remind you of San Francisco. We enjoyed the sun, the drinks, and the bloody beach battles. We played sports on the beach for hours. First we played football. And not to toot my horn or anything, but honk-honk I was Randy Moss out there. There were four touchdowns scored, and I caught every one of them. Because of my team’s dominance, we quickly switched to Ultimate Frisbee. Here is a funny quote from the Stuff White People Like website in regard to Ultimate Frisbee., “you will never see hippies get more upset than on an Ultimate Frisbee field. It can be jarring to see people who look like they should be playing acoustic guitars yelling at each other about whether or not Blake stepped out of bounds.” I’ve never played “Ultimate” because I’ve never really thrown a Frisbee before, and I certainly haven’t owned one. So I played this sport for dandies, and I’ve never ran so much in my life. The game is just one long transition break after another. With the sun bearing down on me like Tiger 165 yards out on the 18th hole in Augusta and enough beer in my belly to pass out an elephant, this game was exhausting. I take back every negative thing I ever said about Ultimate. I loved it. But everything on a sandy beach next to the ocean is fun. We also hit the batting cages, played soccer and catch.

So as I’m unsteadily typing this, with a sore, sun bruned body, I can’t really tell if I have SI or a hangover from an exhausting weekend. Here are the symptoms of SI: Body Aches, Fever, Headache, and Chills. Oh crap, check, check, check, and check. Excuse me; I’m going to go check myself into the nearest hospital.*

*I hate WebMD, probably because I’m a hypochondriac. If I type in “sore throat:” on their symptoms checker, I get 20 possible conditions. Here are some of the noteworthy conditions that I might have: Toxic shock syndrome, Dust Exposure, Strep Throat, Throat Cancer, Mumps, and of course Common Cold. Like Woody Allen, I see Throat Cancer and assume immediate death is assured, despite the fact that I’m 23.

Random Thing I Crave from Home Today- Kool Aide

As my time in Korea comes to a temporary end, I've been getting random cravings that I'm going to start to feature. To be honest with you, I haven't had Kool Aide for years, but for some reason I can't stop thinking about that surgary goodness.