More Guam Pictures

A monument to American soldiers at Asan Beach, site of the American invasion of Gaum against the Japanese.
Me on Ritidian Beach.

One of the many Catholic cemetaries on the island.

Looking out over the Philippine Sea.

Some of the many varities of Spam available at KMart, including the Guam exclusive spicy Spam!

A tropical Thanksgiving

A Guamian Santa being drawn, not by a reindeer, but by a ox (I think that's what that is!).
A left-over Japanese gun from WWII.

Some rain clouds rolling in over the Philippine Sea.

A tropical Nativity scene.

This Thanksgiving I decided to spend the long weekend in the tropics, so I flew to Guam, in the Northern Marianas Islands. It's only a 4 hour flight and is one of the easiest trips I've ever taken! I rented a car and got to drive which was a lot of fun and spent the weekend. Guam's beaches are beautiful and so empty compared to Hawaii. I did some hiking and swimming, along with a lot of shopping, including at the world's largest K Mart! It was a great trip and I'm really glad I got the chance to go.

Ice Bar

The bar made of ice.
Me in my parka.
From left to right, Sandra, Lindsay, Francie, me, and Heather, along with an ice version of The Thinker.
Lindsay getting suited up for the bar.

On Friday a group of us went out to Hongdae, a neighborhood in the northwest part of Seoul. It's a university neighborhood and one of the many bars in the area is an ice bar, where everything is made of ice: the bar, the glasses, the walls, etc. Part of the $15 cover includes a parka and gloves, and boots if you want them. We only stayed for about 45 minutes, but in the bar there were pictures of people who had stayed for up to 13 hours!

Chusok 2008

On top of Gwon-Geunseong mountain. From left to right, that's Aaron, Heather, Lindsay, and Francie with me in front.
Francie, Heather, and Derek enjoying free noodles at Naksana.
The view from the hill at Naksan Provincial Park.
Francie coming down from the top of Gwan-Geunseong.

This year the Chusok holiday was during the week of September 14-21st and we got the whole week off. I stayed in Seoul for the first few days and then 5 friends and I rented a van from the school (we're known as Team Escape!) and headed over to Seoraksan National Park. This park is on the northeast side of the country, about 3 hours away from Seoul. I had been here once before in February, so it was a lot warmer this time! The park has a bunch of mountains and trails and it's about 13 kilometers away from Sokcho, a city of 84,000 on the beach.

We left on Tuesday morning and got out of Seoul with no traffic problems (most Koreans only got that Monday off) and were at the campground by mid-afternoon. We spent that day setting up our tents, looking for marshmallow sticks, and playing frisbee. The next day we got up and went on the cable car up close to the top of Gwon-Geunseong, a mountain. Then some of us hiked the rest of the way up to the peak. It was kind of a scramble up there, but once we got up, we found out that there was a guy with a cart who would engrave your name on a medal for 10,000 to commemorate your ascent! None of us took advantage of that, but we did get a photo.

That afternoon we headed over to a spa in Sokcho that had a bunch of different types of pools with a variety of temperatures. It also had a waterfall pool and a little pool with rocks on the bottom that was for walking on and massaging your feet (I found it pretty painful rather than relaxing!). It was a great place to hang out for a few hours! That night we went back to Sokcho and Lindsay, Aaron, Derek, and I went out for seafood. We found this little place with a bunch of crabs in a tank and ate dinner there. The crab was AMAZING. I'm a huge Dungeness crab fan and this was just about as good. It wasn't quite as sweet as Dungeness, but it was so good that we ate a ridiculous amount with no butter or sauce or anything. They also had some really good rice that had been cooked with seawood and some other stuff and was served in a crab shell. That night we went to the beach for a bit and then headed back to camp.

On Thursday we went to Naksan Provincial Park, about 12 km south of Sokcho. It's famous for a big temple complex known as Naksana. It's a Buddhist temple and has a bunch of little buildings and a 15 meter tall state of Gwaneum, the Goddess of Mercy, that looks over the East Sea. I've been to other temples in Korea, but this is one of the only ones I've been to that was really active. There were lots of people praying, including monks, and wandering around. We got there in the morning and saw this sign that said "Noodles Free 11:30", so we waited around until then and sure enough, they were giving away delicious noodle soup for free (we made a donation), which was a nice surprise! After the temple, we went to the beach and spent a couple of hours swimming, tossing a frisbee, and lounging in the sun.

There was another group of SIS folks in a van who had been camping in another part of Korea and they came up to Seoraksan that day and so we all camped together for 1 night. The next day Team Escape's van got up early and headed back to Seoul. Then we spent the rest of the break gearing up for school again.

The weather was really nice and warm the whole time we were gone (maybe a little toasty even!). I've been ready for the hot and humid weather to be over for a couple of weeks now and on Thursday, 9/25 it poured down rain for most of the morning and *boom*, just like that, it's fall now! It's literally like someone flipped a switch! A week ago at this time I was in shorts and a t-shirt and now I'm in jeans and a sweater!

Bedazzled!

Korean fashion for women tends to veer towards the sparkly and glittery. As a result, a few years ago a tradition began among the SIS staff called Bedazzled. The ladies find the most Korean clothes we can, get as dazzling as possible, and head out on the town in Itaewon! (The guys go to this restaurant called Carne Station which is all you can eat and drink and then meet us in Itaewon...their event is called Hedazzled). Last year I didn't go, but this year I managed to cobble together an outfit and head out on the town. It turns out that the best place to find Bedazzled clothes is in subway stations, which is where I found my shirt for a well-worth-it 5,000 won ($5). Most of the clothes on the other women are from sidewalk vendors or subway shops as well, although Coleen (far left) made hers!

SE Asian Adventure--Laos

My view from my hammock in Vang Vieng, Laos
Aaron and Heather emerging from the river after their first tubing trip.

The last country on my trip for me was Laos. Heather and I flew from Siem Reap to Vientiane, Laos. I'd been to Vientiane twice before, but probably had spent less than 24 hours total there, so I was looking forward to spending a little more time there (even though it was only one night). Lonely Planet says that Vientiane may be the most laid back capital city out there and I think it's definitely the most relaxed one I've ever been to. It feels like a very small city and the pace is definitely very slow there. After checking into our guest house, we went out for lunch and then went for a facial at the Papaya Spa. Then we ate some dinner at a restaurant right on the Mekong River, looking across to Thailand. I had eaten at a restaurant right next door to that place when I was in Vientiane in January and it was amazing how much more water was in the river now than then. We also got to see an outdoor aerobics class taking place right by the river!

The next morning we met Aaron and then took a taxi on the 3 hour trip to Vang Vieng, Laos. Vang Vieng is a little town (about 30,000 people) right next to the Nam Song river in a beautiful setting that, for some reason, got on the tourist circuit and has pretty much been taken over. There are lots of outdoor activities to do there, the main one being tubing down the river. There aren't any cultural or historic sights in Vang Vieng, so if you're not doing something outdoorsy, the other options are eating. Quite a few of the restaurants there show US TV shows pretty much all the time and have raised tables set up that you can lay at and be pretty much completely useless! The first full day we were there it was rainy and none of us felt 100% healthy, so we spent quite a few hours watching Friends and eating pasta. The next day Heather and Aaron went tubing down the river, but I decided I didn't want to risk catching Lao Beaver Fever, so spent the day checking my e-mail and reading The Thornbirds in a hammock by the river. The day after that, I had to head back to Korea, so I caught a mini-van for the drive back to Vientiane. After a little lunch, I went to the airport, flew to Hanoi, and then had a late night flight back to Seoul. I got back Sunday, August 3rd, and started getting ready for the next school year!

SE Asian Adventure--Siem Reap

Banteay Srei
Getting ready to climb Ta Keo.
Abby and Heather heading down one of the temples.
Abby and me at with a couple of the faces at Bayon.
Abby and I in front of Angkor Wat.

We flew to Siem Reap, which is known for the temple complexes there, the most famous of which is Angkor Wat. During the reign of King Suryavarman II (1112-52), he built Angkor Wat as a holy ca pital city. Most of the temples have scenes from Hinduism, so I learned a lot about Brahma and Vishnu as well as the story of the churning of the ocean of milk, all of which play a big part in Hinduism. Over the centuries as Cambodia became more Buddhist, some of the Hindu carvings were scratched out or Buddhas were added to the carvings. In some cases, the way that the Hindu gods were sitting as they meditated was changed so it looked more like the way Buddhists sit when they meditate.

We had a guide and a driver with an air-conditioned van for 3 of our days there, which was really nice since it can take a little while to get to the different temples and would have been a hot and dusty ride in a tuk-tuk, on a motorcycle, or on a bike.

The first temple we went to was Banteay Srei, known as the Citadel of Women and dedicated to Shiva. It's smaller than most of the other temples, but has really intricate carvings and, according to Lonely Planet, may have been the instigator of the Khmer art movement. Next we went to the temples of East Mebon, Pre Rup, Banteay Kdei, and Ta Prohm. Ta Prohm is pretty famous because it's so picturesque. It still has a lot of the jungle trees and vines holding it together (and it was used in the Tomb Raider movie with Angelina Jolie!). We also went to Ta Keo, which I climbed to the top of, and Preah Kahn. Preah Kahn was originally a Buddhist complex housing over 1000 Buddhist teachers and is another temple that's still being reclaimed from the jungle, which makes it very cool to wander around in (and it makes me feel like Indiana Jones!).

The next day was a shorter trip to the temples. We went to a group of temples knows as the Roluos group. The temples there were built during the reign of King Indravarman I (877-89). First we went to Preah Ko, which means Sacred Bull. Then we went to Bakong and then Lo Lei. That afternoon we went to a fishing village on Tonle Sap, a huge lake in Cambodia that provides over 80% of the Cambodian population's protein.

The day after that, another SIS teacher, Aaron, came to Siem Reap, so we finally hit the big temples. We started out at Angkor Thom, which is a walled compound with lots of temples inside its walls. It was built during the reign of King Jayavarman VII (1181-1219). After starting at the South Gate, we went to The Bayon, which was the king's state temple. This temple is famous for its 54 towers with 216 carved faces. There are also lots of carvings showing daily life in the king's court and battles. Next we went to The Baphuon, which was built between 1049-65. At the end of the 15th century, it was turned from a Hindu to a Buddhist temple and one of the walls was made out of dismantled towers to create a 70 meter long reclining Buddha. Next we walked around what had been the Royal Palace (the palace was made of wood, so all that remains today is the walls and pools) and then went to the Terrace of the Leper King, (it may be named that because a statue on it may represent a king who died of leprosy). After that we went to the Terrace of Elephants, which has, not surprisingly, lots of statues of elephants.

After lunch, we went to Angkor Wat, the largest religious complex in the world. It was built during the reign of King Suryavarman II (1112-1152). It has moats and walls and carvings showing various Hindu stories. It's absolutely beautiful and wasn't very crowded when we were there, which was nice. We were there during the low season, so it was nice to be able to walk around Angkor Wat without a ton of other people there. That evening we went to a hill nearby Angkor Wat to watch the sun set.

The next day, Abby left for Bangkok, so it was just Heather, Aaron, and me. We went to Kbal Spean, a site about 50 kilometers away from Siem Reap. It's an river bed that had been carved with Buddhas and lingas, which are Hindu fertility symbols. The carvings were fine, but it was cool to get to hike through the jungle a bit to get there. Then we went back to Banteay Srei so Aaron could see it.

The next day Heather and I got on a plane for Laos, which Aaron spent one more day in Siem Reap. He met up with us in Laos the next day.