Museum of Korean War Stuff and Junk

So as this title implies, I made it to The War Memorial of Korea, in Seoul. Truthfully, I didn't take a lot out of it, so that explains why I called it "Museum of Korean War Stuff''.

As for the junk, I figured I would stray off topic and talk about how much my job has improved just this week. So I got a new student in one of my regular classes, and her parents put her in some additional private classes. Luckily, my boss put me on for teaching her, which meant that he would have to relieve me of a few other classes. Somehow he did about the best thing possible. One of her classes is scheduled during my most hated class, which is with middle school kids, so I don't teach that anymore. YES. I was also given Friday mornings off. NO FRIDAY MORNING. And all I have extra is one on one lessons with a student who actually wants to learn. Wow.

Anyway, heres the war museum stuff. Like I said, I didn't really learn a lot from it, so it's mostly just a bunch of pictures. I went two weekends ago now with my friend Daniel who was actually in the military and served in the first Gulf War. By far the best part of the trip to Seoul that weekend was that we ate at both a Mexican and a Thai food restaurant. To me, those are the two best food countries in the world. We also ate at restaurants that did a super good job. Mexican was at 'South of the Border' at a mall, and the Thai was at Thai Orchid in Itaewon. Let me just say that Thai Orchid makes a coconut soup that might as well have come from Thailand. Wow.

So here's the museum anyway. The first thing we saw when approaching was this statue of two guys. Is it just me or does it look like two people making out? It's actually called 'The Statue of Brothers,' so thats a little bit insensitive to two brothers who were separated in North and South Korea. But come on, they are totally making out.

The outside of the museum I found a little bit more interesting than the inside. They had this ridiculous collection of war machinery, I think mostly from the Korea conflict (the one from MASH). They had just so many tanks, airplanes, cannons, and really everything. This is a fountain made from a mine.

This is an artsy shot of the 'Korean War Monument.'

Here's the front facade of the museum. It's surrounded by flags and then a giant set of steps leading to the door. I was also impressed by the giant green cantilevered overhang over the doorway. I forgot some stuff inside of a locker on the way out, and then made it to about the point where I took this picture before I realized it. There were about five minutes until the place closed, so I sprinted all the way up the steps to try to make it in time. I tried the doors and the first two I tried were locked. They had luckily left just one open, and I made it in time.

Here's some of the airplanes they have outside the museum, with Seoul Tower in the background.

Inside they had some impressive murals, this one with some Korean soldiers storming out of a helicopter. I call it "who farted inside the chopper?"

This is a replica of 'Fatman' himself. 'Littleboy was right next to it but it wasn't impressive enough to make it on the website.

So this was a seemingly random face cutout thing, and on a whim had Daniel take my picture in it. It turned out to be one of my favorite pictures of myself ever. I kind of feel like I should have been in the military because of this shot.

The historic section had this neat armor from the various dynasties throughout Korea's history.

Here's the sun setting on the Museum, ahhhh, what a day.

So overall it was a nice visit and definitely worth the three bucks. I was a little bit disappointed because there's barely even a mention of the U.S. and their involvement in the Korea conflict. There's giant section where they have a life-size model of somebody from each country that came to fight in the Korea conflict, and the U.S. didn't get any special treatment. Oh Well.

Goodbye Thailand

My last few days in Thailand were really great. It turns out that I was supposed to spend one less day there than I thought and was a little late for my flight, but I'll get to that story in a minute. In this post I'll talk about visiting the Jim Thompson House, the story of my travel back, and some thoughts.

My last full day in Thailand, Eve and I decided to visit a place called the Jim Thompson House. It was built by an American architect with that name who vacationed in Thailand while with the military, and then decided to move there. He was so taken with the Thai silk that he had the idea to ship some back home and ended up building a vast fortune. He then used this fortune to build the complex which is about 8 small traditional Thai houses with an absolutely breathtaking collection of statues, paintings, furniture, and well pretty much everything associated with luxury. The tour is very enthralling to see all of this stuff and hear Jim Thompson's story. Only a fraction of the complex allows photography, so I'll get to that.

One of the houses in the complex

This is a Buddha statue from the 7th century. The arm broke off some time ago, but it used to be raised to mean "stop fighting"

Eve in front of some ceramic wall covering

a purdy flower

Me with Eve's fan in the restaurant

Jim Thompson was a man very interested in horoscopes. He had one which told him that he needed to be very careful during his 61st year. When he turned 61, he took a vacation to Malaysia and was never heard from again. That is just part of the Jim Thompson lore, I definitely recommend visiting this place if you are in Bangkok.

Well, I'll get to the exciting part now. My flight was at 7:10 in the morning on Tuesday, so I had thought. I got up that day and checked my flight itinerary, and much to my surprise, the flight had been the day before. That's right, I missed my international flight by a day. This is the kind of moment where your heart stops and your life flashes before your eyes. My biggest concern was that I had to teach the next morning. Luckily, I had Eve with me. We got a cab, and Eve told him to take the express way and step on it. This was fun, the cab cruised to the airport at 140 km/hr while Eve gently slept on my shoulder.

We got to the airport, and unfortunately, none of the customer service stands were open for the airlines. We had breakfast while the sun rose. Finally the counter for Japan Air opened at 6:30 and I asked them about getting a flight. They didn't have anything direct to Seoul so I would have had to book two flights with them. I checked at the Thai airways counter, my airline, which opened at 6:45, and it actually turned out to be no problem at all to get me on another flight. They put me on a flight leaving at 10 in the morning getting to Incheon at about 8:45, no extra charge, no hassle.

The terminals at the Bangkok airport were shaped like the inside of a giant airplane wing

The rest of the travel from there is kind of a blur. I made it to Incheon fine, but the last bus to Seosan left at 6:30 that evening, so I caught a bus to Seoul. I got to Seoul at about 9:45, and it turned out the last bus left at 9:15, and I would have to wait until 6 the next morning. With this time to kill, I spent about three hours in a PC room, about an hour in a Burger King, and then I went to the bus station to sit and wait.

I did get a few hours of sleep at the bus station, and some on the bus, but my combined sleep for those two nights was about 6 hours. I arrived in Seosan at 7:40 with my first class being at 9:40. I was fine teaching in the morning but later in the afternoon I was super drowsy. I would be reading to the students out of a text book and nod off in between sentences. They made fun of me but I got over it. As for recovery from this I slept from 8pm to 8am that night.

Overall, I can pretty safely say that this trip to Bangkok was my favorite vacation I've been on. Meeting Eve was the best part. When we met there was this instant connection and we spent pretty much all of our time together when she wasn't working. She works at a traditional Thai dancing theater, called the Siam Niramit show. I didn't get a chance to see it but it looks pretty good. Leaving her was tough, but I'm going to try to bring her to Korea for a while.

A cutout at the movie theater at MBK

Some tasteful graffiti in Bangkok

This last photo is a good image for how I view Bangkok. I feel like this city is like New York City but on crack. NYC at least has some square streets and all the taxis have meters, but Bangkok is all just so unpredictable. In a way I think that Bangkok is just an airport and a temple surrounded by gift shops. So much of this city just depends on the tourists for their money and so many of them just want to scam tourists that it makes it very hard to trust anybody, but very easy to buy a whole bunch of souvenirs.

I did get to try two new forms of transportation. One, I rode in a tuk-tuk, which was super fun. I also rode on the back of small motorbike with a total of three people on it. That wasn't my favorite experience ever, but it was quick and cheap. I might have peed myself a little.

It was this vacation that I started to really feel like a world traveler. I realized this when I looked in my wallet and had currency from three different nations, and none of them were the USA. For the record one of the bills was from Rwanda, and it doesn't really make sense to still have that in my wallet.

Good trip though, good trip.

Quite a Score!

I'm not exactly sure what it was. The fact that I have a paying job again. The fact that I was in a foreign land where everything was so cheap. Maybe it was that I live in a place where I can't find any shirts that fit me. Regardless, my trip to Thailand felt like a giant shopping spree. I thought I would just get to telling all about the souvenirs I'm bringing home.

These movies I got at the "mall" of Bangkok called MBK. It has about 5 floors of shops, movie theaters, singing rooms, and a giant food court. They really had everything there. At only 100 baht (3 USD) these movies were a good price.

These polos were also from MBK and very cheap. I believe I payed 480 baht for both of them.

A nice painting I bought from a street artist near Khaosan road. I think I paid 800 baht.

T shirts from MBK. 100 baht apiece!

Some elephants from the street and some wine holders from MBK. Don't want to mention the prices b/c some of these may be gifts.

The two colored shirts were bought off a street vendor and the t-shirt at MBK. Again won't mention prices.

Some shades and a watch from street vendor. Sunglasses together went for 300 baht and watch for 200 baht. I really love the watch because it has both an analog and digital timepiece on it.

Last, my favorite shirt. I overpaid a little to get this one from a street vendor (220 baht). He claimed that it's real high quality fabric and will never shrink. We'll see.

Current conversion rate: 34 baht = 1 USD

The Road to Thailand

Well, now I'm back, (almost) readjusted to Korea time again, and ready to blog. I plan to write four or five posts about my trip in the rest of this week, so stay tuned.

My travel was again pleasant, as I had hoped it would be. For me, travel is such a strange thing, it's like purgatory. We can be traveling half-way around the world, but are trapped the entire time in a tiny box. A tiny area to wait for the plane, a small airplane seat (especially when you're 6'4''), and a bathroom that can make one easily feel claustrophobic. But, awaiting for us often times is an unknown distant tropical paradise, heaven.

One good thing about my travel was that we had a small layover, and I took the time to make some new friends. I met two other English teachers, Paco and Travis, who live in Busan, Korea. It ended up that we were staying in hotels about a block away from each other, so we decided to split a taxi, check-in, and hit a club or two afterwards as a group. They only had one night in Bangkok as there were headed to Phuket, so they didn't mind me tagging along for the night.

The travel was going well until we got to the taxi queue at the airport. We went to a sign that said metered taxi, knowing it is important to do this to not get overcharged. We got a station wagon taxi, and jumped in with our backpacks. When we got in, we told him Khaosan road, where we were staying, and were off. Then, Travis noticed there was no meter in the taxi. He said "meter? meter taxi?" and the driver pulls over. He told us "Khaosan road, 450 baht." We finally said OK, just get us there. Even getting ripped off, we paid 150 baht apiece for the 45 minute ride, which is about $5.

After, we managed to find our hotels, and hit a few bars and clubs for some beer. I ended up meeting a girl named Eve who would later serve as my good friend and tour guide of Bangkok. More about her later.

Anyway, now for some photos....

This is Khaosan Road. Littered with foreigners, shops, and pretty much anything you can think of.

A small troupe of break dancing boys on Khaosan. They were really good.

These two children were at their parent's T-shirt shop. Cutest kids ever.

Some street food. On the left is coconut curry, which ended up being one of my favorite meals ever.

One meal I was eating and a woman came up to me. She had a sign that said "Deaf, I sell these to pay for living. 1 - 30 baht, 2 - 50 baht" or something close to this. I thought I could use one of these little keychain trinkets she was selling, so I went ahead and bought one. I pulled out the money in my pocket, and realized I only had 1000 baht bills. I looked at her and shrugged, and with a determined look, she nodded, grabbed the bill, set her stuff down and ran away. I thought, OK, there goes my money. She was very honest, though, she just left, made change, and came right back. I decided to get a picture with her.

On my last full day I decided to get a Thai massage. The picture above generally describes what you get. It's a lot of punching, beating, and getting walked on, but I felt a lot better afterwards. And, its only 200 baht ($6 per hour).

I got a photo with my masseuse, Walissa. She is standing on a stool.

I wanted to put in these cute little kitties who sleep outside one of the doors of my hotel.

Well, don't worry, tons more to come. Tomorrow I'll show the Grand Palace and Vimanmek Mansion.

A Vacation Already?

Well, one month in Korea is over. I could put in more reflective words here, but I'm just going to say I'll do that later and talk about my upcoming vacation.

Do I need a vacation after one month of work? Not really. Am I going to take one? Yes, most definitely. It seems like a good time to go anyway because they started demolishing this place across the street from me so I hear just a little bit too much broken glass and destruction at 7:00 in the morning. Side comment: these people never wear hard hats.

For anybody who doesn't know, I'm going to Thailand. I actually leave today and have to catch a bus in three hours. From there, I have a small layover in Taiwan, and then it's off to Bangkok. I have packed very very lightly. Just six days of clothes, toiletries, a few books, hat, sunglasses, sandals, camera, and MP3 player. Luckily it all nestles snugly into my backpack.

I don't have the itinerary set yet, but my possibly to do list includes:

The Grand Palace (located very close to my hotel)

Suan Lum Night Bazaar

Chatuchak Market

Chinatown

Ayuthaya ancient ruins

Vimanek Mansion

Thai River Cruise

Marble Temple

A Day at a beach somewhere

Whatever random things I find

I am traveling alone, mostly due to the fact that no other teacher's vacation aligned with mine. There are three teachers headed to Phuket, Thailand and will be in Bangkok one of the nights I'm there so I'm planning to meet with them. I can deal with traveling alone, though, because I like the aspects of sticking to my own schedule, seeing the attractions I want to see, and being forced to meet new people.

I have also heard that pickpockets might be a problem. I recently read, though, that the Thai government has really cracked down on it because they value tourism. I'm not sure what to think, because this could be an elaborate scheme by a federation of pickpockets who want people to lower their guard. Anyway, I made a necklace passport/credit card holder out of three index cards, a shoelace, and some duct tape, so I'm pretty sure I'll be safe.

This is going to be my last blog post for a week, so I'm going to leave you with a few current chart toppers from Korea to pass the time. Enjoy: