That Time at The Saigon Train Station

That was an interesting choice for a tile, wasn't it? Well a more accurate title for this post would be 'That LONG Time at the Saigon Train Station'. It started when Kelsey and I came back from the Cu Chi Tunnels and needed to catch a train. We didn't have any experience with trains in Vietnam, so our concierge tried to call for us. She probably tried to call three times and always got a busy signal.

With no other options, we headed to the station to pick up some tickets for that night. As I remember, we got to the station at about 5:30. There was no line at the ticket counter, so we walked up there and finally figured out that we needed to get a numbered ticket. The current call up was at number 630. We pressed the button and received ticket number 801. Duh Duh Duh.

What followed was an absolutely agonizing wait for tickets that took over two hours. There were only two clerks working and sometimes a group of people would spend over 10 minutes with a clerk. I cannot imagine what they could have possibly been doing for THAT long.

We did finally get our tickets, though, for the 11:00 sleeper train. That left us with another three or four hours to kill before the train. Our obvious first choice was to get some sandwiches and some beer. See Vietnam has these little French bread sandwiches called Bahn My, or something really close to that, and they are extremely delicious. They are one of my favorite parts, these sandwiches, because they are awesome and cost about 50 cents American. They look like this, by the way:

The sandwiches are loaded with vegetables, meat, and sauce. Although the meat sometimes looks like dog food, they are always delicious. Here's a closer look at the inside:

I also got a coconut milk that a small waitress hacked open with a butcher knife:

So we managed to kill another hour or so drinking and eating, and I caught this nice photo opportunity:

With a few hours left to kill, we decided to go inside the station again and use the free internet for a while. Unfortunately, two kids were using the two computers to play games on one, and use Microsoft Paint on the other. Kelsey and I then went and got some snacks. When Kelsey offered the boys these small bear shaped chocolate filled cookies, they surrendered one of the computers.

Another effect of giving up the cookie was that we made instant friends with one of the kids. We tested whether this kid knew rock-scissors-paper, and he did. The boys father, knowing that he had some free babysitters now, left for the canteen never to be seen by us again. We came up with new ways to play rock-scissors-paper, here he is up on a ledge playing against Kelsey:

I learned this kids name at one point, but I couldn't pronounce it and I quickly forgot it anyway. we tried to teach him a little English, but he refused to and just made some noises while we played games with him. We also played high five where he had to jump as high as he could, and then I tried to teach him the game Tetris on a cheap flash version of the game on the computer. We ended up spending over an hour with the kid, and he was pretty awesome:

So now it was almost time to board the train. We got the soft-sleeper class, which was really nice. There were four bunks in each room, so Kelsey and I shared with a Vietnamese couple who slept the whole time. The train ride was a great time because we played cards for a while, and then got to hang out with two Russian couples and two sons from a family of diplomats. So, you know, your average train ride.

Beautiful Daejeon

Well, this all happened two weeks ago Sunday when I decided to get out of Seosan for a day and visit the fifth largest city of Korea. The destination was Daejeon, located close to the center of the country, and home to booming tech and research industries.

I put the trip together pretty shortly before I left, so it wasn't really thoroughly planned. I had done reading on wikipedia, etc. about the city and read about a large park called Expo Park where an international exposition was held in 1993. Daejeon Museum of Art is also on the Expo Park grounds, so I figured this was good enough to kill a few hours.

I got to Daejeon at about noon, and this was when I encountered a problem. I arrived at the bus terminal in the city and found absolutely no information about how to get to the park in my native language. I walked the area around the bus terminal for a while and didn't see anything, then asked a random guy in the bus station hoping he spoke English. Luckily, he spoke a little bit and pointed me in a somewhat right direction.

His directions were to walk down the street and turn right to find a bus, so I walked down there and didn't see much. Luckily again, I found a tourist hotel and talked to the desk worker. He showed me a bus map, told me which bus numbers would go to the park, and also where the bus stop was.

So this was another misdirection because none of the buses that went to the stop I was at where on the list he gave me. Bummer. This was when I decided to just hail a taxi, and I was on my way.

I made it the park grounds, and it felt deserted. I went to a restaurant that staffed five people, and was one of four people eating there at 1:30 in the afternoon. The grounds were interesting because all of the giant monuments, but the fact that they were nearly deserted was my favorite part.

Wandering around the empty grounds gave me the feeling that this would be a great location for a zombie movie. I would walk around the various landmarks being chased by slow moving flesh hunting villains. Just in time, I would grab one of the umbrellas pictured above and use it as an implement to bludgeon the demons in the head.

I would then find this deserted tram to ride to safety, having to throw the zombies off of the tram who had found a way to get on.

Anyway, zombie movie aside, the park was a nice place. One of my favorite parts was Expo Bridge, which I had to walk over to get to the art museum. This city did some smart planning by putting a running track and park right next to the river, making for a very pleasant walk.

I walked over the bridge and then past this giant roof structure, and found that the planner of the park lined up the roof, the bridge, and Hanbit Tower (part of the grounds). Thanks for the nice picture, guy!

Right behind that ever so great picture was a massive paved area which was most likely a parking lot during the expo. Now it's an area used to rent out bikes and motor powered vehicles to small children. It was fun to watch, so I picked up a corn dog and a beer and chilled out there, drinking beer in public in front of children.

The area near the museum was nice, with this fountain walkway. It was a brisk fall afternoon, so I had to time my walk to miss the spray.

The art museum was OK, there was a giant space-themed exhibit going on which was a little bland. They did have these cool tiled space invaders put in random spots throughout the museum.

This was a giant room devoted to a projection screen and an image of a rock floating up and down above the sea bed. I decided to become a part of this art with my silhouette.

This was one where you walk in front of a camera, and you can see yourself on a screen with images of you being staggered behind you at a few frames per second. I tried to get a picture of it, but it's tough to try to pose while holding the camera and taking a picture of the screen.

It did end up being a nice day, Daejeon had already seen many of its trees change colors.

I decided to talk all the way back to the bus station from the park, which had been a ten or so minute taxi ride. It made for a nice trip, also because I walked on many side streets and found a lot of great restaurant mascots, so expect a mascot post in the near future.

One of the strangest things about this city was that in my five or so hours I spent there, I didn't see a single other non-Korean person. I figured I would see some since the city has about a million and a half people and there should theoretically be a lot. I guess I just didn't visit the areas they hang out in.

What a Week

Well, I just finished up a pretty crazy week. Our school had parent teacher conferences for all of the Kindergarten students this saturday.

It started for me on Tuesday morning when the owner of the school walked into my room and said "are you ready for the video?" I said, "what?" It turns out they had expected me to know that they wanted to shoot a video of the kids for the conference and had expected me to rehearse some lines with them. All I had heard was when the other foreign teacher, Chae, told me that they were shooting a video with her kids the week before.

I really had no idea what they wanted me to do until they showed me the video from the year before on Wednesday morning. By that time I only had Thursday to come up with what I wanted them to say and rehearse with them. I think it ended up OK, but there was a lot of pressure on the kids to memorize the lines and film in an hour and a half. One girl cried every time we tried to film her, but she finally was able to comply on Friday morning.

The conferences went well, but I wasn't too happy to give up my Saturday morning/early afternoon which actually ended up forcing me to sacrifice my Friday night for the sake of not being too hung over the next day.

Anyway, here's some pictures. On our last pool day I tried to take a bunch of candid photos of the kids, and I've been looking for a good time to put them up. I'm too lazy to bother with captions for them, though, but enjoy anyway.

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.