Ho Chi Minh City and the Cu Chi Tunnels

Having booked the flight to Ho Chi Minh upon entering Vietnam, Kelsey and I caught an early morning flight on day 3. The flight left at 8 in the morning and we arrived in Ho Chi Minh, which I will now start calling Saigon for typing reasons, at 10. This left us with a full day of exploring the city.

We originally decided to devote the day to a walking tour. This seemed like a really great idea because it's a way to see a lot of the city in 4 hours, but Saigon was somehow nearly impossible for us to navigate.

Anway, the walking tour started at Pho 2000, a restaurant at which Bill Clinton had eaten during a trip to Vietnam:

The pho was absolutely excellent, as was most of the pho that we ate the entire trip. Unfortunately, due to navigation problems, we were at the wrong Pho 2000 restuarant. Anyway, the walking tour continued and we did manage to find a market which was located on the tour. We bought a lot of nice things. I got some shirts and a pair of shorts, because it was really hot. Kelsey bought a Vietamese dress, among a few other things:

Up next on the tour was a roundabout with a statue located in the center. It looks like the roundabout is about 5 lanes wide all around, so it's somewhat daunting. Luckily, we knew the rules for crossing streets in Vietnam. The above all most important rule is to walk a slow, unchanging pace because motorists are especially skilled at dodging obstacles.

Upon crossing, we had a great view of the city and a relatively isolated place to hang out:

There was one vendor who was trying to sell us these lighters. We couldn't get him to go away until we started claiming that we were Korean and only spoke to him in our limited Korean. Somehow, this actually worked. We continued on our way to an art museum that was closed after getting lost some more, and then we found a welcoming sight:Located in the photo is a blue, white, and green sign that says 'Family Mart'. These convenience stores are littered across Korea, and it was amazing for us to find one in Vietnam. A policeman outside wouldn't let me take a photo, so I sniped one from a distance.

The rest of the day was spent attempting to do the walking tour, then giving up and going to get some coffee and hanging out. We also got some pizza and did some more shopping, but it was a quiet evening in preparation for our trip to the Cu Chi Tunnels.

These tunnels are pretty famous because of their use during the Vietnam war, and we booked a tour to go see them the next day. Our bus left about 8 again, but again that included an hour or so of circling around various hotels until the bus was full. Again the drive was a long time and included an intermission at a gift shop. This time it was a shop where the goods were manufactured by the handicapped, called handicapped handicrafts. They were EXTREMELY expensive.

The tour of the tunnels was really worth it, though. It was really interesting to see this part Vietnamese history and marvel at how small of tunnels these people crawled through and lived in.

Our tour started in a house like this:

Our guide talked a while about the war and the tunnels, and we watched an interesting propoganda video. The video described a series of soldiers called 'American Killer Heroes'. Very nice.

Our guide then showed us a series of booby traps used during combat, including this revolving trap door with a pungee pit below, which looks like it may leave a mark:

He also showed us where exhaust pipes would be place for cooking and how some of the entrances looked. Then, it was time to actually explore a few of the tunnels. We got to crawl through a few for at least dozens of feet. I found it very difficult due to my larger size than the average Vietnamese person. Here is a flash photograph I took of one of the tunnels:

The pictures I took from inside didn't turn out so well, but it seems that the best ones I have is of someone else from the tour standing in front of one:

I have no idea who this guy is, but thanks for posing for the picture, guy. I think my readers can tell how difficult it may be to travel the tunnels.

Next was more of a gift shop phase of the tour. They fed use some potato-like vegetables dipped in some sugary substance that was pretty decent. Kelsey decided to shoot one of the firearms that was available for a dollar per bullet. Here she is with an AK-47:

So that was the end to a nice tour. We snoozed again on the bus ride back and then were off the train station for much more adventure, which I will get to in the next post.

Halong Bay, Vietnam

Our second day in Vietnam, Kelsey and I visited a location on the Northeast side of Vietnam called Halong Bay. This is probably my favorite part of the entire trip because of the amazingly beautiful sites that we had an opportunity to see.

Halong Bay is a bay. What makes it amazing is that there are dozens of island-mountain-rock formations spread out around the bay. We booked a half day tour due to time constraints, and set out bright and early at 8:00. Unfourtunately, the bus has to circle around the hotels in the area to pick up people which takes more than an hour. Then its a two and a half hour bus ride to get to the bay, in optimal traffic. It was a little longer for us, including a stop at a gift shop for a while. We didn't really need one, but I think the tour gets a kick-back for taking us there.

Finally arriving at Halong Bay, a great and beautiful land was in store. We first boarded a boat for a short ride to where we would eat lunch and kayak. Our boat was really nice, it had two stories and was easy to get a view of the bay. Our boat was similar to the one pictured below:

It was so great to cruise around all of these tall, craggly rock formations peppering the bay.

On the boat, we met some interesting people. A girl who we shared lunch with, Hannah, was a teacher in Japan. We also met a group of three girls who were good friends. One each from Korea, Thailand, and Vietnam, who all met while studying Japanese in Japan. We spent some time talking with them and learning about their lives. I also got a great photo of the Korean and Thai girl recreating a certain scene from Titanic:

Our cruise first stopped at a floating house where we could see some live seafood and buy from a mobile floating fruit vendor. There were two vendors there, and each had a cute little boy along with to help sell the fruit. Kelsey bought a few mangosteins from the lady in the photo. They tasted great despite the fact that the lady refused to give her the correct change:

After a delicious seafood lunch, we were taken to another floating house where kayaks and kayaking equipment were stored. This was the exact moment where I knew that I loved Vietnam. I managed to take some photos and video while Kelsey was paddling:

One of the other kayaks

A view of the bay, with Kelsey's head

This is a video I took while kayaking through a tunnel in one of the rock formations:

An interesting part of the experience was at the end of our kayaking. I was paddling again, and suddenly the paddle broke in half in my hands. I continued to paddle with one of the halves, and upon reaching the house again, I was demanded to pay for the paddle. I insisted that a paddle failure is due to many, many uses and routine wear; not one single use. They still insisted that I pay for the paddle. I was already sick of having every dollar sucked out of my pocket that I made a fuss and the tour guide payed for it. A minor victory, but I felt bad that it may have come out of his or the tour's funds.

With that occurance behind us, we set off toward a massive cave located within one of the rock formations. The group of girls, Kelsey, and I decided to sit on the front of the boat with our legs hanging over the ledge. On the left side is me, next to me is the Vietnamese girl, and then Hannah:

The cave was amazing, though I didn't like any of the pictures that I took of it. I guess if my readers are interested they will have to go and see it for themselves.

After the cave, we cruised back to the bus and then had a sleepy ride back to Hanoi during the sunset. Another fun part of the trip was when we stopped at the gift shop for a second time and found these kittens. I held on to this absolutely tiny little kitten who was the youngest kitten I had ever seen. I had to snap a photo of it because it was ridiculously adorable:

That night we went out for some pho, and had a fairly quiet night in preparation for our flight to Ho Chi Minh, which will be featured in the next post.

The Road To Vietnam

Over the period between Christmas and New Years, I spent an action packed week in Vietnam with my sister. Somehow, one of the most action packed nights was on the way to the airport in Korea.

It started with poor planning. I booked tickets through a travel agent and I thought that our flight was leaving from Busan, in the South of Korea, and flying back into Incheon, closer to our town. Instead both flights were to Busan airport, and I did not forsee how hectic of a travel time Christmas Eve would be. Kelsey and I tried to book a bus ticket to Daejeon so that we could take the train to Busan, but the tickets were sold out for that night. Even worse, all the train tickets going to Busan from Seoul were sold out as well. Oops.

So we were in a pretty big jam with no way to get to Busan and a flight leaving at 10:30 the next morning. Luckily, our friend Michael had told us that his girlfriends car was being kept at his place while she was out of the country, and that we could borrow it for a short trip. I told him about my predicament, and he told me that the car may not be reliable enough to make it 5 hour trip to Busan, but that we were welcome to try if we wanted. Lacking any better options, we were on our way by about 9:30 that night.

We finally got to the airport at 3 in the morning after being lost for a while and almost running out of gas. With nothing to do until the flight, we spent a pleasant night of sleeping in the car while periodically running the heater to warm ourselves. We finally went to the airport at about 6 in the morning, and we were once again on our way.

We did have a nice stop at a rest area. Korean rest areas are top notch. They have restaurants, convenience and coffee shops, and sometimes batting cages. We were lucky enough to find one with a Santa, and took this photo just as midnight and Christmas day were upon us:

So from there the flight was comparatively uneventful, and we made it to Hanoi, Vietnam. Another weird speedbump was when we tried to change our money at the airport, and it turned out that the banks did not take Korean Won. I took some money out of an ATM to have enough for a minibus to a hotel where we could change over some Won into Vietnamese Dong. Somehow, I managed to leave my card inside of the ATM so that it sucked it back in and I lost my American ATM card within a half hour of being in Vietnam. Nice going.

It turned out we found a giftshop that would buy some Won at a semi-reasonable rate so we had enough money to pay for two nights of hotel and two plane tickets. From there we didn't really have any money problems because we could just change over money at the hotels.

The minibus ride was nice into Hanoi, and then I took a few photos of our first time walking around:

Some kids playing ball

An awesome church

The top-notch electrical infrastructure of Vietnam

I thought the money was really cool. It's called Dong and it has a tiny clear window on it

The rest of the first day was relaxing. We spent some time exploring and made some friends who were graffiti artists from Ho Chi Minh City while drinking at an outside cafe.

We were walking and this lady was aggressively trying to sell us fruit. She put her hat and carrying stick on us for a photo without even asking. So we got some nice photos:

Kelsey

Me

After she pretty much forced us to buy some bananas, so I picked up four bananas for a dollar. Not really a great deal, but the photos were nice I guess. It was a nice end to a long day.

...And the Blogging Continues

Welcome back to my blog. Sorry about this long hiatus, but I took December off and then had a visit from my family last week. These things did give me loads of new material to blog about, so continue reading because I expect about 10 new posts this month.

My first post is about the most recent Iron Kimchi show, which took place on December 15th, and featured the new lineup. Our new lineup basically just replaced Adrian from South Africa with Lucas from Michigan, who is an excellent guitar player. Here's some photos of the band:

Lucas on guitar

Jake on vocals

Me on guitar (not pictured)

Our show was a split show with another band, a Korean band that played a mix of originals and Korean songs, and one American song. I'm not sure what they are called but it was something like Hyundai Power Tech, because they work there.

Iron Kimchi 2.0

Iron Kimchi's set went really well. We used an electric guitar for the first time at a show, which we borrowed from a friend named Larry. My favorite songs that we played were Violent Femmes 'Blister in the Sun', When in Rome 'The Promise', and The Pixies 'Where is my mind'. I have video from all three of these songs but they are too big to post on this site. I made a prop for when we played the Foo Fighter's song 'Big Me'. I threw out a pack of mentos painted to say Kimchitos, which is a joke that at least two people in the audience got.

After our show we had some fun watching the Korean band play. Our favorite was the Green Day song they played 'Basket Case'. I don't have any pictures of them, unfortunately, because my camera was out of memory.

So anyway, thanks for reading and definitely keep reading this month because there will be a ton of new stuff about Vietnam and my family coming to Korea.

I'm (Slightly) Famous

While shopping at my neighborhood convenience store last week, the clerk informed me that he is a newspaper columnist. He asked me if I would be interested in doing an interview and taking a few pictures with my students. I said OK, of course, so the man visited my school during lunch last thursday and conducted the interview.

I have a link to the online version of the article here, just click on the paper with a picture of a boat on the cover and go to page 24. It's also available in print, so if you are currently in Seosan just go to a paper box and pick up a free copy of 'Go Cha Ro Plus'.

He asked me maybe 7 or 8 questions, and he seemed interested in whether I would be willing to marry a Korean woman, have kids, and raise them here. I told them I am open the that possibility but I wouldn't want to raise a kid here. The school system is a little too ridiculous. He also knew I was a musician, so I told him about our band Iron Kimchee and how we have a show in a few weeks.

One thing I maybe shouldn't have said was when he asked me what is different about Korea and USA. I was on the spot and couldn't think of many things, and I told him that it's dirtier here. It got printed. Oops, sorry Korea.

Please, Stop that Racket

We have this interesting problem at school: a shop two doors down is having some kind of amazing sale, and to promote it they are blasting ridiculous and loud dance music during my entire afternoon schedule. It is loud enough that we can hear every word of every song clear as day inside of my classroom. To make things worse (maybe better?) there are two girls who dance on platforms in front of traffic right in front of the store. All of the time it's either two girls dancing to music, or sometimes one of the girls picks up a microphone and starts yapping about the sale they are having. I went and took some video with my camera:

In the video I'm not sure if the girls just don't want me taking pictures of them, or if it's illegal or something, but I don't really care.

Today I was giving my fourth and fifth grade class a test, which is supposed to be silent. The whole time the music is just blaring, and I'm singing along in my head to Lil' John while he sings "shots shots shots...shots shots shots shots shots...everybody....etc." Please make it stop. Please.

It was a Monster Mash

Following the children's Halloween party was a more grown up party for the near-adults that live in Seosan. We all went to the beach, this place called Mallipo which is about 45 minutes away by bus. It took place in what is called a pension. This is where a room can be rented with a kitchen and a bunch of blankets and stuff for sleeping. We slept about 20 crazy drunk people in the room.

The night included a lot of drinking and a lot of cool costumes. It was also the going away party for a popular foreigner in Seosan named Sam. I tried to load a video onto here, but it ended up being about 1 gigabyte of data, so sorry about that. I do have picture of some of the cooler costumes, so enjoy:

Terry as Aburahame Lincoen.

Jake in the tracksuit from Kill Bill and a crazy mask, with Jordy as a Scotsman.

Here is the beach and a beautiful sunset.

A very Harry Potter sunset with Kinsey and Larry

Joe as an Indian call center employee

Skeleton Kelsey and Sam as Kelly Kapowski

Megan and Rob as Luke and Leia

Michael as Santa and Wil as an Ahjuma

Jordy played a bagpipe concert for us outside of the room, which I'm sure the neighbors loved

Megan, Kelsey, and me as Zombie John Lennon

So those are the best costumes that I took pictures of, there were actually a lot of other cool ones that I didn't have my camera around for. The highlight of the night was when Kelsey kept getting texts from a Korean guy in Seoul, and then kept calling. We had Joe answer the phone as Indian call center guy, and had a conversation with him for about 10 minutes. I have about 4 mintues of HD video of it, but it's too big to fit on the site, so sorry.

That's it for Halloween, but I'm going to try to do a lot of blogging soon to clear out my backlog. Keep reading!

A Happy Halloween

I figure I better use up the material I have from Halloween since I don't want it to become stale and its already a week past the holiday. Anyway, for those who don't know, Halloween is the biggest holiday of the year at my school. The school is decorated starting in October, then the week of more decorations come in, and then the day of it gets ridiculous. All of the windows are blacked out, a haunted house is made in our computer lab, and all of the kids dress up in costumes.

I'll get to some of the costumes first, and then more on the haunted house later. Here is probably my favorite costume of all the kids. This is a 5 year old named William as a vampire:

Here is 6 year old Martin as a Batman Zoro hybrid I think:

Tom, 7, as some kind of masked vampire (Rex is in the back picking his nose):

This kid as a toy soldier is Kevin, but I usually call him Candy to rile him up:

Lucy as something. Maybe a witch?

So now the haunted house. The kids brought in loads of boxes to make kind of a maze inside of our biggest room. We had about 150 boxes which were stacked to form the walls of the maze, then black plastic wrap is put over all of them. There are a few other decorations inside, including this fortune teller's head inside of a bubble that you can see below:

Anyway, for the haunted house, all of the lights are turned off and the kids are sent to crawl under table thing. Then waiting around a corner was Kelsey who jumped out and scared them. Then they came to the next corner and I jumped out to get them, and they had to go back and go past Kelsey. Then another teacher chased them around the rest of the maze, including one part where I could reach my hand through a hole in the boxes and grab at their legs.

So every kid in the school was forced to go through this thing, which I found somewhat terrifying myself. I would say over half of the kindergarteners cried for their mommies, but it didn't matter if they cried because they were forced to finish the rest of the haunted house. Here is a picture of Joseph while I am scaring him:

Most of the 6 and 7 year olds calmed down, but for some reason the teachers kept going with terrorizing the 5 year olds. One teacher ran into their room in a goblin mask to frighten them while Kelsey was trying to calm them. This went on for minutes, and Kelsey claimed that by the time they finally left them alone, her pants were soaked in tears. Soaked in tears.

So I'm going to leave on a happy note, anyway. My second favorite costume is this kid Alex who went as a male policeman stripper: