Asian Adventures, Part 1: China

We are almost settled back into our apartment from vacation. But we are not ready to go back to work tomorrow. We are still reminiscing about our amazing adventures in Thailand!

After some mask fun, we are ready for our adventures!

First, we'd like to apologize for not making calls before we left. The phone that Nicole was going to get didn't work out due to a policy change that happened about a month ago. It makes zero sense, but we just chalk that up to: we're in Korea.

Playing dress-up at Incheon Airport

Making masks at the Incheon Airport
for free!

We had a rocky start to our vacation. Getting to Thailand was a real hassle. We had to take 3 flights to get there... due to late booking & cheapest fees. Unfortunately, between flight number 1 & 2, we had a 14 hours layover in China. We were preparing ourselves for some alcoholic sleep in the airport but as we were walking to transfers, we were screamed at to go through immigration. We tried to tell them we had a transfer flight but they weren't having it. So then we spent about 30 minutes in immigration explaining our situation. Language barrier was fantastic. Then we had another issue because John has a visa for China & they were wondering why he wasn't using it. In the end we were stamped & allowed 24 hours stay in China. 

America really needs to step up their
airline snacks. This is standard for all
Asian airlines. 

Next step... where do we go?! When we walked out of the airport, we had not a clue what to do. None of us had taken any time to do any kind of research about China because we were planning on hotel airport. We were greeted by a few people outside of the airport doors asking us where we were going. We said we didn't know where we were; they're response: "Qingdao, Qingdao Airport". That was repeated multiple times but we at least knew that much! Somehow we managed a ride to a bar about 20 minutes away. Of all places, we landed in the "Korea town" of Qingdao, China.

McDonald's in Chinese

Chinese Yuan

Just chillin' at the P-Mart!

We drank & ate & met a couple of foreigners. One guy had been living in China for the past 15 years & had his 5 year old son with him. That boy was a little cutie. At one point he was standing next to a skinny tree, lifted up his shirt, dropped his pants, & said, "I just need to go pee pee, daddy." We were sitting outside of a market, it was fantastic. We all were dying laughing. We found out that Qingdao is where they make the Tsingtao beer. We also learned that Kunming, China (our next stop) is called "Spring Forever" because the weather is always fantastic there.

Chinese Yuan

The other foreigner we ran into helped us with finding a hotel. We went to 2 hotels that were just flabbergasted that we didn't have a reservation & they had no rooms left. The 3rd hotel we went to had one room left. It had been almost a 2 hour search & we had seen a woman holding a 9-11month old baby upright on a motor scooter, so we took it. We get up there & the first thing we all see is the bathroom. Why? Because it only had a glass wall & a sheer curtain to cover it. How convenient! 3-4 hours of sleep later we were checking out & in a taxi to the airport.

Oh no... China adventures are still not finished. We make it to Kunming, China & have a 2 hour layover. That 2-hour layover turned into a 5-hour layover! This caused us to miss our flight in Bangkok to Chiang Mai. None of us were happy. Not a single notice that the flight was delayed came on over the intercom but just showed up on the screen. No apologies were ever made. No reason was ever told as to why the flight was delayed for 3 hours. None of us will ever again fly with China Eastern Airlines. They were beyond rude & unreliable & we are going to be sure that everyone we know, knows this. After our experience in China, none of us have any desire to ever return again!

Notice the current time is already after the expected departure time of our delayed flight.
We still weren't boarding at this point.

THAILAND... FINALLY!!! As soon as we got into Thailand, all of our moods were instantly lifted. We found a flight to Chiang Mai for cheap from a very helpful woman. At the check-in counter, the man who gave us our tickets told us about Bangkok Airways lounge open to all Bangkok Airways passenger. We went to see what this lounge was all about. It was AMAZING! Free food (popcorn, brownies, crossiants, sandwiches...) & free drinks (coffee, cappuccino, tea, lemonade...) & free WiFi! The smiles on our faces were ridiculous.

We had finally made it to Chiang Mai & we were greeted by our tour guide, Lek & his wife. They took us to eat dinner at a Thai restaurant & then took us to our hotel. We checked in around midnight & then we had to be up & ready to go by 8:30 the next morning!

Much more to come on our Thailand adventures!

Next stop: THAILAND!

Sometimes, all we need
is some chocolate ice
cream with M&Ms!

This time next week we will be settling into our hotel in Chiang Mai, Thailand! We are so excited! We are ready to get on the plane right now. But we still have 5 days of work & some packing to do. We must contain our excitement until then.

The past couple of weeks have been better for us. Work is still very difficult for us & we don't anticipate that getting any better. But we can find ways to deal with it all... & Thailand is one of those ways! We haven't done anything out of the ordinary lately because we don't have the time but we're trying to come up with creative ways to live in Korea.

It has been 4 months now since we've been here. We've developed a routine, & it has come to the point where things just aren't new & exciting unless we go searching for them. But to go searching we need time & sometimes money - we usually don't have time, & occasionally the money either.

Bar, better known as Pop Con.

However, we did have a few enjoyable things happen. After getting paid, Nicole went shopping with a couple of her coworkers & got some clothes for our Thailand trip!
Nicole witnessed a taxi driver hit a delivery guy on a motor bike. The guy wasn't hurt but his bike fell over along with him & all of his stuff. The taxi driver got out, helped him put his things back & they both drove off. NEVER IN AMERICA!
We had a "foreigner night out". One of the foreigner-friendly bars (Yellow Taxi) in Time World was having a Jazz/Funk music night. They have a foreigner night about every other month. This particular night they had a band & a "DJ" alternating. It was a $20 cover & all you can drink beer & cocktails. It was a really fun night. And the band sounded great!
Nicole also bought a new camera for the Thailand trip! It's more traveler friendly & takes better quality pictures. We can't wait to use it on our trip!
Nicole also finally received a debit card from her bank. She found out that when she uses said debit card, she will receive a 3% discount on a few websites & markets, & also 10% discount at some cafes, including Starbucks!

Bathroom sign in Pop Con. If you look
closely, you can see that the woman is
actually peeing like a man.

After several attempts to wire money from our SK bank accounts to our USA bank accounts, we both finally managed to do so! We both were able to send a significant portion back to the USA to finish paying off some debt we have. That was a very big stress reliever.
We've started doing group workouts. It's actually for the ladies, but John & our friend Jude help out with the workout since they are very knowledgeable about Crossfit. The group thing is to get more ladies motivated to workout (for free) & create a new network of friends.

Nicole's coworkers know how to have
a fun time at work!

Trip to House Grill; John got the Double Monster Burger with bacon.
That's the height after he tried to push it down.

Other than that, we've just been finalizing our plans for Thailand. We are more than ready to go! We will be flying to Bangkok, then to Chiang Mai. Staying in Chiang Mai for 2 nights. In Chiang Mai we will do a jungle trek (ride elephants) & see some temples. Then we will fly to Phuket & stay there for 3 nights on the beach. We don't have any concrete plans there yet except to relax on the beach, but we are hoping to go thru an hour of trapeze training that they have there. Like we said, we're ready to go NOW! But in exactly one week, we will be settling into our hotel in Chiang Mai: http://www.agoda.com/asia/thailand/chiang_mai/centara_khum_phaya_resort_spa_centara_boutique_collection.html?cklg=1

Lemon drop shot!

Since it will probably be after our Thailand trip that we post again, we will also add a few things: tomorrow (Monday), we are finally getting a bed frame! No more sleeping on a mattress on the ground. Wednesday we are receiving a vacuum so we can tidy our place way better. And on Friday Nicole is getting a phone! We will be making calls to home before we leave for Thailand on Saturday afternoon. We know of a few apps that will let us call the U.S. for free, only using the minutes we are already paying for. We will double check to make sure that receivers will also not get a charge. So family & friends, anticipate a call next weekend!

Thanks for reading!

Best way to start the day.

Just another bar in
Time World

A couple of interesting things we've learned recently:
~In Korea, they make the 'V' for victory with their fingers for pictures (which we've known for a while). Well, we also found out that where they hold their 'V' says something about their self-confidence. The closer to their face it is, the more self-conscience they are; farther away, more self-confidence.
~The way Korea (and many other Asian countries) view marriage is very different from Western culture. Women will marry men based on their status, rather than for love. We've been told by our Korean bosses that you will rarely meet a taxi driver or bus driver that is married because of their job. Basics: the husband is to provide for the wife so that the wife can keep herself presentable & beautiful for the husband.

June down

Yes! We are thrilled for June to be over. It has been a rough month. We celebrated by getting 2 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts today. They were a 1+1 deal. (Buy one dozen, get one dozen free). Today was also a very big grocery shopping day. Now we have food to eat for all meals!

The past week was much calmer than this entire month has been. On Wednesday evening we went out with Nicole's coworkers to celebrate the end of open class. Two of her coworkers had their open class that day & they were the last ones. We went to a new Chicken & Beer place in Mannyeon-dong (our old neighborhood) but it was too expensive for what we got. So we left & got our own chicken from a stand & beer from the convenient store. It was an interesting & fun night. At one point, John was doing an "awkward octopus" with his hands as one of Nicole's coworkers flipped him off. Who goes by at the exact moment? One of the bosses of Maple Bear (Nicole's school). Too perfect timing!

Thursday afternoon, Nicole was able to finally get her ARC card! John got his the week before. We are happy that we can now get phones & Costco cards & be able to transfer money to our American bank accounts! Thankfully we're both getting paid again soon & can send a good portion home to save.

John got word on Friday evening that his school is yet again changing how they do things because parents aren't happy with something. We are getting very frustrated with Korean parents. As far as we've seen & heard, their major or only concern is 1 of 2 things: their child is the best OR their child is having enough fun, not necessarily learning anything. The second one is seen more at Nicole's school rather than John's. There are some parents there who send their kids to the school for the sake of bragging that they go there. And of course, if something goes wrong, the foreign teacher is going to get blamed, because, well, they're the foreigner. We expect this, but it's just annoying!

Anyways, we had a good weekend off from work: relaxed, watched movies, worked out, ate at Self Bar, hung out in Time World. All good things! Except, the workouts we did on Saturday were a little rough. John & our friend did a mile run, 100 body blasters, & another mile run. All in a matter of about 40 minutes! There was a lot of dirt & some blood! Nicole is no where near their level so she did her own workout & she is sore all over today. But they were good for both of us. We're all going to look awesome for our vacation to Thailand!

At this time, we leave for Thailand in 27 days! We are so excited! We are going with 2 of our friends. We will be flying into Bangkok, then flying to Chiang Mai. Staying there a couple of days to do a jungle trek & see some temples. Then we will fly to Phuket & stay there a few days relaxing on the beach & doing what tourists do. We can't wait!

This week we realized how different Seoul is from Daejeon. We noticed when we were there but after being back in Daejeon, we miss the convenience! That's the major thing. Seoul is way more convenient in several aspects. First, the subway system is crazy, yet efficient. On our trip we never waited more than 3 minutes for a subway. In Daejeon we might wait 10+ minutes. We were always very close to food or drinks if we needed it. Even when we were at the tower. Also, everywhere we went, we spoke English. Rarely did we use the little amount of Korean we know because most workers we came across spoke at least a little bit of English. You won't always find that in Daejeon! There's always the question, "do they speak any English there?" When referring to restaurants, bars, stores, offices, etc... Even though Seoul was easier, we truly enjoy the challenge of the language barrier & it only helps us want to learn more of the Korean language.

Sign in a taxi with a slight
translation problem. This is
actually one of the better signs
when it comes to bad English.

Hanging out in Time World

We got a fan this week. Nicole
had to carry it home with one
arm in the rain. This is how her
arm looked still a day later.

Soap, Superman, Stress, Self Bar, Seoul, Sleep!

So it's been a couple of weeks since our last post - we've been extremely busy & exhausted. Yes, more than normal. At times to the point of tears! But we've had the best weekend & things will start calming down for both of us soon. And we leave for Thailand in 34 days!

Since our last post, we celebrated our 2 years together. We went to Baskin Robbins & got a small sampler cake (it had 9 different flavors). With the cake came some dry ice... we did several experiments. Our favorite was the giant soap bubble we made! It was a fun & relaxing evening.

Last weekend we were going to go to Seoul but we ended up going out late on Friday night to 2 new places. Santa Claus & Shisha House. Yes, I said Santa Claus. It's a bar. They have delicious hotdogs! They were pretty big. Don't know why we didn't think to take a picture! Next time though. Shisha House was one of the nicest places we've been to when it comes to appearance. Definitely the cleanest public bathroom we've been in! Other than that, we mostly relaxed over the weekend & watched movies. We went to see Man of Steel & loved it! Highly recommended!

Our TEFL Certificates came!

During the week we had really high stress levels. A couple of John's classes keep getting changed so he isn't able to maintain consistency with the students. And it's even harder that it's his youngest kids... & that he doesn't know about these changes until they are happening while he is in the middle of class! On Thursday, he also found out that he had to attend a 7-hour seminar on Saturday. But this information came from a coworker, not his boss! We decided that we would both go because it was in Seoul (and a free ride to Seoul) & then spend the night & take the train home on Sunday. Thankfully it worked out but that seminar was mostly ridiculous & only a little helpful. The audience was supposed to be Koreans who teach or want to teach English. We were just a few of the maybe 10 white people that were there.
Nicole had what's called 'open class' on Friday. All of her kids parents sat in her classroom to watch her teach for 45 minutes. She had been preparing for it for over 4 weeks. So much stress was put on her to have a "perfect" open class. 45 minutes doesn't seem like a long time, but it is! The night before, we went to Self Bar & ate our way thru a lot of meat. It was a good stress reliever. After it was over Friday, Nicole was so happy. And the class actually went very well. Her students were great.

Before we headed to Seoul on Saturday morning, we went to a couple of Nicole's coworkers house & watched Back to the Future! One of her coworkers had never seen it & everyone was just very off put by that fact so it was a must watch. We got home around 11:30 & fell asleep by 12:30, only to wake up at 5:20 so that we could get on the road at 6:00 for Seoul. The only time we saw our apartment this weekend (besides tonight), was when we were sleeping in on Friday! It was a nice getaway though.

Make-up area in the hallway of our hotel.

Our Seoul trip was a rough start, but it ended up being AMAZING!! We loved every minute after the seminar. After the seminar we found our way to the Seoul Station to buy our train tickets for Sunday. Once we had the tickets we took the subway into Myeongdong. We had to find a hotel to stay in. The first two we looked at were completely booked. Well, one of them had one more room available but it didn't have a bed... deal breaker! The 3rd one we found had 1 room available! It had 3 twin beds in it! Hello giant bed! The guy gave us a nice discount too since there was only 2 of us. After a couple hours of rest we ventured out into the crazy shopping world of Myeongdong. It's one of the most popular shopping areas in Seoul. It really was crazy! There was so much to see! Nicole was able to buy "I <3 Korea" shirts for her boys back in BR. We saw so many Psy socks too! That's just a fun phrase to say. We even found Snoopy & the dog cafe without even trying! We didn't go to the cafe, but we will next time! After exploring the area, we watched a movie & went to bed. And got a wonderful night of sleep!

This morning we went to the Namsan Seoul Tower!! That was fantastic too! We checked out of our hotel & walked to the tower. First, we took a slanted elevator up. Then we took a cable car up the mountain. Then we went up some stairs. And we finally made it to the bottom of the tower! Yes, the bottom. We purchased tickets for the Teddy Bear Museum & Observatory. The Teddy Bear Museum was adorable & entertaining. After that we went up to the Observatory Deck. We had the most amazing views of Seoul. Full 360 degrees! There was even a "post office" up there where you could send postcards. Nicole was very thrilled to finally see postcards so we bought a few to take home with us! After the observatory deck, we headed back down & looked all the "locks of love". Then we ended our visit because we were getting hungry! There were restaurants there but we figured probably too expensive to be worth it.

Slanted elevator

Going up the slanted elevator

A view from the cable car

Hello N Seoul Tower!

Panoramic view from top the mountain/bottom of Namsan Tower

We made it to the observatory deck!

Pyongyang, North Korea is 193.6 km that way

N for Nicole!

Sitting in the "love chair" in front of just a few of the "locks
of love"; they were everywhere!

We found our way to Namdaemun Market & John found the exact sunglasses he's been looking for! He has been trying to find what he wants for 2 months now. And then there they were! $10. Win! He loves them. As for food, we ended up caving in & got McDonald's. We got the 1955 burger! We wonder if they have that in the states...?

Then we got on a train & made it home a couple of hours later! What a wonderful weekend away. We hope you enjoy all of the pictures!

Beautiful fountain in Myeongdong!

A Quiznos next to a 7-11. How did we
get to America?!

Back at Seoul Station waiting for our train
when we're given this hat to wear; check out
those new shades!

Bulgogi burger @ McDonalds

Since we haven't posted a picture yet,
here is our new apartment building.
The Doll House. We are 2nd floor.