See Ya Bro!

For the first time that I've been in Korea, I've got to say goodbye to a really good friend. You see, my buddy Bakki from Virginia Beach is heading back home on Thursday. Let me give you a little background on Bakki; he's half-black half-japanese, he's funny as hell, and the dude can dance. This last on e is important because those of you who know me know that I like to dance a lot and that I got decent rythm for a white guy. Well, Bakki and I are the only dudes that I know in Cheonan that can dance. What am I gonna do once Bakki leaves? I'll be dancing by myself on the dance floor and noone needs to see that.

Bakki's leaving is actually a good thing. It gives me a chance to practice saying goodbye to the friends that I've made here. And let me tell you, I have made some really good friends here! There are some really decent people teaching in Korea and I am getting to meet a lot of them. One of them is Bakki and I am really sad see him go. See ya later Bro!

Carvin it up Muju Style

Yesterday I got a chance to do one of the coolest things I've done in Korea to date...I got to go snowboarding on a Korean mountain! The mothers of the students that I go and play hockey with on Monday nights asked me if I would like to join them and the kids on their trip to Muju resort. Of course I couldn't turn down this amazing opportunity.

So the plan went a little like this: I would meet them at 7am at the mall by my place. Good plan right? One problem; I had poker night at my place which inevitably leads to drinks afterward. Long story short, I crawled into bed at 5am possibly still drunk. Now before you even commence thinking that I didn't make the 7am rendez-vous, remember who's writing this. I'm a trooper baby, I made the 7am meeting (possibly still drunk) and we were off on the 2 hour trek to Muju Resort. Let me tell you this, that was a super long drive with three 6 year olds screaming in the car.

We arrived at Muju at about 9am and we were off hitting the slopes. Now before I continue the story I should tell you that I had really only snowboarded once before, and that attemp ended with me walking down the mountain with my board in my hand out of frustration. No worry this time though as I was going with a bunch of kids and their Moms who would no doubt be in the same position as me...right? WRONG! These kids were awesome (they were all skiing but they were frickin amazing)! My one student's Mom was the only other one snowboarding and she was far and away better than me. Soi I had a choice to make at this point, I could take it easy and ride the back end of the board all the way down (kind of like applying some pressure to brakes on a bike when going down a hill) or I could just go with plan B and giv'r.

So the first couple of times I barrelled down the hill full steam I almost killed a butt-load of people including myself. I don't know how many times I had to say "Mian Hamnida" (sorry in Korean). Lunch time came and I was a bit frustrated because my kids were flying down the mountain and were always waiting for me at the bottom. Oh, and did I mention that I was hugely nauseous from the whole no-sleep thing? I couldn't even eat any food, although I was truly starving.

So I made a resolution to teach myself to board before the day was over. I was getting super awesome at riding the back edge, but everytime I would switch to the front edge I would bail hard core. What happened on my third run was something that I haven't felt in about 23 years; it felt like that first time I learned how to ride the bike. I couldn't tell you how I did it, but in one glorious moment not only was I riding on the front edge, but I was dipping and dodging between other skiiers and boarders. Then I got cocky and I was going about Mach 3 when I bailed hardcore. I tells ya, I thought I dislocated my shoulder (not the one I had surgery on).

So I took it kind of easy the rest of the afternoon, but I did it, I taught myself how to snowboard. This is really great news because my parents bought me a board and all the fixins last Christmas. Now I can enjoy using it instead of hanging it up on my wall and telling people that I had to "retire it" because it just to be too easy for me.

P.S. I snored all the way back to Cheonan from Muju and the Moms didnt wake me because they thought it was cute. Man, I love Korea!

I miss Thailand

I simply need to finish off my Thailand Tales in this blog's entry. You see, it is becoming too hard for me to relive that wondrous time over and over again through my stories. So, I'll finish off telling you about the last 3 days spent in thailand by telling you how amazing they were.

The second day in Phi Phi was probably one of the most amazing days of my life. Vanessa and I signed up for a triple dose of awesome; cliff diving, snorkelling, and a trip to Maya Beach (where they shot "The Beach"). As an added bonus, we got a chance to stop by Monkey Island where they had about a hundred monkeys hangin out eating bananas and drinking Pepsi...that's right Pepsi. The cliff dive was awesome! We started out at 10 metres and then dove off of a tree at 15 metres. I gotta tell you it was a huge rush. The snorkelling was unreal. The water was the most amazing colour of blue-green and the water was loaded with neon fish like the ones out of Nemo. Maya beach was truly a spectacle and most likely the most beautiful place on earth.

The only other part of my trip that I would like to share about my trip to Thailand is New Year's Eve on Khoa San road in Bangkok. Let's just say that I've got no qualms ringing in the New Year with about 30 000 foreigners from around the world on a street loaded with cool bars. The only disappointment of the night was when the cops shut te party down due to the bombs that someone set off in a different part of Bangkok earlier that night.

There, now I've shared all that I can about my trip to Thailand. Now if you'll excuse me I am going to have a nice grown-up man cry in my bedroom at the prospect of no more holidays until I leave at the beginning of August.

Ronnie

Heaven: Thy Name is Koh Phi Phi

This is not going to be my usual elongated, verbally potent entry. Nay, I don't need to tell every little thing that happened on that fateful 5th day in Thailand. I will simply paint a picture in your mind as to why Koh Phi Phi is such a bastion for so many different folks across our great world.

The first thing you need to know about Phi Phi is that is surrounded by other magnificent islands (including the one where they shot "The Beach"), so the boat ride up to the island is indescribably beautiful.

The second thing you need to know is that the sand on the beach in Phi Phi is so very very white and soft. It kinda feels like you are making a ginat cake and that you are mixing the flour with your feet.

The third thing you need to know is that I've never been more relaxed in my life than I was for those 2 days in Phi Phi. It is definitely a resort island and the main attraction to Phi Phi is its laid back approach to life. Noone, and I mean noone, gets mad in Phi Phi!

The last thing you need to know about Phi Phi is that they have really cheap buckets (if you don't know what these are then check my prior entries) and that I had near 4 of them that fateful first night in Phi Phi.

So that is how my first day in Phi Phi went; Vanessa and I lounged around all day enjoying the beauty, and at night we went dancing and I drank a ton of buckets. Overall, one of the greatest days of my life!

Day 5: Activity Day in Phi Phi

Day 4 Thailand

By this point, Vanessa and I were ready to spend the day chillin on the beach. And that's exactly what we did. We went down to Patong Beach, which is really gorgeous, and we baked in the sun and swam in the blue-green water. How did we get there you ask? Well, we rented a motorbike (more like a moped) for the day and we rode that hog right down to the beach. If you can believe it, the ride only cost $7 from 1pm until 1pm the next day. Crazy Cheap!

So anyways, I don't know if I mentioned yet, but they drive on the left hand side of the road in Thailand and they drive like maniacs. When in Phuket do as the Phuketians do. So as you can probably already guess, I almost killed Vanessa and me a few times. Lanes are really just a suggestion if you are driving a bike in Thailand. There were a couple times where I tried to pass on the right and had to duck back into a lane to avoid an oncoming car. Mom, if you're reading this, I am sorry but it was fun as hell!

So we took the long way to the beach and grabbed us a nice spot about 10 feet away from the water. The day was gorgeous (about 27 degrees) and the sun was out in full force. At about 3pm the sun hid away for about an hour, so I decided to relive my youth and make a sand castle. I now know why I didn't go into architecture; my sand castle looked an awful lot like a squat-toilet and didn't so much resemble a castle of any sort.

After the beach we went for another cruise down the coast. Although it wasn't much to look at, that sucka could go about 80km on a straight-away. We had a little supper and then headed back to the hotel to change for what was supposed to be a chill night. The plan was to drive to the strip and park the beast and do a little shopping. Well, we found this cool little mexican place along the way and decided to stop for a cerveza or 6. It ended up being closer to the latter. We then got a brilliant idea to take our hog for a little spin along the coast. I'm gonna go out on a limb and say it was probably not the best idea I've ever had. Not because of the beer, we spread it out over a long time. The thing about Phuket is that there are a ton of hills.

So we had no actual idea where we were going, so we just kept going. The problem was that apparently vehicles require gas in order to get you places. Since we just kept driving, we were not paying attention to our fuel supply. We ended up running out of gas in a seemingly fairly dodgy area in Someplace, Phuket. I kid you not, the building across the street looked like a crack-house. To be honest though, we only had to wait about 5 minutes for someone to ask us if we needed him to drive and get us petrol. There was one catch though, he wanted a dollar in return...A WHOLE DOLLAR! I love third-world countries.

We got our petrol, drove around for about an hour until we found a landmark that we recognized, got to our hotel, and called it a night. The random adventure had given us our fix for the day. Day 5: Koh Phi PHi AKA Heaven On Earth

Day 3 Tahiland

Before I tell you about my third day in Thailand, I must tell you that I forgot to mention one of the most intersting things that I did on the second day. I was sitting in a bar with Vanessa, drinking a bucket (more on that later), watching the San Diego Chargers battle the Seattle SeaHawks (Super cool), and all of a sudden a Thai cop waklks in and sits down beside us. Well, from everything I've seen on TV, I am supposed to fear the Thai cops. But I was half-cut and I didn't give a damn, so I went and talked to him. He was super nice and he amazingly let me play with his gun and blow his whistle. And I didn't even get thrown in the "Bangkok Hilton" (If you don't know, google it!)

So I woke up on the third day with a slight bucket hangover (a bucket is a mickey of Thai rum, a Red Bull (the real shit), and a can of coke). Today was my call as I had "given in" to Vanessa's request to go shopping the day before, so I decided that we should go and check out all of the cool temples in Bangkok. I blogged a couple months back about how I was amused by Seoul's fusion of old temples and new buildings, but Seoul cannot hold a candle to Bangkok. There were sooooo many cool temples in Bangkok.

We started off by walking the block or so from our hotel to the pier and took a river boat through the heart of Bangkok. WOW! It was a surreal experience to see the massive city of Bangkok from it watery innards. There were so many amazing temples along the banks of the river and it was amazing to see the skyscrapers draped in behind them. We got off the boat about 30 blocks from the hotel and started out on our mission. Our weapon: a map of Bangkok, our mission: see as many temples on the way back to our hotel as possible, prognosis: huge success.

I have never in my life seen so many cool spiritual bastions in one area. Bangkok has a certain irresistible charm in that it really holds onto its tradition, yet it truly embraces Western culture as well. Along the way, Vanessa and I stopped and prayed in a couple of breathtaking temples (had to in order to increase the peace), took loads of amazing pictures. We even stopped along our adventures and witnessed a middle school class of boys and girls participating in a wooden sword fight en masse Braveheart-style. They told me what it was called by I forget.

Unfortunately,we weren't able to see all of the temples that we wanted to on account of our flight to Phuket and our need to get to the airport. We almost didn't make it as well, because one of the Western cultures that the Thais really embrace is the traffic jam. It took us almost triple the time to get to the airport what it took us to get from the airport. We made it though and had a short one hour trip to Phuket, AKA Tourist Town.

I will end this entry here because the rest of the night was pretty much dedicated to finding a lodging facility for the night. Day 4: Chillin on the beach, and breakdown moto-style.

Ronnie

Day 2 Thailand

Day 2 in Thailand just happened to also be Christmas Day. Now I had imagined that Christmas Day without my family and friends, in a foreign land was gonna be hard. But when I woke up and realized I was in the awesomest country in the world, I did not feel so sorry for myself anymore. Besides, Vanessa and I had decided to participate in a wholly Western Christmas time activity; we went shopping. It was one of Vanessa's stipulations for the trip that we hit up MBK (Thailand's biggest shopping mall) during the trip and what better day than the most commercialised holiday of the year?

So normally I hate shopping but when you can get a pair of Diesel (I'm sure they were real) jeans, hemmed and all, for 17$ you can't really go wrong. This mall was super massive! It had 7 floors of little shops as far as the eye could see. I was able to get my buddy a pair of OOkleys (my little joke) for 6$ and they actually look real. Vanessa had a typical female reaction to a big ass mall, she didn't want to ever leave. But I made her promise me that we would go watch some Muai Thai boxing.

So we left MBK and headed to the stadium to go watch some Thais beat the crap out of each other. No dice though, it wasn't closed due to Christmas but due to the fact that it was Monday. Not to fear though friends, the stadium just happened to be on the outskirts of this place called Lumpini Park. This park featured a night market, a huge ass ferris wheel and a massive park complete with a huge man-made lake. So we did what any self-respecting tourists would do; we had a bunch of cheap beers, rode the ferris wheel and walked in the park until we got kicked out by the Po-Po. They didn't even expect a bribe, how nice of them!

After our long day of shopping we headed back across town for a few last beers among our compatriots on Khoa San Road. All-in-all, not a bad Christmas Day at all. Although part of me really wished I could have seen at least one familiar face from back home.

Day 3: Buddhist Temples and off to Phuket

Ronnie Out...for now

I Heart Thailand

I don't even know how to start this entry...or how to write it so that it doesn't end up being a million words long...

Ok, first of all Thailand is the nicest/coolest/cheapest/most beautiful place I've ever been. Let's get that straight right off the bat. This past week has definitely been one of my favorite of my whole life. Listen to me going on like a school girl!

Now for the details of my adventures. Do I do them in chronological order? Do I just tell you about my favorite activities? I'm so confused right now!

OK, our tale begins on a bit of a sour note. Vanessa (my friend that I went to Thailand with) and I had to go to Seoul to get her a camera for the trip and then onto Incheon where the airport is. When we got to the airport we had to find a place to stay for the night as our flight was uber-early the next day. We located some taxis and they told us 30$ for a ride to a hotel. This is crap because no taxi costs more than 10$ in Korea (one of the perks of Korea). So we decided to walk a bit to find a cab that wouldn't try to screw us. The cabbies in Incheon apparently work within a network because the cabbies just kept following us and spoke to the other cabbies in Korean who then asked for 30$. We finally found a guy who claimned to be a "nice guy". We jumped in a cab and he took us literally across the street and asked for 20$.

We vowed not to let this be a sour note on what we were sure would turn out to be an epic week. In fact, by the time we woke up the next day we felt refreshed and ready to take on Thailand. The flight was kind of brutal...6 hours wait until paradise. But when we finally got to Bangkok, felt totally revitalised. We got off the plane and the first thing we saw outside was a huge Christmas tree about 100 feet tall. Being that it was Christmas Eve it was a nice surprise.

We took an airport shuttle to Khoa San Road which is the total touristy back-packer area in Bangkok. Since we hadn't booke any hotels for the whole trip we had to lug around our stuff looking for a place to stay for the night. We finally found a place just off the strip for 700 Baht a night. That's like 20$ Canadian and that is standard in Bangkok. For future reference it is ab out 35 Baht to one Canadian dollar. After we got a little cleaned up a little, we went for a couple of beers and some food. Total bill: maybe 10$. Are you getting the idea here? Thailand is ridiculously cheap!

Later that night, we were to meet up with some friends at this place called BedSupper Club which is supposed to be very famous. We jumped in a TuckTuck (like a little open Motorbike Cab with a canopy) and asked to go to the club. After stopping at 2 or 3 brothels, the cabbie finally got the clue that we didn't want a whore and took us to a night market where this club was supposed to be. After being asked bout 30 times wether we wanted to see a ping-pong show, we figured we shoulsd ask someone where the hell we were. We found an older dude and asked him if he knew where the club was. He just laughed and said we were on the wrong side of the city...Sweet! He told us exactly how to get there and we jumped in a taxi and we were off.

When we finally got to the club, we were surprised to find out that it cost more to get to get 1 person into the club than a night's stay at our hotel. We paid the cover eager to see the our friends in the club. We never did see them, but we did have a really cool time at the club. One side was a dance floor and the other side was purs white and laden with bed style benches with a huge arch in the middle. It was super chill and we spent about an hour just chillin on the beds.

That's pretty much it for the first day in Thailand. I feel that I need to halt this entry here, for the mark of a good writer is to keep your audience wanting more. That and my hands are cramped from all of the writing.

Tommorow's blog enry: Christmas Day in Bangkok!

Ronnie Out