Bangkok

I'm on a lay-over in Bangkok right now. I feel like this is one of the airports I know pretty well, given the handful of times I came through here last winter. Feels strange to be in someplace so different but which feels familiar.

Because I'm a worrier, I have been starting to plan out "what-ifs" - what if it is too cold in Northern Vietnam? What if I'm not having fun? What if what if what if. And then I remembered - I'm in Southeast Asia, and a flight to someplace strikingly beautiful is about $50 away. So I'm still thinking about Chaing Mai again, but am also thinking about Malaysia. Or Borneo. Or anyplace, really. Anyway, there are always options, and if I'm not having a good time, I can move on.

For some reason, once I know what my "worst case" scenario is, I feel better about the whole thing. Like, once I know what I'll do if things are bad, I feel better.

I left Mokop last night on the 2:30 am bus to the airport in Incheon. I'll get in to Hanoi at 7:30, so with the time change, that will be about 19-20 hours of travel. Tomorrow it is about 4 to CatBa Island. I maybe need to think about visiting places that don't require me to travel for a full day just to get there. What is interesting is that I will be going to my 4th country that doesn't use a Roman alphabet, and have never traveled to one that does. I sort of like that.

Emart

The Emart in Mokpo (think "everything store" - not unlike Wal-mart or Target) has extended their organic offerings, including things like Peace and EnvroKids cereals! Also a whole-grain (herloom grains) cereal. There was a lot of other new stuff, too, and it is the only place in town I have seen canned tuna in water (Lotte still has the foil packets, but the cans are a better value, IMO).

This may be their attempt to keep up with the soon to open Homeplus. Either way, this pleases me greatly. Peanut Butter Panda Puffs for the win! (Though if I could get Mother's Peanut Butter cereal, I would probably weep with joy. I don't see that happening any time soon).

Speaking of Homeplus, I've heard they open at the beginning of January. I will rejoice, as it is a lot closer to my house and if they have whole wheat pasta like Lotte, I think maybe angels will start to sing, or something. If I could find oatmeal off-base or outside of Seoul, I think my head would explode.

I am officially free until March 2nd. I leave on Sunday for Vietnam, will be there until at least the 13-14th, and then will either head to Bali for beaches or to Chaing Mai for the level 2 Thai massage course and climbing at Crazy Horse. There will be friends in both places when I would be there, so options are open. I'll be back here for a couple weeks, then will be in Seoul from February 2nd through the 25th for an intensive Korean course and the amazing experience of living in Seoul for a few weeks with amazing women and hanging out with both Koreans and Westerners who call Seoul home. Incredibly exciting.

Homestretch

I'm in the home stretch for getting ready to go. I need to do a final store run for things like zip-lock bags, and need to hang laundry to dry so I can shove it in the pack tomorrow. After school today I'm going to the bus terminal to buy my ticket to the airport, and will leave at 2:30 AM on Sunday to get to Seoul. I fly to Bangkok, then to Hanoi. The next morning, I'll grab a bus, shuttle, and boat to Cat Ba Island, and if all goes well, should be there early afternoon. YIKES.

Right now, I'm trying to make sure that I have a room in Hanoi for the night. BREATHE.

Christmas

For the most part, Christmas here didn't really feel like Christmas, but it was really nice to spend time with friends. The weekend before, a big group of us went climbing about an hour outside of Mokpo, with a lot of friends coming back to town afterwards (they didn't have to work Monday, but of us teachers did. There was a Christmas Eve party at a friend's apartment and a party Christmas Day, both of which were great in very different ways.

But for me, the best part of the weekend was a party at one of the nearby orphanages. There is a group of teachers who volunteer at a couple of local orphanages, and they organized a gift drive for all of the kids they work with. About 10 of us went to the party, and it was amazing. One of the Air Force guys who climbs with us dressed up like Santa and handed out gifts, there were crafts and food and decorations, and all in all, it felt more like Christmas there than at any other time. I'm so glad I went.

The orphanages here are more like what we call a group home in the US. Some of these kids are actually orphans, but the majority are kids whose parents are unable to take care of them for one reason or another, and the rest of the family isn't able or willing to take them in, often for the same reasons that there are so many Korean babies available for international adoption - "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree" viewpoint.

While we were watching the kids get presents from Santa, a friend leaned forward and said, "I just can't imagine how someone could give up these kids. I just don't understand it."

Word.

in numbers

1. I have been unreasonably cranky today. I'm not exactly sure why.
2. Does anyone know what the term is when you aren't claustrophobic, but when people stand too close to you it freaks you out? What is strange is that it isn't EVERYONE. Just almost everyone.
3. Several people here volunteer weekly at a couple of the orphanages in the area. I'm pretty sure these would be called "group homes" most places, because many of the kids are not actually orphans (and which could lead to a whole different discussion about why there are so many Korean babies that are available for overseas adoption - the Confucian ideals hold to "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree") and they organized a gift drive for all of the kids. It is awesome! SO many people signed up, and hopefully the kids will have a good time.
4. I'm sort of informally teaching one of the 6th grade teachers and my co-teacher in the afternoons. I'm hoping it won't be an everyday thing, but a few times a week would be really interesting, and after the Korean class in February, hopefully it will be more of a language exchange. Today we talked about the presidential election. Korea overwhelming elected one of the former heads of Hyundai, who left his job because of some sort of inappropriate behavior. And who wants to tie teacher salary to test scores. Because there really isn't enough emphasis on test scores as it is. Oh, wait...
5. Because both of these teachers are young women, I've had really interesting conversations about feminism. The asked me if I thought a woman could be president, with my (VERY liberal) co-teacher saying yes and the conservative other teacher saying no. I pointed out that it shouldn't be gender, but rather ability, and that it extended to school principals, head teachers, department heads... If nothing else, it will be interesting to see where these conversations go.
6. This weekend, it looks like a handful of folks will be heading down to climb at the massive indoor climbing stadium down here. This will be awesome!
7. A friend came down (we didn't have school for election day, so we ran around trying to find a place we could climb that was easy to get to and fun and not too cold) and went to the regular climbing gym Tuesday, and made me feel like I wasn't crazy to think that things were not the greatest environment. I am maybe really American, but I'm not crazy, which is good.
8. I am SO SO happy that I can search for trains in English again! I was able to use the site in Korean, but it took longer. Now it is up again and a million times easier! Yay!

travel and water and running

I'm working on planning out what my vacation plans are for the next couple of months. The only things that are solid right now is that I will be flying to Vietnam on December 29th flying back out of Bangkok on January 20th. I will be climbing with friends at HaLong Bay for a couple weeks, and I REALLY want to go to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but other than that, I'm not totally sure what I'll be doing. There is the possibility that I will try to take the second level of Thai massage in Chiang Mai, but the idea of some extended beach time sounds really, really nice, too. Once I get to Southeast Asia, it is really inexpensive to travel around so the fact that I'm not totally planned out within an inch of my life is actually okay for the moment. I'm sure that will change in the next couple of weeks as I get more stressed about everything, but I'm trying to approach this fairly openly this time.

In February, I will be taking an intensive language course in Seoul at Ewha Womens University Language Center. A couple of friends and I were talking about the idea, and before I knew it, I was sold. Hopefully this three weeks will kick me over "survival" Korean into a higher degree of comprehension, plus I'll be able to live in Seoul! It will be a totally different way to live in Korea, and since we are planning to study Korean all day and climb all evening, I'm pretty psyched about the whole thing.

Last weekend I visited friends and was taken onto base. It made me pretty homesick - the guys tend to call it Little America for good reason. But in addition to some carefully selected good stuff, I think my water issues will be solved as I was able to get a Brita pitcher. It should be too much of an issue to get replacement filters as necessary, so I feel like since I'm pretty sure there isn't bacteria in the water here (because I'd be having more digestive and skin issues - I'm delicate like that) and it should filter out enough of the other stuff that makes it about on par with other filtered/bottled options without the impact of all the plastic bottles.

For running, I am planning to follow Hal Higdon's Spring Training as a prelude to his half-marathon training program. For me, having a set program to follow helps me a lot - I know that I need to complete x-number of miles, so I have something to accomplish - an assignment - that needs to be done at some point that day. Also, the mileage never gets high enough that it would be difficult to do while I'm traveling. At least for the most part - I'm sure there will be exceptions and I'm okay with that, but it should be do-able, even if the weather gets super-nasty and I have to do the runs on the much-hated treadmill.

oil

I think many people know this, but there was a major oil spill off the coast of Korea two weekends ago. Last summer, friends were swimming in phosphorescence off the beaches in Taean, and this spill has already had a major impact on this area.

Because it is a pebble beach, it looks like the oil has seeped below the surface, which makes the clean-up all that more difficult. Last weekend some friends went up to help clean up the area - a couple accounts of the experience are here and here. To read more, Expat Helping Hands is a good resource of what it is like for people on the ground in the area.

Running

Other than a mile when I go to the gym at lunch, I have really fallen off the wagon in terms of running. I HATE running on the treadmill and I know I felt better when I was getting up and running in the morning.

But it is dark and cold and I am whiny. To the extent that even when I set my alarm for 6, I reset it and go back to sleep. Because my bed is warm and comfortable and it is bleak and yucky outside.

EXCEPT!! This morning, I made an agreement to call a friend at 6. My thinking is that if I actually force myself to form words, I can make myself get out of the apartment. And even though it was raining a bit, IT WORKED! I ran a really pathetic 5k this morning and it was great. Well, at the time it was a little horrible, but afterwards it was great.

I am going to look for a running program to follow for the winter so I know I have to accomplish "x" that day, and hopefully gain some momentum in terms of making this a habit again. I'm also starting to think about rebuilding a base from which to train for the half-marathon in Jeju at the beginning of next June. Yes, I realize that I'm planning for a race that is about 6 months away, but if you think about the fact that some training programs are 2-3 months and a half marathon is a LONG TIME TO RUN, I want to have a decent foundation from which to build.

Water, water everywhere

Living in Gwangyang last year, I ALWAYS bought water. For a while, I had the big huge water bottles delivered, but because I couldn't drink enough to offset the cost of the dispenser, it ended up being significantly more expensive option than buying multi-packs of the 1.5liter bottles. There were a couple of reason I bought - it seems everyone in the whole country recommends either buying or boiling water, and I lived close to one of the biggest steel mills on the planet (no, really) and so I really didn't trust what might be in my water source.

I'm pretty sensitive to any sort of microbial ick in water - when I lived in Wingate, I even had to brush my teeth with bottled water - so when I moved to Mokpo and listened to friends talk about not even boiling water and not having any problems, I decided to run a little test on myself. And was fine. I mean, I think about all the people who make coffee (doesn't boil long enough to kill the ick, IIRC) or ice made of tap water, and so it makes sense that it isn't THAT bad, but still, I was a bit concerned. Some folks even talk about running it through a Britta filter and feeling okay with it, but that doesn't kill anything or get rid of the heavy metal content.

And that is my big concern right now. I haven't experienced any digestive issues by drinking tap water, which tells me that there isn't anything growing in there to any significant degree. However, my headaches are kicking in a bit more, and sometimes you can smell the chlorine in the water. Plus, from what I've read, it isn't the bacteria in the water that is the problem, but the metals and other chemicals, and boiling doesn't do anything to combat that.

So I'm back at looking at drinking bottled water again. However, there are the consequences of the plastic used to make the bottles. While there is country wide recycling programs in effect, there is still an awful lot of plastic being used, and I don't want to contribute to that any more than I have to.

So, what is a slighty-princessy, somewhat-green, sorta-wanna-be-hippie to do? Especially considering that I live in the tiniest apartment ever? I mean, one of the good things about the 6-packs of 1.5 liter bottles is that they fit in my fridge, which is one of the few storage places I have left.

I think right now, I'm back on the bottled water train, but I am going to look for a place to buy one of the hand-pumps for the big bottles and then get a co-teacher to look into delivery service again. The big bottles are re-used, so there is less waste, which is an important thing in my book. While I recycle as much as I can living in an officetel (the big apartments have elaborate recycling bin systems, but after living here for 3 months, I'm still not 100% sure where I am supposed to put my trash, much less recycling or compost) I worry that it all gets lumped together when it gets picked up.

I will admit, though, that the bitter skeptical side of me says that they probably just fill the bottles with tap water, but I try to ignore that voice as much as posisble.