on the other side of the world….

Hello Everyone!  Chad has been doing an amazing job arranging all of our pictures.  I thought I could contribute and regale you with the tales of our 36 hours in Manila!

As Chad mentioned in his last post, Molly, Chad and I all left Incheon the same day.  One slight snafue in our planning - Molly took off at 9:30 AM, we took off at 9:30 PM.  Little did Chad and I know that we would fall in love with the Incheon airport.

Once we had our MacDonald’s breakfast we headed upstairs to find a cozy place to catch up on reading/sleep/picture taking.  Incheon has huge bean bags all over upstairs.  We saw one open up and pretty much sprinted to claim it.

Chad took lots of pictures.

I read lots of D.H. Lawerence’s Women in Love.

I love this picture.  Notice there is only one man who is standing still.  Can you find him?  Ill give you one hint - he’s Korean!

Sleepy heads!

Hangin’ with D.H.

So, we landed in Manila at 12:30 AM.  It was beautiful and balmy and the airport made the Indianapolis airport look like the biggest airport in the world!  We got into a cab and had an experience.  The cab driver was appalled at the location of our hostel and spent the entirety of our drive telling us we shouldn’t go there.  This was between wrong turns and police checkpoints!  Wow.

When we finally arrived at the hostel it was very nice and the owner was incredibly welcoming.  It was very clean and we had great roommates.  The location was slightly dodgy but we’re here to tell the tale!

The next morning we walked around Rizal Park.

These kids got super excited when Chad was taking pictures.  They all lined up and jumped around for him!  They are much more active picture takers than our students!  I wish I had my camera out to take picture of Chad taking their pictures - it was pretty cute.

This is me, Ana (German), and Blanca (Columbian living in China).  They were our roommates in Manila and we spent the day with them.  They were quite lovely ladies!

There were ice cream trucks everywhere and they all constantly played the same ding-dong tune!  After about 3 minutes of wandering around the park we all had it stuck in our heads.

A view of Chad at work.

A view of Chad’s work.

After the park and some lunch we headed to a fort commemorating Jose Rizal (every main street in Manila is Rizal Avenue).  Rizal was a huge nationalist/martyr in the Philippines in the late 1800’s.

Below is a view from the top of the fort wall.

The Manila metropolis.  Vastly different from what we left in Seoul.  I had no idea how different it was going to be.

Gazing at . . . . ?

By the end of the day we were very tired.  Instead of fighting to get onto the subway system we decided to hop into a jeepney.  They are bus-jeeps that people jump into for a quick, cheap ride.  Hold on tight!

The next day, right before we headed to the airport, Chad and I decided to check out the Chinese cemetery that was right outside of our hostel.  It vaguely reminded me of the tombs I visited in Cortona 4 years ago.  In the Philippines people really go all out for their deceased loved ones.  Some of the tombs have air conditioning, running water, full fridges, etc.  I think we should have just stayed in one of those!

We wanted to take this little guy home but he was too big for our backpacks.

Manila was a very interesting and educational experience.  We saw a ton of poverty and many people with a much different standard of living then we are used to seeing as the norm.  Chad mentioned some of it in a post he made while we were traveling.  I  felt like a naive voyeur the entire time we were in Manila.  It was very sobering and prompted a lot of discussion for the trip.  Who are we to decide what is comfortable and not comfortable?  Who are we to live in a three bedroom apartment with plumbing?  Do they want that?  How do we help?  Do they want help?  Maybe they are perfectly and happy and just because it wouldn’t make us happy doesn’t mean they aren’t even happier than we are.  There is a fine line and  seeing it is a huge challenge.  I hope that Chad and I remember how that felt and that we manage to do the right thing and not ignore it.  We both want to get back into volunteering when we get home and maybe even while we are traveling.

One a lighter note, we are in the midst of arranging our trip for the spring.  Right now we plan to be in China for about a month then we’ll head through Vietnam to Cambodia.  After that we plan to fly from Bangkok to Paris.  We plan to be home in mid to late April.  We’ll let you know as things firm up!  We are incredibly excited and each time we sit down to plan we just talk about how crazy it is that we get to see all these amazing places!

Well, we only have one computer now and I need to get a few things accomplished before I hand it over to Chad.

I hope everyone is doing well and staying warm!  Anyone buried in the snow?

Over the next few days/weeks we’ll be posting pictures and stories from our Winter 2010 Vacation.  This is the first installment about the first stop on our adventure - Seoul.

Kate’s sister, Molly, came to visit us in Korea in late December.  She stayed for about 10 days and we had a great time with her.  It was wonderful to actually get to share this place with someone from home.  The last 4 days that she was here we were off work and we all went to Seoul.  The trip was mainly a whirlwind tour of the city’s hot spots.  Here are some pictures from Seoul.   There are more in the gallery to the left.  As always - click for a larger image.

We stopped at a KimBap Restaurant (Korean Fast Food) for a cheap snack before heading off for the afternoon.  This is Ram-bokki a combination of Ramen Noodles and Dakbokki - spicy sauce and rice cake.  In the background you can see Kim Bap (Korean sushi rolls without the sushi) and Mandu (Korean Dumplings).  Molly had a pretty good amount of Korean food while she was here… its definitely an experience.  Kate and I love this stuff now

There was an Andy Warhol Portraits exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art, so naturally we checked it out.  It was a coooold night but we ventured out.  The exhibit was fantastic!  A really wide range of his work and a lot of historical information and artifacts about his life.  The English translations of the commentary were also really entertaining.

We got a little lost walking back to the subway which wasn’t good because it was about 1 degree outside…but we made it!

The next day we went to Bongeun-sa Temple near the Coex Mall.  Every Thursday they have a “Temple Life” program where foreigners can get a tour of the temple, learn some basic meditation practices, participate in the Tea Ceremony and make lotus flowers.  It was about 2 hours and a really great way to experience Korean Buddhism up close.  We had hoped to do an overnight Temple Stay the weekend before, but Kate was sick and it didn’t seem like a good idea.  This was a nice way to still get at least some of the experience.

Lanterns are hung at the temples for a period of time before and after the four major Buddhist holidays.  I think these were up for the New Year.

This is one of the tallest Buddha Statues in Korea.  The picture doesn’t really do it justice but it was huge!

Tea ceremony!

Kate and Molly making Lotus Flowers

The Temple is right in the middle of the city - providing an interesting contrast between the skyscrapers and apartment buildings all around it.

Kate and Molly on the Subway.  Seoul has one of the best subways I’ve ever been on.  It’s quiet, clean, and fast… amazing!

The last day we took a bus tour around the city.  This was the easiest and cheapest way to see all the highlights of the city.  It was a fun way to spend the day.

I think this is Namdaemoon, or Dongdaemoon …  From the bus.

We also went to see Avatar in 3D one afternoon, and ate some Mexican food in Itaewon.  On Saturday we took Molly to the airport for her early morning flight, then we waited there for our 9:30pm flight.  Stuck in the airport for 13 hours… not too fun.  Incheon is kind of the most amazing airport in the world though, so it was not a problem… more on that in the next post… Manila!

Hello all,
We are home from the Philippines - have been for about a week now, but we’re just getting around to editing the pictures/videos and getting some posts up to the site. We’re weeding out the not so great pictures and will be uploading them as soon as we can.

Things might look a bit different with photos from now on because we’re starting to use Flickr to host them. This shouldn’t change much in terms of how you find or see the pictures except that it should be faster (most of the time) and much less of a hassle on our end. (That’s the hope at least…) Assuming all goes well with the photos from the trip we’ll gradually move all of the older photos over to the flickr account as well. So look forward to that, although you shouldn’t really be able to tell of a difference if I do my job correctly

Today marks the beginning of our last month in Korea We’re not sure exactly what day we will leave Korea but it will be sometime around March 1st and we’ll definitely be out of the apartment by February 27th or so. We will keep you posted on the details when we find out. As it stands right now we’re still planning on traveling to China and Southeast Asia for about 6 weeks after we leave Korea …. in a month. (Wow, we better start planning!!)

Last week we finished teaching! That’s right, a full month before the end of our contract and after coming back from 3 weeks off, we taught one week and now are finished teaching! Crazy! We were supposed to also teach this week but for some reason all classes were cancelled, so we’re off the hook - although we do have to go to school for a few hours every morning. Next week is graduation, so we’ll have some “normal” days then but still not teaching. After the 10th (Graduation) we’re not sure what we’ll be up to or if we’ll have to come in to work at all. That time is typically another vacation/transition time before the Spring semester starts. So we’ll see! We will definitely miss this job and how good they are to us. (and there’s really no excuse now for us to not get the pictures up soon….)

by incurable_hippie

We’ve been talking a lot about what this year and the coming years will bring and the only thing that we know is that nothing is certain. Where will we live? What will we be doing? Questions like these are constantly in our conversations and thoughts now-a-days. It’s a strange feeling to have such an unusually clean slate on which to re-start. It’s simultaneously terrifying and exciting! - but every day we move closer it shifts more to the later. It’s going to be great! So, I know it’s a little late, but we’re welcoming in 2010 and holding on tight, it’s going to be a pretty crazy (and wonderful) ride!

-Chad