The land before time...

This weekend, again part of my attempt to see everything worth seeing in Korea before I leave, Jon and I ventured south to find some dinosaur footprints. This is something I'd been wanting to do ever since I heard it was possible. I mean, how cool is that, seeing where dinosaurs walked around? So, we did the usual intense navigation of the only semi-helpful Korean tourism websites, and deciphered how to get there. And, as preparation the night before, we watched "The Land Before Time." Such a good movie. :) 

It took a looong time to get there. We took a bus from Jeonju to Jinju (haha), which took 3 1/2 hours of winding through the mountains. Let me tell you, for a country the size of Indiana, it can sure take a while to get though. Stupid mountains. :) Just kidding, I love the mountains. 

Once in Jinju, a bus to Goseong took about an hour, then came the annoying part. We were so ready to get there, and we just needed to take a local bus to the Dinosaur museum/fossil site. So we get on the local bus, and it starts going but the guy takes at least one wrong turn, and then picks up old ladies on the side of the street and goes out of his way to bring them to their houses, or at least their streets. I guarantee this happened, because he would drop them off, then we would back-track and take a different turn. So it took an hour to get there.

FINALLY we were greeted by giant statues of dinosaurs on a hilltop overlooking a beautiful coastline dotted with mountainous islands. ( Sidenote: If I didn't dislike Korea, I would live on the coast here. It's gorgeous, and the mix of mountains and sea I'm looking for.) After kind of deciphering the returning bus schedule (we would have to go to a different city but we were assured we would get back), we ate our lunch of tuna sandwiches and then ventured inside. At that point, we were like "This had better be freakin' amazing for all the time it took to get here!"

The museum was pretty cool, your generic dinosaur museum with skeletons, fossils and a cool animatronics exhibit of fighting dinosaurs. The statues were a bit disturbing, since almost all of the big dinosaurs had little dinosaurs ripping their flesh off in stunning life-like fashion. We actually saw one kid start crying after looking at one of the statues. It was disturbing. 

But the actual footprints were AWESOME! They were on the stone on the coast, which was gorgeous anyway, with rock cliffs and caves along the water's edge. You could see the footprints in a line, so it was like the dino had just walked by. At one place, you could step in them. Which of course, I did, and said "Hey! Look! I'm Litte Foot!" Good thing no one but Jon around me spoke English. I hope. 

  There were also lots of fossils in the space between the rocks, of those...oh, what are they called...things that look like beetles. I dunno. Anyway, let's call them prehistoric beetles. And there was a guy catching sea slugs and selling them (live) to people to eat. Sketch. Yuck. 

Then we walked along the coastline, sometimes on the rocks, exploring tide pools (my fav. pasttime) but then we were forced to walk on a wooden pathway because the other fossil area was protected. There were fossilized ripple marks from the water on the rocks, and more footprints. There was even part where the rock was all strangely bumpy and pitted, that was apparently from a whole bunch of footprints in one place, kind of like when it's muddy and you play soccer. Heehee, dinosaurs playing soccer. :) 

After seeing all the fossils this place had to offer, we made it back to the museum to wait for the bus. We got there 20 minutes before the bus was supposed to come, but after we waited for an hour in the spot the guys at the info booth told us to wait at, there was still no bus. In the meantime, we had been laughing at some policemen up the road who were directing traffic and very bored, because they were dancing to the music from the loudspeakers, and then making faces at/ saluting us. Jon finally asked the people at the info booth what was up, and they were equally confused. They told us to go wait at another bus stop down the road, so we went there. Waited for a while. No bus. Finally, one of the guys from the info booth, who was on his way home, picked us up. He was really nice, and he drove us to the bus station and went inside and helped us buy tickets. 

Of course, once we got to Jinju through the rush hour traffic, we had missed the last bus to Jeonju. So, we got on a bus to Namwon, which is on the way to Jeonju, hoping there'd be a bus from there. Which, luckily, there was. It just took a little time and a lot of buses. But it was worth it. Cuz I found Little Foot. Well, at least, his footprints. But if I follow the footprints......

Pagodas for Peace

This past Sunday, Jon and I ventured into the mist. It was a cloudy, rainy day, but we decided to go ahead with our plans to visit nearby Maisan. Maisan is a mountain, and a provincial park. It's actually one mountain with two very separate peaks. Either way, it was too cloudy to see them.

After about an hour bus ride, we ended up in Jinan, a small town across some mountains from Jeonju. We had driven through clouds to get there, but when we did, the rain had let up. Since it was an hour until the bus to the mountain, we wandered around the town. It was basically one street, full of mostly stores and hawkers selling ginseng, old women crouching over bags of dirt-crusted roots. Some roots were huge, some were small, some were strangely misshapen. But all were fresh ginseng, dug up from fields on the surrounding mountains. 

Other than ginseng, there were a few shabby restaurants, a small stream that wound through the town, and a dumpling shop. As Jon loves dumplings, we stopped in the latter for a snack. It was more or less someone's kitchen, with a big dining table in the middle and an old, dusty cooler with drinks inside. The couple working were kind, and the woman served us freshly-steamed kimchi dumplings (well, served Jon. I don't like kimchi dumplings). It was a nice, cozy snack stop, but after 15 minutes we were on our way.

Once I was warmed up by an instant cocoa from a convenience store, we went back to the bus terminal to wait. We sat on old, orange vinyl chairs surrounded by senior citizens, watching a baseball game between Korea and Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic. A long, long way from home, I was back in familiar surroundings, sitting inside on a rainy day watching a baseball game.

Well, the game ended and about 10 minutes later, our bus came. It was a rickety old local bus, empty but for one man who sat talking with the driver, but it got us to the mountain in about 15 minutes. From there, we started walking. There were surprisingly many people there, not too crowded but it wasn't empty. The rain was still holding off, and the mist that surrounded the mountains gave a mystical feeling to the day. 

The road up to the park was surrounded by quaint restaurants selling ribs. Grilled ribs, smoked ribs, cooked covered in pine needles. Chefs cooked on grills lining the walkway, trying to entice customers. Wooden smokehouse, smoke billowing out. Somehow, we made it past all of that without giving in to temptation. 

It was a simple walk, paved the whole way and only up rolling hills. This is how Korean trails usually start out, until it gets to the main temple, when more wooded trails branch off. This time, our only goal was the main temple, since the weather was bad and we Jon's ankle was bothering him from soccer the day before.

                              

The main temple, in this case, was special. It was tucked in between rock cliffs, tiny and cozy. Around it were 80 stone pagodas. In the early 1900s, a Buddhist hermit lived at the temple, and built about 120 pagodas of varying sizes as a meditation and prayer for peace. The pagodas are the stuff of legend in Korea, since there is nothing holding the pagodas together but balance and gravity, and they have made it through 100 years of windstorms, rain and ice. There is also the legend that if you place a bowl of pure, clean spring water by the temple in the winter, and pray with a pure heart, an icicle will form in the center of the bowl, going up like the pagodas. 

          

Whatever the legend, whatever the reason that the pagodas remain (the ones that have fallen are mostly the result of human interference), they are breath-taking. There is a pair behind the temple, called the Heaven and Earth Pagodas, that are about 2 stories tall. All the pillars look precarious, but one can see the work that went into them through the careful balance and the smaller stones surround the joints of larger stones. It reminds me that peace is a painstaking process, a never-ending process, and the working for peace requires balance, care and support, just like these pagodas. But also that sometimes, when all these elements are present, things can stabilize and withstand seemingly unsurrmountible pressures. 

Surrounded by mountains and mist, these spires seemed more mystical. It really was beautiful, especially with the echoing chanting and the eerie clinking of the wooden bells used in Buddhist meditation. Interrupted only at intervals by loud Korean hikers. 

The day got chillier, and it was started to get dark, so we headed back to wait for the bus. This time, the old, delapitated local bus took us all the way to Jeonju, through curvy mountain roads we could see this time around, and I'm not sure this increased vision was to my benefit. 

Arriving back in Jeonju, we met some friends for a dinner of dak galbi, wonderfully cheesy chicken, ramen noodles, rice cake and veggie skillet cooked right in front of you, of course smothered in hot sauce, and eaten wrapped in lettuce leaves. A nice, cozy end to a chilly, damp but inspiring day. 

Socialogical musings on the "foreigner community" in Korea

         So, this is a topic I've been musing on lately, especially when I find myself in Seoul, which is much more full of foreigners, and in different capacities.

When I got to Korea, I got really excited when we would see another foreigner, which, in Jeonju, means another English teacher for the most part, usually Anglo. So I would smile and nod at every foreigner I saw, and they returned the gesture. I soon found out that the ex-pat community here is an interesting organism in itself. There are two categories of expats in Jeonju-- the (mostly) young crowd who goes out at night, to varying degrees, and socializes with other expats. Then there's the (mostly) older crowd. They stick to themselves, don't really go out to bars and we don't really ever see them, we just know they're here. As for the 'social circle,' they all know each other, even though usually not very well. But we all greet each other on the street, and make small-talk. We are acquaintances based solely on the fact that we see each other often and are expats. People are much more friendly than they would be at home, I guess because there are less people to socialize with, and we all have this experience in common. So although we might do the customary "where are you from? how long have you been here? where do you work?" thing, it's not for the purpose of putting each other into categories, or finding out if you'll be friends or if you're part of a different group. It's all one group. 

Then, you encounter the occasional case that doesn't fit this generalization. The most frequent are the people of the less-social group I mentioned. It's not that there's an agism here-- there are many older people who I know and hang out with here. But there is a divide, naturally, between those who seek to socialize with other expats and those who keep to themselves. So you can once in a while, at the grocery store maybe, run into a foreigner you've never seen before. Usually they have families here, and they're almost always at least a couple. 

Then there are the missionaries. They're hard to spot, and since everyone is more friendly than usual, it's not strange for someone to come up to you in the street to introduce themselves if they're new in the neighborhood, or to ask a question, etc. So when someone approaches you and starts a conversation, there's no warning and all of a sudden you're stuck in the ramen section of E-Mart with someone trying to save your soul. It's happened to be more than a few times. Instead of politely excusing myself from the conversation early on, as I might in the States where it's not as  normal for strangers to strike up a conversation on the street, I make small talk, about life in Korea, where I'm from, etc; then once they're started talking about 'spreading the word' and I feel that I've led them on to believe I'm more interested than I am, and that I'm wasting their time. So I listen, and take their fliers, then continue my shopping, walking, etc.

The part that fascinates me, though, is when there is this feeling of something automatically in common with people you would never feel that with. A shared look of understanding with someone you would feel worlds removed from at home.

For example, I went to the spa the other day, and walked up to the counter of a food booth to order a beer. The young man working behind the counter was not Korean. He was, I later found out, from Nepal. Either way, I could tell he was South Asian, I thought maybe from Bangladesh. Not that I think I have nothing in common with a Nepalese cook, but it's not someone I would usually feel nicely surprised to run into. Someone I could feel more comfortable dealing with than the person I was expecting to find. I'm sure our life experiences are very different.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact the Korean society is very homogenous, and creates a strong line between 'Korean' and 'foreign.' Even children who have one Korean parent and one 'foreign' parent are not seen as Korean. Even if they live in Korea, were born here, and speak Korean. Korea can be very racist in this and other ways. So maybe since we've all been lumped into one category, foreigners feel like a member of one group. 

Whatever it was, I was pleasantly surprised to find a foreigner behind the counter. But, when I came to order, I felt unsure. What language do I speak? I asked myself. Clearly, since he worked in Korea, he spoke Korean. But my Korean's not great, and though I am confident in my beer-ordering abilities, it's always more comfortable in my native language. Plus, who would think that the common language between me and a young man from Nepal would ever be Korean? I chose to order in Korean, and it wasn't really much of a difficult choice, but it felt a little strange. Then, he answered in English. So clearly, he speaks both. So I finished the transaction in English. Later on, Jon told me he had talked to this man the last time we were at the spa, that he was living here with his family and was a university student. He also told me that his name was Raj. Raj later turned out to be a great help, translating between Tara and I and the Korean women cooking at the next booth when we tried to get Tara something vegetarian and not spicy. 

This was the first time I had met a foreigner in Jeonju who was not an English teacher or here living with one. But in Seoul, it happens much more often, especially in the area around the US military base. This neighborhood is called Itaewon, and it's a multicultural-food heaven, but other than that, mostly a very dirty, sketchy place with a reputation for a vibrant if disreputable nightlife. 

We go to Itaewon to eat. A lot. There is essentially any ethnic food you could ever want-- Morroccan, Indian, Iranian, Thai, Japanese, German, Austrian, Irish, Mexican...the list goes on. Plus, there's an American-style diner with great brunch food. This past weekend, after dropping Joe, Tara and Nate off at the airport, Jon and I went to an Indian buffet we had been to before. Besides the usual slight awkwardness of talking to the waiter in a mix of Korean and English (he'd speak English to us, but I still felt I should order in Korean...but then I'd order something else in English...), I witness a scene that really made the think about this language thing. And allowed me to witness Korean actually trying ethnic food.

An Indian family came in with a Korean family, and the Indian man, who was obviously the one who had organized this meal, spoke to the waiter in English, but seemed a little unsure about how to interact with the staff. In Korea, there are certain hierarchies and ways to interact with waiters at restaurants, and many social customs of politeness. But it seemed that with these men, the Korean customs mixed with the Indian customs they would have followed in India had they met in the same situation. The Indian customer was a doctor (I know because someone addressed him as such), and he played the host to his party-- generous, helpful, but in charge. Even in that situation, I'm sure, the mix of Indian and Korean custom was present. 

At one point in the afternoon, as Jon and I were finishing our meals, the Indian customer called the waiter over to order drinks, but stumbled noticably, trying to decide which language to speak. He had been in conversation with his guests in a mix of English and Korean, but also with his family in their native language. When he went to order a drink, he started with a word in one language, stopped himself, started in another, stopped himself, was flustered for a second, then said the universal "Coke." 

I've been thinking about languages a lot, and about feeling a part of a community with people from all over the world, with completely different life experiences. About having completely random languages in common. For example, on New Years Eve in Seoul, some friends of ours had met a woman from Hong Kong in the hostel. She spoke very little English, but she agreed to come out with us that night after she learned a few others and I spoke Spanish. It turns out, she went to college in Paraguay and was now living there, working as a school nurse. So, I spent the evening in Seoul, South Korea speaking Spanish to a woman from Hong Kong about our respective travels in South America. Oh, and we ate Thai food. :) 

But then again, I guess we foreigners in Korea don't have completely different life experiences. We all live in Korea, experience the same stares on the street, the same inability to get familiar foods and cultural goods, and the same need to form a community based on shared experience. The other day I shared perspectives on the Korean education system with a former English teacher from Vietnam. In the process, I learned a little about teaching English in Vietnam. She was very glad to talk to us- -said she didn't like working with Koreans, made us coffee from her personal stash. So maybe we all feel relieved to be interacting with someone who has gone through a similar experience. 

Meanwhile, I'll keep on wondering what language to speak when I run into foreigners, but whatever language I speak, hopefully I'll have an interesting conversation. At least I'll feel a little more connected to the world. 

Don't Point at the North Koreans...They're Watching Your Every Move

                                                            

That was our tour guide's advice on Saturday. Maybe I'd better back up. 

Our friends Joe, Tara and Nate are here visiting us this week. They came on Friday night, when I picked them up at the airport after an excruciating bus ride spent in traffic. It was great to see them, and that night we stayed up late talking and being generally silly in the hostel. It was great fun, but it didn't make the 6 am wake-up any easier. 

Saturday morning we had reservations for a DMZ tour. We got up at 6 am and stumbled our way to the USO office by 7. We were loaded onto a bus, full mostly of US military personnel, and driven up to the DMZ. The tour guide was a very enthusiastic Korean man who was under the impression that he spoke much better English than he actually did. So, he babbled on and on, and all the people on the tour came to the joint conclusion that we could understand maybe 40% of what he was saying. 

                                                                

The JSA-- inside the DMZ. The blue buildings are UN Conference rooms where talks are held. The white building is North Korea's "Welcome Center"...from back when they tried to get people to defect by walking across the border. Not possible anymore. 

The DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) is a buffer area of about 2.5 miles between North and South Korea . The actual border is within the DMZ, and it's called the Military Demarkation Line. It's actually not technically the border, since there is still technically a war since there was never a truce signed, just a ceasefire agreement. There is one place, the JSA (Joint Security Area) where any crossing takes place, and it is where talks are held, humanitarian aid is sent across the border, etc. The JSA is administered by North Korea and the UN Command for the DMZ (mostly South Korean and American forces...in 2004, control was handed over to the South Koreans while American forces remain in support positions). 

    

Another view of the JSA at the border.

Since we went on a USO (United Service Organizations- a non-profit that supports the troops with programs and goods overseas) tour, we were able to enter the DMZ and the JSA. We went to Camp Bonifas, the base closest to North Korea. It's inside the JSA, on the South Korean side. It was fascinating. I've never been on a base before to begin with, but this was surreal. There were barbed wire fencing surrounding it, we drove by fields of land mines, but inside the camp were basketball courts and a temple. The most iconic thing we saw was what Sports Illustrated dubbed "The World's Most Dangerous Golf Course." It's one hole, and is surrounded my landmine fields. Our tour guide pointed out, "It's not a good idea to go get your ball out of the woods."

Our guide was a ROK (Republic of Korea-- South Korea) soldier who spoke excellent English. We drove around with him inside the DMZ on UN buses--bright blue and flying the UN flag. After talking to him a little, we found that he went to Cornell University for two years, and was on academic leave to do his compulsory 2 years of military service. All Korean males have to do 2 years, and he figured he should get it over with, instead of waiting until he graduated from Cornell and potentially have to turn down job offers. He studied political science and economics, and though a little quiet at first, turned out to be an entertaining and informative guide. 

         

   Our ROK Soldier Escort/Guide

We were perfectly safe throughout the whole tour-- there were armed soldiers all around and plenty of cameras watching for any sign of conflict or problem from the North. That said, tensions have been mounting a little lately between the Koreas. This is because the ROK and the US are set to start joint military exercises this week, which the North always condemns as 'invasion practice.' Actually, the day before we went, there were talks at Panmunjom (the JSA area where talks are always held) held about the treats from North Korea. Don't worry, this is routine sabre-rattling, but it was really cool to me that there had been talks there the day before we went.

                                                                

Inside the UN Conference Room in the JSA...aka where it all goes down. 

Most talks are held in the UN Conference Room in Panmunjon that straddles the border between the Koreas. It's basically a blue trailer, with guards on either side. The ROK guards stood in a "modified taekwando stance," basically with clenched fists and at alert, the ones closest to the border half-hidden by the building in order to "present a smaller target."

          ROK Soldier on guard, half hidden. 

See the raised part on the ground just past the door? That's the border.

 They also all wear sunglasses for added intimidation. That seems a little silly...they're heavily armed and surrounded by guard towers and cameras and more artillery than I care to think about, but sunglasses are going to make the difference. But I must admit, they looked pretty hardcore. I wouldn't mess with them. 

                                                               

A South Korean soldier looking intimidating

The conference room is small, with a table that sits 8 people-- 3 from each side and 2 interpreters on the ends-- with UN flags. There were ROK soldiers guarding it, but the border runs right through the middle. We were informed of this when half of us, myself included, were standing on the far side of the room. Our guard pointed out the border (which is set in concrete on either side of the building) and said "Those of you on that side of the room, you're in North Korea." It was crazy!! 

The tour was fascinating for me, because I'm an international relations dork, and because Korea is the only country in the world that's divided. It's eerie how they're technically at war, but still there's groups of tourists hanging out on the frontline. Only the USO tour can go into the DMZ, but when we went to the other sites, including an observatory still used by ROK guards, there were busloads of people. It's strange to see soldiers on high alert next to tourists joking around. We were informed that under no circumstances may we point, gesture or attempt to communicate with any North Koreans. And we did see some, in the JSA, standing guard on their side. I also saw a group walking on a hill to a guard tower, maybe 200-300 meters away. Even when we couldn't see them, we knew they were watching our every move. 

                                                                 

A North Korean soldier on the other side of the military demarcation line.

What we could see of North Korea consisted mostly of mountains and fields, though there were a few villages visible, one of which was the Propaganda Village. This was built by the North to blast propaganda at the South over an extremely strong loudspeaker 24/7, trying to convince them to desert to the North. This stopped in 2004, when the South Korean government got tired of it and started blasting their own propaganda and K-Pop 24/7. (K-Pop being Korean Pop music) Having heard enough K-Pop blasted from stores around here, I'm not surprised the North gave in. 

       

    Propaganda Village and huge North Korean flag...

 The North claims there are 200 farming families living in the village, and that there are functioning hospitals and schools, but the South claims to have seen very few people in the village. In fact, apparently you can see through telescopes that there is no glass in the windows and no rooms in the buildings. There is also a HUGE flag flying over the village. I mean huge. It weighs 600 pounds and is 160 meters tall. 

On the South side, there's also a propaganda village, though they call it a "Freedom Village." In it live a few hundred farmer families who live there for free, farm on tracts of land much larger than the average farmer elsewhere in the South, and don't pay taxes. They are heavily guarded, though, being in the DMZ. They even have armed guards standing with them while they farm. They have to be in their houses at sundown, and lights out at 12. It also has a huge flagpole and a huge flag, though not nearly as big as the neighbors to the North. 

Propaganda on both sides. The juxtaposition of high military alert and cheap souvenir shops. This trip was fascinating. Something to think about, especially to my politics and sociology-enthused mind. 

A Big Decision

Some of you already know that I am very unhappy in my job here. I have been trying to make myself like it, and been trying to deal with not liking it by doing lots of other things while I'm not at work. That all worked for a while, more or less, but the balance between liking everything else in my life and severely disliking my work has shifted sharply towards the latter. I have decided it's time to move on, and gave my 2 1/2 month's notice today. The director was a little shocked, but mostly okay. He and my Korean co-worker mostly just said they would "follow my decision" and they wanted me to be happy, but they also asked me to stay through May.  I said I'd rather not, but if they really can't find anyone by then, I guess I could. 

       I definitely do not regret coming here. Not only have I learned about myself-- that I don't want to teach, that I would rather work in a task-based environment instead of time-based, etc-- but I have experienced a fascinating country and culture. I have met many wonderful people, and I've experienced living on the other side of the world in a culture infinitely different from anything I had experienced before. 

But I'm not leaving yet-- I still have 2 1/2 months, and I intend to use that time to its fullest to do everything I haven't done here yet that I want to do. And I will be much more able to enjoy that, and my students, knowing I have a shorter amount of time left. 

I really love some of my students, and so this was a hard decision to make, but I know its also in their best interest. Having a teacher that dreads going to class is not fair to them, and although I try to mask that, and I'm pretty sure I usually do, it's been getting harder and I've been getting more irritable despite my best efforts. Part of the reason I have trouble accepting teaching is that my students, who are from age 6 to 14, are exhausted every day from school and extra classes, they stay up until 11 or 12 (at least) every night doing homework and have hardly any free time. Even on school vacations.  During the school year, they go to school until 2 or 3, then they're at Reading Town for 2-3 hours (depending on if they're MWF or TTh), and I know they go to other academies....almost all of them have some kind of music academy, maybe science or math, and many learn Chinese or Japanese also. My oldest student- 14- goes to 12 hours straight of classes every day. She comes to mine- at the end of the day- exhausted and can barely do her classwork. But she still does her best. I don't like to be a part of the system that makes them miserable, and I while I try to make it easier on them by not assigning much homework, or playing games in class, the parents call and complain, and I'm told by my superiors that I have to assign more homework and do more work in class. I can't buy into this system, which is part of the reason I'm leaving. 

As for what I will do, I tried to get a job. I emailed contacts in the non-profit world, checked job sites and classifieds, and there was nothing. All my contacts said they had nothing and they didn't know of anyone who was hiring. I figured that would be the case. So, I've decided to take advantage of being over on this side of the world, and travel. How much I travel will depend in part on how much money I get from law school... I will find that out by April 15 (the seat deposit deadline), two weeks before I leave. My plan is to take the ferry with Jon to China and take the short train ride to Beijing and spend a long weekend there, after which Jon will go back to Jeonju and work, and I will continue down the eastern side of China, through Shanghai, Hong Kong, etc. by train, then into Vietnam. How much I do in Southeast Asia depends on the financial situation, but optimally I would go through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand (the parts I didn't get to the first time), Malaysia, Singapore and, maybe, Indonesia. I know some people who have done more or less this route, and I'll be talking to them a lot. It's apparently quite easy to do on the train, and cheap. 

Then I'll have to come back here to get my things and Kimchi. I'll probably stay for a few weeks, then come back to the States in mid-late July. Then, law school in August. 

Phew. Well, that's my big decision. I've come to it after a lot of obsessing and a lot of trying to make excuses not to do it, but I have to accept that this is the best choice for me and everyone else involved. I don't regret coming here at all, but I would regret finishing out this contract. I feel bad that I'm breaking it, but I think it's better than the alternative. I'll let you all know how my plans develop, and I've told Jon he has to blog here when I'm gone, though I'll also blog from my journey. 

aaand the rest of Thailand

First, I'm getting a little tired of writing detailed entries about something that happened 2 weeks ago. Second, for the rest of the trip...when we were at the beach...we really did nothing but sleep, eat and lay on the beach. So it's not too exciting. Oh, and Jon hacked open coconuts with a machete. :) Then we went back to Bangkok for a day and bought a lot of stuff. 

Yep, that's about it. The beach was beautiful, and not crowded at all. The food was, as usual, amazing. We had a lizard friend in our bungalow on the last night...we named him House since he lived in our house. And then we had another lizard friend named Screen, since he lived in the screen of our bathroom window. They were quite cute. 

Thailand was amazing. It's one of my favorite countries now, though I don't think it can ever knock Peru off the top spot for the simple sentimental value that is added to its awesomeness. 

Ayutthaya

        
  Monday morning, Jon and I got up early and headed to the train station. The Bangkok train station is fascinating, full of all kinds of people-- Thais, backpackers, other tourists, and groups of what I could ssume to be Muslim pilgrims or tourists or nomads..... We got on the train, 3rd-class seats, which are benches, basically, but not uncomfortable. While we were waiting to for the train to leave, a little girl kept waving at me and blowing kisses through the window. She was sooo cute.

                                                               

As the train went though Bangkok, I could see the poorer neighborhoods out the window, houses made of wood and tin that went right up to the tracks. There were many people washing and filling the carts of sliced fruit that we brought on the streets. There were people walking down the tracks, or biking alongside of them.

                            

Then we got into the countryside, where I saw fields and small towns, and small, quaint train stations. Some of the towns were clustered along rivers, and the wooden houses were built on stilts. There were birds in the fields, and I even saw some water buffalo! They were just chilling in a river. Fishermen were throwing nets into the rivers, and boys were swimming. 

The Ayutthaya station was small, but surrounded by food vendors and stalls renting bikes for the day. We ate at a hostel...I had amazing basil chicken...mmmmm...and a fresh watermelon shake. Then we took a ferry across the river and rented some bikes from a very helpful woman who gave us a map and showed us a good route to get around town. 

We took off down the hot and busy streets of Ayutthaya, surrounded by motorcycles and cars and food carts, but were soon confronted with a very old-looking brick wall surrounding an open area spotted with trees. It was the first compound of ruins we were to visit, th

e ruins of a temple from the 1300s that was destroyed during the Burmese invasion in the late 1500s. The grounds have not been restored, and there are hundred of stone Buddha statues in varying broken-ness, almost all headless. I am still wondering if they were beheaded on purpose during the invasion, since there are some that are in recesses in walls that are intact, there is no real evidence of damage around the statue, just a clean break at the neck. 

                                  

The temple compound, like the other temple ruins we saw that day, were sprawling grounds of spires, walls and Buddha statues, all made of stone and brick. You could climb up one of the spires and enter the chamber inside, which was small but held some Buddha images which were collecting offerings of incense and flowers. There were steep and narrow stairs inside that led down into a small chamber whose walls were covered in what seemed like gold-leaf paintings. I was a little scared of the stairs. I do, remember, have an irrational fear of descending stairs. :) 

After a few temples, we decided to go out in search of the elephant kraal, which was where they used to keep the royal elephants, and we had heard that there were still elephants there to see, maybe doing the rumored painting or soccer-playing. We followed our rough map over the river and down a winding road surrounded by palm trees and Thai houses, more and more into the country. Right when we were about to give up, thinking we had missed a turn or something beca

use we found ourselves almost in the middle of nowhere, I caught the scent of elephant in the air. For your next question, I have no idea why I can smell identify the smell of elephant, I can't have possibly smelled it many times in my life. I did ride one once, when I was r

eally young, and I remember multiple circuses with elephants in my past... but whatever the reason, I was sure I caught a whiff of elephant. So, we kept going, and maybe 100 yards down the road and around a curve we found the old kraal. It was just an empty courtyard surrounded by whitewashed walls with a pagoda in the middle, but from the observation area on the walls, we could see elephants in the distance behind the kraal. So, got back on our bikes and headed in that direction.

I don't like to think too much about what we saw, but I think it needs to be said. What we found was an elephant farm/training center/whatever that did not take good care of its elephants. At first it seemed nice, but when we got closer, it got a little more sketchy. First of all, I think it was one of those places that tour groups take you, or that you sign up to stay at on the internet, because there was a group of Westerners in matching t-shirts learning how to prepare the elephant food. It didn't seem to be a walk-up place, but there was nothing that told us to keep out, so we parked our bikes and wandered up. 

The first bad sign was a literal sign near where we parked our bikes that advised us to only take photos with a license. Strange, eh? Then we saw that all the elephants were chaine

d up to a corral-looking place, with only a few feet of chain, and were all struggling t

o walk forward but couldn't. The baby elephants were walking around, but the young men/boys that were obviously supposed to be taking care of them were kicking or hitting them. We saw one boy kick a baby elephant in the face. They looked healthy...well, as far as we can tell about elephants, i.e. they weren't really skinny and they didn't have visible welts. But we got right out of there. It didn't seem like a place we wanted to be, though I did wonder about the group of tourists...if they were bothered by what was going on, and how they could be a part of it. 

Upon our return to the city, we found the royal palace and the temple next to it. It was getting late in the afternoon, and there were crowds of people at the temple and rows o

f vendors around it, selling souvenirs and, of course, food. Let me take this moment to point out that this was Chinese (lunar) New Year. Many Thais have Chinese heritage, and the Chinese New Year was a big holiday. This temple had a HUGE golden Buddha inside, which was really awesome but we didn't get to see up close because there were people worshipping inside and swarming up and down the stairs, and I didn't want to get in the way. 

After some more wandering around the grounds, and seeing people taking elephant rides and Thai families playing in the grass, we headed back to return our bikes. We got some dinner from a street cart and headed to the train station to wait for the train. My basil chicken, unfortunately, turned out to be waaay too hot to eat (even Jon couldn't eat it...I thought I was going to die after a few bites), but my pastry-pancake thing with condensed milk drizzled o

ver it was great.

Some of the best times I had in Thailand were waiting for public transportation, or riding it. That train station was full of life and people, and it was a nice place to sit and people watch as the sun went down. The ride home was great, at least the second half. The train was very crowded, so we had to stand. About an hour in, I got really dizzy from dehydra

tion and, though I caught the signs early and bought and drank a bottle of water, I still had to go get some fresh air in-between the cars. For a while I just leaned against the wall, and I quickly felt better, but the doors were wide open and the stairs were just asking to be sat on. Jon was brave enough to go first, but after I realized that there was plenty of room and guard rails to hang onto, after Jon told be he had seen other people sitting in the doorways on the train, and after I realized that I don't often fall forward while I'm sitting down, I sat on the top step, far from the edge, and watched the world go by outside. It was beautiful. It was dark, and you could see the lights from all the houses go by, and feel the cool breeze in your face. The tracks were smooth, but once we got back into Bangkok they got a little rough, so I got scared and stood back up. 

Like I said, it was Chinese New Year, so Jon and I decided to go to Chinatown 

when we got back. We walked from the train station, and after getting a little lost, we found Chinatown packed to the brim with people, almost all in red clothes. The temples were lit up and decorated, people were lighting incense and monks were sitting at tables selling...something? Incense? And there were other monks serving food under big white tents. 

The streets were packed, and there wer

 dragon parades that you couldn't even see until they got right next to you. There were booths everywhere, and a stage with Chinese dancers. Mostly, though, it was mass insanity, and we left after not too long, since I got tired of trying to get through the crowd while guarding my camera bag. We made the mistake of getting a tuk-tuk (the taxi-like things with open backs, like a motorized carriage) on the opposite side of Chinatown than our hostel, so it took a while to drive through it (our driver clearly decided going around wasn't worth it and drove right through the middle of the madness). It was a good thing we had negotiated the price before we got in. 

Back at the hostel, I showered off all the dust and sweat that had accumulated during the day, and fell right asleep, exhausted after a wonderful day.