21 posts tagged “new adventures”
As a public school teacher in Korea, I have almost 6 weeks off teaching in January and February. During this time, D and I decided to take two weeks of holiday and head south. Hoping to add to my list of 'cities I could live in', we took advantage of a cheap flight from Seoul to Bangkok, via Hong Kong. It seems a lot of international flights around Asia have stop overs in cities like Hong Kong, Taipai, and Tokyo, and with many tickets, you can extend your stay in the stop-over city for several days without an extra fee. Thus, we decided to spent three days in the former British colony before flying to Thailand.
I could definitely live in Hong Kong. Though it's a bit too civilized for D's taste, I loved being in such a modern city that still offered traditional Chinese culture. Sure, it's more expensive than Seoul, but it's also cleaner! You can get any kind of food, electronic, or clothing you can imagine. It has the outdoor markets, and street food of all Asia cities, but you can hop on the subway for a few stops and find yourself in a road that could easily be mistaken for NYC. I can easily say that Hong Kong is the most international city I've been to. We heard dozens of langauges being spoken, and saw people from all over the world. It's full of vibrancy, colour, and culture. I especially liked the odd mixture of architectural styles and shapes. Examples, here.
I was happy to simply wander around Kowloon for hours, but there were some stand out things we had to do before we left. My favourite parts of Hong Kong were the ones that gave me a view. We took a tram up to "The Peak", which is a small tourist village at the top of Victoria mountain on Hong Kong Island. It gives you the quintessential view of the city, and gets your heart beating with excitement. It was almost as good as the shots from "The Dark Knight". The other place I loved was the Tian Tan Buddha on Lantau Island. To get there, you can either take a bus (boring!) or take a gondola on a 20 minute trip up and into the mountains. We decided to splurge (which happened a lot in Hong Kong) and took the gondola on the way up. We made the trip near the end of the day, as the sun was starting to set, and it was one of the best moments of the whole trip. Sadly, the gondola windows do not make for good photographs. But, I love that you can travel for 30 minutes from the city center and then find yourself out in the mountains.
I spent the summer mostly like I would have if I were still 15 years old. I lived with my mom, hung out with my family and some friends. I bummed around at the beach, at the park, by the t.v. and the laptop. The major differences were highlighted by the fact that I'm almost 10 years older now. The reason I was bumming around wasn't because I had two months off school. It was because I was looking for a job, and I had found myself in the familiar vortex of having a degree in social science, with too much education for many jobs and too little experience to be hired as a full-time employee anywhere else. Mind you, I was looking everywhere but Canada, though I know I would most likely have the same problem there. I was sure that if I just looked hard enough I would find the opportunity I was looking for: one to pay off my debts while living abroad doing something related to my future career goals. To my dismay, the only justifiable option that kept cropping up was to teach in Korea, the place I had left just months before, feeling rather negative. So, I finally gave into the idea (after much thought) that maybe Korea would offer what I was looking for. Money - Check. Travel - Check. Career Experience - If I made an effort - Check.
Guess where I've ended up. Korea, of course! I'm working in a middle school (which is one of the age groups I hope to work with in the future) in a small city north of Seoul that has an arts center (something I want to learn more about and get involved in) and I'll have at least 5 weeks of vacation (hopefully allowing me to knock a few more places off my 'to-see' list). Best of all, I have a plan to attain some major goals this year and (most importantly) a new attitude towards Korea. So far, which isn't very far, it's been going very well. I just hope nothing breaches the DMZ and the exchange rates stop soaring. No, I'm definitely not 15 anymore.
There are a lot of places to fall in love with on this earth, but I have found there are few places that I feel especially connected too. In fact, I can only think of three such places. Two are from my childhood, and the third is Istanbul. I had no plans to go to Istanbul until a few weeks before I arrived. It was somewhere I wanted to get to, at some point, since I had met about a dozen lovely Turks when I lived in Amsterdam, but it was not on my 'near future travel radar'. Fortunately for me, two things happened which brought it directly to the center of my travel radar, where it would remain my one and only goal until I got myself there. First, my friend Tamara told me she was planning to go to Istanbul in the middle of April to visit our mutual friend Yaprak. Second, my one month tourist visa to Russia just happened to expire a mere two days before Tamara was to arrive. We had to leave the country to apply for our work visas anyway, and I realized, "Why not go to Turkey?". Well, there was no good reason not to go (actually there was, but I didn't know it at the time), so go we did.
I got to experience the tourist side of Istanbul, but also a little of the local side since I had many expert local tour guides who were quick to tell me about the history of their city while also explaining the ins and outs of Turkish culture and politics. My friend's mom even wrote up a guide to the city, complete with any information you could want about every interesting corner of Istanbul. Then she drove us around for an hour pointing out all of the important buildings. Talk about hospitality! Istanbul feels very European to me, but it has a special mix of east and west that I don't think could exist in many other places. The mosques and calls to prayer were two of my favourite things because they reminded me that this place had a lot more history and flavor than other European cities. Not to mention, it is just the prettiest place to put a city. Check out my photos to see what I mean.
I know why my experience in Istanbul made me feel so much at home. It was almost entirely because I was with very good friends. Friends who feel like family. Friends who let you stay at their gorgeous purple hillside house with a garden in the back and a view in the front. Friends who pick you up and drive you back and forth over the bridges countless times. Friends who you can hang out with for days uninterrupted. Friends who drag your butt out of bed for an excursion to tiny islands and share a horse carriage ride with you. I felt so calm, happy and loved being with these people, in this beautiful city. And the food! Talk about a cherry on top. Turkish food is so pure and simple and therefore delicious. Some of my favourite things were Pide (an arabic style pizza), Mercimek çorbası (lentil soup), Borek (a pastry filled with cheese, spinach or meat) and Baklava! Who am I kidding? I loved everything I ate and drank. I even developed a mild addiction to Turkish tea. With three sugar cubes please.
The only thing that tainted my glorious two weeks in Istanbul was the other reason I was there. The visa. I think I have finally learned that embassies do not run the way one would like or expect. They are exceptions to standards, rules, and, in my opinion, common sense. The problem in this case was that what the embassy told us when we called them was quite the opposite of what they told us when we had spent our money to come in person. Very long story short, we did not get our work visas, and so our plan to work in Russia fell through. Despite the outcome, I will not ever regret the decision to go to Turkey. It was two of the best weeks of my life, and now I know I have at least three places where I feel totally and completely at home.
I'm on a train to St. Petersburg. It's the second time I've made the trip from Moscow to the more northern Russian city. The first time was over a month ago, when I arrived in Russia for the first time and made my way to St. Petersburg for two reason: 1) To find a job and 2) To see if I would like to live there for a while. D and I spent three weeks there in total, seeing the city, looking for work, finding it, and beginning to arrange the paperwork. I also made some small attempts to learn Russian, but after three weeks I've only so far grasped the alphabet and some basic (but important!) vocabulary. We found a small language school that was looking for new native teachers and they decided to help us process our work visas so we could work for them. The story of what happened next is a long one, and one better left to another post, so in the meantime, I'll tell you about the beautiful city that is St. Petersburg (formerly known as Leningrad).
Someone told me recently that St. P ranks among the 5 most romantic cities in the world (along the likes of Venice, Prague, Paris, and Istanbul). I have no idea who conducted such research or how they went about deciding on judging criteria, but I would have to agree. You wouldn't think to place a former Soviet city with the others in this category, but maybe that's why it's considered romantic, because it's so unexpected! The beauty of this city is surprising (at least for me, someone who had few previous references to it). I remarked one day how I 've often found myself thinking "This street feels like any typical European neighborhood street", but then I would walk not 100 metres to come across some stunning piece of historical or architectural significance. St. Petersburg is packed full of things for tourists to do and see.
The same negatives exist in St. Petersburg as do in Moscow, however. It is cheaper, but because it attracts so many tourists (especially in summer), the main areas are still quite steeply priced. Despite the large appearance of the tourist industry, there are still very few signs in English, or any other language aside from Russian. But, the metro only consists of four lines, so it is much easier to figure out than the Moscow metro. I think it's definitely true that St. Petersburg is the more 'European' city.
We seemed to arrive at a weird nexus between winter and spring, because for the first five days we were here it snowed and snowed and snowed, but two days later it was warm outside and the snow was gone. I imagine that winters here are just as long and dull as those of Canadian cities, with the added bonus of less sunlight! To balance things out, however, St. Petersburg has white nights in summer, when the sun practically refused to set. It's really too bad we didn't get to experience those, but I did find myself walking home from work at 9:30pm in late March and seeing no sign of the sun setting.
Spending three weeks in a city gives you just enough time to settle in and start to act like a local. For example, we were just getting used to the seemingly redundant practice of buying groceries. Most of the "grocery stores" are small shops that have three or four separate sections (meat, fresh produce, dairy, dry goods). You must approach each section and ask the attendant to gather the items from behind the counter and give you a total of how much you owe. Once you've visited every section you add up your total and stand in line at the cashier to pay and get your receipt. Then you return to each section and pick up your food. I have no idea how this system evolved, but I think I need someone to explain it to me.
We stayed in a cozy little apartment for most of our time in St. P, which was much nicer than a hostel, but also gave us the opportunity to meet some other tourists who were staying in the other bedroom. Coincidentally, perhaps, every couple we met was from England. The best part about this apartment was that it had no phone, no tv and no internet. Although we found ourselves bored at times (all of the files on my laptop are now organized, including pictures!) , it forced me to 'unplug' and just enjoy where I was. I loved getting up and leisurely making and eating breakfast, then reading a book, going out to explore... Of course, almost everyday can look this way when you're traveling, but having internet around always makes it harder for me to accomplish.
I took almost insultingly few pictures in St. Petersburg, probably because I thought I would have many months to take more pictures, but here are those I did manage to snap.
Moscow, on the other hand, is ridiculously expensive. We only spent three days there, mostly because we couldn't afford to stick to a budget. It is, I've heard, the most expensive city in the world. I had a tough time believing that until I saw it for myself. I saw a cup of black tea cost the equivalent of $6. I saw a simple Italian food court dinner cost almost $20. When you're trying to live on less than $40 a day, it seems you can't eat or drink in Moscow. But, in other ways, Moscow is wonderful.
It's full of history, for starters. Even without making any effort to find the historically significant museums, monuments and statues, you will just run into them, because they are so numerous. The metro is one of the most beautiful places to see in Moscow, for which it is unique. In the 1950's, the Soviet government was so pleased with itself for building a metro that is went all out and had every station designed in a majestic manner. If it weren't so dangerous to walk around with valuables in the metro, I would have taken a whole series of photos based only on train stations.
Another special feature of Moscow is its architecture. I was half-expecting big blocks of concrete with few windows, but in fact the buildings in the center of Moscow could be mistaken for the Parisian or Roman variety. Huge ceilings, complimented by huge picture windows, adorned every room I went into. And the churches! Wow. They are like something out of the imagination of the love child of Willy Wonka and Picasso. Not that that would be possible. The spires are so unique and beautiful that people go through all the Visa red tape just to see them in person.
And, with some effort, we did manage to find some "cheap" options, such as a buffet style restaurant called "MY MY", which in Russian letters actually says "Moo Moo". There you can pick and choose your courses (salad, soup, meat, side, drink and dessert) for the bargain price of about $15. What a deal! We also took the metro around the city, which was fairly cheap. Walking between major tourist attractions is also doable. And, if you want to leave Moscow (for, say, St. Petersburg) you are in luck. A basic train ticket between the two cities is only $20 in the low season! We sprung for the four bed cabin and took a night train, but we still only spent about $45 for an eight hour trip and a good nights sleep (those beds are pretty comfy).
The most difficult thing about Moscow is actually not the prices, but rather the language. I had a serious advantage in that my boyfriend just so happens to speak fluent Russian, but if I had been alone or without a Russian speaker, I would be lost. Every other country I have been to has been manageable, I realize now, because even if the signs were not in English, they did use a Roman alphabet. I am able to find my way around because I can recognize or read signs (and because I have an awesome sense of direction, if I do say so myself). In Moscow, everything uses the Cyrillic alphabet, which I had only just started to study. The metro is also very difficult for tourists because the station names are not always visible from the train and the announcement is often hard to hear. We resorted to counting stops on the map.
My first taste of Russia in Moscow was almost exactly how I imagined it would be. I was totally overwhelmed for the first 24 hours and then slowly settled into it as I figured out how things are done. I tried to just go with the flow of Moscow, because I knew I would have three weeks in St. Petersburg to really wrap my head around Russia. Little did I know, I would need all of that time. More to come...
The major theme of our trip to Japan was "cheap". It's what we were and what we looked for. It wasn't always easy, but we discovered that it is possible to travel through Japan on a budget, despite what most travel guides tell you. For a 10 day trip, we managed to come in on budget at around $500 each. Of course, that didn't include getting there, but I still think that's a pretty good number considering we were in one of the most expensive countries there is. Here is how we did it, and what exactly we did.
The biggest way that we cut down our costs was to take advantage of a seasonal discount train ticket that was created for students (over their school holidays), but that has no age limit or requirements. It's available three times throughout the year based on holidays. We happened to be in Japan at the right time. We only found out about it after doing hours of research about traveling through Japan. It isn't very well advertised. The reason? It cuts the price of train travel in Japan by 3/4. It's also half as cheap as taking buses. The downside is that this ticket doesn't allow you to take the high-speed trains, so you can easily spend a whole day getting from Tokyo to Kyoto (which the high-speed train takes 2 1/2 hours to get to). This suited us fine, since we had the time (and lacked the money). Since we moved along at a more leisurely pace, we got to see a lot of the countryside, the coastline, and even Mt. Fuji!
The other big money saver was accommodation. Anyone who has ever traveled on a budget knows the value of good hostels. We were lucky to find several in Japan. A good hostel for us is clean, has laundry/internet, the option of private rooms (although this isn't always possible), and is not fancy in any way. The great thing about Japan is that they have more options for budget seekers. A traditional Japanese style hotel or house is called a "Ryokan" and you can stay in a simple, but lovely room for almost the same price as a hostel. We found one in Kyoto that was exactly what we were looking for. Unfortunately, we made a huge mistake in planning our trip to Japan. We didn't really. Plan, that is. We kept doing things on the fly and booking places at the last minute. FYI, Japan is not the place to do this. We found that out when we arrived in Kyoto around midnight and could not find a single hotel room in even a dingy, broken down place for the night. We ended up walking around for a few hours and biding our time in one of Japan's 24 hour McDonald's. Although, in retrospect, being without anywhere to go for one night is something I'm glad I experienced, it is not a good way to spend time, in general, let alone in a foreign country in March.
Speaking of McDonald's, the other way we kept our money in our pockets was to eat very cheaply. We only ate at McDonald's once (on that fateful night), thank goodness. Mostly, we ate Ramen noodles from the corner store, which will only set you back about a dollar. Of course, after a week of Ramen, you probably won't feel that great, but you can mix it up a little. We also bought a lot of food at convenience marts. In Canada, I'm usually repulsed by convenience store dinners, but in Japan, things are a bit different. They often sell salads, and fairly fresh meals. You can even find fruit in the nicer ones. Again, this is sustainable for much longer than a week, but it's a great alternative to expensive restaurants.
So, that was our holiday: long train trips, being homeless, not being homeless, and eating really cheap food. We also did a lot of shopping in Akihabara (the technology center of Japan), strolling through parks, wandering into temples, getting hair cut (mine, mostly), taking pictures of funny signs and hanging out with people we met at hostels. Japan, in my opinion, is a beautiful country. It's history, art, people, and landscape are all beautiful. When you combine beautiful with cheap, you've got a winner.
It has felt like Spring on and off for two weeks. The temperature has shot up and then plummeted again half a dozen times, confusing all kinds of flora, fauna, and people. I wasn't confused, though. I knew exactly what was going on. It was almost time for the change of a new season, and the weather was so excited it kept making false starts, desperate to push through to Spring. And of course, I sympathized, because the last two weeks have been the end of my time in Korea and I have been desperate to push through them and emerge on the other side.
I did indeed sign a year contract to teach in Korea. And I had every intention to do that. But somewhere around the 4 month mark, I realized the job wasn't suiting me, or I wasn't suiting it, and I just wasn't very happy doing what I was doing. It took me a long time to acknowledge it and even longer to make a decision, because I like teaching and it was really hard to put my finger on what exactly was making me unhappy. After many long discussions and daily incidences of banging my head against figurative walls, I came to the conclusion that whatever it was, this job wasn't good for me. This decision was made easier, since D felt exactly the same way and was also ready for a change.
We mulled it over for a while and only officially decided to quit when our boss ignored everything we had talked to him about improving the program and instead made our jobs harder. We handed in our letters of resignation the next day.
Since that day almost two months ago we have been on a quest for what to do next. There were at least 10 different 'plans' and countless hours of research put into it, but it was not until two weeks ago that THE plan was set. We would fly to Russia, via Japan for a week or so, and then see what happened next. We might look for jobs there if we liked it, or we might move onto to somewhere else, but we would at least go to Japan and Russia, two of our collective top countries to visit.
And so, the last two weeks have been tough. As the date of departure approached, the excitement was rising, which made working all the more tedious. Then there were forms to fill out and accounts to close and things to sell and apartments to clean, and amazing friends to say goodbye to, and a home to find for a kitty we're pretty attached to. Of course, all of these things cause the good kind of stress, which makes you feel crazy, but that you would not trade because once you finish those things it will be time for the change you want. And, if you just stay focussed on that change, eventually it will happen. It will be Spring, and you'll be in Tokyo with your amazing boyfriend, navigating a whole new adventure.
Last weekend, in an effort to see some old friends that we had been planning to see for a long time, we went to Seoul. The only other time we went there ended up being spent mostly indoors, overwhelmed by shopping, so this time we tried to remain outdoors as much as we could handle {given the much colder temperatures than we are now used to} and tried to see and do things that were more interesting than the inside of a shopping mall. We were mostly successful on both counts.
First, we got to spend a lot of time with our friends, Andrea and JuHyung {whom we call simply "J"}. We know them from different places and different times, but I had no doubt that we would all have fun together. We met Andrea in Itaewon, the foreigner district, and had a lunch of Pad Thai, because that is what we do whenever the option is presented to us. We talked about Korea and compared, complained about and laughed over our jobs {which continued throughout the day}. Then we went to an English book store and browsed the selection. I picked up a Russia Phrasebook so I can take my learning wherever I go. J met us there and then pulled out some impressive lists of things to do in his home city. We decided on the Royal Palace.
The palace {Gyeongbokgung} is beautiful. It rests between the tall buildings of Seoul and the backdrop of the mountain behind it. Unfortunately, we missed the entry time, so we could only admire it from outside, but it was still worth the trip. Instead, we wandered into the Royal Palace Museum, to have a look at some art and a self-striking water clock that some very smart Koreans invented many moons ago. I took a lot of pictures of beautiful things and wandered around discussing with my friends.
Afterwards, J took us to a cool little street full of shops and restaurants, where we encountered a random procession of old men dressed in traditional clothes, banging on drums. We ate at an 'italian' restaurant that turned out to be much better than the 'italian' restaurant in Suncheon. Felling gluttonous, we search for dessert, and took no more than fifty steps before arriving at the ultimate dessert destination: A cafe that was serving homemade Belgian waffles toppled with ice cream and fruit. Hello! This place was so busy that we had to sit outside, under a heating lamp, but no one complained once the food arrived.
We concluded our day together after walking each other to the subway stop and talking for another half an hour. It was clear that it had been too long for all of us and we thouroughly enjoyed getting together with old friends and making new ones. The next day, D and I wandered through Insadong {there was a lot of wandering on this trip} and had lunch in a cafe before delving into a giant mall that made me tired and annoyed. I used to like malls, but they are no longer my thing. Now my thing is being outside, with my friends, eating belgian waffles and ice cream.
Last week was the long awaited Chinese New Year Holiday, dubbed Solare in Korean. This year it landed on Thursday, so all of Asia had a very long weekend that started Wednesday and finished today. It was beyond wonderful to have five days off in a row, and despite the fact that I didn't use them to travel {it's not the best time, since anyone is Asia who can, is traveling at the same time}, I did get to experience some new things right here in Korea.
For the first day, I embarked on an adventure with two friends to find a small temple and nearby waterfall. We got lost, several times, but we had fun rolling through the countryside. When we finally got to our destination we found a lovely little temple with almost no one in it. This is rare, since tourist attractions are usually absolutely full of people. We took some photos and tried to stay warm while taking in the architecture and basking in the calm.
By the time we had seen everything, we were too cold and too hungry to bother getting lost again looking for the waterfall, so we pulled over to a small country restaurant instead and stuffed ourselves full of duck. There is a style of eating in Korea that is like BBQ, but indoors. Everyone sits around a table on the floor and the meat of choice {usually beef, pork or duck} cooks in front of you on a round slab of metal that is heated from a flame below. When it is cooked, you take a piece and wrap it in lettuce with anything else you find on the table {such as garlic, onion, raddish, or this yummy red sauce} and then pop that sucker in your mouth. You have to put the whole thing in at once. Those are the rules.
After dinner we made our way back to Suncheon, when someone suggested we check out a place I can't believe I haven't been before. Mostly because it is right beside my apartment, and I used to go to the gym in the same building. Nevertheless, I hadn't been yet. It is similar to a spa, where there are several rooms all at many temperatures. The rooms are made with different kinds of stone and crystals, which are supposed to be beneficial to different ailments. For example, there was a charoal room at a temperature of 50 degrees C that is good for joint pain. There was also a crystal room at 104 degrees C. I'm not sure what that was good for, aside from making one dizzy upon exit. You pay about 6$ and you can stay as long as you want. It's open 24 hours a day and people actually sleep over. It has to be the cheapest and most relaxing hotel I've ever heard of.
The rest of my holiday was spend in my pj's, cuddling with kitties, watching movies and eating, with the occasional jaunt out to see friends or go to the gym. How very, very lovely. Happy 2nd New Year!
Although 2007 was technically known as the year of the pig in the Lunar Calender, in the Aveleigh Calender it will always be known as the 'Year of Travel'. This year, I lived in two new countries and traveled to a total of 10. I spent only two months in the country where I hold citizenship. I've traveled for school, work and pleasure. I've been on approximately 20 airplanes, 10 trains, 4 boats and 17 buses. And I've taken somewhere in the range of 5000 pictures documenting it all.
If I had to describe last year in any other way, it would be the year that I turned my life upside down, more than once. First, I moved to Europe to study and to live in another country. Then, I moved to Korea to work and to explore the world with one of my favourite people. Both of these decisions seemed, at times, insane. But such change has only ever proven positive in my experience. And thankfully, that trend continues.
I think the only way to improve the title of 2007 would be if it came to be known as the 'First year of Travel'. I have some goals in mind for 2008, and very near the top of the list is to continue traveling in some capacity. Also near the top of the list is to spend some time volunteering for something I care about. It has been awhile since I've done volunteer work anywhere, and I've never been able to commit my time fully to any one cause. I'd like to do that this year. I'd also like to learn Russian, or atleast, start to. Last night I began learning the alphabet and how to read the letters and I felt so accomplished. I think this is a langauge I can get behind.
I'm not a big fan of resolutions, but I am a fan of setting goals. The new year is just a convenient time to do so. However, last year I didn't have any specific goals and that turned out pretty well. Maybe I should adopt the same attitude I held a year ago (when I started this journal), that I would go easily wherever life took me. Last year took me farther than I expected and maybe this year will do the same.
