Thailand

I just got back from Beijing, and figure that before I wrote anything about that, I would say something about my previous trip.  I went to Phuket, Thailand for 10 days at the beginning of August, and felt that I should acknowledge this. I'm not going to go into a huge amount of detail because 10 days is a lot to write about, but I'll try to my best to include the most important things.

We flew into Phuket and had to get a taxi from the airport to our resort.  We were told to avoid taking buses because they make you stop at tons of tourist traps along the way.  To cut cost, we talked to another couple from Quebec, Francois and Julie, and took a taxi with them.  They were pretty cool, and we hung out with them a few other times during our trip.



Our resort was called the Tropical Garden, and the grounds looked pretty tropical, with lush green forest/jungle surrounding you.  Our room wasn't spectacular, but we hardly used it.  The staff was great, as were all the Thai people in general.  They always had a smile on their faces, and it seemed like a geniune smile, not a fake one.  

While we were there we went on two day trips and also learned to surf.  We took surfing lessons one of the first days we were there.  

This was one of our surf instructors.  He had a much better tan than me, but he was there much longer.  He was really good, and managed to get Kristin and I both up on our boards in a no time on at all.  Surfing proved to be a little dangerous though, and although I was a pro after my 2 hour lesson, I managed to hit Kristin and give this lovely bruise.  I'm only to blame for the one on the arm though.

The first trip we went on was a day trip throughout the island of Phuket.  We visted a rubber tree plantation, monkey show, snake show, buddhist temple, museum, waterfall, and went kayaking in a river and elephant trekking.  Since it was low season, we got lucky and had our own personal tour.

Although it just looks like me wearing a backpack, I'm actually riding an elephant.  However, they won't let you take a picture of yourself while your on the elephant. Instead, they take one, and then develop the picture quickly and get you to buy it. So, if you would like to see the picture of us on the elephant, you'll have to fly to Korea and have a glance at it, or you can take my word for it.

Snake show, obviously.


Monkey show...Obviously.  Although it was a little funny, this wasn't the greatest because the monkeys were on leash's and the trainers seemed to be a little rough with them.  

The next trip we went on was to Phi Phi Island, where the movie The Beach was filmed.  It was a fairly retarded movie, but the island where it was filmed was incredible.  We actually weren't allowed to go to the beach because we took a large boat trip and they said the waves were to strong to get out at the beach.  


This was the closest we got to it.  Everyone else in their speed boats were able to get out, but we were on a big mammoth of a bit so we couldn't.  It wasn't that big of a deal though, because the entire area was pretty amazing.  

All in all it was a pretty great trip.  Probably the nicest place I've ever been.  Not everything was perfect though.   I had some difficulties dealing with some of the street vendors.  It's common to see hundreds of vendors when you visit these countries, and for some reason, I don't deal well with them.  In particular, the Thailand Tailors.  There were hundreds of them, and every time I walked by, they would try to strike up a conversation with me.  At first, I thought they were just that friendly, and carried on a conversation with them for a short while.  Then, after a few days, after finally realizing they didn't want to be my friend, I had to start looking at the ground to avoid making eye contact with them.  Somehow I still managed to get suckered into their shops, where they would try to sell me an Armani, Prada, or Gucci suit.  They were a good price, but they weren't real.  They just told me they would make the same model suit that was in the catalogue.  I couldn't care less about having a suit, I'm not going to be wearing it at school teaching.  I hardly wear dress pants to start with, there's not way in hell I'm going to start wearing a hot monkey suit to school.

On our way home, we had a stop over for 7 hours in Hong Kong, and went into the city for 3 hours.  It's definitely the coolest city I've been to.  It was really clean, plus most people seemed to speak fluent english and it had an amazing skyline.  I'd definitely like to go back again.  I actually got to meet Yao Ming when I was there.  Jealous?



Reading this post probably wasn't that exciting, but it did include pictures, a first for me, so I hope you found some interest in that.  There's tons more pictures on Kristin's facebook if you care to look there.

Beijing Olympics

Leading up to the Beijing Olympics, I was getting fairly excited.  Although I would rarely ever watch swimming, diving, rowing, or many track and field events on a regular basis, I seem to have difficulty pulling myself away from the TV while they are on during the Olympics.  Watching the Olympics in Korea proved to be an entirely different experience.

95% of the events that are televised have Korean's competing in the events.  This seems normal enough, but for the most part, Korean's don't compete in the most thrilling of sports.  The first few days of the Olympics, the only thing you could see on TV was archery, air pistol and judo.  Korea won a bunch of medals in these events, and the TV stations made it their goal to remind everybody about this by airing replays of the events, and creating "exciting" commercials.  The commercials were incredibly cheesy, and usually had theme music such as Celine Dion and Faith Hill.  There's only two reasons to choose this music.  One, they randomly selected some English tracks, and happen to stumble upon some of the worst music ever, or two, this kind of music gets everyone here pumped up (obviously excluding me).  At first the commercials seemed like a nice idea, despite their obvious faults, but after a few days, and seeing the same commercial aired every 10 minutes, I began to despise them.  I don't believe I ever seen commercials like this in Canada, but if there is, please leave a comment and update me on it.  I would hope we aren't airing Celine Dion themed tributes to our medalists.

Luckily I was able to watch the Michael Phelps show, as there was a strong Korean swimmer named Park Tae Hwan.  He actually won a gold medal, but not in the same race as Phelps. Obviously that was impossible.  Other than swimming, and the finals of the 100m mens and womens sprints, I was left watching sports I had never seen aired in Canada such as table tennis, tae kwon do, judo, archery, badminton, fencing and weight lifting.  Well maybe I've seen weight lifting, but the rest of them I'm certain I haven't.  When your limited to these sports, the olympics aren't quite as exciting, and your actually forced to get into these sports.  Not an easy task, because I had no idea how the hell scoring worked in judo, tae kwon do, and fencing, so I had to google it.  Too much effort for me.

To top off the Olympics, Korea won the gold medal in baseball.  Along their path to gold, they defeated Canada 1-0.  A very close game, but one that both the children and some of the teachers reminded me of on numerous occasions.  I tried to let them know that Canadians playing in the MLB were not allowed to participate, but they weren't listening.  Another thing I was told about during most of the Olympics was the Korean medal total.  For the first while, it was a hard subject, considering Canada didn't get a medal for ages.  In the end, Korea ended up with 31 medals (13 gold) and Canada had 18 (3 gold). 5 less golds then Michael Phelps.

Living the Dream

Like I've mentioned before, students in Korea typically attend private lessons after their regular public schooling.  While editing some journals I received from one of my grade 6 classes, I received this:

"It’s always same!
I went to school and came home.
Next, I did my academy homework and studied words.
At 5:45pm, I went to academy and came home late.
It will be same tomorrow!!"

Its unfortunate that these kids actually do more work harder than a sweat shop worker, and they don't get any money.  Just a little bit better of an education than the next kid.  Not really how you would want to spend your childhood.