Beijing (pt. 2)

Day 3, we went out to explore some of the big sights in the city:  Temple of Heaven, Tienanmen Square, and the Forbidden City.  These things took pretty much all day!

temple of heaven

temple of heaven

Tienanmen Gate (Gate of Heavenly Peace)

Tienanmen Square

Forbidden City

Forbidden City

view from the other side of the Forbidden City

When we got to the other side of  the Forbidden City, we started started on about an hour walk towards an area famous for lots of restaurants called Ghost Street.  After dinner, Tony's friend (from elementary school/who has lived in Beijing for 8 years) came to meet up with us and took us to her friend's bar.

a hutong neighborhood

around Dongsishitao

more delicious spinach and buns

yummy eggplant

Day 4, we didn't have an exact schedule so we headed to check out the Olympic Stadium in the morning.  The buildings there were awesome, and I can't wait to see what Korea has in store for Winter Olympics 2018!

Bird's Nest

water cube

tv transmission tower

After snapping some photos of the Bird's Nest etc., we went to the area where the Drum and Bell Towers are located to grab some lunch.  We only climbed to the top of the Bell Tower since the view seemed to be about the same from both.
 

Drum Tower

Bell Tower

hutongs from the Bell Tower

Bell Tower

For the afternoon, we rented a couple bikes to ride around the traditional hutong neighborhoods and the Hou Hai Lake.  After dropping off the bikes, we were off in search of video games for Tony and ended up being directed to another random market which sold everything from fake goods to dog food.  Just as the place was closing down (at 7:30! why?!) Tony started buying a bunch of games.

riding through the hutong streets

frozen lake ice skating

That night we met up with Tony's friend again to eat pizza at her house (which was awesome, nothing like Seoul apartments and super modern).

Finally, the day 5, we had to leave the hostel around 2pm so we only had a little time to go out and explore.  We decided to go to the Wangfujing shopping area where there was also a street food street.

scorpions on a stick

Wangfujing

candy coated strawberries > scorpions

street food

Beijing (pt. 1)

I'm back from "spring break" in Beijing!  We went for 4 nights and 5 days which ended up being the perfect amount of time to see all the sights.  I went with my friend Tony again, but we were able to meet up with 2 other friends who live in Seoul for the first 2 days.

On the first day, we arrived around 10am (only a 2 hour, rather turbulent ride from Seoul) and took the subway into the city.  We ended up spotting our friends on the escalator leaving the subway at the station our hostel was located at.  We dropped our stuff at Happy Dragon Hostel and headed out in search of lunch and the Summer Palace.  After Summer Palace, we went to the famous Silk Market which is not at all what it sounds like.  It's basically an underground market full of fake brand names (bargaining mandatory).  It was quite the experience.  I have no pictures of the market, probably because the merchants were too busy calling out to us and grabbing our limbs to "come and look" at their stuff.  I ended up buying only 1 thing there, a fake Longchamp bag (because of course I need another one of these) for about $20.  In retropspect, I probably should have bought some more stuff, but it was only the first day so I didn't know what to expect!

Day 2, we went to the Mutianyu section of the Great Wall of China (much anticipated part of the trip!).  We booked the tour through the hostel despite advice to go on our own.  A bus took us there and back and it paid for our breakfast and lunch as well.  We spent about 3 hours on the wall trekking up and down step upon step.  Nobody ever talks about the pure physical exhaustion that comes along with the Wall.  It was an amazing experience to to be on it though.  We took a cable car up, and after climbing, we took a toboggan down!  We were also really lucky because there weren't very many tourists there at all.  I think because it's winter, not many people want to come visit China (except us!).  The weather was really nice too.  I was expecting it to be bitter cold and windy, but especially after climbing a bit, it was quite comfortable and sunny.

After returning from our trip to the wall, we headed out for some famous Peking Duck at a restaurant near the hostel.

huge portion of hot and sour soup

duck liver

pork buns

favorite spinach dish we had 3 times

peking duck

I'm about to leave school for to meet a friend for lunch..so Beijing is to be continued..

chocolate!

My first attempt at homemade chocolates was a success!  (don't tell anyone I bought the kit from Artbox with everything required including squeeze tubes of choco).

Leaving for Beijing tomorrow!^^

Happy 발렌타인데이!

Nothing new going on over here.  It's been super cold lately.  I've been hibernating at home mostly during the week.  Other than that, I've just been working...this is the strange 2.5 weeks where we have to come to school in between winter break and spring break.  The kids are just going crazy.  Nobody wants to be here, but apparently this is how it's always been and I don't think it will change anytime soon.

10 teachers will be leaving my school "next year" (in 2 weeks lol).  Korean teachers in Seoul rotate schools once every 5 years.  They can request to teach a certain grade or subject, but it seems to me like "subjects" are the least desired positions.  So, they basically end up having to be a subject teacher whenever they are the "new" teacher to the school because, of course, seniority wins.  The principal and vice principal decide each year what classes each teacher will have.  It can change every year or some can stay the same.  It's all very strange and very last minute.  

For example, the teachers that are leaving the school found out today (2/14) which new schools they will be at starting next year (3/2).  The teachers that find out they will be coming to my school will then travel to my school today to greet the principal, and tomorrow (2/15), the teachers who are staying here and the new teachers will find out which classes they get.

My main co-teacher has been the English teacher now for 3 years, I think.  So, my guess (hope) is that she will become a homeroom teacher for this coming year.  She's been okay to work with so far, but I'm pretty sure she didn't want to be the English teacher this whole time so she kind of stopped caring last year (and as a result could not control the bad classes at all).  This also means that I will most likely be getting a new co-teacher/"handler" starting on March 2nd.  While this new co-teacher could be one of the existing teachers at my school, my guess is that I will walk into school on March 2nd to someone I've never seen before in my life.  I'm not even sure if my contract co-teacher is staying so I could have 2 new co-teachers come March.  It should be interesting.  Things could be way better OR way worse.

Happy 발렌타인데이! (valentine's day)  In Korea, Valentine's Day is a day for girls to give boys chocolate. They have another made up holiday next month on March 14th called White Day for the boys to give girls candy.  My kbf has to work tonight so I'm going to a buffet with my friend to gorge on wine and food!^^

Happy Monday

"sonya,
you have free time this time.
because i have a cold, so i can't say anything ㅜㅜ"

^message from my coteacher.  aka no 5th grade classes today, yippee.  i better not catch that cold.

Thailand (pt. 2 Chiang Mai)

When we got to Chiang Mai at 5:30am, it was freezing (compared to the hot, humid air in Bangkok).  There were a few people wandering around the (much smaller) bus terminal, some people sleeping, and NO taxis to be seen.  There were even only like 2 tuk tuks parked outside, waiting to rip off some foreigners like us, I'm sure.  So we sat down, pulled out the guidebook and map and tried to figure out what to do.  Tony remembered reading that Chiang Mai had a third form of public transportation which we realized was the songthaew.  For those of you who don't know...

a tuk tuk

a songthaew

The tuk tuk is basically a glorified golf cart fitting a maximum of 5 people squeezed in there.  The songthaew is a converted pick-up truck which can fit tons of people and even has space for people to hang on to the back.  Songthaews can serve as a shared-taxi (picking up people along the way) or somewhat like a bus with a designated route (but you can press the stop button at any time) where you just pay a cheap base-fare.  In fact, in Chiang Mai, there were no taxis just roaming the streets.  Most locals just take the trucks because they're cheap and easy.  The only way to get a normal taxi (I think..) is to call ahead for one.  Anyway, back to the trip...

We walked outside where one lonesome songthaew was parked and told him to go to Thapae Gate.  We didn't book accommodation ahead of time, but luckily I had written down the name of the road where one of the nicer guesthouses I had seen online was.  Only 2 other Thai girls got on our truck and we were off.  It cost 30 baht each for a ride in the truck (roughly $1).  When we got to the guesthouse, they said they would have rooms available after 10am so we just left our bags there and headed to the McDonald's around the corner.  After filling up on breakfast sandwiches, we followed the moat surrounding the Old City for a while.  The weather was clear, cool, and beautiful, and the air was fresh.

Around 9:30am, it was starting to heat up so we made our way back to the guesthouse, where we found out we could only stay for 1 night (gutted..because this one had a pool).  We wandered around the area to find a new place for the rest of the time and then spent the rest of the day relaxing.  That night we went to the Sunday market, Chiang Mai Walking Street.  It was a huge street in the Old City that was totally blocked off for the market.  I sensed a major shift in the attitudes from the merchants in Bangkok (pushy and rude) to ones in Chiang Mai.  I ended up buying my only souvenirs of the trip at this market.

The next day, we didn't really have anything planned so we slept in, had a leisurely (western style) breakfast and booked trips for the next two days.  In the afternoon, we decided to take a short trip in a blue (bus style) songthaew to a nearby city called Lamphun.  We had met a nice old man at a temple the morning before who had told us about this place so we took his advice and headed there.  We visited a couple of really old temples and ate noodles at a local restaurant.

the river in Chiang Mai

Wat Phra That Hariphunchai

Wat Phra That Hariphunchai

Wat Phra Yuen

On Tuesday, we went to the Chiang Siam Mahout Elephant Training Lodge to train, ride, and bath some elephants for the morning.  In the afternoon, we went "trekking" to a waterfall and then bamboo rafting.  Unfortunately, I don't have any photos of the rafting because we were told not to bring anything with us, which was good because our raft ended up ramming into some rocks and flipping us off (curiously right in front of some locals hanging out drinking beer who jumped into the water to help us...was this planned??)  Also, I had imagined we would just be sitting on top of the bamboo which we kind of were, but we were also submerged in the cold water the whole time.  It was an awesome day.

our guide, Bang, who realized Tony was afraid of everything and messed with him all day

On Wednesday, we went ziplining at the Jungle Flight course!  Tony is afraid of heights so it was pretty awesome.

Tony holding onto the tree at every platform

our ziplining group

he was extra terrified of these swinging bridges..see the guy behind him taking his picture? hahah

we repelled from this 40m down

That's basically the end of our trip.  On Thursday, we had to leave so we checked out late, had another nice western breakfast and got some more massages.  Throughout the trip, I had 2 foot massages, 2 Thai massages, and 1 oil/milk cream massage for probably less than $50.  The prices were too good to pass up.  I love massages!

One last thing I want to mention is the Thai term, sanuk.  It basically just means to have fun in everything.  I didn't notice it much in Bangkok, but we definitely saw this all over Chiang Mai.  Workers and locals were always messing around and laughing with each other.  It was especially evident on our trip to the elephant camp and ziplining.  "Most guidebooks to Thailand will tell you about the Thai concept of sanuk which often gets translated as meanng 'fun.'  But sanuk is more than having fun; it's about striving to achieve satisfaction and pleasure from whatever you do.  Whether it's the office, the karaoke bar or working in the rice fields, Thai people will try and make it sanuk."


So, did I like Bangkok or Chiang Mai better??  I think this post speaks for itself.  Hands down, Chiang Mai.  If I were to make a recommendation, I would say that if you are flying in/out of Bangkok, give yourself 1 day to see the major sights in the city and get out as fast as possible.  If I had known this before going, I would have spent half the time in the south and the other half in the north.  Oh well..next time, I'm definitely going south to the islands!