Pakistan Zindabad!! Long live Pakistan!! The first words I learned in Urdu upon crossing the border at Wagah. "Asallam alaikum and welcome to Pakistan! You are a very brave man. You aren't scared?" a smiling man greeted me as I walked my first few steps on Pakistani soil. "I'm here right? Not scared, just excited to be here" I replied back. I was ready for whatever Pakistan had in store for me, which ended up being more exciting experiences than I could ever imagine. The bus dropped me off somewhere in Lahore's noisy, chaotic downtown after asking several locals and finally finding sometime that could speak a bit of English help translate, I had a cab driver drop me off at Regale Chowk, where unknowingly I would spend the next ten days. Although I had no ... read more

Portal To A Different Life After a two hour jeep ride loaded up with clothes, tents, food, live chickens (fresh dinner meat) from Srinigar through winding Himalayan roadways Bashir, Mohammed, Conxita and I made it to the small village of Naranag. As we pulled up to the entry point of this small village filled with scenery of melting glaciers, lush green landscapes and streams little did I know that this would be one of the most memorable experiences in India. We were greeted by several local people who were trying to get us to use their services of horses and mules to trek into the mountains. This also included children who were asking us for a "school pen." I guess this is what they needed instead of asking for a few rupees. It seemed like Bashir ... read more

!ndia! What a mysterious and intriguing subcontinent! For so long I have heard stories and testimonials describing this place- shocking, challenging, colorful, dirty, intense, flavorful, INCREDIBLE were just some of the words used by others about this mysterious travel destination. Therefore, I had to capitalize on the opportunity to take a nice long vacation to this exotic land. After watching the news of record breaking heat of 50C (130F) in Delhi several weeks prior in Seoul and a long flight from Korea that involved sleeping on the airport bench for several hours in Bangkok- I made it to Delhi- tired, jet lagged and dirty. I was proud of myself for successfully catching a bus from the airport to New Delhi train station where all the cheap accommodations are located. Upon getting off the bus I found ... read more

After getting off the train at the very crowded Tokyo station, I was caught up in intense feelings of excitement and before finding a place to stay for the night I felt like to had to go explore the city for a bit. I ended up walking around for about 2-3 hours with my backpack on in Hinjuku and saw a festival that included many traditional dances and mountains of street food. I made my way through a park and checked out one of the old shrines in the middle of the city for a bit and took everything in for a few moments. My next task was to find the place where my fellow Youngdo teachers- Phil and Tami were staying at. They both flew into Osaka and we met up in Tokyo for some ... read more

Japan Rail Pass- check! Train and boat tickets- check! Passport- check! Most importantly, waking up at 5:00AM after three hours of sleep and a night of partying on a Seoul Friday night- check! For my week of summer vacation I spontaneously decided to check out Japan. As a result of working 13 hour days at our school due to summer intensive periods (this is when Korean kids get vacation from their regular school, which means they have more time to attend additional classes at private institutions like the one I work for) I was unable to do much preparation for this trip. All I had were the necessities to get to Japan and still lacked ferry return tickets due to communication barriers (all websites were in Japanese). Having no definite way of returning to Korea set ... read more