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Ross Parker
After finishing a 4 year degree in Civil Engineering, I decided I needed a break from looking at buildings, roads and bridges and so headed to South Korea to teach ESL to a bunch of 3 year olds for a year. I enjoyed it so much I decided to continue the adventure in Vietnam, and I am now living in Saigon teaching Maths and Science to lower secondary school kids. I love all the weird and crazy things that happen in Asia, and I'll be updating you all about my strange experiences along the way!Ross Parker
Travel Blog Posts
February 26th 2013
Here's another short video of the things we got up to in Cambodia on our trip over the Tet holiday. Places include Kampot, caves and pepper plantations in the Kampot area, Sihanoukville, Koh Ru, Siem Reap, Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples, Siem Reap War Museum, Phnom Penh, Tuol Sleng Prison, and the Killing Fields of Choeung Ek. Music by Maundrie Fox, 'I Miss'. Check him out here: http://maundriefox.bandcamp.com/ ... read more
February 17th 2013
Cambodia is a country I knew very little about. I'd heard of Pol Pot, but that was about it. So when my friend Rhys said he would come out to visit during my 2 weeks holiday for Chinese New Year (called 'Tet' here), we decided to head to Cambodia to find out what it had to offer, as Vietnam tends to shut down during the Tet holiday. We set off with no real plan, as we were meeting up with our French friend Vince, his brother, and his brother's Cambodian wife, who happened to be travelling there at the same time. Upon arriving in the capital, Phnom Penh, we discovered that we had missed the bus to where we were meeting Vince, in a place called Kampot in the South. One of the things I love ... read more
January 30th 2013
Thought I'd do a little update on non-school related things and the few outings that I have been able to go away on... So I have managed to get out and about a bit over the past couple of months. I went on a day trip to the Cu Chi tunnels one weekend which was interesting. This was an extensive network of underground tunnels which the Viet Cong guerilla fighters used with great success against the Americans. They would pop out of tiny camouflaged holes in the ground, fire a few shots and then disappear again. The tunnels were used for transporting people and supplies, and they even had hospitals and communication centres in them. The Americans were unsuccessful in dealing with the tunnels - even when dropping tons and tons of bombs on them. The ... read more
The Battle for Hearts and Lungs
Published: February 17th 2013Asia » Vietnam » Southeast » Ho Chi Minh City
January 30th 2013
Getting a bit slack on the old blogging, sorry! Here's an update on what's been going on over here in Vietnam the past month or two. I've been here about 3 months now - I can't believe how quickly that's gone by. I've really settled into my job - the first week or two was really easy as they had their Vietnamese exams, which meant I had no class and could spend a bit of time preparing for the following weeks. And it's a lot of prep, believe me. The classes I teach are between two and a half to three and a quarter hours long, which is a long period of time to fill and try and keep it interesting. It doesn't help when these kids are so smart that they get through the huge ... read more
January 6th 2013
Thought I'd do another little edit of the stuff I got up to in Korea over the summer and autumn this year. Places (in no particular order) include Seoraksan, Jeju, Tongyeong, Bulguksa, Anapji, Haeundae, Jinju Lantern Festival, Seokbulsa, Eulsukdo, Naganeupseong Folk Village, DMZ and North Korea, Busan Fireworks Festival and the Dadaepo Fountain of Dream. And no that isn't a spelling mistake, it is actually called the Fountain of Dream. Let me know what you think anyway! ... read more
December 9th 2012
So my year in Korea came to an end and you might be wondering where I am now. Well, I decided to head to Saigon in Vietnam for a while and try and get a job here as an English teacher. Unfortunately it was proving very difficult to find out any information about it on the internet, so I decided to just come here and wing it. Some friends had come before me and gave some good reviews so it was worth a shot! I had a great time living in Korea, and wanted to continue living in Asia in a new culture, and Vietnam seemed like a good choice. I had a long layover in Shanghai, so decided to make the most of it and head into the city to have a look around. After ... read more
November 19th 2012
My time in Korea has come to an end, and I've loved every minute of it. It is a wonderful country with welcoming people, a rich culture, and beautiful scenery. It is certainly very quirky, and although many people find certain things annoying, I loved all the weird things I came across. So, I thought it would be good to write a list of the things I loved most about Korea, so that hopefully you can get a taste of some of the cultural differences I came across over the past year. These aren't in any particular order by the way... 1. Feeling like a celebrity and friendliness Korea doesn't have a huge influx of tourists visiting every year. It doesn't have the backpacking culture that many other Asian countries have. As it is so isolated, ... read more
November 17th 2012
So I left Korea a few days ago and there's a bunch of stuff I never got round to writing about - I tried to cram in so much stuff in my last few weeks so there's a fair bit I missed out! So here we go... I waited until my second to last weekend in Korea to finally go and do the tourist thing in Seoul properly. We had booked a trip to the DMZ (Demilitarised Zone) for the Saturday, which I was really looking forward to as I have been reading a few books on North Korean history recently (make sure you read 'Nothing to Envy', 'The Aquariums of Pyongyang', and 'Escape from Camp 14' if you get chance...it will blow your mind what has happened both in the past and even today in ... read more
October 29th 2012
So it's October, and the weather is cooling down at the same rate as it heated up on the way to summer. When I first arrived in Korea, I never heard the end of 'You know we have four seasons here?', to which I would feign interest but was privately thinking 'Yeh whatever, we do too, big deal'. But I take it all back, the changes of the seasons here are actually pretty dramatic. The winters are bitterly cold, and the summers excrutiatingly hot. So the transitions between the two happen quickly, you can feel the temperature change almost on a weekly basis. I love the weather right now, blue skies every day and the perfect temperature. It's how I always imagine the summer in Britain is going to be, before it rains non-stop and shatters ... read more
October 13th 2012
Now, it sounds like something your dog might do, but Chuseok is actually the Korean thanksgiving day, and luckily for us it meant a 5 day holiday. So me and a few friends rented a car and went on a bit of a road trip. As you can imagine, driving in Korea is slightly different to driving at home, but I really enjoyed the style of only worrying about what is in front of you and letting whoever's behind you deal with everything else! Just pull out of a junction even if there's a car coming, they're expecting it...well, most of the time! So we drove all day along the southern coast from Busan, taking in the views on Geoje-do, until we stopped overnight in Tongyeong. The next morning we took the ferry to a small ... read more
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