It's all over

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Hello Everyone,

I know it's been a long time since I've updated...more than a month now that I think about it, but Jackie and I have been busy. First, unless you read through the complete blog that I last posted, you won't know that Jackie and I are getting married.

Our original plan was to marry in Singapore, but due to beaurocratic regulations, we have decided to wait. The plan now looks like we'll be getting married in January, probably on the 20th. Right now, we are also planning to get married in Denver with the hope of attracting lots of family and friends with the possibility of hitting the slopes in Colorado for a bit of skiing before and after the wedding.

Anyway, we are now back in Seoul after spending time in Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Since the last time I wrote, Jackie and I have developed an obsession...scuba diving. We love it. Our original plan was to spend a week or so in Koh Tao and get our Open Water Certification, but we had so much fun that we signed up for the Advanced open water. We can now dive anywhere in the world, down to 40 meters, which is the limit for fun divers. And in our training, we've been down to almost 30 meters (100 feet). Basically, this means that most of our future vacations are going to revolve around diving. We are already planning on some trips next year, probably to Philipinnes or Bali. Plus, if we can swing it, we might take a trip to Mexico for some diving after the wedding.

We ended up staying nearly 10 days in Koh Tao before making our way to Penang in Malaysia. We spent a few days walking around and then headed to the Cameron Highlands, where the weather was cool enough that we actually needed jackets. From the Cameron Highlands, we went to Kuala Lumpur, where we spent most of our time shopping, although we did take a bit of time to go up into the Petronas and KL Towers. After KL we went to Melaka, which was probably the most interesting city we saw in Malaysia. The Portugese influence was present in the architecture, the food and even a bit in the look of the people. We also met Zoe there, before going to stay with her and her boyfriend, Rob, in Singapore. They were gracious enough to put us up for a few days and let us loaf around, doing very little. We also got the opportunity to cook a bit, which was a first for me in seven months, but very nice after only eating out for all that time.

After Singapore, we ended up traveling by bus, train and boat for nearly 3 days to get back to Koh Tao. We really wanted to dive some more before leaving SEasia, so we spent another 4 days on the island and got 6 more dives under our belts. We then made our way back to Bangkok and caught a one a.m. flight to Seoul. We'll be here for 10 days before heading back to the U.S., which may be more exotic and strange to us than anywhere we've been. After all, it's been more than a year since I was last in the states and it's coming up on 3 years away for Jackie.

So, if you're in Seoul, we hope to see you and for those in the States, we'll be back in Denver on October 25th and then will be going to Cincinnati and other places in the States in November.

Love,
Joel

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