Today we got up at around 10 and made our way out around 11 to meet Becky and Greg at Miguel's, a Mexican restaurant. I figured out last night that the old part of Chiang Mai, where we're staying, is surrounded by a moat. I think you could probably walk the moat's perimeter in about 2 hours, though I don't know why you would...I love all the random little streets with wats (temples), bars, restaurants, and houses tucked in, not to mention the hoards of Thai massage as well as tourist places. This is their winter, but it really feels like summer if you're coming from anywhere not near the equator. It's hot, but not that bad, and I'm very thankful for that, especially because we have yet to be bombarded by hungry mosquito mamas. Ok ... read more

Monday On Monday at 7:18 we took a cab to the airport because bus 100 didn't go there. Bus 100 was the bus we took the first day from the airport to this stop, so we don't know why it doesn't go there. Bus 300 goes to the airport, but we didn't have time to wait for the next one, so we just hopped in a taxi. We got there at 7:25, so we checked in and had until about 8:20 (our plane left at 8:40). We got breakfast at Dunkin' Donuts -- I got a bagel and Ronald got a donut and we both got some coffee. The whiskey in the duty free was too expensive so we got on the plane and arrived safely in Seoul at 9:45. We raced to the metro, hopped ... read more

Saturday We woke up at 11 or 12 and had to pay an extra 10,000 for leaving after 12:00. Boo. We headed to the three famous waterfalls in Jeju (Jeongbang, Cheonjaeyeon, and Cheonjiyeon), one of which is the only waterfall to reach the sea. This turned out to be a strange marketing point as the three waterfalls were connected. We bought our tickets (2,000 I think). Before going in we asked the tourist information lady about the ferry to Marado Island as well as the yacht tour. Today was apparently too late to take the ferry (she told us too windy, but we found out later we were just too late), so we went in to see the falls (nothing too spectacular, though there were a TON of spiders hanging out in their webs that we ... read more

Thursday Something I didn't mention about Wednesday was our dinner. We were at the jjimjilbang, with limited to no Korean, and ended up ordering hard-boiled eggs and Ronald got some ramen noodles that ended up being kinda spicy. They give you the eggs on a plastic tray with sections, one of which has very potent salt. I mean, it is crazy salty. Anyways, we left at 10:30 and started walking towards Sunrise Peak (Seongsan Ilchulbong), a large crater off the east coast. We bought some stuff at the bakery (weird, gooey bread that was hard on the outside, and sweet garlic bread -- they don't ever have it salty, sadly) and kept on our way, stopping to apply the needed sunscreen. We got a call from the policeman. He and I had an interesting conversation about ... read more

So we took the cheapest bus from Tokyo to Kyoto, which was not cheap, and it was like 60 for a normal bus. Whatever. It's cheaper than the trains. It was super hot and humid when we were there, so that cut down our enthusiasm a bit. For tokyo, i thought kinda the only cool part was Akibahara, their technocenter. It's really big and you can buy tons of stuff there (duty free if you have your passport with you...like 5% off or something). Not everything is super cheap, but for the most part there are pretty good prices. Ronald liked tokyo better I think, because he has quite a background in animae, whereas I have no idea apart from pokemon (is that even animae?). So anyways, we went in a few Taito places and stuff...pretty ... read more