Before coming to Korea, we couldn’t find any information on the designated town we were to call home for the next year. Literally, the only two solid bits of information, if you can call them that, in which we knew for sure was that Yeoju is the home for some kind of world ceramic festival and there is a premium outlet shopping mall in town. You could say we were going in pretty blind, but in the end, it was an absolute blessing. Before I get into Yeoju a little, we’re currently enroute to Japan, the final leg of our Asian experience. Those blogs are coming right up, sorry I’m a little behind on the writing- been a little busy. We officially have left Korea, Yeoju, our jobs, and friends which was all quite sad. As ... read more

Count down is now under twenty days until we shove off from the Hermit Kingdom, and it’s starting to hit us that we’re actually leaving. We are leaving Korea on October 5th, officially, and spending a week in Japan, exploring Tokyo and down through Kyoto and beyond (if we have time). Then on the 10th, we will be jumping back on a plane to head back to the western hemisphere, changing planes in Seattle and then to Bozeman. Neither of us can really believe that we are leaving sooo soon! There are all kinds of things creeping up on us, and we’re staying ahead of the curve, but the stresses of it all are still on the back burner. Not only are there a million and one things to do for our schools, end of contract ... read more

The greatest city on earth & Asia’s Las Vegas… What’s not to love about these two, right? After a day of bumming that included the famous ‘water puppet show,’ we left the friendly confines of Hanoi for the modern marvel that is the existence of Hong Kong. We had almost 3 days there to check out all we could, not enough to discover all of the wonders our friend Laurel had so graciously offered, but enough to give us the vibe of city life that should suffice for, basically, all of eternity. We got into HK in the middle of the night after a delay in Hanoi. Fortunately, this place wasn’t the sleepy little burg we’d find in Montana. We had to do all kinds of wandering around to find the guest house, 11 floors up ... read more

A quick turn-around, literally like 4 hours in Hanoi showering at the guesthouse we weren’t even staying in that night (how nice of them!), and we were right back in a taxi heading to the train station for an overnighter to a small village in one of the farthest reaches of the country, Sapa. We had two days planned sandwiched in between to overnight train rides- really looking forward to sleeping on a rickety old train through the mountains of northern Vietnam. Regardless, we’ve been told it would be more beautiful than Halong Bay, which is a tall order, but in the end, seemed to deliver in the form of beautiful landscapes with huge terraced mountains and beautiful indigenous people “selling” their handmade crafts. We headed to the train station after meeting a wonderful couple at ... read more

Well, more like Crazy (pause) Beautiful. Yeah, we made it… so... Happy (well deserved) Summer Vacation everyone (fist pump), and Gooooood Moooorning Viet... no, that’s just too cheesy, even for me! But seriously, It really feels great finally getting our well manicured plans underway when starting an extended trip like this. Not only have we been looking forward to this because of the marathon school calendar we just finished, but for us, being American citizens, we have a history with this country. It certainly isn’t, but is growing rapidly, the backpacker’s destination that Thailand is; it doesn’t boast the grand Angor Wat temples that Cambodia has, and isn’t the unspoiled off-the-beaten-track destination Laos is, either. Vietnam lies as the big spoon of SE Asia, cuddling these other three countries in what seems to be a ‘hiding ... read more