01/20/10 - 01/24/10 We left Battambang at 7am on board the boat for Siem Reap. We had been told in guide books the journey could take anywhere from 4-12 hours - that's quite the variation! - depending on the water levels. Being it the dry season, we were told when we bought our tickets (20 USD) that it would take 6-7 hours - not bad, we thought! As we board the boat, the helpers take our packs and shove them under seats and strategically place us in certain seats (not together), in hopes of keeping the boat level - this is when we start to wonder if taking the boat was smart - will we get stuck? As more poeple board, we eventually get to sit together, which is good, because it would have been a ... read more

01/16/10 - 01/17/10 Our journey began on Friday, January 15th as we boarded the plane from Busan to Seoul, Seoul to Bangkok so we could spend the night in the airport before finally flying into Phnom Penh at 8:40am on Saturday...The flights were mostly uneventful and we spent the night in the airport trying desperately (and failing completely) to sleep. It seemed that everywhere we tried to catch some zzz's the crowds would follow and soon the peaceful area was filled with hustle and bustle. When we got on our final flight into Phnom Penh, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that we were being served a full breakfast on this 50 minute flight! The flight attendants barely had time to serve and clear the meal before we were descending into Cambodia! In the airport, ... read more

Yesterday Mike and I spent the afternoon riding the subway. No, it's not what we do for fun around here, but we went to pick up our malaria meds for our trip (4 days! aahhhhh!) and it was an hour and 15 min ride there and back....we met a Korean man on the way who speaks some English, who was theoretically very nice, if not a little overbearing, but it was a comical encounter and somewhat typical of Koreans. He started out by giving us each an orange. Oranges are soo delicious here, we probably eat about 4 a day, so we were happy to get oranges. But, no, he insisted we eat them right there on the subway and when we tried to say no, he took the orange back, peeled it, broke it in ... read more

This weekend we got together with a bunch of foreigners to go see the amazingly talented performers in the production JUMP! It's along the same lines as Cirque du Soleil, in that they tell a story with no words, just actions and sounds, but rather than acrobatics, this show is based on martial arts. And it was amazing! First of all, there were about 20 foreigners at this show so most of us ran into some of our students at some point (they would say "Teacher hi" then run away if you asked them anything beyond that) and I think most people were shocked to see foreigners there. I found out later that my co-teacher Sunny, who had helped me order the tickets, had called the arts centre before the show to make sure they had ... read more

After spending a few weekends in Yangsan, we were feeling a strong need to get out and see something new, so we decided to check out Gwangju, the 4th largest city in Korea, with 1.4 million people in Jeollanam province on the West side of Korea. We randomly ran into two friends, Eric and Moiz on the bus, who just happened to be heading in the same direction! We decided to stick together since none of us had the faintest idea where to go once we got to Gwangju at 10pm. After wandering around for a bit, we came across this small, old motel that had ondol rooms. Now, Moiz and Eric had done the ondol thing before, but this was a first for Mike and I, and overall it was kinda cool! Essentially, its a ... read more