Cherry Blossoms--Wow, Korea can be something other than grey!

This post is overdue. A nod to the more beautiful times of year in Korea--those fleeting weeks of Spring and Fall, yes "weeks."

During the 1-2 week period in which the Cherry Blossoms are in bloom, Korea seems very fairy tale like place of peace and beauty. The pink-white flowers seem to explode everywhere overnight, along with huge, white, fragrant magnolia blooms and yellow canola (or as they say here "rape" --no, not "rapeseed" just "rape," that caused some confusion in my adult class and I may have traumatized the housewives) flowers. The world seems like nothing could go wrong ever. The bees are out and quite happy, the world just seems like a beautiful place.

Friendships and Wanderlust

Korea is an intense experience. It's lonely in the deepest meaning of the word, many people cry to themselves and ache for some sort of human connection--any human connection. Then you meet some people you get along with and the world is awesome again. Until there's drama, and then it's aggravating but you still have some solid people in your life. Then you find a niche community of people you really, really click with, and it's time to leave.

All the relationships forged in the living abroad experience are strangely attached and non-attached. Some people cling to their new found friends and try to get them to move closer and work in their area, others are more free and understand that we're all parting soon but we can connect while we're in the same place. Most everyone in Korea is in transition, and that means that we have to build on a constantly shifting foundation. It makes for an interesting experience, one that mixes the difficulty of getting to know someone with whom you can open up with a time pressure that makes the soul-wielding occur at lightning speed or not at all. Friendships here can circle around meaningful or jump right in. Korea's got a time warp feel--it takes months to figure out where to go grocery shopping, but you can meet someone and within a week know their entire history and a list of their aspirations.

It makes it difficult for a person like me to focus on a single goal, I'm hearing about all these exciting things people have or are going to do and I've connected with some to an extent that I don't want that to disappear just because our respective contracts are up and our time has been served. I can't sit still for too long on one idea, but I want to dive into it all. For now, I'm committing to coming back to Southern California but my eyes and feet are looking at the road, rails and skies. Plotting the next adventure. I've had a taste of the world and I want more.

As I pack up, donate or sell off the winter clothes and items I don't need at the moment, I'm really glad I stuck it out and I'm thankful for everyone who reminded me that I was strong enough to do so.

I'm going to the Boryeong MudFest this weekend, so there will be updates with photos when I get back!

Cheers!

Trip to Cambodia - ACODO

I was super disappointed that Wendy and I couldn’t get the tuk-tuk drivers in Phenom Penh to understand where the supposedly famous Cambodian Dance Academy was, despite our use of a map and help from the hotel staff--I thought I was going to miss out on traditional Khmer dance. Luckily, we found Assisting Cambodian Orphans and Disabled Orphans (ACODO) in Siem Reap, and an evening trip to watch traditional dance turned into a moving experience that touched both Wendy and me.

ACODO is an incredible, though small due to lack of funding, orphanage in Siem Reap. The children range in age, from 3-21 years—typically the orphans leave the orphanage at 18, but the 21 year old currently residing there is a burn victim who started working at the orphanage because his chances of getting a job outside of it are lower than most and he does really love the other children. All school-aged children attend state school, and receive English classes at the orphanage from volunteers (I tried to see if I could help out for a day, but there was a miscommunication and I didn't get the opportunity to put my current profession to use for this worthy organization). In addition to the standard education and English classes, the children learn traditional Khmer dance, opera and how to play an instrument. The children are amazing -- very professional in demeanor and execution of the dances and songs. Even though Wendy and I were the only people who came out to watch them that night, they performed for us as if there were an audience of a thousand.

In between acts of the traditional ballet repertoire the director of the ACODO played a video demonstrating the needs of the orphanage--food, hygiene items, volunteers, and money--and their plans for expanding their grounds. ACODO is planning on adding a library with computer lab, and they are saving for land to start a farm so they can supply their own food and use the money they were spending on food to supply more opportunities for more children. The love in the eyes of the director was as apparent as the joy on the faces of the children.

After the performance, Wendy and I stayed to play with the children and talk with the director about coming back to volunteer later on. Wendy, ever the percussionist, whipped out her wooden spoons and taught the children how to play them. This very special organization deserves support and the bonus of being able to watch traditional Khmer dances performed by unbelievably talented children and teens should drive more tourists to ACODO—it’s far better than the overpriced dinner theater style shows that don’t give any money to worthy causes.

Trip to Cambodia - Floating village, lotus fields

If you take a trip to Siem Reap, I suggest skipping the Floating Village unless you know for a fact there's something awesome going on there. The cost of the boat out isn't worth the trip--$12 or something super expensive for Cambodian prices--and while it's cool to see buildings floating in a lake, it's not that cool.



On the other hand, for a donation of $1 you can walk through some pretty amazing Lotus Fields on the road to the floating village. I highly suggest that. It's on the same road as ACODO, so you'll pass by the orphanage on the way out of the town and you keep going (Wendy and I stopped on the tuk-tuk on the way out to the floating village and then biked out there again the next day on our rusty $2/day rental bikes). You can eat the seeds (ala 'The Odyssey') and walk along this huge field of sacred flowers. It's a really lovely way to spend a few hours. If you're into photography, you can get some pretty amazing shots there.

Buddha's Birthday at Bongamsa

Buddha's Birthday has always been a favorite holiday of mine, at UUCNWT we had a Japanese (and now I know Korean) style hana (flower) matsuri (festival) and celebrated the birth of Buddha with songs and readings about his life, but my favorite part was the flower alter with green tea. Every year, we erected this alter with a bowl and young Buddha statue (the one with him pointing one hand to the sky and one to the Earth) and surrounded the structure with fresh flowers from around Tucson and the bowl was filled with green tea. You were to pour the green tea over Buddha while sending off a wish/prayer. I found this extremely meditative and I loved the action of pouring the liquid over the statue.

My friends Allison and Erika joined me on a trip to Bongamsa, a temple (-sa means "temple") near Daejeon in central Korea which is only open to the public for Buddha's birthday. It was raining--just as the song written by Jeff Chamberlain of UUCNWT says it did when Buddha was born "And the story says the rain came down like tea"-- but we made it to Bongamsa around 1pm after traveling to Seoul to catch the bus at 10ish, we left the terminal around 11 though. I had packed a lunch of kim bab (nori rolls or sushi), carrot salad, spelt banana nut muffins and watermelon, we chowed down before hopping onto and while on the shuttle bus from the road to the temple. 'Twas tasty goodness.

We got to the temple and it was one of the more sacred experiences I've had in my life. Unlike my prior trips to temples in Korea, which were always beautiful and amazing in their own ways, this actually had a hushed and untouched feel to it. Maybe it's because I wasn't with a group of drunk and disrespectful teachers. Maybe it's because I already placed weight on the date. Maybe it was the rain. Whatever it was, all three of us felt it.

I got to pour tea on Buddha, like when I was a teen at UUCNWT but on a much bigger (and uglier, in my opinion--one of the bright pink and green numbers that you see in cheesy restaurants) statue. Sending off healing vibes to those in need and feeling this emptiness where the UU church used to be.

On Buddha's birthday, it's tradition to make wishes--I'm not sure why--and they are supposed to have more probability of coming true than other times of the year. There are several opportunities to do this, and we took advantage of all of them! For a (required) donation of man won (10,000 won ~ $10) you could write the names of the people you wanted to send a wish to/for on a paper that was to glued to a paper lantern and then hung among a large group of similar lanterns, or you could (for the same price) write the names and addresses of the people you wanted to send out the wish to/for on a tile that would be used in either repairs on the temple or when a new building was roofed.

I had trouble figuring out the address thing--you were supposed to write your home address, and I don't feel like I have one at the moment. I'm in a transitional phase and I don't really feel like I have one place I call "home." I talk about Tucson and Los Angeles (and at times Incheon, but not really in the same way) as "home."

Anyway, the temple. We walked around for an hour or two and then decided to head back into Seoul and get home. The rain was picking up too and our clothes were soaked through below the knees and on the sides of our shirts--umbrellas are useless in the wind. Our journey home was a bit more complicated, but we got there. There was a van taxi driving people from the temple into the nearby town, and we were ushered in that direction by the police managing traffic at the temple. The vans were unmarked, but we figured if there were hoards of people getting into them they had to be safe, right? Oh Korea, I'm so glad I have more street smarts than this at home. After every Korean in the van had filed out to their various destinations, it was just Erika, Allison and myself in the back of a van with an unknown driver. Did we feel unsafe? Hell no, we were nearly completely comfortable with trusting this stranger with our lives--though we did keep commenting on how we would never do this at home and how crazy this was.

We were dropped at the bus terminal in the small town near the temple, safe and sound, but we had to figure out how to get from this terminal to the one in the bigger town that had buses that ran to Seoul--that just took some usage of the ever-life-saving handphone dictionaries. We were wet, a little cold, but we were on our way home.

We got into Seoul really late--leaving the Daejeon area around 4-5pm, with rain on the road meant it took 3-4 hours to get into Seoul, then another hour for each of us to get home. It was a lovely trip though. I recommend anyone in Korea during Buddha's birthday check it out.

Trip to Cambodia - Ankor Wat and other Temples

Wendy and I got three-day passes for the temples at Ankor Wat, and took a tuk-tuk with a guide to the temples on the "long tour" for the first day. The trip to the temples was pleasant, it was a warm day and several flowers were in bloom and perfuming the drive through the country. When we got to the entrance of the temple sites, we still had a drive ahead of us and we bumped along the jungle and rice paddy lined road through villages and to the older temples. We passed so many banana trees! I was in heaven with the fresh fruit there and I'm drooling just thinking about two weeks in Thailand. Mangoes will be eaten!



Our guide was a bubbly man in his late twenties or early thirties (I can't remember) who had grown up on a subsistence farm in a rural part of Cambodia, when he was 18 he moved to Phnom Penh and started working construction by day and going to school by night. He eventually learned enough English and Cambodian history to become a tour guide (the tests are apparently pretty strict, and his knowledge of historical names and dates was really impressive), and he said his mother doesn't believe him when he says he works in the tourist industry.
It bothered me that subsistence farming was so looked down upon--especially since it's the kind of thing we need now and the Western world is slowly swinging back that direction--but I can see where the itch to get out of poverty comes from. Wendy was pretty into how long his nails were, and has some photos of his well manicured hands. I loved how he would laugh and gesture in a very friendly, bubbly, slightly effeminate way during our conversations. I had some fun trying to teach him the pronunciation of "ashes"--he had trouble with the "sh" sound and was saying "asses," which is harmless enough and I told him it wasn't an issue at all since his English was very good but he insisted on perfecting it.

Anyway, back to the temples. It was seriously like walking into a Indiana Jones film (I believe Bayon was used in the filming of one of them), except with less tunnels and snake pits, crocodiles or Nazis. And the Asian children were Southeast Asian and trying to sell us things instead of Northeast Asian and trying to tag along for the adventure. Oh, and we were the beautiful women but independent enough that we totally could have rocked fedoras and a bull whip (though, I don't know about using one). It was surreal to be climbing on and touching something older than anything in the States. I always want to touch the items in museums, and this was way cool because the whole structure was an artifact! It was crazy to imagine the people who built the structures, the wars they withstood and the changes in religious figures--the older temples started out as Hindu, and were converted to Buddhist usage after Cambodia became a Buddhist nation. Banteay Srey started as a Hindu temple and became known as "The Citadel of Women" when Cambodia became a Buddhist nation, because of all the goddess imagery.

Wendy even got to jam while we were in the temples! There was a band of landmine victims playing traditional Khmer (Cambodian) instruments and Wendy impressed them with her spoons. She traded instruments with a man who had no right forearm and made their day. She wasn't just a tourist, she was exchanging cultures and having fun. ^_^




The temples were of similar architecture (except Bayon
which has a bunch of contented, smiling Buddha faces carved into every facet of the building), but our guide (I feel like a terrible person for forgetting his name already) was pretty good about taking us to temples from different eras so I didn't get "templed out." We even got to watch the sun set over the jungle on a not-too-crowded temple.


The next day, we went to Ankor Wat, which is the biggest temple and the reason Jackie O went to Cambodia back in the day, but I was less impressed with Ankor Wat than with the other temples we had seen the day before. I do recommend going, if just to see the immense grounds, but I think Bayon was the coolest looking (followed closely by Ta Pohm, which is all overgrown with jungle)
and Pre Rup is the oldest and that was the most awe inspiring.

It was a pretty good two days.

Trip to Cambodia--Siem Reap! Day 1

I started off the day miserable. K-Nay had gifted both Wendy and myself with illness, despite the menu being vegan friendly. Wendy was sick the night before and I was sick for the entire next day. Fun. I was bundled up in 80* weather, and couldn't be further than 2 seconds from a bathroom at any given time. And in this condition, I boarded a plane from Phenom Penh to Siem Reap.

When we landed in Siem Reap, grabbed a taxi (because the hotel didn't send someone to pick us up) and rode to the hotel, it was clear Siem Reap is much better than Phenom Penh and there's a reason it's more touristy. The town isn't as crowded, the air is clearer and the overall feel of the place is much more relaxed and chill.



We got to the Golden Banana Hotel and it was beautiful! There was this great pool with a waterfall and wooden tables and chairs on a stone patio for lounging. Plenty of trees and flowers. The doors to the room were painted a dark red, and had iron handles--not the typical sterile feel of a hotel. Then there were the paintings of the laughing gay Chinese man. The Golden Banana is run by two Belgian expats and advertises as gay friendly. The artist of these pictures with laughing Chinese men (same man painted multiple times in the same painting) is apparently the new hot thing in Europe, but Wendy and I couldn't help but laughing.

There was a slight issue with finding our reservations, despite us having called the night before to make sure our arriving a day early wouldn't be an issue and the person on the phone had assured us it would be okay. We were shown to a room after waiting around for a bit, and it looked nice enough, but the bathroom was upstairs and the bed I was supposed to be in was downstairs. I had trouble walking up and down the stairs (as did Wendy who was experiencing some nasty side effects from the anti-malaria pills she was taking) and we asked if we could move to a room with everything on one floor, and told it would be available the next day. No problem, Wendy went out for a massage and I laid down on the bed upstairs and passed out for the next 3 hours.

I felt a bit better after that nap, but not top of my game yet. Wendy came back from her massage feeling more tense than when she had gone out. The "spa" at the hotel had a very choppy, rough massage "therapist." So, the hotel wasn't as magical as it seemed at first glance, but it was much nicer than anything I would have been able to stay in if I were in charge of housing. :)




Mexican food! For dinner, Wendy and I walked into the stretch of town with loads of shops and restaurants. There were a couple that sounded good, but we settled at a place with Mexican food. I was not disappointed, but it still wasn't as good as the real deal. I just get super excited when I can have beans and avocado. I still wasn't feeling too great, but I was able to keep the dinner inside. Progress!

After dinner, we decided to explore the Pub Street section of Siem Reap and all the small shops and things. It was crazy. Like a street fair at night, every night. It reminded me of Itaewon in Seoul, but not as seedy. There weren't enough meals in the day to try all the places to find the best pizza, mexican food or curry. The beer still wasn't good. :P

Early night in so I could sleep of the rest of the illness.