Explore. Dream. Discover

      Off on a whim. I was set to discover a new world, a new adventure. Well not really. It all began with the usual questions that English teachers are forced to answer. "Where will I spend my summer vacation?" This was made equally difficult with having saved less money than anticipated for this excursion because I was planning on going camping. But yet, a friend insisted that we head to an area of the world I might not have otherwise considered visiting, the Philippines. The Philippines just seemed so uninteresting at the time. I didn't realize that they were famous for their breath-taking beaches. After some consideration of either camping alone or going to beautiful beaches I was easily persuaded to head off to this now fascinating group of islands south of Korea.

    

     The trip began as almost all trips do...with too much drinking. Now, I know my family reads this blog and I don't want them to get the impression that this is all I do in my free time. But when in Seoul do as the Koreans do and say farewell to your friends with a nice pitcher of Hite in Hongdae. Little did I know that one pitcher turned to two and so on and so forth. This ended with me rolling out of a taxi, trying to sleep on the median in the airport, and finally resting my head on the floor of Incheon International Airport waiting for the ticket counter to open. I awoke in a daze unsure of why we hadn't slept in the hotel we had PRE-BOOKED and paid for in advance (dumb decision number one of the trip).

   

     Hungry and hungover I set out on a mission to find food. So what do you think the chances are that three and a half hours away from almost everyone I know I would run into someone I knew? Well, I obviously did not think that through.  As I stumbled across the airport in search of coffee what do I hear? "Teacher!?!" ... Oh shit! Unable to process whether this was a delusion induced by repeat subjugation of my body or if I really just ran into a student at five-thirty in the morning at an airport hours away from Geochang, I managed to mutter the words, "Hey there little girl". She took one long stare at me and probably after smelling the fumes wafting from my body, she quickly turned and kept walking. I know what you are thinking, "How could you be so morally irresponsible as to model public drunkenness to one of your students?" I have two defenses to this argument. One, I was on vacation. So my actions should not be considered those of diligent teacher but rather those of a somewhat, if not at least temporarily, emotionally stunted twenty-five-year-old letting loose for a few days. Two, trust me as anyone who has lived in Korea long enough can tell you, this student has seen her fair share of inebriated teachers. If you have ever attended a teachers' dinner, they get loaded. I am talking bouncing off the walls, falling over in the street loaded, and my town is small... real small. I am sure that on more than one occasion my student has seen her teachers stumbling from the samgepsal restaurant to their favorite norea bong. If anything it just reassured my student that I am well on my way to assimilating to the Korean culture. Okay, dumb decision number two of the trip.

     So let's skip ahead. I made a jackass of myself and paid for when I realized that traveling hungover is definitely one of the worst decisions you can make. Off we went to, Hong Kong? Oh ya. I forgot to mention that we made a slight two and a half day layover in Hong Kong.  Definitely an awesome city. Beautiful skyline, friendly people, great food, tons of shopping. We didn't even do any of the super touristy sight seeing, so of course we had a blast. Besides the insane typhoon we got stuck in without umbrellas, it was business as usual. I didn't take any pictures of the typhoon because I knew I would ruin my camera if I attempted to take it out. The puddles were half way up my calves and the water was rushing down staircases and flooding the subway stations. So after a few days in Hong Kong we set off to enjoy the "relaxing" half of our trip.

We left Hong Kong early enough in the morning to catch a flight to Manila. Not necessarily the ideal destination, but a must if you want to reach the world-famous pristine beaches. During the flight, I was seated next to a nice couple who were returning home to Manila from a vacation in Hong Kong. They made it perfectly clear to me to be careful while in Manila. Such things as having your wallet sliced out of your back pocket with a razor blade are very common occurrences fir both tourists and locals. So as soon as we landed I was looking over my shoulder every five minutes just waiting to get mugged. Luckily, this experience was more an example of how warm and helpful Filipinos are to foreigners.  I never once met a Filipino that wasn't smiling and friendly. Then again Manila and most of the Philippines (the parts that are hidden behind the resorts) are unfortunately very impoverished. It is the closest I have ever experienced to observing life in a third world country.  So you have to balance both sides of the situation and be smart, but don't be overly paranoid and judgmental of the locals. After arriving in Manila, we grabbed a cab into Manila due to our four hour layover. There we had a few drinks some "American" style food and prepared ourselves with what was going to be the most horrendous twelve hours of our lives.  

Boracay to explain it.

July 24th, 2010 9:50 pm:

MY GOD! Flat out the craziest day of traveling in my life. Wake up 6:30 am, catch a taxi to the airport, fly out of Hong Kong to manila, flights change, get a random guy in manila to drive us into town, wait in a mall for four hours, get a ride back to a different airport, fly to the wrong end of the island, take a sardine can filled with travelers over an hour and 45 minutes to the right side of the island, get out, cross a rickety bridge with a support handle on only one side of the "bridge", to a boat that looks like it is going to sink, put-put in the boat in a torrential downpour to the intended side of Boracay, take a tricycle bike with three people and two huge bags to a hotel we had only heard of five minutes before we arrived to Boracay, drop my bags and grab a celebratory drink. Time= 9:50 pm, I think we may stay in Boracay. I can't do that journey two more times in a week.

Enough said.

  Actually it wasn't all insanity. Once we settled into the Blue Mango Resort and the storm passed we had an amazing experience. From snorkeling with our new friend Tom, to a romantic sunset sail, we had a blast. We even did Bacardi bombs check out the video it's insane. 

My friend Grant got scuba certified, my friend Jon met many pretty ladies and enjoyed some of the "fruits of the island", and I got a really bad cold on the second to last day I was there. ... and a massive tattoo of a tiger on my back.

 

So why would I get a tattoo in an almost third world country? Well for one, the tattoo artist was reputable. I saw two of his pieces of work on people I met on the island before deciding to get it done. Two, I had been wanting to get this tattoo for a while. The tiger represents the Chinese year of the white tiger, 2010. According to what I have been told by both Koreans and Chinese that people who are born in the year of the white tiger are supposed to have good fortune and lead very powerful lives. Now the year of 2010 represents itself to me as the year of my "rebirth".It was the year that I finally took control over my life and started living it the way I wanted it to be lived. So in a sense I was "reborn" in 2010. (Reborn as I mean it here has no religious connotation to it what so ever.) Originally, I was going to get a very meaningful expression tattooed into the stripes of the tiger, but decided against it when I saw how good the tiger looked on its own. The expression was, "A journey of a thousand miles, must begin with a single step". Despite not getting it drawn into my tattoo, I stilhoping this expression to the memories of my year in Korea, 2010. I hope that my tiger will guard and protect me from bad people and experiences, provide me strength when I need it, and continue to bring the good fortune that I have been blessed with in 2010.