Sadly, we are now back in the USA.  For those that are wondering (and there are probably many since this seems to be the most often asked question), we just missed the coup in Thailand.  I am disappointed that we missed it.  How often does one get the chance to witness a coup in person?  Especially a peaceful one with no bullets or bombs.  This is the second coup that I have narrowly missed....one day.

 

Korea was great.  My complaint is that we didn't have more time there but alas this whole needing to work thing is holding us back.  My family there are absolutely the warmest, nicest people you will ever meet.  I just do not see them enough and I miss them dearly. 

 

The highlight of Korea for me was the food.  The food in Korea is wonderful.  It is a culinary delight of spicy delisciousness.  To take it up a notch, my family there took us to some great restaurants.  We had bulgogi, sashimi, soups, noodles, kimchi.  The two sashimi meals that I had were hands down the best meals of the entire trip.  I can still picture them in my head.

 

As far as sights, we went to the Daegu market which was very interesting because of all the tailors and fabric merchants that were selling clothes for traditional Korean wedding dresses and suits.  The dresses are beautiful.  For those that have seen my wedding pictures, these are the dresses that my mom, Hyun Jeong, and Lauren were wearing for the ceremony.  In fact, I was informed that my mother's dress was in fact purchased in Daegu and made by one of the tailors there.  The next day we traveled to a couple of Buddhist temples just outside of Daegu and they were very nice.  In fact, they took me off guard and I was very glad that we had made the trip.  I already, knew that the temples in Korea were different from the ones in Thailand.  I think that the interesting thing is the Korean ones initially seem more simple than their Thai counterparts but if you look closely at the Korean ones they are just as ornate in there own little way.  Take a look at the pictures below.  After the temples, we went to the coastal city of PoHang.  The waves at the ocean must have been 6-7 feet tall due to a typhoon that passed by the day before.  It was a pretty impressive thing to look at.  The primary goal of PoHang was two fold.  The first was to meet up with Steve, a college buddy of mine, who is currently teaching English in Korea.  The second was to eat sashimi near the ocean.  Both were great.

 

The next day, we caught the high speed bullet train back to Seoul and then a bus to the airport.  After some tearful hugs and kisses goodbye, Trina and I were headed back home.  I hope that all who have followed the blog have enjoyed it.  Feel free to ask questions in the comments or just leave comments otherwise.  This is not by final post on the trip.  I plan on doing a couple more posts on final overall thoughts, lessons learned, and future travel plans.  So stay tuned.

 

PS - I have added more pictures to all the posts. 

We are now in Korea.  I tried to post a blog on the islands but one of the islands didn't have 24 hour electricity and was charging a premium for internet access and on the other island the internet connection was very slow.  So that leads me to this post....

 

Trina and I had a great time on the islands.  We spent a couple of nights in Koh Samui to start off.  We stayed on one of the less popular beaches in a French-run hotel.  We splurged a little since it was our anniversary.  Yay, one year!!!  We joined a tour to Ang Thong National Marine Park.  The tour was good.  It consisted of some snorkeling, a "small" hike to the Emerald Lake, and finally some sea kayaking.  The sea kayaking, while initially starting off as a slight disappointment since we were not going to be looking at the sea caves, probably turned into the highlight of the tour.  We ended up kayaking over to a beautiful secluded little beach.  It was very nice.  After Koh Samui, we caught the high speed catamaran ferry to Koh Tao.  Koh Tao was nice.  As promised, it was much more secluded and bare bones than Koh Samui.  The place that we stayed had a private beach (which was not as great as it sounds) and only had electricity between 6 PM and 1 AM.  We hired a longtail boat for the day to go around the island and stop along the way for snorkeling.  The snorkeling was definitely some of the best that we have soon.  It was outstanding.  We also stopped at Koh Nangyuan, the former stomping grounds of James and Hyun Jeong.  Koh Nangyuan is a small island right off the cost of Koh Tao that has a hotel on it.  It was nice.  After a couple of nights on Koh Tao, we caught the catamaran back to Koh Samui and stayed on Lamai beach.  We didn't initially stay on Lamai as it is one of the more popular beaches, but we soon found out that being there during the off season meant that there were not that many people there anyway.  The beaches at Lamai were in a couple of words nearly perfect.  White sand, blue water, palm trees, the whole bit.   We enjoyed our last couple days in Thailand just lounging on the beach and eating some great seafood.

 

Speaking of food, the food in Thailand was a bit of a let down.  We did have some pretty good meals but overall the food was not as good as I thought that it would be.  We had some great dishes, but we also had some real duds.  None of the food was horrible, but on the whole it was not great either.

 

Friday night we caught an evening flight to Bangkok followed by a redeye to Seoul.  We met my family at the airport in Incheon and then went to Seoul to see a few sights and have lunch with Hyun Jeong's family.  The lunch that we had was quite a treat.  It was a traditional Korean meal, "Kings food," with too many courses to count and a bunch of dishes that I have never had.  Some were delicious, some weren't, but all in all, it was very memorable.  In Seoul, we stopped by Insadong, which is the folk market.  I love this market.  I love the antique reproductions and the toursity folk displays that go on.  Also, I was able to find the tea house that James took me to a few years ago.  The name of the tea house is simple "Old Tea House."  The interior decorations is what makes this place.  They have tables that consist of hollowed out tree trunks filled with water and fish swimming in them.  They also have a bunch of ornamental birds flying around as well.  We ordered the five senses tea and soaked in the atmosphere.  After Insadong, we headed to Daegu where my family lives.  5 hours later we arrived.  Traffic sucked to say the least.  However, I am happy that we are here.  I don't see my family here often enough, so whatever amount of travel it takes is well worth it.

 

One last note.  Happy Birthday to Jayme and Hyun Jeong!!!  Sorry that we are not there to celebrate but we are thinking of you.

Love,

John and Trina

It is time to catch up a little bit on the blogging.  The primary reason that I fell behind was that Trina and I came down with a small case of food poisoning.  More on that later, the important thing was that it didn't last long.  So let me bring things up to date.  The last detailed write up I did was on Sukhothai.  On the second day in Sukhothai, we visited the Sukhothai's sister city, Si Satchanalai.  It was an hour and half bus ride out side of town and was very similar to Sukhothai with a few differences.  First, there was a lot less people.  I think that we only saw one or two big tour buses that day.  It felt like we had the park to ourselves.  When we arrived, we rented bicycles from this very sweet old lady.  However, by lunch time we had returned the bicycles and upgraded to a motor scooter.  This leads me to the second difference.  Si Satchanalai is a a lot more spread out and it was even hotter that day if that is even possible.  The scooter made things a lot more pleasurable and not to mention a little more fun.  The final difference was this park was not taken care of as much as Sukhothai.  All in all the visit to Sukhothai city was well worth the stop and lived up to our expectations which were pretty high.

 

Chiang Mai was a little bit of a different expereince.  Trina and I agreed once we left Chiang Mai that we were glad that we made the stop but would probably not do it again if we ever return to Thailand.  The city is nice enough and there are plenty of things to do around Chiang Mai but there seemed to be something missing.  The guesthouse that we stayed at was the CM Blue House.  It was pretty nice considering that it was around $8 US a night (and that included cable television and a fridge).  We met a nice Canadian family from Vancouver Island there.  The first day in Chiang Mai we visited Doi Suthep temple.  Doi Suthep temple is supposed to be one of the holiest temples in Thailand and it showed by the number of people there praying.  The temple was up in the mountains and required hiking up 306 steps to get there.  Yes, 306 steps.  For those that are wondering, that is about 300 too many steps when it is 3 billion degrees (Farenheit).  The temple was nice but not better than anything that we saw in Bangkok in my opinion.  That night we went to the Chiang Mai Night Market.  The market is absolutely HUGE.  They have everything there and all at pretty cheap prices.  They even had a McDonald's (McThai) which we stopped at to further my McD's transworld stops.  The next day we went on a paid for tour to go elephant riding, bamboo rafting, and hill tribe visiting.  This was probably the biggest let down of the trip.  The elephant riding/show was a tourist joke and the hill tribe visit, while better than I thought it would be, still felt a little like being at the petting zoo.  All in all, we were disappointed with the tour and to boot we believe that we got booked into the wrong tour anyway. 

 

The next day we decided to forego the paid for tour and head to Doi Inthanon National Park on our own.  The park was ok.  It was as good as anything out on the Olympic Pennisula/Mt. Rainier and definitely no where near anything in Costa Rica.  The sad part about this trip was that towards the end of it we got hit with a case of food poisioning.  Trina marked her territory outside the bus stop on the way back to Chiang Mai and I spent the entire 2 hour ride back wondering where the best place to vomit would be in a bus full of Thais.  When we got back to the guesthouse, we just passed out.  We felt a little better the next morning and in talking with the Candian family they too appear to have come down with the same symptoms that we had....

 

Now, we are on Koh Samui.  In a word, it is absulutely beautiful here.  It is the perfect ending to our trip.  One week in paradise drinking tropical cocktails and smoking cigars.  Today, we joined a tour to Ang Thong National Marine Park.  The tour included the 45 minute ride out to the park along with snorkeling, a small hike, and sea kayaking.  All of it was great.  The snorkeling was just as good as Costa Rica.  The coral was not as pretty but there were a lot more fish.  The hike to the Emerald Lake was crowded but did pay off with some incredible views.  Finally, the highlight of the day had to have been the sea kayaking.  While I was initially disappointed because we did not end up going into any sea caves, we did end up kayaking over to a gorgeous, secluded beach.  The water was warm and clear.  It was just a great experience.

 

Tomorrow, we are catching a ferry to Koh Tao a smaller less touristy island to the north.  The plan...is to do as little as possible....

 

PS - I have posted some pictures from Bangkok...

We are now in Chiang Mai.  I don't have time for a long post so this one will be short.  Maybe something longer tomorrow.  Prior to arriving in Chiang Mai, Trina and I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out why everyone seemed to say that Chiang Mai was a must.  However, all we could seem to come up with was the night market, hill tribe treks, and Thai Cooking Classes.  After arriving here, I think that I see that the charm of Chiang Mai is that it is a big city that is the home base for anything that you would want to do in northern Thailand.  So we went to the Night Market last night and it was huge and very cheap.  We were on the fence about the hill tribe treks but we went on one today and it was fun.  We rode elephants, rafted in bamboo rafts, and saw long neck and long ear hill tribe people (think National Geographic with those people that have the long necks with rings around them).  All in all I was glad that we went despite the ultra touristy feel of the entire thing.  More on that later.  Tomorrow we are headed to the national park.  Right now we are off to grab a bite to eat and head back to the night market....

We are now in Sukhothai.  We visited the National Hitoric park yesterday.  It is referred on the signs as the "Old City" to distinguish itself from "New Sukhothai" which is the city that our hotel is in.  The accomdations here are nice.  This was our splurge hotel room and the only room that we pre-booked.  The place we are staying is called the Lotus Village.  For just under $10 US, we get a beautiful room and the price includes breakfast.  The hotel is run by a couple of Ex-Pat europeans who used to be big backpackers.  So the price is very resonable for what we are getting.

 

Anyhow, the Old City was pretty incredible.  I kept having to remind myself that what I was looking at and standing on was from the 12th and 13th Century.  Sure some of it has been remodeled but a lot of is just ruins.  I think that by far the most memorable temple we saw today was Wat Si Chum.  It houses a huge sitting Buddha and we managed to get there before the tour bus showed up so we had the place to ourselves.  It is incredible to think that something this big was built by hand in the 13th Century.  I could write a term paper on everything that we saw.  The park is huge so we rented bicycles to ride around and see all the sites.  It was a long tiring day but well worth it.

 

So did it live up to our expectations?  In short, yes.  I think that it met my expectations and they were pretty high so that is good.  The flip side is because expectations were high what we saw did not surprise us like the temples in Bangkok.  We kept reading so many negative things about Bangkok and in the end we liked Bangkok very much.  The expectations were low in Bangkok and what we saw was just amazing.

 

So today, we are going to catch a bus to Sukhothai's sister city, Si Sachanalai.  It is supposed to be very similar to Sukhothai but much less visited.  We are also going to stop and take a look at some of the ceramic pottery in Sawanghalok.  Apparently, the pottery from there used to be exported to China and Laos and is now in the national museums of those countries.  They have excavated a couple of the old kilns (apparently there used to be over 200 of them).  So it should be another fun day.

 

Oh yeah, did I mention that it was hot.  Conservative estimates put the temperature at just under 4 billion degrees (farenheit not celsius).  It has not rained since we got here so there has been nothing to cool the temperature off.....so much for the rainy season.

 

Picures to come.....I am currently being let down by the Apple IPOD Photo Importer.

Trina and I are now in Thailand.  We arrived safely after a long day of travel and it was indeed long.  The good part of it was that we were so sleep deprived when we arrived that we didn't really have any trouble getting to sleep.  The result is that we have not had any jet lague problems.  We are staying in a hotel just off of Khao San in a neighborhood that my brother recommended.  The hotel that we are staying in is pretty nice especially considering that we are only paying a little over $10 US for it.  Air conditioning (thank god), hot water, and western style toilets.  After we checked in last night, we went for a walk on Khao San.  It was like stepping into some weird portal.  There were people all over drinking beer and other concoctions bought from street vendors coolers or out of converted VW Bus bars.  The majority of the people were foreigners but there was a pretty good showing of younger Thais as well.  It is very hard to describe.  It was part New Orleans, part college town, part hippy-ville, and part Asian.  We will be taking some pictures there tonight when we go grab a beer.

 

Today, we got a relatively early and headed over to catch the river ferry south.  It took a little bit of trial and error to understand the simple yet complex matrix of water vessels but once we got it down it was a great way to travel.  The views of the city are good and you don't have to sit in traffic.  This all comes at the very reasonable price of 6-50 cents depending on the boat.  There are some really interesting looking boats that appear to have converted car engines with 10 foot propellers.  We didn't ride one of those today but we will just to experience it.  So anyhow, we headed south to catch a couple Temples, Wat Phra Kaew and Wat Pho.  There were both amazing.  That is the only way to describe them. Wat Phra Kaew is the home of the Emerald Buddha.  It was beautiful but definitely seems to be the most touristy but as a reult it was also probably in the best shape as well.  I think that the highlight of the day was Wat Pho.  It is home to the Giant Reclining Buddha.  This Temple was in just as good of shape as Wat Phra Kaew but with less people.  Trina and I thought that it was prettier as well.  In addition to the HUGE reclining Buddha, there was also a nice traditional Buddha there as well.  We took lots of pictures and I will try and post some of them soon.  We also went to Wat Arun which was a Khmer style temple that used to house the Emerald Buddha.  It is interesting to see the difference in styles between the temples and Wat Arun was definitely unique from the other temples we saw today.

 

Finally, while at Wat Pho, we stopped by the Wat Pho School of Thai Massage.  For around 6 bucks you can get thirty minute Thai Style massage.  It felt great but was strange in the sense that they really work your body over with lots of pressue, twisting, and pulling on the joints.  It reminded me of a story I once heard about there being a fine line between pain and pleasure......and this was definitely tip toeing around on that line.  In the end, it was exactly what we needed.....

 

Now, we are back at the hotel, taking cold showers.  Did I mention that it is hotter than sh*t here.....  I mean hot.  Like oven. Like center of the sun hot.  We are going to rest up a bit and then head over to Khao San tonight for a beer and another journey into the portal.  Tomorrow, we head up to Sukhothai for a couple of days.

 

Until then.....

So like a horse's rear I didn't spend some time this week talking about the sites in each location so now I have some catching up to do.  Anyhow, today is departure day and it has been a lot less stressful than anticipated.  It looks like the prep work that we have done over the last month is paying off.  The packs are around 18 lbs and we have gone through two rounds of repacks.  For some reason, everytime we repacked Trina's bag was heavier than mine. :) I have posted a couple of pictures of our packs below.  Before, we leave country I will write briefly about Sukhothai.

 

Sukhothai is the old capital of Siam.  I think that this is the portion of the Thailand Trip that Trina and I are looking forward to most.  It is a large National Historic Park and consists of ruins and Buddhist temples.  Our plan is to rent some bicycles and tour the park.  The pictures that we have seen are amazing.  On a quick aside, flickr.com has turned out to be a great travel resource.  You can just hop up to flickr and search for whatever your thinking about seeing and voila!  So, if you can't wait for our pictures then hop up to flickr and check out some pics...

 

My next post will be from Thailand!!