Asiapalooza Photos!

As promised, here are the photos from Asiapalooza

Notes from Asiapalooza

I'm back! I'll post a full Flickr set of my pictures soon, but first, here are some notes from my trip.

I have:

-taken 10 flights in 9 days
-set foot in 5 countries

-visited major world heritage sites like Angkor Wat and the beach where The Beach was filmed

-watched a 6-year old boy dance on a beach with a flaming baton

-gotten rather excessively intoxicated on Koh Phi Phi

-possibly been (but almost definitely was) peed on by a monkey in an overhead tree

-been invited to a party by a Thai masseuse

-listened to a soft-rock rendition of "Oh Holy Night" in a Thai cab at 4:30am

-flown to the wrong Cambodian city and had to purchase last minute flights to the one that really is next to Angkor Wat

-waited out a monsoon holed up in a tuktuk with our driver

-witnessed the abrupt end to a Khmer cultural show when Chinese tourists leapt onstage to pose for pictures 

-watched more American TV than I had in the past year in a Cambodian hotel room

-decided that Singapore looks more like the CGI mockup of a city than an actual city
-become bunk bed buddies with an elderly Pakistani man
-successfully crossed the street in Hanoi without being hit by a motorcycle
-made an unplanned overnight visit to China when my flight from Hanoi was delayed, causing me to miss my connecting flight to Seoul and forcing the airline to get me a 72-hour visa and put me up in a 5-star hotel
-cried my way into getting a free half-hour of computer use in the hotel's business center because I had no money and no way to contact anybody to tell them where I was
-traveled to places I would have never dreamed I'd see
-had, overall, a most excellent adventure.

Jeju Island--the Hawaii of Korea

So last weekend, I went to Jeju island. It's known as the Hawaii of Korea and is a very popular vacation spot for Koreans and Chinese tourists.

It was gorgeous... except for the part where it was 80 degrees with full humidity. My friend and I rented bikes to ride around. I'm pretty sure I lost about 5 pounds just on Saturday (no complaints here, though.)

I would write more, but frankly, I'm really really tired. Plus, the pictures pretty much sum it up. Also, the last picture in this set is the only semi-appropriate picture I took at loveland, the infamous erotic sculpture garden. You'll just have to leave the rest up to your imagination. Or Google it.

On Fear and Fearlessness

Today I accomplished something I wasn't sure I'd ever have the courage to do. I went bungee jumping.

It was part of a day trip put on by Adventure Korea. We went whitewater rafting in the morning. For many of my friends, that was an adventure in itself. However, I'm a bit spoiled. I grew up in Montana where the primary recreational bodies of water were rivers, so I've been riding rafts down rivers at various speeds since I was big enough to hold a paddle. 

This particular day, we were outfitted for a full whitewater adventure-- complete with helmets and the awkward lifejackets that come with straps to loop between your legs. However, the rainy season hasn't started yet and the river was quite low, so we spent most of the time bouncing up and down on our raft to unstick ourselves from submerged boulders. Had it been a raft trip in Montana, we would have been loafing about in our swimsuits while drinking and taking naps on the boat. 

We did take a fun pit stop to do some minor cliff jumping. Due to a family history of severely breaking bones from jumping off cliffs into unsuspectingly shallow water (cough cough dad cough) I allowed several people to go in front of me before I took the plunge.

This jump was only about fifteen feet, and yet as I stood at the top of the rock, I hesitated for a moment. I don't care how brave you are; when you're contemplating jumping off a high point, your very basic animal instincts to not die kick in, and suddenly a paltry 15 foot jump becomes a terrifying plunge to your death. Still,  knowing what I was facing later in the day, I forced myself off the edge. Obviously, it was a pleasant little leap and I lived to tell the tale.

Eventually, we got back on the river and floated (ahem, sorry, rafted) the rest of the way to the takeout point. We ate lunch there, changed out of our damp clothes, and hopped on the bus to head to the  bungee jumping point.

As soon as  I got on the bus, my stomach started to clench. I kept thinking about the moment on the rock earlier, and wondering how on earth I was going to be able to hurl myself off a 180-foot drop.

the view from below

When we got there, we had to pay up and get weighed. Apparently they sort you into weight classes and that determines which bungee rope (band? cord?) you get. Then it was time to climb the stairs. Several flights of tight, metal spiral stairs later, and we arrived here.

The view from the top

There was no turning back now. The people strapped us into our ankle harnesses and led us out onto the platform. Much to my chagrin, I was one of the last people in line. They sorted us by who needed which bungee, so all the "red bungees" went, then all the "blue bungees" went. Because I'm a midget, I was assigned to the yellow bungee. I was not pleased about this because I was the only person who got the yellow bungee, so I didn't get to have the reassurance of watching other people use it and, you know, not die in the process. I passed the time by staring straight down at the drop, trying to get as acclimated to looking at it as possible.

Finally, my moment came. With shaky steps I approached the end of the platform and the guy hooked me up to the bungee.  What followed was the most terrifying ten (or possibly 2, or possibly 1000) seconds of my entire life. No matter how much you psych yourself up for it, no matter how many people you watch jump before you, no matter how much time you spend staring down at the air below you, nothing prepares you for the moment when you're standing barefoot on the edge of a platform almost 200 feet in the air, so close to the edge that your toes are hanging off. I had told myself that I wouldn't linger. I wouldn't stand there to think about it. I would just take a deep breath and go. 

I wish I could say with certainty that that is what happened, but to be honest, I don't quite know. One moment I was standing there contemplating the air below and around me, and the next moment I was in it, plummeting through space and frantically bicycle pedaling my legs into nothingness.  I don't remember stepping off the edge. I can't even tell you if the workers gave me a countdown. I think I was screaming. I'm not sure. There were no thoughts in my head, only pure, animalistic terror.

 The most terrifying moment of my life, immortalized on camera

Then, as fast as my free-fall began, it was over. The bungee caught me, I abruptly flipped upside down (being strapped in by my ankles) and started bouncing. And we're not talking little bounces. If you've seen videos of bungee jumping, you know that the first bounce brings you almost all the way back up to where you started. But the fear was over. A sense of calm came over me.  I stopped screaming, stopped moving, and stopped fighting. I just relaxed and reached my arms out like a bird. I was flying.  

The bounces turned into slow swings back and forth across the river, at times bringing me almost parallel to the ground.  After a few moments,  those slowed and I was able to grab the hand of the man in the rowboat whose job it was to retrieve the jumpers. The workers on the platform lowered the bungee until I touched the bottom of the boat, my rescuer pulled me in and unhooked me... and it was over.

Here's the video of my jump, courtesy of my lovely friend Regan.

As I approach my ten month anniversary of living in Korea and prepare to bring this chapter of my life to a close, I find myself looking back on my time here and what I've learned about myself. I've learned a lot of things. Some are good, and some are bad. But at least today, one day in my life, I can say I was fearless.

Asiapalooza!

I'm finished booking all the flights for my epic tour of South Asia in August, henceforth known as Asiapalooza.

Seoul-Bangkok-Phuket-Phnom Penh-Singapore-Hanoi- Seoul

Behold, the flight map:

View Asiapalooza in a larger map

Beach Bumming in Busan

So, I decided to go to Busan. Pneumonia be damned. To be fair, my infection was 99% cleared up by the time I left. I just had some residual coughing and general fatigue.

That being said, I would like to move to Busan. Please and thank you. It was all shiny and beachy and pretty. Even the architecture was lovely! Seoul has many nice things, but architecture is not one of them.

I also got to ride the KTX, which is the Korean bullet train. As you will see from a few of these pictures, it's hard to photograph rice paddies at 190mph. So it goes.

Crazy Awesome Korean Drumming Girls

I took this video at Maisan Temple. These girls were incredible! Watch and enjoy.

Also, be sure to check out my pictures from this trip.

Seoul's Secret Ghost Town

Confession: when I was taking these pictures, I very seriously considered playing a joke on the internet by claiming that Seoul was being bombed and these were pictures of the destruction.

They are not. I repeat: they are not pictures of destruction being rained down upon us by Kim Jong Un and his minions.

Although, it did give me an idea of what the heroine was feeling in every post-apocalyptic movie ever.

Today I went on an excursion with a group of photographers to an abandoned neighborhood just outside of Seoul. I missed most of the pre-excursion background talk about it because I was busy with more important matters (read: getting a snack), but the basic story is that this area became abandoned for one reason or another and was slated for demolition, but some residents refused or couldn't afford to leave so it's just been slowly crumbling into the ground for years.

Boy, was this place creepy to walk around in. What you can't get from the pictures is the smell. The whole area (about 25 square blocks) smelled like an attic. Or an antique shop. Or your grandparents' house. You know the smell. That "old" smell.

The other really strange thing was the silence. Seoul is a very noisy city, but you don't really notice it until it stops. This place was utterly silent, save for the crackling of broken glass under our feet or the swish of a plastic bag drifting across the road like an un-biodegradable tumbleweed.

Without further ado, here are the pictures:


In other news, my nose has turned into a leaky faucet and my head feels like it's all full of ick. Since I LITERALLY JUST FINISHED being sick, I've decided to blame these most recent symptoms on yellow dust. Stupid Asia. 

Urban Mountaineering

The picture below is the view from the hallway window at school. If you look very closely, there's a small pagoda on top of that little mountain in the distance. On Wednesday, I decided to try to go there.

My quest took me through increasingly narrow streets that slowly wound uphill.

Eventually, I reached a dead end. There was no way to keep going up on the streets. I could see the hilltop looming just beyond these stairs, so I took a deep breath... and started to climb.

and climb...

and climb and climb.

Eventually I came to this: A quaint, tree-filled park perched at the top of the hill.

It was a little oasis smack dab in the middle of northeast Seoul-- which is otherwise not very pretty.

I followed the path for a few minutes before I rounded a corner and saw this:

I had reached my destination! I looked out at the city below and low and behold, there was my school nestled among the hanok roofs and dilapidated buildings.

Mission accomplished.

I Have Returned!

I'm back from Bali, but I'm very tired at the moment and am trying to deal with my frozen bathroom pipes and mountain of laundry. In lieu of a  proper post, please enjoy this video I shot at Pura Tanah Lot. Stay tuned for more pictures (or check out my facebook, if we're friends on The Book.)

Notes from Bali

I'm currently sitting on the front porch of the cottage where my friend, K, and I are staying in Ubud. As I write this, I can hear gamelan music from the nightly dance performance happening down the street. The only other sounds are the chickens wandering the courtyard and a very enthusiastic cicada in the flower bush nearby. My tall bottle of water is sweating on the table beside me, next to the carafe of tea set out earlier by our hosts. The warm, moist air is making my hair curl and stick to my sun-drenched skin.

There is a tiny gecko in our bathroom. I'm naming him George.

Tonight I had raw avocado for the first time in 4 months. It was in a salad with tomatoes, basil and lettuce drenched in lemongrass-flavored oil. It was so good I almost cried.

Yesterday we went to Pura Tanah Lot, the most photographed temple in Bali. Tomorrow we're taking a bike tour to see a volcano, rice paddies, monkeys and more.

Korea feels like a world away.

Onward to Paradise

And by paradise I mean Bali. I'll try to post once or twice on my trip, but no promises. Your regular glimpses into the depths of my mind will resume after the new year.

Meantime, Merry Christmas!