Christmas In Malaysia

Back in August, Mel and I drew up a list of countries we'd be interested in visiting over our Christmas vacation. I believe there were about 20. We searched on Orbitz and priced every destination. Flights out of Korea are so expensive! We couldn't decide where to go, so we put the list away. A few days later, one of us read an article about an airline called AirAsia that was launching a new route out of Incheon and offering low promo rate flights to Malaysia. I couldn't even point the country out to you on a map, but we bought two tickets for less than 350,000 Won a piece round trip minutes after the sale opened up. Within a few hours the prices had doubled. For the first time in my life I felt like I'd gotten a good deal on airplane tickets.

With some domestic flights within Malaysia priced at less than $10 a piece we realized we could cover a good amount of ground over our 10-day holiday. For the next 4 months we daydreamed about our Malaysian vacation and our first stop, Langkawi.

Langkawi

The small island off the west coast of Malaysia was the first stop on our mini-tour of Malaysia. After work on the 23rd, we had a bit of time to eat and pack up and then we were off to Sinnonhyeon Station and its' excellent rapid train service to the airport via Gimpo. When we saw our plane we were so surprised at how close together the seats were! This really was a low-cost airline. Luckily, no one ever sat in the third seat in our row so we were able to lay down and get a little rest on our overnight flight. In all, the trip was about 6.5 hours. We landed in Kuala Lumpur and grabbed a coffee while we waited for our quick flight to Langkawi a few hours later. When I saw that Reeses peanut butter cups were for sale at the airport duty free shop I knew we were in a good place.

We took a cheap taxi from the airport to our resort, Green Village, in Pantai Tengah. We were greeted by absolutely no one at the front desk and waited around for a few minutes for someone to notice our arrival. We were taken through a pretty courtyard, past an attractive pool and shown to our shitty room. We sighed, took a nap and then wandered to the beach.

It was so, so nice. Seoul hasn't been too cold this winter, but it is consistently around 0 degrees or a little less. The air in Langkawi felt like a warm hug from the vacation gods. It was 30 degrees, and it stayed that way for our whole trip.

Shitty hotel room, just big enough for the bed and one suitcase. No TV channels and wi-fi internet that worked for about 3 minutes a day. We've stayed in way too many awesome love motels to put up with crap like this for more money.

Luckily, right across the road from our resort was a much nicer resort, right on the beach. This place, the Frangipani, became our daytime hotel for the rest of our stay. Everyday, we'd get some drinks or fresh fruit at the fruit stand next door and cross over to the Frangipani. We blended right in and nobody cared that we were there. The pool was amazing, the hot tub was even better, the view was breathtaking, and the whole place was quiet and conducive to afternoons of lazy reading and sleeping.

Mel relaxing at the Frangipani. We could never have afforded to stay here, but it was fun to pretend that we belonged.

The day after we arrived was Christmas Day. It was certainly different from any Christmas I'd ever experienced. We started the morning by brewing some coffee and opening presents while listening to Christmas music. Mel got me an alarm clock with wheels that makes a hideous noise when the alarm goes off and then drives itself off the nightstand. I love it. I got her a stuffed drumstick and a massage at a spa next to our resort. Then, we played skip bo, had a shitty free breakfast at our hotel and headed to the Frangipani to relax.

In the afternoon, Mel had her massage and then we went to a British pub called Debbie's Place where we had booked a table for Christmas dinner. We'd only paid about $20/each so we weren't expecting much. Since we'd already paid a deposit I half-expected to show up and find that the place was closed. Instead, my cynical ass was seated to a table with our names on it, Christmas crackers, a glass of wine and the above amazing turkey dinner. It was fantastic, right down to the slice of luncheon chicken and the brussel sprouts pushed to the side of the plate. I never thought we could get a traditional turkey dinner for our Langkawi Christmas, but this meal really made my night. We were given a geletin/cake/fruit dessert and another complimentary glass of wine before finding our way back to our hotel.

Around this time we started to try and get our Skype connection up and running. We'd been busy so we hadn't realized how bad the wifi sevice at our resort was. We'd booked the place specifically because they had wifi and we knew we'd want to use it on Christmas day to speak with our families. What a disappointment! We tried to get it working for over an hour and the staff at the hotel showed no interest in helping us at all. In a pathetic showing of Christmas communication we used the hotel PC to chat on Facebook with my Mom and brother and e-mail Mel's parents. It was the best we could do and was pretty disappointing after an otherwise awesome Christmas. We tried to lift our spirits with a warm nighttime swim in our hotel pool, but nothing would prepare us for how pissed off we'd find ourselves that night. The Russians in the room next to us sat in front of our front door screaming into a cellphone until 2am, and then the resort's night club kept the music pounding until 3:30am. The night club, which no one went to, kept us up every night until we left Langkawi. I would urge anyone considering a stay at this place to think twice.

The next day we decided we would rent scooters and see some of the island. Since I'm the only one with a license that isn't expired, I tried first. When I almost drove into a ditch on my first try the guy at the rental agency said maybe it wouldn't be safe for me to rent the scooter and I had to agree. It was Mel's turn to try. She has a lot more experience driving than me and I knew she could handle it. We went to another rental agency. The exchange went something like this:

MEL: Hi, I'd like to rent a scooter.
EMPLOYEE: Do you have a passport?
MEL: No, but I do have an expired Canadian drivers license.
EMPLOYEE: It's 50RM. Is red color OK for you, sir?

Mel made it a little farther in her attempt to tame the scooter, but the result was the same. The rental agency lady had her hand over her mouth as she watched Mel try to make her way up the street. "It is not good idea," she said. And we had to agree.

Instead, we got Mai Tais and hired a driver. For 4 hours he drove us wherever we wanted to go for $10/hour. I was starting to love how cheap Malaysia was. Mel really wanted to go to the Langkawi cable car, so we went there first. We bought our tickets and then saw the line- it was longer than any line I'd ever seen at Disney World. For a cable car. OH, and also, they confiscated our water before we entered the line and the temperature was 40 degrees that day. We tried to stick with it, but after 30 minutes we'd only made it 1/3 of the way through the line and were starting to get the spins from heat exhaustion. We quit that bitch and headed straight to the first convenience store for some water when we realized a line the same size probably waited for us at the top of the hill when we wanted to come back down. I took a picture of the cable car from the bottom of the hill, for your enjoyment (above).

Since it was so hot, we decided to go hiking. Our smiley driver took us to the base of a hill we could hike to go to the Seven Wells waterfall. What we didn't know was that wild monkeys live on the hill. Hungry, wild monkeys. PS: the hike was about 25 minutes straight up and almost killed the two of us.

The waterfall was excellent- though it was more of a place to swim (there were seven wells, get it?) than a waterfall. We swam for a bit, which felt excellent, and admired the view of the stupid cable car to our right. Oh, and after swimming there I developed a mean rash on my back that itched like crazy for the rest of the trip. Thought you'd like to know.

We pretty much spent the next two days straight at the Frangipani swimming and sunbathing in the day. We'd learned our lesson from the cable car and agreed not to have anymore hard sightseeing days. This down time was wonderful, and the only thing we had to think about was what amazing food we'd eat each day and what drinks we'd buy for our funny cooler at our mart each night. The beach strip was full of Thai, Indian, Chinese and Western restaurants and we never had a single bad meal. Everything was so delicious.

I read three books in five days on Langkawi. So relaxing.

On our last night, we went to a little permanent market set up off the main beach area, Pantai Cenang. Here, we realized that Langkawi is a little hotbed of rip-off designer merchandise. I picked up some shorts and Mel got a few sundresses but we really went crazy at the fake bag store. $80 later we walked out with: a Jimmy Choo bag, a Burberry bag, a Prada bookbag, Gucci sunglasses, a Louis Vuitton messenger bag, an Adidas gym bag, an Ana Sui wallet and a Hugo Boss wallet. It's fake as hell, but it was fun.

It would be criminal to write a blog about our stay in Langkawi and not mention Big C. Big C is the rooster with me in the above picture. He lived at our resort and woke us up every morning when the sun rose. This was after the nightclub kept us up until 3am, mind you. But he was such a good guy, how could we not love Big C, anyway?

We knew we wanted to get something to eat before our flight and when we saw Kenny Rogers' chicken restaurant I knew exactly where we had to go. It wasn't really that great, Kenny.

Penang

After landing in Penang we took a taxi to our hotel. At $8 for a 45 minute drive it was better than trying to figure out a new bus system to get ourselves there, and as an added bonus the cabbie had the radio tuned to an English radio station that seemed to only play songs by former American Idol contestants. As we drove past palm trees, tropical hideaways and Swastika Society buildings we were treated to classic music by Lee DeWyze, David Cook and even random contestants like Katherine McPhee. Idols, if you career isn't taking off in the states, you can always move to Penang where you're sure to be loved.

Our hotel room was so much nicer than the craphole in Langkawi! It was like your typical, western-style hotel room which is all we wanted at this point. Cozy bed= check. Bathtub= check. NO NIGHTCLUBS= check.

Sea view= check!!! We enjoyed this balcony everyday... it was very nice.

On our first night in Penang we took a bus into Georgetown and just got off at a random point and walked around. We went to a Buddhist temple and just generally took in the cool architecture of the city. I would love to live in the house in the photo above.

All the streets seemed to have this shabby European quality about them that just seemed so charming after a year and a half of touring large Asian cities. I could live here.

Another sign that I could live here: there's an A&W! Now, I'm not exactly obsessed with A&W like I am with Arby's or anything, but it was nice to have a mozza burger and a root beer at a mall we found later that night. But A&W could not prepare me for what I saw in the grocery store at that same mall. I present to you, the top 5 reasons why Korean supermarkets have nothing on Malaysian grocery stores:

Lays AND Ruffles chips!!!!!

Chip dip!!!

Turkeys!

Lean Cuisines!!!!!!!

Readily available root beer!

Not pictured: sour cream, frozen pizzas, Ben & Jerry's ice cream, Quaker granola bars, sweet & sour sauce,taco kits, and and AND SO MUCH MORE. It was like being at home. I was getting dizzy so we had to leave. I bought some chips and dip, and well, you know how the rest of the night went. Zexy.

The next day we went into Georgetown again, and did some sightseeing. First we went to the Leong San Tong Khoo Kongsi temple, which was used to film the movie "Anna & the King". It looked like every other temple I've ever seen.

Kapitan Keling Mosque. I'd never been to a Mosque before... pretty cool building.

The colors of Little India.

Next, we went to see the clan Jetties, where locals live in colorful, traditional huts on the sea.

We decided to get a taxi to Tesco, because we'd already accumulated so much stuff that we needed to buy another suitcase. This had been the plan all along because we had to throw out two suitcases when we left Taiwan due to baggage restrictions, but we will need them again when we go back to Canada. A perfectly nice $30 suitcase in tow, we bought SO MANY amazing groceries, toothpastes, deoderants and soaps to bring back to Korea with us. We don't really want for anything in Seoul, but it's nice to treat yourself to some things you miss when you get the chance.

That night we took a twisty-turny bus to a night market in Batu Ferrenghi, a beachy area 20 minutes past our hotel. The market was pretty big but didn't really sell anything we were interested in. The food looked pretty amazing, though, as all food in Malaysia seems to. We hung out under a palm tree on the beach for a while, before heading back to the hotel for the night.

Taking the bus into Georgetown, we'd noticed a few bridal shops that Mel wanted to check out. Korea is not the place to buy your gown, and one that she ordered online proved to be a bust. She tried on a few dresses in each shop but nothing looked right. Malaysian dresses are so gawdy! Too much lace, too many beads, too much everything. Since she didn't find anything interesting, we headed back to our hotel to spend the afternoon relaxing by the water.

Unfortunately, it started pouring after about an hour. It rained on and off for hours, and since this was New Years Eve we were worried that we wouldn't get to see the fireworks we'd planned to. It cleared up, though, but since we wound up leaving a bit late we couldn't get to the Fort Cornwallis fireworks show that we'd meant to see. Instead, we wound up at a busy party by the sea wall, where the mall (the one with the A&W) had a concert, food market and fireworks going on. It was pretty cool- we got some fruit, shaved ice, chicken skewers and coconut milk (PASS!) and then watched not 1, but 3 fireworks shows that exploded along the waterfront.

That night the buses in Penang were supposed to be running until 2am, so we decided to take advantage of this since getting a taxi back to the hotel was impossible. Our bus ran every 7 minutes, so we figured it would be no problem. Well, after ONE HOUR of waiting along with a group of also-impatient tourists and annoying locals kids with a bullhorn, no bus had shown up. We'd seen buses on the other side of the road so we knew one would come eventually... right? Well, at 1am this bus with blacked-out windows showed up, a guy got off and started shouting and everyone lined up for his bus. A local guy told us we should get on. By all rights, this choice should have resulted in our murders, but instead we just got our long-awaited ride home. Instead of charging 2RM like the city bus, these "pirates" charged 3RM (90 cents)- what a racket!- and they cackled like sinister super-villains as our pirate bus drove us home. We laughed the whole drive home at these characters. They made our night. Happy New Year!

Kuala Lumpur

The next morning we got up around 8am, ate a lousy free buffet breakfast, and headed to the airport for our flight to Kuala Lumpur. From KL airport, we took a bus into the city and then a taxi to our hotel. Our room wasn't ready so we left our bags, went to the mall across the road for something to eat, and then took the monorail to see the Petronas Twin Towers.

They were really big, industrial and very cool looking. There was a mall inside, and since we were hot as hell, we shopped around a bit. I was starting to understand why everyone says there's nothing to do in KL but shop. There's something like 50 malls in the city and prices average $5-10 for the clothes. It's pretty amazing. You could totally have a shopping holiday there, and I could have spent the whole time in Top Man. *swoon*

Inside the mall where Mel finally found the perfect wedding dress. It's beautiful. We can't wait for this summer!

Next, we went to Jalan Alor, KL's famous food street. We were hoping to flit about from stall to stall trying all the hawker food, but most places were set up as proper outdoor restaurants and since we were hungry, that's how we wound up eating.

Lemon chicken, greens and fried rice. A nice meal for our last night of vacation.

After going back to the MALL again, we headed back to our hotel. The room was so small- just large enough for a bed and our two suitcases, but it was clean and conveniently located. Unfortunately, our only window offered a view of the laundry room and it was pretty loud in the morning. At least the garden area was nice, so we played cards and had a few gloriously non-Korean beers before bed.

The next morning we took a taxi to the KL airport- the world's most confusing airport!!!!- and lined up to check-in for our flight. At two hours before take-off, the line was almost out the door and exactly ONE clerk was working to check people in. ONE. We waited in line for 90 minutes and they were calling a final boarding call for our flight while we were still waiting in line. With a hundred people behind us in line we knew the flight would be delayed, and it was, by an hour. Airasia's cheap prices allowed us to travel where we did, but let it be known that they are truly a crappy airline to travel with.

ANYWAY, this was one of the best and certainly most relaxing trips we've ever taken. The food was amazing, the prices were cheap and the culture was interesting. I'd recommend Malaysia to anybody. And even though Korea feels a little extra-cold right now, there's enough yummy food in my cupboards right now to warm my seoul for a long time.

Sobey's Star of Christmas

When I was younger, you knew it was almost Christmas in Atlantic Canada when the local TV stations started running the Sobey's "Star of Christmas" commercial. Sobey's is an east-coast chain of grocery stores. I had my first real job working there during university, and Sobey's was also where Mel and I first met.

So, when it came time to teach my students a few Christmas songs for our Christmas concert, what other song could I choose? It was hard for them at first because it was an unfamiliar song, but before long I was catching them singing it while they worked and even my co-teacher complained that my beautiful grocery store commercial song was getting stuck in her head at home.

After the performance I replayed this video for the kids so they could see what a good job they did. We had a few minutes left over in the class so I brought up the Sobey's website and read them the new sales flyer. I think in the new year I'll plan a Bargain Harley's-related lesson as well.

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdW8peytzik

and the original, if you're unfamiliar:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRckzCCEBdQ

Clash of the Carols: Who Sang It Better?

Around a month ago my 7-year-old class started preparing for our school Christmas concert. They're learning three songs and one of them, chosen by my co-teacher, is "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

Around the same time, in my Korean class, our teacher told us that we would be having a Christmas concert of our own at the community center where we take our lessons. Guess what song she chose for us? Five points if you guessed "울면 안돼" AKA "Santa Claus is Coming to Town".

So, in an act that proves that karma certainly does exist, my students and I studied our lyrics and dances over the same month-long period. They learned in English and I learned in Korean. My performance was tonight, and my teacher was nice enough to take a video for me. So here you go... who sang it better?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwmX-xf7hCg&feature=player_embedded

7-year old Panda Class or...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyQK5dCSAho&feature=player_embedded
The Waygookins in 1B?

Either way, we've all come a long way in the past 9 months, when all persons present in both videos were illiterate in the opposing languages. I think we all did a good job and deserve a sticker prize. How about you?

Assignment: Draw Mother Teresa

You should have seen the fighter jets they drew Amelia Earhart flying in.

Ostrich Rides

I may as well quit trying, because I'm not sure what more I can do in life to top this. A very special and precious dream was realized yesterday. Yes, this weekend, I rode an ostrich and here's how:

For starters, the Ostrich Safari was in the middle of nowhere. We found directions on the visitkorea website that were ridiculous. No, a 15 minute bus ride from Suwon station will not get you to the Ostrich Safari so if you read all of this and still want to find the place just make it easy on yourself and take a taxi. We were on the bus for half an hour and were sure we'd missed our stop so we got off and had a cab phoned for us by some guys at a gas station. We were lucky and got a great cabbie. Most taxi drivers in Korea throw their hands up in a big 'X' shape at the first sign that something might be difficult, but this guy drove us through a single-lane dirt road in a landfill to get us to our ostriches. My hat's off to you, Mr. Driver.

"Ta-joe Safari"! We'd found it!

The reputable-looking enterprise. The website described a petting farm, overnight camp, a chance to feed the ostrich babies, a restaurant, egg-painting facilities and egg bowling on top of the ostrich rides but it was clear that most of these frills had been scaled back over the years. The place was run by a father and daughter team who were just the teensiest bit anti-social. There wasn't a soul there besides us when we arrived and when the daughter noticed that we were there she took one look at us, turned around and went back to helping her father tinker with some old heating equipment. Since there was no clear place to inquire about the rides or other amenities, I approached her for assistance and for 5,000 Won a piece she begrudgingly led us to her ostrich corral.

What happened next was the most ridiculous scene I've ever been a part of. There were four unfriendly-looking ostriches being kept in a center pen, which was surrounded by the track where we would take our rides. The daughter went in to fetch an ostrich and of course they all hissed, flapped their wings and ran away from her. She eventually gets this one female ostrich out of the center pen and into the track area and the bird starts running all alone and at top speed around the track. The father collected the bird and brought it up to the side of the fence where there was a small ladder for us to climb and and then mount the bird. Of course the group of us are just pissing ourselves laughing at what we're about to be a part of and, boy oh boy, I was so glad to not be going first.

I did have the honor of going second, though, and although I knew this ride was going to be the crowning accomplishment of my life I was very nervous to climb on the back of an ostrich! Have you ever gotten up close to an ostrich? They are not very friendly! Picture how someone would feel as they were about to leap out of an airplane or how an astronaut might feel just before lift-off... this was the anxiety I felt. The daughter lifted up the ostrich's wings and instructed me to climb on. The ostrich was a bit matted on top from all the rides she's given and she was warmer than I expected. The daughter put the wings back down over my legs and told me to hold onto them tightly. I felt like I was going to pull the feathers right out!

And off we went! It was the most ridiculous view in the world with that skinny little neck in front of me and a fistfull of ostrich plume in my bare hands. I started to fall off a bit at first but I was able to readjust and hold on well.

The freakiest part was that the ostriches in the center of the track were freaking out, especially this big male ostrich that was a good 2 feet taller than the one I was riding. As I turned one of the corners it started hissing and flapping its wings about a foot away from me and I was pretty sure I was going to get pecked in the head. You can kind of see him yelling at me in the above picture.

Next it was Mel's turn. By this point the ostrich was pretty much over it and was being pretty docile. I just asked Mel how she'd like me to relate her experience with the ostrich on this blog and she said "warm... and once in a lifetime". LOL! That's my girl.

As you can see a fun time was had by all. Best picture ever.

Last, Hannah and the ostrich became fast friends. When we were done the father offered Hannah his dirty-ass ostrich rag to clean herself off with and then they went right back to ignoring us and tinkering with their heating equipment.

Being ignored was fine with us because that just meant we could be left alone while we looked around this large ostrich farm. They were a couple dozen of the birds spread out in a bunch of different pens, but there were also BUNNIES! There was even one brave bunny that liked to sneak into the ostrich cages to hang out. Careful, bunny dude!

There were also ponies, but who wants to ride one of those?

You could tell this llama had never seen a foreigner before. I get the same stares in Seoul sometimes.

It didn't take long for the father to start yelling at us from a distance, so we took that as our cue to leave. As we were leaving I inquired about buying an ostrich egg because I thought it might be fun to paint. The daughter was willing to sell me one for 15,000 Won, but that seemed a bit pricey considering they already took out all the yummy insides. Plus, Mel assured me that we could get an ostrich egg cheaper somewhere else. Now where that would be I don't know, but maybe I'll check Myeongdong this weekend for one.

Did I mention that this place was in the middle of nowhere? We didn't figure the unfriendly owners would be too interested in calling us a taxi, so we headed out on foot to find... well I'm not exactly sure what we thought we'd find to get us home, but it seemed like the best idea at the time.

Pretty bad when the only sign of life is a graveyard.

We walked for probably 20-30 minutes through a hayfield full of the most birds I've ever seen in one place before we found this "Heavy Industry" factory. We asked an adjoshi on a forklift to call us a taxi and he did so with a smile. Pretttty sure they don't get too many groups like us in there.

When our taxi arrived we were so excited. We wouldn't have to go back and steal an ostrich to ride home after all.

We wound up having a beer on the roof of our old apartment building in Suwon. We had a lot of good times on that roof. It was nice to see that the place where we buried little Heathcliff is now growing some cabbages for someone.

The nostalgia tour continued with an order of grilled pork a ribs at our favorite galbi restaurant.

Then it was a trip to the Crazy Duck Self Club Bar, which was a place that the Villagey staff found after we had left the school. We always heard soooo much about the Crazy Duck so it was fun to ch-ch-check it out.

Across the road from the Duck was "Boobi Boobi". Hannah tells me "Boobi Boobi" in Korean means to be tactile with other people. Like she had a teacher friend whose school wanted her to be more boobi boobi with the children- to touch/hug/toss them around more. I wonder what goes on at this Boobi Boobi bar?

Later, we went to the alien norebang, the best non-luxury norebang in Korea! We scored many 100s, sang all the hits, got loads of service time, and just generally missed Shanda who is always the life of the norebang party <3

Our midnight snack was roast chicken, popcorn and ketchup salad at Cabin Oak.

We'd planned to go back to Seoul on Saturday night but all of a sudden it was really late so we decided to just stay in Suwon. We got a room around the corner from the chicken place called Motel Style. The rooms were pretty nice, and you know I have high standards for my love motel rooms, HOWEVER the next morning when we went to fill up the hot tub there was no hot water! They'd turned it off so we didn't even get to enjoy the best part of the room. The complimentary Maxims certainly did not make up for this cruel service.

For lunch we went to this Italian place, Provence, near our old school which I had completely forgotten about until Mel mentioned it in the morning. My favorite, the steak and pasta entree wasn't on the menu any more, but the bacon spaghetti I ordered was awesome and I was just happy to see that the restaurant was still operating after all this time.

We scoffed at the rate of inflation that seems to have taken over the clothes shopping in the CGV building, and then went to Home Plus for a few groceries. The Suwon Home Plus has some amazing new products in stock including the crackers pictured above: DICK STICKS!!! If you had dick sticks on your Christmas list this year, you could be in luck because we may have bought several packages of these.

The Christmas section was all set up and a female mannequin had been dressed up as a D-cup Santa.

We weren't going to get a tree this year because we won't be here for Christmas, but we couldn't resist getting a little plastic tree with all the ornaments for 5,000 Won. I didn't think my life could get an more cheery after my lap on that ostrich yesterday, but the tree has been a nice touch to the apartment.

Mind Your Manners

Last week my school took our 7-year-old students to the Marriott for a manners luncheon for the low, low price of only 40,000 Won per child. I don't know if I've ever spent that much money on a meal for myself, so it's not surprising that some of my students' parents weren't too impressed by the price tag. Luckily, that meant that my two most manners-challenged students stayed at home in protest and the event wasn't the gong show that I had initially pictured it might be with them there.

At the entrance there was a big ice sculpture made for our school.

At first I thought there were way too many forks on the table, but during the presentation I learned that they were supposed to be there.

Ryan didn't quite get the part of the presentation about playing with your napkin. I looked over and he was waving it like a matador and exclaiming "come on, ox!"

In an excellent display of pomp which I quite appreciated, the servers brought out our food while marching in synchronized patterns through the room. Cream of corn soup was the appetizer. My first instinct after learning the soup's flavor was to push the bowl aside untouched, but when I tried it I thought it was really delicious. It tasted like a cross between popcorn and gravy- amazing!

After my students informed me that the server wouldn't take my soup away until I put my spoon on the right side of the plate, my dish was taken and the main course arrived. I was starting to think that maybe I was learning more about table manners than the kids. My students were served hamburger steak and fries, which I'm pretty sure costs about 5,000 Won in any food court around here, but they seemed happy with what their 40,000 Won had bought them.

Teachers were served some beef with roasted veggies. It was a bit rarer than I like, but it was pretty good. It was a nice touch for them to serve us something different from the kids (though I did steal a few of their fries anyway).

Dessert was ice cream served on white cake with chocolate sauce, a chocolate ribbon, a cookie and whipped cream! I'm pretty sure I was the only one at my table who finished this since we'd already eaten two courses on top of a morning snack 2 hours earlier. It was surely the only time I've ever heard kids moan "I don't want to eat ice cream".

Cheers!

The hotel looked really nice with all of the Christmas decorations. The kids dressed up for the dinner and it was cute. I don't know if they learned anything new, but it was fun to have a different activity to do during the day.

On the way out of the hotel I had a weird sense of deja vu: 10 months ago this was where Mel and I met the rep from my school who took us to our officetel after our flight from Taiwan. What a confusing evening that had been. He wasn't there when we showed up and there was no ice sculpture for us either! There was only one pay phone to use in the hotel and this DOUCHE would not get off of it. We were there for over an hour before our guy showed up, smelling of whiskey. When we left he even took us to the wrong apartment before finding the right place. Then he told me he'd meet me the next morning to show me my new school and he never showed up. Then, a week later he arrived unannounced at 9am. I was in my pajamas and he was all ready to take me to my first day of work.

I liked this trip to the Marriott better.