Building up steam

Well it's settled: I only have 2 classes this semester. I'm allright on credits because I worked hard last year but still feel super lazy. I go to school Monday and Tuesday afternoon - and that's it. What a great life. The good thing is I have a ton of reading to do, and also need to finish my old websites and build a couple of new ones.

I'm starting an online copyediting company. www.perfect-english-editing.com It's almost ready, just need to translate it, print some posters and business cards, and voila! With only a few Taiwanese universities using my services, I should have enough work....forever. Work that I can do anywhere with a wireless connection.

The other element of this master plan is that I'm smuggling myself into a courier position - if they need something sent they'll call me up and say "you need to fly to Mexico/Israel/Germany tomorrow" And I get to keep the mileage! It'd be a dream job for me, I like flying anyway. I could a few days in all the countries I visit and save enough miles to travel for free.

Cambodia

Angkor Wat has for years been one of the few places in the world I dreamed of visiting. I bought a ticket from Kuala Lumpur to Siem Reap for about $150. From the airport (I had to buy a visa on entry for $20) I paid $1 for a motorcycle ride into the city - good thing I packed very lightly. My motorcycle driver pretended to search for the hostel I'd booked a reservation at, but "couldn't find it" and brought me somewhere else where he had connections and would probably get a finder's fee. They even told me my hostel had closed down, a blatant lie I found out, but that's not a big deal. The hostel I found was $5 a night, but after walking around I found a MUCH better please for only $8, with cable TV, two twin beds and hot water.

Although I wanted to get rid of my driver, he stuck around until he'd convinced me to hire him for three days, paying $50 altogether. (That's way too much for a motorcycle guide. It only costs $12 a day for a tuk-tuk, which are more comfortable to ride in anyway.) He took me to get my 3-day instant picture ID pass, and took me to my first ruin at sunset. For those who don't know, the temples of Cambodia are remnants of the Khmer civilization, which was at its peak about 1,000 years ago. The temples were abandoned and lost until discovered by French explorers.

The next three days was a blur of temples. Luckily I met a nice Korean girl, also traveling alone, so I had some company and someone to help me take pictures. At every temple are hordes of locals trying to sell souvenirs. It is generally the children who are put up to this task, something which many foreigners can't stand. Although they could get annoying, I was amazed at the Cambodian kids. They were so intelligent! They could speak several languages, and had an armada of tricks to get you to buy their bracelets/guidebooks/bronze statues or whatever.

"Hey Mister, you buy this Ok?"
No thanks.
"You go in, come back then you buy Ok?
No.
"If you buy, you buy only from me Ok?"
Ok.

They would ask your name and remember you until you came back their way again, and they would remember what you promised you might buy. They would also ask where you came from, and tell you the Capitol of your State or Country.

"If I know the capitol of Madagascar, then you buy, OK? Do you know the capitol of Madagascar? If you don't know, then you buy OK?"

The girls were generally better at this, pouting or laughing or manipulating at whim, instantly judging up tourists and knowing how to appeal to them. The boys would just get angry and repeat plaintively, "You buy? You buy? You buy?" No tact.

If you ask why they aren't in school, suddenly they say, "I don't speak English!" Someone has been training them good, because they all knew the correct formula for any response.

"But I don't want a bamboo-flute!"
"Oh, buy for your friends!"

Cambodia has had the misfortune of quickly becoming a tourist destination almost before they had a real country or government. Most of the roads aren't paved, nearly everyone outside of the tourist industry are farmers, providing for themselves. And then there are still the thousands of landmines spread throughout the country, creating perpetual hazard.

Siem Reap was a tourist town, filled with markets, internet cafes, photo shops and hotels. They also had AMAZING restaurants and I want to go back just to eat more.

I was there just 5 days, then I took a 12 hour bus to Bangkok so I could fly back to Taiwan.

Malaysia

I went to Kuala Lumpur this summer to watch my friend Nick jump off of the KL Tower. The "2007 KL Tower International Jump" was a huge event, overwhelmingly publicized as part of Malaysia's 50th anniversary celebration, highlighting a theme of "Unity and Harmony" to promote Malaysia's cultural diversity.

Malays, Indians, Chinese and Arabs live side-by-side in Malaysia, using any number of languages to communicate with, bargaining and arguing but otherwise living peacefully. (I have my doubts that the peace wouldn't end with the strong economy, but that's the same everywhere.) Nick's sky-diving buddies were great and, although I settled into a cheap hostel the first day, I ended up staying on the couch at their hotel, which was right across the street from the KL Tower.

The KL Tower is the 4th largest communications tower in the world. It is also the only Tower to open itself to the sport of base jumping once a year; 100 jumpers from all over the world came to KL to spend a week jumping, shopping and drinking - fitting nicely with their tourism campaign of "Visit Malaysia" 2007. The only thing I didn't like about Malaysia was the hype. They have the most heinous tourism propaganda I've ever seen. "Malaysia - TRULY Asia" is their main slogan on TV advertisements. Of course China doesn't need that kind of propaganda. Everybody knows where the great wall is. Unfortunately, Malaysia is one of the least Asian countries I've ever seen. I ate a lot of great Indian food. I was harassed at the markets by the pushy Arabic sellers. (Not their fault - that's their selling style. Same in Egypt or anywhere else, except they're selling Hong Kong junk.)

The day before the jump we took a one hour taxi ride to an enormous tourist hub up on top of a mountain - an indoor mall with an amusement park and tons of other things, including a wind tunnel. Only $6 a minute or something like that which I'm told is a deal. I did allright, for having very little experience. I could keep myself stable...just couldn't really control where to go. The 2nd time around, I was getting tired and desperate - I couldn't get out by myself and there was no way to call for help! The experienced instructor grabbed me, spun me up and down and all around, and then tossed me through the door. Good man.

The first day of the Jump I picked up a Media pass that I held on tightly to for the remainder of the event, which allowed me full access to the building, to go up to the rooftop and strap on a harness and sit on the edge of the 980 foot platform the jumpers used to catapult themselves into space. At night we'd go for full bodied massages or bars. We went to a nice hotel buffet one night, with an open bar, and caused a ruckus - standing on tables and throwing sugar packets. (Not me of course).

It was nice to see Nick a part of something so big - jumpers were treated like VIP guests, star athletes, and cultural ambassadors. As they should be: BASE jumping is amazing...and dangerous. They have good gear, and they play safe, and they don't have a death wish, but when you've got only a few seconds before you hit the ground, anything unexpected can actually kill you. There were a few accidents, but nothing serious. More alarming to me was that people were jumping who only last week had broken an arm, a leg or a back. Hardcore.

But who am I to judge. They had a great time, I would try it too if I could get more skydives first.

Beach Bitch

I'm in Korea for the summer working at a university camp. I have to wash my meat and vegetables off in a cup of water to get the thick layer of hot sauce off of them before I can manage to eat them. Ah, Korean food. No msg though, which is terrific.

Today I was teaching my university students about preferences. "Ask your partner an 'either/or' preference question." One of the students was trying to say what I thought was "Do you prefer bitch girl or warm heart girl"...but he was pronouncing it like "Beach" so I wrote "Bitch" on the board, had the class practice the contrast in pronunciation between Beach and Bitch, and finally explained that he probably wanted to say "Easy Girl" rather than "Bitch", because in America, unlike some other countries, Bitch just means evil, mean, or rude; not necessarily a whore. After all that, it turns out he was trying to say "Do you prefer a RICH girl or a warm hearted girl", (ie love or money). Oops. My bad.

My favorite student writes crazy journals. She writes things like "I slandered someone today," or "I'm a good-for-nothing." Her comment for the yearbook was "I hate you but I'll try to like you." Awesome. They write KKK at the end of entries to show humor the way we would draw a happy face. KKK is the sound they make when they giggle.

It's been raining for several days and things are being to seem illusory, like the paint of the world is running down the canvas of life, blurring the sharply defined boundaries of reality. Time is slipping by. Our schedule is botched beyond my comprehension due to an indefinately postponed allday field trip, but I can manage teaching hour by hour, activity by activity. I can rest a little on the weekend. I found an amazing sushi restaurant in nearby Jinju, as well as a cute oriental pub with Strawberry flavored rice wine by the jar. Then its one more week, a flight to Taipei, a night in Tainan, and a vacation in Malaysia.

Poker Champion!

As we're all confined on campus during the week, a bunch of the guys have been playing poker to pass the evening hours. Last night, my fourth game, I took the big pot. 50,000wan! (50USD) I'd been borrowing money just to buy into the game, so I was able to pay back that debt and keep 10,000 for myself. Pretty exciting game, next one is Friday night. Now the other players know not to underestimate me.

Rice and meat and Kimchi for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I try to avoid the spicy stuff, but its growing on me a little. Hump day of the second week already - Summer's going quickly, but I'm having a great time here (and getting paid well for it) so I'm pretty content.

Kind of dreading Taiwan, because I've decided to work and go to school next year, but it'll be nice to put some money into savings.

Wednesday in Korea

It's my second full day of classes - It's Wednesday already so the first week is (kind of) almost over. . . teaching University students is a breeze. Even though the hours are long - I had to get up for morning exercizes at 6:30 - there is a lot of downtime and the ESL is teaching straight out of the book. Today I tried to give a workshop on magic tricks. Found out tricks are not very much fun for anyone once revealed. . .and I had to kill 30 minutes playing 'spoons'. I also have to do a lesson on Oregon "Culture". I downloaded the nearly 30 year old video game "The Oregon Trail", which was the height of cool when I was in elementary school, and tomorrow I'll let my Korean students make Wagons and try to get their party all the way to Oregon without dying from Dysentery or Typhoid.

The food is OK, only really spicy. Lunch, breakfast and dinner includes rice and about 3 different entre's covered in red chilli pepper sauce, everything is bright red. Including the Kimchi - onions, fermented cabbage and lots of chilli peppers. I usually eat pretty simply. Some of the food is allright. I have granola bars in my room for between meals.

Korean people are different from Taiwanese. The women are less attractive, I think. Many of the women get plastic surgery, but otherwise they are kind of lumpy and plain. However, Korean guys are well-built, very stocky, bulging muscles; very cool and strong. They don't have much to choose from, which may be why they get so angry when foreigners date Korean girls. On the other hand, Taiwanese girls are beautiful, but the boys are all geeks - pudgy, scrawny and silly looking.

Many people here at camp are reading the final Harry Potter book. I bought a copy in Taiwan, but didn't have a chance to pick it up. Luckily, I can download the entire thing online - there are actually people who ran out to buy the book, then typed it all up and put it on the internet, so that I can read a copy for free. Amazing.

Tonight I'm playing poker with a bunch of the guys here - I already lost $10 last time - which I had to borrow because I won't get paid until Friday. Maybe I'll win it all back.

Korea

A rough landing jolts me awake as we land in a mist-veiled Korea. As I leave the plane, I feel underdressed: pin-stripe suits seem to be in style, and my light summer wear from Taiwan doesn't suit the chilly weather. I gather my luggage and grab a bus into town, pointing at maps and pictures of where I want to go.

Despite my clear directions, and the fact that express buses should run until midnight, I am unable to find a bus to Jinju city. The ticket vendors, who ramble on in Korean without so much as a nod of the head or a point in the right direction, won't take my money and give me a ticket. I'm pretty sure they are saying there are no more buses, but who knows. Stuck in Seoul - pronounced "Soul", I find out later.

I've been hired as an ESL teacher for a one month English immersion camp at a University in the South Korean town of Jinju. Orientation is tomorrow morning at 10am, don't be late, and Seoul is 4 hours away. Years of similar experiences should have taught me better, but my bank account is empty and I had very little cash because, once at camp, I shouldn't need any. I hadn't figured in a stay at a hotel. Luckily, I ran into some foreigners who pointed me towards a "love hotel", so named because it is used for discreet encounters, I suppose. 45USD got me a nice room, and I stayed up all night watching CSI, Top Model and Die Hard 1. This morning I got up at 5:30 but still missed the 6am bus and had to wait for 7. When I finally got to Gyeongsang National University I'd missed the morning orientation, but. . . I'm here!

Korea is great, so far. People aren't as friendly as Taiwan, (well, at least so far, but what do I know? They're probably just a little more reserved) but I like the climate. Reminds me of Oregon, more hills, trees, agriculture. The architecture is clean and sharp, everything looks like it was put up yesterday. They love hot dogs and drinks come in small cans. It's much more similar to Japan than I expected.

Camp starts on Monday. I can't believe I'll be here for a month, but it should be fine. There are movie nights, sports, outdoor activities, and more. I have a great room, the campus is nice. HUGE tv screens everywhere, I've never seen anything like it. Anyway, gotta go I think. More later.