You're still there?

Jeez louize it's been a while since my last post. This is gonna be THAT blog post that just about every travel blog has where I say something along the lines of

"Oh my God! Things have been liiike so great lately that I haven't had time to blog!"...or...
"Things have just become liiike so normal over here that I just don't have anymore crazy stories!"...or...
"Has it been 8 months already?!?! You know what they say, time flies when you're having fun!!!"

This is me trying to avoid all those cheesy blog lines. But, being a Sconnie, cheese is in my veins. So here's to me bringin' the cheese...

It's been just about 40 days since my last post (which works out perfect since I gave up blogging for Lent) so I'm going to try to fill you in with what's happenin lately.

- Received word that my hard drive was not recoverable. That means all photos, videos, songs, lesson plans, first 2 seasons of Gossip Girl, and movies are all gone because I didn't have anything backed up. Ya learn the hard way. Lucky for me, Julie backed up all my SE Asia and Colombia pics, and my Mom has all my study abroad pics (right?).

- Went biking in southern Korea in a province called Gyeongju

- Celebrated a 24th birthday in a park called Seoul Forest (definitely not a forest) and then went out in a fave area called Hongdae. Couldn't have asked for a better weekend.

- (Also received a bottle of Suaza Tequila from my co-teacher for my bday. Unexpected but appreciated)

- Went bungee jumping with Greg, Tay (kind of), and Jules! (still working on a video / slideshow)

- Still haven't finished blogging about SE Asia! (Bangkok, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Phu Quoc still coming)

- Nor have I finished photos from aforementioned countries. I've been busy blah blah blah.

- Received an incredible Super Bowl Champs sweatshirt from Jules. Takin that sucker to the grave with me.

- Started playing fantasy baseball with some fellow English teachers. Goodbye websites not named espn.com/fantasy. Nice knowing you.

- Gone on a Golfzon (basically virtual golf) binge. Everything in excess. All the time.

- Ate all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ. You get the drill.

- Realized I won't be attending Mifflin this weekend for the first time in 6 years. It's been a nice run, Mifflin. (my Sunday morning self just went ecstatic)

- Oh and BOUGHT TICKETS TO HONG KONG an hour ago. I was unexpectedly just given next Monday off, along with Tuesday a holiday, and looked into flights. Got real lucky with prices/dates. Need to do more research but as long as I see the Hong Kong Harbor and the skyscraper from The Dark Knight, I'll be happy.

Write only 1 post about Thailand???.......nah Phuket

You thought a busted hard drive, some writer's block (my mind was Thai'd up), and some lesson plans could slow me?!?! Well, considering it's been a whiiile since my last post, you are correct.

I've been trying to decide how to approach this post for a while and, until now, I only had a Thai-tle, a crappy intro about Thailand, and a mancrush spelled l-e-o. Let's hope I can improve on that....

Thailand is a country that's always been atop my list of countries to travel to. That probably has to do with watching "The Beach" as a youngin' and endlessly dreaming about Leo really getting into the idea of a young twenty-something stumbling upon a solitary beach paradise. One of my favorite scenes is the montage with Moby's "Porcelain" playing in the background. I liked the song so much I even recommended it as an 8th grade graduation song. All of my classmates loved it (duh?) but my teacher claimed the lyrics symbolized suicide. And considering it was Catholic school, it probably wasn't the best choice. She also shot down my suggestion of  "Tonight, Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins (SHE ended up picking "I Hope You Dance" by Faith Hill or someone else crappy......still a little bitter). But I digress...

After a week in the culturally-rich Malaysia, we landed in Phuket, Thailand, the land of ping pong shows, cheap crap, whores, delicious pad thai (given), and non-stop party. In our trusty Lonely Planet, they said something like "charming beach town," which is an absolute joke. In their defense it either (a) has been subject to extreme, unsustainable tourism in the last 5-10 years, (b) is describing Phuket Town and not Patong Beach where we were (the birthplace of seediness), or (c) was written by Charlie "The Machine" Sheen (too late?).

The answer is probably (a) and (b). We had read that much of Thailand is developing at a rate faster than they can handle due to the rapid influx of tourism money. Phuket was a case in point. It felt like a cross between South Beach, Mifflin St. Party, and what I'm picturing Costa Rica to be like. Thankfully, we only had to stay about 24 hrs there until departing for Koh Phi Phi. Unfortunately, there are no direct ways to get to Koh Phi Phi without going through Phuket. So for those of you planning on hitting paradise I'd recommend not spending more than you have to in Phuket, or more specifically, Patong Beach. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

That one night in Phuket we spent wandering the streets looking for no good. After drinking some Changs on the beach watching the sun set, haggling clothing vendors for items <$2 (so ridiculous how cheap some of the crap is in that country), denying the upteenth ping pong show promoter, hooker, and tuk-tuk driver, grabbing more Chang road-sodas, taking photos with the smallest dog on the planet, and partaking in some world-class people-watching (i.e. Aussie-watching because every tourist in Thailand is from Australia), we hit up some bars.

The bar we went to was called The Pussy Penitentiary or something like that (who could've possibly seen anything bad happening here?). Why we decided to go there you'll have to ask one of my fellow partner-in-crime's (we were with girls too, I promise.....and by "girls" I mean other American girls that I teach English with in Korea.....I promise! No, really!). It wasn't as bad as it sounded though if you don't count the Thai girls dancing on the bar. Get rid of that and it felt like any standard open-air beach bar (No, really!). The funny thing about this place was all the dainty Thai strippers bartenders would challenge you to a game of 'Connect Four'. If you lost you had to buy them a drink or something. My buddy Sam challenged one and she crushed him without even appearing to try! Give Bobby Fischer a few months to master this game and these Thai ringers would have given even him a run for his money. It ended up being a pretty fun/interesting place to spend a night in Phuket.

Thankfully the next morning would be spent on a boat to one of the prettiest places on Earth...

Malayzing

I started writing this post before "All the Evil" happened (Girl Who Played With Fire anyone?) to my Mac. As you can probably tell, this post was started last week. It will now be finished (fingers crossed) while using my school-issued laptop sitting at a Starbucks getting high on expensive coffee.

Attempting to blog about a 3-week vacation is like trying to study for a final. You want to do it yet don't really want to. You get easily distracted by things like the America's Game series, Esperanza Spalding, and motorbikes on seoul.craigslist.kr.co. You know you need to do it sooner than later, but the latter always seems to trump the former. And when coffee doesn't help either, you start googling symptoms of adult attention deficit disorder only to discover that WebMD thinks you're actually probably dying (just like studying for a final right? right???).


With no further adieu (after I read a little about the latest Radiohead album dropping this Saturday!!!!! (hopefully I finish this post by Saturday or that won't make sense...)), I bring to you...(oh who was the best dressed at the Gram.......focus Quinn!)....Malaysia!!!!


While scoping out a possible itinerary way back in October, it was discovered that flying Air Asia from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur was the cheapest way to get to SE Asia. Leaving KL the next day seemed impractical so it made more sense to spend a little more time in the (personally) relatively-unknown Malaysia. After doing more research, we decided to start the vac-asian by spending a week in Malaysia, followed by moving north to spend a week in Thailand, and ending the 3-week trip in Vietnam. All along I had wanted to visit Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam, but the time crunch and necessary start in Kuala Lumpur meant Angkor Wat would unfortunately have to wait. 'Nother day, 'nother dollar.


We left Seoul the night of January 14th and arrived first thing Saturday morning. The first leg of the trip started with 10 of us. That sounds like a headache-in-the-making (also known as a BieberJustin) but it actually worked out real nice. All of us are used to each other, know how to handle each other, get along, and are generally-speaking easy going.


...aaaand that's as far as I got last week...


I don't want to bore you with too many words since I can let my pictures do most of the talking, but we luckily arrived in Malaysia a few days before Thaipusam, the grand-daddy of Hindu festivals. For those of you who didn't know the religious breakdown of Malaysia (how ignorant of you...), it's about 60% Muslim, 20% Buddhist, 9% Christian, and 7% Hindu (...thanks wiki). Even though it's a relatively small percentage, the Malaysian Hindu population turned out in the masses for Thaipusam.


Just outside of KL we visited the Batu caves. This massive cave temple is home to one of the most popular Hindu shrines outside of Inida, a giant statue dedicated to Lord Murugan. Being my first real encounter of the Hindu religion, outside of movies, it was pretty surreal seeing all the magnificent colors, outfits, and food. It was as close to India as I've ever been. More a PG-rated version. Nobody trying to scam us, steal our things, or dropping dookies in the street (oh wait that's Slumdog Millionaire).


Since I'm getting bored with this post and need to hit the road soon to get my comp inched closer to a fixing, I'm going to try and speed it up a hair (borrowing Julie's great bullet points of the trip;)


Kuala Lumpur

- Stayed at the Classic Inn near Times Square: great outdoor patio

- Cool mosques all over the city

- Central market with all the cheap/knock-off crap that makes SEA great: watches, tank tops, Paul Smith garb, Ray-Bans, etc.

- Chinatown (Pedaling Street), more cheap crap

- Pitstop during day 1 for Chinese food and beer

- Long nap, boys played hours of poker, I rang up lots of ringgit ;)

- Free food and drink at a Stussy store grand opening

- Tasted durian; no one else likes it but me; tastes like a mushy, garlicky mango (I like mushy things, I like garlic, and I like mangoes.....durian's delicious!)

- KL Tower: saw Julie's co-teachers; met a group of Koreans who all wanted pics of us (but mostly Julie), saw Petronas Towers (they were closed)

- Dinner: 8 course meal at local restaurant next to hostel about $2/person (banana roti, curry sauce, various rice, noodle dishes)

Penang

- Very, very delayed bus ride; Mo laid into the dudes running our bus whom donned green and purple hair, respectively; words of wisdom: never buy bus tickets from dudes with green and/or purple hair

- Hutton Lodge: Nathan! So much to say about The Man who worked at our hostel. He was Elton John + Bollywood + probably owned lots of snake-skinned banana hammocks (just like the ones I own....) + all that is awesome and "fabulous"....he even professed his love for us on our last night.....Nathan!

- Stayed in Georgetown, old part of city

- Roti! A crepe-meets-filo concoction for dirt cheap and is made with either banana, cheese, egg, garlic, whatever! Ate an unhealthy amount of these.

- Thaipusam: witnessed the trek that individuals make; involves many piercings, shaved heads, and dance....sooo awesomeness (see photos)

- Rickshaw rides

- Trip to Monkey Beach: 130 ringgit RT boat ride, vicious monkeys, monkeys ate Julie's chips, crazy old Italian monkey lady/tamer, Captain Jack protected us and brought us beer

- Delicious koh tao noodles

- Phase 10

- Red Garden: many food options, Malaysians line dancing, ate frog

And that's our Malaysia excursion in a nutshell. Now that I'm 1/3 of the way done with the trip, maybe I can stop stressing about these posts.

To conclude, Malaysia was an amazing way to introduce oneself to SE Asia. It had all the cultural experiences one could ask for, without most of the tacky tourism that plagues much of SE Asia. Their British influence made it incredibly too easy to get around (even "uneducated" cab drivers who claimed to speak no English were fluent compared to my Korean students). We experienced things I didn't even know existed, ate great food, in restaurants and on the street, for fractions of what they should have cost, and got to meet some pretty great people. Malaysia was, simply put, Malayzing.

Yin and Yang: free days off and a Mac-cident

Deepest apologies for my lack of blogging to my few followers out there, i.e. Mom. My recap of SEA (new abbreviation for SouthEast Asia) has hit a few more hurdles on top of general laziness lack of time.

Hurdle #1

Exactly a week ago today, I requested Friday off in order to get a jump start to a weekend at a ski resort called YongPyong. My school declined the initial requests until I told them the only direct shuttle leaving on Friday was at 9am. They knew Jules had the next 2 weeks off but still wouldn't grant me a free pass for Friday. That is until the end of the day, when the Vice Principal and a co-teacher came to my desk and told me I have the next 2 weeks off as well. They initially wouldn't budge in giving me Friday off, but 2 weeks of paid vacation-which-doesn't-count-towards-my-20-vacation-days is fine. Oooooookayyyyyy.

Don't get me wrong, I'm extremely grateful, but it's pretty surreal the way it went down. Anyways, since I do 99% of my blogging when I'm chilling at school and can't find any more new articles about how awesome the Green Bay Packers are have finished work, I won't get much accomplished while at home.

Hurt-le #2

I especially will not be able to blog if I don't have a computer that WORKS. Typing on this Samsung laptop has never hurt so much, because my 9-month old (!!!!!!!!) Macbook Pro has become a Macbook Pro-blem. Last Thursday the hard drive, or HDD for you techies out there who aren't used to seeing computer acronyms typed out, fetusly decided that 9 months was all the time it needed before it was time to peace out.

Apple in Korea has been generally unhelpful (you hear that Apple Corporate?) but it won't cost a dime to replace the hard drive since it's under warranty. It will, however, cost an arm and a leg to recover all of my files. Unfortunately, unpublished videos and photos, music, and other crap is worth the arm AND leg.

So put a temporary freeze on any Picasa or Flip publications until I figure out a solution. Until then, more posts to come about:

Malaysia
Thailand
Vietnam
YongPyong Ski Resort

A Super recap of the week + trying to blog about SE Asia

Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers Packers

OK, I'll try and use other words but those have been my thoughts all week. If at any time I'm feeling down this year I will think back to XLV and instantly feel better. AHHHHH!!! It's hard to put into words what I'm feeling because my heart is beating out of my chest just thinking about it.

After watching the Pack dismantle the Eagles week 1 back in September, I told Julie it would be bittersweet if my beloved Pack won the Super Bowl and I was in Korea. I was feeling THAT confident of my team. And why not? With the way they were playing at that time they were an easy Super Bowl pick.

A million injuries later (plus losses to the measly Redksins and Lions plus 2 concussions to my man Aaron Rodgers) the season seemed doomed. They were battered and had to win difficult games against the NY Giants (sorry B and Z) AND the Bears (did I say difficult? Ha!) just to make the playoffs. They were hardly a longshot but it would take a serious hot streak to make it to the playoffs.

Fast forward a bit....ehh a lot actually (I undoubtedly already lost the non-Pack fans at this point). Giants, check. Bears, check. Eagles, check. Falcons, check. Bears, check (didn't I already say "Bears"?...ohhh yeah, we beat them twice...) Steelers, Super check.

I'll let the photos do the rest of the talking. And for the record, the victory wasn't bittersweet at all. I'd love to be in Wisconsin right now, but packersproshop.com ships internationally....

All photos courtesy of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

If nothing else, this blog will serve as a remembrance of Super Bowl XLV first, my trip to SE Asia second, and my time teaching in Korea third. GO PACK GO!!!!

Speaking of which, I should start blogging about SE Asia eh?