Tuesday, August 29, 2006

I'm gonna be a hillbilly!

Today we had a meeting to find out where we are going to live for the next 12 months.

AND I'm going to a small city (50,000 Pop.) called Taebaek.

I'm really excited as we now know where we'll be headed to because we move in on Friday! This week.
I have been told that we should have a larger than normal apartment - on account of there being two of us. So the news is really positive.

I met my Supervisor (who's name I'm not sure how to spell) and she was really nice and helpful. Also I met Alex - who is a liason guy. He was telling us as much as he could about our city, what to expect (as in some people will not have air conditioning - I hope that's not us!!) and that while we'll be in a rural area; we should not expect cows wandering down the street.

_______

Since Monday the 21st of August, I have been in Cheongju, South Korea. I have met lots of people from Australia, Britan, Canada, Ireland, Korean (!!) and the United States. Everyone has been really friendly and the time had been very enjoyable. Even the cultural musical component! Must say I'm not a fan of Korean Orchestral music but it's fair to say that I'm not a fan of the Australian Orchestra either. Just not my cup of tea.

Last weekend we explored Seoul in our own group - which meant no CURFEW!! We travelled with Katarina, Hugh, Jae & Gabe. We visited Seoul Tower - which showed us how amazingly LARGE Seoul is!, we went shopping in a couple of areas including Itawon. It was fun checking Seoul out! We stayed in a Love Motel and had to laugh at all the UV lighting. Otherwise is was comfortable & cheap! When we checked in, we were given a toothbrush pack that included a couple of amusing toiletries!!!

I'll update more shortly :)
love
Susie

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Terrific Tigers in Thailand!!

We finally saw Tigers! Great big powerful roaring Tigers! And we patted them!!!!!!
It was just brilliant!

Thailand Holiday
Aug 8, 2006 - 24 Photos


ok starting from where I left you last...

Chiangmai
Tuesday
We checkout an IT mall here and decide it doesn't have much to offer. So we do the next best (?) thing - go sunglasses shopping. ARG!! Mike knows kindof what he likes, but then checks over each pair with his optomically trained eye. I get a cute little pair of red sunglasses customised with darker lens' and Mike goes a pair of mean looking grey sunglasses. Exhausted by pursuits of a shopping nature, we head off for some site seeing.
Wat Doi Suthep
It's a steep uphill winding climb and its starting to rain but our taxi driver just keeps overtaking anyone and everything else on the road. We dodge the (seemingly) neccessary hawkers of tat at the entry and ascend via the cable car. Once we see the staircase the cable car becomes a mystery as to why it was built - it doesn't go very far!
We have to take our shoes off immediately - which is probably a good thing because the rain is extremely heavy! We walk up to the top level and Mike takes a million photos of the golden stupa. We get to see a really well kept Wat where there has been careful restoration of all the paintings, buildings and buddhas. We make a small donation in one of the Buddha houses (?) and the monk ties some string around my wrist and says "for good luck". Mike sneaks a photo of him for me. After a little coffee, we find the view of Chiangmai. Its lovely. We can see and hear more rain to come, so we leave.
That night I come down with a terrible case of gastro - probably caused by the spicy salad I'd had that afternoon.
Wednesday
felt sick, stayed in bed until 4pm.
We went off to see a movie at the local cinema and saw Miami Vice. Couldn't recommend it as overall I didn't like it. It doesn't say much for a movie when the audience only laughs twice during the whole movie and one of the time is someone being shot in the head!
Thursday
still feeling sick but wanting to see Tigers more than wallow in bed! So we fly to Bangkok and catch a taxi to Kanchanaburi.
We get there ok and that night Mike comes down with gastro!! ARG!!
Friday
We have booked in to go to the Tiger Temple this afternoon and I'm hoping Mike can make it. We take it easy all morning - do nothing at all and wait for our 3.30 bus.
Mike manages to hold it together and we are on a truck taxi with an Intrepid tour group off to the Tiger Temple. I'm so excited at this point I'm grinning all the
way in the bus!
We walk up through these massive gates and follow the sounds of the occasional roars!
There are so many tourists here that we have to queue to go pat the Tigers and we find out later that the volume of people through is why they now chain down the Tigers. They didn't use to. It is an amazing experience patting the Tigers. I am guided from Tiger to Tiger. Mike is the last person allowed in for the day and we have heaps of photos to show for it!!! They show us all the other animals they keep by feeding them pumpkins and surrounding us with Ox, Cows, Pigs, Pony's, Chickens and Peacocks.
We bus back to Bangkok and find our way to Wendy House (Which is really good!).

Saturday The Queen's Birthday
I get to see all the photos and write this post while Mike has an extra sleep. Fingers crossed he'll be feeling better soon.

Enjoy the photos - some taken by Mike, some by our guides (Tiger Temple) and some by me.

kisses
Susie

Thailand Holiday
Aug 8, 2006 - 24 Photos

Monday, August 07, 2006

Thailand Holiday: Bangkok & Chiangmai

Sydney >> Bangkok

We left Sydney on Wednesday evening with Emirates (brilliant service, seats, entertainment & food!)
arrived into warm Bangkok morning at 2am and saw the least amount of traffic I have seen in this crazy city.
Thursday morning was kicked off with a sky high breakfast :) on the 76th floor of the Baiyoke Sky Tower. The highlight - fresh cooked roti! YUM!!
lots of wandering around Bangkok and Mike taking lots of photos of mangy, diseased, half-blind, starving cats (??? He's clearly CAT MAD)

Friday we headed out to the ancient capital Ayathaya and hired bicycles to get around - Mike's idea! He's cleary more mad than i thought!
It was a nice day - I even overtook a tuktuk full of school children!
The crazy thing was to get out there we took the train - no choice 2nd class only 245 B each, to get back no choice 3rd class only 20 B each.
I think I did well volunteering to pay for the leg home! hehe

Saturday, we scored a reasonable deal of flight-accomodation-trek to get out to Chiang Mai, by walking into the airport! It was really easy and so far has proven a good choice. Chiang Mai is lovely but very dry in its heat! Good thing the guesthouse has a pool :)


Chiangmai

Sunday, The elephants were great - a bit bumpy though. The ox cart was bumpy too.. the bamboo raft wasn't though :) I had the first go at "poling" (?) and everyone else seemed happy to leave me to it. Our adventuring was followed by a passable buffet, which was followed by offers to go see Monkey & Snake shows. hmm we passed.
Instead we went onto the thrilling Orchid & Butterfly farm. IT WAS THRILLING!!!
so much so Mike & I both passed out on the bus ride back to Chiangmai.

Seeing as it was still Sunday, we went out to the Sunday market. And oh what a market. Very little in the way of tat! I bought earings, a black cotton top, a pink bag and matching head-band. I am soooo cool now!! lol
We wandered around until we needed dinner. Mike had chosen a small venue that was enclosed in a small garden. It was pretty romantic & was going really well (helpful waiter who assisted us in ordering from the yummerific menu) when the power cut out. So we had a candle light dinner :) It was lovely.

Monday, we did a cookery course, they had a good number of people there but we were the only people on course 2. So we had a private lesson!!! We can now make a mean yellow chicken curry, papaya salad, red curry stirfry and basil & pepper stir fry! We have 3 containers full of food in our fridge - so dinner will be very cheap tonight! Great value less than $30 aus each for the whole day including transport!

I'm now looking over a spanky imac at a little shop called Le Chocolat - no prizes for what I'll be doing after my coffee is finished!

kisses
Squeezy