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June23rd

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I heart my life in Beijing. So, so much.

Posted in: China, freelancing, personal growth, travel

This is my third post on here in the past two weeks which, for me, is really impressive. See? I really am getting better at this. (At least that’s what I’m telling myself.)

Anyway, I’ve been going through an identity crisis regarding my writing and my blogs, where I want to post this kind of writing, where I want to post another. What I’ve decided is that this blog is going to be for travel writing and interesting things about China.

I’m a huge fan of long-form, beautifully written travel pieces. I also really like to go on descriptive rants about places I’ve lived or been. This blog is where I get to do that. In the coming months, I’m going to test out some long-form, narrative travel writing here and I am so totally pumped about it. I know it’s going to be fun for me to write. Hopefully it will also be fun to read.

OK, on to the actual subject of this post. Why I heart my life in Beijing to ridiculous degrees. Well, there are a lot of reasons.

For one, I live in China. In China. This never actually sunk in until a couple of weeks ago when I felt this surge of love for Beijing and this renewed feeling of excitement and “ohmyfrackinggod, this is where I live.” Beijing is fun and gritty and smoggy and chaotic and overly crowded and frustrating and thrilling and spectacular all at once. It is exactly the kind of place I want to be at this moment in time. And to be honest, it’s also probably about where I am in my personal development. Maybe Beijing and I suit each other right now. I’m cool with that.

Moving on. In addition to the coolness and thrill of living in China’s capital city, I also have a lovely and wonderful group of friends who I am genuinely honored to know. They’re fun and self-aware and all-around inspiring, and I have learned tremendous amounts from them in the few months since our little community has formed. They’ve taught me so much about honesty and friendship, and it’s pretty cool to be experiencing so many new things with them.

But there is another reason why I find my life to be so completely and utterly incredible and awesome (I really need to learn some new words to convey my enthusiasm). I’m a freelance writer.

I realize that to some this is like, not a big deal in any way, shape or form. Who cares, really, what I do for a living?

Let me explain why it’s a big deal to me. Two days after finishing grad school back in ‘08, I was on one final vacation before plunging into my first job in the “real world.” It was an awesome gig – I was going to work for a great paper in D.C., have my own column and be assistant to a seasoned Washington journalist. You can’t ask for much more straight out of J-School.

But I remember thinking to myself, as I burned my skin out by the hotel pool, that I really had no interest in working, at least as I saw it then. “I’ll do this for a couple of years,” I told myself. “But what I really want to do is be able to travel around and relax during the day and write whenever I please.”

And now here I am. Three short years later, I’m living overseas and freelance writing for a living. I’m getting published in newspapers and magazines, working on my own creative projects and I work on my own schedule.

Most of my days are like this: I get up in the morning, check my email and write until about noon. Then I take a break to eat lunch and watch a couple of episodes of TV with my roommate, who also happens to be a fellow freelancer and my best friend, which, I have to say, enhances the fun of the freelance lifestyle considerably.

Then I work sporadically throughout the afternoon and, if need be, the evening, with time in between to have dinner with friends, go out, read books, watch movies or pretty much do whatever. It’s awesome.

The other day, I had to swing by the office of one of the publications I write for to pick up my pay and I wondered if I’d feel envious of those actually working in a newsroom every day. I was in there for all of two minutes — less than that, actually, not even 120 seconds — before I jubilantly thought, “Hellllll no! I’m never going back to working a desk job again!”

Maybe all of this sounds mundane to the rest of the world, but it’s huge for me because I live in a city I love and am doing the exact thing I’ve wanted to do my entire life. Ever since moving to Asia, I often find myself thinking about me as a five-year-old girl because I remember even then scouring old copies of National Geographic and saying, “I want to be a writer and I want to travel the world.” And now I’m doing that. Sometimes, I just want to look at the five-year-old me and be like, “See? I’m doing it! Are you proud of me?” I think she would be.

And it’s like, just for this moment, I am totally content. Life won’t always be this way. I don’t expect to be living the same routine, or even in the same city, 10 years from now, five years from now, or maybe even three. Things will change and I’ll go other places and I won’t always live with, or within five minutes’ walking distance, of my friends. Maybe I’ll do something other than writing, leave China, whatever.

But for right now, I’m good. I’m so, so good. And it hasn’t been until the past year that I knew what that felt like. Contentment. As in, I’m just going to be present and happy in the moment.

And that is what makes my life in Beijing so, so awesome.
June9th

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Backpacking in Mongolia II: Crossing the Border

Posted in: Mongolia, travel

Picking up from where I left off in my earlier post about making it to the Mongolian border, Anderson and I had just settled into the questionable jeep we planned to ride into Mongolia.

The jeeps are barely spacious enough for three people, but Mongolians seem to defy all common sense in this area and shoving as many people as possible into a jeep is the norm. When we first approached our driver, there had been at least five inside but he shooed them out when he took us on. I was curious about this, but didn’t think much of it since I was anxious enough with only a few of us in the car.

Jeep we rode into Mongolia

There were four passengers – two Mongolians plus Anderson and me – and the driver when we set out.

As the driver took us onto the highway that runs alongside Erlian, I glanced at his speedometer and was both amused and horrified to see that it was at zero. The gas gauge was also at zero. All of the gauges were at zero. I guess they were just there for show.

I swallowed hard and sat back in my seat, willing myself to relax. For one thing, I reminded myself, this is all part of the travel experience. For another, I’d have a better chance of surviving a crash if my body wasn’t tense and rigid when it happened.

I feel an urge here to explain that I’m not a prissy or picky traveler. Risky situations don’t bother me and I’ve even learned to be OK with going without a shower for a few days. I have pretty low standards for hostels and am open to trying new things. But this border crossing was new territory for me and I was more nervous than I had expected.

We had been driving for about 10 minutes before the driver pulled off into field that was more dirt than grass, stopped the jeep and began repeating the word “Police! Police!” and holding up five fingers.

Anderson and I looked at one another, confused, alternately repeating “Five?” and “Tingbudong,” which means, “I don’t understand” in Mandarin. In retrospect, I don’t think the driver understood any Mandarin words aside from those referring to money, but it was all we had to work with. We finally figured out that we were supposed to pay five kuai for some form that had to be registered with the police.

That was an interesting moment, to say the least. But things became more interesting a few minutes later, when we pulled up at the police station where the driver did whatever needed to be done with those papers and four more passengers climbed into the jeep.

The arrangement was like this: Anderson and the two large Mongolian men sat on the wooden board that constituted the back seat, while two women and a young boy of about 10 years old sat on their laps. Another woman shared the unstable passenger seat with me and then there was the driver. Nice and cozy.

Less than five minutes later, we arrived at the border. Again everyone had to pay five kuai, although we never found out what the additional five was for. That’s also when the driver decided to tell Anderson and me that he was actually going to charge 100 kuai for each of us, as opposed to 50 a person. One of the women in the jeep spoke a little English so she translated this for us and we told her he had agreed to 50 each. Not much more was said as we got out of the car and headed for the Chinese customs and immigration building, but I had a feeling that was not going to be the end of it.

Nothing particularly terrible or upsetting had happened during this whole ordeal, but still, Anderson and I were both on edge. We had already spent nearly two hours trying to cross and it had been more stressful and hectic than we had been led to believe. Now we were in danger of being ripped off and we hadn’t even made it through customs yet.

The English-speaking women approached us as we waited to have our visas stamped by Chinese immigration officers and told us that the driver had asked her to inform us that he was going to leave us there if we did not pay the additional 100 kuai. We were frustrated and considered letting him go and waiting for another van, but there was no guarantee we wouldn’t get ripped off again and we needed to get across the border. So we paid.

It wasn’t an ideal situation but it also wasn’t the end of the world. Everyone piled back into the jeep and I thought, “Finally. We’ll get across and get to Zamyn-uud (the Mongolian border town where we planned to catch a train to Ulaan Baatar, the capital) and can relax for a few hours.”

This was wishful thinking. Not five minutes after pulling away from the Chinese border check, we stopped again, this time amid humongous filthy trucks and about 100 other jeeps. Time to go through Mongolian immigration.

Typical truck seen going to and from the border

This was fairly quick and painless, although I will say that Mongolian soldiers are more intimidating than the Chinese, at least in appearance, which adds just a little more tension to the situation.

For one thing, Mongolian soldiers are bigger: larger boned, heavy and broad, with wide chests, shoulders and faces. Their uniforms are different, too: fatigues of light beige and brown that match the desolate land surrounding that surrounds them.

“They look like legit soldiers,” Anderson remarked, “unlike the Chinese, who look like they’re wearing ‘my first Army G.I. Joe pajamas.’”

(The Chinese uniforms were bright green camouflage that did look like they had just been taking out of the package, with boots to match.)

The thing about the Mongolian border check is that even though it doesn’t take long for people to move through the immigration line, every jeep and truck has to be inspected by customs officers. This can take awhile. It was an additional 30-45 minutes for them to check our jeep. I felt an increasing sense of discomfort the longer we waited.

For one thing, we were the only Westerners there at that point. Everyone else was Chinese or Mongolian, mostly Mongolian, and we met only two who spoke English, one being the woman in our jeep, the other a large man named Pagii who had just returned home after living in the States for 10 years.

The sky was overcast, which added an ominous feel to the scene, and soldiers paced slowly past the rows of jeeps and waiting passengers. I’m not sure why but I alternately felt like a criminal and a refugee and was nervous whenever the soldiers stopped near where I was standing. One of them stood leering a few feet away from me and I could feel my stomach heave. He was gross and I just wanted to be out of there as quickly as possible.

Finally, our jeep was cleared to cross and we all climbed back into the hot and stuffy jeep. The Mongolians didn’t seem fazed by any of this but Anderson and I were exhausted. I noticed, not for the first time that day, that my stomach muscles were clenched from tension and I wanted nothing more than to be done with the whole situation.

Five minutes later, the jeep made its final stop, in front of the train station in Zamyn-uud. We bid farewell (and good riddance) to the driver and our fellow passengers, booked train tickets to Ulaan Baatar for later that afternoon and stopped at an Irish pub for cold beers and lunch before beginning the next leg of our journey.
June9th

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Backpacking in Mongolia: Getting to the Border

Posted in: Mongolia, travel

I had been in China less than three months when the travel bug flared up and I became eager to get out of Beijing. Not permanently – I’m finally getting into a groove here and loving my life in China’s capital city. But I am always game to see something new, so when Anderson told me he needed to make a visa run (there are different rules for different visas, some of which require you to leave and reenter the country after a certain amount of days) and was thinking of going to Mongolia, I decided to go along.

The trip was partly pleasure – I’m not one to turn down an opportunity to go adventuring somewhere I’ve never been – and partly professional. I’m hoping to get some travel pieces published from it (and will post them here if that happens). But there is a lot from the trip that probably won’t make it into those articles so I decided this blog is the perfect venue for those tales.

To be honest, I had no idea what to expect from Mongolia. I did some research on the cheapest ways to cross the border, got a few recommendations for places to stay and things to do from a friend who had already been and then began making travel plans.

The first step was getting across the border.

Plane from Beijing to Erlian

Since moving overseas, I’ve found myself developing empathy for immigrants and refugees, particularly when they first arrive somewhere, broke and not knowing the language.

Growing up in the States, I will admit that I was of the opinion that people who moved there should “learn the language and learn to fit in.” Having now lived in two cities where I don’t speak or understand the language, I can appreciate how challenging and overwhelming that can be when you first arrive in a new and unfamiliar place.

After this trip to Mongolia, I also have a new appreciation for how stressful and grueling it is to cross a border, and I did it the legal way. I can only imagine the anxiety and frustration of those desperately trying to cross without visas and all of the other paperwork that goes with it.

Our journey started around 5 a.m. on a Tuesday, as Anderson and I set out from an uncharacteristically quiet Beijing hutong for the airport. We boarded a plane bound for Erlian, China, a Chinese-Mongolian border city, on a flight scheduled only once a day.

The flight was quick, less than an hour and a half. There was a shuttle van waiting outside Erlunda Airport, a ten-minute ride away from Erlian, waiting to take passengers into the city. A Chinese man we could barely understand ushered us onto the bus and somehow conveyed that we didn’t have to pay for the ride, which was pretty sweet since we were definitely on a backpacking budget.

Apparently Erlian’s claim to fame is dinosaurs, the fossils of which have been found in the surrounding area. The town announces this distinction with several enormous dinosaur statues set up along the road that leads from the airport to the town.

The other bizarre thing I noticed on the ride were the number of elegant apartment complexes being built in otherwise empty fields. We didn’t see any grocery stores, banks or other establishments that would suggest this would be a convenient place to live.

Anderson speculated that the government orders the complexes to be built, which are then purchased by rich Chinese and rented to poor or low-income workers as the area builds up and attracts more people.

Dinosaur statues on the way to Erlian

Erlian itself was more developed than I had anticipated. It was small, but fairly busy, with plenty of shops and restaurants open and people milling around. On the most organized street we passed, the signs on the buildings were written in Chinese characters on one side of the street and Mongolian Cyrillic on the other. The further we got from there, however, the more desolate Erlian became, with many of the buildings appearing run-down and abandoned.

After the Chinese passengers had disembarked, the shuttle driver took Anderson and me to the border, a colorless place, save the enormous rainbow that announces the Chinese-Mongolian divide.

The thing is, you can’t cross the border on foot. Why, I’m not sure, but those are the rules and when you’re two Americans being stared at by Chinese soldiers in a town you know nothing about where you don’t speak the language, you just kind of go with it. We knew from reading blog posts by other expats who had made the visa run that we would have to hire a driver to take us across, and had prepared for this, even down to how much money we should pay for it.

As with most things, things didn’t go exactly as planned. The first driver who stopped for us tried to charge us 80 rmb a person, which was way more than we had expected to pay. We turned him down and waited by the side of the road, alongside small clusters of Mongolian and Chinese women sitting with large packages of fruit, clothes and other goods.

Chinese-Mongolian border

After a few minutes of snapping photos and unsuccessfully attempting to flag drivers down, a Chinese soldier who had been watching us approached and asked to see our passports. This made me nervous, even though we weren’t doing anything wrong and I knew that people crossed all the time. The soldier’s English was actually pretty good and when we told him we had been unable to get a jeep, he walked us to a taxi and told the driver to take us to a place where we would be able to find a driver.

Should have been simple from there, right? Not exactly. The taxi driver, a nice guy who asked if we were Russian and guessed we were going to Mongolia, dropped us off in what appeared to be a heavily Mongolian area of town, where there were plenty of rickety jeeps and shrewd drivers to be hired.

We approached a group of Mongolians who knew immediately what we wanted (I doubt many foreigners visit Erlian for anything other than a visa run) and Anderson began negotiating a price. We didn’t learn until later that Mongolians aren’t keen to haggle, unlike their Chinese neighbors.

“Wu shi kuai,” (which means 50 kuai, or rmb) Anderson told them and the Mongolians started chuckling. That’s what we had expected to pay total for the ride, but the Mongolians had other ideas.

“Wu shi kuai!,” one exclaimed as he pointed to the back of a rickety flat bed, meaning that’s what we would cross the border on for that price. The others laughed and so did we. The Mongolians named a price and Anderson managed to negotiate them down from 100 per person to 50 per person, which was more than we wanted to pay but better than the alternative.

I examined what was to be our ride with a feeling of slight disbelief. The jeep appeared to be a few hunks of metal slapped together, with wooden boards serving as the backseat. The Mongolians seemed to think nothing of it and encouraged us to get inside. Anderson took the back next to two enormous Mongolian men while the driver gave me the front passenger seat. It didn’t take long to realize that if I leaned too far to one side, the rickety seat would tip over, or that there were holes in the floor of the jeep through which I could watch the pavement below fly by.

I took a deep breath and a death grip on the door handle, taking it all in as part of the adventure. After what already seemed like a long morning, we were finally ready to cross the border.
May10th

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Bohol Confessions Part II: To Catch a Foreign-ger

Posted in: Philippines, Southeast Asia, travel

I started writing a series of blog posts on my trip to the Philippines a few months ago but, like most of my best intentions with this blog, I let that project fall by the wayside. In fairness to myself, I began that endeavor right as my time in Korea was winding down, so a lot of things were put on hold because of the move. Maybe it would make more sense to forget it all together, but I have fun writing about the trip and I’m hoping some of it will be interesting to read, so I’m going to press on.

I left off in my last Bohol installment with the end of a tropical Christmas under the stars. The next day was the first full day on the island and Kassie, Megan and I decided that, after the utterly hellish week we had had at school and the two days of stimulating but exhausting travel, all we wanted was a day of lounging on the beach.

The first order of business, however, was breakfast. As we quickly learned, every meal at the resort was going to be a bit of a blissful ordeal. The food was all made to order, so there was no such thing as “grabbing a quick bite to eat.” We settled into a routine of ordering a small feast of eggs, toast, fried rice, mango juice and spam (yes, spam. It wasn’t ideal but it wasn’t terrible either.). Then we’d crank up a worn cassette tape of Norah Jones’ “Come Away With Me” (there was no CD player) and wait for our food as the breeze blew in. I realize that this all sounds very cheesy but I swear, I am not exaggerating. This was our vacation.

After breakfast, we headed to the beach to set ourselves up for the rest of the morning and afternoon. The plan was to read, nap and quite probably burn in the sun for the remainder of the day. That’s not exactly how things panned out, in a good way.

We soon noticed several groups of teenagers playing in the water and on the cliffs nearby. It wasn’t long before they began inching toward us in small clusters. Eventually one of the girls broke the silence and introduced herself and so began several new friendships.

The group consisted of girls and guys, but the girls did most of the talking while the guys stayed in the water. They did, however, give Kassie some tips on where to buy cool sunglasses at a cheap price.

The ones who did talk to us were full of questions about where we came from and said they wanted to practice their English with us. The girls were really bright and friendly and soon we were talking about American novels and movies that we all enjoyed.

One girl announced that she wants to go to America “to catch a foreign-ger,” meaning marry an American man and live in the States. She was serious but trying to be funny, and her delivery was humorous but all three of us encouraged her to go to the States but do it on her own terms, as a student or for a job, rather than simply getting married and hoping for the best.

Maybe some such marriages are about love, but this also strikes me as a dangerous and risky ploy that could lead them into bad or abusive relationships. I know that some women don’t see another way to get to the States or to another country where there are more opportunities for them, but I still didn’t feel comfortable encouraging it.

Conversation eventually wound down and we snapped some pictures and exchanged Facebook information so we could stay in touch (we are all still Facebook friends to this day). Before saying our goodbyes, the girls gave us the affectionate nickname of até, which means sister, if I remember correctly.

The thing that has stayed with me about them is their spirit. They were so happy, lively, open and relaxed. It was refreshing, and inspiring. And they were only the first of such people we would meet throughout the week.
May5th

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New City, Same Blog

Posted in: China, travel

It’s been another ridiculously long time since I updated this blog but this time, I have a really good reason. I moved to China! That happened two months ago but…moving, starting a new job, quitting said job and plunging into the thrilling world of self-employment, setting up house in an awesomely cool apartment in a Chinese hutong…these are time-consuming things, you know?

OK, I should back up. First things first.

I moved to China! This decision was actually made back in November after several weeks of fretting, nail-biting and late-night soju imbibing as I tried to decide whether I should stay in my beloved Seoul or move on to another city. It was a tough decision but in the end, I chose to trade the ROK (Republic of Korea) for the PRC (People’s Republic of China). I cannot tell you how long I’ve waited to try and use those acronyms in a cool way. I’ve probably failed here but whatever. At least now I can move on with my life.

There were a few factors that tipped the scales in favor of China, and Beijing in particular. I had visited twice and absolutely loved Beijing. The grittiness, the fast pace, the slightly wild and overall thrilling feel of the city hooked me from the moment I first saw it way back in July, after arriving via an overnight sleeper train from Shanghai. Plus, I want to travel all over China, I like switching things up and living in new cities (this is the fourth city I’ve lived in since graduating from college), there seemed to be a lot of employment opportunities, lots of inspiring writing material, all kinds of good reasons.

More important than anything else, however, were the friends I have here and the community I am now honored to be a part of. Some of the most awesome, fun, philosophical people I know now live within five minutes of my super sweet apartment (I’m really proud of where I live and will probably reference it a lot in this and future posts), which is pretty much the coolest thing ever. Most are friends from back in the States and the opportunity to hang out, travel and build relationships with them was way too thrilling a prospect to pass up.

That said, there are some really awesome, fantastic, cool, fun people back in Seoul (and some who have now moved back to the States) who I miss, A LOT. I’m probably really annoying to most people I meet in Beijing because when they make the mistake of asking what it was like to live in Seoul, I start chattering on about Rocky Mountain Tavern, Hongdae, kebabs and this person or that person who I really miss. It happens at least twice a weekend.

So I miss Korea. Sometimes I dance around my apartment singing that Train song “Hey, Soul Sister,” pretending the title is spelled “Seoul,” and reminiscing, and when “Me No Speak Americano” comes on at whichever bar I happen to be patronizing on the weekends, I’ll tell anyone who will listen that “THIS IS MY KOREA SONG”!

But I’m in Beijing now and.it’s.thrilling. I came over intending to teach for another year, but decided to fulfill a long-held dream and become a freelance writer instead. I was going to go into all of that now, but I have a lot to say on the subject so I’ll save it for another post. And there actually will be regular posts since my only job now is to write, all the time. Which is also pretty thrilling.

In the meantime, I encourage anyone reading this to check out the most recent podcasts at the site Chinarchy. It’s a great blog that has been run by a really close friend of mine for the past year or so, and that I have recently signed onto. I’ll be writing there under the pseudonym Jaime, and am co-hosting a weekly podcast with Anderson (the guy who started the blog). We discuss all things China – the people, the arts and nightlife scene, the treatment of children, the quirky things that make living here so interesting, pretty much everything – from a rational, philosophical perspective.

Oh, and for the sake of anonymity, I’ll be writing as Jaime on this blog as well.

So stay tuned, lots of good stuff up ahead
February6th

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Christmas in Paradise

Posted in: Philippines, Southeast Asia, travel

I’m fully aware of how cringe-inducingly cornball the title of this post is. But seriously. I did spend Christmas in paradise.

I left off in the last post with the ferry arriving in Tubigon, where Kassie, Megan and I caught our first glimpse of Bohol. Since we knew Tagbiliran, where we were originally supposed to get off the ferry, was at least a small city, I was expecting Tubigon to be one as well.

It was not. In any way, shape or form, at least from what we could see.

We disembarked and were immediately greeted by a driver from DapDap Resort, where we were planning to spend the week. He ushered us into his little red Jeep, which was idling nearby, but I did cast a quick glance around the area before getting in and was surprised that there wasn’t really a town at all. There were a few small stores on the road away from where the ferry landed, but not many.

Within minutes, we were zipping along winding roads, marveling at the lush vegetation that covers the island. We cut directly across Bohol, so we actually got a pretty decent driving tour on our first day. Megan, Kassie and I kept exclaiming to each other about the cows and chickens tied up on the sides of the road, the enormous, gorgeous palm tress and the sight of the famed Chocolate Hills, a collection of more than 1,000 hills that look like Hershey Kisses and are a famous landmark on the island.

“I can’t believe we’re actually here right now” was probably our most commonly used phrase, that day and throughout the trip. It sounds so cliche but when you’ve never been to a tropical island before, never seen livestock roaming the roads or seen barefoot workers wading through lime green rice fields, “I can’t believe we’re actually here right now” is a pretty accurate description of what keeps going through your mind at each awe-inspiring sight.

By the time we reached DapDap, we were exhausted. Our driver turned down a narrow dirt road that was even less populated than the ones we had already been on. Realizing that we were probably in for a very quiet vacation, Kassie said, “It’s a good thing we brought all those books with us because I think we’re on our own out here.”

The main building at the DapDap Beach Resort in Anda, Bohol

DapDap is a essentially a cluster of small cottages along a stretch of white beach. There is one main building, which houses the lobby and dining room area, and is where all towels, foodstuffs, toiletries and other items guests might need are stored.

The owner, Grace, greeted us warmly. She showed us several cottages and told us we had our choice of which one we’d like to stay in. After some debate, we chose one, then had to move to another fifteen minutes later because the toilet in our chosen abode wasn’t working. The three of us agreed that DapDap was a nice place, but that it also seemed perhaps a bit more secluded than we had hoped.

We discussed the possibility of moving to another resort, but at that particular moment, we were tired, cranky and had simply run out of energy. It was naptime. Talk of moving or exploring other resorts would be left for later in the day.

That was at about 11 a.m. I don’t even remember falling asleep, but somehow, we all woke up around the same time a few hours later, around 4:30. There would be no laying in the sun on Christmas Day for us. However, we decided to make the most of the last few minutes of sunlight now that we had slept and were feeling a bit refreshed.

We may not have gotten to enjoy the beach all day, but once we got outside and saw the sunset, it didn’t even matter. Truly, it was one of the most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever witnessed. The colors in the sky – the hot pink, the orange, the purple, turning into blackness – were breathtaking. The girls and I stood with our feet in the water, watching the sun go down and commented on how memorable a Christmas this was turning out to be.

Palm trees and coral cliff on the beach

As it got darker, we noticed tiny flashes of light in the water. At first, we thought they were fireflies flying close to the surface of the bay. But the closer we got, we realized they were in the water. The flashes of light were coming from phosphorescent jellyfish.

We could not contain our excitement. The three of us marveled at these fascinating creatures and how awesome it was to be witnessing them in action. I think we could have ended the night there and considered it one of our best, or at least most memorable, Christmases ever.

But the night was young. When we had had enough of the jellyfish, we headed inside to order dinner. Little did we know that all of the meat is prepared fresh when you order, so we were in for a bit of a wait, especially considering that we ordered a Filipino style Christmas feast: pork, beef and chicken barbecue, among other delicious dishes.

We also ordered a bottle of Tanduay, the local rum, and had some pre-dinner cocktails. We had a great conversation about so many things, enjoyed a delicious meal and just had an overall great Christmas celebration for ourselves.

And there was more to come. After dinner, we took what was left of the Tanduay and went back to the beach. The jellyfish were gone but there was something new to marvel at – the stars. It is extremely rare to be able to see the stars in Seoul, so even a few here and there would have been a treat. But this view was truly spectacular. Not only were they wonderfully clear, we could actually see all of Orion and the Little Dipper. I couldn’t remember having seen them like this before, and I kept thinking that I felt like a little kid, so full of awe at everything around me and feeling so full of life.

Sunset on Christmas Day (Photo by Kassie)

The water was calm and warm, and the moon was bright enough that we could see a few feet from the shore – perfect conditions for skinny dipping. Naturally, we all stripped down and hopped into the bay. I don’t remember how long we stayed in, but it was quite awhile, talking, staring at the moon and stars and drinking Tanduay.

I think we all agreed that it was one of those moments in life that you would just never forget. Everything about the night was wonderful, relaxed, enjoyable and stimulating. I remember thinking how happy I was that it was only the first day and that we had eight left. As it would turn out, that wonderful Christmas Day was only a taste of what was to come.
February6th

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Bohol Confessions: Adventures in the Philippines

Posted in: Philippines, Southeast Asia, travel

The holidays have been done and over with for more than a month now, so the story of my first Southeast Asian adventure is a bit delayed in the telling. However, it was such an incredible vacation and travel experience that I simply cannot let it pass without doing it justice on this blog. This will be the first of multiple posts on the trip since there is no way to get it all into one.

I spent this past Christmas and New Year’s on Bohol Island in the Philippines. I chose Bohol because a friend mentioned that it was cheap and beautiful. Done and done. All I wanted for this holiday was to be in a warm place where I could relax and not spend every penny in my bank account. I had never heard of Bohol before, but I figured, how wrong can you really go with a tropical island? I traveled with my friends and coworkers, Kassie and Megan, who had also never been to Southeast Asia but were game to check out this mystery island we had never seen.

I should have known from the very first day of the trip that the entire experience was going to be an adventure unlike anything I had seen before. To kick things off, Kassie, Megan and I left directly from school, dragging our luggage through the crowded, frozen streets of Seoul on Christmas Eve, bound for the express subway train to the airport.

In the confusion of navigating Express Bus Terminal and figuring out where to go, we hopped on the all-stop train, rather than the express. This was a big mistake, for two reasons. First, the all-stop to Gimpo Airport is grotesquely crowded during rush hour. Second, it takes at least double the time to get to Gimpo on the all-stop as it does on the express. And we still had to transfer to the airport express from Gimpo to Incheon airport.

After realizing our mistake, we took a gamble that we’d be able to switch trains and still make it to the airport with sufficient time. We did, and had no further setbacks making our flight (unless you count the fact that we were all famished and the only food options at our gate were sandwiches from Paris Baguette or stale Dunkin’ Donuts. I personally went for a stale doughnut and a bag of honey mustard pretzels. Airport dinner of champions.).

The flight on Philippine Airlines was fine – the food was good and after a couple glasses of wine, I even got in a lovely nap before our 3 a.m. arrival in Cebu.

This is where things got a bit tricky again. We had to take a ferry from Cebu to Bohol, and had planned, along with our other coworkers who were headed to another part of the island, to get on a 7 a.m. boat. The plan was to be on Bohol two hours later and relaxing on the beach before noon.

At the airport, a seemingly helpful man advised Kassie, Megan and me to be sure to take only a white taxi to the ferry. “Yellow cabs charge you double,” he said.

“That’s weird,” I thought to myself. “Usually it’s the yellow cabs you can trust and the unmarked ones that rip you off.” I should have gone with this logic. But what did I know, maybe it was the other way around in the Philippines.

The taxi driver seemed friendly enough, although we all agreed it was a bit sketchy that there were cops monitoring the activity of the cabbies driving the white vehicles. We later learned that they are there to keep an eye on foreigners who are prone to being ripped off, badly. If only we had known that at the time.

Fifteen minutes after getting in the white taxi, we arrived at the Port of Cebu. This is when I fully realized I was in a place unlike any I had been before. I had seen pictures of places like this – grimy, dark, slightly rundown and people passed out on whatever benches and tables they could find. But I had certainly never been anywhere like it.

No matter. That was all part of the adventure. I knew that I was going to see and do things that were completely foreign to me, and as any of my friends will tell you, I am not opposed to a little shadiness and grit. In fact, I embrace it, especially when I’m traveling.

What I do not embrace, however, is getting badly ripped off, and we absolutely did when we got out of the taxi. The driver charged us the equivalent of $60 for a 15-minute ride. He had been up front about the price when we got in the car, but because none of us really knew what the exchange was at the time, we went along with it. We quickly learned that we had been had and kept a close eye on our finances the rest of the week. Vacationing in the Philippines is quite inexpensive, as long as you know how much things should actually cost.

I surveyed my surroundings. I had already spotted one enormous cockroach outside the main building at the port. The walls were covered in outdated fare schedules. A small store nearby had bread for sale but there were tiny ants crawling around the cases where the baked goods were kept (this did not stop me from buying a bag of rolls before getting on the ferry. I was hungry and unsure of when I’d be eating next and was willing to risk eating a little ant poop, or whatever was on there, for the sake of having something for breakfast. Like I said, I like an element of grit when I travel.). There was a sign reminding passengers that human trafficking is a criminal offense. That was chilling. I had been warned that I would see signs and billboards condemning sex trafficking, but it was jarring nonetheless.

We met up with our coworkers Alison, Gordon, Colleen and Toriann, who were already at the port. A local man informed us that the ferry we had planned to take at 7 a.m. wouldn’t leave until 9:30 a.m. because it was running on a holiday schedule. It seemed we had all forgotten that it was Christmas Day. All of the ticket windows were closed so we all piled our things together and formulated a game plan.

Alison, Gordon and I asked around and were told that although the boat we had planned to take was leaving later than expected, there was another one scheduled to leave at 7 a.m. We got on line at the ticket office, which was really no more than a hole in the wall. We waited about 45 minutes for the office to open, and then at least another 30 to find out if we could get tickets or not. In the midst of all this, someone kept passing around a clipboard for passengers to write down their names, although we couldn’t figure out why since everyone who signed the paper hadn’t even been guaranteed a spot on the boat yet.

Eventually, we secured our tickets and found the waiting area for the ferry. This place was about as grimy as the rest of the port. The bathrooms looked like they hadn’t been cleaned in months and there was no toilet paper, soap or running water to be found (I would later discover that this is the norm in the Philippines, at least on Bohol. Any of these sanitary items became a real luxury throughout the week.).

The white walls in the waiting area were dingy with grease and filth and iron bars covered the windows. There were no snack stands (so lifting those rolls from the ants had been a smart move on my part), cushioned seats or air conditioning. It was a big dirty room filled with tired people just wanting to get to the island.

I don’t say all of this to complain, just to observe. I probably did start to lose my patience at certain points that morning, as I think we all did. It’s not that I have a problem with roughing it a bit, but remember that we had all worked a full day that Friday, gone directly to the airport, flown to the Philippines and were approaching about 24 hours without sleep by the time we finally boarded the ferry.

The change in ferries also complicated our situation. Kassie, Megan and I were headed to the DapDap Resort in Anda, about an hour and a half from the main touristy part of the island. The original plan had been to take the ferry to Tagbiliran, the capital city of Bohol, where we would be picked up by a driver from DapDap and driven to the resort.

The new ferry was headed to Tubigon, which was even farther away from where we were staying. By the time I got a hold of the owner of the resort to tell her about our change in plans, the driver was already waiting at Tagbiliran and had to make his way to Tubigon to pick us up in time. We paid an extra thousand pesos for that situation, which I can tell you did not sit well after already having paid dearly for our transportation to the ferry terminal.

Finally, at about 8 a.m., we were allowed to board the ferry. I was impressed by how many people actually fit on the boat, since it looked fairly small on the outside. It was so packed that we all had to split up and grab seats wherever we could. I sat next to a nice Filipino couple who were headed to Bohol to spend Christmas with their families. Almost as soon as I sat down, I shut my eyes and began to drift to sleep.

I woke up once to the blaring noise of a horrible karaoke track to some of the most painful, sappy, drippy love songs I have ever heard but eventually blocked it out enough to go back to sleep. Little did I know that sappy, drippy, impossibly bad love songs would end up being the soundtrack for the entire vacation.

An hour and a half after departing from Cebu, we arrived at Tubigon and caught our first wonderful glimpse of Bohol.
December5th

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Why I will not be dedicating my Facebook status to “raising awareness” about child abuse

Posted in: children

There is a new campaign on Facebook to “raise awareness about child abuse.” I’ve been hearing about it all weekend and no matter which way I look at it, I can’t help feeling angry and frustrated by these supposedly well-intentioned efforts to bring an end to what is the greatest ongoing tragedy in human history.

I first heard about the campaign yesterday when a friend mentioned it to me. Then I started to notice all of the cartoon profile pictures that began popping up in my news feed. Friend after friend began posting the same status:

“Until December 6, change your profile pic to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. The object of the game–to not see one single human face on FB to raise awareness of the fight against child abuse.”

Promoting the empathetic, compassionate and humane treatment of children is one of the greatest passions in my life so I’m all for “raising awareness,” whatever that means, if it’s going to open people’s eyes to the devastating effects of child abuse. But I’m skeptical of this approach. How many of these people posting these past few days really want to talk about child abuse and are seriously committed to ending this atrocity by doing something more involved than throwing up a politically correct Facebook status? Not many, I’d wager.

If this campaign leads to a serious discussion about the causes of child abuse (And let me be clear: When I say child abuse, I am referring not only to the beatings usually referred to with that term, but also to spanking, pushing, pinching, screaming or any type of emotional manipulation), which usually stem from the parent or caretakers’ own unresolved childhood trauma or personal history, then I think that’s great. If we’re actually going to talk about the fact that even spanking or screaming at a child results in brain damage and retards their emotional and intellectual development, then by all means, let’s get that conversation going on Facebook. But I really doubt that that is going to happen.

I suppose I also feel anger around this issue because I am fortunate enough to know some truly incredible people who are taking heroic steps in their own lives to process their own histories and the abuse they suffered. Their actions, honesty and integrity actually do make the world a better place for kids to grow up in, so I have a hard time applauding those who merely pay lip service to the cause but refuse to do anything substantial to protect and defend children.

I’ve spent a lot of time this weekend seriously considering the campaign and I keep thinking, “What’s the point? How will this impact the life of an abused child?”

My guess is that the answer to that second question is not at all. I’m a teacher. I work with children every day. I know for a fact that some of the students I teach come from abusive homes where, if they are not regularly physically and verbally assaulted themselves, they witness their fathers beating their mothers on a regular basis. The question of how I can help these kids, even just a little bit, is constantly on my mind. I am often at a loss but I know that changing my Facebook status and posting a cutesy picture to my profile for a day will not affect them one single bit.

Instead of copying and pasting a feel-good phrase into the status bar, why not do something that might actually make a difference in a young person’s life?

For example:

-Stand up for a child you see being screamed at or spanked by their parents. Physical violence and aggression toward a child is never acceptable or morally correct under any circumstances.

-Show the children in your life compassion and curiosity, be honest with them and don’t send them the message that force, fear and intimidation are loving or considerate ways of interacting

-Explore your own history with abuse, and encourage those close to you to do the same, so that future generations of children won’t have to suffer under the weight of their parents’ unresolved traumas

Those things can be terrifying. I know. They’re hard and they’re scary and often the most painful actions a person can imagine taking. But they’re also absolutely essential if we’re serious about ending child abuse and protecting kids, who are the most precious and most vulnerable members of society. And those things are going to mean a hell of a lot more to abused children than a Facebook status and a picture of some cartoon.
October13th

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Seoraksan in pictures, rather than complaints

Posted in: hiking, photography, travel

As I said in my previous post, Seoraksan is a gorgeous, gorgeous place. I have no desire to ever go there again BUT I am quite happy I got to see it in person. Here are some very amateur shots I took between curses and near-death experiences.

Early morning on Daechongbong Peak

Hikers hoping to catch the sunrise

Daechongbong Peak

Waterfall and foliage

Descending the mountain

View on the way down

Check out my Seoraksan set on flickr for more photos.
October13th

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Seoraksan: The first and last extreme hike of my life

Posted in: Korea, hiking, personal growth, travel

Several months ago, around the beginning of summer, I was at work, chatting with my co-workers in the teachers’ room. One of them pulled up some photos he had taken on different trips throughout Asia. He scrolled through snapshots from Cambodia and this place and that. And then he pulled up pictures of what was one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen.

“Where is that?” I asked, sure he was going to say some exotic locale in Southeast Asia.

“Seoraksan,” he replied.

It turned out that this wondrous place was actually in Korea, only a few hours away from Seoul. I was beside myself. I had to see it. The photos were stunning and I assumed it would be even more breathtaking in person.

I decided to make the trip in autumn, when the leaves would be changing color. Fall is my favorite time of year to begin with, so I figured a trip to see the much-vaunted Korean foliage in all its splendor would only sweeten the season.

And so it came to pass that I found myself on a chartered bus with about 45 other people just before midnight on a Friday, eagerly anticipating an early morning (2:30 a.m.) hike to see the natural wonder that is Seoraksan. Friday nights are usually reserved for sleeping off a week’s exhaustion or drinking it off in some bar, but I was all too happy to make an exception last weekend. I had waited months for this, after all.

The trip promised a thorough experience of Mt. Seorak – an early morning hike to the summit, where we would enjoy the sunrise, followed by a somewhat leisurely journey down the mountain, with plenty of time to bask in the autumnal glory along the way. What could be more exciting?

The better question turned out to be, “What could be more horrible?” The answer: “Nothing.” Nothing on earth could have been less enjoyable than that 15-hour odyssey turned out to be.

I knew I was in trouble about 10 minutes into the hike. My thighs began aching and my breaths started coming harder and a voice in my head said, “Why the hell am I doing this?”

The “casual hike” I had been expecting turned out to begin with four non-stop hours crawling up a steep mountainside. Every time I looked up (a risky move since much of the path was haphazardly placed rocks and large patches of mud that could have easily led to my death by falling down a mountainside), all I could see were the lights from other hikers’ headgear and flashlights, with no summit in sight.

I finally reached the peak a little after sunrise. The view was indeed gorgeous and it didn’t really matter that I missed the sun coming up because it was too cloudy to really see it anyway. The surrounding area was still beautiful, though. At certain points, the clouds would shift just enough to glimpse the dozens and dozens of surrounding peaks and it was almost surreal to be up there. (Not that I appreciated it at the time.)

By that point, I had fully and completely accepted that I am not much of an outdoor person, let alone an extreme hiker. I was totally unprepared for the trek and it didn’t help that there were about 8,000 hardcore Korean hikers on the mountain as well.

When I first spotted them suited up with their hiking sticks, I thought it was sweet and that it was kind of cool to be doing the same thing they were. How wrong I turned out to be.

The climb down was even more treacherous than the way up. Although the trails were clearly man-made, whoever created them didn’t seem to have given it too much thought. If they did, they must have been suicidal. The small boulders comprising much of the path seemed to have been placed at as dangerous an angle as possible. Parts of the trail were so steep and narrow that we had to go down single-file, with no handrails or guide ropes along the most treacherous areas.

It also didn’t help that the vast majority of Korean hikers were unbelievably rude. At one point, one of the other hikers, Meagan, and I got separated from the rest of the group. Caught up in constant waves of far more experienced hikers, we not only had to watch for unstable footing, but for spiteful ajummas willing to mow us down as well. Several women actually shoved us as we baby-stepped down the path, then laughed when we told them to stop or became visibly upset.

Fortunately, not everyone was like this. Several older men helped us through the most slippery parts of the trail and two couples offered us their gloves when they saw that we were using our bare hands to guide ourselves down the mountain.

Between fits of rage and frustration, I tried to distract myself by pretending that Seoraksan was like the Eyrie in George R.R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series. The Eyrie is another beautiful but treacherous place that is nearly impossible to surmount so I thought it’d be fun to pretend I was in the story. That didn’t really pan out, though. Much as I love Martin’s incredible fantasy series, the necessity of watching my every step lest I make one wrong move and plummet 4,000 feet to my death kept me firmly in reality.

Despite being utterly miserable for most of the day, I did try to take some positives from it. For one thing, I am glad I got to see Seoraksan. I would have liked to do in a more pleasurable way but truly, it is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. I’ve put up more photos in a separate post, but they do not come close to showing how sensational the area really is.

The second thing I learned is that I am not really an outdoorsy person and I’m OK with that. This year has been about trying new things and learning about myself. I did one other hike this year and that was fun-ish, meaning that I also hated that in the beginning but loved the views and enjoyed myself by the end of the day. But right from the beginning of this one, I knew, “I don’t like this.” I didn’t come here to hike, I came to see the fall colors and shoot photos. That’s all.

More importantly than not being an outdoorsy-sporty person, I think I learned a deeper reason of why the hike was so frustrating. It’s because it was a situation I could not get out of. I realized that there was part of myself that was angry that I had voluntarily put myself in a position in which I was physically in pain and mentally uninterested and unhappy, and I had no choice but to endure 15 hours of it. I had to force myself to finish the hike and for awhile, my mind was going crazy with the anxiety of being “trapped,” in a sense. There was no way out of that bad situation but to keep hurting and keep being frustrated under the same conditions.

And then there’s the simple fact that pushing my body like that does not thrill or excite me in any way and I would prefer to get my activity elsewhere.

So Seoraksan was not the peaceful, at-one-with-nature experience I had hoped it would be, but it was productive. And it’s certainly one I will never forget.