Birthday Adventures

Hubs recently joined me in our "last year of the 20s".  Yikes!!  When did that happen?  Guess we better fit in as much wild and crazy stuff as we can before we hit the "responsible 30s" next year. :)

We were both pretty tired from a long week so we kept the birthday celebration low key.

We did enjoy the excuse to try out one of the Korean Baskin Robbins' ice cream cakes.  They make seriously elaborate ones here!  We had one of the more simple ones (it was a hard decision between this and one shaped like a Korean cartoon character) but it was still super yummy!

Ignore the placement of the chocolate ball.  He didn't turn 209.

Since we didn't get the Korean cartoon character shaped icecream cake I was excited to find some on birthday hats instead!!

Hubs wasn't quite as excited about them but he humored me and wore one anyways. :)

Junior High ESL Adventures

I don't know who picks the topics in the "English as a Second Language" book we use for our reading curriculum at my school.  Whoever it was, I have some suggestions for articles they should take out for the next edition.

While zits are in fact an appropriate topic for my junior high students, it makes class discussions a bit awkward.  Especially when they ask me to help them translate the meaning of the sentence:  "As the levels of hormones in teen' bodies change. . ."


And if you don't think that is bad check out what the topic is for next week's class.

Did I mention I'm teaching this to a class of 12 and 13 year olds, predominately boys?  Should be interesting!

Random Korea Adventures

This parking spot "Reserved for Drying Red Peppers"?

YongPyong Ski Resort Adventures

Outdoor sports are very popular with Koreans and in the winter skiing and snowbound are particularly big.  My boss at the after school English academy and her husband have season tickets to a ski resort and a month or so ago they asked us to join them one weekend!  They took us to Yongpyong Ski Resort which is supposedly one of the nicest in Korea.  According to the English translation on their website:  "All the happiness you can image in the winter can be realized in Yongpyong".  How is that for an endorsement!?

There was an amazing cable car lift that takes you up 3.7 km to the top of a mountain!  Here is a picture of my handsome Hubs at the top.  Ignore the sun in his eyes and check out that beautiful scenery behind him!

  

Plus we discovered that a warm bowl of Korean Ramen with a side of kimchi might be the yummiest ski break lunch ever!  It really hit the spot.

Even though the cable car slope was listed as an intermediate level and I am NOT an intermideiate skier,  somehow (ahem. . HUBS) I was talked into giving it a try later in the day .  I did make it to the bottom but almost got kicked off twice by emergency patrols in the process.  Apparently they have this up tight concept that you shouldn't be on a slope unless you can go down it on your skies as opposed to on your back??!

Hanoi Adventures Part II

One of our favorite things about traveling to new places is trying out the food!  While we were in Hanoi we each picked one restaurant to try.

Here is the entry way (there were gold fish swimming in a pond on either side of the walk way where I am standing) and the kitchen (which we overlooked as we ate) of the one I chose:

Here is the entry way/kitchen/and eating area of the one Hubs chose:

Both were very good but had slightly different atmospheres (and hygienic conditions) as you might imagine :)

Hanoi Adventures Part I

We spent the rest of our Vietnam visit in Hanoi.  As I mentioned earlier, our trip happened to coincide with Lunar New Year (also known as "Tet" in Vietnam) which is a huge event there.  One of the guide books even described it as the equivalent of an American's Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, and Fourth of July celebrations all combined!  Unfortunately, one of the few Vietnamese phrases we learned to say: "Chuc Mun Nam Moi" (Happy New Year) won't be very helpful if we ever make a trip back at a different time of year.

Traffic was CRAZY in the city.  Nobody really seemed to adhere to traffic laws (which we are used to from Korea) and what made it even worse is that probably 65% of the traffic consists of motor scooters rather than cars.

It was very common to see entire families traveling on one scooter together.  

And I thought it was bad being squished between my big brothers in the back seat of a Chevy Cavalier!  

The highest number I saw was a family of 5 on one scooter (granted the youngest was about 12 months and was being held by the mom so he didn't actually take up seat space, but still!).  Hubs spotted one that had 4 teenage boys on it.  Unfortunately we didn't get pictures of either of those or you could vote to help us solve our disagreement of which was more impressive!

Halong Bay Part II and Unilingual Adventures

During our time in Halong bay we stayed on the "Halong Emotion" boat.  There were lots of these small little cruise style boots (around 30 passengers) that took people out on the bay some for overnight trips like ours and some just for day trips.  (Luckily we weren't on this one!! Yikes!!)  Every time we left the boat for an outing or returned from one there was a staff member smiling and waving to us from the entrance.

It was also decorated SO nicely!  I couldn't believe we were on a boat!  Below is a shot of the dining room and the hallway were most of the sleeping cabins were located.

There was also a nice balcony/sun deck on the top where we spent a lot of time just relaxing and enjoying  the beautiful sights.

We found it very interesting that all the pricing on the boat was in American dollars (rather than Vietnamese dong).  In addition all the printed iteneries and signs were all in English.  Granted, as always, the translations were sometimes a bit humorous but we could read it so we're not complaining.

Out of the 30 or so passengers on board and the 10 or so crew members, we were the only two who were native English speakers.  (The other tourists were a mix of German, Swiss, Swedish, Italian, Korean, and French.  The crew members were Vietnamese).  Yet English was the common language that everyone used to communicate with!  It wasn't just a situation where everyone spoke a common language but also knew a little English  that they used to communicate with us.  They all were using English to communicate with each other because it was the one language they all had in common (even if only a few words). Very interesting to realize how wide spread America's influence is in other parts of the world.

 The other strange part about it was that as we sit there with at upwards of five different conversations swirling around us that we didn't understand, we realized that we were the only ones on the boat who couldn't have a private conversation out in the open!  Everyone else could understand us when we spoke in our primary (only!) language but we couldn't understand them when they spoke in theirs.  Kind of creepy!  To remedy this problem in the future, we decided to create our own personal secret communication made up of speaking English very fast mixed in with some Pig Latin, a little bit of broken Spanish (leftover from high school) and a little broken Arabic (leftover from deployment) all with a thick Texas drawl. It still needs to be refined a bit but I think we are on to something. :)