Vacation in Phuket, Thailand

We've just returned from a week in Thailand. The weather was 30 degrees celcius every day. Our hotel had beautiful pools to swim in or just lie around. I can't be sure how long we spent just sitting in the sun, but it was at least enough time for me to read three novels.

We were just a short walk from the beach. It was always a little crowded on the sand, but the ocean had plenty of room for everyone.

The hotel's breakfast buffet was loaded with things we haven't seen since we left Canada like cheese and watermelon. There was even beef stew! Sounds strange for breakfast, but beef is hard to come by in Incheon, so we didn't question this. The hotel also had a coffee and cake shop. Mmm cake.

Patong Beach, the area where we stayed in Phuket, is a tourist destination above all else. There are shops and restaurants along every street and then there are food carts and independent sales people of all kinds along the sidewalk. There is no safe place to walk where you will not be offered a ride in a "tuk tuk"(an open air kind of taxi) or pulled along by the arm to "the best custom tailor in Phuket". We didn't shop too much. Mostly we just bought more food and drink. So much deliciousness!

There are also a lot of tourist activities you can sign up for. The only one I did was Hanuman ziplining. It was an incredible experience. The people who run it come into Patong Beach area and pick up a bunch of people staying in the various hotels there. My group consisted of three Russian tourists, a family from Australia/New Zealand, and me. We all took turns taking photos of each other flying, less than gracefully, through the trees.

Corey enjoyed the night life. (I did too when I could stay awake). There was so much going on just on the streets that it was impossible to take it all in. There were whole streets of lit up bars and disco a-go-go places. There were people who tried to hand you monkeys to play with, while demanding 100 baht for this strange entertainment. Meanwhile you could have your pick of ferrel cats and dogs to play with for free (if you don't mind that most of them have fleas) because they'd stalk you all day and night, begging you to love them or, more importantly, feed them.

Lotte World

Winter English camp wrapped up last Friday. Corey's crew had red-carpet interviews and then screened the film they'd been working on all week. My students defeated the dragon and saved the kidnapped teacher.

On Saturday, we went to Lotte World. It's an indoor-outdoor amusement park that operates year round. It's also connected to a huge shopping complex and hotel. I think I'll do this blog in photos with captions because I'm not sure how else to describe the entirety of such a surreal place.

Corey by the entranceway fountain

Skating rink below the amusement park

Corey and I in front of the indoor carousel

Corey in the 3D art hall

Scene of a Queen and aristocrats at the Folk Museum

Emily in the 3D art hall

The outdoor part of Lotte World complete with Disney-esque castle

Corey at the candy shop where we bought 11, 000 won worth of gummies

Corey with pirates

COEX Night and Skating Day

2013 is upon us. It is still very cold here. We've been trying to find indoor things to do since the weather outside is frightful. One idea we had was to check out the COEX mall. It's located in the basement of the Korea World Trade Tour in the Gangnam area of Seoul. It's a series of shops, theatres, museums, and an aquarium that are all connected by tunnels underground. Corey and I went at night so the museums and aquarium were closed, but there were plenty of other things to see and do.

Corey and the fishes in the entrance of the closed aquarium

We browsed a 9 storey department store, admiring everything from fur coats to designer jewellery, home appliances, sports equipment, musical instruments and more. We went to many of the smaller shops as well and picked up some school supplies at a store similar to Staples in Canada. The best part was the bookstore we found with a section for Foreign Books. That's where we found shelves full of books written in English for us foreigners! I bought a copy of Mockingjay and finally finished reading the Hunger Games series.

On the steps of the COEX movie theatre

Thanks to the copious amounts of free time I have, now that the students are on holiday and I only teach an hour each day, I get a lot of reading done at school. (If anyone in Incheon wants to trade books to read-- I have Mockingjay and Eat, Pray, Love on hand)

Sorry, got sidetracked there, but anyway....back to the COEX experience. We ate dinner at an Italian-themed restaurant called Bruschetta. The food was pretty good though a bit pricey, since we were in Gangnam after all.

Eating some Italian pizza at Bruschetta restaurant

On Thursday, we met up with the Boardgames in Bupyeong group. It's always a highlight for me! We met up with the other foreign teachers at our favourite Pakistani restaurant in the food court at Bupyeong's underground mall. (Yes, we live mostly underground like mole people now. Don't judge. It's colder than Canada here). Then we walked, OUTSIDE, for about five minutes to get to Coffesmith, which is the cafe where we always go to play boardgames. They have fancy hot drinks that are quite expensive, but they're nice about letting us push tables together and set up camp for a few hours each week to play a nerdy selection of boardgames. This week, Corey and I were involved in a game where everyone works as a team to save a castle from orcs and trolls. We lost twice to those vicious monsters, but the third time we managed to save our castle and it was kind of a big deal.

This weekend we decided to suck it up and brave the cold for a skating day at Seoul City Hall. We met up with our friend Chris and took the subway right to the rink. We bought tickets for a 2:30pm skate time, which left us an hour to grab lunch before we had to come back to rent our skates. We found a place called Burger Hunter close by. The menu had a huge variety of burger options and some interesting sides to choose from. Everything we ordered was delicious (although for some reason we all stayed away from the more unusual burgers like P.B. and jealousy, which had peanut butter, jam, and bacon on it).

hunting burgers at Burger Hunter

Back at the rink, the air was cold, but the sun was shining. We got our skates and joined the crowd being herded around in circles on the ice. It was a lot of fun!

Ready for some ice time

Chris left after a while to go to Myeong-dong. Corey and I headed toward the subway for home, but on the way we ran into a changing of the guards ceremony at one of the palaces nearby. We couldn't resist stopping to watch and then taking pictures with the other tourists who were crowded around the costumed guards. 

Corey and the palace guards

Then in the subway we came across another national treasure--Psy socks. We may or may not have purchased some for a couple of lucky friends to receive as souvenirs. Ha ha ha

Gangnam style

Anyway, I should probably do something to get ready for day 4 of my winter camp tomorrow. I'm using a really elaborate Creature Hunter template I stole from Waygook, but at the end of each class my students always want to hang around and play games in English. Especially hangman. We usually play for an extra half hour after class, except that the administration turns the heat off when class is officially finished so it gets pretty cold by the end.  I've only had between 4-8 students show up each day, but they're so enthusiastic that it makes camp really fun and worthwhile.