Hong Kong

            I woke up in Hong Kong on Thursday morning and hopped on the MTR (subway) heading for the island. I stayed Tsim Sha Tsui, which is a downtown area on the mainland. It is a great location to be in, close to the island and very close to get places, the subway line was right outside of where I was staying. Thursday I spent all day on the island checking it out. I walked a ton! I started from the West side and made my way East checking out the sites that I was interested in. I wondered through Cat Street Market, Man Mo Temple, took the escalators on Shelley Street. I didn’t stop to take a break until I made it to the zoo/botanical gardens. 

Cat Street Markets

They sold a lot of antiques at these little shops

The Man Mo Temple

Inside the temple. Not sure if you can see but the spirally cone looking things hanging from the ceiling are inscents... I love them, I think they're really cool. 

The city is so steep they have an impressively long escalator system going to the top. I have no idea how long it is, but it's VERY long! I loved it. 

A quick glimpse at a piece of the escalator system on Shelley Street. 

I loved these signs all over town! 

            I stopped right outside an opening area with a fountain to have some ice cream and enjoy the sunny weather. It was such a nice day out on Thursday! After my little break I headed towards the tram to go to the peak. Anyone who travels to Hong Kong has to go to the peak, it’s a must tourist see site. There’s a tram that takes you to the top of the mountain that overlooks the entire city. It was really cool up there.  When I finally came back down I ended up in Hong Kong Park where I stopped at the tea ware museum and the “foot massage” area right behind that.

This drumstick was fantastic!

The Cantonese and English! 

View from the top of the peak

The tram

The "foot massage". They have this all over Asia I think. Well at least it's in Korea too. It hurts, don't trust that it's a foot massage...

            I found myself wondering around one of the swankiest malls I’ve ever been after leaving Hong Kong Park. It was full of any and every high-end store you could imagine. I had to get out of there quick so I headed towards Starbucks! I took a bit of a break there before heading over to find this little hidden bar in a downtown area where a group Couch Surfers were meeting.

I almost put in my application... just saying!

I was able to find this bar called La Jardin with no problem, though when I got there this Chinese girl named Doney was amazed that I was able to find it so quickly. She spoke Cantonese and still was searching for the place for about an hour she said. She couldn’t believe how good I was with directions. Then I showed her the map I was using and she was even more amazed, my map didn’t have too much detail. I guess I’m just gifted with directions. Everywhere I travel I seem to have a good sense of where my location and where things are. It was cool to meet people from all over, there were a few locals who met up, one studying in Hong Kong, and others were travelers passing through like myself. I had a good time chatting with and meeting different people.

The cool double decker tram/bus things they have going down a major street on the island.

The main street near the bar I went to Thursday night. And yes, that is a coach store on the right Mom. 

Two of my new friends. The one of the right is Nicola from Hong Kong and the one on the left is Doney, she's Chinese but just moved to Hong Kong.

The next morning, I woke up and headed north towards Yau Ma Tei area. I strolled through the streets up there, Temple Street, Shanghai Street, walked through Tin Hau Temple, and Jade Market. I then went over towards the pier to check it out and take the star ferry across the water. The star ferry takes you from the mainland to the island and it’s dirt cheap. I took the ferry there, looked around and then took it right back, haha. I just wanted to take it; I didn’t plan on going to the island for anything else that day. It was so great to be out on the water!

They do their construction with Bamboo.

Inside the Jade Markets

One of the many parks they have in Hong Kong, I loved how many parks they had... 

Star Ferry, this was taken from the island facing the mainland.

Looking towards the island...

Later Friday night I went to the Tsim Sha Tsui Promenade, a promenade right on the waterfront facing the island. They have a section of it called the Avenue of Stars that has famous actors stars on the ground with their handprints like in Hollywood. At 8pm, they had the light show. It was in English on Friday night, so lucky of me! They played music from the speakers on the promenade and then the buildings lit up to the music. It was pretty cool!

This was my home for 4 nights, the building in the back (Chungking Mansions) - on the 15th floor overlooking Nathan Road.

Jackie Chan!

The promenade

Light show! 

This was my subway stop.

Nathan Road was closed on New Years for all traffic. However, I didn't enjoy any of it - I was in bed before midnight... Haha.

Overall Hong Kong was super fun. It was very clean, for a big city that is. It was refreshing being there after Bangkok – one of the dirtiest cities I’ve seen so far. Hong Kong was very English friendly and very westernized. All of the signs were not only in Cantonese (the Chinese dialect spoken in Hong Kong) but also in English. I was very impressed by all the street signs and information poles every couple of blocks that showed where the tourist attractions were close by. Also, the public transportation was great. The buses even ran throughout the night!

My last day was Saturday (New years). I spent it hanging out in Disneyland Hong Kong. I felt so at home there. I have so many pictures and so much to say about it that I’m dedicating a whole blog to it… Hope to get it up soon. I had such a fun time over the holidays traveling about Asia but was so thrilled to be back home in Korea on Sunday. I was craving some tasty Korean food all week that I was away from it. I can't imagine how bad my cravings are going to be when I go back home to America! Happy new years to everyone, I hope your holidays were as fun as mine were! 

Bangkok, Thailand

The first stop for my winter vacation was Bangkok, Thailand. I went there to visit my friend, Ellie, who had moved to Bangkok from Seoul. She is now teaching little youngsters like me! You can’t help but love the little Asian kids; they’re so darn cute! I arrived in Bangkok on Saturday night, Christmas Eve. I didn’t do much that night, just walked around a bit and checked out the area before heading to bed.

Thailand money, they use the Thai Baht

A major road in Bangkok at night

Khao San Road, a basically party street. My hostel was on this street. It was very touristy but there was lots to see and do.

Asian Ronald!!

Sunday, Christmas Day, I got to spend the day hanging out with Ellie. We met up at Mo Chit to see the Chatuchak Markets. The markets there are the largest in Bangkok, you can find anything there. It is super easy to get lost in that market, it covers 27 acres of land so you can just imagine how overwhelmed I was with this place. It was so nuts but fun. I ended up buying more than I had expected. It was so hard to say no because everything is so cheap! 

Stray dogs just taking a nap wherever... 

A little park area in the city

SOO many people in Bangkok!

When we were done wondering around the markets, Ellie and I went downtown Bangkok to the Siam area to admire the Christmas lights. The country of Thailand is extremely Buddhist. I think over 90% of the population are Buddhist so it was really surprising to me of how much Christmas decorations they had up for the holidays. They did a really nice job in the city of spreading the cheer. It was a much better job than Korea did, and there are a LOT more Christians in Korea than in Thailand. Anyways, it was fun to look around at all of the lights and fun festivities going on during Christmas. After seeing the lights we headed back to Khao San road where I was staying and had some western food for our Christmas dinner, I had a pizza and Ellie had some pasta. Even though it was 80 degrees and I was in Asia without my family, I had a really great Christmas. I was lucky to have a good friend to spend my holiday with!  

Ellie and I on Christmas Day

Super Asian, had to get a picture! 

Ellie opening her presents I gave her for Christmas! 

Traditional Thai clothes

My second day in Thailand, I decided to go on a daytrip outside of the city. The first stop was the floating markets. They were super cool. It is something that you see in pictures but never think people actually live that way but they actually do. Granted the floating markets have gotten extremely touristy but the actual idea of selling fruit and goods from a boat is how some people make their living. We got a bit to walk around the area and do a bit of shopping, I bought some wooden pencils that looked like sticks and had “Thailand” written on them for my kids. They loved the pencils from Julie Teacher. After seeing some of the markets we got to go on a long boat and get a tour of some of the houses in the back “water alleys” of the floating market town. It was crazy to see people just hanging out in their house that was located on this dirty river and that was their way of going anywhere. 

The floating markets! 

This old man was so cute, I had to buy a snack from him!

It was actually really good, a sort of vegetable dumpling.

The town...

The next stop on my daytrip was at Kanchanaburi. There I saw the River Kwai Bridge, which was built during WWII as a passageway to Burma. It was very historical and there was also a war museum located at this stop but I didn’t have time to check it out. 

River Kwai Bridge, Kanchanaburi Thailand

This train reads: During World War II - The Japanese used this train for the transportation of ammunitions to expand the fight into India & Burma

Our last stop of the day, after taking a lunch break, was to the Tiger Temple. It was so strange. It was like walking into a zoo kinda place with wild animals wondering around the land minding their own business but not behind any fences or anything and then there were tigers (that are drugged to tame them) wondering about with monks to go to tables for people to go take pictures with them. There was also a tiger cave area that had huge tigers you could take pictures with. The line there was really long so I didn’t go take a picture there because I already got one with a cute little tiger. It was interesting to say the least. When in Thailand… haha.

The little tiger! 

Delicious Pad Thai! I loved getting this :)

Tuk Tuk

            Tuesday, my last full day in Bangkok, I got up and meandered my way over to the grand palace. It was huge! Thais love their king, there are pictures of him everywhere you turn your head, no joke. At all times during my trip in Thailand, I don’t think there was one minute where I didn’t see a picture of the king. The palace was very extravagant. It was pretty. While I was there I met another wondering American tourist looking for the exit when I was. His name was Jim from Chicago. He had the same plans that day so we hung out and stuck together for the next few sites. We went over to Wat Pho, Wat means temple in Thai. This temple is a famous temple and has a HUGE Buddha lying down. After getting lost in some back alleys of the city we stopped at Wat Arun, it was a cool temple to go to because you could climb the stairs to the top and see a view of the city from the other side of the dirty river. 

Sprinkling water on you, not sure what it's supposed to mean but everyone was doing it. Probably some sort of blessing. 

The big lying down Buddha

Thailand uses two flags, the Thai flag and the yellow Buddhist flag.

The steps were SO steep!

The view from the top!

Wat Arun

            Later Tuesday night Ellie and Eric (her fiancé) met me right outside my hostel and we had dinner and drinks together. We ended up eating some street food for dirt-cheap. I tried some pretty crazy things like fermented pork… and it wasn’t the worst thing I’ve had in my life. We walked around the streets and finally decided to get an hour-long foot massage (costing us around 10 US dollars, not even) with a bottle of beer. It was a great was a great way to spend the night. I had such a fun time in Bangkok. I was so happy to see my friend Ellie, it felt very comforting to be around her during the holidays!

Eric and Ellie

Ellie and I

The doctor fish that take the dead skin off, it tickles a lot! 

Getting our foot massages

My delicious fruit smoothie for breakfast!

Being in Thailand I realized a couple of things, there are SO many tourists and people here so everyone speaks English pretty well. Thai people are positive people; they are always smiling despite what just recently happened to them (the flooding). The people here are also really friendly and willing to help you out. The city is very diverse with people of all sorts of race, and sex. Here you will see ladyboys whereas in Korea you would never encounter a ladyboy. There are some things that bothered me about Thailand; one is that the city of Bangkok is so dirty and polluted. The traffic also sucks, at any time during the day! I would be ok with the traffic if their subway system was advanced but it’s not, it’s a joke compared to Seoul. I guess I’m just spoiled now by Korea’s public transportation, it really is incredible! 

I found CRISPY M&M's! I've been looking for these for years... I was so excited when I saw them I had to buy a big bag at the airport! 

wonderland christmas

At Wonderland we celebrated Christmas on Friday before break (which was all of last week). It was a really fun and was a busy week before break for me at school. I made a Christmas tree with both my 6 year old and 7 year old classes. It took up an entire 80-minute class for each of them, which was spectacular! Haha. Thursday we had picture day for the kids, the 7 year olds are graduating this year so it was big deal, it took up almost all morning to take their pictures. I didn’t mind not teaching that day at all either! Then on Friday, we had activities planned for the kids to do in the morning, I was with Sharon and we made Christmas wreaths with each class. The other activities were making pizza of all things, and making a card for their parents. 

My 6 year olds around the tree they made. They're all wearing their wonderland uniform because I took this on picture day.

My 7 year old Ellen with her outfit for picture day.... Haha!

Sharon and I with the 6 year olds after they made their christmas wreaths! 

On Friday, I also received a gift from my favorite student Dylan. His mom gave me a box of yankee candles, which are very expensive here. They are so nice; I love them. She also wrote the sweetest card to me. She’s one of the parents who can actually speak a decent amount of English so the card was well written and I understood everything she was saying. When I read it I almost cried because it was so nice. I am really going to miss Dylan a lot. He’s a kid that makes me laugh constantly in class. Anyways, the festivities before Christmas were very enjoyable and a great way to end the year! Last week I spent my vacation in Bangkok, Thailand and Hong Kong. I had a blast. I will work on writing those blogs as soon as I can! 

My yankee candles and card. The box on the right is from a 5 year old student Ellin, it's filled with cookies! 

This is Ida one of my Elementary class students. I made christmas cards with their class and she stole my headband!

I received a package on Thursday from my friend Bridget. It was super unexpected, I was so happy when I got it. She is such an awesome friend! Speaking of mail I also just received a Christmas letter from the Sellmans. If you’re reading this, thanks Dave and Jan! I loved getting your mail even if it was after Christmas! 

 My package Christmas package from Bridget!