Oh yea... and we went to Malaysia!

In September, during Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving), we went to Malaysia. It just so happens that it was also our 1st anniversary.  Good gift? We think so.  We landed in Kuala Lumpur on Saturday night, and left first thing in the morning for Taman Negara National Park, the world's oldest rainforest.

Since we were on a limited schedule, we booked a tour company to get to Taman Negara. On the way there, we were taken to a "deer farm" where we were walked around a sad looking zoo and shown "exotic" animals, like this osterich, some deer, and some jungle cats that looked remarkably like house cats.

We also fed a sun bear and held a python. The other ladies with us on this little excursion weren't that excited about touching the animals, but Clayton and I weren't going to turn down the opportunity. It's not every day a bear eats honey from your hand!

After the petting zoo, we ate lunch and drove to an elephant sanctuary... the real highlight of our time in Taman Negara. We fed adorable baby elephants, rode them, and watched them bathe.

This little guy was so cute!

We were supposed to get to wash the elephants in the nearby river, but the water was too high that day, so we had to settle for this. It was still awesome.

Taxi? Subway? No thanks, I'll go by elephant.

In Taman Negara, we ate on a floating restaurant every day. The food was delicious and the view was amazing!  

 Our first night, we went on a night jungle hike, in search of creepy crawly bugs! Can you see the hand-sized hunstman spider in this photo? Not only is it well disguised, it is fast as lightning.  We also saw scorpions, centipedes, and a wild pig.

 

Jungle!

The view during our hike through the jungle.

After our hike, we went up the world's longest canopy walk. It was beautiful!

After our hard work hiking through the rainforest, we thought it was a good idea to spend some time on the beach.  We took a very long bus ride, followed by a speedboat out to the Perhentian Islands.  We stayed on Perhentian Kecil, the smaller and less built up of the islands. Be thankful you will ever see us again, because if it was up to us, we would probably still be there. It was the most beautiful place.

We spent some time on the beach, snorkeled, and just relaxed. We ate delcious meals of bbq baracuda, king fish,  fresh coconut milkshakes, and malaysian noodles.

We went snorkeling and tried out out underwater camera. It was both of our first time snorkeling, and we loved it!

We threw bread out for some of the smaller fish. But we also saw sharks, and some giant fish whose names we don't know.

We also saw a sea turtle! He was so cute! We were able to swim close to him and watch while he went up and down for air.  As with all sea turtles, this guy is endangered. There were signs all around the island warning against touching them.

Island butterfly.

One of the nights, we went to the other side of the island and watched a fire show. It was pretty incredible. The guy who did most of it was foreign. We imagined that he just showed up on the island one day and never left. A tempting thought...

The view from our bungalow and around the island. 

 

After the island glory, we went back to Kuala Lumpur to experience a little grungy city life. We went to several markets in the city, including one in Little India. We also went to the night market in China town, where we haggled to our heart's content.

 Our second day in KL, we woke up early and headed over to the famouse Petronus Towers. Despite getting there early, we would have had to wait for hours to actually go up the towers, so we took photos outside and went up the KL Tower instead, where we got lovely views of the city and of the towers.

After the towers, we headed out to see the Batu Caves. The Batu Caves hold a large Hindu temple, and many monkeys. This one seems friendly, but don't be fooled. In the temple itself, we were chased by a monkey who attempted to steal the remainder of Clayton's lunch.  The monkey actually launched himself off some stairs and swung on the bag before we made it out.

Given my love of henna, I couldn't turn down this lady who was outside of the caves. She did an amazing job, and she was incredibly sweet. In fact, almost everyone we met in Malaysia was very nice. We really enjoyed our time there.

We were very glad that we took the time to go to the Batu Caves. The multitude of stairs were well worth the climb. The inside of the caves were beautiful. There was moss growing up the side of them, and huge openings where sunlight could shine through. It was a very pleasant end to a wonderful vacation.  We would definitely visit Malaysia again.  

Because, why wouldn't we climb a mountain in -10 degree weather?

Last weekend, we went to Seoraksan with our friends Jared and Katie. Seoraksan is one of the highest mountains in Korea, and it is a very popular place to visit. We stayed in a cute little town called Osaek.

 On Saturday, we donned our many layers and ventured out into the cold. We were so bundled up that we felt somewhat like human marshmallows, but we were thankful for the layers once the wind began blowing sideways. We drove a while to the Seoraksan National Park. Once there, we began the climb up one of the more popular peaks. We trekked over frozen ponds and past slow climbing (but well dressed) Koreans. We stopped to take photos at the balancing rock, where the tradition is to try to push it over the edge.

Finally, we got to the last few hundred meters of the climb, which also happened to be the steepest part. Because it wouldn’t be hiking in Korea without stairs, this mountain was fully equipped with probably the steepest set of metal stairs I have ever seen. With the wind practically knocking us over as it gusted through the mountains, we began to climb… all the while asking whose brilliant idea this was in the first place. Once we made it to the top, however, it was all worth it.

The view was beautiful. We could even see North Korea off in the distance. While we enjoyed it, we didn’t stop to eat a picnic on this particular trip, as the wind was so cold we could barely hold our cameras. So, after a few quick snapshots, we climbed back down and made our way to the local restaurants for some much needed lunch.

The view on the way back down the mountain. 

  

Raar!

On the way back to Osaek, we drove past a frozen pond where children and their families were sledding. Because this is Korea, and parents don’t seem to care if you take photos of their children, we decided to pull over and play paparazzi. The kids were really adorable and we had fun taking photos of them and playing on the ice.

These little guys had different agendas.

Sunday morning we got up early and headed off for a sight seeing trip home. The plan was to visit the Peace Dam, eat some Dakgalbi in Chuncheon and go to an Ice Fishing Festival. The trip turned out to be a very interesting ordeal. That morning it snowed all over Korea, including Seoul and the mountains through which we were to drive. After a few slow crawls up steep hills, and a few skids and slides, we made it safely out of the mountains and to the Peace Dam.

 

The Peace Dam or Pyeonghwa Dam is on the Bukhan river in NE South Korea. Construction on it first began in the 80s when there was concern over a dam upriver in North Korea. The Bukhan river is connected to the Han which flows through the center of Seoul. The concern was that if the North Korean dam collapsed whether on purpose or by accident, the waters would cause a major flood, taking out most of Seoul. Construction was stopped partway though, because people thought that the threat had been exaggerated. But in 2005, a crack in the North Korean dam caused a lot of flooding in Seoul, so construction on the Peace Dam began again. The place was eerily quiet and empty. It was strange to see a dam built where there is no water to dam. It just sits there, waiting for an attack that has not yet come.

The site of the dam was one of the major battle zones during the Korean War. This monument was found after the fighting stopped, and has remained here as a memorial for the soldiers who fought.

 Throughout the weekend, we enjoyed a healthy amount of banter and exchange with each other, mostly due to our various locations of origin. Being Oregonians, were surprised when Katie, who is from Minnesota, divulged that this was her second time to climb a mountain. Meanwhile, she rolled her eyes slightly at our intense excitement over the concept of ice fishing, or simply being able to walk on an iced over river or lake.

You can imagine our immense disappointment when  we discovered that the ice fishing festival was closed due to the hoof and mouth disease that is spreading rapidly throughout Korea. I am pretty sure fish don’t have hooves… but I suppose they were just being sure.  At any rate, we drove through the town and saw a few ice sculptures, and then headed to Chuncheon for some lunch.

After some delicious Dakgalbi, we began the final drive home. By this time, the traffic was pretty terrible due to the snow, and cars were stopped at these stations every five minutes to be sprayed down with a mysterious hoof and mouth cleansing substance. We had only 60km left in our drive home, which should have taken around an hour to an hour and a half. Five hours later, arrived home. It was a long trek, but we had a great time anyway. Seoraksan is beautiful, and we were happy to spend a little time out of the city in the weeks before we leave Korea.

"You're not Santa, really."

Christmas came early this year at Grace School.  On Thursday, we had the school "Santa Party."  We spent a few hours making paper Christmas trees with our classes.   Clayton's class did a lovely job, and even made paper presents for their tree. Meanwhile, we got a little distracted in my class, and used our materials to make masks, Rudolph noses, and antlers. 

After making trees, the kids were visited by Santa.   Santa, who was played by a friend of ours, was not the most believable of St. Nicks, with his strap-on beard and 5,000 won Santacon suit. His case wasn't helped much by the fact that he was required to read a really terrible version of the story of baby Jesus.  The kids weren't buying it.  Sam, who had already been acting a bit like the Grinch, ran out of the room when his name was called. And Sue shouted, "You're not Santa, really!" upon meeting him. Nonetheless, they enjoyed receiving gifts and playing with them after lunch. 

We ended the day by playing the classic claymation Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (a suggestion made my Clayton and myself of course).  While it wasn't exactly the Christmas party we are used to, we had fun. We always enjoy those rare days when we get to spend time simply playing with the kids.  I'm not sure who eats it up more, us or them!

Photo-bomb courtesy of Dave.

Class photo, sans Sam.

Funny face time!

Hard at work making the tree.

Not so hard at work. :-)

Sue... one of the smartest kids we've met.  In another lifetime, I think we would be bff's. 

Sam overcame his Grinchy-ness, but wasn't so sure about Santa.

Sophia and Roy.  You can't help but love him!

Clayton's class, hard at work. 

Clayton spent about an hour trying to get Roy's toy to transform from a robot to a semi-truck. Ages 5+? More like Ages 20+ with a degree in engineering!

Audra's Class Tree

Clayton's Class tree.

Merry Christmas-uh!

Santa's Got Seoul!

This weekend, we participated in an epically ridiculous event. Santacon Seoul 2010.  People dressed as Santa, parading around the streets of Seoul? Where else would we be? Santacon started in San Francisco and has since spread around the world. Santacon Seoul started as a small group of foreigners, but has since grown. The event drew hundreds of foreigners eager to make spectacles of themselves. There were Santas of all shapes, sizes and genre. Jolly Santas, Gangsta Santas, Einstein Santas and Glam Rock Santas. There were even Santas with hopefully placed mistletoe dangling from their hats.  We joined the throng of  St. Nicks in singing songs and sending Christmas wishes to the confused passersby.

If one Santa makes you think of Christmas, then hundreds of them will really bring you into the holiday spirit!

Mr. and Mrs. Claus

We thought it was fitting that the mass of Santas warmed up in an establishment called HO Bar III.

Our friend Teddy, wearing his Santa beard with pride.

What better thing to do while dressed as Santa than to dance in the crosswalk during the 'walk' signal?

 When the 'stop' signal came on, the dancers rushed to the sidewalk, only to recommence when it turned green again.

Merry Christmas!!!!

One of the Santacon leaders yelling, "Ho! Ho! Ho! Santa's gotta go!" as the hords of Santas paraded on to the next location.

The many different hats of Santa!

 Santa getting his groove on.

There was a Santa balloon pass relay. This was our amazing, winning team! Woot Woot!

High Five!

We met Robin outside the best taco truck ever! Holy corn tortillas and cilantro Batman!!

Santa dance party in the ROK!

We had a grand time at Santacon. We look forward to being part of Portland's Santacon next year!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!