Goodbye Thailand... Hello Korea! :)

So here I am, in Korea. And as everyone now knows I live next door to Alex and  our schools are right next door as well. What are the odds!? It's been quite a fun adventure here, and I'm really excited about it all. But let me finish talking about Thailand (if that's even possible!). I'm still making a video, it's taking me quite a while. I've been so busy, but this weekend I'll make sure it's posted so check back for that!!! :) In the meantime, the end of Thailand.

After our TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) class ended, which was three weeks long, we decided to go on a mini-vacation! I had been so excited about this ever since I found out I was definitely going to Thailand. We decided to go to Phuket, which is a southern Thailand.

Phuket (at the bottom left)/Chiang Mai (Very top, near Burma)

Alex and I decided to go on the journey, with the 120+ lbs of luggage to this beautiful ocean resort area. It was truly beautiful, but Phuket was just SO expensive in comparison to Chiang Mai. It felt a bit touristy, but it was amazing. We got to do two things which I'll remember for the rest of my life. We took a tour through the Phi Phi Islands on a boat. I cannot even TELL you how amazing this water was. It's like out of a movie. In fact, it IS out of a movie!!!! :) Did you by chance see "The Beach"- with Mr. Leo DiCaprio himself?

The beach was filmed at a place called Maya Bay!!! It is so beautiful. There are large, brown rock formations jutting out of the crystal clear waters, with millions of colorful fish swimming around your feet. The palm trees sway in the breeze and the air is crisp and clean. It feels like a mini-paradise. I really loved it, a lot. Seeing the area was just so amazing... the pictures cannot even describe the beauty!

The other thing we were able to do is ride elephants... I mean c'mon!!!!!!!!! How could I pass up an opportunity like that? It was like having an elephant as a pet. It was just awesome, but if I'm honest, a bit scary at first. You need to sit in these little baskets in order to ride on the elephants, and my elephant seemed a bit middle aged, not too big but not too small. I felt like the basket was sliding off the entire time, and that freaked me out. What also freaked me out a bit was when I turned around and saw Alex sliding out of there chair. Where the heck was she going!? The elephant is about 10 feet from the ground and we were on a mountain in the middle of the brush. Apparently, her Mahout (which is the name from an elephant trainer/caretaker) told her to sit on the elephants head. Alex is a brave one, because even I was a bit scared that I was going to plumet to my death (10 feet down... I'd just break my leg right?) if this little tiny wicker basket slide off this beautiful animal's back. I did feel a little bad though sitting on him and having him ride me around, but I did it because I LOVE them so much!!!! I even got to feed him some pineapple and he ate it out of my hand. I'm not going to lie, it definitely tickled. It was an experience I'll never forget.

We stayed in a little bungalow, which was really nice. It looked like it was set in the rain forest, but really it was 5 minutes from a main road. I'm pretty sure the people there got the wrong idea about Alex and I though because when we first got there we noticed kissing swan towels and flower petals thrown all over the bed. It was a bit awkward because the hotel staff were helping us carry our massive luggage into the room, and clearly had the wrong idea about us. The hotel was great, minus the lizard I found in our room, and Alex who usually isn't afraid of critter things and usually ushers them outside decided to tell me "Gecko's" are a big fear of hers (I don't know why Gecko's specifically but hey, who am I to judge?). But it still was a great place!

All in all, Thailand was amazing... since I was there for almost a month, I really feel as though I was able to experience the culture and the Thai lifestyle in a way most people are not able to. I had so many amazing moments and memories while I was there as well. I would have to say one of my favorite days in all of  Thailand was the one day we went to the beach. The waves were really rough that day, the kind of waves I LOVE to jump around in. The water is blue and beautiful, and everyone looked happy. As I put my feet into the sand, and the song "Wish you were here" by Incubus ran through my head, I looked up and I saw Alex get SMASHED by a wave and brought to shore. I think I might've peed a little I was laughing so hard. Alex didn't have a chance with that wave. She stood up, laughing hysterically (don't worry, there was no harm to Alex during this moment!), and sat next to me... and we just had a surreal day sitting there on the sand and watching the waves, feeling the wind, and knowing we were about to continue on our journey to the next country we were to visit- Korea.

So here I am... here we are- in South Korea in a city called Daegu. Daegu is the third largest city in all of South Korea and has over 2.5 million people. It's surrounded by what look like mountains but are probably just massivly large hills. Daegu actually means "Big Hill" in Korean (Seriously!? If I had known that do you think I would've wanted to move here?!?!). It has an awesome downtown area, where everything you could ever want is. Our apartment has a bus stop right in front, with 4 bus routes, so everything is SUPER accessible and a bus ride costs about $.80! That part is awesome. What's not awesome is the heat, it's still super hot and humid and it's been rainy for a while. Also- the food kind of makes me want to die because it's so spicey. I even got chicken fingers, normal breaded chicken fingers and there was spice cooked INSIDE the chicken! Craziness. Check out this awesome picture of Daegu.

This picture is really awesome because we live RIGHT next to this river, and is one of my fav. parts about where we live. If you look at the back of the photo, where the mountains meet the ground on the right hand side of the picture you will see a long line of tall buildings (they are apartments). We live right next to the river, right where the apartment building line gets close to the river. The river is awesome because if you can tell, there are walking/bike paths on both sides. It's used for exercise, and there are basketball courts, tennis courts and even GYM equipment outside along the river for anyone to use, there's even an elliptical! So when the weather is a lot less hot, I plan on exercising even more down there. I'm trying to talk Alex into playing tennis with me. We'll see how it goes!!!! :)

"Whatever tomorrow brings, I'll be there. With open arms and open mind... yeah." ~Incubus-Drive