Amanda Takes Off...

I love my tae kwon do studio. I feel like I have a growing crew of protective little brothers. They're so funny.

I took my belt test today. I was the only one testing. Now I have a green belt (for the third time in as many studios) instead of my purple belt. After the test, Tired Guy clapped really loud, Cocky Guy (he's 18 I found out today) yelled, "Good, Amanda!"

Then. It was soccer time. I got the soccer ball straight to the face, smack on my glasses, whap. No damage, but glasses here are cheap and I should probably invest in a pair before mine break. I asked one of the boys on my team if I could take his glasses because he was holding them in his hand. I asked in Korean and he looked shocked and smiled and said, "Korean! Good!"

We had a break and played more soccer where we were all mixed up, teenagers, kids, and the few adults there and I ended up playing against Cocky Boy, which was my worst nightmare but I ended up doing some good high kicks to the ball. And I smacked my foot hard into someone else and I'm sure it will be bruised tomorrow.

I ended up staying after class and learning some names, ages and phrases. I met a new guy who was breathless that I could read his name in Korean. Tall New Guy shocked the hell out of me by answering Breathless Guy's "What's your name" before I could. The whole name! He got one part of my middle name wrong. I corrected him, he fixed it, and got the P right, too! I gave him a high five and then he asked if I knew his name. Nope, buddy. You may have all seven bits of my name memorized (which would actually become something like nine characters if I wrote it in Korean), but I don't have your three characters down.

I think that hurt his feelings. Until I wrote down his name. Then he wanted me to guess his age and I refused until he told me and guessed mine (never got it). I wrote down "Tall New Guy" next to his name in my little book. Then he wanted to know what that meant and followed me around the studio, right on my shoulder, asking questions and striking poses until I finally explained what it meant, as well as "short, slim, fat, big, small." I tried to get him to say "short" correctly and finally wrote it in Korean, complete with blends (sh/rt) which DO NOT exist in Korean but he got it right after that.

I use easy Korean phrases and they throw praise on me. Someone new comes and the boys turn into protective brothers, sharing my name and occupation but smacking little kids that don't quit staring at me. They give me water, chairs, benches, and watermelons first, teach me Korean, practice Korean and English with me, and tease me about soccer.

They make me feel like I'd be missed if I weren't here. I'll sure as heck miss them when I go home.

Oh, I'm pinning my belts to the wall as I retire them.

Let me tell you about tae kwon do class tonight. (If you have no interest in a long, long post about why I'm exhausted and how the boys were weird to me, don't bother to open the rest of this post. Page 2 is "What We Did" and page 3 is "What the Boys Did.")

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I think this is a speed record for getting photos up! As always, you can also click on the Gallery tab to get there as well.

Hey, someone told me I should make webcards of some of my images. You know, those e-cards/e-postcards you send to people? Is anyone interested in this? If so, which pictures are you most interested in? You can answer via email or in the comments section, if you wish.

When I was flying in yesterday, I was a bit surprised at how excited I was to see Korean newspapers again. I guess it's starting to feel like home.

I suppose coming in from Phuket after midnight was the start of my last full day in Thailand. Let's just say I ended up running around a nearly empty airport with three big Israeli guys (carrying...guitars) trying to find a legal taxi who was willing to meter. Eventually the four of us ended up in an illegal taxi and I got three chaste kisses when I was dropped off at my hostel.

(Now my mother is freaking out, wondering "what were you doing running around with three strange men in the middle of the night?" and my father is thinking, "That's my daughter!")

And that was the start of a fairly interesting day.

I headed over to the big weekend market, Chatuchak. I am always overwhelmed at these things, so I did what I usually do: I bought cheap jewelry that will turn my wrist green and ate a lot of street food. Here is a list of what I ate and what my mother now fears I will die of: fresh pineapple and canteloupe (Hep A), some sort of chicken dumpling on a stick thing (Avian flu), coconut ice cream (brain freeze) topped with fresh pineapple (Hep A again) and peanuts (an unknown peanut allergy), and a vanilla Coke (I am sure it was a knock off brand that will kill me somehow).

I searched and searched for some yarn. I found tons of silk and even found a woman crocheting with silk, but she told me I couldn't get yarn there. Sigh. I wanted some great silk yarn.

After a few hours of that, I headed back to the hostel, a great place called Asha Guesthouse. On the way there, I found this guy welding something on the street.

(A side about the hostel: I ended up cancelling my reservation for another hostel to stay at this one a second time. Very nice place, good people, a slightly older crowd that's not hellbent on getting drunk every night nor on place-dropping. You know what I mean—Man, when I was in [insert-never-heard-of-before-city-here] it was cool, but now it's been discovered and man, it's all been downhill. You can actually buy Coke there. Can you believe that, man?")

I read for a bit in my room, enjoying the AC, until a giant BANG! occured that knocked out the electricity and killed my AC. Afraid I was going to die of heat on the 4th/5th floor (depending on how you count), I headed down to the main floor to see who was around and I found some Americans, Bill and Leaf. I'd met Bill before and Leaf, too, although I didn't know Leaf's name. Bill was heading out to Sydney and there was a Londoner trying to plan a trip to America. We told her to be sure to check out the Grand Canyon and Mount Saint Helens. Bill bought us all a round of Singhas and we wished him a good trip. Leaf and I got started on voting and politics (we scared off the Londoner, I fear) and eventually I demanded we eat something.

After a lot of "I don't know, where do you want to eat"ing back and forth, we headed to BigC, a sort of shopping center, and put in a table request at MK Suki, where you get to cook your own meal in boiling water. It was actually quite good and cheap for the two of us to eat, although poor Leaf had to make sense of the seven sales slips that were handed to us at the end of the meal. We were the only westerners in the place (and it was packed), but unlike South Korea, nobody pointed us as and screamed "foreigners!" How nice!

Before and after our meal, we went to BigC and tried to find some suction cup hooks and get me some new shirts. Despite Leaf's fabulous sign-language for "suction cup," we didn't find any.

We did, however, find this shirt. Which neither of us could make sense of. (hoi den\hoi den.\n (1900) 1: a long wicver inserted in a split bun typically served with sauce.)

We also hammed it up in the not-suction-cup hook aisle together.

Back at the hostel, I eventually fell asleep (where I was awakened with two more explosions in the middle of the night) while reading a book exchange copy of Freakonomics.

Chaste kisses to street food to cooking my own food to mimicking licking suctions cups to giggling over whatever a "wicver" is. This is my life.

I'm in Thailand!

I can't upload photos (slow computer) and I can barely type (old keyboard) but I'm here!

Today I went to the Grand Palace and some temples and managed to take the monorail (Skytrain) and the watertaxis on the river without getting lost. A tuk tuk (motored tricycle) driver tried to scam me 16 ways from Tuesday ("I can't bring you to the pier, it's too rainy and yesterday 6 people died from China yesterday.") and I didn't fall for any of it. Amazing, don't you know, Thailand is having a special today, free petrol for tuk tuk drivers for tourists.

Yeah, right.

The street food here is fantastic. And best of all—NO KIMCHI!