taxation without representation

washington DC is the capitol of my country...i transited through the city at the end of 2009, but that didn't involve anything more than getting from the airport to the train station...i didn't see anything...when i was a kid, we had a family trip to DC, but i didn't remember much about the city...i only remembered heat and humidity...
one of my friends from uni just moved to DC...it's a part of the country i've wanted to visit for a while, and this seemed the perfect opportunity...a number of friends living in the city, or in the DC metro area, and historical sights...woo hoo:)
my flight arrived on time, and sarah met me at the airport...she lives in the city, her flat is only a block from the metro, conveniently on the same line that comes from the airport...yay...as the train came to the station, i mentioned that i was hungry...early early flights usually mean i don't eat breakfast, and my flight landed after noon, so i hadn't had solid food in a long time...
we opted for a place called ben's chili bowl...it's a DC landmark, and has been running for 50 years or so from the same location...i think it's a single restaurant, not a chain...if you are bill cosby, or a member of the obama family (the immediate family, i think) you eat there for free...obviously, that isn't me, but prices aren't high...the menu is simple, i went for chili...and a piece of red velvet cake...they only take cash, and there is an atm in the restaurant just in case you don't carry cash...we got our meal to go...

after getting to sarah's flat, we hung out for a while...until sara came...sarah and sara were both in my closest group of friends from uni...i hadn't seen either of them since then, which means 11 years...we've all grown up in that time, to say the least...
we went out to the mall area to see the sights...the washington monument, the lincoln memorial, the vietnam memorial and more...i took a lot of photos of course, and we talked nonstop...
dinner that night was at a place across the street from ben's chili bowl...i think the place was ulah's bistro? i don't remember exactly, but it was good...good appetizers, main course, and drinks...the dessert wasn't wonderful, but it wasn't awful either...we all ate too much though, the short walk home wasn't nearly long enough to work off the uncomfortably full feeling...
none of us was particularly quick waking up the next morning...eventually we got out the door, and sara was kind enough to drive us to the grocery store...since sarah doesn't have a car, yet lives in the city, it isn't easy for her to get groceries...a lot of stuff is available at convenience stores, but fresh fruit and produce aren't so easy to find...
after returning from grocery shopping, sara took off back to pennsylvania...boooo...it wasn't nearly long enough to catch up, but it was better than nothing...

i went out to see what i could in the city...i took the metro to arlington national cemetary, it wasn't a quick trip as the metro doesn't run nearly as often on weekends, and there was some work being done on the rails so the trains came even less often...when i finally got there, it didn't take long to get to the cemetary, which is huge...the cemetary was founded during the civil war, on the grounds of the former estate of confederate general robert e lee...anyone who has served in the military of the US is eligible to be buried in arlington national cemetary, with a few restrictions...spouses are eligible as well, and minor children...it's also possible to have cremated remains inurned...
one of the more famous names to be buried in arlingtion national cemetary is JFK...there is an eternal flame near that grave...other famous names buried in the cemetary: president william howard taft, general john j pershing, as well as senators robert kennedy and edward kennedy...i only saw JFK's area...i also walked to the tomb of the unknown soldier, which is really impressive...as i walked to the tomb, i realized there was a ceremony of some sort going on...a wreath laying ceremony...quite a few old vets were there, at least one was wearing something telling me he had been awarded a purple heart...at some point during the ceremony, all active duty in attendance were supposed to salute, and all civilians are supposed to put their hands on their hearts...

after the cemetary, i walked across the bridge, back to the edge of the area with the lincoln memorial...only this time i turned a corner, and made my way to the FDR (franklin delano roosevelt) memorial...it's bigger than i thought...there are several 'panels' for lack of a better word, each showing different aspects of his life...he was president for 12 years, something that is no longer possible...
not surprisingly, the next stop was another memorial...the jefferson memorial...it's not as visited as the lincolm memorial because it's on the other side of the water, but it's still nice...and even if you don't make it all the way to the memorial, you can take a photo or two from across the water...
all this walking was getting to me, so i walked back toward the green area between all the smithsonian museums...i took the chance to sit for a while, just watching people...DC is full of tourists, both domestic and international...as i was sitting and watching people, it was fun to try to pick out languages and accents...to say that fashions vary between countries and regions is a bit of an understatement...

after sitting a while, i walked more and found a bookstore...i'm a sucker for bookstores...
then, finally, i went home...sarah and i took it easy that night, lovely!!
the next day started with a reunion with a high school classmate...i hadnt seen katie in years and years, and had in fact lost contact with her...(in this day, that's tough to do!)...it turned out i had just missed her wedding (which took place just before i left ukraine) and my family had been invited to a reception in my hometown, so i was able to email katie's mom, get katie's email, then set up a meeting in DC...she doesn't live in the city, but she's close...we ate at ben's, i love the place...
after the meeting i got on the subway again and went back to the historical middle of the city, and walked toward the white house...i have very vague memories of seeing the place from a family vacation when i was 10 or so...since that was loooong before september 11th, i was expecting a lot more security around the perimeter...but i didn't see much...(just because i didn't see security doesn't mean it wasn't there)...

one of the most popular photos in DC is of someone standing in front of the fence, with the white house in the background...i think i first strolled up to the fence on the back side, so i just took a photo, i wasn't in the photo...there were a lot of people along the fence, but far fewer than i expected...(maybe because this was august, when it's hot and humid)...walking around the side of the white house takes you close to a couple office buildings and another statue...i think walking around the edge takes you close to the white house gardens, from which a lot of fresh produce is taken to feed the first family and others in the building...
on the other side of the white house the fence continues...this is the front side of the building, though that didn't seem obvious to me...across from the white house is a small tent city, as well as a few signs...gotta love free speech...across the street from this side of the white house is lafayette square...each corner of the square has a statue honouring someone of historical importance to my country (i could name and give details of each statue, but do you really want to add even more to an already ridiculously LONG entry?)...i got a photo with me in the photo from this side...

on the way back to sarah's flat, i went to the train station and got my ticket for a couple days later...by the time i got home it was dark, and my legs were tired...so much walking for days in a row is something i love, but it's exhausting when i haven't done it in a while
the next morning i went to mcclean, virginia for another meeting...my friend lynnae, who just had her second baby the week before, had just moved to the area with her husband and older son...i've seen some wee little kids, but i've never held one who is only a week old...i took the train to the end of the line, lynnae picked me up at the station...her mom was visiting too:)...it was nice to spend a couple hours catching up on life...
after taking the train back into the city, i went back to sarah's flat...we had made plans the night before to go to the holocaust museum as soon as i came back from mcclean...

back onto the subway, walking to the museum...it's free, but you have to have tickets, which we'd ordered online the night before...you can also get tickets at the door, but if you want to do that, it's best to be in line in the morning as there are only a certain number for each day, and they run out fairly quickly...each ticket has a timestamp, the whole idea is to keep traffic through the museum from being totally crazy...
the museum has a LOT of information, and great displays...the amount of information is stunning, and rather overwhelming...it's really intense, and really sobering...if i ever get the chance to go back to DC, i'd like to visit this museum again, more slowly this time...
for dinner that night i met up with another friend, this one from a visit to germany in 2009...i love seeing travel friends in different places around the world:)...since i'd already eaten at ben's several times during this visit, i figured why not eat there once more...after eating, we walked around the neighbourhood, found a quiet bar/restaurant and stopped in for drinks...

eventually i went back to sarah's place for my last evening...
my train the next day wasn't until 1430, and it seemed a waste not to do anything before leaving the city...washington DC is a pretty big city, and even though i had more days than i usually do in one place, i didn't come anywhere close to seeing everything...or, for that matter, even close to seeing everyone i know who lives in the area...when my next visit rolls around, i should do a whole lot more planning...a LOT more planning..(that's a guideline i need to apply to my next trip to the states in general, not just this city) since so much of what happens in DC is related to the government, i decided to go see the capitol...the building where so much of the power in DC resides...there are offices in the building, historical spots, important people, and the rooms where my nation's government is living.. there are tours of the capitol leaving quite regularly...entry for all visitors is through a huge visitors entrance/center, which is actually underground...this entrance isn't very old, but after events of this century, security has been increased all over the capital city..i walked in, got my tour ticket, was handed the earphones i'd need to hear my guide, and got in the correct queue...this is a popular tour, there are heaps of people in each group...since the accoustics all over the building make sound quite loud, the earphones are necessary if you want to hear your guide..

my guide was short, but was quite spunky, for lack of a better word..she knew her history, and was proud to show it off.. during the tour you get to see the rotunda, the old supreme court, the crypt, and a couple other places..i was a bit disappointed that i didn't get to see any active rooms, but i can understand why..if you contact your representative ahead of time, it is possible to arrange those tours, and quite easily, if i understand correctly...i took photos, listened to the stories, etc... my train left at 1430, and i was on the train...too bad the arrival of the train was over an hour late at my next destination...

not constantinople

i took a taxi to the airport with cloe straight from school...her flight back to france left a lot earlier than mine, so i wasn't in any hurry, and could've taken the subway and a bus...but the convenience of a taxi is always desireable, especially when you share the cost with someone else...when i first looked at flights, mine wasn't listed...as it turned out, i departed from a different terminal than cloe, even though we were both flying internationally...
my flight to istanbul was easy, and smooth...though i was rather disappointed in my meal...when given the option while reserving flights, i always choose a different meal...why go with the normal food when you can choose something else...this time i chose raw vegetarian...i ended up with fruit...and a roll...hmmm...not at all satisfying...not really a meal...and the roll definitely didn't qualify as raw...i'm not expecting anything different on the way back to ukraine...
amanda met me at the airport, she's a mate from rugby in korea...we took a bus to the center of town, an area called taxim...then a taxi from there...as i learned later, we could've taken the subway and walked to her flat, but at that point, the taxi was very much desired...especially because it was windy and rainy...i wasn't thrilled when she said that had been the weather for several days...i hate rain...we had a late dinner that night, caught up with each of our lives, then crashed...i gave her the ham she'd requested...turkey is politically secular, but in reality the dictates of islam determine a lot of daily life...which means finding pork/ham is difficult...ukraine doesn't have that problem...

i slept like a rock, though i woke up at my normal time...amanda said her saturday habit was poached eggs and coffee...i joined in for poached eggs, but had tea instead...i've got to try making poached eggs by adding vinegar to the water, she said that keeps the eggs together...in the past when i've tried poached eggs it's always really messy...
after hanging out too long, we made our way to a grocery store...i know i've said it in previous posts, but i love grocery stores, in any country...based on the grocery store alone, i'm already in love with turkey...a huge section for spices, tons of yogurt...how could i not like a country that sells yogurt by the gallon??!?!

after the grocery store we headed downtown to meet up with one of amanda's coworkers and her husband...we met at a fancy shmancy hotel called pera palace...jill said one of the papers had written that liam neeson was staying there while filming...hmmm...anywho, we all met for high tea, and it was fabulous...every employee was super deferential, i can't remember ever being treated that way by staff anywhere...i guess that's what four stars gets you:)...this was high tea properly done...tea served in silver, heaps of desserts to choose from...(over and over again, of course:)...it was a great way to relax and do something a little different...after stuffing ourselves for three hours, amanda and i walked up and down the main street nearby (called istiklal)...it was crowded as, and i can see why amanda doesn't particularly like the area...there are plenty of shops, but as it turns out, the turkish government taxes imported goods like nobody's business...why bother looking when you don't have any intention of paying twice what you would in the states? it was a great time for people watching...it was windy, snowy and cold though, so not good for just standing around...we found a few bookstores, and i bought a guidebook for turkey...i am nothing without a guidebook...lol...when i leave the country i'll leave the guidebook with amanda, she'll be able to get some use from it, as she has misplaced her guidebook...

christmas morning we again had poached eggs...this time with ham...amanda tried to do a hollandaise sauce, but apparently it didn't work out...i didn't see it...and salad, and grapes...YUM...
that afternoon we went into town again, and this time made our way to a hamam...a turkish bath...sooooooo relaxing...more expensive than korea, but still great...being in there really made me miss the saunas (jim-jil-bangs) of korea...i loved the scrub and massage, and just wish they'd been a little harder...i'm not a wimpy foreigner!! when we left i was cozy and warm, and didn't want to leave at all...lol...
after the hamam we headed toward the grand bazaar...it's always mentioned as a must see sight in the city, and amanda needed a new wallet...unfortunately, by the time we got there, most of the stalls had closed up shop for the day...oh well, another time...dinner on the way back to a tram stop was a chicken doner roll...oh how i love the food of this country...
after dinner we made our way to dan and kathleen's flat, in the crowded area of town i mentioned earlier in this post...amanda used to work with these two, they were hosting a christmas party...we didn't stay long, but we did meet a few people...fun...amanda said she would recommend that school as a place to work, if anyone who reads this is so inclined...shockingly, they treat their employees well...who woulda thought that was possible in the world of ESL?

despite already having eaten dinner, we still ate cherry cobbler when we got home...YUM...then went to bed early, as amanda had to work the next day...
fortunately, i didn't have to work...the joys of being on holiday:)...i got myself out the door of the flat before 1030, for which i was quite proud of myself...i'm quite often a very late starter when by myself...(though when i'm traveling with others i'm usually ready to go really early...why is that?)...i walked/took the subway/rode the tram back to the historical area of the city...and that's where my adventure started...
for the first time in a while, i wasn't able to orient myself easily...that is, even though i had two maps, i couldn't figure out which way i was facing...it didn't help that i could see two huge mosques, and couldn't figure out which was which...(the blue mosque and aya sofia)...i ended up at the blue mosque, though just as i was ready to go inside, it closed to tourists for prayertime...oh well...since i'd finally figured out where i was, i knew where i wanted to go next...

topkapi palace is another place always listed on must see lists for istanbul...the queue for tickets was crazy long, and this is off season...i can't begin to imagine what it's like during high season...yuck...fortunately, the queue moved quickly...inside the palace there were queues as well for the more interesting sections, though they moved quickly as well...i enjoyed the displays in the treasury and the privy (a private chamber for a high ranking person, as opposed to a privy during pioneer days in the US, which is an outhouse)...i also liked the harem area a lot...heaps and heaps of palace intrigue and gossip ruled the day back then!

i made my way to the grand bazaar, this time early enough that everything was still open...i've traveled a lot, so i wasn't super keen to see this particular market any more than i have been to see any other well known market...this is the world's largest market under one roof...something like 4000 vendors in all...just about anything you could want...i didn't want any of it, so i just wandered for a while...it's amazing how many guys want you to look in their store...do i look as though i want a carpet? or a hookah? i did exchange money though, they had good rates in the bazaar...not surprisinly, i got lost in there, and ended up exiting on the other side of the bazaar...whoops...fortunately it was easy enough to circle around outside and get back to the side i wanted...

after the bazaar i finally got to see the inside of the blue mosque...for all that it's famous, i wasn't supremely impressed...i liked it, but i wasn't overly impressed...i liked the mosques of malaysia better...i've always loved the light and airy feeling of mosques...
then it was time to head back to amanda's flat, and be there before she came home from work...we went to a doner place nearby for dinner, and i loved it...YUM...again, both of us crashed early...
the next day i was slower about getting going for the day, but i didn't have the problem with orientation, so my real start time on visiting sights was about the same...i started with the aya sofia, and absolutely loved it...now that's a place i can understand being on all the must see lists...it was a church, then a mosque...now it's a museum...you can see all the influences of both religions, it's amazing...turkey has a long and complicated religious history...the frescoes and mosaics are fabulous...watching all the people was fun too...

from there i walked to the spice bazaar...i meant to stop at the post office along the way, but i missed that turn...whoops...i did get there on the way home though...the spice bazaar sells more than just spices, not surprisingly...and i'm pretty sure the prices are higher than they should be...but it was fun to see what is available, should i decide to bring stuff back to ukraine...i miss spicy food there, so paprika might be in my future:)
from there i walked to yet another mosque...it starts with an S, and is located near a university...near the spice bazaar...i liked this mosque the best of what i've seen so far in turkey...i was there during prayertime, something i haven't experienced previously...one of the things i like about islam is that it is practiced several times each day...not just once a week...part of being muslim is daily prayer...you can go to the mosque for each prayer time, but most people only go on fridays at noon...this was a midweek, midafternoon prayertime, so there weren't too many people there...
that night amanda put me on a bus to the massive bus station, i was off to my next destination!

gappers in town

after ben and bo spent a couple days in lviv, they took a day train back to kyiv...i picked them up at the train station, and first things first, of course we had to find something to eat...the boys hadn't really eaten anything all day, except for a few rolls from a stranger on the friend, and a couple beers...they were famished, and i can always eat:)
after food, the next item on the list was to find a hostel for ben...we found the one he'd picked out in the guidebook...but it was full...argh...howeva, the chick who owned the hostel said a few people were going out to a bar, and said that there was another hostel very close to the bar, and that they'd take ben along...a quick subway ride and walk home, i went to sleep fast...
the next day i went to work, ben and bo met up in the city center...they told me later that they had trouble figuring out where to go to follow the walking tour suggested by lonely planet...ben is HORRIBLE when it comes to reading maps...after all the traveling he's done (he makes me look as though i've never left my sofa) you'd think he'd be able to read a map...but he can't...he's constantly getting lost...granted, some of my best travel adventures have happened because i get lost, but ben does it all the time...even when he's already gotten somewhere once w/out getting lost...anywho...it was pretty chilly that day, the boys told me they kept finding places to duck inside and warm up for a few minutes...i don't blame them...
the boys picked me up at work, we went home and dropped off my stuff, then headed to the grocery store...one of my requests of bo for staying with me was that he cook a meal for us...(he's a chef, this isn't a crazy request)...ben had come up with the idea that bo cook thanksgiving for us...i liked the idea, and cloe and her mom were keen, as they'd never experienced an american thanksgiving...bo knew what he needed from the grocery store, ben and i were there mostly just because...and, we knew it would be a little while before the food was ready, so we also picked up snacks...(hanging out with these two means nearly nonstop eating...not good for my waistline!)...

thanksgiving dinner was great...chicken, homemade stuffing, salad, pumpkin/carrot something, and mashed potatoes...YUM...we all ate too much, everyone else drank wine...none of us ate nearly the amount i remember eating when i had thanksgiving as a kid, but it was still too much...some how or another, i was the only one not drinking, and i was the only one who woke up the next morning with a headache...NOT FAIR... oh well, such is life...
i only had to teach the next morning, i was able to meet up with the boys just after noon...we took the subway and walked a bit to the lavra, one of the two UNESCO sites in kyiv...on the way to the lavra, we stopped by two memorials...one is to the soldies who fought in WWII...the other is to victims of the famine in 1932-1933...this was a man made famine, and millions of people died...there was enough food, but stalin made some decisions, and people starved as a result...it was pretty sobering to see the memorial, even more sobering to think that it shouldn't have happened at all...

there are two areas in the lavra site, the upper and lower...in the upper, the bell tower and one of the churches currently have scaffolding around them...darnit...the bell tower was covered the last time i was there as well, i'm hoping to see it without scaffolding at some point while i live here...i think there is a joke out there that it's not really a UNESCO site unless some part of it is covered by scaffolding? we still had fun taking photos...ben and i had fun making a wedding congratulations video for one of his friends in taiwan...between the upper and lower sections, we each had a snack...bo and i had snickers, ben went with hot tea...we also visited the lower area, mainly to see the caves...the caves aren't really "caves" as one would normally think of them, but that's the name they've ended up with...it's actually a set of tunnels under a church, where monks went to meditate, live, and eventually die...there are sarcophagi in the tunnels, they're glass...the bodies are covered, but a few of them have hands sticking out...as the bodies are mummified, the hands are dark and dry, and a bit creepy...eeeeee...i didn't notice this when i visited these caves before, i don't know why...

on the way from the lavra back to the subway, we stopped to eat...i ate too much, ben and bo both outdid me, and still had room for waffles afterward...the subway took us back to the center of town, and we headed toward st sophia, the other UNESCO site in town...ben and bo had already seen the inside of a number of churches, and didn't feel the need to see another, which saved us the biggest part of the entry fee to the site...instead we walked around the outside of the church, and climbed up the bell tower...i'd done that before, but the view is completely different at night, of course...

then came dinner...as always, my eyes were bigger than my tummy, but i was impressed in my resistance to eating what i ordered...bo ate most of it instead...note to self: do not eat lunch and dinner less than two hours apart...from dinner we decided to do something not very intelligent: follow ben to a bar...remember what i said earlier about ben not being able to read a map? thank goodness none of us minded the extra walking...the bar is a student bar, and the prices are redic cheap...$1 vodka shots...$1.25 beer...our total bill had 4 beers, 2 vodka shots, and two sprites, and was less than $10 total...woo hoo!! ben and bo said goodbye as we left, and the next morning i put bo in a taxi to the airport...it's always sad to say a temporary goodbye to a gapper...we always assume there will be a 'next time,' which makes goodbye a whole lot better...:)

 ben moved in the next day...ever since he's been hanging out at the flat, occasionally getting out and seeing the city...mostly though he's been figuring out what comes next in his life...where he'll go, how he'll get there, and what he might see along the way to whereva he goes next...how long he'll be there, what he'll do there, etc...ben has also been working on his blog, i've written a couple posts for him:)...we've shown him the yumminess of ready made food from the closest grocery store, attempted to go bowling, etc...he and cloe have had fun with nightly glasses of wine, i've stuck with juice...(it isn't the same...even non alcoholic wine or beer isn't the same)...it's been nice to have a friend around, someone i've known for a long time...

adjustment

There are three subway lines currently, though I’ve seen plans for another two lines, as well as extending the current lines…the plan I saw said 2015, but I don’t know if that’s the year when they plan to start, or if that’s the year by which the building is supposed to be finished…hmmm…subway rides currently cost the equivalent of 25cents, no matter how long you’re on the train…there are three transfer stations, all within the city center…most of the stations are underground, with the trains coming on the outsides of the central platform areas…the trains seem old school to me, but maybe that’s just cause I’m used to the system in Korea…

Some of the metro stations are REALLY DEEP…as in, riding an escalator for more than two minutes deep…the city itself is built on hills, and the original subway system was built as a combo metro system and bomb shelter network…some of the stations are more ornate than others, and each has it’s own decoration scheme…there is almost no signage in English, which was a bit alarming the first few times I rode the trains…some of the trains have tv screens that show the station names in English and Ukrainian, but not all the trains have this system…the announcements are only in Ukrainian…given that this is Ukraine, I can’t complain…though if Ukraine really wants to join the EU, they’re going to have to do a lot to make the country easily accessible to people who speak other languages…

The train rides are never silent, though not because of people talking…you hear the train as it goes through  all the tunnels…sometimes it’s almost a roar, and you can’t hear the station announcement at all…you have to learn what each station looks like, or count stops…

There are three stations in the city centre where the subway lines intersect with each other…it seems a bit strange to me, but at these intersection stations, each line has a different station name…as opposed to say, choosing from the green line or blue line in one station, you choose from different station names…the very first time I rode the trains, I started in what I thought was one station, but in fact it was the other station there…whoops…I figured out my mistake almost immediately, and was able to come back, wander through the station and find the other line, making it to my destination only a few minutes late…now that I’ve figured out how to read a little, I can usually figure out where I need to go if I’m in a station that has two lines…

Subway isn’t the only way to get around in Kyiv…there are also buses, trolleys, and something called matrushkas…matrushkas are basically large minivans, and often go long distances…there is a web site to figure out where all the buses, trolleys and such go, but it’s entirely in Ukrainian, and I don’t know the city well enough to figure it out anywho…soon, I hope…you can buy monthly transport cards, which is handy…I get one that is good for unlimited metro rides each month, it’s less than $15USD/month…awesome!!

I’ve slowly been learning to read the alphabet here…Russian and Ukrainian use Cyrillic letters, and most of the letters in the languages are the same, though there are a few differences…in Kyiv, Russian is the majority spoken language, as it is in the eastern half of the country…Ukrainian is also spoken in the city, though not as much, and in the eastern half of the country…I hope to start Russian language lessons soon, because there is very little English here…it’s a good thing, as it forces me to learn a new language instead of relying so much on English…but it makes it challenging when I don’t understand anything…right now, my only Russian vocabulary is VERY basic…yes, no, thank you, 1,2 and please/you’re welcome…let’s just say that won’t get me very far…foreigners do get charged slightly higher prices here, but it isn’t so bad…I know that speaking Russian will help a lot in that regard…if I ever get to a point where I feel comfortable with Russian, I’d also like to learn Ukrainian…

My school is a quadrilingual preschool…English, French, Russian and Ukrainian…the parents choose between Russian and Ukrainian, and they can also have English and French…we don’t currently have any students who come all day every day of the week…we have one 4 year old who attends 5 mornings a week, and two students who come three full days a week…other students attend just a few half days a week, which isn’t great…its hard to teach a class when the students in that class don’t attend every class…figuring out how to make sure each child gets all the information, and gets to participate in enough activities is a challenge, to say the least…

My school is a brand new branch of a school that already exists in three cities in Russia…the methodology is well thought out, which I love…since this branch is brand new, it means we have to prepare EVERYTHING… classroom decorations, ordering basic supplies, creating heaps of visual materials for our lessons, etc…it’s a lot of work, but at the same time I love that I can immediately see the results of my work…since we’re new, we don’t have too many students, which means we don’t have many teachers…so we’re all teaching many different levels of kids, and doing all the paperwork for each class…at the other branches, teachers have two levels at most, to teach…since we’re new, we are also still working out the kinks of scheduling and various routines…as new students come to class, random things change, and we have had plenty of discussions about how we want to do various things…

Right now there is only one guy working at the school, our office manager…everyone else is a woman…our director, head teacher, three teachers, and two assistants…for the most part, we all get along…there are more heated discussions when communication is lacking, or when there are too many questions as to who is in charge of certain things…it’s frustrating to me when I feel like I’m doing work three times over because different people are being put in charge of something, and I have to redo something I’ve already done…argh…but, as routines/schedules/chain of command gets worked out, this should get better…

The weather has been amazing…blue skies nearly every day…chilly-ish in the mornings and at night, absolutely lovely during the day…photos are great when there is a blue sky…love love love!! Winter here is long, cold, and snowy, so I’m enjoying the wonderful weather while it’s here…I’ve been told that October and November are likely to be rainy and cloudy, so we’ll see…I hate hate hate rain, so I hope it isn’t as bad as I’ve heard…I love snow, so I’ll be thrilled when that comes around…I’ve also been told that snow sometimes comes as early as October, woo hoo!!

My sister has been sending me the stuff I shipped home from Korea, it’s been great to have a bit of variety in my wardrobe again…my room doesn’t look like MY bedroom, it’s just a bedroom…I hope people send me postcards so I have something to put on my walls!

the last few days in seoul with the fam

Our flight back into seoul landed around 2200…not the greatest of times to be landing, but oh well…after zipping through customs and immigration we got back on the trains…two hours later we got to my area of town…that is, the area in which I last lived…since hana had suggested switching hotels, we decided to find one in an area I knew…the first place we walked into seemed to have an automated system, and I don’t know enough Korean to figure out how that works…the next place was full up…the third place we tried had rooms, and at first we wanted to stay four nights there…but the desk clerk told us the price would more than double over the weekend, and we had no desire to do that…howeva, the price that night was fine, and it was too late to do anything else…so we slept in rooms that looked like the wallpaper had been thrown up out of an interior decorators trash…terrible…

So the next morning we decided to switch hotels…after looking around online, we found one that looked promising, and made the booking…it would be too early to check in, so we used the last hour or so of our time in our current motel to make a trip to coffee bean…(as long as I was in Korea, I wanted as much coffee bean as possible)…after my morning fix, we got back on the subway, and found the new hotel…fortunately, it wasn’t far…we’d booked two double rooms, but they only had one left when we showed up, so they upgraded one of the rooms for free!! Hana and I ended up with a small suite!! A lounge with a half bath, big tv and computer…and a bedroom with two beds, a full bath, and a big tv…woo hoo!! The view was straight into the side of another building, but you can’t have everything, at least not all the time…especially compared to places I usually stay when I’m traveling, this place was pure luxury…I loved it…when we checked in, mom’s room wasn’t ready yet, but that was okay…we left everything in our room, and took off again…

The first place we went was deoksugung…another palace…when we got there, there was a changing of the guard ceremony at the gates, but since we’d already seen one of those at gyeongbukgung we didn’t feel like watching it again…this is the palace of longevity and something else…mom and hana probably remember better than I do…it’s smaller than gyeongbukgung, and at the back of the area is a museum I’ve never visited…I’m sure it’s a great museum, but I’m not one for museums most of the time…we saw a statue of king sejong and it seemed like a good place to take a picture…as we walked up, some schoolgirls asked to take pictures with me and hana…we obliged, having fun with jumping photos…mom was a pretty good photographerJ…the ladies then took a photo for us, of the three of us, which was nice…of course, it didn’t get the king in the background, but oh well…

Wandering through the palace was nice…there is a pavilion with Russian/western influence, a few gates, the traditional throne room, etc..in one corner is what remains of the worlds largest water clock…it didn’t look like much to me, but I guess very little of it remains…I would’ve loved to have seen a picture of what it should’ve been, it would’ve given me an idea of what I was seeing…there was also a large bell on display, I’ve forgotten what that was from…as we walked out, we could see all the school classes having class photos taken in front of the throne room…

After deoksugung, we split up…mom went to namdaemun market, while hana and I went to insadong…insadong is an area that is touted as a traditional art area…that’s true, but it’s also completely touristy…again with gazillions of little shops selling kitchy souvenirs…but there are also great tea shops, and art galleries and yummy food…hana was looking for some souvenirs for friends back home, so I wandered with her, and helped her remember which shops were worth visiting again after we’d wandered all the way through the area…she got her ceramic stuff, as well as a stamp with her name on it…that was fun, and the guys in the little booth weren’t at all pushy…they even made her a couple bookmarks with her stamp…hana’s name is simple, and because of what it means in Korean, it’s all over the country…we weren’t giving the guy something strange to carve…(have I ever mentioned that the word “hana” is the Korean word for the number 1?)

After insadong, we went home…shopping is tiringJ

I’ll leave the DMZ tour, which we did the next day, for another post…it’s a full on experience to say the least…

Our last full day in seoul, hana wasn’t even awake at 10am…mom came to our room around 1015, and I didn’t think hana would be up anytime soon…and if she was, I knew we wouldn’t be going anywhere anytime soon…so we agreed to meet later in the day, for dinner and our last night…eventually hana did get up, and we both got ready…my idea was to get coffee bean, then go to Olympic park…I thought it was a 20 minute walk from the subway station where I’d lived for a year…I was wrong about the length of the walk, but at least it was a nice day…most of the time I could see part of Olympic park from the windows of my flat…hana and I walked through the park as well, trying to get a few photos, and just enjoy where we were…the flags of all the nations that participated in those Olympic games are still flying in the park…which is nifty, because not all of those nations exist anymore…(Czechoslovakia, USSR, etc)…we saw a few sculptures, walked along the remains of an old fortress wall, etc…on our way back to the hotel, I got us going the wrong way on one of the subway lines…argh…you’d think I’d know which way to go after living in seoul, but I still get confused from time to time…whoops…fortunately, the timing worked out, we saw mom in the hotel lobby…

From there we decided to get dinner…it was still pretty early, but none of us had really had a proper meal yet that day…we ate at kimbap town, though none of us had kimbap…

from there, we took the subway to the stop closest to namsan tower…namsan is a little mountain in the middle of seoul…there is a tower on top, much like the sky tower in Auckland, or the space needle in seattle…from the subway station to the bottom of the cable car, there is no direct walk…you have to walk up a bit, and turn a couple corners…fortunately, we found it relatively quickly…the cable car takes you to the base of the tower, and from there you have more choices…you can eat, visit the teddy bear museum, or take a really fast elevator ride to the observation platforms of the tower…we went with choice #3…despite living in seoul for more than three years total, I had never been to the top of the tower…(or even to the bottom of the tower, for that matter)…I don’t know why…while waiting for the elevator, we had our picture taken…the company takes the photo of every individual/group going up the tower against a green screen…at the top, you can choose to have your photo put against the backdrop of a daytime tower, or a nighttime tower…just because we liked the family photo idea, we decided to get the nighttime photo…fun stuff…mom and hana looked pretty good in the photo…

The elevator ride up is really fast…they play a video on the ceiling of the elevator, which makes you look up, which helps to equalize the pressure in your ears without anyone realizing it…the video is dumb, but you can’t expect a whole lot…something about blasting off into outer space…I found it amusing more than anything else…after we got to the top, we wandered around, looking out at the city…seoul doesn’t have a particularly memorable cityline…so while there were lots of lights, there weren’t any “ooh, aaah, look at that” sort of moments…it didn’t help that along the inner side of the room, lights were on and stuff was for sale…but I’m glad we went up…the line for the elevator to go down was fairly long, but it also moved consistently, so I had no complaints…the line to go down for the cable car was just as long, and moved in fits and starts…it was chilly, all three of us whinged a bit…all in all, it was a pretty good last night in the city…

The next day we didn’t do much, even though mom and hana’s flight wasn’t until 1850…I took them to the airport, said my goodbyes (not easy, and something I’ll never get used to doing, even though I end up doing it a lot)…then I went to lindsey’s flat for the next couple days…

hong kong festivals

the next day, 10 may, was a big day…it was the only day we spent mostly together in hong kong…this year, 10 may was buddha’s birthday…when we first got to hong kong, I wasn’t sure whether it would be as big a holiday as it is in japan and Korea, but it is…it was also the day of the cheung chau bun festival, which takes place on one of the smaller islands of hong kong…I’d never heard of this festival, and wouldn’t have known about it if not for the brochure we were given at the airport…when we first got the brochure, this one the thing hana immediately knew she wanted to see...

we left the hotel just after 0800…as that was earlier than we’d gotten going previous days, I don’t remember hana and I being quite with it, but oh well…we headed to the ferry pier, and after figuring out which boat to take (the fast one or the slow one…we just wanted the next boat to leave, we didn’t care whether it was fast or slow…but there didn’t seem to be a list anywhere of when boats were scheduled to leave) we were good to go…an hour later, the ferry pulled into the dock at cheung chau…according to the guidebook, it’s a small, crescent shaped island…pretty quiet most of the time, this festival is the busiest day of the year on cheung chau…

everyone poured off the boat, and the three of us found each other and set up a meeting point and time…as many people as were already there, and as small as the lanes and alleys were, we knew there was a good chance we’d get separated…so off we walked…and we did get separated…hana and I walked past lots of little shops and stands, many of them selling bun festival souvenirs…you can buy just about anything…keychains, pillows, t-shirts, etc…we walked until we saw four bun towers…one in the middle of a basketball/soccer/rugby/play pitch, and three others right next to each other in front of a temple…I don’t know what the support is for the towers, but the outsides are covered in buns…you know, the white, fluffy ones you can eat all over china…usually the buns are stuffed with meat, veg, red bean paste, or just about anything…most of the buns for this festival are stuffed with red bean paste, or something else, I can’t remember what it is…

the highlight of the festival is the bun scramble…when the starting sound goes, contestants climb up the tower and collect as many buns as they can…the buns at the top of the tower are worth more…the person who collects the most buns, wins…there were supposed to be practice sessions, but we didn’t get to see those…hana wanted to try climbing, but that didn’t seem to be possible…the official bun scramble takes place at midnight, so we didn’t get to see that either…it would’ve been awesome, I’m sure…I don’t know how many people participate…

there was a temple close to the bun towers, and when we got there it was jam packed with incense and people…it wasn’t any different from any other temple I’ve seen, but the incense was pretty intense…huge sticks of it, small sticks of it, and every size in between…the inside of the area was cloudy from all the smoke…add that to the heat and humidity and I wasn’t feeling so steady…WHOA…as we were leaving the temple area, we were stopped when a couple dragons entered…and by dragons, I mean two people working together covered in a costume…a very colourful costume with a huge headpiece…there was some dancing around, and it probably meant something…and a whole lot of people trying to get the perfect picture…

from there we walked down another lane, which seemed to get smaller and smaller as we kept walking…or maybe it was just the increasing number of people who seemed to be around…or maybe it was the heat and humidity continuing to get to me…I don’t know…

as we walked down the lane, we ended up watching as two dragons “fought”…one of them ended up bowing down to the other…I’d love to know the story behind what happened…that probably happens all day long…further along we found a couple of the bakeries that make the buns…apparently this year not as many were made, because some law was passed requiring that the stamp on the outside of the bun be put on on the premises of the bakeries…in the past I guess they’ve done it elsewhere…having to do it at the bakery somehow meant that not so many buns would be made this year…I’m not exactly sure how it all works…anywho, from the time we got off the boat hana and I knew we wanted to buy one of the buns, just to see what all the fuss was about…we watched as they put the buns in the steaming ovens, and as they took them out…HOT HOT HOT…then one lady got to work stamping…it’s not difficult, but it must be hot as all get out…as soon as she stamped all the buns in a tray, it was moved over to a table, and the buns sold…for less than a dollar each…hana and I each got one, then moved out of the way…as we kept walking, we realized there was a long queue…did we jump the queue when we walked up to the bakery from the other side? We never did figure that out…apparently mom did jump queue, and was told to go back about 300m at some point while she was wandering around…

another purchase along that lane was some sort of juice for me…it was red…other than that, I know it came from a tree…I’m assuming there was a fruit on that tree, but the picture they showed me had no fruit…anywho, it was good, and liquid, which I very much needed…from there we found our way back to the path along the water, which was marginally less crowded…there is a parade with this festival, scheduled to start at 1230…so barriers were being set up for that…at one of the souvenir shops hana ended up buying a festival t-shirt, the same shirt many of the guys involved with the dragons were wearing…we figured that made it “official”…I’m pretty sure the shirt was big enough to hold three of hana, but that’s beside the point…mom bought a pillow with the festival logo on it…I bought a small tote bag…

we got back to the ferry with good timing, and ended up near the front of the line for the next boat…I ended up standing where a fan was blowing, which felt great…the ferry was an hour back, and pretty calm…I don’t mind those kinds of ferries…back at the ferry dock we were hungry/thirsty, and mom and hana wanted caffeine…of course we went to starbucks…just like in seoul, there are starbucks every two blocks in hong kong…(if only coffee beans were that common!)…

from there we went to the subway station, and started making our way to lantau chau…the biggest island of hong kong…it’s the island on which the airport is located, but not an island that is heavily visited by tourists…there are plenty of good hiking trails all over lantau, and a mate from high school tells me a good group of expats live there as well…the train seemed to take foreva to get there, but we did have to ride to the end of the line, and it definitely wasn’t express…oh well…from the subway station, we walked toward the cable car…at first, our plan was to take the cable car up to a temple, and then take the bus down…in the end we decided it would be easier just to take the cable car both ways, and bought round trip tickets…we bought tickets for the regular cable car, not feeling the need to spend an extra $50HKD per person for the crystal cabin…the only difference (that we could figure) was that a crystal cabin has glass on the bottom so you can look straight down …when I’m in cable cars I don’t spend any time looking down, and we were able to see everything anywho…hana amused everyone in our cabin by reading about the views we’d have from different places during the ride…one view was fantastic, another beautiful, etc…I think there were five specific views in all, and they all had adjectives to go with them…I guess you had to be there…is the view of high rise apartment buildings ever that exciting? Or an airport?

At the top of the cable car we got out of our cabin, and headed straight for the loo…I was keen to get to the temple to see a performance listed in the booklet we’d been given at the airport, but bodily functions have to be taken care of, eh? When you first get out of the cable car, you walk through a village that is entirely made up of souvenir shops and places to eat…there is nothing about real life there…I think there was a theatre of some kind, but it didn’t sound interesting to any of us so I doubt hana or mom remembers either…after walking through the village we finally got to a big plaza area…on one side was a set of steps leading up to a huge Buddha…on the other side was a path leading to a temple…I wanted to find the “hall of heros” to see the performance…when we got there, I was a bit disappointed to see a clown on stage…really? For buddha’s birthday you have a clown performing? I think there was some kung fu later, but it wasn’t as interesting as I had hoped…oh well…we walked through the temple (which was quite small, there were donation boxes everywhere – they are collecting money to pay for a big expansion to the temple) and bathed Buddha…there were several places where a bird bath type of fountain had water running, and you could take a little bucket and pour water over a little Buddha…I’m not sure what this is supposed to signify, but everyone was doing it so we did as well…some people seemed to think Buddha was really dirty, as they poured quite a bit of water over him…others stuck with only one or two scoops of water…

We met up with mom in between the temple and the big Buddha…right before meeting up with her hana noticed a cow wandering around, so she went to take photos…we also shopped a bit in one of the souvenir places…they were selling little bookmarks with people’s names written on them in Chinese…my name was easily found…hana’s and mom’s names, not so much…though we found dagmar and other not so common names…I had fun teasing hana about that…

it turned out that mom had already gone up the stairs to the Buddha, so she waited while hana and I did the same…the views from up there are great…it’s the largest outdoor seated bronze Buddha, or something like that…I don’t remember…what i do know is that there are a lot of big buddhas all over asia, and many of them claim to be the biggest in one way or another…

the line for the cable car on the way back down was pretty long…when we got our tickets to come up, the lady said that the last cable car going down would be at 1830…thankfully, because it was a holiday and there were so many more people than usual, they kept running the cable cars after the normal closing time…I guess normally they tell people that you have to walk down if you’re late, but not on this night…seeing the footwear some of the people in line had on, it would’ve been really amusing (for me, anywho) if they’d had to walk down…there is a path that basically runs under the cable car, and it would be beautiful, but not so much after dark, and it definitely wouldn’t have been a quick walk…for whateva reason, the guy in line who sticks out in my mind would’ve had an easy time walking down…he was simply head and shoulders above everyone else…I wonder how tall he was…he actually stuck out from the crowd, due to his height…I don’t know why I’ve mentioned him at all…anywho, after the 25 minute cable car ride, we got back on the subway and went back to our hotel…a long day, and I think all of us were exhausted…

hong kong with the fam part 1

After the fun of a rushed transfer in Beijing (for those of you who care, you do get a stamp in your passport when you transfer through mainland china, even if you’re not staying) we landed in hong kong after 2100…baggage claim was easy, as was just about everything else…while waiting in line for immigration both hana and I were given brochures with events happening in hong kong around that time…and a decent tourist map of the area as well…yay…

we wanted to take the train into the city, which was also easy…for some reason you can buy cheaper tickets one way if you get more than one at a time, but you can’t buy those discounted tickets round trip…I don’t get it, but whateva…we also bought octopus cards, which can be used for most hong kong public transport, as well as in 7-elevens and other various places…mom had a mixup with her airport express and octopus cards, but we still made it to our intended stop all right…we checked into our hotel and were a bit surprised at the smallness of the rooms…but it’s hong kong, and unless you’re paying through the nose, you’ll never have much space there…hana and I went to sleep straightaway…

the next morning we met up with mom, and figured out where to start our day…we all wanted breakfast…despite numerous trips to hong kong, I haven’t spent time in any restaurants save one, but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to find food…one of the areas on mom’s list of places was times square, and I figured there had to be food somewhere around there…I’m sortof ashamed to say it, but we ended up at a place that starts with mc and ends with donald’s…then we decided to split up and shop…we set a meeting point and time, and went our merry ways…

hana and I headed first to lululemon…it was originally a Canadian company, though I think it might be American owned by now? (Americans are taking over the world, you know)…it’s a yoga/workout sort of clothing company, and I love it…it’s a bit on the pricey side, but the quality of everything is absolutely fabulous, and well worth it…it would’ve been really really easy to spend a LOT of money in there…as it was, I came out with a tank top and jacket, hana got a jacket as well…I also pointed out what I’d love to have as a Christmas/birthday gift if I happen to end up in a place that has a winter season next…hee hee…I don’t really expect that to happen…that particular lululemon store isn’t easy to find, and operates by word of mouth…despite this, it’s a pretty busy place…one lady in there seemed to want to try on and discuss every bit of clothing in the store, which was annoying as there are only two dressing rooms, so a small queue formed, to which she was allegedly oblivious…oh well…that store has now moved though, so they were stamping the new address on the back of everyone’s receipts…

after lululemon I was happy, and didn’t really care what we did the rest of the day…so we meandered through a number of different places, just checking things out…it’s been quite a while since I’ve spent that much time shopping for nothing in particular…we met up with mom at the designated time, and had dinner at the spaghetti house…very western, but fine…none of us were really feeling the need to have Chinese food…and that was it for the day

the next day was mother’s day…so we started the day with a fight…argh…so we separated for the day…hana and I took the ferry to Kowloon…somehow, I’ve never taken the ferry before…crazy to think that before the subways went under the water, people had to take the ferry every single day to get back and forth…it’s not a long ride, and the ferries go regularly, but it would still be a huge pain…it was very warm and humid, especially in comparison to the weather we’d had in Korea, but the breeze felt good…we got off the ferry and the first place we visited was starbucks…I really ought to buy stock in that company…we wandered along the avenue of stars (I think that’s what it’s called) which is amusing more than anything else…just like in Hollywood, they have stars on the ground of famous Chinese actors, complete with handprints…there were very few whose names I recognized, but oh well…hana showed off her muscles in front of the statue of bruce lee…lol…

from there we took a footbridge over the road, and started walking up Nathan road…it’s the heart of tsim tsa tsui…sometimes referred to as TST…i probably don’t say it right…that’s the area I stayed in with ivan and layna, it’s full of tourists and touts and craziness in general…along the way we were offered copies of designer purses and tailored suits, but we weren’t interested…and do I really look like someone who wants or knows anything by prada or any other designer name? I briefly took hana through the chaos that is chungking mansions…one of the only good things about that place is all the Indian food you can find on the ground floor…we each got a piece of naan as a snack for later…we continued up the road and ended up on a bench in Kowloon park to eat our naan…since it was Sunday, the place was packed with Filipinas enjoying their day off…there are a lot of Filipinas domestic workers in hong kong, and the standard day off is Sunday…according to the paper, they don’t even get minimum wage!! The union is fighting for a pay increase, who knows if it will happen…hana listened a bit and enjoyed hearing the familiar sounds of tagalog…at some point, a guy from the ivory coast (was it the ivory coast? Maybe Ghana, or Kenya, I don’t remember for sure) stopped and talked to us…then we moved on, and ended up at a little plaza…

there was a sign put up that said this was the kung fu corner…according to the sign, there was a show every Sunday, from 1430-1630…it was 1400, so we grabbed seats and waited…it was fun…the first act was a dragon…one of the dragons where it takes 10 people to keep it going, and the choreography is pretty complicated…after the act was finished, they invited members of the crowd to stand inside the dragon to have pictures taken…I was going to stand inside, and have hana take the picture but a guy offered to take it for us, with both of us in the photo…yay!! After that little photo session was over, the next offer was for kids in the crowd to be part of the act…really cute to see some of the kids hold up parts of the dragon…the next few acts were various people demonstrating different types of kung fu…I know nothing about it, but it was neat to watch them…I liked the lady with the fans the best…

we didn’t stay for the entire show, but continued up Nathan road, just wandering…hana got a bit turned around and thought we were walking back toward the water, but I knew where we were…getting turned around in hk is very easy to do…we found a couple places to get food, and on the way back to the ferry, picked up Indian food for dinner back in the hotel…the ferry ride back was nice, though it was good to get back into air con…we were both sunburnt, but oh well…

the next day we split up as well…hana and I started our day by taking the subway to the bank of china tower…you can go up to the 43^rd floor for free and have a great view over the city…while on our way to the tower, we met a dutch guy who had a long layover on his way from holland to new Zealand…he was using the time to wander around hong kong, though w/out a map he wasn’t really sure where he was going…or where he wanted to go…we ended up seeing him in the tower as well…from there hana and I went to the tea museum…it’s a free museum, one I hadn’t seen previously…all about tea in china…where it’s grown, how it’s served in different places, the importance of tea in society, etc…boring, but fascinating at the same time…and apparently there had been a contest of some sort, people entered ceramic tea pots and cups they’d made…I loved all the displays…

our next stop was a food court under a nearby building, where we had more starbucks and sandwiches from prêt a manger…(a chain I’ve also seen in the UK)…from there we walked out to st john’s cathedral…I can’t remember why, but hana wanted to see it…it’s a beautiful church, and still active…next on the list was the mid levels escalator…they say it’s the longest covered outdoor escalator…it’s not all in one stretch, there are a bunch of different bits…if you travel the whole thing you’ve gone about 800m…from 6-10am it goes down, but the rest of the day it goes up…after each section you can get off and take stairs down to street level…hana and I rode it all the way up, then walked back down…on the way up I’d spotted a salad shop, so on the way back down I got a salad for dinner…even though I’ve been out of Mongolia for a couple weeks, I still find myself craving veggies more than I ever did before…weird…

that was the end of that day…I don’t remember what time it was, but hana and I were both ready to be done with the day…