Starting a new life in the USA

Monday November 28th my life abroad ended.  In March I stopped teaching in Korea. Went back to the US, traveled a bit there, then mid April I went to Spain to start my trip around the world. I went to 10 countries: Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Thailand, Myanmar, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea.  That trip ended Monday.  By Friday I had started working again, making jewelry at my friends jewelry store in Iowa.  I wanted some more time before I started working, but I'm glad I have a job.

Being back I feel....awful.  I enjoyed my life in Korea, and my life while I was traveling.  And now my life is so different.  I feel like I woke up from a nice dream and now I'm in Iowa and all my friends, and the rest of the world are a million miles away.

Summer travel

I'm going to Malaysia on Saturday till August  16.  I chose Malaysia for my summer vacation just because I've never been there before.

new school year update

This week the students have midterms so I have a lot of free time at school.  I like it.  I try to do something productive while I am here.  I usually study Korean, and this week I started editing my photos from my trip to Japan in February. 

Tomorrow I'll go to Taiwan till May 6th.  About 2 weeks ago I found out I would have May 1st-6th off, so I decided I should go some place.  If I was in the US and had 6 days off I probably wouldn't go anywhere.  But while I'm in Korea it's so easy to travel to another country I want to travel every opportunity I have. 

The school year is going fine so far.  And since we are using the same books as last year lesson planning is much easier because I am mostly able to use the lesson plans from last year.

This is supposed to be my last year in Korea and it's really making me feel pressured.  I mostly feel pressure to improve my Korean as much as possible.  I have been here four years and I am really disappointed in my speaking ability.  I'm also feeling pressure to learn CAD better and make a good portfolio.  I have made a lot of designs with CAD, but I'm not confident that I am making good ones.

Japan trip 2015

In February I went to Japan from the 14th till the 24th.  I spent the whole time in the Kansai area.  I traveled around a lot.  I went to Osaka, Kyoto, Horyu-ji in Nara Prefecture, Ise Jingu in Mie Prefecture, Hiei-zan in Shiga Prefecture, Koya-san in Wakayama Prefecture, and a few other places.  It was a really good trip.

At Meoto-iwa, where it was very windy:

Ginkaku-ji in Kyoto was much better than I expected:

Someplace on Hiei-zan:

Koya-san:

キン肉マン in Osaka:

Back from the US

I was in the US Jan 20th - 30th.  I got back to Korea Sunday morning around 5:00 am and was home by about 8:30am.  I flew from Chicago to Hong Kong, spent a few hours at the airport, then flew to Seoul.  Whole thing was about 24 hours of travel, not including the time going to and from the airports.  I didn't sleep well during any of that time, so when I got home Sunday morning I spent most of the day sleeping. 

My trip wasn't very good.  I never really got over my jet lag and I didn't have much time to just relax.  I was too busy meeting friends, shopping and doing some other things I wanted to do while I was there. 

I brought two 50 lb suit cases full of things I don't need back to the US, but looking at my apartment it still seems pretty full. 

Today I'm at school and don't have much to do here.  Tomorrow classes start.  We will have 2 weeks of classes then more vacation time before the 2015 school year starts. 

Going to japan again

I have a lot of vacation time this winter, so I decided to go to Japan again.  I'll be there for about 10 days next month.  I'll be flying to Osaka, but I haven't really planned what I'll do yet.  I'm just going because I like Japan and it's easy for me to go there since I live in Korea.  Once I'm back in the US it's a $1000+ plane ticket and a 14 hour flight.  From Seoul it's about 2 hours and I'm paying about $250.

Visiting the US

I'll be visiting the US this month from the 20th to the 30th.  I plan to eat a lot of food and buy some stuff.  I'll also bring back a bunch of things I don't need here.  I have way too much stuff here. 

Japan trip

I went to Japan August 9th - 19th.  This was my 6th trip there since 1997 and it was great, as usual.  I was going to take a boat from Busan, but it was canceled cause of the weather.  Luckily I was able to get a flight for not much more than the cost of the boat ticket.

I flew from Seoul to Fukuoka, train to Kagoshima, boat to Yakushima (an island), jetfoil back to Kagoshima, flew to Osaka (KIX), then took trains between Osaka, Kyoto, and Nara.  Flew back to Seoul from KIX.

The pics below are from my phone.  I haven't had time to go through all the photos I took with my DSLR yet.

This is what I brought.  Each trip I try to bring less than the previous trip.  I didn't like that my bag was so full and I didn't have room in my bag for my camera.

I liked this white ant sign in Kagoshima-shi.

Yakushima

Me in front of a 3000 year old tree. 

 Toudaiji.  

I was finally able to buy more of my favorite incense at Toudaiji.  Last time I was there was 2004.

Deer near Toudaiji.

Fushimi Inari Taisha 

Japan trip

I'm going to Japan next month.  August 9th - 19th.  The main purpose of this trip is to go to Yakushima.  But I will also be going to Osaka and Kyoto.  This will be my 6th trip to Japan.  Living in Korea, I am so close to Japan, but this will be my first time to go there since I came to Korea.  I'll be taking a boat to Fukuoka from Busan and flying back to Seoul from Osaka. 

USA trip

Last month I went to the USA from the 14th till the 27th.  It was the first time I had been back to the USA since I left February 29th, 2012.  I mostly spent the trip eating food I can't get in Korea, meeting friends and shopping for clothes.  I also got a new driver's license.  Mine expired over a year ago so I had to take the driving test again, which was silly.  It was good to drive again, I just wish my parents had a more fun car to drive.

Visiting the US

I'll be visiting the US Jan 14-26.  This will be my first trip back in nearly 2 years.  I can't wait to eat hot dogs at Portillo's.

Summer vacation plans

In a few days I'm taking a trip to Singapore and Indonesia.  August 8-19.  I'm not sure what I'll do in Singapore, but I'll only be there a couple days.  Going to Borobudur in Indonesia is the main purpose of this trip.  I'm going alone, and no, it's not "sad" or "too bad" that I'm going alone.  I like solo travel.

Hong Kong trip

I took a trip to Hong Kong January 21 - 25.  The first 3 days were nice, but on the morning of the 4th day I woke up really sick and just got worse as the day progressed.  Flu I guess.  I was too sick to go out and I stayed in my hotel room all day except to go out to get some food and drinks in the evening.  It totally sucked.

Hong Kong was pretty cool, but I don't have much interest in going back.  It wasn't that interesting.  I planned to go to Macao but I was sick that day.  I'll post pictures of Hong Kong later.

My friends wedding

My friend Colin McDonald, who I have known for about 35 years, got married May 26th in Kyrgyzstan.  He has been teaching English here in Korea for about 3 years now, and met his wife here.  She is ethnically Korean, but born and raised in Kyrgyzstan.  Most of her family is there, so that's where they had the wedding.  I was one of two best men.  Because it's the middle of the semester I was only able to go for a few days and didn't get to see much.

The wedding was held at a resort on Lake Issyk Kul, out on a pier which is barely visible in the photo below.  In the distance, what looks like clouds, are actually the snowy tops of mountains.

 View from the pier:

Back from my trip

I got back from my 3 week trip to Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia yesterday afternoon. I'm at work today, but I have the rest of the week off because its a holiday.

I had wanted to keep updating my blog while I was on my trip, but I didn't feel like it. I'll write about the trip later. I have several thousand photos to go through first.

Golden Buddha at Wat Traimit

Today I went to Wat Traimit to see this statue. It's the largest cast gold statue in the world. I think I read it was an 80 or 90% gold alloy. It was cast in something like 10 parts, in the 13th century. It's almost 10 feet high and weighs over 5 tons.

I'm in Thailand now

I got to Bangkok late last night. I will write more after I go through all the photos I took today.

New bag: Aeronaut

At some point in the last several years I became very interested in bags. Not ugly designer bags, but functional bags and luggage.

I am going on a trip next week, so I thought it would be a good time to get a new bag. I got a Tom Bihn Aeronaut, which is made in Seattle, Washington. The bag has a shoulder strap, and also backpack straps that can be put away when they are not being used. I won't be taking anything that doesn't fit in this bag, including the small back pack I will use when I am out sightseeing. I tried packing it, and there is plenty of room, including my small backpack and the jacket I will wear to the airport, which I won't need once I get to Bangkok.

The packed bag weighs about 20 lbs. I really wish I could bring less stuff. I'm going to go through what I plan to bring and see if there's anything else I can leave out. I'm not taking many clothes, its just the weight of all this random stuff that adds up. The two heaviest things are my netbook (3.2 lbs), Nikon D90 DSLR + 18-200mm lens + flash (total wt. about 3.4 lbs).

I won't be able to carry it on the plane, I'll have to check it because Air China has a ridiculous 11 lb weight limit for carry on bags.

winter vacation plans

Winter vacation is approaching. Yesterday I bought plane tickets to Bangkok. I'll leave January 11th and return January 31st. I haven't finished planning the trip, but I also want to go to Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and Laos while I am in that area.

Vacation - Daegu and Busan

I took my vacation from August 6 - 17. I mostly just sat around at home, but I also went to Daegu and Busan for a couple days. I was planning to go Monday Aug. 9th, but decided to leave Sunday night since I had nothing better to do. Since I planned to stay at motels I didn't need to worry about hotel reservations. I got to Daegu station around 1:30am.



Monday I walked around Daegu a bit. I found this jewelry area near the station, but it seemed to be mostly just retail stores:



Later I met an old friend from GIA. She had just returned home to Daegu a couple weeks ago after studying Japanese in Tokyo the past year. She is the same person I met when I was in Tokyo last year:



Around midnight I went to Busan. I don't know anyone in Busan and there wasn't anything in particular I wanted to do, so I spent most of Tuesday just hanging out at Haeundae beach, which is where I spent most of my time last year in Busan.







The next day it rained most of the day. I rode the subway around with no destination in mind, which I like to do, something no one else seems to understand. And I went to Shinsegae department store in Centum City, which is the largest department store in the world, though it didn't hold my interest very long.

After that it had stopped raining and I went back to Haeundae beach. I had planned to stay another night in Busan, but it was supposed to rain the next day too, so I decided to go home that evening. I think I will probably go back there again either this month or next month.