I know it has been a while since my last recorded adventure and I apologize. But alas I am here and I will try my best to keep this updated in my last 3 months of the Asian life of Jennifer Lee. Here we go......
So this weekend seemed shot from the beginning. We had to work Saturday to make up for getting a long Holiday next week. So Friday night we headed out for a few drinks to celebrate Randel's B day. Randel is a good friend of mine who works and lives with me. He is a great guy from Ajax, Ontario. He is 25 and still alive. The big party was Saturday night after work, a big party that I myself could not attend. We got off work at 8, right away Ginny (My ESL Ontario friend), Lyndsay (SMU folk), and David, and I went to our Tae Kwan Do grand masters place to practice. For what? OUR BLACK BELT TEST!!!!!! We spend a short 30 minutes practicing we headed home and got some rest.
Nine am rolled around pretty quickly and we found ourselves in the TKD van headed to Suwon (the next city down) to come face to face with 5 angry Korean judges. Our test included two poomsei's and a 1 minute free sparing adventure. The free sparing was thrown on us last minute by Big G himself. We were expecting to come face to face with a more prepared, scary, fierce korean chick. We spent 4 hours waiting in the big gymnasium which of course felt like the Colosseum, watching group upon group complete their tests. My nerves were completely calm until the moment we got out of the stands and headed for the floor to await our turn. My whole body started to shake and I felt sick to my stomach. I guess it really doesn't matter how scared I was because those patterns were burned into me and I didn't even have to think about them as I went through them. I was lucky enough to get paired up with Lyndsay for the sparing and it went well. I left the gym with the most amazing sense of accomplishment, almost as much as dancing across the stage to get that little diploma of mine.
So after leaving there with such an awesome feeling we had to do something exciting. So myself and Ginny decided to join Krista (who is comin to NL with me in Nov.), and Brooks to go bungee jumping. I know I have told you about this before but this time was a lot different. We went by our ankles, and WOW! What an absolutely rush. 45 M later I was able to get that adrenaline rush back.
We ended the day with an adventure to every one's favorite Thai restaurant, Buddha's Belly. Had some amazing Pad Thai and headed home on the subway..... And there you have it Folkes, my weekend worth of fun all wrapped into one Sunday.

a weekend worth blogging about

I know it's been a while but here I am regaling you of my Korean adventures yet again! The weather has been shaping up lately and we have been out taking advantage of it. This weekend was particularly fabulous....
I was so exhausted friday form the long week of work so i kept it low key and watched an episode or two (or like 4) of lost. Couple that with a few glasses of wine and you got yourself an awesome friday night. This is a problem for me now, as I have become addicted and for some reason my computer refuses to d load them to satisfy my 24hr urge...
Since Friday was a late one the 8am wake up wasn't really welcome, however when Randel ands Erin knocked on my door bright and early I was ready to go... We headed to Jebu-do, a beach just off the coast of Incheon. It was the perfect day, the weather was amazing. We climbed rocks, played frisbee, had a clam bake, swam in the pacific, had a few beers, and just spent a lot of time in the sun. Came back prepared for a night of adventure, then the heat stroke/hangover set in and I was toast. Ate some good Mexican food in Beomgye and headed home (despite Jon Kincade's phone calls of hatred for it). Finished the night off with some quality Dan time as she nursed by bright red sun burnt back back to health with a bottle of Aloe. Yes..it's true! I am pink... bright pink.... and in so much pain I could cry, but luckily I am also tough so I won't.
We woke up later on Sunday (I needed the sleep time) to head into Seoul for the Lotus Lantern Festival. Myself and Erin ran into some work friends and headed to this amazing tea house for some Cinnamon chilled tea. The place was beautiful, it had fish tanks for tables and birds flying around the place. The atmosphere was so relaxing. We followed that by a stroll into one of the temples and then a parade. I should point out that it was a 3hr parade.... It was one of those things that your so excited about when it first begins because it was beautiful, and you hoped it would never end...then it doesn't. Either way it was a great show and i got some great pics. Afterwards we went to an Indian restaurant's for some supper, we left when we heard it ran out of curry...How does India run out of curry????????? So we settled on this great Japanese place with again an amazing atmosphere. A class place where they don't pack your food up to go, so our good friend Danielle breaks out a ziploc bag and scoops her leftovers into her purse... god why can't I have just one normal friend.
A missed subway and some good exercise running for the bus and we were headed home to our little town of Anyang to rest out sleepy heads before starting another week of work.
I love this country... I really do

The western world has evolved into a "survival of the richest" kind of society. This may be a slight alteration of the famous words of every one's good friend Charles Darwin... let's refer to him as Big D. Since being in South Korea I have grown to appreciate the words in their true form. Let me explain....
As I rode the subway home from the center of Seoul late Sunday evening I noticed that 75% of the the occupants of line #4 were dozing quietly. Sleeping through the loud subway sounds and the conductor's announcements, each making sure to set a hand phone alarm to be certain not to miss their stop. The reason for their exhaustion? Well, without thinking I assume they are much like myself, heading home after a long weekend of partying, getting ready to start a new work week. But alas, I am wrong.
Korean society prides itself on work ethic. Let's start with their students. At a young age they attend their regular Korean school, after which they don't get to bask in the sun (or smog) they are enrolled in several academies. sometimes up to four or five. This can include science, math, and the very common English academy. After high school we move into university. A life that involves living away from home, being with friends, learning and living. For many Koreans this also involves working a weekend job that can include up to 12 hour work days for Friday Saturday and Sunday. Next they move into the business world, you get out of school and you work a 9-5 right? Wrong again little ones. Longer hours, weekend shifts, always being available. All this is topped with a growing need to learn English, a language that is complicated frustrating a time consuming, not to mention expensive.
In South Korea's capital city, Seoul, there are 10 million people. That's a lot of people competing for the best jobs, for the best universities, for the best academies. You have to have not only money to pay for it, but you must be willing to work harder than anyone else around you. Competition is tough, the strongest do survive. I am referring to mental as well as physical strength. The body strength to ensure you can endure those long days (as well as bad air quality), and it comes to power of mind to talk yourself into believing you can do it.
It's easy to feel for these weary eyed subway patrons. This 40 minute commute might be the best rest they've had in weeks. And I complain when I have to wake up before noon.....

World Cup Stadium

So.. for Dave Cotton's 23rd birthday we got tickets to see Uraguay play South Korea at a FIFA friendly game in world cup stadium. Our seats were 8th row midfield. The game was great, the seats were awesome. The atmosphere was unbelievable. I have never seen so much red being worn in one place at the same time, I have never been in such a big sports complex.. So many people. korea's team is called "The Reds" and for a team that apparently is not doing so well they had a large cheering section.
Towards the end of the game 4 people that we were sitting with (friends of Dave's) decided they were gonna streak across the field. Now I thought to myself that that might be a bad idea. I mean faterall it's not just a soccer field..it's the world cup field... Let's be serious. but no before I could contemplate their plan any further they were running across the middle of the field, the players just kinda staring nd wondering what the hell the waygoek's were doing. I am thankful that they don't know the meaning of the ord streak and were runing fully clothed all over the place. These are pretty big guys it it took a few little korean police officer men to take them down.

The game ended, Uraguay 2-0. We headed over to RMT (a canadian bar) to continue the adventure. We had a great night full of adventure.

I'M 23!!!!!!!!!!!!

So i guess it is time to write about my b day adventures before time slips by as quickly as it does and I have more stories to tell. It all began on March 10th at 8:30pm in Hong-dye in Seoul. We had a reservation for 35 at a place called Carnie Station. This is an all you can eat all you can drink for 2.5 hours, 22,000won (approx 22 Can.). They have it all, galbi, pasta, veggies, soju, wine, beer, and hard liquor. We had a nice little room and had a great time.....
The lovely Maggie Campbell came to chill and introduced us to her boyfriend Jason who had some connections at this korean hip hop dance club. He got us in for a deal. The place was great since it wasn't too busy we had our own tables and a whole dance floor to play on.... The night led us to route 66 for some more drinks and...wait for it... MOZZA STICKS!!! Then to another bar for an hour while waiting for the subway to take us home! At Tinpan we hung out had a drink and danced on the tables (wouldnt be a good night without it).. then headed to the subway, quick stop off at McD's for some breakfast and home by 8am!!!!
Slept till two. Danielle, Dawne, and myself woke up to go meet a korean friend Ally for lunch. We had some great mexican food then took a walk in Gagnam. Upon walking down the street we came across a mob of screaming girls. While trying to see what's on the inside we realize that it's some sort of korean movie man surrounded by body guards in pin stipped suits and fun earpieces. Also there were about 6-7 news cameras. The guy is giving out candy to the girls (since it was close to the korean "white Day" which is Valentines Day for girls). He sees me a motions for me to come into the circle. His body guard retrives me form the crowd and I meet him, while trying to resist the urge to ask for his name after telling him mine. I feel as if this might have been a bad idea..him being famous and all... I mean how do you think Bon Jovi would react to someone asking him his name on the streets of New York City? I pick a piece of paper form a stack and of course I can't read it. It said I get to take a photo, so someone takes a poloroid and passes it to me. He says good day and moves on and then i get attacked by a few cameras asking me "How do you feel?" Well..."I'm just so overwhelmed and Excited!" In a very sarcastic voice, thank god they don't understand the concept of sarcasm in this ocuntry so I think I'm safe....
Chaulk it all up to experience in the country of wonder and in the fabulous life of.....Jennifer Folkes....
So it goes...

Bungee Jumping

...."and I'm freeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, free falling...." was what was going through my head when we decided to take the plunge. Literally. From 45 feet in the air with a cord that has its safety in its elasticity. We finally did it, in a city called Bundang for 25 dollars, Erin, Paul, Brooks, and myself. The weekend after we watched Dave Cotton and his friends do it we couldn't wait until it got warmer. We woke up at 10 on a cloudy Sunday and hopped on a bus.

Going in, we signed our lives away and go strapped in by a man who didn't speak our language. Prayed a little on the inside that he wasn't explaining some essential safety rules, then we rode the elevator slowly up the 45 m to the platform. I was to go third. To our disappointment we got strapped by our waists, which is far from the ankle jump we anticipated, however maybe it was better to ease into these things. I couldn't think of it as I stood there waiting. What was I thinking about? "54321, 54321, 54321" if I did let what I was about to do cross my mind I may have hopped right back on that elevator. So I get there and he attaches the rope and says "54321 Bun gee OK?" and even though my mind was like heck no I'm not ready my mouth opened and said "OK". And as he did his countdown I decided that i couldn't do i but as soon as he said bungee I just automatically went........AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH YEAH FUCK YEAH!!!!!!!!

For the first second it was oh this sucks, then it took my breath away for a few seconds. Then you ease into the cord, no whiplash as I expected... so you get this sense of safety back form the harness holding you so tightly then you recoil. When you get up so high again you lose all sense of safety because the harness is tight against you anymore... then you get it back as you fall...repeat three times and you get lowered into a boat and all it good....

Next time I'm all over this ankle business!

I got my baby back...

And it has returned...the love of my life, my computer! And so much has happened since I've lost it! We have 5 new teachers at our school. Two of which are the fabulous Erin Pittman and Paul Mackay from SMU. I am more than excited! They got in on a Friday night right after we got off work. Tired and jet lagged we dragged them out for Galbi. Saturday night we joined some SMU folk and some youngdo folk at Wara Wara. This is a soju bar (Korean vodka-rubbing alcohol) that serves its soju in a hallowed out pineapple. Tres excite, however really dangerous.
Sunday we went to Seoul Grand Park and checked out the zoo! This is a really large zoo with lots to see but we didn't have much time so it was really rushed. We will return someday. Highlights: the gorilla getting angry and the raccoons mating.
I'm starting to think about the school I will be attending in Feb 2008 and its put me in a state of saving more money than I have been. This lead to a cancellation of travel plans for Sept, as I am extending my contract till Oct of this year. I am still hoping to get to China and then make it home to do a cross Canada drive with Dan. (so get your couches ready!!!)

So it's finally over, the bane of my existence, the intense period of intensives.... Today we go back to our regular sheduale of 2-10 and I slept many mnay last night. i am well rested and ready to teach! My new classes are great, I got some of my old kids back, and I am teaching one of the new IEP classes that includes science! Yaya, I love science!

We had a great weekend Friday i introduces Jen Jean to facebook, she'll never be ther same again! i apologize to her boyfriend who might not see her as much because of it! Saturday we went to a place called platinum for Matt's birthday. It was 30$ all you can eat and drink for 2 hours. After that Krista, Ginny, Jon (the new guy) and I went to Suwon to hang out with the east coast folks.. Dawn'es boyfriend just arrived from Canada so we welcomed him properly, it was a really great night!

So it's off to work I go, walking the streets of Anyang till I reach Hagwon-ga to face those fresh new faces who are ready to learn and who love English with all of their Seoul souls.

Intensives

So i have not updated my new found blog recently for one reason....intensives. I am busy having my soul sucked! I am working mon- fri 9am-8pm teaching 3 3 hr classes with a 2 hr prep window. Now I'm not saying it is hard to do.. I'm just it is taking a lot out of me and everyday I feel my exhaustion increase. It doesn't help that my last class of the day is an older J1 class that have no desire to learn English or to listen to a word teacher says.

Jimmy teacher (from Arizona) also known as Dangerous teacher makes the day go by faster with his constant classroom interruptions! My classes think he is hilarious, and i think it's great to have a littl break!

So this week consists ofnot only working time but report card time. Let me tell you about this... i have 3 classes with 14 kids each, thats many many report cards! it's not bad it just takes a lot of time to do the comments on each child and be as honet as you are permitted. It is more of smile and give many A+'s as you can so the parents will be happy and keep sending their child to the school!

ICE FISHING

This weekend we had signed up for an ice fishing adventure with adventure Korea. This is exactly what I got, an adventure... We drove on a bus up north until we were 20 min form the DMZ. We spent the first part of the day ice fishing on a lake with hundreds of other Koreans hoping to be the one to catch the 3 fish that might have been in the river.. i didn't catch any... Then we did whey call bare hands fishing. When we signed up for this we assumed it was when we stick our hands in the hole to get a fish.... Boy were we wrong, it involved getting into shorts and a T shirt and jumping into a man made pool that was full of water pumped straight from the frozen lake and stocked with fish. WTF.... The only thing I caught was pneumonia...

After a while longer we took the 30 min bus ride to our lodge that took 3.5 hours! the we were informed that it was a 5 min walk..it was actually a 15 walk, uphill! But it was worth it the accommodations were nice, we had cabins of 10 which worked out since there was 10 of us there together. We had a lovely pig roast followed by some drinks (Carlo Rossi for me and Dan) by a campfire. We retied to our room early since it was a long day and we had to get up early the next day) We fell asleep quickly, myself and Martha on the bed, Others on the floor of the bedroom and the rest on the floor of the living room. brooks and George the only two guys in our cabin had stayed out on an adventure. Two of us were awoken 1amish to the snoring of a certain individual...when looking around to see who it was they had to kick they were surprised to find an older Korean gentleman with his pants around his ankles..... Now...lets just say they were a little surprised.....

What would you do? Of course they screamed at him to leave.. maybe he would have had he understood the language. Lyndsay showed her dangerous face as my kids would say. And let me tell you if I'm ever in a fight I'm gonna make sure shes on my side! The Korean mad was found sleeping next to Krista, also covered in black soot 9assuming form the campfire). we were disgusted and appalled by the situation and planned to tell the adventure Korea people about it in the morning. i forgot to mention Kristin, she was a girl who was on the trip alone, a girl who had no one to stay with so we invited her into our cabin to sleep... She did not com home with us, she came home later. We didn't make the connection until the morning when we realized she wasn't wearing pants, and she was also covered in black soot.. SHE SLEPT WITH THE KOREAN MAN AMONGST ALL OUR FRIENDS WHOM SHE DIDN'T KNOW.... or did something sexual with him(lets not assume...) And when all this was going on, the screaming the terror and the tears she did not speak up, she let the poor man take all the crap we gave him, when really he didn't do anything more wrong than she did...dirty dirty girl.. we were not happy!
But I guess its a story to tell. After an awesome trip we took a short bus ride home and all was good. Exhausted and not ready to go back to intensives on Monday. But its ok cause today was the hump day of intensives. For those who don't know this month I am teaching 3 3 hr classes a day. 11 hour work days. They are starting to get to me, but the money is the light at the end of the tunnel!!!

Tae Kwan Do

So i have been taking tae kwan do for a few months now.... this past motnh I guess we have been having some problems with our kwan jang nim (grand master) and people have left the group and the rest of us were about ready to call it quits... however this past Sunday Ginny, david and i attended our Green belt test, prepared for certain failure. It didn't go as bad as expected, despite only one chance to practice our pomsei, tae-bo routine and our kiuk - pa (board breaking) I think we managed to all pass! i was really nervous about the breaking of the boards, i had an awesome routine that had me tackling 4 boards, by attempting one hand chop, and 3 different kicks. After the first board was broken and the crowd of parents cheered for me I was given the confidence to finish them off, it was no problem... Im real tough...
We were also entertained by many other poeple going for their rexpective belts. Some of which were black, and lets be serious, thats real cool! they were doing crazy flips and doing awesome tae bo routines. This motivated Ginny and myself to stick with TKD. And here I am today, green belt and participation medal in hand, rocking out and kickin ass......

Cambodia for X mas

Well I started my world tour 5 months ago, and I swear I have been meaning to start this blog since the day I arrived in korea. So you may ask wha it took to get me off my lazy bum and into the blogosphere? It was my X mas adventure to Cambodia. I have 300 pictures, all posted in my facebook and soon to be on myspace, however these pictures can't express the feelings of the country, it cannot show you all the things that I saw and all the htings that went through my head as we saw them. I know that my words can only shed a small light into everything that Cambodia presented to me, but I believe it is worth the read. I will start from the beginning.....

We arrived in Pehnom Penh on Dec 22nd in a state of excitment, although through this state I couldnt help feeling incredibly nervous, mainly because I had no idea what was coming. We headed straight to the hotel we had booked on the internet (Asia Hotel, 10$ a night). Right outside the airport we were bombarded by people screaming at us, "You want tuk-tuk lady", "Moto, motot?", we were wisped away in a taxi cab. It was dark so I guess I was in no place to judge but at the same time I couldnt help it, it seemed crowded, dirty, and scary. We wanted to see the river, to get there we had to walk through dark streets with people sleeping, begging, and starving (mainly for our attention). We learned quickly that locals thrive off of tourists, offereing motor bike rides and tuk tuk rides to anyone for 1$ American, they are very convienient. I was scared because of the lack of traffic laws, lights, and helmets. I quickly learned not to be scared, they really didnt drive over 30km/hr and you eventually become one with the traffic.
There were many poeple sleeping on the streets, wrapped up in blankets, some holding children. Other people sit on the streets with outstretched arms, some ask for money as you walk by others just have heads lowered with outstretched arms. then there are the children. Those who have been trained since birth to work their cuteness. Some as little as 4 years old approach you (with jewelry, or books) "you want buy book?" "where you from? CANADA EH? I know your capitol, if i tell you will you buy book?" Perfectly rehearsed. It is hard to turn away, in fact the first 5 are darn right impossible to turn away, evetually you force yourself to smile and shoo them away apologetically. You have no choice, i realized that it wasn't going away, I would see this for the next ten days, I had to deal with it. It was harder still when approached by victims of the land mines that still inahbit the country side of cambodia. People missing limbs, poeple who are badly burned, poeple that have no other choice but to beg for food, money, survival.
The next day we ventured to the killing fields, and to the S-21 museum. It was here that I learned about the Khmer Rouge regime. They had taken over Cambodia is 75 and stayed until Vietnam invaded in 79. The recency of it makes it even harder to believe. the killing Fields consist of large mass graves containing more than 100 bodies each. All you see is large holes in the ground, some have bones sticking out, others have articles of clothing close by. there is a sign pointing out what they call the "killing tree". They would lay their victims against this tree to stone them to death because they didnt want to waste bullets on them. There is a large monument on the grounds that house 8,000 human skulls in memory of the 8,000 ppl that were killed in the fields. The S-21 museum is an old school that they had turned into a sort of concentration camp during the regime. It is hard to qwrap your head around the brutality that occured here first because it is just inhumane and also because all of the modern cambodian schools look identicle to this building. This is the place where they interrogated individuals who were accused of rebelling and not obeying the Khmer Rouge. They had children trained in their armies. You could se epictures of 5 year olds holding large guns pointed at older people threatning their lives. They killed any intellectuals, basically anyone who was educated or had any connection to the former government. They wanted to raise the perfect working race, genocide at its finest. Thes museum also hosts the pictures of all the individulas that were kept at this apecific location. It was interesting to look at their mugshots and see their personalities comming through. In many you could see the dear in their eyes, but it was also possible to see indifference, ignorance and anger.

On the 24th we caught the bus to Siem Reap where we would explore the ancient ruins of Ank or wat, and many other temples form the asnkor dynasty. There is somethign ironic and almost wrong about spending Christmas day exploring the mother of all Buddhest temples. We hired a driver for the two days we were there, he doubled as a tour guide. It was really interesting to see all the structures, the archeteicture is amazing and there are no words to express thefeeling that comes over you when your standing in front o somehitng thousands of years old, somethign with so much history, so many stories, most of which you will never learn. My favorite temple was Bayon, it is known as the strangest temple, it was built by one of the most powerful kings of Ankor and it includes many carvings of a face, and while standing at any point withint the temple you see the face form 8 different angles.... It was at Ankor Wat that I was approached by the Khmer monks. the typical monks dressed all in ornage just chillin and payin respects to Buddha. they are eager to speak to foreigners to practice their english. They asked many questions, "What is your favorite part of this temple?" being one of them. What do you say to a monk? ummm "It's real big...." His question sparked my interest in finding out an appropraite answer so i asked him the same question. he responded as follows: "weell i have a new favoriet every day I come here, today for example it is your face, I feel so happy inside when you smile at me, so warm"!" this is the point where I decided that any boy wanting to sate Jennifer folkes but go through training first...training done by Buddhest monks.

Now you would think X mas away form home would be very hard. It was, I missed home alot (esecially after the 52$ 15 minute conversation with mommy and daddy). But keep in mind I did this trip with Danielle hiscock, one of my best friends in the whole world! it helped havbing her there, we did a little X mas morning party together, made the best of what we had, had a laugh. She kept a smile on my face all day...

Boxing day we woke up to catch a 7am boat to battambang. the boat was full so we got on a smaller boat that only help 13 or so poeple, there were 6 foreigners on the boast and we had plenty of room. It was a lovely day, the sun was hot and we were all smiling. we began to pass the floating cillages along the river. This was so interesting, these people had to take a beat everywhere, their house was floating in the middle of the river, as was their shcools, their stores and anythign else you would require. Now this stopped being so inetersting when we stopped at many places to pick poeple up and bring them on the adventure. The boat got crowded quickly. 7 1/2 hours later we got off the boat... I will not comment any further on this day....

The next day, since we didnt have enough of the travelling at this point we hopped on a 5 hr bus back to Pehnom penh, then transfered to a 4 hr bus ride down south to Sihanoukville. Or as i like to call it, the love of my life. On the journey we met a lovely Australian couple form Brisbane. One of which is a med student at the university I will be attending when I head that way (it's all about connections when you travel). We stayed in a nice hotel close to the beach and took motos around. The beach was beautiful, sitting on the gulf of Thailand soaking up the sun. We spent the whole day lounging. Don't be fooled, we hadn't escaped the poverty of Cambodia. All along the beach were children selling sarongs and bracelets. Older ladies offering massages, manicures, pedicures, waxing, and food....anything... I got a manicure and pedicure for 4$ American. Since I was travellign with the nicest person in the world, a person who has the inability to be mean to anyone in the world we got lots of attention. We even made two really great freinds. That evening we stayed on the beach for supper where the sun bathers quickly turn into club hoppers. the afternoon bars turn into nice restaurants, the whole beach is lit up, some even having bonfires/ fire throwing shows. The atmosphere was unbelievable. the next day was spent the same way, swimming and relaxing. We took a moto to these water falls that were supposed to be breathtaking... Now I'm not saying they were bad but maybe I had big expectation (you know commin from a town thats names GRAND falls...) but they were little and not impressive..... So with that it was back to the beach, that wa simpresssive. One of our friends came back, she spent the whole day hanging out with us. We learned alot from her. I learned that they must pay 10% American to go to schooll every month. They usually earn this money by selling things on the beach to tourists. These children come form rather poor families, however she did say that both her parents worked and that they always had food, just no money for shcool and clothes. But she did ok on the beach selling things, and she was leaning alot, she was a ridiculously smart kid. I also learned that school teachers make 15$ a month. That evening we had supper with our Australian friends andjust relaxed. Our last night in Sihnoukville we stayed in a really nice 5 star hotel (grand Sands Hotel, 20$ a night). Lounged by the pool, had french toast for B-fast, and took real nice showers. After saying a tearful goodbye we hopped on a bus back to pehnom penh for our last night so we could get up early the next morning to shop around at the markets and catch our 8pm flight.
The markets are all about bardering and walking away until they beg you to come back and agree to any price you say! It was entertaining. Our tuk-tuk driver took us to a boxing match. This was our last Cambodian adventure and it was very entertaining. It is a big weekend event there, many gambling.... And finally we made it to the airport... Landed down in Bangkok. If you watch the news i am sure you are aware of what happened with the bombs. 6 Went off downtown before we took off, we were cleared for take off, we were the last ones who were. Our plane took off at exactly midnight, right before 3 more went off. HAPPY NEW YEARS, congratulations, you survived bangkok.... Of course we didn't know about these until we landed safely In Incheon. And surprise, the airport McDonalds serves breakfast...perfect end to an amazing adventure.....

Again I have to say that my pictures as well as my words cannot express all that is Cambodia but I hope this helps to paint a picture of the country that is in much need of attention and love....