Thanks, but I'd rather not live with you

Humorous, strange, and downright illogical things happen to me here on a near-daily basis. Usually there are not enough instances to warrant a mention, so I've compiled a few of the more hilarious episodes in a string of unrelated incidents.

1. Thanks, but how do I politely say, "No, there is absolutely no way I would ever live in your home."

The woman in charge of transportation at my second school, Mrs. Park, has two sons in my fourth and sixth grade classes. Recently we conversed with my vice-principal translating. Here is my summary of said conversation.

VP: Mrs. Park wants to know if you're interested in a home stay.

Me: Umm... well I mean I know what it is, but I already have an apartment.

VP: Mrs. Park says she would like to be a good English speaker. She wants to know if you're interested in a home stay.

Me: .................

VP: What's your favorite Korean food?

Me: Uh, kimbap.

VP: Mrs. Park says she makes great kimbap. She will make kimbap for you if you live with her in a home stay.

Me: Vice Principal Choi, I don't speak Korean!

VP: Mrs. Park says if you live with her, her sons will learn to speak English very well! She lives right next to the school.

Me: But.... Vice Principal Choi, this school is located in the middle of nowhere.

VP: Mrs. Park is very eager to have a foreigner live in a home stay with her.

Me: But I have an apartment already.

VP: So, what do you say about a home stay?

Me: *baffled*

Luckily at this point the phone rang and I made my escape. I have since avoided any and all mention of a home stay because there is no way I will ever live in one, especially one in a town that I only know of a single bus that can take me anywhere.

2. They've taken away my only real joy in life

I've started laminating quite a lot of things because 1) it makes my materials last longer, especially when the little ones put their grubby hands all over them and 2) it's fun. Recently I got to school early prepared to finish my current laminating project (dates with magnets on the back for daily questions) only to find the vice principal had locked the laminating sheets up in the cabinet. He was not in attendance as early as I was. No laminating for me. You cut me deep, Vice Principal, you cut me deep.

3. Teachers' dinners

Koreans are really big on dinners. It's really nice because they almost always invite me, but I'll be honest - I can think of a lot of other things I'd prefer to do with my time. No one will ever tell you in advance (per Korean usual), so expect to get any and all evening plans cancelled at the drop of a hat. It's usually not too bad - you go out until maybe six or seven eating some food, then go home. Oh, did you already have dinner plans with a friend? Perhaps you were going to play soccer. Maybe you needed a new lightbulb that you'd have to travel to Homeplus to get. Well too freaking bad, it's time to build relationships with your coworkers. Oh, what's that? You don't speak Korean and they don't speak English? It's okay, you can just sit in the corner, attempt to eat the least offensive pieces of meat placed in front of you, and hope no one insists you drink six shots of soju while simultaneously never speaking to you. Of course I am exaggerating, but not by a lot. Dinners are tolerable, and sometimes enjoyable, but for the most part they are very boring. Turn on a foreign film with no subtitles. Eat a meal. Welcome to my life. To be fair my coteacher talks to me, and some of the other teachers will talk to me, but overall the language spoken is Korean, and they're interested in speaking to each other, which I can understand. When dinners go over an hour and a half though, I tend to get really antsy. Especially considering we're dining Korean-style, aka cross-legged on the floor.

4. The supreme ruler of the Korean elementary school: the Principal

Because of Confucianism, authority is a huge deal here. Older people get automatic respect, and bosses get even more. Male bosses even more. I know that bosses are in charge across all cultures, but it just seems to border on the ridiculous here (to a Westerner such as myself). To me the biggest problem appears to be that there is no discussion on anything - this is not a democracy, it's a principal-tatorship. Examples below.

1. Because my coteacher is new, I suggested that the students make nametags and wear them in class so that it would facilitate her learning their names. After asking the principal's approval (um, we need his approval for that?), our request was denied on the basis that it would "take too much time" to put on and take off nametags.

2. At a teachers' dinner, we were finished eating. Several teachers took their leave, presumably because they were done eating and perhaps wanted to, I don't know, spend time with their families or something crazy like that. The principal sent the head teacher out to fetch them because he hadn't dismissed anyone from dinner yet. These adults had to return to the table and mill around until the principal was good and ready to end the meal.

3. I went to a teachers' training workshop the other week. I didn't say goodbye to the principal because he wasn't in his office when I left. When I got back my coteacher informed me the principal was unhappy because 1) I didn't say goodbye and 2) I didn't report in when I came back from the trip. Sorry sir, I didn't feel like searching the entire school for you, and then no one told me I would have to report in to you because 1) I don't speak Korean 2) you don't speak English and 3) I had never gone on a business trip like that before. My coteacher taught me a Korean phrase to say and we trooped posthaste to the principal's office so I could offer my sort-of-apology-type-thingy. This was definitely a valuable expenditure of my time. It's not like I teach eight classes on Monday and Tuesday, then five on Wednesday plus two hours of volleyball - I've got loads of time to hunt you down just to say hello and goodbye.

4. I've learned that volleyball is more important than educating children, apparently. I was not allowed to remain behind in my classroom to teach my sixth grade remedial students the alphabet, regardless of the fact that they need to know these kinds of things (seriously, the ALPHABET) to pass their tests to get into middle school. The rationale was that if the principal let just anyone use the excuse of "too much work," he would never be able to successfully run the "teachers' volleyball workshop."

5. My coteacher, the special ed teacher, and the school nurse have no classes on Saturdays when school is in session (Koreans go to school every other Saturday for half a day). The principal makes them weed, landscape, etc. They don't have this time free to lesson plan.

Quick note: before you start thinking my main school principal is awful, he isn't. Sometimes he's very nice. He often gives me rides home so I don't have to take the bus, and he'll pop in occasionally to give me and my coteacher ginseng drinks (very popular gift in Korea). These things are very nice.

This is just a Korean cultural thing. I've heard that a lot of elementary school principals are still caught up in this kind of mindset. That being said, my second school principal is awesome. Examples.

1. I rarely see him. He's not often in his office, and whenever I do see him it's typically in the teachers' lounge. Hilariously enough, he always looks surprised to see me, like "Whoa! Hello native teacher who has been in my school for seven months! Fancy seeing you here!" But we greet each other, and I always get the impression he wants to chat to me but simply can't. There are usually snacks in the teachers' lounge and he's always encouraging me to eat them.

2. He appears to be a very humble man, especially when it comes to dinners, etc. The other teachers have to pressure him into the positions of honor at tables, etc.

3. Volleyball is not the center of his universe.

4. Since the weather has gotten nicer I've seen him outside in his windbreaker and swishy pants outfit weeding, watering plants, and doing landscaping work in general. I approve of his willingness to do manual labor that he could easily order other people to do.

5. He let me go early at the end of winter camp because camp was done, and he thanked me for my hard work and dedication to the students.

5. A Korean's "diet"

After volleyball last Wednesday we had a light dinner of fried chicken in the teachers' lounge. The special ed teacher offered me some Coke, which I said yes to, then offered it to my coteacher. She refused based on the claim that she is on a diet (she's about 5'1" and like a size 2). I nodded politely then kept my mouth shut as she went on to eat about five pieces of fried chicken.

6. Awesome things my coteacher has said to me

1. We went out for a (surprise, surprise) unexpected teachers' dinner with parents of kids from school. I was still in my volleyball outfit, sweats and a t-shirt. Awkwardly, I told my coteacher, "Uh oh, if I had known I would have changed! (motioning toward my sweatpants)" Her response? "Don't worry, they look expensive!"

2. "I get so nervous thinking about volleyball I can't even eat!"

3. "Wow, Nam Kyung-mee Teacher (third grade) is so fat! Do you think she's pregnant? I'll ask her if she's pregnant."

7. Awesome things my students have said

1. 5th grade girl - she likes to call me the devil whenever I do things that displease her, i.e. not giving her candy, refusing to write her homework for her, having the audacity to allow her team to lose, etc. etc. "Theresa, devil! Sujin, angel!" Though to be fair she's a great kid and loves me, she's just teasing.

2. My brattiest student, a fourth grade girl, told me, "Teacher, IQ, zero!" Thanks, kiddo.

3. My coteacher makes bad students write English dialogues as punishment then come to our classroom later so we can check them. After the fourth grade class ended, one boy asked, "Does anyone have to come to your classroom?" My coteacher said no. His response? "Teacher, you will be lonely!"

4. One of my third grade boys had his fancy-pants cell phone out in class. I said, "Inseo, no phones in class!" He pointed at it urgently and told me, "Teacher, message!!"

Cirque du Soleil and Seoul

This past Saturday I went to Seoul to see Cirque du Soleil! The performance I saw was called Varekai, and it was mind-blowing. My friend Chris found out that Le Cirque was coming to Seoul, and he was interested in going, and I've always wanted to see a Cirque performance, so it was decided. I kept trying to explain to my coteachers and vice principal what I was going to see, but the fact that "Cirque du Soleil" is in French was throwing them for a bit of a loop, and saying I was going to see the circus didn't quite convey the message I was trying to send. I finally just youtubed some performances to illustrate my point. I attached a Youtube link of the Icarian games part of Varekai if you're interested in watching. Something I found very interesting and different from what I expected was that the performers actually messed up multiple times. At first I couldn't believe it, but then I thought about it and realized how ridiculous it would be if they landed every impossible trick every time. I thought about how Olympic gymnasts rarely land perfectly, and these Cirque performers were landing most of theirs. It actually added to the show, I thought, because it showed truly how difficult these things were. It stressed me out a lot to be honest - I kept gasping every time they would attempt something particularly scary or challenging. They did a lot of stuff in midair without safety nets, though thankfully sometimes they had spotters on the ground, but not for everything. I was so excited to go; it was such an amazing experience.

Getting to Le Cirque just showed me yet again how massive Seoul really is. I looked up the tourist information about Seoul, and it's crazy to think about the scope of this city. First of all, Korea is about the size of Indiana. A (very brief) Google search of the US Census Bureau tells me Indiana has a population of about 6.4 million people whereas Korea has 48.6 million. A full-blown quarter of the population lives in the city of Seoul, while HALF the population of the ENTIRE country lives in the Seoul National Capital Area, which includes most of the Gyeonggi province as well as the neighboring city of Incheon (home of the Incheon International Airport). According to the Seoul tourist site, Seoul itself is less than 1% size-wise of all of South Korea, so you can imagine calling Seoul "densely populated" is a bit of an understatement. I've put a picture of the epic-ness of the Seoul metro in this post so you can appreciate it when I say the Seoul metro is insane.

Anyway, so here's a sample of the difficulty I have in accessing the city of Seoul. It's deceptively easy - just get to downtown Buyeo (which is very simple) and hop an express bus (heaven forbid I accidentally get a non-direct bus that stops in Cheonan, Gongju, and some other godforsaken town and takes about 3.5 hours to get to Seoul) to the city. The express bus usually takes two hours to get to the Nambu Bus Terminal in southwest Seoul. After landing at Nambu, it's off to the metro. Again, sounds simple. However, if you want to get to Hongdae (the university section of Seoul where all the cool kids hang out), which is usually where I want to go, it's about 45 minutes by metro. That doesn't include the line change which takes about 10 minutes of walking from the orange to the green line. Chris and I were staying in a hostel in Hongdae, but Cirque du Soleil was at the Jamsil Olympic Stadium (from 1988, I think, when South Korea hosted the Olympics), about 15 minutes from Nambu. This meant I had to take a two hour bus, 45-55 minute metro ride, walk to the hostel to drop off my things and change into my Cirque attire, then we walked back to the metro and took our 50 minute joyride to Gangnam for dinner. Then metro from Gangnam to Jamsil, thankfully only about 10-15 minutes. Enjoy Cirque du Soleil, then get back on the metro yet again to cross the city yet again. We could have stayed in nearby Gangnam, but my friends Gena and Elise were in Seoul for the weekend, and I wanted to see them, so Hongdae it was. Phew - it was quite the journey. Additionally, I dressed up for Le Cirque, so that meant I got to spend lots of time standing in heels on the metro. Also apparently I am a giant klutz who has problems walking because I managed to trip and fall while walking to dinner - yeah, that was really embarrassing. In my defense, that sidewalk was really poorly paved. The next day I got to cross the city yet once again to get back to Nambu Terminal. I think I've had my fill of metro rides for some time.

Another thing that I found out almost as soon as I got to Korea that I thought was interesting is that apparently all Westerners cannot pronounce the word "Seoul" correctly. We say "Seoul" like "soul," but if you say that to a Korean they probably won't know what you're talking about, unless maybe they're very familiar with Westerners. The way you have to say it is "Seo-ul" which is the way it's written in Korean with two distinct vowel sounds. I always feel like a bit of an idiot when I'm basically trying to pronounce it with a Korean accent because goodness knows my Korean accent is a total zero.

If you click on the picture, it should enlarge. Or if you're really that curious, you can google "Seoul metro map." Regardless, my stop, Nambu Bus Terminal, is on the orange line towards the lower right hand side. Hongik University (Hongdae) is on the green line, center-ish towards the upper left side. Jamsil is also on the green line, though much closer to Nambu.

My friend Chris

Ridiculous Varekai picture. This woman was absolutely incredible - the picture doesn't even do her justice because you can't really tell but she's just holding onto this block on a peg. She did all these contortionist things with only one hand or sometimes two on just two individual blocks on pegs.

Varekai!

The tent. I'll be honest, it was a bit underwhelming. The arena was much smaller than I had expected, but that was awesome because it meant our seats were much closer than they looked online.

Me at Le Cirque!

Me and Chris in front of the tents.

At the entrance!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huiLtQ-Xybo&feature=related

It's getting personal

So I've been at my new schedule for two weeks, and let me just say I am busy, busy, busy, especially compared to how things used to be. Long story short (and trust me, it's a loooong story involving much frustration), the extra third grade class was cancelled, so I'm steady on with 33 hours a week. When I initially signed my contract to work in Korea, I didn't understand how I could work only 30 hours a week - this sounded like quite a deal to me. However, after teaching for almost seven months, I realize how much 30 hours a week teaching is. Teaching itself isn't the hard part, though it's certainly not easy to simultaneously control, entertain, and educate a roomful of faux-jaded 13-year-olds, it's the planning that gets you. Good lessons don't materialize out of thin air, especially my after-school classes. I find curriculum classes to be much easier because you have a book you follow that comes complete with visuals, CDs, exercises, and games, whereas my after-school classes are just whatever I decide is worthwhile to teach - anything ranging from phonics to songs to verb charts to red light, green light if the little ones are being good. I have to think up a topic, then try and somehow complete the trifecta of fun, educational, and useful.

It's definitely getting easier as time goes on, though. I'm learning more and more what works and what doesn't, I have lesson plans from last semester that I can fall back on, and my new main school coteacher is much more strict with the students, so I don't spend as much time (fruitlessly) trying to discipline them. She also speaks quite a lot of English and is very intent on increasing the students' English levels. We have eight classes on Monday and Tuesday, so four in the morning and four in the afternoon. A lot of my in-between class time is used checking students' homework (my coteacher assigns noisy students English dialogues they have to write), or more often than not class runs over into the 10 minute break time. Sometimes I don't even have time to run to the bathroom! Honestly though, I really am taking more pride in my work - I feel like a real teacher, and I'm pleased to see the students doing what they're supposed to. The longer I'm at my schools the more connected I feel to my students, and especially my main school students, the troublemaker school. My coteacher confirmed that lots of my students don't have parents, and most are very poor. I kind of figured this because the town I teach in is mostly a farming town that looks pretty rundown. However, it hit me pretty hard today. I had typed up listen and repeat dialogues for the students to see on the projector, and several complained they couldn't see it. Later my coteacher told me she asked the kids why not, and one of my fourth-grade boys said that he had bad eyesight, so she asked why don't his parents take him to the eye doctor, and he said they have no time because they have to work so much. How sad is that? A little boy's parents don't even have time to take him to get an eye exam because they have to work so much. One of my sixth grade girls apparently cursed at my coteacher because my coteacher assigned her homework for not paying attention in class, and my coteacher said she spoke to the girl's homeroom teacher, who told my coteacher that this girl has problems at home, namely an alcoholic father. Really makes me re-think my own problems.

Now that I can talk more with my coteacher, I'm learning more and more disheartening news about my students' education levels. In my remedial classes, the sixth grade homeroom teacher sent me six students who failed their beginning of the year English exam. My coteacher said the kids need a 40 out of 100 to pass and get into middle school. I have four sixth graders who only got 40s, so they got sent to my remedial class as well. This means I'm now up to 14 students, which is too many for this kind of class, so I'll have to speak to my coteacher about it. I feel bad because I don't want to kick out my students who really want to learn more, but I need to devote my time to those kids who really need it to pass their test. In my remedial class today, I learned that five of my sixth graders don't remember the alphabet. I was really perplexed by this as a few of them weren't actually remedial students; in fact, they can read! How do you not know the alphabet but can read? I'm so baffled by this.

Earthquake

Last Friday was the massive earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan. I don't know too much about the nuclear reactor problems and how serious they might be, but I just wanted to say that even though South Korea is incredibly close to Japan, it hasn't been directly affected by the quake. Personally, I live on the west side of Korea, so anything that would come to Korea from Japan would have to cross the entire country before it could get to me (as Japan is east of Korea). Also the earthquake was on the northeast side of Japan, so it was on the wrong side as far as affecting Korea. Obviously there could be far-reaching effects when it comes to the nuclear reactor, but I don't know anything more about it. For now everything is fine. Please keep Japan in your prayers.

Turns out I'm a karaoke natural

We all have our callings in life, and I think I've found mine - professional karaoke-er. Not singer, mind you - I'm a terrible singer. HOWEVER. Fortunately for me, the Korean karaoke machine doesn't bother with silly things like "talent." Instead, I think it judges you on a combination of 1) Volume 2) Enthusiasm 3) Lyric knowledge. Luckily, I happen to excel at all three categories! Suffice it to say, as one of my Buyeo friends recently said, I'm basically the queen of the noraebang (karaoke). I rack up the hundos like it's my job. I went to the noraebang last night and last week, and I'm just saying that I got 100 on Destiny Child's Survivor, Bohemian Rhapsody, Rihanna's Umbrella, and a Kpop song (my Korean friend Boyoung did the Korean parts and I filled in on the English parts). Anyway, the noraebang is tremendously fun.

Recently my English friend Celina here in Buyeo has been pretty homesick, especially for all these English things I'm not familiar with. Her dad also had to go into the hospital the other week, so it's been a tough time for her. I decided in order to cheer her up I would try my hand at making an English dessert - banoffee pie. Apparently it's a banana-toffee pie that doesn't require an oven, so that was all I needed to hear. I enlisted the help of another Brit, my friend Chris, who claimed to make a mean banoffee pie. We schemed to go to Costco (two weeks ago) to pick up the ingredients: sugar, cookies, butter, cream, and sweetened condensed milk. Alas, Koreans don't really do sweetened condensed milk, and I thought the plan would come to naught. Luckily, an American friend of mine told me that you can get sweetened condensed milk at a special market in Daejeon. Chris goes to Daejeon fairly often, so he volunteered to stop by this market and try to find milk. He was successful, so this weekend he came to Buyeo for Operation: Banoffee Pie. We were slightly out of our depth with this because unsurprisingly, it's pretty hard to make things when your only cooking tools are a wok, frying pan, chopsticks, spatula, and a subpar can opener. But it was okay - REAL cooks don't need measuring cups! After some guesstimation, we melted butter then mixed with with crushed cookies for the base. Then we melted more butter, poured in some sugar, stir stir stir, then add the sweetened condensed milk and stirred some more. We sliced bananas to put in the pie then poured the toffee into the prepared crusts and let it sit.

Then came the real challenge: whisking cream sans whisk. Instead, we used forks to whip the cream. After awhile Chris got the idea to get two forks and rub them between our palms to mimic an electric mixer. Let's just say that if either of us are ever to be stranded on a desert island and need to rub sticks together to create a fire, we've got loads of practice now. After a full hour (no joke) of whisking, we had to call it quits as we were supposed to meet some people "out on the town" of Buyeo (see: noraebang, above). We Tupperwared the cream for Round 2 at a later time.

The next day I went to the dollar store and bought a whisk, and we actually managed to create "soft peaks" in the cream, which was a sign that it was finally ready. I told Chris next time we were going to go American-style and just get some Kool-Whip or something. ("But it's an English dessert! I don't even know what Kool-Whip is!")

We made a pie for Celina and then we had enough left over for four other little pies, so naturally we ate one. It was really good! It was ridiculously sugary though. Sadly, Celina is out of town this weekend and won't be back until late today, so I have to postpone giving her the pie until tomorrow. I think she's going to be really pleased though!

Boyoung, Jake, Chris, Carl, Misa - this is us in Seoul for a going-away party. There's too many people leaving! The new school year means that a lot of people's contracts are finishing so there's been a lot of changes.

My coteacher, his wife, and Kevin. I finally took them out in Buyeo last Friday. That toxic-looking green stuff is kiwi soju cocktails.

Noraebang last night. This is us singing Backstreet Boys' "Backstreet's Back (All Right)." Sadly I think this performance only garnered like a 93 or so.

Banoffee pie! It's got chocolate shavings on top.

Chris, my sous-chef. Well actually he was probably the head chef what with being my resident English dessert expert.

The times, they are a changin'

To reiterate what I was saying awhile ago about how I can always count on things to change, this new semester has brought some tumultous times with it. I'm still having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that all my students have gone up a grade, and consequently I'm having trouble planning their lessons because I'm so used to the fourth grade being 10 students and knowing that the fifth grade are the troublemakers, etc etc and now I need to learn two new schedules and figure out new classroom arrangements and such.

I am SO not a fan of my new schedules. I miss the old setup so much - this semester has shifted classes more towards the morning so as to make time for "sports" in the afternoon, apparently. This means I teach four classes each morning with ten minute breaks in between each when I used to do two, then a 30 minute break, and then one or two more. At my second school I used to have first period free, and now I don't have that on Fridays. No more kindergarten at my second school either - I used to teach 1st/2nd together, but this semester those classes are separated into 1st and 2nd.

Working with my new coteacher is also a major change. It's good because she speaks good English, but by the same token, this means she actually wants to talk to me all the time. I'm very used to sitting down at lunch and just focusing on eating my food without accidentally consuming any fish bones or whatever, but now we talk during lunch. Also whenever I ask her questions about stuff she has a tendency to go on for awhile when really I just wanted a quick answer so I can go back to my work. A very nice lady though, and she's very gung-ho about English education.

Speaking of English education, here's the biggest change to my schedule: overtime classes. I work 18 hours at Seokyang, my main school, and 12 at Seokseong, my second school. Two of my 18 hours used to be teachers training, where I taught English to various Korean teachers from both my schools. However, this semester they are too busy to take the class, so my principal and coteacher were looking for other ways to fill this time. The principal suggested kindergarten/1st/2nd, but I had what I thought was a better idea.

My main school classes are fairly large (25-29 students), and their English abilities are really varying in each class. It makes it hard to teach everyone because some students can't even write while others look bored senseless. Anyway, so this was my thinking - I had three classes to fill, so why not make review classes for my students who were struggling? This was the perfect opportunity - I would only accept certain students, so there would be less students per class in addition to giving the kids more time to learn the material. I thought this was a better use of my time rather than teaching kindergarten, which I think is kind of a waste of time. I know that learning languages is much easier when you're younger, so I can see the thought process behind having me teach kindergarteners to give them a bit of a head start on their English education, but let's be honest - how much do you really think that one 40 minute class per week is going to teach them? Having taught one kindergarten class last semester, I'll tell you how much. Almost nothing. They pick up vocabulary like you wouldn't believe, but if you want to teach them vocab you don't really need me. I thought that spending an extra 40 minutes with my older students would be much more beneficial.

My coteacher was a big fan of this idea, so she approached the principal. Long story short, he liked it too (all the teachers thought it was a good idea), but he still wanted the kindy/1/2 classes. New proposal? I teach four extra classes. I was pretty leery of this idea because it means that I'll be teaching 34 hours per week. This means that out of a 40 hour work week, 34 of those hours will be spent actively teaching. That means I'm down to six prep hours per week, and if you've never planned lessons, it's hard to understand the work that goes into it. In my opinion the actual teaching is easy; like most things, it's the prep work that's where the real work lies.

Either way my coteacher was definitely pressuring me to take the classes, and to be honest I really wanted to make them happen. For one, they won't require any extra planning because I just want the students to show up with the material we're working on at the time and then just go over it again. Another thing is that I'm liking the idea of overtime pay. And finally, I'm really excited to get a chance to really help out my students that I know have simply fallen behind and never caught up. It's hard because I see them in class, not participating, but now I know that it's not stubbornness or a refusal to learn, it's more that some of them just can't keep up, so they can't participate because they just don't know the answers.

The new schedule starts this week, and I can't lie - I'm pretty nervous. I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew. Wish me luck!

Pictures from Koh Phi Phi, Thailand

Pictures from Phi Phi Island, Thailand

Sunset heading back to Phi Phi

Cliff jumping! 10 meters

Cliff jumping, 8 meters

Preparing to scale the rock face!

Monkey Beach

The beach on Phi Phi

Snorkeling with Jasmine and Blake

Maya Beach, where they filmed that Leonardo DiCaprio movie The Beach

Maya Beach... yeah, Leonardo DiCaprio and I have swum in the same water. No big deal.

Maya Beach again. Most beautiful beach I've ever seen.

More Maya Beach. I took more pictures of this beach than of Phi Phi!

I'm holding a quarter of a pineapple that has the stem attached so you can eat it like an ice cream cone. Amazing.