Diving in Nha Trang

So Vietnam is interesting, to say the least.

The first day was awesome, then a little rough.

I left for the airport from school around 4PM and met Paul who came 15 minutes late. It's not a big deal but I thought he had died because you know, he's never late to anything. Anyway, once we finally met, we headed down to the "express" subway and took that to Gimpo airport where we transferred to the airport express train to Incheon.

Originally, Paul and I had been iffy about the whole trip because of typhoon Ketsana killing a bunch of Philippinos and crashing through Da Nang but.. we decided to brave it.

Apparently though, tropical storm Parma is chilling in the Philippines.

I check the weather everyday... and it looks like this.

The angry red thing would be Parma, and Paul and I are right to the left of it in Nha Trang. Woohoo~

Also, weather.com is a big fat liar because it told me it would rain everyday here, but we have yet to see a drop of rain.

Not that I'm complaining, of course.

So when we got to the airport, we had a pretty exciting moment. When we boarded, we found that we couldn't find our seats. But that confusion turned to excitement when we realized

we were in the wrong section! Yeah!!

So we decided that getting a free upgrade is pretty sweet.

Access to USB and power outlets is pretty grand not to mention the excessive leg room

and ginourmous TV screens.

A good time was had by all.

When we got to Vietnam, that's when the fuss started :(

We had a 6 hour layover in Vietnam so we arrived around 10:20 PM in Saigon (or Ho Chi Minh City). Little did we realize that the airport SHUT DOWN AT NIGHT. So after finding that we had no place to go, we called around a few places, got ripped off by the cab driver a little bit (OK at least we didn't fall for the guy who wanted $50 to go somewhere 10 minutes away) we ended up in a little guest house. The bathroom smelled a little like urine but we had hot water, and more importantly an A/C.

OK, so early the next morning, we got in the cab again, and flew down to Nha Trang where we waited for a cab that was supposed to be arranged for us...

but then after 15 minutes of waiting, asked for a phone.... and found out there were no phones in the airport (WTF??). We got in a taxi,

borrowed the driver's cell phone, and called the dive shop.. but not before the cab driver called a hotel who claimed to know our dive guy and that he wanted us to stay at his hotel.... anyway......

Well, we made it to the dive shop in one piece and everything got easier from there on. The dive shop guy yelled at our cab driver who tried to charge us too much then got us situated. BTW, the word I would use to describe all of the dive instructors at Scuba Dive Vietnam would be.... trés Français... OK so two words. Paul and my dive instructor's name is Jérome who operates the shop with his partner Richard (pronounced Rishard). They are DEFINITELY French. Jérome was a French chef for 15 years (10 of which he owned his own French restaurant in the D.C. area) who then decided he wanted to scuba dive for a living... so he became an instructor. He stays in Nha Trang 9 months out of the year then spends 3 months in New Caledonia cooking and saving up for the next 9 months. O.o I told you... very French.

Nha Trang is BEAUTIFUL. The skies are blue, the weather is hot, and everybody drives around a motorbike. Communist propaganda is as bountiful as palm trees. Living is very cheap.

There are tons and tons and tons of diveshops here. On our 2 minute walk to our dive shop, we pass 3 other dive shops. Diving is also incredibly cheap and good. If anyone wanted to get certified, I would hands down, suggest Nha Trang.

The first day was pretty slow - Paul and I stayed awake for a 4 hour video then did a few minutes of class with Jérome. We then had lunch, then headed over to the pool to test our skills in the water.

Paul had a little difficulty with his ears. I didn't have any trouble at all with mine, which surprised me... maybe my condition is improving!

We then headed home where Paul and I did a little bit of exploring.

We saw some chickens on display at a store... maybe for eating?

and a store with a stuffed ostrich and crocodile

We also had a bit of a feast at one of the local restaurants

where apparently, every hour is happy hour (we each got a free beer for eating there).

There are also fun lizards here which Paul loves.

Can you find the little guy?

Today, we woke up at 6:30 and headed for the dive shop @ 7:30 AM. Paul decided to wear a T-shirt with a french man standing on top of a whale, thinking it is an island, and putting a French flag on top of it, for the irony.

but no one understood :( What a shame.

At the dive shop, we met other divers and headed over to the pier where we got on a fun boat

and headed over to the diving spots!

The view from the boat was breathtaking.

On our way, we saw a fishing village

and a German ship registered for Monrovia?

We finally got to our spots

where we put on our gear and headed for the water. Jérome then conveniently told us that he does underwater photography so there will be fun pictures for people to see tomorrow when Jérome gets those pictures to us! :)

The first dive was a little scary, I have to admit. We felt, unprepared and moving around was pretty frustrating. We also tried not to get too close to anything because our flailing usually ended up in a big sand storm.

When we got out of the water, Jerome talked to us a little about what to do and what not to do and gave us a few pointers. We then snacked on delicious delicious dragon fruit and home baked goods.

Our second dive was AMAZING. We finally got our bearing in the water and went a little slower. Paul, who had been frustrated as anything after the first dive, calmed down and enjoyed the dive. Oh, the reefs were so beautiful!

On the way back, we were all smiles

Again, the evenings were free so we spoke to Jérome about his life then headed for another look around the city where stray dogs are abundant.

Stay tuned for more!~

Jongmyo, Insadong, and Hangang Park

OK, so update about the whole pan thing. So apparantly, Paul 'approved' my whole pan buying experience while he was asleep. So when the pans appeared on our doorsteps the other day, he was very confused as to why there were 4 new pans in the house. I'm not giving them back. hehehhe. He says that he'll get me back by asking for a new watch while I'm asleep. We'll see :)

On another note. So, Paul is on his vacay and my classes have been really light because students are studying for their midterms. In the US, if midterms are around the corner, too freakin bad, we're gonna have classes right up to the midterms right? Well, not so in good ol' ROK. So here, students get a lot of "self-study time". If we have tests or anything along those lines during the week before midterms or finals, parents call the principal, and us teachers get a trip to the principal's office. Testing is a very important matter! So right now, my students are working hard, studying for their 13 tests and I am in the classroom writing up this blog post!

OK so, because Paul isn't working this week, we have a ton of energy to explore Seoul. On Monday, we went to Jongmyo... one of the few shrines that Korea has to offer.

Paul decided that it was high time that I got a picture taken of me so here I am, blue shirt, backpack and all! This is in front of the main shrine.

According to Wiki, Jongmyo was built to hold memorial services for deceased kings and queens. I was expecting really a lot of cool stuff to be in there - but it was quite empty.

What was really nice about it, though, was that from inside the walls, you couldn't see any of the modern skyscrapers and the air was relatively fresh.

It was also beautiful.

Anyway, the ceremony. The kings themselves took part in this ceremony, conducting it with the high officials.

So these are the vessels used to hold all sorts of ceremonial lootz for the spirits. Most will carry either alcohol or food to try and pacify the spirits of all of the deceased kings and queens. One particular piece that Paul and I liked was the dragon pouring-spout-thing. It contains some kind of grain alcohol (of course) and the king would pour the wine from it into some kind of hole in the ground 3 times to try and make the spirits happy. Paul and I think the kings were just trying to make the spirits drunk so they could bribe them with food afterwards. Also, outside the building, there was a mysterious iron handle on the ground.

Paul thought that maybe the Korean dudes put treasure in there, and if you could lift up the stone, you could get to the treasure. We decided maybe if we harness up the poops and we both pulled, it'll give way a little :)

Also, the pillars were kind of these lame colors. In Jeju, the pillars on the buildings were very intricate and all sorts of fun colors, but these were just a plain aqua/turquoise-y color with minimal design.

But the shrine made it all up to us by having these awesome grates that looked like faces

(Paul decided to feed these 'faces' some acorns)

and an awesome tree

It looks like it ate some children or something.

There were also some cute oak trees there and so Paul found some triad caps.

Paul and some people ran around gathering acorns.

Paul, to collect them because he likes big piles of stuff...

Other people... to eat them because acorns are tasty.

The best part of the whole thing, though, was that at the exit gate, there was a cute little bin.

Roughly translated, it says "the acorns real owners are the chipmunks!!!"

So, people threw their acorns into the bin

:) Now the chipmunks have something to eat during the winter if they accidentally wake up.

After our fun times @ Jongmyo, Paul and I decided to go to Insadong.

Insadong is just a big tourist-y place with lots of traditional food and shops. It's really fun to go there, but it is kind of out of the way so we don't go too often.

So the main purpose of this trip was to satiate Paul's craving for Kon-guk-su, AKA bean noodle. A couple of months ago, Paul and I were running around Insadong when we got really hungry. We just wanted to get a quick bite so we went into this noodle shop that had only 4 things on the menu. It was blistering hot out so we decided to order said kon-guk-su and just had a terrible time with it. The best way to describe the texture is... smooth and grainy? It doesn't have much of a flavor besides this umami dark roasty taste.. like peanut butter. Anyway, it wasn't what we expected so we just kind of chowed it down and went on our merry way. The taste though stayed with Paul and so as of a month ago, he started craving it. We attempted to order it at some fast food place near us, but it was just watery and not flavorful at all, and just created a bigger craving. So while we were in Insadong, Paul got a chance to satisfy the craving.

I realize I should ave taken a picture of this thing BEFORE I started chowing down on it, but I promise it's not as gross looking as it looks.

So basically, you have some chewy noodles, you put some matchstick cucumbers into it, then pour a cold bean slushy type of mixture on top, and voila - kon-guk-su. It's a summer dish and is served cold.

Yesterday, I came home to Paul sleeping...



and after waking him up, the pups decided that they wanted to be restless.



so we decided to visit Hangang Park (gang means river so Han River Park). They've (the city and its government) been doing a ton of construction on it so we haven't actually been back in awhile.... But there was a restaurant that I've been wanting to show Paul for awhile so we decided to bike along the river.

We loaded up the poops and headed west. The skies were blue!

When we got there, we decided to check out the new structures that they'd built. To our surprise, there was a concrete BMX bike course O.o and an art-bike exhibit.

So if you're wondering what an art-bike is...

These bikes are open to the public.. so of course, being the adventurous folks that we are, we decided to have a go on them!

This bike is propelled by jumping up and down the back portion of it.



What a fun science project it would be to analyze the different simple machines on these!

We also decided to get on one of these made for multiple people to ride on.



Weeeeee!~



As you can see, I decided to steer and made Paul do all of the pedaling :)

We wanted to ride a few more - especially the one with the toilet cover as the seat o.O but it was 5:00 and they were closing. We vowed to come back sometime and have some more fun.

After leaving that area, we still had a lot of energy left. Paul went to the park convenience store (the 7-11 hehe) to buy some water and I let Kamja off the leash to let him run around.



He was entirely too happy to be free!

When Paul came back, he walked Tank - we can't let Tank off leash because he will run away :(

Here he is peeing!!!



He likes to lift his leg up high into the air to pee on tall things... like grass.

So Paul and I headed over the river path to the Secret Garden (the place I wanted Paul to see) but on the way there, Kamja jumped out of the basket (Paul didn't put a blankie in his so it was uncomfortable, I guess) and almost got killed by oncoming bike traffic. :( I yelled at Paul :( :( :( and then stole my puppy and put him in my comfy basket where he esentially laid down and enjoyed the rest of the ride. I also made sure to buckle him in this time.



Poor puppy :(

When we finished, we laid the blanket down and rested awhile. Paul found a fuzzy weed and decided to look like a farmer.



Then he became grumpy as we saw a very angry black rain cloud coming toward us. We huried home and gave puppies their din-dins! Overall, a pretty good day!