Dalat, Saigon and now Seoul

Well, the early morning was rough but we made it through and landed in Dalat at 730 am on Sunday morning. We were the only two white people on the flight and towered above our co-passengers as we walked from the plane to the single gate in tiny Cam Ly airport. After gathering our bags, we climbed into the bus into town, whose TV monitor blared peppy Vietnamese song and dance numbers the entire drive. After some deliberation, Uncle Michael decided to spring for a night at the expensive Sofitel Dalat Palace, a beautiful building with towering ceilings and by far the comfiest beds in Asia. He said that I deserved a treat after my hospital trip, but really he was rewarding himself for spending the entire night in Vietnamese taxis.


We recuperated in our posh room for a bit and then walked into town for some lunch and a travel agency to book our next day's drive to Saigon. Our meal was delicious and wonderfully cheap - two bowls of pho and two Saigon beers for less than $3 - and Dalat Travel, although a bit hard for us to find at first, gave us a great deal on a car and driver for the next morning. Our chores finished, we opted for a local bus ride up to Lang Biang Mountain, a beautiful peak outside of town where you can hike to small villages in the hills. Unfortunately, as we reached our destination, it began to pour harder than I'd seen the whole trip (until the next night in Saigon!) and our plans to hike were looking dim. We went back to the bus, whose driver and ticket collecter were still sitting there, and asked if we could catch a ride back down with them when they left. The ticket girl smiled and told us they were leaving in 10 minutes, so we walked across the street to a little store to buy a snack. I decided on Choco-pies - strange HoHo-like cake things that each contained 10% of your daily fat intake.

As I was paying for the Choco-pies, Uncle Michael and I heard the bus start up. I was still waiting for my change, but we thought they wouldn't leave yet, since we had asked for a ride only minutes before. We were wrong. Moments later, the bus pulled away, making its way down the street without notice of my pitiful attempt to run after it and wave. With only Choco-pies to comfort us, we settled into a couple tiny plastic chairs for what we thought would be a long haul. Luckily, another bus came in about half an hour and we hitched a ride back down to Dalat, happy to dry off in our plush hotel. That night, we made use of our comfy digs, especially the amazing library.

The drive the next day was long but again fascinating, with much different scenery than we had seen en route to Halong. The street was lined with children in uniform biking to school and motorbikes toting goods like bamboo, bananas and even ducks. Since we had a car and driver, we were able to stop for refreshments and take pictures along the way.

We stopped for lunch at a little roadside restaurant that our driver picked. It was definitely more authentic than some food we had eaten previously - one of the dishes consisted of deep fried fish, which we ate whole. I even ate one of the heads!


We reached Saigon at about 7pm, checked into our hotel and grabbed dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant next door. After a debate on sophistication levels of sports (Uncle Michael's got a lecture on everything), we rushed back to our hotel in the pouring rain. The next morning started with another trip to the SOS International Clinic for my second rabies vaccine shot. This trip was an absolute breeze in comparison. I called ahead for an appointment and we were in and out of the clinic in less than 15 minutes, the bulk of which was spent filling out paperwork. Here I am on my way out, thankful to be through with Vietnamese medical clinics!

After a bowl of pho, we walked up to the botanical garden/zoo - my third of each this trip - where we took pictures of plants and strange animals before visiting the Vietnamese history museum. When we were done with sightseeing, we walked back to the other side of central Saigon to meet My, a friend of Evan's who lives in Saigon and agreed to meet us for a drink. She was very nice and it was wonderful to meet her!

Then, we headed back to the hotel to shower, pack and have some dinner before my 1am flight home. It felt strange packing my bag yet again, but not for another hotel or city - this time, it was to go home. I'm feeling a strange mix of emotions. I'm very excited to see everyone again and sleep on my new comfortable bed! But I've had an amazing time and it's hard to let go.

Uncle Michael arranged for a hotel driver to take me to the airport and I prepared myself for 27+ hours of traveling. The flight from Saigon to Seoul was uneventful but uncomfortable as I was unsurprisingly unable to sleep peacefully for more than 10 minutes at a time.

When I arrived at Incheon Airport, I was told by an airport attendant that I would have to go to the Asiana Airlines desk for a hotel voucher, which set off major alarm bells in my head. A delayed flight and even longer than 9 hours in South Korea would not bettered by another night in a hotel, free or not! To my delight, the hotel was just for the day, a complimentary service offered by Asiana because my layover was so long. A van picked me up and took me there, ten minutes along a much calmer and more orderly road than any in Vietnam! My room was actually very nice too, complete with fancy bathroom and remote controlled fan. I took a few hour nap, enjoyed a complimentary buffet lunch, and got a shuttle ride back to Incheon for my flight, where I am now. It's almost time to board, so I'll wrap this up. I've had such an incredible time and I appreciate any of you who followed me along this trip! We'll see where I end up next.

Hanoi, Halong Bay and back again

Uncle Michael and I arrived in Hanoi on Tuesday night around 9pm, checked into our hotel and then went searching for a little bite to eat. Right now in Vietnam, the mid-autumn festival (or lunar festival) is going on, so our street was filled with children in bright costumes banging drums and singing, which was a really fun welcome to Hanoi!

By the time Uncle Michael was done taking pictures and we got around to food hunting, most of the sidewalk food stops were either closing up or too confusing for our tired, hungry minds, so we opted for Tamarind Restaurant down the block. While enjoying some soup and a few spring rolls, we noticed that Tamarind shared its space with Handspan Travel, a company UM had heard good things about for tours in Vietnam. Since it was about a three minute walk from our hotel, we opted to come back the next morning to book our trip to Halong Bay. We signed up for a three day, two night tour which included a night on a boat in the bay as well as a night on Cat Ba, the biggest of Halong Bay's nearly 1700 islands. Booking our tour was incredibly simple, leaving us with the rest of the day to enjoy the city! We spent much of the morning exploring the Old Quarter, a famous neighborhood in Hanoi. Ever the photo addict, UM made me pose in the midst of the neverending rush of moto traffic.


After lunch by Hoan Kiem Lake, we poked around Hanoi a bit until the main feature of the day: the water puppet show. Highly recommended by our hotel clerk (and, I hear, strongly encouraged by Aunt Mary), the show was certainly interesting and endlessly entertaining. The program consisted of a live instrumental group who played traditional Vietnamese music while a series of puppet acts paraded through an ornately decorated pool scene. This one is called "Agriculture."

Since we had an early morning departure to Halong Bay, UM and I just had a quick dinnerafter the show and then walked back to our hotel, Viet Anh. The next morning, we met the rest of our tour group at Handspan at 7:45 am (I was a bundle of sunshine, I'm sure Uncle Michael can vouch for that) and boarded a minibus to the bay. The two hour drive was fascinating - a blur of brilliant emerald countryside coupled with French-inspired architecture in every color of the rainbow.

Halong Bay itself was another visual gem, easily living up to its photographic hype. Even though our first afternoon on the boat was a bit hazy, the scenery was still breathtaking. As an added bonus, the bay is filled with enormous jellyfish which I tried many times - in vain - to photograph, both awed and terrified by their immensity. Ok, maybe they're not THAT huge, but they were certainly much bigger than any I'd ever seen. After boarding, we had lunch (mostly seafood, which I ate!), cruised the bay in our junk and toured a surprisingly large cave on one of the islands.

The cave tour was followed by a cool-down on the boat, then a trip to a small beach where we had an hour to sunbathe and take a dip in the Gulf of Tonkin. Fresh off a week in Ko Samui and unable to locate my bathing suit bottom, I opted not to swim and instead was in charge of procuring snacks from the vendors on the beach. As I peered around the small concession area, I felt a sharp sting on my calf. When I looked down, I saw a small dog scurrying away and teeth imprints in my leg.


Naturally, my first instinct was to get a little panicky. During my pre-travel consultation at UW, the doctor had warned me about animal bites and instilled in me some good self-protective fear of foreign dogs. In Thailand when Keitlyn had attemped (and failed) to make friends with the disdainful, indifferent canines we encountered, I had always maintained a safe distance, admiring their snootiness from afar. Now I was on a relatively remote beach in Vietnam, bitten out of the blue by a dog I hadn't even seen until it was retreating from its mid-afternoon snack - my leg. As I rinsed my wound, Uncle Michael went and scoped out the little beast. Fortunately, she looked extremely healthy (not even foaming at the mouth a little bit) and, as our guide Canh informed me, she serves as the watchdog for the family who runs the snack stand. Apparently I came a little too close (to the area where they sold their goods?).

Since there wasn't much we could do that night, I relaxed with a cocktail on the boat and planned to contact a doctor either on Cat Ba the next day or when we returned to Hanoi. The night was actually quite enjoyable, and it helped that we shared our junk with a group of fun, friendly fellow tourers - one Australian couple, Helen and Ollie, who had an adorable daughter named Priya, and a Tasmanian couple, Annie and Andrew, who were the first people from "Tazzy" I'd ever met. I had some really interesting conversations with our group, and a couple funny cultural confusions. For example, Helen said that her daughter was going to need a "nappy," which I took to mean a short period of time spent sleeping. I said that I'd like a nappy too, and Helen reacted quite oddly. I eventually figured out it's because "nappy" means "diaper" in Australia. Well-done, Laura. This is a picture of Ollie and Priya on the top deck of our boat.

Thankfully, the next day was much, much better! I started off the morning with a Vietnamese lesson from Canh, our Handspan guide who was awesome - he was a patient teacher, had a great sense of humor (or at least pretended to laugh at my jokes) and he made the trip a lot of fun. As many of you know, I love learning languages so this was definitely a highlight of my trip! Plus, the scenery wasn't too shabby.

Canh even taught me how to say "A dog bit me on the beach" in Vietnamese. However, when I tried to repeat it, I mispronounced the word for dog. Polite as he was, Canh let me finish my sentence before informing me that most of the sentence was very good.. but I had actually said "a buffalo bit me on the beach" instead.


That afternoon we went kayaking, a wonderful change of pace from the engine-powered, impersonal feeling of touring the bay in a junk. Although Uncle Michael and I stumbled upon an initial rough patch with our rudder, we soon were paddling in tandem funyak harmony, complete with photo shoots in various scenic locales.

That night we stayed in a swanky resort on Cat Ba, much nicer than we had expected. Naturally, since we had fancy digs, Uncle Michael and I got out of there as soon as possible and hopped a couple motos to the national park for a hike.


The hike was short, steep and sweaty, although mercifully devoid of bugs. The view from the top was incredible, surrounded by lush green hills and overlooking a small cluster of colorful houses in the valley below. There was a rickety old tower at the peak that, of course, Uncle Michael decided to climb. Not surprisingly, I stayed below and snapped this shot.

That afternoon we caught a boat to Haiphong and bussed back to Hanoi where we crashed at the Viet Anh hotel for one more night. Since we had a 6am flight to Dalat the next day, our stay was short but not especially sweet, as much of it was spent scurrying around to various Hanoi medical clinics in hopes of finding me the first of many post-exposure rabies shots. Since it was 630 on a Saturday night, we were skeptical about our chances.

Our first stop was Viet Duc Hospital, an emergency clinic recommended by the Lonely Planet guide who claimed that the doctors spoke English, French and German. As soon as we pulled up, we had a hunch this was not true. As we entered the hospital, we saw an open room of cots filled with black-eyed patients and tired attendants clutching syringes and bags of liquid. After a few minutes of hesitantly pondering our next move, UM and I pushed to a small desk, phrase book in hand with the word "rabies" circled in dark pen. The nurse on duty immediately jumped up and asked us in broken English to follow her to the next room, where she quickly spoke to a few of her fellow staff. She then wrote down for us an address and pointed to the door, nodding when I asked if we needed a taxi to get there.

We hailed a cab and drove to the clinic, but when we pulled up the gate was closed and the lights dim. Realizing this was not exactly what we had hoped for, we defeatedly asked the driver to take us back to Viet Anh to consider our next move. I phoned the US Embassy, who referred us to the SOS International Clinic. Their receptionist told me they were open 24 hours and could administer the vaccine, so we again hopped in a cab and drove to SOS, which, frustratingly enough, was only a few blocks from Viet Duc. However, SOS was well-lit, smelled like rubbing alcohol and was devoid of the triage nightmare at Viet Duc. Feeling comforted and reassured, I began to relax a little as we spoke to the friendly, attentive doctor on call - but only until he informed us that they had just run out of the shot I needed and I would have to go to the French Hospital instead.

Yet another cab ride later, UM and I pulled up to L'Hopital Francais de Hanoi, where I filled out a few sheets of multi-lingual paperwork and anxiously awaited my upcoming series of shots. Uncle Michael had warned me the immunoglobulin would hurt quite a bit, and he was absoutely correct about that. As the nurse began loading her sterile little syringes of pain, I started breathing heavily and noticeably fidgeting. I had to get two shots of the vaccine - one in my arm, and the other in my behind, which, if it weren't humiliating enough already, was certainly made worse by my lovely tan lines from Ko Samui. Then came the immunoglobulin - three shots around the bite in my leg that left me clutching the cot with white knuckles and whimpering.

After my mini-horror, Uncle Michael told me he was very proud of me and treated me to a sandwich and a couple Coca Cola Lights. Then we hit the hay with an early morning wakeup (345 am!) and flew to Dalat, where I am now. Tomorrow we drive to Saigon and Tuesday night at 10pm I head to the airport to fly home! Sorry this blog was incredibly long, I've had a big few days! But I'm having an absolutely amazing time in Vietnam and will be sad to say goodbye.

Back to BKK, then Nong Nooch/Pattaya

After returning from Ko Samui, Keitlyn and I had another full day and a half in Bangkok before we met Uncle Michael and headed to Pattaya/Nong Nooch. We spent our first day mostly in the markets. The first was in Chinatown, where a massive multi-block spread held corridors of shops selling everything from ribbon to leggings to Thai-attired Barbie dolls. Afterwards, we went to Bobae Market in search of t-shirts - all over Asia we'd seen wonderful broken English slogans like "Her manner is very feminine" and "I am to be credulous," and we wanted some for ourselves. Sadly, all I picked up was a "same, same" tee, a good find but still a disappointing turn out. Later that day, we roamed around the markets surrounding Khao San Road, where we decided a street food buffet would be a perfect dinner. We ended up with an incredible excess of food, including spring rolls, fresh rolls, sticky rice, fried banana, papaya salad, green mango and some deucers of Chang and Tiger beers, all for about $13 (the majority of which was actually the beer). On the way home, we got caught in our first monsoon rain although luckily we were only about a block from our hotel when it started to pour. Sorry this picture is kind of lame, Keit got the good one of our dinner spread.

The next morning we got up early and took a two hour van ride out to the Dumnoen Saduak Floating Market, the oldest of its kind in Thailand and - we think! - the location of a Top Model photo shoot a couple cycles back. To get from the parking lot to the market, we took a long speedboat past riverfront homes and saw a little bit of life outside the city. The market itself was an enormous traffic jam of tourists being rowed by elderly lady gondoliers past stands full of souvenirs and various treats. Although it was - like much in Thailand - overly directed at tourists' wallets, it was still a hectic and fun place to observe another type of commerce.

That afternoon we hopped a cab to Novotel Hotel at Suvarnabhumi Airport, where we met with Uncle Michael who had flown in late the night before. He hired a driver to take us to Pattaya, about a two hours away, where we were staying at Nong Nooch Garden and Resort. Nong Nooch is actually about half an hour past downtown Pattaya and kind of in the middle of nowhere. I really don't know exactly how to explain the resort itself. I think UM called it "a freaked out amusement park for adults," which is kind of correct. The place is famous for its enormous botanical garden, the largest in the world and the sole purpose for our trip over there (UM is part of a worldwide botany club - yes, he celebrates his dorkdom - and came to Nong Nooch to meet with the curator and take some pictures). The garden itself is kind of like Disneyland, with its different little lands like the Cactus Garden, French Garden and even Stonehenge.

Nong Nooch also welcomes thousands of Chinese tourists each day who come for the gardens, mini-zoo and, above all, the elephant show. NN puts on the most elaborate and slightly horrifying elephant show imaginable. While the hordes of enthralled Asians around us (we were the only Americans in the whole resort) applauded and cheered, Keitlyn and I cringed a little as the poor elephants rode tricycles, played darts, painted and hula hooped before us.

Despite the pity we felt for the performers, we actually had a lot of fun at Nong Nooch. The gardens were absolutely gorgeous and we had a blast exploring them and the mini-zoo. Even better, Uncle Michael hooked us up with an authentic Thai house rather than one of the blander housing options. This is us enjoying a little downtime in our room on a particularly sticky day - Nong Nooch was even more humid than Bangkok and you could break a sweat just standing outside.

On our last night in Thailand, we decided to go into the city for dinner and a little fun. A 30 minute cab ride took us to Walking Street in Pattaya, a city notorious worldwide for its go-go bars and surplus of lady escorts. The street was crawling with middle-aged white men and considerably younger Thai women on their arms or, even stranger, holding their hands.

We grabbed some dinner at a fairly calm establishment and decided to go for a stroll and a little "sightseeing" before heading back to the resort. The entire road is lined with neon signs and scantily clad Asian hookers and hostesses beckoning you to come in, have a drink and oh so much more. While we wanted to have a drink or two, we were understandably intimidated by most places we passed, so we decided on a little hole in the wall spot, apparently called Shangri-La Bar, whose decorations I really can't find words to explain.

I guess the best way to sum it up was "fire hazard." Slightly fearing for our safety and feeling somewhat braver to face the ever-increasing swarm of happy couples on Walking Street, we headed down a couple blocks to some front row seats for the festivities and did some real good people watchin. This guy in the middle had three young fillies accompanying him that night!

Obviously it was an immensely entertaining evening. The next morning we came back to Bangkok, where I said goodbye to Keitlyn - really sad!! - and headed to Hanoi with UM. That's where we are now, going to bed and to Halong Bay tomorrow morning. More on Vietnam later!

Ko Samui - "same same, but different"

Ko Samui has been an interesting experience. In many areas it's breathtakingly beautiful, and it was a really fun place to get to know, but on our last day here we're feeling ready to leave.

After our first adventurous night, Keitlyn and I spent a day relaxing and exploring our hotel and surrounding areas. It felt really nice to be able to bum around a little bit after our first few jam packed days. The following day we decided to book a tour of the island, which came complete with monkey show and elephant "trek," which was actually just a 20 minute ride on a precariously balanced bench on the back of an elephant. Our guide was a funny guy who said "oh my gaaawd" when we went down hills and made us necklaces out of palm fronds.

It was a touristy way to spend the day, but was a good way to see the whole island. Plus, I got sucked on numerous times by a baby elephant. The next day we decided to go to the Ko Samui Aquarium and Tiger Show, where we got to feed monkeys and otters and I enjoyed a short stint as a pseudo bird trainer.

There was also an adorable leopard cub named Fanta that made fast friends with Keitlyn when it ran out of its cage and jumped up on her legs. By the way to my family and other Arrested Development fans - during the tiger show, they played "Final Countdown" and Gob actually would have fit in pretty well with the atmosphere of the show itself. That night we watched a gorgeous sunset at a restaurant on the northern side of the island.

The only negative - albeit humorous - part of our day was an extremely pushy cab driver who took us to the aquarium and insisted on waiting for us until afterwards when he would give us a ride back. Despite telling him numerous times we weren't sure what we wanted to do that day, the man reassured us that he WOULD stay and take us wherever we decided to go. Though it was hard to say no, he seemed friendly and we had a nice conversation with him about working and living on Ko Samui compared to Seattle. With every similarity he would get really excited and exclaim "same same!"

However, he appeared the very second the show ended and started herding us towards the cab. When we told him we wanted to go swimming on the beach there, he told us no, that was too long to wait, and got in the car, motioning for us to follow. We decided to stay and offered him 200 baht for waiting for us, which he took of course but was none too happy with us! His usual post is right outside our hotel, so Keitlyn and I spent the next day avoiding him at all costs. It was worth it to swim at Lamai though - the beach is much nicer than Bo Phut and felt like a hot tub in the shallowest parts.

Yesterday we moved to Chaweng Beach for a night - it's the happening part of the island and as we had 8 hours of downtime between check out and flying to Bangkok, we thought it was a better place to stay. After some beach time and dinner, Keitlyn and I headed to the Star Club, where we saw an extremely entertaining burlesque show. The hostess played the part of Tina Turner impeccably and brought some lucky guys up from the audience and dressed them in drag. I can think of a few friends who I would've liked to see up there too!

Now it's our last day and I'm killing some time at an internet cafe before joining Keitlyn for a beachside lunch. Our stay on Ko Samui hasn't always felt incredibly authentic - the island really caters towards tourists and it's been hard to escape that. We've definitely had a lot of fun though, and some pretty rewarding moments. One of my favorites was the night our waiter chatted with us about working on Ko Samui and taught me hello, you're welcome, how are you and thank you in Thai. Those of you who know me well know how much fun I have with languages.

We fly to Bangkok tonight, meet Uncle Michael on Sunday morning and then head to Pattaya. Then it's off to Vietnam!

Our first few days

Well, the plane ride did suck. The first flight was a little over 11 hours and I didn't sleep more than 15 minutes. Part of that had to do with the fact that we took off at 2pm, so most of it was normal waking hours for me anyway. I sat by two pretty interesting guys though, one Indian Boeing employee reading "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" and a Korean-Canadian partier who told us stories about drinking 99% of his days when he visits friends in Seoul. The layover was short and sweet, the next flight was not. It was half the length of the first flight but seemed to drag on longer since I was at this point a little delirious from lack of sleep but could not find a single comfortable position. I fell asleep for about 15 minutes right at the end only to be jarred awake by landing.

Keitlyn and I took a taxi from BKK to New World City Hotel, which was basically on the opposite side of the city from the airport and kind of a silly choice for us since we flew out the next afternoon. The hotel was really cute though and had an awesome breakfast, plus room service which we utilized that night to order some delicious spring rolls before passing out after about 25 hours of being awake.

The next morning we decided to go out and explore and as we wandered, a man stopped us on the side of the road and began pointing out temples on our map. He hailed us a tuk tuk and told us that since it was a holy day for them, drivers get free gas and so we could get a ride to 5 different temples for only 10 baht each (about 30 cents or so). At first it was great, the temples were really neat and VERY shiny. Towards the end of our trip, the tuk tuk driver started taking us to clothes stores and jewelry shops, which he eventually told us earned him gas coupons. I got pretty annoyed, Keitlyn got talked into buying a tailor made dress.

That afternoon, we flew to Siem Reap, Cambodia, a flight which lasted 55 minutes and flew low so we had scenery the whole time. Our ride from the airport to Bou Savy Guesthouse was incredible - the country side was breath taking and a refreshing change from the already overwhelming hubub in Bangkok. We fell in love with Bou Savy as well - the employees were very kind, we had a great room for a great deal and, on the outskirts of town, it was walking distance from the markets and bars but peaceful, save for a constantly crowing rooster. Our only full day in Cambodia was spent alternately gawking at temples and refusing the ubiquitous cries of "Lady! You want water? One for one dollar, you buy ok?" We actually did end up doing a bit of buying, as our Angkor Wat morning was followed by an Old Market afternoon. That night, we sipped drinks at a rooftop bar and watched two dueling lightning storms in the distance.

Now we're in Ko Samui, a southern island that actually reminds us a lot of Hawaii. Yesterday after settling in at Sandy Resort, our beachside hotel, Keitlyn and I took a dip in the Gulf of Thailand before heading over the Chaweng Beach, the party spot on the island. Needless to say, we had a great night, including our accidental trip through the redlight district whose classy establishments sport names like "French Kiss" and "Hot Bar." Yikes.

We're here for another four days, so I'm sure I'll update again soon with more Ko Samui stories! Miss you all :)

Off to Southeast Asia!

I'm leaving tomorrow morning for Thailand and Vietnam for three weeks! Keitlyn and I have a painfully long 11 hour flight to Seoul where we have a slightly scarily short 1 hour layover in which to make our next flight - 5 hours to Bangkok. We land at 9:45 pm August 28th Thailand time, hang out/pass out in Bangkok for a night before flying to Siem Reap on the afternoon of the 29th. There we'll hang out at Angkor Wat for a day - and I'll meditate in a temple! - and fly back through Bangkok to Ko Samui (a southern island off the east coast of Thailand) on the 31st. We'll hang out there for about five days, maybe ferry back to the mainland if it suits our fancy, and then back up to Bangkok on the 5th. Late night on the 6th Uncle Michael arrives and on the 7th we'll meet him and head over to Pattaya for a couple days so UM can nerd out in an enormous botanical garden and Keit and I can ride an elephant. On the night of September 9th, I say goodbye to Keitlyn who will head back home while UM and I head to Hanoi where we'll make our way down to the coast. I fly out of Saigon early on 9/17 (before the crack of dawn even occurs) and get back to Seattle that day at 11:20 am. Mom or Jane, one of you better be waiting for me as I will have been traveling for 24 straight hours (9 hour layover in Korea alone - I'll have to get creative....).

I'll try to keep this blog going while I'm gone so that you can all keep up with my adventures. See you in September!