Namhae Weekend Trip and Buddha's Birthday

This past weekend I went to an island in the south of Korea, a little west of my city Changwon. It is called Namhae and also known as Treasure Island. It is the second largest island in South Korea after Jeju Island. I went with my friends from a hagwon and we paid for an inclusive tour targeted towards young people with Enjoy Korea. We'd previously gone on trips with them and really enjoyed ourselves. It's just easier when you live in a country where your first language isn't their first language... planning certain kinds of trips can be a little bit more tricky than it is at home.

So our weekend started with a bus trip to Namhae, Changwon is only about 2 hours away so we didn't leave until 10:30 which suited me perfectly. Since our friends were camping they had a ton of gear. We arrived at the pension after 12 and set up everything, then it was off to find a convenience store, this is when I got my first view of the beach. Our pension was really close to the beach and when we walked down you could see tents set up everywhere. Campsites are different in Korea than in Canada. There was no space between the sites, everyone just set up their tents next to each other, it looked crowded.

The beach was long and sandy, I think the sand must've been brought in because none of the other beaches in this area had sand like that. It was beautifully soft and wide so their was lots of room to relax above the tide line. We were in kind of a bay so it almost felt like you were on a lake since it curved around on both sides then there were some little islands out in the middle. There were tons of other foreigners around because another tour group was also staying at that beach, that and it was a long weekend.

On our first day we were going to the beef and garlic festival, yes, that's right, a beef and garlic festival.. Korea has festivals for almost everything. When we were driving to our pension/campsite we passed the festival and were impressed with the amount of garlic we saw. I hadn't been paying as much attention to the scenery as I could've been, but my friend informed me she'd been seeing garlic since they arrived on the island and then I started to notice it too. Field after field of garlic and their stalks laid out to dry in the hot spring sun. I guess it is garlic harvesting season in Korea, what better time to attend a beef and garlic festival!

The festival had a lot of garlic, like everywhere. There were garlic sculptures, sacks of garlic, black garlic (I believe fermented garlic), garlic for sale, garlic blow ups floating in a lake across the street, two garlic statues, one giant one and another carved out of stone. They take their garlic very seriously here apparently. We also lots of evidence of beef, but I honestly think they just added the beef onto the title to make it sound more appeal. I mean, who doesn't want to go to a beef and garlic festival? Right? Just a garlic festival, well I'm not so sure. I mean, I'd go, but I can see how it sounds less appealing.

As we walked around we could smell delicious food cooking everywhere and started to get hungry. We'd been told by our tour group that their would be cooking demonstrations in the main tent and they would be handing out samples so we headed that way. On our way there we saw one of the sources of the delicious smell. An out door bbq place. They had flat topped grills set up under tents and people standing around grilling meat. I told my friends we had to try that... little did I know what was to come...

The next interesting thing we saw was a group of performers all wearing white and bright blue dressy/trendy clothing. They were playing the traditional style korean drums (a variety of them) but with a bit more upbeat song. A few of the guys were sporting dreads or short, tight curls so I don't think they were full Korea or they were visiting (it's extremely rare to see Korean's with dreads or anything of that kind). They also had Capoeira performers which is a style of martial arts they do in Brazil... it's usually done to music. The guys performing looked Japanese, which makes sense because there is a large Japanese population in Brazil. I guessed that some of the performers were perhaps visiting Korea or touring-- anyway, it was very strange to see a demonstration of Brazilian martial arts at a Korean garlic festival... but still cool nonetheless, plus the drummers were really good, like really really good. Everyone was swaying along.

After we saw them we finally reached the main tent were the food was cooking...When we walked in we saw there were tables everywhere with grills in the middle. People were running around putting coals in the fire as people arrived. There were tons of people sitting around eating. We saw to the left of the tent there were vendors selling beef and sides for bbq. A couple of people in our group went over to check out the prices. We sat and watched the cooking, debating whether to go stand in the sample line. Finally, after much debate about the cost and how much to pay we had to large packs of beef and two trays of side dishes, beers and a bottle of soju (the popular korean booze of choice).

One thing to note about Korean beef is it's a lot more expensive than I'm used too. You cannot but a steak for under $10 as you might in Canada, maybe with beef from outside Korea, but Korean beef, no. Actually you probably can't find the standard cuts of beef we're used to in the west that easily anyway.

Basically, this bbq experience taught me why it's more expensive: It's really really freaking* delicious. I don't know if we just got really fresh beef, or it was more high quality than usual or what, but I can honestly say I have never had beef that good in Korea before. I think my friends can attest to this. It was literally just a thinly cut steak of beef with nothing on it that we tossed on the grill (because that's how you do things in Korea) and it was super tender, juicy, the fat that marbled our cut basically melted away, but added really nice flavour. It didn't have an old beefy taste or anything, it was so good. I'm getting hungry thinking about it. We mostly just ate it on it's own or with a little salt, and of course with some grilled garlic. There were also lettuce leaves to wrap it in (standard for korean bbq) and some onions in soy sauce and something else which is also common at bbq.

The bbq set up was also really neat. There were tons of tables with the grills in the middle set up around the tent. It was the main tent so it was larger than the ones we'd seen previously. There were little stools to sit on and people would bring you charcol and you could grab the grill top yourself. It wasn't a restaurant at all, it was literally a place to buy meat, grill it yourself and eat. There were people giving away sauces and of course garlic to go with the meat in the centre of the tent.

Then there were some people cooking. They were two or three foreign guys from our Enjoy Korea group. They made some mexican style beef (I forgot the name, but it's a fairly popular one) and empanada's which were amazing. The line took a little long so during our second trip three of us went up and we kept trading places so one or two of us could go back to our table and grab a chuck of beef. After we finished the first to packs of beef we grabbed a third (it was that good, guys, really!)

After eating we wandered around the festival a little bit, taking some pictures with the giant garlic statues... yes that was also a thing. Some how we stumbled upon what looked like a drag show? It was a guy dressed up in makeup and women's clothing singing songs that had a traditional / old-timey vibe to them. There were a bunch of ajama's and ajashee's watching (elderly folk) and they seemed really into it. The singer invited us to sit and listen when my friend went up to get a photo. It was really fun and relaxing after being in the noisy tent, although we couldn't understand the words the music was good.

Next we went back to the main tent because they were release balloons with LED lights in them. Personally I'm not a fan of these balloon release that they like to do at Korean festivals (so far I've seen it happen twice) it really isn't good for the environment and my west coast heart goes against it, but it did come with the festival and as they when in Korea do as the Korean's do... well maybe not, but you get the idea.

The balloon release was fun, despite what my heart said about it. After we released the balloons they also let a giant floating lantern go. It was a little bit scary, it didn't get very high up because the lantern caught on fire and fell back into the crowd. Luckily it fell pretty slowly and everyone just moved out of the way. I do admit I'm a little afraid of fire and I may have rushed off to the side when it started to fall....

The last part of the evening was more dancing, the drummers from earlier in the afternoon played on stage and sang some popular songs. I was really surprised everyone was sitting down listen, but then they got the drummers out again and people began dancing. Especially the ajama's (older ladies) they really know how to party over here haha.

When we headed back to the bus everyone was still pretty pumped up from the music, dancing and drinking so we decide we needed some music for the way back to the beach. Our tour leader couldn't get the music to work so one of the guys from my group offered to sing. Apparently he'd either drank enough to have no qualms about it, or he wasn't the nervous type. Anyway he got up there and belted out some songs, he got everyone singing and by the time we got back to the hostel we had music playing and half the bus dancing. It was one of those random, crazy things that happen with these kinds of trips when you have a bunch of like-minded young people together.

The very last part of the night was spent on the beach, hunkering down with one last drink before we headed to bed.  The next day was going to be long with both a temple visit and walking around the rice terraces. So I'll save that day for post two because I just noticed how long this one's got. So Temple and Rice terraces coming soon! Promise. 

Seoul Part 3: Hongdae

So this will be the last instalment of my trip to seoul and I'll be moving on to more resent events, finally!

Our last full day in Seoul we visited a popular university neighbourhood. We had a couple reasons for going there. First, it's kind of trendy and targeted towards young people so it's fun to visit. Lots of cute stores, funky coffee shops and yummy restaurants. Second the You Are Here Cafe is in Hongdae. This is a cafe started by a Canadian couple who lives in Korea and makes funny youtube videos all about living there and a website called Talk to Me in Korean who try to help people learn Korean. The cafe was really large, but felt kinda empty. People did come and go as we were sitting there, but it wasn't especially busy. I really hoped to see one of the owners, but alas they were not there that day.

Before we hit up the You Are Here Cafe we went to a Sheep Cafe because it is the year of the sheep and all. The sheep were outside the cafe in their own little pen. They were really cute, but more interested in licking salt and eating than us. Still, it was really fun to visit with the sheep and take some pictures. We also got really yummy waffles for breakfast from the cafe too. It was really cute and the tea was good.

It also ended up raining that day which was disappointing, but we spent most of our time in cafes and restaurants anyway. I wanted to go to this one dumpling restaurant we knew about, but unfortunately when we tried to find it it was gone or possibly being renovated, we weren't sure. After this we tried to find a ramen restaurant Julianne wanted to show me. Eventually we found it with the help of google. It was amazing. It looked like an authentic Japanese ramen bar inside, complete with the small, narrow restaurant and counter. We both got pork ramen (I think, it was just the regular one) and we also got gyoza's which are a kind of japanese fried dumpling that I love. The gyoza's were far superior to any other gyoza I've ever ate. The filling was tender, flavourful and hot. The outside had a crispy rectangle attached to it which tasted delicious and just the right amount of crispiness on the dumplings. They more than made up for the failure of the dumplings from the previous night.

The ramen was equally amazing. The noodles were the perfect chewiness and the broth was salty and rich. Everything about that meal was awesome. I loved it and I will definitely return next time I'm in Seoul. Since it was raining again when we finished lunch or more like afternoon meal we headed back to the hostel. Also, we were both pretty stuffed and just ready for a rest.

The next day would be our return to Changwon, but since we had a lot of time before our train we decided to check out the War Memorial which was basically just a museum mostly about the Korean war. I found it really fascinating there was information from the people who were effected by the war, to the allies who helped to war heroes to the clothes, the role of women, famous war stories, weapons and planes, pretty much everything related to war was presented, especially the Korean war. It was a stark difference from our wimpy memorials with just a could of statues and plaques, it was also a stark reminder that North Korea is not that far away and for many older Koreans the Korean war was a reality.

After the memorial we attempted to find Itaewan, which is the foreigner district in Seoul, first we walked in the wrong direction for awhile then we finally checked a map and realized we needed to walk in the opposite direction. We finally made it there and spent a bit of time wandering around aimlessly which was mostly my fault because I just wanted to find some salt and vinegar chips, but hadn't really been able to find anywhere that sold them. Other than eating a really yummy gyro Itaewan was not that exciting to me. I did see a dumpling place I want to go back to, but nothing else really stood out, unless I'm really missing something from home that I can only get there I doubt I'll visit again. After that we got our stuff and caught the train home. It was relaxing and we remembered snacks and water this time. And when I got home it was time for a long, hot shower and lots of rest.

The highlights of the trip that really made an impact on me were definitely the touristy things that we did, the delicious ramen in Hongdae, the sheep, the palace and Seollal celebrations, Myeongdong, Namsan tower, the studio Ghibli exhibit  and the war memorial. In all it was really good trip and I definitely hope to go back to Seoul again before I leave Korea, perhaps in the fall at the end of my trip I'll make another visit, or when I have a long weekend.

Thailand: Chiang Mai

I think I am well overdue for a post and I apologize for that.

Anyway, I still need to talk about Chiang Mai. In my last post I left off on a train ride with three other girls from Massachusetts. My hostel set me up with them because they happened to have a spare bed in their bunk and we were all around the same age. They were really nice and fun to hang out with, but they were really close friends so it made me miss all my close girl friends at home. One day I want to travel around South America or Asia or Europe with a couple friends (or sisters! Jo, Gabe, Sam, Ashley f? Everyone else, you reading this?)

Anyway, back to the train ride. It was a night train so I didn't have to leave for the station till around 6 pm (I think). Then we got a bunk to sleep in and blankets and pillows and stuff. The train station was really busy since trains are still a really popular form of travel in Thailand (and Korea too, I'm taking one this week, but that's a different post!). We found our bunk no problem then just hung out and talk and ate some snacks. Finally we all tried to sleep. The train was fairly quiet, but the movement did keep me awake a bit. Still, it was cool to wake up in the morning and find I was in a different place. The countryside was really beautiful in the morning, all misty and cool looking. Lots of green plants I'd never seen and rolling, open fields. It was magical.

When we arrived in Chiang Mai we caught a kind of cab to our hostels, this is where the girls and I parted. The 'cabs' in Chiang Mai were basically small pick-ups with covered back, benches in them and they had an open door at the back. But very comfortable and cheap to travel in. I made it to my hostel and was happy to find friendly guests their. The first girl I met was an American and immediately invited me to go see a temple with her and some other girls. Unfortunately we didn't make it to the temple that day, but I wandered around the edge of the main city and saw some really beautiful temples. Chiang Mai (apparently) has over 200 hundred temples. Suffice to say I will be returning there. It also has a million scooters, even more than Bangkok. Scooters were the main mode of transportation. My favourite temple in Chiang Mai was definitely the first one I found which was done in the lanna style architecture (I believe). It was different than the temples I'd seen in Bangkok, there was a lot less gold, but it was covered in beautiful, intricate carvings everywhere (photos on facebook). It was all done in a dark wood and it had huge sloping roofs. It was amazing.

I wandered some more, following the canal that surrounds the city and found one of the old gates that surround the city, it was pretty neat too, clearly in decay, it was all made from a red brick. I wish I remembered how old it was, but my memory is failing me here.

Next I returned to the hostel and met a British girl named Fabby, who was from Jersey, no not New Jersey, just Jersey, yeah I'd never heard of it either. Anyway she was in my room and invited me to dinner with a bunch of other girls, it was kinda funny because there were three girls from Australia, a girl from New Zealand who was traveling with a girl from Germany, a second girl from Germany who was traveling alone and then Fabby and I. I thought there were 9 of us, but I can't remember who everyone was now.

The hostel I stayed at was really cool. Lots of the people were traveling in small groups or alone so it was really easy to meet people and go out and do stuff. I met some really interesting cool people there and it really felt like a community. There were, of course, some bad apples, but the majority of the people were really friendly and nice.

The hostel also planned neat day trips, I didn't actually go on any because the first day I arrived everyone had already left for the lake and the second day I was sick (so sad). So I just rested at the hostel, everyone else went hiking. Luckily a few people stayed behind and later new people showed up. Including an American girl for somewhere near Pittsburgh I believe. She was only 18 and traveling alone, which I found fairly impressive. I doubt I could've done that (or would've for that matter, well I don't know, maybe I'm selling myself short here). Anyway, strange despite our age difference and stuff we actually had a lot in common and ended up going to check out some old ruins together that afternoon. They were really amzing, like the giant they were all brick and there were tons of them. We kept thinking our tuktuk driver was finished then he would take us somewhere new. It was so fun.

After, we go back to the hostel we hung out and rest for a bit (I was still not feeling great) then we went to find some food. Jessielle, wanted to go to this smoothie place near the south Giant of Chiang Mai, which was sort of across the city from us. When we got there were found tons of street food, it was awesome. We got our smoothies, well we were waiting for them another guy was getting his and he said, these are the best smoothies in Chiang Mai. They were pretty delicious. All fresh fruit and you could chose to have it sweet or sour, I got sour, naturally. After the smoothies we wandered and got some other foods then headed over the the nigh bazaar. It was sorta like the weekend market in Bangkok, endless booths of stuff. As I was walk over my flip flop broke so I had to immediately find some new ones, luckily the first stall we found sold sandals and flip flops, lucky!

The market was overwhelming and seemed to have a lot of the same stuff over and over again, still it was really neat and I enjoyed it a lot. By the time we had looked for awhile it was getting late so we went back to our hostel, but not before I got some yummy fried noodles. They were delicious. Thick and chewy with a kind of salty, spicy sauce and some veggies with them. The next day I had signed up for a cooking class in the afternoon, then in the evening the hostel was hosting a bbq for one of its staff members because he was leaving.

The cooking class was really cool. They picked me up from the hostel and drove me there. I met the other people in my class in the truck on the way there. The first guy I met I was a Korean guy, I immediately was excited because we had something in common. It was really funny though because I asked him where he was from in Korea and he kept saying oh you won't know it, you won't know it, well, what do you know, but he was from Changwon as well. I got really excited and was like I live there! He was so surprised. The he asked which part of Changwon and I told him and he said he grew up there, what are the chances of that? Unfortunately he had moved to Seoul for university, but it was still cool to meet someone from my city in Korea.

There were also three Chinese girls one from Shanghai, one from Toronto and one from California, they were really cute. They met online and all decided to travel together. I thought it was cool. It was also nice to meet another Canadian. Later, at cooking class I also met a girl from Vancouver. Such a small world.

The class was really simple, you just chose four dishes to make (one of them a curry paste which you then made curry from) and the cooking instructor took you to different stations to make the food. The first thing I made was a papaya salad, it's a kind of famous Thai dish, you can google it. It was really yummy. It had a spicy sauce and you made it with a mortar and pestle, which is really different. The second thing I made was a green curry paste and I realized I'd been using all the wrong ingredients! Oh no. Also, the teacher only used the roots of the cilantro rather than the leaves which is what I'd always done. So I definitely learned a thing or two for my own green curry recipe. I'm excited to try making it when I get home (unfortunately cilantro and some other Thai ingredients are a little hard to find in Korea). Next, we made a curry from our paste and I kept getting the teacher to add extra paste, I think I was the only one who thought it wasn't spicy enough.

The last thing I made was a sweet and sour veggies dish, it had ketchup in it which kind threw me off, but I think they were just trying to use ingredients available to their primarily western students. Everyone has chose Pad Thai for their second dish so I was the only one making sweet and sour stir fry, still, it was delicious. After we finished cooking we got sit down and eat our meal. They also provided rice and some snacks for us as well as a really, yummy sweet tea that you added lime to and it changed from a dark blue colour to a dark purple colour (photos on fb). It tasted delicious as well and really complimented the food.

After we had ate and were relaxing the teacher came over and offered us a shot of Thai rice alcohol to help with digestion. Then she gave us a cook book with a bunch of Thai recipes (which I'm really excited to try out on my friends here at some point, given I can find the ingredients for the dishes. After that they drove us back to our hostels. I rested up before the BBQ that night.

The BBQ was awesome, there was tons of grilled meat, salad and mashed potatoes. It was so tasty. And almost everyone staying at the hostel attended so there were tons of people. Someone also made jungle juice which is basically a mixture of booze and juice that doesn't taste that boozy, it's usually pretty strong so it can be dangerous stuff. During the BBQ I met a lot of cool people including two Quebecois girls, another girl from Vancouver and a girl from Edmonton, awesome more Canadians.

After the BBQ a bunch of us went out for a bar crawl and to do Karaoke. It was pretty fun. Lots more drinking, some kind of creepy guys and lots of terrible singing made for an awesome night. When we went back to the hostel, me and one other guy (who had lived in Korea for a bit too so we bonded over that) were really hungry so we wandered down the street looking for some late night food. We found a fairly busy looking soup place with a really yummy looking beefy noodle soup, of course we wanted it. The lady seemed hesitant to sell it to us so we thought she was closing and we were going to leave, but then she seemed to change her mind. She warned us it was spicy, but we persisted that we wanted it (it smelled really really good). Well it was spicy, really really spicy. I think it was the spiciest thing I ate it Thailand and I can usually handle spicy food better than most westerners (no offence guys).

It turns out this soup not only had noodles, but cubes of congealed beef blood (yummier than it sounds) and blood in the sauce, but it was mainly really really spicy. I think it was also something about the strong beefy, flavour and the blood as well as the spice that made it hard to digest at 2 am so neither of us were able to finish our soup. It was really flavourful and tasty though, I don't think I've ever had anything else like it, maybe next time I'll go for a less spicy version (I can't believe I'm saying that!).

The next day I was supposed to leave for Bangkok, but due to the fact I couldn't get the night train I decided to instead stay an extra night and catch a plane to Bangkok on Saturday morning. Yay, an extra night! I spent the morning sleeping in, but during the afternoon I went and found food with Jessielle and we wandered around Chiang Mai looking at random places. I think the last night was the best though, or at least when I had the best food. I went out with a few of the people from the night before and we hit up the street food places. Immediately one of the guys I was with found a yummy looking pork place, we weren't going to chose it right away, but on our second pass he realized it was actually a really famous pork place that had been featured on a travel show that we'd both seen, well that decided it for us, we had to try the pork. It was super flavourful and came with just some rice and an egg. The only problem was the portions were kinda smalls so we were still hungry after.

Next we tried a really delicious kind of coconut soup/puddling thing with tapioca balls and a quail egg in it. So so so good. It was the best thing I ate there. It was really creamy and deliciously sweet, but  also had a rich salty, savoury flavour in it. I still crave sometimes. After that Rob and I (the guy who lived in Korea and also really liked food) wanted something else to eat so we ended up sharing some greens as well, which were also delicious. I almost forgot, to start my street food feast I had a pork bun as well. After stuffing ourselves full of delicious foods we went to the nigh Bazaar again. I also ran into the Korean guy from my cook class again and then we just wandered around looking at stuff. We were all still pretty tired from our night out the day before so we ended up heading back early, grabbing some beers and hanging out at the hostel to watch a movie. It was just chill night.

The next morning I packed up and caught a flight to Bangkok, then from Bangkok to Shanghai. The only thing about my trip I kind of regret is not getting a better flight home. I had an 11 hour lay over in shanghai over night. It was so boring. I sat in really uncomfortable airport benches and tried to sleep, but you couldn't. A mother sitting beside me got angry at me at one point cause I grabbed a bottle of water her kid knocked over. She didn't speak to me or anything, but gave me the coldest glare and grabbed her kid. It was a strange night. Finally, morning came and I got my flight to Busan, thank god!

I honestly loved my time in Thailand, but there was definitely a lot of stuff I didn't get to see. I really want to go back there and see more, learn more and experience more of that wonderful region. I know it's a bit of a cliche to travel to South East Asia in your 20s, but it's a backpackers paradise with young people everywhere, amazing food to eat and a wonderful, ancient culture to explore and learn about. I have to admit it still fascinates me and I long to go back to that region. I can't wait to see what Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have in store! I will go back. I will. 

Thailand. Bangkok

I thought I could write just one post about Thailand and fit everything, but I think I'll break it up by city or something? I'm not sure. Anyway, here's the first one.
The whole trip was a bit surreal, it was my first real 'vacation' I call it that because it was so short, but it was also more of a backpacking vacation than the regular stay in resort and lounge on the beach sorta deal. Anyway, part one Bangkok and stuff. I don't even think I have all of my adventures there listed yet!

I've wanted to go to Thailand for a long time. And I almost didn't go.
I found myself sitting my friends apartment the weekend before my winter break obsessing over what I should do (as I do) and basically being talked out of it by my friends. I went home in more doubt than I'd been in before and feeling sad about the whole situation. I imagined staying in Korea for the whole winter break. Sitting at home everyday (as I'm prone to do) watching hours of travel shows and movies and wishing beyond hope that I was somewhere beautiful and warm as well. Well that pretty much did it for me, I had to go.

I literally booked my ticket that night and despite the closeness to my departure date I managed to not get an awful price. Then I found a hostel and all was right again. I was going to Thailand!

The pessimist in me is still surprised the trip went off with a hitch. I made it to the airport in plenty of time, had no delays or trouble with my flights and arrived at the hostel with no problems either. The first day I was there I was pretty tired and overwhelmed, it probably wasn't the best day to go see Thailand's largest and most famous tourist attraction, but honestly I didn't even think it through. I asked the front desk what I should see and they said go to the palace.When I was about to leave I overheard the receptionist talking to someone else about going to the palace... well here was my chance! I told a bemused british guy that I was going to the palace as well and would he like to go together? He agreed. I briefly worried he had a girlfriend somewhere who would view my intrusion as something more than friendliness, but the guy (Rob) seemed pretty chill and unconcerned about a jealous girlfriend popping up so I figured that wasn't something I needed to worry about.

So he showed me how to take the sky train (best thing ever) and also the ferry (also very helpful) and we went to the busiest tourist attraction I've ever seen. Now, I will offer my advice here for any of you planning on going to Thailand. If you visit the palace and Emerald buddha, do not do as I did and go at the height of the afternoon. No, definitely get up early and go in the morning. As well as being insanely busy with people. Literally everywhere you also have to keep your knees and shoulders covered up, I actually didn't know this so I wore shorts just above my knees and a tank top. Oops. Luckily I brought a long sleeved top and we found a lady selling long, wrap-around skirts near the palace entrance (no doubt making a bundle of ignorant tourists like me). You can also rent or buy (?) clothes to wear around the temples inside. I wasn't concerned about it though, pretty pink wrap around for a 100 baht? (approx $3 cad), well you can't go wrong with that anyway.

The temple was insanely beautiful and decorated with colourful, shiny stuff and gold. It was insane. Everywhere you looked you saw something beautiful, interesting or old. The only complaint I really have about the whole thing was how busy it was. You couldn't look at anything without five people standing in your way or trying to get by you or whatever. Unfortunately all the temples I visited in Bangkok were like this, although the palace and emerald Buddha were by far the busiest. The other thing I wished for a lot while there was some sort of information about the buildings, artwork, architecture...anything. I guess having stuff to read everywhere would slow down the immense movement of people through the grounds, but still, it would've been interesting and enriched the experience.

Actually, now that I think about it, there were people offering to be tour guides, but as with all things in Thailand you should be a bit weary of Thai people approaching you and offering you services so Rob and avoided what we assumed was a tourist trap. Another thing to avoid in Bangkok were the Tuktuk's although I did end up riding in one after a night out. Apparently they try to scam tourists by taking them to various businesses and getting them to buy stuff they don't want, a guy at my hostel had an experience where they took him everywhere but where he wanted to go and he finally ended up at a suit shop so he just bailed, not the best situation to be in.

The other temples I saw were sorta similar to the first, not identical by any means though. The reclining Buddha was definitely impressive and I enjoyed the atmosphere at that temple more than the Emerald Buddha temple, but it was also less impressive in other ways. When you went in to see the Emerald Buddha you couldn't take pictures and the guards asked us to sit down. There was something about sitting on the floor like that, with a bunch of other tourists, just being quiet and admiring something so stunning and old that I will never forget. It wasn't even the Buddha itself, but just the sense of sacredness and holiness that came over the room. Despite everyone there as a tourist just to stare and gape at the statue. It still didn't lose it's power somehow.

Wat Arun was still my favourite temple though. You could climb up the side and get a wonderful view of the Chao Phraya River which winds through Bangkok's old city. It was stunning. Some of my favourite moments in Bangkok were definitely going down the river on the ferry. They were crowded with tourists (everywhere was) yet some how very relaxing for me. I guess just being on the water is relaxing in a general sense.

Besides visiting temples in Bangkok I also went to Khao San Road, which was basically a bar lined street (from what I saw of it) and the atmosphere sort of reminded me of Canada day in Victoria in the Inner Harbour...I don't know, maybe that's an exaggeration, but it certainly felt crazy. I may have tried scorpion well there, it tasted awful, like burnt paper or egg shell, without the stink. I didn't eat very much though. I also had a delicious wrap (middle eastern and Indian food is popular in Thailand).

I also visited Chatuchak weekend Market which was seriously the most insane thing I have ever seen, well shopping wise anyway. I got lost in it for over an hour (maybe two). It's a weekend market too, I honestly don't understand how that works. I feel like it's one of those things where they say it is a weekend market, but it really isn't. Anyway it's really hard to describe how massive this place is. You enter a maze when you go inside, no metaphor. A literal maze. I tried to imagine trying to find your stall in it and had trouble. It didn't feel real, but also felt like a living thing, constantly changing and evolving as I was there. I definitely saw people put up new stalls as I wandered around. I was surprised, even shocked when I saw the same places more than once, second guessing if they were actually the same place (well that's a bit dramatic, but you get the idea). They sold everything you could want there. So many cute, cheap clothes, knick knacks, both touristy and not. It was a shoppers paradise and possibly someone else's hell.

When I was taking the sky train to the market I looked out the window and saw a massive array of buildings and wondered if that was it, row upon row of roofs all crunched up close together, it looked sorta like a slum from the roof, but nicer.

I also visited a floating market, it was small and less interesting to me. Still really neat to see the women on their boats making food. I wanted to go to one of the larger ones,but unfortunately they were further out of town so I would have had to plan ahead a lot more. Still, I got some really yummy food there and enjoyed looking at the stalls. The market I went to was about a 30-40 minute bus ride away from the hostel so I also got a nice view of the city that way and there were lots of locals on the bus.

I should mention here how the fair system was very different on the buses and ferries. They had a woman with a long tube case full of coins and tickets go around and ask each passenger for their fare. I couldn't help but think it must get confusing when a lot of people got on the bus or ferry. I never did see the ladies miss anyone though, they're probably used to large crowds anyway.

Bangkok was super fun and busy I met some really cool people there, including a French girl who'd been studying in Hong Kong, a Hispanic guy from Porto Rico, a fun Norwegian girl, lots of Germans, two guys from the same neighbourhood in New York City who were strangers before I told them about each other and a few other really interesting people. I was really worried about traveling alone in Thailand, but there are seriously so many backpackers I had absolutely no trouble meeting people to do stuff with. I think it's a great country to travel alone in as long as your safe and take care of your belongings. The backpacking community there was amazing and so fun to be a part of, even for a brief period.

After Bangkok I took a train to Chiang Mai and met some interesting girls from Massachusetts, but I will save that for my next post about Thailand! If there is anything else you want to know about, any pictures on facebook you have questions about or anything your confused by please feel free to comment! I love getting some comments. Anyway, enjoy.