262-word short story about a Thai

"Talk to him!"

"I don't speak Thai."

"But you might as well use that slutty dress while you're wearing it."

"I'll just wait for him to talk to me."

"There are tons of girls dressed well today in the night market, you need to get to him before someone else does. Besides, he's not going to see you if you don't talk to him. He's just staring at the menu above the stall. He's not going to be staring for long. Thais can't read English."

"What if he doesn't doesn't want to talk? What if he only says hello back?"

"If a guy walks up to you and says 'hello' and you don't want to talk to him, you try to talk to him a bit, don't you? He will certainly have the same common courtesy."

"I've never seen a young unshaven Thai like that. I guess I won't have this opportunity again." She collected all the courage she could from the reassuring faces of her five friends at the aluminum table. It wobbled a little bit as she said, "wa-dee-ka," the more colloquial form of "hello" than they teach in school. It was to show off her Thai skills, though she knew to go further in a Thai conversation would be a huge struggle.

He looked over, startled, then smiled. He smiled like a father to his daughter when she wants to impress him but he is clearly only able to give the smallest amount of token approval. And then it was gone and he was again transfixed on the menu.

Being Social in Busan, Korea Magical Mystery Tour pt5 + Toe Socks!

Hah. Funny. That last post was my most popular one in months. And it was on statistics!! Hah. Anyway...

In Busan I stayed at a hostel that was kind of in the middle of a lot of stuff. The people at the hostel were very nice and I made a few friends.

This is the manager of the hostel. We are at a bar down the street. He's a really cool guy.

This guy is from Spain. He was in the same room as me.

Helped manage the hostel. She is a Chinese student studying Korean language to become an interpreter.

I really like the Egyptian guy creeping on the right. He was a cool guy.

One of the cool things that happened here was that we used googlemaps to show overhead views of out houses. The Egyptian guys house(s) were huge and absolutely stunningly beautiful--and that was from above! They were all definitely interested by the meandering nature of my suburban neighborhood roads and houses.

Couple of girls I met...at a bar.

And that guy too.

We all went Karaoke together, the four of us.

Since I gave some pictures of me in close quarters with girls, I decided to make A feel better by showing some cute pictures of her that I haven't posted on facebook already!! (Fair warning)

I gave her these as a present. Toe socks!

I always love her smile.

I don't remember why she's laughing. The overall-things look ridiculous to me, but I think she wanted to buy them...

Mote.

Just the Stats, Ma'am

As a quick reprieve from my Korea trip, I wanted to show you something I've enjoyed looking at for the past year: blog stats!

I've been looking at the stats of where people are reading my blog. The first two countries are obvious: USA and Thailand. But after that it gets weird.


 I haven't a clue why I get so many hits in Russia. I don't know anyone from Russia. Same goes for India, though I guess I do know one person who I am vaguely acquainted with.

South Korea makes sense sense Jeff is there. The UK isn't that weird as I've met people there. I met people in Malaysia who I facebooked. I know people from Canada and Denmark. Germany? a little weird.

But one country not on this list because it only had one hit is Georgia! Who do I know from freakin Georgia!

Take from the info what you will. It is interesting enough on its own, I think.

Pure Relaxation: Korealand pt4

In the upper-right corner you can see the word "Spaland"

In Busan there is the biggest public bathhouse in Korea. I can't go into too much detail, but public bathhouses are pretty cool places.

This one costs about $12 I think, but most cost around $8. At many you can stay as long as you like (even overnight), though this one had a 4 hour time limit. There are sort of two areas in the bathhouse: the bath area and everyplace else.

Naked Area

In the bath area everyone is naked (yeah, weird) but it is gender separated. This one was big and beautiful. It had several different hot tubs with different temperatures. They say that there are two kinds of spring water there "Sodium Bicarbonate" and "Sodium Chloride."

There were several water massage beds (hard to explain, with I had a picture to show you, but then there would be old naked men in the picture...). Then there was a "cool bath" and a "cold bath" (15C, freezing cold). I've heard that Koreans sometimes alternate between cold and hot, and I did that and it felt awesome.

In that area there were also 3 saunas. A "Korean" sauna, a "Roman" sauna (as in ancient Rome), and two Finnish saunas. The hotter of the two Norwegian ones was 80 degrees Celsius (176F)! You can see sauna culture briefly in the Gangnum Style video.

Non-Naked Area

In the rest of this place you are clothed in these special relax clothes, and in these areas it's co-ed. There are MANY more and different saunas including but not limited to:

Yellow Earth Room
Pyramid Room
Body Sound Room
Wave-Dream Room
Hard Wood Charcoal Room
Hamam Room
Bali Room
SEV Room

Body Sound Room was funny. You listen to sounds of nature or meditation music and the music sooth-fully vibrates where you are laying down.

The Wave-Dream Room is where they have a little bit of water with a light under it, so the rippling water is projected on the ceiling.

Cool stuff. Loved it.

"Entertainment Zone"

In addition to the saunas in the non-naked area, they also had some cool stuff. Including a "Relaxation Room," a restaurant, and a cafe.

In the Relaxation Room you get a nice big recliner and a tv. It's pretty dark so you could also nap in there. Cool digs.

The food as you can imagine was quite expensive. But no wallets allowed! So how do you pay? At the beginning of the experience you are issued a special electronic key for your locker that goes around your wrist. But it can also pay for things! Even vending machine food! How cool is that?

They also had an area where you could get into pods with lots of extra oxygen, an oxygen bar more or less. I would have done it, but I was running out of time.

I saw a bunch of people hanging out with friends just watching tv. I couples resting together in the nap-time area.

These places are to get away from the hustle of city life that so many people deal with. Honestly, I think we should have something like it to. If only because it is so awesome (though I doubt in the States it would have the same cheap price).

Beautiful Busan, Korea in Pictures pt3

BUSAN! Busan is a great place. It's here, if you're wondering.

On my first day in Busan I went to this awesome secluded Zen Buddhist temple. I went there mainly because it was Zen Buddhist...

His expression and the array of colors are awesome in both these pictures.

There were a total of four of these dudes.

Zen monk or nun. Notice the paper hanging from the ceiling.

In da mountains.

Loved the candles in that place behind me.

Miscellaneous Pictures!

On the left is a book vending machine. I believe this is the subway.

Koreans play baseball!

Fortune tellers are very common. You can find them on the street in a row.

Not really much else to say. Yay pictures!

The Bizarre Bear, and Other Pictures: Korea Picture Tour pt2

This one is a bit long; no real over-arching theme.

DMZ, cool giant fish market, da bear, another pretty palace, Korean food market (cool), Texas&cool architecture, and a tacky lovers' ritual at Seoul Tower

Sarah and I also went on a tour of the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) together. It is really scary if you are rightfully scared of North Korea, which legally (according to them) could come marching it at a moments notice. Very much a worthwhile experience.

Rice fields look different in Korea.

Looking toward the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The white bridge on the middle left is where the South Korean POWs came over when the cease fire began.

This is a graphical representation of a tunnel that the South Koreans discovered in the 70s. Me and Sarah got to walk down there (but no pictures allowed). This tunnel was dug by the North Koreans to invade the South, it is one of four discovered, but there are thought to be hundreds.

Probably the coolest place, but not a cool picture. This is where we actually get to see into North Korea from the South. I believe there is a picture of President Obama looking over this wall.

Afterward I went to a fish market.

Colorful fish market!

It's huge!

I thought this was another cool picture.

I went on a last palace tour the next day. I was pretty tired of Korean palaces.

Can someone explain this to me?

And the actual palace:

Brown. Very...brown.

Green.

Ooo. More brown. And brownish green AND brownish red.

Okay, I do think these pictures are pretty nice. I'm just reminded how bored I was when I was here.

And it was a paid tour. I paid for the boredom.

But at least I got some nice pictures I guess.

My favorite picture from my last palace day.

Back to my comfort zone: a bustling food market after the palace.

gotta love it

I ate this. It wasn't too bad, though not too good. But it cost me 300 baht/$10 US Whhaaaaat???

Everything's bigger in...Korea

I do have a soft spot for architecture:

Cool building, grainy picture.

 Later we went to Seoul Tower. The area around the tower and the tower itself is know as a lovers destination for...Asia apparently.

This bizarre bench is especially made for couples. In the back you can see thousands of padlocks with love notes attached to them.

Here is a closeup. It was impossible to show the sheer scope and breadth of the number of padlocks around.

 These lovers' padlocks had all different languages written on them. Obviously Korean was the most common language, with English there as well.

But the interesting thing was that I think Thai was the second most common language to see.

Just in case you are geographically challenged, Korea and Thailand are NOWHERE NEAR each other, so this is rather bizarre. It is, however, partially for some cultural reasons that I will not comment upon now.

Tacky, no?

Jeff says that Seoul is considered the romantic city of Asia (really???), and Seoul Tower the most romantic place in the most romantic city in Asia.

Honestly, all I thought about it was that Seoul is the ugliest and least exciting metropolis I've been in; and Seoul Tower the least beautiful overlook of a city I've seen. I didn't even put a picture of it here!

That concludes my pictures of Seoul and the surrounding area. Anyway, interesting pictures. Probably should have edited this post shorter, but whatever.

DRAGONTURTLE and Other Stunning Korea pictures (pt1)

There is a lot in Korea that is really beautiful. I blew up pictures that I thought looked especially nice in one way or another. However, it is much more fun to look at the pretty pictures I took while I was there than it is to actually be there.

Unfortunately, Jeff could not show me around Seoul much because he was working and he lives in the nearby city of Incheon. So here are some pictures of me roaming the city the first day.

This is a selection of Korean porridge. Doesn't sound appetizing? It isn't.

I took a path into the North where I read about a cool little temple with people chanting. Here you see a man relaxing in the peace. Here I can hear the chanting of the spiritually inclined. I think it's pretty.

Also pretty. That is Seoul Tower in the middle.

Interesting cultural thing. A bar of soap on a metal bar above the sink.

I hear a theme song coming...

This was from my second day of roaming Seoul. I went around the palaces. They are pretty boring to explore, but the pictures turned out great.

So much more pretty in the picture than in person. Best seen full screen.

Same note as previous.

It was just really easy to take nice pictures, but it was pretty boring there.

Probably my favorite picture at the palaces.

Korean food doesn't taste that good, and it doesn't fill you up either. And it's expensive.

This is a packed Buddhist service. I've never seen anything like it in Thailand.

DRAGONTURTLE!

He's looking at me....

A great picture. Also best seen full screen.

My companion for the day, Sarah from Hong Kong.

Had to blow it up for unknown reasons.

Cool building.

This cool thing is in the middle of the city. People hang out down here. Some young lovers too.

I took a lot of bad pictures here. I'm so happy that one turned out well! Yay!

Da crew. We hung out with Gloria a couple times on the left. In the middle is Jeff (thanks again for housing me Jeff), and on the right is Sarah who was also staying with Jeff.

That's it for now. I will try to post more soon!