My Journeys Around the World: The Adventure Begins

A fellow teacher, and good friend, Andrew, and I took our three week vacation to Korea, Cambodia and Thailand. Along for (some of) the trip was a little gnome named Cedric, who hails from England. The following series of entries will tell the story of our amazing adventure.

We flew out of Mongolia at approximately 5 pm, with a balmy-25 degrees outside. After a 2.5 hr flight, we arrived in Seoul near 9.30 pm (local time), where it was a relatively summery 4 degrees. We immediately took a $60 cab ride to the Hongdik section of Seoul to meet up with one of my best friends from my first couple of years in undergrad, his wife and some of their friends. I have not seen Sean, nor his wife, Erin (whom I know separately from him) in about 5 years. We met up at the Rocky Mountain Tavern, before hopping from one bar to another in the area. Cedric was sure to have his picture taken with as many people and in as many places as possible. That night, Andrew and I crashed at Sean and Erin's place.

We had some breakfast with the pair, having found out that they would be coming to UB on Jan. 11. As Sean put it, "In sports terminology, we're playing a home-and-home series." After we said our goodbyes, Andrew and I made the hour-long subway ride back to Seoul to visit the Insadon district before seeing the ancient Royal Palace. It is, without question, the least interesting ancient site I have ever seen. Few of the buildings were labelled, and even fewer contained anything. It was like walking through an ancient village that contained dozens of the same building. We met up with another friend, Shane, who was in our section at Nipissing last year. He had a couple of friends visiting from Canada, so we all went out for some coffee. After our visit, and more goodbyes, Andrew and I headed through Insadon to our next destination, the Golden Palace Bath House. For $8, we were able to shower, soak in hot tubs of varying temperatures, and sauna. The price also allowed us to pend the night in the least comfortable manner possible. We slept on a heated wooden floor, with what amounted to a brick for a pillow.

We left the next morning, stopping for some Mickey D's for breakfast and took the subway to Yongsan, where any electronic device can be found. I purchased a High-definition Qrio video camera, that has a 5 mp still camera built in. The vendor threw in an extra battery and a 2 GB memory card to sweeten the deal. All of this, and I still spent less than the North American retail price. We then took the subway to the airport to wait for our flight to Bangkok. The flight was remarkable. Korean Airlines provides the best service I have ever experienced in the economy class seating.