Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.  This is just a sample of this natural wonder.

As is my custom, I have been neglecting my blog before a vacation.  Our last journey was to Vietnam and could not have possibly given me better stories if it tried. The one week I spent in and around Hanoi will forever live in infamy.  It involved mistaken identity, gun play, hookers, a booze cruise and embalmed communist leader. I guess the only way to break this short trip down is one day at a time.  And so, here is day 1 in Hanoi:

On July 23^rd Kelly and I flew out of Seoul/Incheon airport to Hong Kong and then on to Hanoi, our final destination.  We landed around 10pm at night and made our way to customs to obtain our visas and enter the country.  We filled out the proper forms paid our fees in US dollars and received our new identities as Kiwis.  It was at this point I realized we would not be dealing with the brightest of people in this country.  We quickly informed the kid behind the glass we were Americans and not in fact from New Zealand to which he sifted through the processed passports and returned or original documents with our Vietnamese visa stamped in side. 

We collected our luggage, found our ride to the Ma May Backpackers Hostel and were on our way…  So, we thought.  As we stood on the curb while our chuffer fetched the car Kelly and I talked about how awesome this vacation was going to be.  A car pulled around, we loaded up and began our journey into the heart of Hanoi.  15 feet later we stopped and learned we were in fact in the wrong car and our original driver was in front of us confused and ready to drive away.  For the second time in less than 15 minutes we assumed the identity of our Kiwi Doppelgangers and had commandeered their vehicle.  The wrong was righted and we drove into the city. 

Hanoi is by far one of the poorest cities I have ever been to.  It offers little aesthetically with the exception of a few french stylized buildings peppered among the dilapidated buildings that makes up the majority of the city.  It really did  seem as though nothing new had been built or maintained since the French colonial era.  We arrived at our hostel in the center of the old city and almost immediately narrowly escaped being run down by a family of four on a moped.  This seen would repeat it self countless times as the most popular form of transportation is by motor bike.

 Kelly and I wondered out loud how on Earth we were to locate our good friend Preston who had arrived two days ahead of us.  Preston is the guy who interviewed and hired us for our first jobs as Korean English teachers and showed us around Seoul.  He was a great guy and now working in Shanghai.  This was the first time in 3 years we would see him and  we all were excited to get reacquainted.  As we crossed the street to check in, Preston sauntered up to us beer in hand as if three years had been a mere three minutes.   We said our Hellos, checked in, and did what comes natural to us; catch up over a few drinks at the hostels bar while I confirmed our reservation for our Halong Bay booze cruise. 

To my dismay, the hostel had made a mistake and we ended up canceling the cruise through them and went out into the night to root out a cruise for tomorrow, an inconvenience at the time, but a serendipitous misfortune that would bring two very interesting people into our lives in the near future.  We ended up finding a cheaper cruise and proceed to a bar for further catching up.

The bucket bar was our next stop.  A few beers and 3 sand pails (the very same kind used my aspiring architects in the sand castle business) of vodka/red bulls later we sought out another place to drink.  A few people we had been talking to suggested a place named the Funky Monkey and so we decided to give it a shot.  We hopped on a few motor bikes and headed to our final bar of the night.  Many Vietnamese in Hanoi use their motor bikes to ferry people around the city for a small price.  They also are known for selling tourists drugs.  This quick ride turned out to be a mess.  Pills and a bag of powder would be thrust in to both my hand and Preston’s and then just as quickly be thrown from them.  It was a mass of confusion ending with us fleeing in a cab.  The worst part about this misadventure was that the Funky Monkey was closed.

  Since Preston was staying at a different hostel he left us at ours as the sun threatened to rise, continuing an already wild night.  As his story goes, the cab was set upon by a scooter gang of Vietcong teenagers with one waving a gun at the driver demanding him to pull over.  Preston was in no mood to be mugged and as soon as the cab succumbed to the demands of these rogue elements of Hanoi he took off running.  To his amazement, they did not pursue him and he eventually made it back to his hostel safe and sound.  Like us, he may have only caught a few hours of sleep at most and miraculously met us the following day at 8am for the journey to the city of Halong for our 2 days and one nights of partying on a boat. 

One thing I love about Korea is the meals on wheels.  I’m not talking about that charity that provides substance to the forgotten seniors on family holidays like Christmas and Thanksgiving.  Nor am I referring to the disgusting trucks infecting America’s day laborers at construction sites (well the few of them who aren’t boozin or dosin up on their lunch break) with food borne illnesses such as Botulism, Salmonella, Eczema and the Clap.  No, I’m referring to the hardy Korean citizens who have transformed Hyundai and Kia’s finest pieces of shit trucks into rotisserie ovens, grills, griddles and deep fryers.

Throughout the ROK (and Asia for that matter) you will find street vendors selling all sorts of crazy stuff.  You get the double-A folks slinging Bundagee (boiled silk worms), chestnuts, waffles, rice cakes, random mollusks, and broken dreams for prices that just can’t be beat.  Some of it is surprisingly delicious, while other shit is barely able to be classified as edible, let alone food.  I openly challenge the fat bald dude who passes himself off as a food connoisseur on the Learning Channel to tempt fate with some of the crap I’ve seen being cooked up and sold.  

The true Big Leaguers in this profession are the dudes with the tricked out trucks serving the greater metropolitan area of any Korean city the deliciousness one can only find off the back of a truck.  I am talking about BBQ chicken hearts, sausages, fresh fruit, Dok pokie, Steamed King Crab and a variety of rotisserie style meats.  In Korea, the undisputed king of the roach coach is Ribman.  For a long time I thought the title belonged to ”The Chicken Man” hailing from the city of Byeomjeong.  The man sold two rice stuffed rotisserie chickens for 12,000 Won with kimchi radish and yellow mustard on the side.  The deal was unbeatable and the food was irresistible.  Often times Kelly and I found ourselves wishing for a Mokpo version of Chicken Man.

We hoped like Obama and prayed like Falwell that one day a man of his stature would arrive in Mokpo and deliver us from the evils of kimchi and rice.  That Day came months ago in the form of “Spare Rib Man!”  As Roy Jones jr. has shown us, the champion can’t stay on top forever.  At one time, Spare Rib Man was no more than a good prospect.  Think Pacciao as a fly weight.  His ribs were good but not great.  He too had all the little side dishes Koreans love (Radish, Kimchi, Sweet Pickles) but he also had that one thing that separates the men from the boys.  Something you can not teach….He had a truck with a rotisserie welded to the back and a willingness to expand the menu.  

 Last week Spare Ribman took the title when he parked his rotisserie oven stuffed full of ribs down stairs from us with a new menu item.  I don’t know what amount of R&D went into the expansion for his menu and dually into the new realm of roach coaches, but I’m glad he took the time out of his busy day to include CHICKENS to the menu. However, I do know this: The man needs a bumper sticker that read “Fucking Genius at Work!” 

Every year high school students in my area gear up for the much loathed and anticipated event of the spring….The Speech Contest.  The winner of this event receives an all expenses paid trip to an English speaking country of their choice, while many of the not so lucky runners-up are left with empty feelings of shame and guilt for letting down their family, friends and teachers.  For me, it means that I must teach extra classes and choose who gets to represent the school with the latter being one of the highlights of my year.

Choosing who is in and who is out is very time consuming.  The students must first write essays on one of three topics chosen by my co-teacher and me, followed by an interview.  Based on their overall scores they become a member of the class and prepare for the provincial contest for all the marbles.  What can possibly go wrong?

The essay and interview questions are as followed:

If you could change 3 things about yourself what would they be?

If you won the lottery what would you do?

If you had 10 days to live, what would you do?

What did you do on the field trip?

What are the most serious issues Korea faces today?

Most of the students wrote and spoke with a serious tone and were respectful with their answers.  However, every school has their little Pucks running around causing chaos and a few of them exploited the situation marvelously.  One boy in particular will forever bring a smile to my face.

As I sat at my desk reading essays last week, I came across arguably the most hilarious and epic mistake of all time.  Many essays spoke on the dangers of radioactive rain from Japan and the audacity of the Japanese text books to claim the disputed Dokdo islands as sovereign Japanese soil.  Other chose to speak on Christian values and their potential philanthropic endeavors as new millionaires.  Still other students decided to speak on the underlying theme of vanity with in the Korean culture and their desire to have plastic surgery to become more handsome in order to fit in and not be made fun of.  Only one student chose to tackle the tough issues of felching and farting.

As defined by dictionary.com:

 “Felching  is a sexual practice in which semen or other fluids are sucked out of the vagina or anus of a partner. The acts of sucking the semen and then passing it, mouth to mouth or open mouth kissing, is referred to as ” snowballing”; although the latter is typically associated with semen ejaculated into a mouth from fellatio.

Felching can also mean the licking or sucking of another person’s anus, similar to the act of a rimjob. In the United, states felching is using a straw or tube to remove cum from the ass..”

In his defense I am 100% sure that my student choose to speak on the subject of belching and farting, and as many of my students do, he used the wrong letter forming a new word unknown to him.  I had a similar, though not nearly as embarrassing experience when I used the word Udder instead of utter in my sophomore creative writing class while I too was a simple high school student.  However, I was unable to contain myself when he wrote about “felching” and farting in class and how he could not keep himself from doing it because of the feeling he got in his throat and the reputation for being able to perform such acts so well.  I had to show my co-teacher the essay and get his response.  I also had to explain to him what the term meant and only after he looked it up did he comprehend the sheer magnitude of our student’s mistake.

For an encore, our boy would again bring me to tears when we interviewed him.  Before I asked him my question I asked about his essay, which despite the massive error in spelling was one of the better written, and told him the correct spelling of belching was with a “B” while omitting the definition of “Felching.”  His response was sincere and I truly believed his desire to be more polite and less gassy in public.

Then like Jean Reno in “The Professional” he very cold and calculatedly responded to my question, “If you had 10 days to live what would you do?” 

His response:  “May I speak frankly.”  (NEVER LET A TEENAGE BOY IN THE GRIPS OF PUBERTY SPEAK FRANKLY)

My co-teacher and I:  “Yes”

Student:  “Since I have never done it before I would like to do fucking.”

We were floored!  Completely hung out to dry and speechless!  This little bastard not only got away with it Scott fucking free but has gained my respect for having the balls, nay the MOXY to say such a thing to his two teachers with such a straight face!  It is days like this that make life worth living.  I also wonder if he really does know the meaning of the word “Felching” and is just that great of an actor to get away with it?? 

By now you may have realized that I don’t really talk too much about teaching unless of course my students write some off the wall shit that needs to be documented.  The main reason for this is that I teach 18 classes in 2 separate levels  the same 2-3 pages 9 times a week out of arguably the worst English language student book on the face of the planet.  Yes, Jack C. Richards your Interchange books blow!  They blow so much I’ll forever know you as Jack C. Dicks! 

For starters, high school boys do not give two shits about Nicole Kidman or Christina Aguilera unless they are using it as a means to an end Mr. Dicks.  Your short conversations that I have to force feed my boys are hands down the most boring works of literature on the planet.  Seriously, some of the stoners I grew up with who find it funny to talk like robots to their pets can create better dialogues than the ones in your book. Many of them are high school drop outs, not an “Internationally recognized authority of English-language acquisition, teacher training, and materials design” (as quoted from the books description of the author).

Furthermore, the CD that accompanies the book does not match up with the lesson.  I don’t know how many times I have played that sucker and received that special look from my students as to, “Hey asshole, you’re an idiot!  That’s the wrong track!  I have lost all confidence in your abilities and will now spend the next hour asleep.”  Thank you Jack C. Dicks! 

My personal favorite pet peeve is your complete failure to edit out potentially volatile words such as Garza and George.  I know what you’re thinking…. Those are two very common first and last names, so What’s the problem??  In Korea those two names pack a punch in my version of “The Lord of the Flies.”  George is a slang term that means Dick….as in George C. Dicks!  Garza, on the other hand, means something like butt sex or shit.  You try teaching about David Butt sex or how three people in your family are named Penis and see how much gets accomplished.  Thank you Jack C. Dicks! 

On our most recent trip, Kelly and I were hypnotized by the evil bastards who run the “Malaysia Simply Asia” commercials on CNN during a cold Korean winter.  Don’t get me wrong, we had a great time while in Malaysia, however we often found ourselves saying that is sure as hell wasn’t Thailand.  The beaches are on par with one another, and you can do many of the same activities in either country, but the feel of the country was just a little off.  Malaysia (KL and Langkwai) has a terrible night life.  In addition to that, when we got to Lake Toba we discovered how truly prude Malaysia is in comparison to its neighbors.  The best way to describe the differences is by using the comparison of my awesome uncles to your cool uncles. 

Think of it like this, Malaysia is your cool uncle who you have a lot of fun with, even though he’s given up his “rowdy” party days to raise a family.    Malaysia’s the uncle that usually follows the rules.  Malaysia’s the uncle that gives you the good advice and better reminds you of the consequences and repercussions of letting things get too wild.  Malaysia is the uncle who goes to bed at a decent hour and wakes up early for church (Or in Malaysia’s case Muslim call to prayer).  Malaysia is the AA guy you can drink in front of because he’s strong in his new found life.  Malaysia’s the one whose legend is gathering dust and therefore out of the proverbial game. The uncle to preoccupied with gardening to sit back and have a diet coke while taking in a sporting event.  Malaysia in a sense, is your over the hill uncle who you have lots of fun with, but with in the parameters of the law.  Malaysia is the uncle who goes to the French quarter in New Orleans during the day to go bargain shopping and check out the architecture.  Malaysia is the old tiger with just enough of the look and bite to keep the tourists at the zoo interested.

Thailand on the other hand, is your uncle that gets rip roaring drunk, puts your life in danger on a regular basis, and whose stories of mayhem make yours look infantile.  Thailand is your uncle that walked away from Pandora’s Box alive with the rash to prove it.  He’s a fucking Gunslinger and can remember ‘Nam in detail!  Thailand is your uncle that sends three twelve year old boys out into a corn field in Oklahoma with shotguns, shells and no purpose.  Thailand is the uncle who borrows his girlfriend’s car and drives from Missouri to Western New York for his sister’s first wedding with his best buddy (Will call him Indonesia) resulting in the ladder proposing to his future wife during the ceremony and insulting the groom.  It’s the same uncle who loads that car full of Genesee beer and hundreds Anchor Bar Chicken wings for the return trip and loses control of the vehicle enabling the wing sauce to coat the entire interior of the car, resulting in a quip by the first responders that they, “Feared someone had exploded.”  Thailand is the uncle who offers you two sawed offs and salt rounds to up the ante in your laser tag game.  Thailand is the uncle who flips his truck in a creek and brushes it off as a good time.  Thailand is the uncle who leaps with out looking.  Thailand’s the uncle who has seen his fare share of the clink.  Thailand is the uncle whose concept of  teaching you to drive a stick is driving your car to the local biker bar for lunch, putting you to work remodeling a bathroom, dropping dry wall on your head, and then sending you home in that car to learn on your own.  Thailand is the uncle that brought you out on the catamaran during a small craft advisory while you were hung over with no real idea how to steer the thing, causing you to nearly flip and throw up on yourself.   Thailand is awesome.  And for that matter so is its best friend, Indonesia, who is a little bit more poor and wild. 

Lake Toba, Northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

Lake Toba the world’s largest crater lake and simply put is Eden.  It is the most beautiful place on the planet and offers up one hell of a good time.  These pictures are only a small sample of what Lake Toba has to offer and frankly do not do the lake justice.

Lake Toba, Northern Sumatra, Indonesia.

Lake Toba the world’s largest crater lake and simply put is Eden.  It is the most beautiful place on the planet and offers up one hell of a good time.  These pictures are only a small sample of what Lake Toba has to offer and frankly do not do the lake justice.

tallullahelle asked: Hi Sean/ Kelly,

I've been offered an interview with Byeongjeom High School and am unsure about what the area is like since there's not that much info on the web. I found your blog on the Surly Byeongjeom Drinking, Speaking, Writing facebook group, and just wondered if you would recommend Byeongjeom in comparison with other places in Korea?

Byeongjeom is a nice place by Korean standards.  It’s close to Seoul and Suwon.  We were actually visiting an old friend in Byeongjeom this past weekend and can say little has changed since we were there last.  Usually you can get to Seoul with-in an hour by bus or subway, as Byeongjeom is on line 5.  A public school position is waaaaaaaaaaayy better than any private gigs, so I would go for it if I were you.  Compared to other parts of Korea you can find better and worse.  But that all depends on your personality. Korean cities all have pretty much the same look (Eastern Block architecture and Neon lighting) so aesthetically they’re aren’t very beautiful.  Byeongjeom has a pretty good sized expat community and is easy to navigate.  It has many shops including HomePlus (Korean WalMart),  so you should be able to find most things you need or want.  If you have any other questions just hit us up.

When we returned home and were able to catch up on our massive back log of emails, we found that the travel sites we used to book our hostels and hotels requested our assistance in rating the places we stayed.  As I never miss an opportunity to voice my opinion on trivial matters, I replied in ernst.   Here is my post on one of those sites:

The Le Village guest house is tough to gauge and the ratings used to judge the place may be misleading.  First of all, the place definitely had character as indeed all shit holes do.  We booked this place because it advertised three things we look for in a hostel:  A bar, hot water, and AC.  It had none.  Not to mention the toilets leaked on the floor when you flushed them.  Security was average and at no time did I feel in danger from humans.  However, I did feel as though I would wake up with an extra bed fellow in the form of a giant rat that could easily have slipped through the cage door that is the entrance of the hostel.  The location is great.  Everything worth seeing in Kuala Lumpur (which isn’t much) is either very close or accessible by bus.  The staff was a joke. Some Indian Guru and his incompetent nephew ran the place.  I think they spent more time smoking dope and sleeping than they did with the up keep and day-to-day operation of the joint.  Upon arrival at 4pm we were informed that our room was not ready because the vagrant occupying it had not drifted on to his next hovel and that as soon as he came back from lunch to do so they would be able to prepare the room.  It wasn’t until 11pm that we were finally able to get a room.  

We did have a good time hanging out with the other travelers in “the roof top bar” (pictured above with the Russian in a penguin hat) which is nothing more than a cement floor and a clothes line for the hippies to hang their laundry after their bi-annual hose off. Seriously, how can you call something a bar when you don’t serve any drinks, is BYOB, has no tables, chairs, counter space, and is missing an actual bar tender!?  They might as well advertise an opium free opium den or a porch where the less fortunate guests get to sleep after all the burning man outcasts are finished crying and playing guitar.  YES! I actually witnessed a dude with what can only be described as a shit locked mullet cry and laugh at the same time while playing the guitar.  This was the same guy who tried to argue that vaccines against things such as Small Pox or Polio did not increase the life expecantcy of human beings.  Thankfully Not everyone shared his views. 

As for cleanliness….the toilets leaked… Nay… flushed directly on to the bathroom floors, the place smelled like a Riker’s island orgy infused with patchouli, the floors might as well have been dirt, and the fridge was full of expired food that must have been purchased during colonialism.  There was even a jar of rat glue in the spice rack.  On top of all this filth, you were not allowed to wear shoes while in the place.  After one night I had disgusting hobbit’s feet!  I can not stress how dirty this place was.  I seriously considered leaving the first night because the building sucked so much and the rats running around the place were so big that the cats wouldn’t even mess with them. However, the ability to find a place on such short notice for relatively the same price was too daunting of a task. 

 In the end we stuck it out because the people enduring this pig sty with us were so cool.  Upon check out, the Guru tried to over charge me as well.  Yeah I would say this place had a ton of character.