Honestly, now.

Not suprisingly, it rained again today.  However, I was not about to let this flag my enthusasim.  I woke up and went out in search of breakfast and the bus stop.

I’ve found that it’s always a good idea to bring something along to amuse yourself if your travel plans do not go according to how you….well….planned.  During breakfast, the waitress expressed her sympathies that the weather was so rotten (it had just begun to drizzle).  I shrugged and responded, “It’s not winter. I can deal with the rain.”

From Phuket Day 2

And rain it did.  I’m glad I brought a book with me.  Of course I have refused to purchase an umbrella because it galls me that I have three in Korea.  At least the rain isn’t cold here.  So I waited and read.  And read.  I actually finished the book, which is good because I needed to do that for class.  I looked up  and the scene still looked like this:

From Phuket Day 2

I thought that I just might not go the the beach today.  But eventually I did lighten up.  So while I decided not to go swimming, I would try out the island’s bus system.  No problem.  I made it to Patong Beach (it’s the largest one) and spend the rest of the day wandering around between the shops and the beach.  I did purchase a new swimsuit.  I was told that my one-peice is contructed of kevlar, so I picked up another one before I went to Cambodia.  That one, turns out, was very reminiscent of tissue paper.  I think I found a happy medium.  I’d like to pick up some board shorts, but we’ll see if I get around to it.

The beach was pretty empty, due to lack of sun.  So I walked up and down and looked at everything that had washed to shore.  Some of it was interesting: bits of coral, dead fish, and sea shells.  However, I was depressed by the amount of garbage.  I saw everything from plastic cups to a pregnancy test.  I know that I’m running the risk of sounding like one of “those travelers,” but the more I travel the more that the presence of Western culture is off-putting.

From Phuket Day 2

I know that Westerners bring in scads of tourism dollars.  But it’s difficult to NOT have your stomach turn at the sight of Ronald McDonald doing the Thai greeting.  It’s just sad creepy.  Not to mention the deterimental effects that Western culture is having on pretty much everyone.  (Here’s my plug for In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.  If you get a chance, pick it up and read it.  If you don’t, then you should make the time to pick it up and read it.  It makes you think long and hard about the dietary decisions that you make every day.  Not to mention how it casts doubt on everything that so-called authorities say.  It’s disturbing to realize how much of your life and beliefs were created by a committee.  And while I’m at it, read The World Without Us.  If that doesn’t make some part of you want to run away and live in the woods, then you didn’t read it carefully.)

Okay, back to the beach.  I learned an important lesson today.  Most of the buses in Phuket don’t run past five in the afternoon.  Learned that one the hard way.  Tomorrow, I’m either going to go to the Phuket Zoo or the Phuket Aquarium.  I don’t think there’s a bus to the zoo.  I know there’s one to the Aquarium.  So it’s a toss up.  Hike the four miles to the zoo or take a bus to the aquarium.  I’d also like to walk to Phuket Bay, but we’ll see if I get that done.  I’m in no hurry.

To see the rest of my pictures, click on the photo below.

Phuket Day 2

After sleeping for about 12 hours and putting around my hotel room for a while (unpacking, reading on the balcony, etc.), I finally got around to geting out doing some exploring.  I had my camera with me all day, but I kept it in my pack because it would occasionally pour water from the sky.  I didn’t think to pack an umbrella or a poncho, so I took refuge under whatever awning I could find, got comfortable, and read until the rain lightened up.  First thing, I found the training centre.  It’ll take me about thirty minutes to walk there so I’ll be building in some exercise.  Between that and the pool, I think I’ll be alright.  Next, I found a place to eat.  Now this might be in part to my imagination, but everything tastes better here.  The fruit is understandable.  After all, all the fruit in Korea either is imported or grown in greenhouses.  However, even the eggs taste better.  I only had two meals today: brunch and dinner.  It’s amazing to be able to get such cheap, delicious food.  I had muiseli with yougurt and fruit, coffee (strong, take the roof off of your mouth coffee), and scrambled eggs.  All for a $1.80.  Dinner was two Thai dishes.  One of spinich and tofu.  The other of eggs, chicken, peppers, and a few things I couldn’t identify.  Both were served over rice and with sides of cucumber and something that looked suspiciously similar to the leaves of a Christmas cactus (tasted odd, but okay).  There was a lot of food and I doubted my ability to finish my plate.  Luckily, that wasn’t a problem.  That meal set me back $1.16.  I think eating with be one of my new hobbies here.

Like I said, I didn’t take many pictures.  Four, to be exact.  And it shouldn’t suprise you that two of them are of birds.  I’ll like to return to the bird shop.  Unfortunately, I walked by it when I wasn’t really sure of my location.  Not “lost” exactly.  You can’t be lost unless you’re trying to get somewhere.

The other pictures are of my hotel room (which is fully twice the size of my apartment in Korea) and some random flowers.

On a tangent, I like the change in scenery, but I also like the change in scents.  Phuket smells like incense, fruit, earth, rain, and food.  Granted, there are also smells like garbage and sewage, but they didn’t occur that often.

Anyways, I’m going to bed.  I want to get up early and not waste any daylight.

This morning I woke up the fervent desire to not move from my bed.  The only delight in waking up was the fact that I woke up three hours before my alarm and (if I could ignore the headache) I could return to my blissful comatose state.

I was supposed to go hiking.

The night before, I had been out and about with Roopa (the troopa) and Gitte.  We had a pretty good time.  Roopa and I got a chance to employ our creative writing skills.  Neither one of us really felt like speaking, so we took turns working on a short story in which two characters that bore striking resemblence to Roopa and myself took turns beating up a third character that is oddly similar to our dear Australian friend.  Purely coindidence, I swear.  Turns out, if your writing anything in a bar, people take notice and think you’re trying to be “deep.”  This lead to a few interesting conversations and some free beer.

So I wake up and I’m pretty sure that I’m not going hiking.  Not only because of the fact that my body certainly doesn’t like the idea, but because I’m also managing to move at negative speed.  I tried to call and punk out, but it turns out that everyone else was having the same locomotive problem so my excuse went out the door and so did I.  An hour into transit and an hour spent haraguing myself for being late, I look up and notice that a bunch of my friends are getting on the same car.  Turns out, my timing was dead on.

(Click on the photos for a link to the rest of the pictures I took that day.)

So up the mountain we went.  I’d say who “we” were, but I didn’t know everyone there and I’m pretty sure that I can’t remember everyone’s names, but we were still a happy group.  The weather was nearly perfect and the leaves were just starting to change.  It was a little challenging at times.  Most “climbs” in Korea just mean that you’re walking up an endless staircase.  This one was complete with ropes over boulders, so I have some lovely rope burn on my hands.  I’m hoping it’ll callous and I’ll be ready for kayaking (because that’s on my list of fun things to do in Thailand).

Everyone brought food and shared for what ended up being the best meal on top of a mountain that I’ve had in a good long while.  Kia outdid herself (she brough apple cake) and there was even a guy selling ice cream at the top.

Anyways, good times, good friends.  I’m glad I got out of bed this morning.

I’ll be coming home in December, but I probably won’t be there for Christmas.

Bah humbug.

stinks.

However, soon enough I’ll be able to contemplate such things on a beach, which does take the sting out a bit.

Apparently, I’m pregant.

Let me explain…….

I was having lunch today with some of the Korean teachers and a few of the foriegn teachers when the Korean teachers started teasing me.  I’m leaving Korean for two months.  I was explaining my plans when one of the Korean teachers asked if I’d be bringing the baby back to Korea with me.  It took me a few minutes to catch on to the joke (between the language barrier and the fact that she was giggling, it wasn’t easy).  Granted, it was pretty funny.  Still, the way the mill goes ’round…….yeah.

I do enjoy laughing at myself sometimes.  The other day, I found one of my old passport photos and thought it would be fun to compare it to my new ones.  The photo on the left is my old picture, take about four years ago.  The photo on the right is the latest picture, taken about four weeks ago.

Really, it’s okay to laugh.  I showed my friend Roopa, who is known for saying such things as, “I can take ANYONE down! Bring it! No, really!”  After her initial guffaw, she said something like, “I wouldn’t mess with that girl.”  Okay, granted, I was pretty angry in the first picture (the woman attempting to operate the camera couldn’t seem to close the latch on the camera, which jacked up the pictures).  But still, the first picture is a little scary.  So with that inspiration and too little sleep in the past few days, here’s what my slightly bent mind came up with.  I hope you enjoy as much as I do.:

From passport humor