The Best & Worst of Boracay

The 5 Best Things about Boracay (in no particular order)

1. Accommodation Upgrades. I think maybe a memo was sent out to Boracay to upgrade cute and friendly people at any and all possible opportunities. Out of the 4 different places we stayed, we had 3 amazing (and totally unnecessary) upgrades! It made the crappy weather totally bearable, and made us feel pretty damn satisfied.

2. The food. Okay, if I was coming from Canada this wouldn't have made the list. But there are so many things in the food and drink category that are either scarcely available in Korea, totally unavailable in Korea, or just done really poorly in Korea (ie Italian restaurants are pretty trendy here, but they're referred to as K'Italian, because it's Korea's take on Italian, and a pretty poor one, 9 times out of 10). In Boracay, a staple was white wine, cheese, salami and avocados. NONE of these things are readily available in Korea. Aside from relishing in those items, the restaurants had so much to offer. We dined on Mongolian, Indian, Japanese, Middle Eastern (only shawarmas from a street vendor but still- they were delicious) Italian (like homemade delicious pasta, and thin crust pizza from a wood burning oven kinda Italian), Thai, Greek, and one of our best meals was in a little French Bistro. The selection was amazing and although, hand to heart, I do really enjoy most korean food, it was a really nice break to have kimchi nowhere in sight for a whole 2 weeks!

3. Drink. White wine has always been a staple for me and in Korea, it is available in the big grocery stores but not restaurants or bars. Sometimes you get red, but mostly it is just the Korean plum wines or other sickly sweet ones. In Boracay, I had white wine with every single meal, every single night. On top of that I had a bottle in the fridge in our hotel on hand at all times. And on top of that, in the delicatessen, we found PROSECCO. I was in heaven. Then.... on TOP of that- Boracay local coconut rum, the equivalent of Cap't Morgan's Parrot Bay, a summer staple at home, was $2.00 a bottle. Unreal.

4. I bought a necklace that I adore for $1.00. It was way off the beaten path and I found it in a stall as soon as we arrived and was positive my price conversion was wrong. But no, it was $1.00. It's a big massive wooden beaded necklace and it would have cost me a boat load from home.

5. Cheap massages & lady boys. Ok cheap massages are pretty self explanatory, it's an integral part of an Asian getaway. Aside from the obvious enjoyment factor, it's also pretty great to pay so little for something that would cost an arm and a leg in any spa facilities back home. As for the lady boys, don't get me wrong, the only reason they're on the list is for entertainment value (not THAT kind of entertainment, geeez!) Korea is a totally homophobic society and going to the Philippines and seeing the bikini clad, over the top, decked out, made up, lady boys was really fun. It added color to the background.



The 5 Worst Things about Boracay (in no particular order)

1. First and foremost was the use of the word "Mamsir". Being one half of a heterosexual couple, it seems Garry and I (and all other male/female partners) lost our individual identities. Apparently we just morphed into one person, addressed in one way. Every restaurant, hotel,  bar and store had someone outside of it trying to lure you in and the word Mamsir was heard about every 2.8 seconds. It drove me mental.

2. The weather. I have traveled Asia in the wet season before and knew to expect some rains and bad conditions. Part of my reasoning though was that in 15 days there would be a nice balance of good and bad weather. This summer, all over Asia it has been exceptionally bad. Evil triumphed over good. We had typhoons, tropical storms, and cyclones. You name it, we experienced it. Luckily the sun poked it's heads out just often enough for us not to write off the vacation as a total bust.

3. The coffee. As much as the food was good, the coffee was bad. Almost every single cup I had sucked. It was usually instant, sometimes with powdered milk, but day after day, no matter where we had it, it sucked. For an island with such good breakfast meals, they need to seriously work on the coffee department.

4. All you can eat buffets. Buffets were everywhere, and they would lay out the food within smelling distance, almost touching distance of the general walkway. The first night we were there we went for one and it wasn't too impressive. In my opinion (though the chef disagreed) the chicken wasn't cooked. There was fish and chicken and pork to choose from off the grill, a pasta station, shell fish and some other random bits. Overall, nothing that looked out of this world. HOWEVER, we were quickly warned by an employee from the dive shop to be very weary of the all you can eat buffets. There is a lot of recycled food that sits out all night, then gets served again. That was enough to put us off them for the next 2 weeks.

5. Cheap massages and lady boys. I know, I know, this was on the Best List already. But somehow it crosses over to both. Walking up and down the strip on the beach was exhausting, not because of how long it went on for but because of how many offers you had to refuse for cheap massages, cheap sunglasses, henna tattoos, hair braiding and cheap drinks accompanied with a good time. More disconcerting was the amount of older single men leering about day and night making use of the lady boys services. I won't go into details but it was definitely creepy.

There you have some high and low points of a little piece of paradise, called Boracay.

Busan Photo Blog

Enroute by train,  cross country to Busan.

Gwangali Bridge by night.

Wine, patio and Garry. A perfect night. 

May be too small to see but propped up on the soju bottle is a phone.
This family watched TV all through dinner. It made me sad,
but Koreans LOVE their phones & their television. 

Gwangali Beach

Gwangali Beach

My obligatory foot shot :)

When brain storming on the word "SUMMER" in a grade 5 class, one student said tube.
 I didn't really understand until I got to Busan in the height of summer. Everyone has one. 

Ajumma swimsuit fashion.

Typical ajumma beach wear.

After beach drinks on the strip (I went for a Bloody Mary cause it's such an afternoon
sunshine drink, but all it made me do was  miss my Canadian Caesars even more).
FAIL.

Happy Beach Bums

This burger was of epic porportions and tasted great!

Shellfish BBQ. Amazing.
One of the best parts of Busan is the seafood. 

Biggest scallop I have ever eaten.
Tasted even better than it looked. 

I want to go back to Busan for more seafood.
Yum Yum Pop.

Cooked to perfection.

And a few shrimps just to top it all off. 

Moonlighting over Korea.

Me, in a happy place. 

                                                                             

Champers + Beach = Perfect
(even in paper cups).

Cocooned.

Our meal.

The contstruction workers lunch working on the
building next to where we stayed.
(Can you see the difference?)

Looking up @ Shinsegae Department Store.

Cafeteria food at the mall. Classy stuff. 

Beautiful views on the train ride home.

Sunsetting somewhere in Korea.

NOTE: Here is the link to the blog entry with more details from my trip to Busan.

http://chooseyouradventure25.blogspot.com/2011/07/back-from-busan.html

BACK FROM BUSAN

Busan was a pre-vacation vacation to kick summer holidays off and celebrate Garry's birthday. I had my last day of school on Friday and by early Saturday morning Garry and I were traveling cross country to sunny Busan. After a  month straight of monsoon rains we welcomed a sunny and blue sky forecast. Our friend Jessica, who lives in Busan, was off in Canada, so after a little bit of struggling, we were able to get into her apartment and spend our few days staying there, it was a great set up. Jess lives right on the subway line and a stones throw away from the beach. We opted to stay clear of Haeundai Beach, just like the last time we visited. Instead we hung out on Gwangali Beach, which in my opinion is a much nicer area.
Our 3 days were spent leisurely doing nothing. Saturday night we went out for a nice dinner and drinks for Garry's birthday. Sunday was a beach day of frolicking in the icey water, people watching, munching on goodies and watching the day go by. Sunday night we had yet another epic Busan meal (last time we treated ourselves to king crabs). This time we went for bbq'ed shells. We had clams, and scallops and some other types ranging in size from about a loonie, to bigger than the size of my hand. They had seasoning on them, and sauces to dip in and were so delicious. There was the typical array of side dishes and just cause we were sitting by the ocean we ordered a tray of giant prawns to wash it all down with. Fresh air, seafood, a beautiful environment and good company, it was a perfect recipe for such a nice evening. After dinner, we nipped back to Jessica's and grabbed a bottle of champagne Garry and I had been saving for a special occasion and headed back on the beach to pop it. Perfection. Yum Yum Pop.
Monday morning we woke up and had brunch on a patio at the seafront and it was so stinking hot we actually opted out of the beach. Instead we took a trip to Shinsegae, world's largest department store, and poked around Gucci and Tiffany's and other way out of our league kind of places. It was an impressive mall though and we had lunch overlooking an indoor skating rink, at a much nicer temperature than melting on the beach.
By late Monday night we were back in Osan and now on Wednesday evening my bags are packed and I am ready for the real vacation. BORACAY here I come! Our flight is early tomorrow morning and there is no way to get to the airport for 5:30 am, so we are packing up and heading out to spend the night in  the airport jimjilbang (Garry's first jimjilbang experience!) Should be interesting.
I have some great pics from the trip to Busan so i will post them in a separate post when I get home. Right now, I have a flight to catch!

UPDATE: photos are posted now in a separate blog:
http://chooseyouradventure25.blogspot.com/2011/08/busan-photo-blog.html

Teachers Overnight Trip to Gangwon Province (강 원 도)

The Teachers :)

After the last class at school on Friday afternoon, all the kids scurried out of school and all the teachers collected their belongings, locked things up and headed on to the big coach bus waiting outside. It took a little while for everyone to board and get the motor running, so before the bus even pulled away from the school the bottles of soju had been opened and poured (not for everyone, just a select few of keeners).
We spent a good few hours traveling from Gyeongi-do 걍 기 도, the province I live in, to Gangwon-do 강 원 도. The weather for the past few weeks has been a varying few shades of rain, thunder storms, torrential rain, and the odd times light rain, and last weekend was no exception. We drove through awful conditions with a driver who I think would match the skills of a Japanese kamikaze pilot.
Upon entering Gangwon-do, the scenery changed to big mountains and valleys with rivers running through. I was told Gangwon province is at a higher elevation than the rest of South Korea and therefore was the last to be inhabited by people and the last to be touched by modern day living. To this day, Gangwon is a farming area, with no big cities and a thriving rural life. For this reason, it is a vacation destination for the rest of Korea. Everything was green and lush and beautiful (and soaking wet).

We originally were headed to Gangwon-do to go white water rafting, which would have been amazing. BUT, it has been raining for a month in Korea so the rivers were overflowing and unsafe to ride down. Our next plan was caving, but again, that was canceled due to the rain. One of the activites we did get to enjoy was rail biking. I had no idea what this was and was actually pleasantly surprised by how fun it was.

Two by two, we hopped on little pedal carts (in the drizzling rain, kitted out in stylish rain gear). The carts ran on old railroad tracks and off we went. Most of it was downhill so not too strenuous, but still fun. The scenery was lovely. We ducked through huge dark tunnels, across rice fields, and between big green mountains. We only biked for maybe an hour, but by then we were sufficiently wet and ready for food.

Back on the bus we drove for what seemed like an eternity before we made it to the mushroom restaurant we had plans for dinner at. Before I came to Korea, mushrooms were not one of my favorite vegetables, but here they are a staple in most meals here, so I have now developed a taste for them. And as I have mentioned before in other posts, most Korean restaurants have some sort of theme or dish they specialize in, and this one was mushrooms. The big group of us sat down to a huge meal of grill your own meats (some of these meats were actually a mystery to me), plenty of fresh and tasty mushrooms, the normal slew of Korean side dishes, and free flowing soju.

We bused to our accommodation and were all put into different rooms of a really quaint motel/guesthouse, called a pension in Korea. I was roomed with Mrs.Kim and 2 other teachers. We were in the Rose Room and everything was pink and it was humongous.

Aside from all the private rooms there was a main guest house. Within minutes of putting our pajamas on and getting ready for bed, we were summoned to the main house (and by summoned I mean FORCED!) These Koreans sure no how to do it up. We had only just finished dinner and as we all congregated, more food and snacks and beer and soju were coming out. There was no shortage in site of food or drink. Everyone started out sitting on the floor in a circle, and as there was no karaoke in the house (to many a disappointed teacher), people started to get up and sing and dance one by one in the middle of the circle. Thankfully my turn to sing never came, though I did have a quick turn on the dance floor with my VP, who oddly kept calling me Dancing Queen (someone pointed out that it had nothing to actually do with my dancing ability or lack there of, but more it's just one of the few english words he knows).

Bit by bit people settled down and formed their own little chatty circles on the ground. It was so amazing to watch. All the people that I see on a professional level on a day to day basis, were now hanging in their jammies getting trashed and bonding. I felt like it was a weekend away up north at the cottage with my friends, not something I could ever picture happening with coworkers at home. And apparently, this kind of work trip is not unique to teachers or schools, it happens all the time with businesses across the board as team building, bonding excursions.  The west could learn from this. Although it was difficult for me to blend into the crowd because of the language barriers, it was really nice to watch how everyone else was so easily able to let their hair down and have fun together.

The next morning, it was raining, for a change. The events of the day ended up starting out with a group breakfast meal. This is one thing I don't think I will ever get used to in Korea. Breakfast is like lunch and dinner, soups, rice, kimchi.... you name it. Such is life though, to each their own. After breakfast (where I must note, I did see a small tray with 2 bottles of soju being served to another table), we waited out the rain a little and then packed back on the bus.

Muddy feet.

Our next 2 destination points were nice, but nothing spectacular. We hiked up a muddy slippery icky gross mountain to see the view of a bend in a river that makes the piece of land look the exact same shape as the Korean peninsula. Hmmm, the view was beautiful from there, but I didn't get the peninsula thing. Next was another pretty look out point we hiked to, this place made popular by the filming of some Korean movie, again, lost on me.

Korean cuteness at its best
(she bit her rice cake into a heart shape ;)

From there we headed into the town of Jeongson for lunch. Lunch was delicious and quick and by this point I think most people were ready to head home and savour the rest of their weekend, I know I was. Little did I know what lay in store...

All the teachers piled back on the bus, and Koreans LOOOOOOOOVe to sleep on subways and buses, so after some exercise and fresh air and good food I was getting snuggled in for a nice nap for the 4 or 5 hour journey home, and, to my ultimate dismay, out comes the karaoke.  I have something VERY un-Korean to admit to the world. And it wasn't until I sat on that bus for those 5 hours that I actually fully admitted it to myself. I DON'T LIKE KARAOKE! There are times in Korea, where I have gone, and I will admit it has been entertaining, but on the whole it's just not my thing. In a room, with lots of alcohol as a buffer, at night, with friends, I can do it no problem. But, on a bus, in the middle of the day, with music at decibels unhealthy for the average persons hearing, and with a sound system that makes that horrible high pitched microphone/speaker noise about every minute and a half, and to top it off with music that is in another language? Ok and not to be really horrible, but the state of the Korean music scene is pretty rough as well, so the calibre of songs coming out was awful. I HATE KARAOKE, and Koreans LOVE it. There I said it. So for 5 long hours my ears bled from the pain of listening to karaoke in a very small enclosed space.
After a long and painful journey we finally arrived back in Osan, hours and hours later. Karaoke aside, the trip was really fun. I love going to new places in this country and seeing new things and that's exactly what we did.

P.S. I forgot to mention, we drove through Pyeongchang, which is where the 2018 winter Olympics will be held, so I can say I have been there.

P.P.S. I haven't actually downloaded photos from the trip yet, so when I do I will update this post.

(UPDATE: photos now added)

R-16

This past weekend was the R-16 B-Boy Championships in Seoul. This would have flown totally under, over and around my radar if it wasn't for Garry. He was in the know that Koreans are renowned for their b-boy dancing abilities. Another thing to add to the list of activities that Koreans discover, attempt and quickly excel at. B-boying is a kind of hip hop, break dancing style, but this competition also incorperated popping (or pop and lock) another, different type of dance.
The event was held at Olympic Park, a massive area built back in the late 80's for Seoul's turn to host the 1988 Summer Olympics. The auditorium was huge and was a perfect venue for the event. We had optimal seats over looking the stage, to see all the dancers in their limelight.
The 'R' in R'16 stands for respect, a very important principle in the dancing circuit. The 16 stands for the 16 different countries who participated in the competitions. In the finals there were b-boys from China, Japan, Korea, Kazahkstan, Venezuela, USA, and France. It was a 2 day event and although I was only able to attend the first day, there was still lots to soak in.
Before the event opened there was a "Street Festival" that was a little lacking. It consisted of a few walls of grafitti in the making, which was top notch. But then it faded away into a few random booths just selling tees, and that was it. Luckily the performances of the evening made up for what the street festival lacked.

Grafitti Alley

 

The event for Saturday night consisted of solo dancers going head to head until a winner was determined. In between competitions was lots of eye candy. Different teams came out to perform and have battles. Even the judges came out to show their stuff as an introduction to the evening. This clip is a battle between Korea's "Pocket" and Venezuelan b-boy "Lil'G".

On top of some quality dancing, we got a little surprise end of the evening action. First off was a beat boxer who was flat out, i-n-c-r-e-d-i-b-l-e! His name is krNfx, and he is actually from Toronto (though of Korean decent). He spent about 10 minutes on the stage performing different sound samples, recording them, looping them and them layering them so it sounded like he was doing the job of a singer, musicians, and sound technicians. Very impressive stuff.

The icing on the cake had to have been Jay Park. Who knew we would be privy to a K-Pop concert at the end of it all?  Out he came and according to the reaction of all the ladies, this man is a hit! Women were falling over themselves and shouting and screaming and singing. It was so entertaining! I have no idea who he was, but it sure was awesome to see the reaction of the whole auditorium to him. Koreans love their K-Pop!

Below are some pictures from the first night @ R16 B-Boy Championships, Seoul, SK.