Jeeheon's Final Entry (Must find jobs, argh)

I was absolutely obsessed with this blog for the past year - I think it's the tree falling in the forest with no witness thing. I risked, if not Bill's life, then at least his dignity to get 'blog-worthy' photos (Exhibit A - all of Bill's haircut photos).

My current sluggish existence at my parents' place in Seoul, on the other hand, consisting of sleep and TV is definitely not blog-worthy. Plus, it's strange how once I started worrying about little stuff like employment and health insurance, even I couldn't believe the sheer 'hippie'-ness of vagabonding for a year. I think I need more shoes.

I am thankful that we travelled through 25 countries and 120 cities without any serious injuries other than traveller's stomach's and couple bouts of rashes. Almost everyone we came across were nice, a few annoying and none evil. Actually, the most annoying people we met were other tourists.

In conclusion, this is what I learned travelling around the world in the past year:

IT IS ALMOST NEVER AS GOOD AS IT IS IN THE TRAVEL MAGAZINE PHOTOS.

But it was tons of fun anyway. Thanks for reading!

Hong Kong and Macau

After much debate in Hanoi about whether we would end the trip and head straight to Korea or instead extend for another week, we settled on going to Hong Kong for 4 days together, after which time Jeeheon would head back to Korea and I would head to Macau for 3 days to make my fortune and never have to work again. Well, I'm now sitting here contemplating potential job opportunities, so I guess the latter plan didn't work out exactly as intended, though it wasn't all bad.

Hong Kong has a stunning setting, with countless highrise office and residential buildings set around the harbor:

A couple of street shots:

We did manage to get out to the horse races for the third time this trip (the other times being in Buenos Aires and Nairobi). Hong Kong's Happy Valley Racecourse is right smack-dab in the middle of the city, surrounded on one side by the seven story grandstands with a backdrop of more highrise buildings:

Me, trying to discern which of those 12 horses is going to fatten my wallet. Oh, by the way, I finally did manage to hit a longshot in the final race of the evening:

A sad moment as Jeeheon heads home from Hong Kong:

I continued on to Macau, a short 1 hour ferry ride from Hong Kong, and China's version of Vegas. The landmark Grand Lisboa, run by local gaming legend Stanley Ho, is the most famous casino in the city:

But, the Vegas operators have recently come in to compete:

No, this isn't an old picture of me standing in a quaint European square. Rather, it's me standing in the fake quaint European square at the MGM Grand casino hotel (like I said, it's a lot like Vegas):

As I mentioned above, it wasn't all bad in Macau, and I actually left with a little bit more money than I started with. It's been a long long time since that's happened, so it was nice to end the trip on a positive note. Of course, me winning also involved me staying up all night gambling with our friends Mark and Irem the night before I left. Maybe it was that, or perhaps just a subconscious desire to avoid the trip coming to an end, but I managed to oversleep and miss my flight the next day. I couldn't believe I missed the last flight of the trip, but after some scrambling, I managed to race back to Hong Kng and catch the night flight out, so it wasn't too bad, but I did have to laugh at myself for the entire plane ride home. I guess it's back to adulthood now.

Vietnam - Hanoi

We were in Hanoi for five days and took a taxi at least three times a day - we got over charged almost every time! One taxi actually had a weird meter that jumped up faster, but most cab drivers drove around a bit before dropping us off at our destination.

Other than that, Hanoi was a nice city to visit - interesting French-Vietnamese architecture, and it was foggy the whole time we were there, adding a faraway-land feel to the place.

Hoan Kiem Lake:

West Lake:

My favorite restaurant in Saigon was called 'Quan An Ngon', and on one of our 'detours' in the taxi, I saw that it had a branch in Hanoi! The restaurant has all sort of Vietnamese food, and each food is made in its special stall, like so:

I ate a lot there:

Vietnamese graffiti:

We also went to a shopping mall - I am convinced that going to the mall anywhere is the most authentic, non-touristy thing one can do. We watched Beowulf (why didn't anyone tell us it was animation) and went to the video game arcade:

Vietnam - Nha Trang

Nha Trang is Vietnam's biggest beach resort town. The beach here is pretty and goes on for miles (Vietnam has over 3450 km of coastline), but having been recently spoiled by Thailand's perfect beaches, we were complaining how the white sand here is not quite soft enough and the water is not quite turquoise enough. We are greedy.

We took a boat tour of nearby small islands, complete with karaoke performances from the crew and other tourists, both domestic and foreign.

Fellow tourists Vietnamese grannies - they loved the karaoke performances at first but fell asleep around song fifteen (two American boys singing Coldplay):

Snack time:

My proud moment as the first person at the floating bar:

Continuing his adventures in personal grooming, Bill tried to get a hair cut at this place:

The sign said 'Barber Shop', the panel outside listed hair cut, shampoo, etc. in English and there were high chairs inside with mirrors. However, we found out through sign language of sort, that the service this place provides is of the kind that would only be legal in the state of Nevada in the US.

Vietnam - Mui Ne

It used to be that we would check into a nice hotel only when we were in the throes of collapse or divorce due to travel fatigue. Well, no more. With less than three weeks left on the trip, we checked into a resort hotel in the beach town of Mui Ne because we have a credit card.

Vietnam is a good deal - this ocean view beach bungalow was a third of what it would have cost in the US:

I know it makes a much better blog if we trek through the jungle and almost die from dengue fever, but the only story I have is how we declined the turndown service. Boo.

This is Bill on the backpacker bus, featuring reclining bunk-bed like seats:

These large basket looking things are actually fishing boats!:

(We haven't been responding to comments because blogspot.com may be blocked in Vietnam. We can post entries, which is on blogger.com, but can't read the posts on blogspot.)

Vietnam - Ho Chi Minh City

We met up with our law school friend Bao in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and he graciously showed us around the city. Vietnam is soaring economically along with China, and there were nice restaurants, cafes and stores abound, but all still comparatively cheap. It was like for me how it was for Bill in Buenos Aires - endless great food to be had at good prices:
This is at one of the street restaurants that open up only at night. The restaurant may be on the street, but it has uniformed waitresses and water tanks filled with live fishes:

We ordered the fish hot pot (lau). The fish, picked out from the water tank only seconds ago, twitched a bit despite being cut in half. Now, that's FRESH!:

The fish is put in the pot with vegetables and boiled right on the table:
I forgot what these fruits were called, but I have never seen them before and it's eaten with salt & chilly:

We even had the infamous durian, which is banned from many hotels due to its smell - it smelled and tasted like sour milk:

I think Bao took us to at least ten different cafes and clubs in two days (thanks Bao!):

Outdoor terrace cafes that blasted techno music were very popular:

If you haven't already guessed from my obsession with the 55SF sun block, it is considered more beautiful to have pale skin in Asia. (Something about not looking like a peasant.) But the ladies here go to extreme lengths not to expose their skin to the sun, donning a scarf around the face like a bank robber with even gloves in the scorching hot weather!:

Cambodia - Phnom Penh

I have been very good about dressing modestly on this trip, but the only clean clothes I had on the day of our visit to the Royal Palace was a pair of long pants and a choice between a long sleeve top or a tank top. It was really hot and humid in Phnom Penh, so I chose the tank top, but draped a scarf over my shoulders for extra coverage. We proceeded to the Royal Palace. Next to the ticket office, along with the 'no smoking' sign and 'dress modestly' sign, was a picture of a woman with a scarf draped over her, with a big red X running across it. I guess I wasn't the only one that tried to get away with the tank top + scarf combination. I had to buy and wear the 'I am a culturally insensitive tourist' T-shirt sold for $1 next to the ticket office. Sort of like Hester in the Scarlet Letter:
Wat Phnom:
From 1975 to 1979, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge regime took over the country, killing over one million Cambodians. This is the Tuol Sleng Museum, the former site of Khmer Rouge's Security Prison 21 (S-21), the largest center of detention and torture. Actually, only Bill went - I wasn't sure if I could stomach the gruesome details:

We were reading through a tourist brochure when we came across an ad for a North Korean restaurant - we had to check it out. The waitresses that worked there were definitely North Koreans (I can tell from their accent). The restaurant had a thirty minute music show, starring none other than the very waitresses that just served us food! We called them Super Waitresses, because not only were they extremely attentive and polite servers, they could sing, dance, play a musical instrument (violin, key board, traditional Korean harp, electric guitar and...castanets) and speak multiple languages:

This is Malis, the nicest restaurant for Cambodian cuisine according to our hotel guy: