We spent a few days exploring Vienetiene by foot and by scooter. We enjoyed the food until we both started feeling ill, a feeling that would stay with us for the remainder of the trip.

From Vienetiene we traveled North to Vang Vieng. Vang Vieng is the backpackers paradise of Laos. The tiny town was full of visitors from all over the world and was very accommodating to the backpacking lifestyle. Open air bars and hostels line the streets. The bars in Vang Vieng are different from ordinary bars though. Every bar/restaurant in this town is full of wooden lounge seats covered in cushions, allowing patrons to lie down while they eat (not so great for digestion I'm guessing). The fun doesn't stop there. Not only do you lounge while you eat, but you also enjoy watching endless episodes of great American shows. Each bar is full of TVs on which they play one American TV series around the clock, the most common being Friends. I have never seen so many Friends episodes in my entire life and I was a Friends fan in its prime. As we walked the streets Phoebe’s voice rang out in all directions. When we tired of Friends we were able to find two bars that had daringly strayed away from Friends and played non-stop Family Guy. Don't worry we didn't spend all of our time in Laos watching TV (although we did spend a lot of time). One day we rented bikes and rode back into the mountains, hoping to find a waterfall and cave. After riding for quite sometime and being thoroughly bitten up by mosquitos we had almost reached the waterfall. However, we were suddenly stopped by a small boy with a knife who told us we had to give him money to continue on down the path. I was sick of being ripped off and refused. We decided to turn back (I was indeed afraid of a 10 year old with a knife).

We had planned to go tubing down the Vang Vieng river before leaving Laos but both Jay and I became very sick. Jay visited the local hospital when he came down with a fever and we had previously opted out of getting Malaria vaccinations. We both left sad that we had not experienced the tubing, but maybe we will go back someday.

Vang Vieng was a wonderful place to visit. We headed back to Vienetiene to catch a bus to Hanoi. This would turn out to be the infamous bus ride from hell. Tune in next time for that delightful story. In the mean time, check out some new pics!

Our first day there we met a woman named Toom, who owned a Travel Agency. She invited us to go with her and her friends to a tiger sanctuary and bamboo river rafting. She gave us a smokin’ deal and we made some new friends. We picnicked with many Thai people near a waterfall. We witnessed Thai people give each other the wink to buy food at local prices. And we got to see some really cool sites.

Check out our photo page and sound off in the comments!

We had a great time blasting around Southeast Asia when we left South Korea. We toured through four countries in about three weeks. In the video, we start out in South Korea at The Welton School, then quickly leave. Next, we tear through Thailand, hang out in the mountains of Laos, tour Halong Bay and take a motorcycle tour in Vietnam, and finally end up in Cambodia. Angkor Wat was really amazing and where we took most of the pictures.

If you haven’t pressed play yet, or even if you have, I recommend going to the high-quality version on YouTube.com, hitting the full-screen button and cranking up the speakers! Also, because of the nature of the video, I recommend watching it twice to really enjoy all the shots.

This video was made from piling every single one of our 1,250 photos into iMovie. The inspiration for the video came during a long bus ride while I was looking through pictures on our digital camera. I held down the next button and watched all the pictures fly by, and thought it would make a pretty good video. Don’t worry, we will still post more galleries and blog entries to keep you entertained for a while longer. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy 4th of July everyone! Here is a video compilation of a bunch of old footage from my students at The Welton School, in Seoul, South Korea. Thought you might enjoy seeing inside the orderly Korean classroom. The video starts off with my morning class (Miami class) and ends with some pictures of my afternoon class (Seattle class). An interesting thing to remember is that none of these kids are over six years old. I have way too much footage of these darn silly kids!

And if you do actually make it to this page, and you do actually read this far without just skimming, then leave us a note in the comments saying how badly you want to see new content on the blog and in the photo galleries!

The highlight of this birthday party for me was when the cake ran out. For several reasons, but mainly because my student Kevin decided he hadn’t had enough. He ran around looking for kids who were momentarily distracted from their cake so he could plop down snag a bite and be gone again by the time the looked back. I watched him do this to about ten different kids. It was too cute to tell him to stop and I was done teaching him for the day, so I didn’t care how much sugar he consumed.

One of the students I teach right after lunch apparently had too much cake at this birthday party. That or Language Arts just really makes him ill. Either way my afternoon was not pleasant.

The birthday party was chaos, as usual, but it made for some great photos. Check them out on our Welton School Birthday Party photo album.

One thing I was not able to capture enough of is the princess dresses. Some of my kindergarten girls go all out. They have huge dresses, that they wear with light-up heels, plastic jewelry, and the lastest craze to hit my class... red lipstick. This was not something they got from me, but my little five year old girls break out the mirrors and lipstick every chance they get. I will go to the bathroom and come back to four little red-faced clowns. When I ask who brought the lipstick, they look at me with pouted lips and blank stares. I can’t help but laugh.

The boys love to wear Konglish t-shirts, funny hats, and  Burberry. The boys never know what their shirts say but they will proudly take a photo when we ask.

The most infamous of fashion victims at Welton is one of my favorite students, Tights McGee. Tights McGee, also known as Philip to some, was given his name because he wears tights...everyday. Now you might be thinking, “That’s weird for a boy to wear tights under his pants or shorts.” This is where you would be mistaken, you see, he wears tights in lieu of pants or shorts. His shirts tend to be rather short as well and never match the usually striped tights. As you can see in the picture on the right, he chose brown and tan striped tights to pair (his favorite pair) with the bright blue Welton polo. To make this situation even better, Tights never likes to sit nicely in his chair with his feet towards the floor. Rather, he perches up, feet on chair, leaning on the table, behind pressed towards the sky. It’s really hard to not laugh while telling him to please sit down. He is a cute little boy but I hope this fashion is only a phase and that his mother will realize it really isn’t a good look to carry on into Elementary School.

Please check out more photos of Tights and other fashionable students in the photo gallery.

The long weekend we were enjoying was in fact Buddha’s birthday! The city is still an important center for Korean Buddhism. We visited the famous Bulguksa Temple and the Seokguram Grotto. The temple was a Buddhist training center and housed militia during Japanese invasion. The coolest thing was to see the grotto, which houses a beautiful stone Buddha. It is a very important trip for Korean Buddhists and an amazing sight. Gyeongju was the capitol of the ancient Silla kingdom and has many archeological treasures and burial sites of the Silla kings about the city.

It also seemed to be Korean spring break while we visited. There were tons of couples celebrating the long weekend just like us. (We also found out that a way of showing affection for your significant other is to wear matching shirts. Don’t worry, we made sure to snap lots of pics.) You can see the pictures in our album! Hope to hear from you!

We discovered this video a few weeks ago on the internets. It was a huge hit in the office at work! We don't know these guys, or really even know much about where Geumchon is. But we thought we'd give these guys some cyber props and let you enjoy their hip-hop tribute to expatriate life in South Korea.

Of course, the video goes over a lot more smoothly if you've experienced the intricacies of living in South Korea as a waygook (foreigner/haole). With that in mind, I've provided translation of the hip-hoppery.

Written by Christian Zonts. The EV Boyz are Christian Zonts, Mike Nance, and Brian Peterson. Lyrics jacked from Lofbomm.com. If one were so inclined, one could Digg this!

This song has gotten frequent spins and laughs in our Welton School teacher's lounge. We really appreciate these guys' wit and skill at writing catchy tunes.

I never had a desire to try kimchi before. My sister, Deverie, often had kimchi in the fridge at home but I never considered it. When I came to South Korea about five months ago, I officially tried it with some galbi and loved it.

Megan and I eat kimchi everyday at the Welton School and we love it. The best thing about kimchi is that it goes with everything. I can have my kimchi mixed with tuna fish or just put some on top of rice and mix it up with other sides. I can throw some thick chunks of kimchi cabbage on the galbi hot plate to cook it, or, I can eat it cold. There are also many different kinds of kimchi, including some made with scallions or cucumbers.

Needless to say, I am hooked on kimchi for life. But to get the full experience, Megan, her mom, and I spent an hour or so touring the Traditional Kimchi Museum in Coex Mall. We learned a lot of interesting things!:

1. Kimchi is traditionally made by bundling the components (heads of cabbage, other vegetables and chili powder) in a jar and burying it in the ground to keep a steady temperature for fermentation. In a traditional village you can see hay structures made to keep the ground dry.

2. The chili powder that is so prevalent in kimchi (and shows up in many more Korean dishes) was actually introduced to Korean culture after the time of Columbus. Traders first brought chili peppers over from Mexico.

3. Kimchi contains vitamin A and C, and minerals calcium, phosphorus and iron. Kimchi has very few calories and lots of dietary fibers, making it good for diets while facilitating metabolism. Kimchi has abundant antioxidants, anti-carcinogens and is very good for your body. Particularly your digestive system. I thought that eating so much spicy Korean food would have a disastrous effect on flatulence. Quite the opposite.

4. Kimchi has a very strong smell. Many officetels, (including our first one) come equipped with a kimchi refrigerator so that the rest of your food does not smell like kimchi.

5. When taking photographs, South Koreans often use the word "kimchi" the same way English speakers would say the word "cheese".

After gaining some awesome knowledge of kimchi, we had a small, private tasting and left our mark in the Guestbook. (Something lurking readers are always encouraged to do.)See our incredibly interesting pictures of lacquered kimchi in more detail in our photo galleries!