Our Philippines Trip- San Juan, El Nido, Manila

PART 1: Six hours north of Manila is a small town called San Juan, popular with surfers from all over. We stayed at Billabong San Juan Surf Resort owned by pro-surfer Luke Landrigan. We had paid for 4 days of lessons, but you can't control mother nature- there were only waves for one day. We kayaked and paddle-boarded instead on the other days. Sorry we didn't get any surfing pictures though because we were out in the water!

PART 2: El Nido
We took the 5 am bus trip back to Manila to catch our flight to El Nido. The traffic was really crazy so we barely caught the flight. In El Nido, we took island-hopping tours, snorkeled and swam in the ocean for hours. We met some amazing people and made some life long friendships. El Nido was more beautiful than any place I have ever been. The island only had electricity from 6 pm- 2 am. Below are the photos of El Nido, Palawan.

Jarrett ordered a "boku juice" (coconut) and a boy actually climbed the nearest tree and harvested a coconut for him!

Jarrett relaxing in the shade because of his terrible sunburn.

Touring the Lagoons and snorkeling was the highlight of our trip. Fantastic!

The tour guides bbq'd fresh fish right on the beach for our lunch!

The Philippines are not only beautiful but incredibly cheap! Meals in a nice restaurant cost 5-6 USD, beers were about a dollar. Island tours were 15-20 USD per person!

Summer is upon us! And other happenings in our lives...

Isabella, me and Lisa outside my classroom.

Hello all! 안녕하세요!I realize it’s been nearly a year since I have updated our blog. A problem I will now remedy!

Summer English Camps and Vacation
The semester ended on Friday which means two things: summer camp is upon us and OMG-IT’S-ALMOST-VACATION-TIME!
I have been planning my summer English camp for weeks with my best friend and 동료 (colleague) Lisa. Our theme is “school subjects” which sounds lame but trust me, it’s going to be awesome. Everyday has a different subject theme like science, PE or drama. We actually have a budget this year (gasp), which means between the 2 of us, we had about $325 to spend. Our camp is 9 days and we have 92 students signed up. That gives us about 40 cents per student per day. So I’d say we’re doing pretty well considering all the fun activities we have planned. (Upon turning in our budget, our co-teacher asked bewildered “Do you really need all this stuff?”) You could probably hear my eyes rolling from North America.

I’ve been so busy with planning our English camp that I haven’t had much time to reflect on my coming vacation to the Philippines. If you don’t know anything about the Philippines, just keep in mind they speak English and everything is supposedly super cheap. I say supposedly because our domestic flights cost us an arm and a leg. (Hey I need those appendages if I want to do well in surf school!) We will take surfing lessons at Billabong Surf School in San Juan and then fly to El Nido, Palawan to do the typical beach bumming/snorkeling/drinking 50-cent San Miguel thing. I’m trying not to get too excited because it is the rainy season so I may end up spending all my time inside. Which brings me to…

Lisa and I "working"

The Rainy Season 장마철
Last summer was uncharacteristically dry. This summer is has rained nearly every single day. Some days it storms and the thunder echoes in the mountains for minutes on end. Some days it only lightly sprinkles. Regardless of the amount of rainfall, it’s hot and muggy everyday. The Korean government is trying to prevent rolling blackouts so our electricity and AC use is quite limited. Some days Lisa and I are so hot and sweaty that we just sit like baked potatoes in our office chairs. Other days we secretly change into shorts after our classes and sit in front of our USB fans eating ice cream. I do like the rain though, even if my hair is a crazy frizzy mess everyday as a consequence. The ambiance is really nice and relaxing. At home, Jarrett and I have made a pact to never turn on the AC. It helps our electricity bills and we’ve gotten used to the 85% humidity. At least we’ll be prepared for...

These things called "hippos" absorb the moisture from the air.

Our backpacking trip in March
We have decided to leave Korea when our contracts end February 25, 2014. It’s been a great ride but it’s time for us to start a new adventure. As soon as we had made the decision, I began stalking the cheap airline sites.
I have booked all of our flights (except New Delhi-DFW.) I am pretty proud of the deals I have gotten thanks to my endless hours stalking deal sites and reading airline email newsletters. Finding bargains gives me a sort of natural high so I have volunteered my services to my friends looking to travel as well.

Seoul, Korea to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (Air Asia)	$169 PAX
Kuala Lumpur to Bali, Indonesia (Roundtrip-AirAsia)	$190 PAX
Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam to Chennai, India (TigerAir)	$184 PAX
Total PAX	$543

In case you’re wondering, here is our itinerary for our pre-return trip.
March 1- March 8 KUALA LUMPUR
March 8- March 15 BALI
March 15-April 11 (4 weeks by train) MALAYSIA, THAILAND, VIETNAM and CAMBODIA
April 11- May 31(approx. dates) INDIA

I have recently become obsessed with this trip though I am happy for the 7 months we have left in Korea to save money and enjoy the predictability of a 8-5 job and monthly paycheck.

Other things of note

his minions

Jarrett has been teaching Ukulele class every Saturday for 2 hours. They recently asked him to double the hours and students next semester. From what I can tell, he really enjoys it and the extra pay is nice. He teaches the class primarily in Korean which makes him a sort of demi-god in my eyes. 

After a long sports day, Lisa and Laci just want to go home!

Steph and me

Jarrett BBQing

Yanggu on a nice day

my minions

Isabella and spicy rib stew

Passed our Korean tests! Our teacher, Seo Yeon, in the middle.

Ajosshi!

planning art day

The 8 things I miss most from home

The 8 things I miss most from home 
A list of things rare, hard to find or just too darned expensive in Korea.

1. Regular American Style Pizza
While pizza is commonplace in Korea, it's just not the same. The under the top layer of what they call "cheese" hides a plethora of surprise goodies. Corn, potato, slices of pumpkin and something they call "fondue" are normal Korean pizza toppings. But hey, at least they've figured out stuffed crust!

2. Cheese, sour cream and cream cheese
I made an amazing chicken chowder soup yesterday but I couldn't find the two main (and best!) ingredients- cheese and sour cream. They do have cream cheese for about 7 bucks but no bagels to put it on! Luckily, the closest store that sells real cheese is only an hour bus ride away.

3. Tortillas
Seems ironic that my blog is called Korea Tourtilla, yet it's slim-pickins when it comes to Mexican food. Any time we go to Seoul, we eat at Chic-Tom in Hongdae (a pretty good texmex restaurant) but that is not as often as I'd like. Though I suppose even if I found tortillas, I wouldn't have cheese, sour cream, pico or refried beans anyway!

4. Deodorant
I never even wore deodorant in the States. I kind of have a phobia of things reported to cause cancer but in Korea, it's as hot and humid as a jungle and I smell as bad as if I were living in one. Luckily, my friend Jen sent me a coveted stick of the stuff that came all the way from California. When I opened her little care package for me, I laughed and giggled and hugged the little bar of goodness, giving my Korean coteachers yet another reason to find me strange.

5. Hipsters
I live in a pretty tiny town with few foreigners. Seoul, only 2.5 hours away, has more foreigners than I could ask for but it's so massive that it's hard to meet people. I do miss my little Denton-town and my thrifting trips with my best friend Melissa, looking for sweaters with giraffes on them and the next outfit for a wacky-themed-party. Which leads to number 6...

6. Thrift stores
Hands down, this is high on the list of things I will do as soon as I get back. They don't sell much second-hand here it seems and would probably find it odd if I went looking to buy someone's old mustard-colored seventies decor.

7. Blonde hair color
If I have searched far and wide for anything, it's been blonde hair color.  It's impossible I tell you! It's really expensive to get it done in a salon and even more so if they speak English. The Koreans love my blonde hair but they don't make it any easier on me by not carrying my color anywhere. Everytime someone asks what I want in my care package, the first thing I say is hair dye!

8. Friends and family
Even if I had a mile-high mountain of cheesy quesadilla and pizza sandwiches and a thrift store on every corner, none of it would matter without my friends and family. My niece is growing older everyday (she's 5 now) and my sister just graduated high school. My best friend found the love of her life and another got engaged, my brother is getting married too and has a baby on the way! While I am learning a lot about myself and gaining tons of xp points, I miss my FaF a bunch.

Pictures of Love Land

Jeju Loveland (제주러브랜드) is an outdoor sculpture park which opened in 2004 on Jeju Island. The park is focused on a theme of love and sex, running sex education films, and featuring 140 sculptures representing humans in various positions.

Definitely my favorite statue!