I went out for dinner with Neil, Geri and Jodie last night as a kind of goodbye, since Jodie is leaving on Saturday and won't be back before we leave. Of course, the conversation during these kinds of dinners always lead to the same question.
"Are you excited to be leaving?"
Well, duh! We're going back home! Of course we are going to be excited! But, for me at least, there's also a big sense of loss. Korea is where I have spent the last year of my life. I have become accustomed to being here, have made friends here, and the idea of leaving it all behind makes me incredibly sad. This sadness has been particularly bad over the last few days when I look at posts like this one from Amy:

"when you leave i will be absolutely desolated!! the random abuse of drunken yongamdong ajosshis and the whole supermarket family jumping on my bed at once won't be the same without you. don't gooooooo~~~!"

Before that moment, I had never really thought about what I was leaving behind. Sure, I was going home and would get to see my friends there, but I was also leaving friends behind - friends that I might never see again! Sure, we make plans to travel the world and we make plans to come and visit each other and attend each others weddings, but life gets in the way sometimes, and who knows when we will meet again. The thought of this makes me a little teary.

Anyway, once I started concentrating on what I was leaving behind, I started really appreciating what it is that I have. I started looking at Korea in the bright-eyed bushy-tailed way that I don't think I experienced when I first arrived - I was too busy being homesick and missing everything back home to notice just how awesome some things are here. So I thought that I would take this moment to write down some of the things that I will thoroughly miss about Korea in general (not going into details about things that I will miss about friends, because that will just be too hard.)

7 am. That ungodly hour has been haunting me all week. And yet, despite my terror at having to wake up so early, I still somehow convinced myself to do it on the weekend when I could easily have slept in til a far more acceptable 10 or 11.

I am sorry that it has taken longer than I expected to get around to this, but it is finally time for the last part of our Thai trip.

After an early night on Saturday, we awoke ridiculously early on Sunday and finished packing up all of our belongings before heading to the reception area to wait for our taxi. It was still dark out, and so we sadly did not get to say the proper goodbye that I'm sure we both would have liked to Koh Samui. Instead, we yawned as we were driven to the ferry station to catch the 5am ferry to Surat Thani. The ferry took around an hour and a half, and on our arrival to Surat Thani we were driven to the ferry company's offices where someone tried to get a taxi for us. Unfortunately, Thailand is not like Korea in the respect that taxis are not operational 24/7, and we had some difficulty finding one that would take us with all of our luggage. Eventually the company managed to find someone and we patiently waited for our ride to arrive. When it did, we were very tempted to send it back and tell them to get us someone else. The car was falling apart and a noxious smell emanated from the fan that he insisted on turning on. We just didn't have time to wait for another one, however, and so we climbed into the car (which had no seatbelts) and made our way to Surat Thani airport. There were a number of dodgy situations on the way including the realisation that the car's brakes didn't work properly and that the accelerator didn't come all the way back up when released, but we made it to the airport in one piece and with time to spare. Jess and I had a quick breakfast of banana pancakes that were just pancakes with a banana on the side rather than real banana pancakes, and eventually boarded our flight to Bangkok.

On arrival in Bangkok, our nine-hour adventure began. First stop was the Grand Palace. We climbed into a taxi and were on our way about half an hour after landing. The taxi driver did not look like the most savoury of characters, but we weren't too perturbed. When he demanded that we pay the toll fares, we were a little unimpressed, as our previous drivers had paid them for us, but despite our grumbling, we coughed up the cash. Soon we were stuck in the traffic outside the palace gates, and asked the taxi driver to stop where we were, as we figured that walking would get us there faster than driving would. He was not impressed with this and was even less impressed when Jess pulled out a thousand baht note instead of the four hundred that he was owed. Apparently he didn't have change and insisted that we be the ones to find it. And so my search began for a vendor who would break the note. After asking around, I finally found someone and we were able to get the taxi driver off our backs as he drove away probably mumbling about foreigners and we walked away moaning about taxis.

Before we made our way to the Grand Palace, we decided to look around the area a little. Hordes of people were wandering the streets, and before we knew what was really happening, we were being swept away with the crowds towards a small temple that would prepare us a little for the ones that we would see later in the day. It wasn't anything spectacular, just a small building, but the work that had gone into it's creation and the pure quantity of people who were filing into it astounded me. We snapped a few shots here, being the typical tourists that we are, and quickly made our way outside before we could be trampled by the next lot of worshippers.

We walked across the road, occasionally stopping to look at the wares being sold which included about a million flowers and the odd bird in a cage, and found ourselves at the Grand Palace itself. Jess quickly realised that she was not wearing the appropriate attire, and was able to rent some astonishingly bright clothes to wear over her own. Once she was dressed, we tried to make our way inside, only to be informed that this was the Thai entrance - no foreigners allowed. Okay... so we made our way to the next entrance. Thai. No foreigners allowed. Eventually, after a long walk, we found ourselves at the foreigner entrance and found ourselves bombarded by people wanting to take us on tours around the whole area, despite the fact that the buildings were closing in less than an hour's time, and the tours would take an hour and a half at least. After avoiding the tour guides and weaving our ways between the tourists, we made it to the ticket booth and bought ourselves tickets to see the museum and the Grand Palace itself. Our first stop was the museum and we wandered around the air conditioned rooms (being watched closely because our cameras were out) looking at ceremonial bits and bobs and pieces of Thai history. When we were about halfway through our pleasantly paced wander, we were informed that the Grand Palace was about to close, and that if we wanted to see it, we would have to make our way there now. So we rushed through the rest of the museum, taking in as much as we could without really stopping, and practically ran to the palace.

The Grand Palace itself was absolutely beautiful with gold embossing practically everywhere. Lots of photo opportunities present themselves and Jess and I took full advantage with our cameras flashing and snapping away. We wandered between buildings and even made our way into the Wat Phra Kaow, supposedly the most holy Buddhist temple in Bangkok, where we each snuck in a photo despite the sign that told us not to. We really only had a minute in the temple itself as we were pushed and shoved along until we found ourselves outside once more. We then made our way to the palace building and took a couple of photos with the guards (just as strictly stationed and silent as their Buckingham counterparts) before getting back on the road.

Off we went to our next stop of the day - Chatuchat market - for... you guessed it... some more shopping! This time both of us had very specific aims in mind, and we got thoroughly lost in the midst of the market trying to fulfil them. I was in the search for a very specific gift for Dad and Jess was on the prowl for more sarongs to give as gifts and try as we might, we couldn't find them. We had a map, we knew where they were supposed to be, but we couldn't find them! We asked a number of people for directions, but we couldn't find them! Finally after wandering between stalls for hours, we realised that we had been going in completely the wrong direction, and eventually managed to find our way to the stalls that we needed. By this time, it was getting dark, and once we had purchased the last of our "necessities", we decided that our time in Chatuchat, as entertaining as it had been, was almost over. Our patience was wearing thin, and our stomachs were crying out, so we decided that food was needed before our journey to the airport could begin. Not knowing where to get food, we decided to ask a taktak driver to drive us around the area so that we could find something that looked good. The first one we asked informed us that for 50 baht, he would take us to his Sports Shop. Not liking the sound of this one little bit, Jess and I bolted and reconvened away from the drivers to decide what to do next. We were trying to decide when another driver approached us.
"What are you looking for?"
"Food," we replied rather exasperatedly!
"How much?"
"50 baht."
"I will take you."
He pointed to a place on the map that seemed nearby and we agreed to get into his tuktuk. The journey through Bangkok began, and I was rather enjoying the ride, not really noticing that anything was off until about ten minutes later when I looked at Jess's face and found horror written all over it.
"What's wrong?!"
"Where is he taking us?"
"Huh?"
"We have been going for ten minutes. Where is he taking us?"
The thought suddenly dawned upon me that this man could be taking us anywhere to do anything to us, and we would never know where we were and no one would ever be able to find us. I was just about hyperventilating when the driver pulled up alongside a restaurant and told us we were there. Relieved beyond words, Jess and I gave him our money and headed inside, only to find that the prices were far beyond our budget. Not to worry, we decided. We would walk around and find somewhere else. We had barely walked ten steps when the driver was before us once again.
"Why?"
"Too expensive!" we replied in unison.
"I'll take you somewhere else."
"Free?"
He wasn't too happy about that, but after a bit of persuading, he agreed. A few minutes later we were arriving at another restaurant, this one slightly better priced, and we had a wonderful last Thai dinner before finding ourselves a taxi back to the airport.

Our trip to the airport in Bangkok was almost a story in itself as we once again had a taxi driver without enough change. However, a solution was quickly found, and we arrived at the airport in one piece, which was good enough for us. We quickly sorted through our luggage, finding space for our new prizes and then checked everything through and made our way out of security and into the departures lounge. We managed to fit in some last minute shopping with Jess buying a few keyrings and chocolates for her co-workers before climbing onto another plane, this time heading back to Korea, much to our dismay. And thus our Thai adventure came to an abrupt end with us arriving back in freezing, snow-covered Korea after a 9-hour flight.

To read the other installments in the series, click here and here.

So I lied and didn't end up posting more about our Koh Samui trip when I said I would. I am sorry. Here it is now!

After our 28-odd hours of travelling, we finally arrived at our hotel. Driving along the "beach" towards it, we couldn't help but be a little trepidatious - the "beach" appeared to be nothing more than a sliver of sand before the water started, hardly what we had imagined ourselves suntanning on. And then we arrived at the resort. We were greeted at reception with cups of very sweet iced tea and we sat down to sort everything out before being taken to our room. There had been a bit of a mix up, as the website that we had booked through was not the website that gave the hotel our confirmation, and our request for separate beds somehow got lost by the wayside. In any case, after a quick chat with the manager, everything was sorted out and we were taken to our room - a wonderfully cool cemented room with a king sized bed (and an extra single beside it making it the biggest bed I have ever seen), a small bathroom with a rain-like shower, a large TV and a veranda that housed our own personal sitting area, fish pond and jacuzzi tub. After taking in the room and freshening up, we were on the move and heading to our first site of the trip - Big Buddah.

I have a number of Buddah statues in Korea, many of them big, so visiting Buddah was not a unique experience on my part at least, but it was certainly different to be visiting him while surrounded by turquoise seas and palm trees. There were also a number of other different features to be found - the ritual of placing flowers at the base of the Buddah and the option to have a monk spray you with holy water for good luck being two things that I don't recall seeing before. Another thing that I don't recall seeing in Korea were the number of shops that surrounded Big Buddah. Our spending spree, which had started before boarding the plane to Thailand, continued as we wandered the stalls bartering on prices for dresses, sarongs, handbags, sunglasses and shoes. Needless to say, we both walked away with a number of prizes in our hands.

It was late by the time we were finished shopping, and we were weighed down with bags, so we decided to just head back to the hotel and take advantage of the room service rather than explore any further. It had been a long day, after all, and we had another one ahead of us. We found a taxi without a problem.
"Mimosa resort?"
*Blank stare*
"Mi-mo-sa?"
*Blank stare continues*
"Mimosa, Maenam beach?"
"Ah!" It finally dawns on him where we need to go. Not a problem. We occasionally struggle to get Korean taxi drivers to understand where we are going too. This is something that we are used to. He motions for us to get into the car.
"How much?" We had been warned to ask this each time for fear of being ridiculously overcharged.
"500 baht."
Jess and I look at each other. We had been told very clearly by the hotel that it shouldn't cost more than 200 baht to get back from here. Do we risk it? We decided not to. Even when the driver offered to take us for 300, we weren't budging, and so we ended up deciding to try our luck on the road. A short walk later, we were on the main street and quickly found ourselves being picked up by a truck with couches on the back for travellers. He didn't know where Mimosa was, but he was prepared to take us to Maenam beach for 100 baht each. It wasn't the best way to travel, sure, but it was relatively cheap and easier than walking. So we climbed on. Twenty minutes later, we were told that we were at Maenam beach and, after looking around us, we decided that things did indeed seem familiar. We must be close.
We started walking in the direction that we thought our hotel was in. When we hadn't come across any signs fifteen minutes later, we checked our map. Yes, this did seem right. Can't be too far now.
Half an hour later, the road we were walking on was pitch black and we were really starting to get worried. We stopped and asked for directions, but the man we asked couldn't speak any English.
Finally, fifteen minutes later, we saw the first sign for the Mimosa Resort, and we finally knew for certain that we were on the right track. A bit more of a walk and a short scooter ride (thanks to another hotel's staff member) later, we were back at the hotel, looking more than a little disheveled I'm sure, and we made our way to our room for a relaxing night in of eating and watching movies.

We were up bright and early the next day for our first real adventure. Unfortunately, however, the driver that was supposed to pick us up was not. Not to despair! While we waited, we took the opportunity to be charitable and hand out food to the monks to celebrate the coming new year. This in itself was a slightly awkward activity, as monks passed by the tables laden with food which we were instructed to place into their waiting carriers without touching them. If our attempts at getting this right weren't embarrassing enough, it was truly mortifying when the taxi finally arrived to pick us up and the only way out was to climb under the table that the untouchable monks were on the other side of. It was certainly an entertaining way to start the morning.

Once the taxi arrived, our adventure-day truly started. We were taken to a small dock where a speedboat awaited us. We climbed aboard with about 20 other people and the hour-long ride to Ang Thong began. Ang Thong National Marine Park was, according to the brochure we read, the inspiration for the novel and movie The Beach, however nothing else that I look up seems to support that, so it could be utter rubbish. Regardless of whether that was the case, however, the marine park did hold some more amazingly turquoise waters and some deserted-looking islands. The trip there was a rather uncomfortable one. About halfway in, the first person started getting sick, and another had joined her far less discreetly by the time we arrived at our first stop. As you can guess, we were VERY relieved to get off the boat by that point.

The first stop was at a little cove where we were able to do some snorkeling. Having never snorkeled before, it took awhile for me to get used to the equipment, and I ended up holding my breathe while using the goggles for the first half an hour rather than attempting to use the snorkel. Eventually I did get used to it, though, and thoroughly enjoyed floating around and watching fish in different shapes and shades. About fifteen minutes into the swim, I tapped Jess on the shoulder.
"Do you feel that?"
"What?"
"It's like I'm being stabbed with needles!"
"Yeah," Jess agreed. "Maybe we have cuts that we didn't know about?"
We both shrugged it off as being inexplicable and carried on with our swimming until, about an hour in, it was Jess's turn to tap me on the shoulder.
"I saw a jellyfish!"
"No..."
"Yes!"
She pointed it out to me, but I didn't see it at all and just assumed that Jess was going mad until she saw another a few minutes later, and this time I did see it (and just about poked it!) That was it for me! I swam back to the boat as fast as I could, and Jess followed moments later, giggling as she told me that she had seen me kick at least three of them on my way back.

After our snorkeling adventure, it was just about time for lunch. We made our way to an island a few minutes away (for which we were all grateful when the same girl started getting sick again). The island itself, though beautiful, was not particularly entertaining, and after doing a bit of canoeing and eating a lunch of curries with rice and fruit, we were back on the boat and heading to the next stop.

The next stop was one that I hadn't expected and was not too excited about. We arrived on another island and made our way along a very unsteady plastic walkway onto a small strip of sand. I looked around us, wondering what on earth we could be doing here, when my eyes fell upon steps. Steep ones. Steep, uneven ones. Steep, uneven ones that were sometimes made up of nothing more than bags of cement. Not many people know this, but I don't like steps. I blame the time I tripped down them in middle school, but basically, I am just not very good at climbing them and always sense that I am going to fall down. So the prospect of climbing these steep steps that were not real steps was not one that I was looking forward to. I slowly made my way up and was the last to get to the top where there was a pretty view of a turquoise lagoon that I refused to look at because I was too shaken. I should have taken my time up there, because the way back down was far worse involving shorter, steeper steps that required me to put my ballet days into action and walk down with my feet at curious angles. Once we were halfway down, I managed to snap this shot of the lagoon (feeling much better now that the worst was likely over) and then we made our way to the bottom once more and relaxed on the beach while we waited to get back on the boat.

The boat ride back was an adventure in itself, really. The sea, it turned out, was furious with us and threw us around as we tried to make our way back to the mainland. While most of us were clinging to our seats and holding on for dear life, one of the British girls (who we believe to be around 18) was screaming for more.
"Give it all you've got! Come on! You can do better than that! Bring it!!!"
Soon Mother Nature really did bring it. One minute we were being thrown around, and the next we were soaking wet while being thrown around as the heavens opened up on our poor little vessel. I was a tad unlucky, as I happened to be under an opening in the roof and ended up getting absolutely soaked, but I don't think I was too much worse off than anyone else on the ship. Everyone was a tad miserable, and so Jess and I, at the request of the group of Brits, decided to cheer everyone up with a rendition of Journey, followed quickly by Proud Mary and I Will Survive, our noraebang nights finally coming into use. It certainly did make the time go faster, and before we knew it, we were back on solid ground and off for the last part of our adventure.

One of the main things that we wanted to do while we were in Thailand was to ride an elephant! I have had the chance to do this before back home, but I have always been too chicken. With Jess there, rooting us on, I decided that it was time to suck it up. Once we arrived at the park, we quickly changed out of our wet clothes and made our way to the elephant riding booth. An elephant was provided for us, and we made our way galumphing rather uncomfortably along a path while the driver picked bamboo leaves from the passing trees and made us each a ring and one small bird, which Jess took when we finally realised what it was supposed to be. The ride itself wasn't at all what I had imagined (I had pictured us actually riding on the elephants backs, when instead we were on couches that were carried by the elephant), but it was fun nonetheless, and we got a good picture out of it to boot. After our ride we spent some time feeding the baby elephants (my favourite was the naughty one who stole bananas from the other elephants mouths) and trying to get a monkey to play with us. Jess managed to get his attention, and he seemed rather fond of her when he reached out his hand to hold hers. We were so captured by his cuteness that we didn't even notice his other hand reaching for her back pocket where the bamboo bird was being stowed. And so, bamboo bird was no more. This wasn't enough to deter me, however, and I kept trying to be his friend until he had the same moment of uber-cuteness where he started reaching out to hold my hand, and I realised that he was going for my camera. After that, I wasn't so keen for Mr. Monkey to be my friend. When our driver informed us that it was time to go, we were more than ready, being damp, smelly and all-in-all pooped.

We arrived back at the hotel and immediately started getting ready for our New Years Eve dinner. Of course, by immediately I do mean that we took long showers and baths, took our time putting on our make-up, fussed and faffed and eventually left the room about two hours after we had entered it. We left looking fabulous, however, and made our way to the restaurant where the New Years Eve gala dinner was in full-swing. Full-swing, it turned out, did not involve many people, but we had fun nonetheless playing carnival-style games, winning silly little prizes and tasting some of the Thai sweet delicacies, some of which were about as good as they looked (which wasn't very). When we were done with the games, it was time to start our feast and we found our seats at the table and began our buffet dinner. Singers, dancers and musicians entertained us throughout the evening, and we also had a go at entertaining them. When the singers were taking requests, Jess and I eagerly shouted for Journey only to be told that they didn't know it, and we should come up and sing it ourselves! We politely declined until another couple took the stage and warmed up the crowd. After that, we couldn't say no! And so, our noraebang practice was put to further use, and our singing careers took another step forward. A few minutes before midnight, white lanterns were passed from table to table and each person was told to write a wish. At midnight, the lanterns were all set off into the sky in a beautiful ceremony, and moments later the fireworks display began. All-in-all, it was a wonderful way to bring in the New Year.

We managed to sleep in a little bit the next day, but were still up by 9:30 to indulge in the buffet breakfast. After breakfast, we got the hotel to call us a taxi and made our way to Chaweng beach, the main beach of the island and, of course, the main shopping spot. We wandered down streets, bargaining down prices and made a few purchases (one of them being an extra bag in which to carry supplies) before heading back to the resort for an afternoon of relaxation.

We had decided that no Thai holiday could be complete without a spa treatment, and since the resort was also a spa, we took the opportunity to book a massage a piece. While Jess went all out and decided on one of the packages that they offered, I was more trepidatious and decided instead on a simple Thai massage. I have never been a big fan of massages, but this one went over rather nicely for the most part with only a few pangs and twinges making me uncomfortable. By the time our massages were finished, it was time for our final dinner at the hotel (which was perfect as per usual). After dinner, we made our way back to our rooms and spent the rest of the evening packing up and preparing for our last day in Thailand and our return to Korea.

To read about our time in Bangkok, click here.
To see the first installment, click here.

When I was thinking of coming to Korea, a friend of mine asked me a very interesting question.
"What are you going there to do?"
He wasn't asking about the job. He wasn't asking about my social life. He was asking about where Korea would fit into my life goal. Was I coming here to save? Was I coming here to spend? Was I coming here to travel? My answer was simple enough... all of the above. I wanted to save enough money for a car. There were certain things that I wanted to buy here - a laptop and a camera being the two biggest expenses. And, since I would be in Asia, I wanted to travel.

I have travelled a lot in my twenty two years. My family is big on travelling, and I have been a bit of a jetsetter since my first trip to Zimbabwe when I was three years old. Since then, I have visited Zimbabwe once more, seen America, stopped over in London, taken in Portugal, Spain and Mallorca, eaten in Italy, toured France and that's not including the multiple stop overs in countries like Amsterdam and Dubai. But, with all the travelling that I have done, Asia has never been high on my parents list, and while I know that there may still be plenty of travelling in my future, I couldn't let this opportunity go by unnoticed. And so, when Jessica suggested travelling to Thailand, I jumped at the chance and, after a couple of hiccups involving flight complications and the difficulties that come from dealing with Orbitz.com, on 28 December our journey began.

As Jessica had the late shift at work, finishing up at 9:30pm, we decided to head to Seoul on Tuesday night to make it easier getting to the airport the next morning. We knew of a hotel near the bus terminal, and we even made sure that we had their calling card to make it easier for a taxi to take us there. Alas, we hadn't counted on the taxi drivers being morons, and none of them (even the ones with the GPS) were prepared to find the hotel, so we ended up walking there instead. Having assumed that catching a taxi would be easy, I had opted not to bring my winter jacket, instead going for a hoodie and leather jacket so as to save space and weight in my luggage. Now that we were walking to the hotel, I was absolutely frozen and by the time we got there, I couldn't feel my hands or my face. I was relieved when we got into the room to find the heat had already been turned on as it meant I had a chance to thaw out. Once I was fully thawed, however, we quickly found that the heat was getting too much and, with no way to turn it off, we resorted to opening up windows to let in the cool night air. Needless to say, the combination of hot and cold led to a rather restless night, and by the time 6:30am rolled around and the alarm was going off, both of us were slightly sleep deprived.

Once we had woken up a bit, with a little help from the Starbucks on the corner, we made our way to the subway station and boarded the train to the airport. With only one transfer, we felt that we had plenty of time on our hands. What we hadn't expected was that the train would take so long, and we ended up getting to the airport a little later than we had planned. But we managed to make our way through check in and security without any hassle, and our holiday was off to a good start. No sooner had we passed through security than Jess spotted something that would truly kick our holiday off in the right manner - a Coach store. The spending started before we even left the airport with each of us walking away with a bag a piece, feeling a little giddy about our purchases, but definitely in the holiday spirit of having some fun.

Our first flight was to Hong Kong, and we arrived on time without any problems. The first thing that we did when we got there? Convert some of our cash to HK Dollars and start checking out the shops. More than anything, Jess was relieved to see yet another Starbucks, and this time it was one with seasonal supplies unlike it's counterparts in Korea. After checking out the bookstores, we made our way there to grab some gingerbread lattes and then patiently waited for our flight to Bangkok.

Once again the flight left without any complications, and we arrived in Bangkok at 7pm as we had planned. What we hadn't planned for was the passport check. Sure, we knew there would be one, but we hadn't expected to wait in endless queues to get through it. An hour or so later, we were grabbing our luggage and heading through the arrivals doors to find a taxi.
"Taxi!"
Easy enough.
"How much?"
"One thousand, two hundred baht."
Thank God we had remembered to ask and thank God we had done our research. The number of tourists who must get ripped off every year by these 'taxi drivers' waiting outside the arrivals gate astounds me. We politely declined the lady's offer and made our way downstairs to the public taxi rank where we managed to get a taxi without any fuss for a mere 500 baht. Forty-five minutes later, we were arriving at the bus "station" in Bangkok where Westerners were piled onto an island in the middle of the busy traffic. We managed to check in for our bus and were then left to wait amongst the foreigners as we tried without any luck to find a place to sit. Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long, and within half an hour we were on our VIP night bus to Koh Samui.

For more about our trip to Koh Samui, click here.

I have been seriously lax over the last few weeks with my blogging responsibilities, and I do apologise for that. There is at least one reason why - I have been in Thailand for the last five days, so I haven't had much of a chance to update my blog. However, I intend to catch everything up over the next few days since I do have more free time than usual what with not working this week and all. But I suppose I should start off with the most obvious blog post - HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Yes, it is a little late, and as much as I am now completely tempted to copy my friend Chanel and post a slideshow of pictures from the year, I feel like there are too many to count, and instead I am going to post a short list of resolutions that I have made for this year. Some of them are what you would expect, some of them are going to be incredibly difficult and some of them I am not sure that I can do at all, but I am certainly going to try. So here are my Resolutions for 2011:

1. Lose 5kgs.
   Since coming to Korea, I have managed to lose a rather substantial amount of weight and, more amazingly, have managed to keep it off! But, I still cannot help looking in the mirror and seeing the extra weight that I have, so I feel that losing 5kgs can certainly not hurt.
   
   
2. Go to Taekwondo more often.
   I feel that this resolution goes hand in hand with number one, as one of the ways to lose weight would of course be getting some exercise. I have been a bit lax with going to the classes recently, what with the weather getting colder and me now being the only person taking the lessons. I am hoping to at least get my green belt before I leave Korea.
   
   
3. Blog at least three times a week.
   Blogging is another thing that I have been getting lax about. Of course, there are some excuses like my being in Thailand without a computer, but overall, I feel that I must start blogging more often. I feel that three times a week is the least I can do.
   
   
4. Stop shopping!
   One of the biggest worries that I have on my mind at the moment is how I am going to get home with all of my stuff. What makes this problem worse is that I keep buying more stuff that I want to take home with me! As it is, I am not sure that I will be able to fit everything into the 30kgs that any airline would allow me, and yet I keep going. So, no more shopping for me (or as little as possible!)
   
   
5. Save money.
   Once again, I feel this goes very well with the one before - I need to save money, and one of the ways to do that would be spending less money shopping. Another way would be to take busses instead of taxis, which I have been doing more of recently, another would be deciding not to go on the trip to China, which is a slightly more difficult decision to make.
   
   
6. Learn to play the guitar.
   I have a guitar. It is sitting in the corner of my room gathering dust as I write this, and I know a little bit about how to play it, but I really want to learn more and get motivated to play it more. Perfect motivation would be finding myself a guitar instructor, and I feel that I may make more of an effort to do this once I return home and have a little more spare time on my hands.
   
   
7. Look on the bright side.
   I am not a positive person. I always see the glass as being half empty, always focus on the things that I don't have rather than the things that I do and always think of what could go wrong rather than thinking of what has gone right. I need to stop doing this, and I know that I do, but actually doing it is going to be hard. I am a stresser and a worrier and I always have been. Changing something that you have done all of your life is never going to be easy, but at least I have friends and family to support me through it, and that is certainly something to be very grateful for.
   
   
8. Don't hold grudges.
   Awhile ago, I was told that it takes a lot for me to forgive someone, and I think that is something that needs to change. I need to just let things go and accept that not everything is going to work out for the best.
   
   
9. Remove unnecessary things from my life.
   At the same time though, I need to realise that not everything that is in my life is necessary and I need to literally let things go as well as figuratively. From the clothes that I need to abandon in Korea even though I still love them, to the stress that comes with a job I hate, to the people who make me upset and uncomfortable, I need to remove unnecessary things from my life in order to just be happy with myself and the way that things are.
   
   
10. Be less moody.
    This is another of the things that will be hard to do. I am a moody person, and it is, quite literally, in my blood. There are some things that I cannot overcome - I will always have a hormonal disorder, and there is nothing that can be done to change that. But the way that I act can change. I can realise when I am being moody and remove myself so that my emotions don't get in anyone else's way. I can realise when it is going to start and apologise in advance. And I can try to make the happiness last longer by just staying on my meds (which should be a lot easier now that I have confronted my fear and had my blood taken.)

These are my aims for 2011. I realise that some of them are more realistic than others, I realise that a lot of them will never be achieved. But I also know that by making this list, I have realised some flaws in myself, and I think that is a big step to achieving my goals. Good luck to everyone for the year ahead and may 2011 bring you everything that you wish for and more!

I want to issue a warning to all of my fellow Cheongjuers and Yongam-dongers.


You may have seen her around and thought that she looked nice, but do not let her smile and Australian accent deceive you. Beneath that pretty, friendly exterior lies the skill of a samurai warrior and the stealth of a ninja.

You see, she would have you believe that she hates snow, wants nothing at all to do with it or any of the activities that come with it - in particular, she does not want to build a snowman, make snow angels or have a snow fight. And she will lull you into this false sense of security until, one night, when she invites you to have dinner with her, she will pounce like a tiger.

This is not a warning. This girl is DANGEROUS! Even with a left-handed throw (though she herself is right-handed) she will attack with precision and never miss her target. In my case, she was not aiming to kill, but merely to maim. Thus, the snowball that was so deftly thrown was timed so that my eyes would be closed when the icy weapon of her choice collided with my face.

If you see her, I highly recommend hitting her first before she has a chance to try her skills on you.