Update!

Today I had my first Thai cooking course in Chiang Mai (Northern Thailand). Tomorrow I will be going on a 3 day trek into the jungle to meet some village ppl and ride on elephants. It's crazy what I'm doing here and I'm pretty blessed to be able to experience this in my lifetime.

I had good intentions of blogging my whole trip as I go. I've been documenting what I spend and taking a lot of pictures however it seems when i upload them they disappear off my camera for some reason. I think I'll just save the pictures and the stories for when I return as I don't want to loose anything special. Plus I'm spending way too much time/ money on the internet when I should be enjoying this new country with my husband.

So I'll be taking a little break for the time being.

I'll be back!

Bangkok Thailand December 26, 2009

The next morning we decided to venture out of the backpackers area because it was a little too greasy for me. We rode the free bus into the city center around Nana station and found a hotel (it was double what we were paying in the other area but we saved on transportation, as the bus was free)

The free bus ride lasted 50 minutes and I was pretty much soaked when I got off. I can't imagine living in Bangkok in the summer. Too hot for me!!!!!

We showed up and hit the Center World mall (ummm can't remember the exact name).

The king is everywhere!

This picture is for Kristin!

We ate Vietnamese food in the mall -- Sung Hyun's choice

It was hot!

We found a supermarket in the mall with some interesting things!

Yellow watermelon

Beautiful Christmas light display outside the mall!

In the evening we went to Soi Cowboy -- an area famous for it's sex workers. We spent way too much money on a couple of beer so Sung Hyun could see his first topless show. The women wore numbers and danced around on stage on a revolving platform. Men choose the number and then head upstairs for, well probably what ever they wanted. I didn't let Sung Hyun venture that far!

Total money spent = 2273 Baht ($69 US)

Bangkok Thailand December 25th, 2009

We had a stop over in Taiwan on our way to Bangkok. We had just 30 minutes off the airplane and I found the most perfect bag from Coach at $391 US. MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ME!! I thought I'd wait till I was going back to Seoul to buy it since I don't think a four hundred dollar bag would go over well in South East Asia. And I guess I should see how well our money stretches first.

Here I am drinking some Coke Light from Taiwan

We arrived in Bangkok at midnight exhausted from our trip. We headed to the area just outside KohSan Road, which is know for its backpackers. We shared a Chang beer and went to bed!

The next morning we woke up and had breakfast on the street. I've learned that Sung Hyun is more open minded than me. He pretty much will try anything. I'm more or less sticking to what I'm familiar with.

After breakfast we went for a walk around our area on a mission to find The Grand Palace which I visited the last time I was in Bangkok. It was beautiful. Here are some of the photos below:

I'm not cold, but I had to cover up my shoulders!

Then we went to What Po (also know as the reclining Buddha). Isn't it beautiful?

More street food. Pad Thai for $2 at a mini stand on the side of the road.

After the tour we went back showered up and hit the road again. Here I am sporting my new ring!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Finding this earring stand was my Christmas present!

Christmas dinner: Chicken and rice! After dinner we enjoyed an hour massage and then hit the sack. It was a very busy first day.
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Total money spent (includes everything -- hotel, transportation, tickets, massage, shopping etc.) = 3747 Baht ($112 US)

Going to Bangkok

Sung Hyun enjoys his last Korean meal in the Korean airport. What's he going to do without kimchi for a month?

Update!

A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks.

First of all I want to thank everyone who made a comment on the last post I did about having some difficulties with Sung Hyun. He feels awful that he can't contribute or help me out so he has been making up for it in many other ways. He really is a great husband!
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I had an amazing Christmas party with my friends at my place last weekend. I prepared a ton of food and everyone left with happy bellies. We played games, laughed and drank (too much)!
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I had an amazing Christmas party planned with my Korean family which included a turkey with the fixings (& Christmas crackers and all). But that failed when my friend brought me the frozen turkey the night before. We resorted to a galbi restaurant, and then an after party at my sisters house which resulted in me getting way too many amazing Christmas presents. Actually I felt awful as it was obvious I didn't spend nearly as much on them as they did on me! First Christmas with my Korean family = FAIL!
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I have been browsing the job ads online in my city back in Canada. I came across the PERFECT job for me. It's a job to teach ESL to new immigrants residing in my city. I have the education, the soon to be immigrant husband, and the cultural experiences of living abroad for the past 4 years. This job is exactly what I want. The only problem is it starts in February and we don't plan to be back in Canada until mid summer. I thought what the heck, I'll apply for it anyways and explain my current situation. I woke up this morning to this email from my dad, "... the 'Open Door Society' called here today wondering if you were in Regina yet - I told them you would not be here until June or July of next year - they said you should call when you arrive".

WHAT AN EXCELLENT WAY TO START MY CHRISTMAS EVE!
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I've said good-bye to 3 good friends this past week. It was hard to watch them leave. I cried! They have moved on and are continuing on with their lives in a different country. I won't get another chance to meet up with Anne-Marie, my best friend, before she leaves Korea. I'm going to miss her a lot.
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In 30 minutes I'll be leaving to the airport to board a plane to Thailand, where I'll be for the next month. I don't have any hotel reservations or any idea of where we will go. I've got my bag packed, my husband and some money in hand. Wish me luck!

AND MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!!!!!
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Sung Hyun's Idea

It was Sung Hyun's idea to fill out the immigration paperwork forms ourselves. He insisted that we didn't need to hire a lawyer, that we would work together on them by ourselves because that's what everyone on Couple Canada (a website that Sung Hyun belongs to) did. What I already knew was that Sung Hyun wouldn't be able to complete most of the forms by himself since they required an advanced level of English to understand (and some questions to ambiguous for even me to figure out).

But what I didn't expect was the excuses: "let's do this tomorrow", the laziness: "I'm going take a rest first" and the damn right lack of respect as he would rather watch T.V. then help me out.

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I've poured over 100+ hours into this process, sitting by myself reading, re-reading, searching out forums online, writing emails to anyone and everyone, copying and pasting pictures into word documents to validate the progression of our 'genuine' relationship, carefully filling in the forms in bold block letters....................

...........so when I turned around to see Sung Hyun sleeping as I continued on my own, I wanted to rip up all the work, MY work, from the past 2 months, while screaming "IF YOU REALLY WANT TO COME TO CANADA FIGURE OUT HOW TO GET THERE BY YOURSELF".

But I didn't.

Instead, I turned back around and cried!