My mom..Rocks!

Living so far from home I constantly think of my family. I miss my mom and dad a lot. Well lucky for me my mom must innately get that as she sends me random cards all the time. They some always arrive on a day that I am struggling and just want it to be 3:30 already. The latest made me cry (not the first one). My favorite was a blank black card with white writing that said: "This card had no purpose" and when you opened it, it said "but I sent it anyway" :) 

The most recent was this one:

I'm so blessed to have the mom I do :)

Hotel visit

Two weeks ago we were invited to an all Songdo event that happens once a month. Many of the teachers at school chose to attend this one as it was at the Oakwood which is currently the tallest building in Korea. The hotel lobby is on the 36th floor. 

Well we were given wine and some nibbles but not anticipating this turn out the hotel very quickly ran out of both. Glad I had some when it was available! 

They also did room tours of the rooms so we could see the new hotel. Well we a bit silly because a friend dared us to take a picture on one of the new beds. Well it escalated from there. The evidence follows :). These transgressions were in cooperation with jessica Nelle, who I worked with in California and is now working here, and her husband Brian. 

Living in Songdo

It has been 4 years of living in Songdo now.  It is amazing how much has changed here.  I often forget how far we have come in 4 short years.

When I first moved here we had no street lights that worked as we had no cars.  We had a few korean restaurants but not many businesses or foreign restaurants.  We were the only foreigners here and basically the only ones in our building complex.  We had 3 parks, with no one in them.  A few of us biked but no one else did.

All the buildings are now full, they have built more apartments and filled those too!  We not only have street lights and cars we have rush hour traffic too! We have acquired 3 new hotels including on that is in the tallest building in Korea with a lobby starting on the 37th floor.  We also have a Holiday Inn and a hotel with a wedding hall now!
We have quite a few foreign restaurants and they are actually good ha ha.  A few events from the Asian Games were hosted here in Songdo and many of the athletes stayed in Songdo.

However, today, where I had a day off and no one else did, I took a train ride and realize that although we are going we are still far outside the city....which I LOVE!

I went to commute to seoul via the train today and found my train station to be completely empty!

 When I got on the train it was as if I lived in the North not the South as I got on an empty train.  When I sent this picture to Sue she said to lie down as this never happens....

So I did...I mean why not since when else am I going to get to do this :)

5k Songdo race

So I ran my 4th consecutive Songdo road race. Each year they do this in late September/early October and a number of teachers from our school sign up for either the marathon, half marathon, 10k or 5k. Last year I did my second 10k and was excited to sign up for my third. However I pinched a nerve in my back 3 times and was layed up instead of training. 

Come sept I was ready to run and the. I came back from Boracay with a bronchial infection. If you know me (and my lungs) you know I can't run with that! Ugh so again no training. Well I just stopped my meds last week and am still on an inhaler so a 10k sounded a bit overwhelming this year. My lovely roommate has been training a lot but only signed up for the 5k so it worked out for us to switch race numbers and chips. Yay!  However I still had to run a 5k with no training, let's be honest, no exercise since July!! 

Definitely did not have the confidence in my lungs but they surprised me. It wasn't easy but I ran the whole 5k with no stops and did it in 35 minutes!!! It burned but the determination not to let my lungs win pushed me through! 

Yay! Small victories feel good :)

Grateful

So when I left the amazing families in California I want sure I would have community like that again. It took a few years but this is one of the many family's that are not just student, parent, teacher anymore. This family in particular is a large part of my life. I meet with then about once a month to have dinner with HeeYoung and her 2 daughters. We spend the whole night laughing and then we spend another month texting until we have time to meet again.

HeeYoung has taken me (and Brian) skiing, out to eat and has even picked me up from the hospital. She makes sure I am healthy and happy. I am so blessed to find new but still wonderful Chadwick families like this one across the ocean :)

Not better

Turns out this cold is kicking my butt instead of vise versa. 

I am on round 2 of antibiotics and such. Still hoping to kick this!!

Health care

Getting sick sucks no matter where you are but seems to suck more when you can't just call your mom to sympathize with you!  

However we are licky enough to have an English speaking doctor right next to our apartment who is open on Saturdays. I came back from Boracay with a chest cold so I went straight to the doctor on Saturday. 

She (a pediatrician by the way ha ha) have me a shot, then put me on a nebulizer for 7 minutes. That thing really loosens the chest!!  Then she sent me downstairs to the English speaking (thank God) pharmacist. I was given a weeks worth of antibiotics that looks like this:

The top packets are liquid to loosen the chest. The idividual packets on the bottom are labeled BLD for breakfast lunch and dinner :) the small yellow squares in the middle are patches to wear on my chest like this:

Not totally sure what it does ha ha. The inhaler is well an inhaler. And the purple is some Vit C I picked up. 

Hopefully I will kick this cold Korean style!!  

Oh and all of this including the visit cost me about $50!

Travels back

So my travels back involved a variety of transportation:

Jeepny from hotel to the port

Pay port fee at the port

Ferry to the big island 

Sad to leave but at least it was cloudy for me

Van to the airport

Pay transit fee at the airport

Take small prop plane with 12 passengers to Manila

Pay transit fee 

Wait 4 hours **

Board also not full flight to Incheon

Take taxi back to apartment. 

Vacation finished! 

**while waiting at the Manila airport I stopped at a restaurant that boated they take credit card and have free wifi. 

I sit and order and get the wifi info...the wifi doesn't exist. I get my bill and hand over my credit card. The waitress tells me I have to double my order to pay with credit card. Ugh. No, I do not have enough cash. No, I do not want more food. No, I do not want to buy more drinks either. 

I explain I came here because you advertised these 2 simple things and have produced neither. I'm bummed. The older gentleman next to me pipes up, "how much is my meal" the waitress responds and he continues, "how about you pay for both of our meals with your card and I will give you the cash for mine?" I ponder this suggestion. He is holding the exact amount of his dish in his hand. Okay, I agree to this deal. I stay another 15 minutes to chat with said nice gentleman and thank him profusely for helping me. 

Yay for random acts of kindness :)

Last day

Today is my last full day in Boracay. It is a beautiful sunny day. In fact no clouds in the sky! 

I eat a delicious Philippino breakfast and head out to "surf" again. This time I learned my lesson and wear my yoga pants to protect my legs and knees agains the rubber of the paddle board. Unfortunately I did enough damage yesterday that even with the pants my knees are killing me. 

Today is a calm day so the waves are small. I have trouble catching anything worth pushing me in! 

I decide to do some actual paddle boarding instead since I have done that once before *in my head I'm a pro*. My guide fetched paddles and life jackets. I quickly realize I don't even know how to get on the board:

I sit on the board

Guide: no ma'am legs out

Me: oh *put legs out*

Try to stand

Guide: no ma'am knees first

Me: oh *struggle to my knees*

Try to stand and flip over

Guide: want to go back to surf? 

Me: yes. 

Back to surf and was a bit more successful with a few bigger waves. 

I head back to the hotel to rinse off and tend to my scraped up knees. The wight staff at the pool area know me by now and he asks about my surf time then we have this conversation (note: they refer to everyone as sir or ma'am when speaking with you.)

Waiter: ma'am where is you.... ..... Where is..... ..... .... Where is Sir? (Referring to Brian)

Me: oh he had to return to work

Waiter: you like here?

Me: yes! Boracay is beautiful!!

Waiter: you call sir and tell him you stay?

Me: uh...I don't think he would like that very much 

Waiter: burst into laughter. 

After a beach side lunch I headed to a spa (I wouldn't be my mothers daughter if I didn't). I had a few services at a nice spa and emerged just as the sun set on the beach. The perfect walk back. 

I stopped in the busy area for dinner then wandered the beach back to my hotel for dessert - a mango banana and Nutella crepe! Delicious! 

Upstairs to pack :(

A day with the police...

Now before I begin this story I have to say I am so blessed this did not happen to me and I was a amiable to help a friend. 

So after the infamous pub crawl our two friends from Seoul stayed out and went swimming. When they headed back to their hotel early in the AM Jackie realized her purse was not among their belongings. She Went back

To search the beach twice, they called other friends who were there and asked did they have it? No luck. 

When Brian and I contacted them the next day we met them to help search. We again searched the beach, asked local business owners, ask the pub crawl coordinators but no one had seen it. So we ventured to the police station. 

She filed a report but they didn't seem to believe her story. "You didn't see who took it ma'am?" No officer. "Then are you sure it was stolen?" Yes officer. This went on for a while. 

As we stood to leave the officer hands the report to another officer and he looks at it and says "wait some one reported this name with a lost liscense."  

So we are then loaded into the back of a police jeepny and driven to a random business. The business owner had found Jackie's purse and called it in. Inside was he liscense, her alien card for Korea, all her credit cards and her shot glass. 

What was not in there was her iPhone and her cash. We took this as a win as she has insurance on the phone and got a police report to show them. Luckily she had a small amount of Pesos that equalled about $12.00. 

No pictures with that post unfortunately 😁. 

After Brian and I enjoyed a nice Greek dinner and went back to the hotel so he could pack. 

Tomorrow and Thursday I am on my own. What to do?? 😀

Surf time

So today Brian departed as we have different schedules and he has to return to work.  First...I went back to bed. But when I woke the sun was back! (We have had 2 cloudy days). I immediately went to lay in the sun. 

I have been trying to days to do stand up paddle boarding with no luck. I won't to the front desk pleading to find anyone who would take just one person (many have minimum of 4 people). She said she would get back to me. 

I wandered down the strand for lunch:

My view from lunch. I had a delicious local dish called chicken adobo. 

After lunch there was good news. She had found someone to take me. I gt ready and wandered to the beach just outside our hotel: 

There I was met by PJ and Andrew and just a paddle board. No paddle. I was initially confused until I realized they were going to give me surf lessons!  I was a bit nervous as I had signed on to paddle along bit surf but what the hay, the ocean is beautiful and the board is huge! Might as well try! 

Well...success. Let's be honest Andrew did most of the work. I climbed on the board tummy down. Andrew chose a wave and pushed me into it. After he pushed my job was to jump up and balance. Because I was using a paddle board (made of a light foam and very long and wide) it was quite easy to get up. About half way through the whole sky turned black, wind picked up, and we were being pelted with rain. The rain was flying so hard sideways at stung a bit. We persevered and actually had some good waves because of it! I had so much fun I am going to go back tomorrow before I hit the spa. 

Now I am relaxing and enjoying a cocktail. 

Is it day 3 already??

We began today with breakfast and the news we cannot go paddleboarding without a group of 4 😣. So we make the quick decision to go helmet diving instead. We are boated out to a platform and given quick directions. 

As I descend the ladder so the water is shoulder height a LARGE helmet full of air is placed over my head and I'm told to go go go. 

I reach the bottom of the ocean and Brian joins me. The scuba guide hands is fish food. The fish swarm my fingers and eventually nip at my hand aiming for food. Although it does not hurt in any way I scream and throw my food. 

Later Brian retrieves it from the ground for me and then throws it at my helmet so I have a face full of fish! 😳 it was scary but awesome!! 

We watched close up as a small clown fish brushed himself on a sea anemone. 

We came back to the hotel to chill out and have a cocktail. We ordered pink panthers which is a signature cocktail of our hotel and tastes like pink lemonade!!

We walked the beach and played in the ocean. 

That evening we had plans with our friends from Seoul to do a pub crawl. For those unfamiliar with that idea it is when you sign up at one bar and they organize to take you to multiple bars and you get free shots and play games and make friends along the way. It is not really my favorite past time so I was not excited to go. We were given t-shirts and bracelets we had to wear and a shot glass on a string to put around our neck. We immediately found Svizzera and set toindividualizing our t-shirts. We were off to the first bar where I was immediately handed a microphone and journey began to play. Not 2 minutes in the door and I had to karaoke "Don't Stop Believing."

The rest of the night was filled with new friends and dancing...a lot of dancing. 

Brian Jackie and I

Jackie and I

Brian and I...being silly as usual. 

The night culminated with a silent disco at a beach bar. For those unfamiliar with that it is when everyone gets. Set if headphones that are programmed to the DJ. You put on the headphones and dance with all the other headphone wearing silly people. However, to those looking on you are just dancing to nothing as they hear no music. It was awesome. 

In the end I made some fun new friends and had a great time! Who knew? 😊

Boracay day 2

Day 2 was a bit more active. We began with a quick tour by myboracay.com who do almost all the tours here. 

We had a cool private boat that motored us out to snorkel. We were the only 2 on the boat. We were also the first to the snorkel spot. 

They gave us some bread to feed the fish and then they just followed us around. When I held up my waterproof camera the fish thought it was good and swam right up to it. We saw pufferfish, memo, Gil and many more. 

Then we went to magic island. 

We took a ride on this swing and the. Relaxed in the shade a bit. 

After we walked to the other side to do cliff jumping. This did take me a hood 5 minutes of standing at the engr and shaking before I finally jumped off! 😳

Brian had no problems though. Just had to wait for me! 😁

This was the second highest. I moved from here to the lowest ramp. 

This is us next to the one I did jump off of: (notice the guy going off the jump as he took this picture ha ha)

 We headed back to try to do some paddle boarding but no luck so we hung out for a while and then went parasailing. 

When we were back on solid ground we watched the subset from our hotel. 

Then we went for dinner and met 2 friends from Seoul that are also here on vacation.  We went for some drinks and happened on a fire dancing show. 

Day 2 was awesome!! 😊

Day 1 boracay

So day one was a bit long since we didn't really sleep on the way here. Naps were taken :)

We eventually explored our surroundings and found it to be absolutely beautiful! 

We walked down the beach to the bar/restaurant/club area. I found this gem:

Thank goodness they offer husband daycare. 😐

As the sun set we headed back to our hotel and then out for dinner. A great and restful first day. 😊

The never ending tale

Well...I must have been WAY too excited to head to Boracay for vacation with my boy. We have had a week and a weekend together since June and  Ian ready to hang out! 

We arrived at incheon airport and head to the counter only to be asked where my printed ticket was. I stared blankly and said "I fought that was your job?" Did I miss something? We did finally get tickets and eat dinner then headed to our gate to be met with many announcements, only some of which were in English. We were ready:

I approach the now swarmed ticket counter to find out our flight is delayed until 2:00am. We were supposed to leave at 9:35pm. When I ask the man behind the counter the reason for the delay he says the airport in Manilla is closed but he does not know why. Smart boy Brian jumps online while I am in line and finds out there was a bomb threat for the second time in a week at the very airport where I am currently sitting. We fill in the other foreigners and I set out finding out the plan for our connection. 😐

We..well I took a nap while we waited and arrived in Manilla at about 5:30. Exactly when our connection took off.  We went through customs...not a fast process. The we are sent to this counter who sends us to that counter and finally to standby counter. We are in an incredibly angree line of Koreans and foreigners. I don't feel the need to yell and stomp my feet at the counter people as there is only so much you can do after an airport was shut down for 5 hours. 

I do push and shove to keep my space and call the man over with my limited voice ( yes, I lost my voice again). We are finally given permission to go get in another line! 😱 we did get tickets but now my bag is conviently 4kg's too heavy. I had to pay for it 😝. Oh well. Not a fantastic experience and I don't ever plan on flying Cebu Pacific ever again but at least when this all finishes we will be in Boracay ☺️  Can't be mad at that! 🏊 👙 😎 ☀️ 🐡 

Update: 

After FAR too many hours of travel to this island we are on the water taxi there! Feeling a bit crazy at the moment. 

We made it!!