Preparing for the New World

If you didn't know already, Rebs and I are going to Thailand. In fact, we're leaving this coming Monday night. Work has become quite slow recently because of the Lunar New Year (Chinese New Year to non-Koreans). So our administration put the offer out to anyone who wanted to take an extended vacation. We could take unpaid days to continue our vacation. So as of yesterday, we are no longer going to Thailand for 7 days, but 12. Yes, 12 days of sunshine, beaches, huge multi-pitch limestone cliffs, and lots of fruity drinks and Thai food.

This vacation has been long awaited by us because we had about a month and a half of non-stop Korean kids, 10 days at a time. If you emailed or skyped us, you know how exhausted we were sometimes. We are soo looking forward to actually getting tans and wearing t-shirts and shorts in the middle of winter. I think the weather in Korea has been pretty much the same as it is in America right now--cold, cold, and more cold.

This vacation hasn't come without a few setbacks though. Two weeks ago, we ordered a new climbing rope and quickdraws, both essential to sport climbing, which we will be doing alot of in Thailand. We ordered it just in time to get it here before we left. But yesterday, we got a letter, instead of a package in the mail, saying (after having a Korean co-worker translate for us) that our package was stopped and waiting in customs. We had to call and fill out an online form, all of course in Korean. The line was busy, but today we had our coworker call again and this time we got through, only to find out that we are going to have to pay an 18% customs tax. So our gear is now costing us roughly $200 just to get it here. On top of it all, we get to go to customs to pick it up on Monday before we go to the airport so that we can take the gear with us to Thailand. Ahh, the life of Korea. I guess I don't really care that much because in 3 days we'll be in Thailand.

One interesting thing for you and a very different thing for us is that this is our first vacation that we are taking having not planned at all. Granted, we have many ideas of what we would like to do. But many of the people we've talked to here suggested we just show up without plans. Most of the Thai people speak English and usually it is less expensive to do it this way. Be proud of us; it's a big step for us. We've always booked at least where we're staying before we show up. But the thing with Thailand is that there are so many different places to go around the area of Phuket that you never know what you're going to find. We know we want to go to Railey and climb. We want to go to Koh Phi Phi (where they filmed "The Beach") which also happens to have rock climbing. Rebs wants to ride an elephant. I think that will be funny to watch and take pictures. We're going to take both the digital and film cameras, and will hopefully get some great pictures for memories and some cool abstracts as well. Rebs wants me to re-teach her how to use the film camera. We'll see what I actually remember first. But it should be fun either way.

So anyway, if you write us email or facebook messages or whatever and we don't answer, you'll know why. We're not taking our laptop with us because it's kind of a liability in a 3rd world country. I don't want to have to carry it on my wherever we go. and parents, don't worry, we got traveler's insurance for while we're there. we're being responsible. :) hopefully we'll have some awesome pictures to share with you when we come back.