Spring in Korea

How time flies! It’s been weeks since we’ve updated our blog and we are sorry for the delay!  Office time quickly turned into classroom time over the past month.  Today, we completed our fifth round of a 3-day camp for 5^th graders.  The program is called Basic Course…and I guess I wasn’t aware of just how basic these students’ English knowledge would be.   We are becoming more adept at understanding classroom Korean…or the gist of short Korean phrases.  Some people look at us strangely and ask if we speak Korean after we’ve successfully answered some basic, generic questions.  They don’t believe us when we say no so we get talked at a lot here.  Oh well, we’re getting really good at smiling and nodding J

Captain Luke

For the first three weeks, I was in charge of the situation room: Gameroom.  I taught Guess Who.  That’s a really hard game to explain to an ESL student!  They probably spent more time flipping around the boards than actually playing the game, but oh well.  I tried and they seemed to have fun with it.  Luke taught restaurant and the students were a little destructive with the fake fried chicken, side salads and ice cream sundaes.  We have since moved on with our teaching requirements and I much prefer teaching Hollywood Studios.  They kids make a commercial comparing Coke and Pepsi and it’s pretty cute J 

New car ceremony: 

The director of our school bought a new car a few weeks back.  We were invited to his new car ceremony and it was quite an experience!  There was a pig’s head where people placed money after bowing and offering rice wine to the car…??? It was strange.  We had a big snack afterwards of pig feet, pig ears, chicken and red bean rice cakes to celebrate.  “Toto, we’re DEFINITELY not in Kansas anymore!”

Sometimes I feel like I need to write about all the crazy things that we have seen or done over here in Korea, but save for a few interesting stories, this post is more about our ordinary life here in Cheongju.  We live in the middle of nowhere.  Farming is the primary way of life out here so it is extremely quiet, very picturesque and we have the glorious blessing of living in the middle of some beautiful mountains. 

Spring has finally arrived and all of a sudden we are accosted with color!  Sadly, the cherry blossoms and forsythia have finished their short week or so of flowering (don’t worry, I took about a hundred photos), but after a weekend of torrential rains, the pink, red and white rhododendrons are so happy and the hills around us are full of green.  New flower buds are popping up everywhere and we are so excited about the warmer weather.  Walks have returned to our everyday routine.  We went on one yesterday and realized that Japanese maples are prolific here!  We ventured off the path for a few yards and there were hundreds of small trees sprouting up.  Trying to figure out if there’s any way we could bring some home…

A couple of weekends ago, we had the opportunity to attend the Cherry Blossom Festival in Seoul with Jesse and Dawun.  Entire streets were lined with these trees and I spent the majority of my time trying to capture their beauty through our camera lens. 

Our small city has a pretty small selection of foreign restaurants so we take advantage of our infrequent visits to the capital to get our fill of familiar foods.  We had Mexican food at “On the Border”, fried chicken at “Frypan” and great sandwiches at “Joe’s Sandwiches.”  We also did a quick run to Costco to grab some essentials: 5lbs of cheese, 8 cans of beans, a large box of Oreos, an even larger bag of tortilla chips, sticks of butter for baking and a double box of Honey Nut Cheerios. 

Jesse lives in Ilsan, a city north of Seoul and he has a lake near his apartment.  On Sunday morning, we walked over to the park, rented bikes and rode around the 3 kilometer loop, stopping every so often to photograph a pretty flower and to take a short reflexology walk!  It was a glorious morning.  I have missed bike riding with Luke! 

Two weeks ago we had a field trip.  We got the day off from work and instead, we all spent the day enjoying the great outdoors.  We started at Nongdari, the oldest bridge in Korea; built over 1400 years ago and still usable!  Impressive.  We hiked across and then walked to a huge lake that was nearby.  A nice leisurely walk there turned into a mountainous, up & down, rocky hike back to the bus.  It was a good haul.  We were sweaty and tired, but it was a joy to be outside on a work day looking at mountains and flowering trees.  The cherry blossom trees were just stunning.  I couldn’t stop taking pictures!!

We ate bulgogi for lunch at a restaurant and then took a quick trip to a bell museum.  After that, we headed toward an old 3-story temple and on the way, we saw a bear farm.  They raise bears and kill them for their bile which they use for medicine I believe.  It was so depressing to see all those bears in such small cages LL  Once we arrived at the temple, we wandered around and inside, took a bunch of pictures and then made our way to a park where we had a chic-nic, a chicken picnic with our co-workers.  It was quite a day, a beautiful day to be outside and a great way to spend a work day!  Thank you CBFLIS!

This past weekend was the first one with NO RAIN so we took advantage of the beautiful weather and spent our entire Saturday outside with our neighbors, Andrew & Daphne.  We wore ourselves out going on a long walk, we had a delicious picnic, tried to play tuho (a Korean game with arrows and a bucket), and hit tennis balls to each other in a big field.  To top off a wonderful day in the sun, we had a huge barbeque dinner and great conversation on the patio area of our building.  Thanks God for your beautiful creation that we get to enjoy!!!

Sports Day:

I promise we do work sometimes, but yesterday was not one of those days!  Yesterday was sports day.  We went over to the school next door and played volleyball, ping-pong and soccer-volleyball.   Let me rephrase, mostly we just watched the intense Koreans play sports while we cheered them on.  Luke tried soccer-volleyball which is exactly what it sounds like.  You have a net like in ping-pong that comes to about 3 feet high and you kick a volleyball over the net to the other team.  You can let it bounce between hits and you need to get it over in three or less kicks/headers.  Of course there was chicken and spicy Tofu for a snack (?) and lots of relaxing had by all.  I would have loved to play but I’m wearing a brace on my left wrist from a stretched ligament so I tried ping-pong but could be of no help to the CBFLIS volleyball team.

We are officially 5 months into our contract, 7 months to go!  Weird how time flies!  We’re sad to be missing the graduations of Joe, James and Savanna and moving in Jen and Joe into their new house in Charlotte.  We’ve missed birthdays and holidays and it’s sad to be away from family this year, but we are making wonderful memories here in Korea and we look forward to being with friends and family in 2013!

As always, thanks for reading.

Luke & Rachel

The office

Back in the office.  I’m sure it seems as if we do nothing but travel, but I assure that we have been sitting in the office for the past 3 weeks, working.  However, you must think of the word “working” in the LOOSEST of terms.  You know the phrase, “So little time, so much to do.”  Reverse that and you have our office situation.  My motto for the past 3 weeks has been, “So little to do, so much time.”  Writing my lesson plan and going over every possible material I may need for our next program took maybe a of couple hours.  I drug that out for an entire day simply because I had the time, but beyond that, I have spent my days reading, watching movies, writing our blog, filing our taxes, catching up on emails, writing letters, planning weekend trips to Seoul and just general web browsing.  The basic program begins on March 21^st and it cannot come soon enough.  We’ll have 5^th graders for short 3 day/2 night programs until the end of May and we’re looking forward to a change in schedule. 

A little recap of our time since our four-country vacation:  There was a holiday on March 1^st, so we went into Cheonan with some friends, a town about 2 hours from our school.  We roamed the streets, had some Korean style fried chicken for dinner and washed it down with a pint of Baskin Robbin’s ice cream J

The next day, on our weekly Homeplus grocery shopping trip, we bought a blue Betta fish.  We named him Park Ji-Sung.  I was jealous of Jenn and Joe’s newest addition to their family, a French bulldog named Louie so I wanted a pet too.  On a sad note, by the looks of him this morning, I’m not sure we’ll have him much longer!

Last week, one of the ladies in the kitchen taught Daphne and I how to make bulgogi, a traditional Korean meal with veggies, soy sauce, other spices and really thinly sliced beef.  It was a really interesting experience watching how a Korean kitchen works.  First of all, any unneeded water was poured on the floor instead of in the sink, so all the workers wore rain boots.  Secondly, all measuring was done in one small paper cup.  Full meant one cup and a little at the bottom meant a few tablespoons.  Oh and the craziest thing:  they’d cook and taste with the same spoon the whole time.  Koreans have this strange non-fear of germs.  They’re convinced that because they eat kimchi, fermented cabbage, they can share spoons and cups with everyone else and be safe.  I for one do not understand this philosophy and I am unwilling to test it out.  Let’s just say that kimchi is NOT my thing.  While we were waiting for the bulgogi to finish cooking, some kitchen lady shoved a veggie and squid pancake in my mouth and it was surprisingly pretty good!  Apparently it’s a sign of friendship if someone feeds you with their bare hand.  I guess I made a new friend that day J

There are two new developments in our lives here in Korea.  We have begun to make Amish Friendship bread and we are in our second week of P90X (the intense 90 day workout).  You may find that these two things clash a bit, and I won’t disagree with you on that point, but I will admit that I work out so that I can enjoy such delicacies as friendship bread and chocolate.  Every muscle in our body aches from the wide variety of workouts P90X has subjected us to, but it’s a nice way to wake us up in the morning.  We’ll keep you posted on our progress! 

Last weekend was spent in Seoul.  We saw Cookin’ NANTA, a traveling Korean show that is a mix between Stomp and Blue Man Group.  A group of ‘chefs’ did a comical show that incorporated drumming beats with knives on butcher blocks and spoons on large plastic containers.  We stayed at a jjimjilbang on Friday night and spent the day exploring around Itaewon, Namdaemun Market, and Insadong.  We got our pictures taken with some Korean cheerleaders and their “Smile and you’ll be happy” signs and we met a really talented finger print painter named GuGu Kim.  It was the first day that truly felt like spring in Korea so we took advantage of it and threw off our jackets for the day!  When hunger struck, I was quite impressed with Luke’s stellar navigation skills as he weaved us through back roads to find Korea’s version of Chipotle/Moe’s: Tomatillo.  We left around dinner time to head back home and went to bed early. 

On Sunday, I accompanied my friend Daphne to my first and probably only Korean wedding.  We were greeted by the receptionist who gave us buffet tickets.  We scooted around ladies in hanbuk (traditional Korean clothing) as we picked out salads, sushi, meats, fruit and some strange desserts.  After, we found seats in the wedding hall and waited for the bride and groom.  Here’s how the ceremony went down:

·       The mothers walked solemnly to the front wearing hanbuk dresses and lit candles at the altar after a few bows. 

·       The bride walked down the runway (yes there was a runway!) with her father under some swords with her father. 

·       People stood in the back of the room talking throughout the whole ceremony.

·       The groom’s sister’s boyfriend serenaded the couple and they cried.

·       The couple bowed low to each set of parents.

·       The groom danced for the bride after a strange cheek kissing game. 

·       Family pictures

·       The bride and groom changed into traditional Hanbuk wedding garb, most of the guests left after the first ceremony.

·       The bride and groom served alcohol to special guests two at a time and bowed low.  These people had to give money to the happy couple and this ceremony would apparently pay for the entire honeymoon!

It was all very exciting and I went home exhausted from the weekend festivities to hang out with my hubby for the night.    

We’re still on a high from the package that arrived in the mail from Tennessee and we found a market in the nearest town that sells fresh strawberries, so all in all, we’re doing really well.  A few of you have asked for our address so we thought we’d make it public.  We were happy to discover that sending mail back and forth is quite cheap!

Luke & Rachel Roe

536-43 Nongdari-ro

Munbaek-myeon

Jincheon-gun

Chungcheongbuk-do

Republic of Korea

365-863

We miss you all and hope that everyone is doing well.  We love you!

Luke & Rachel

Kuala Lumpur

It has been 12 years but I remember it just like it was yesterday. It was a normal Friday night except that my dad and sisters were not home. My mom and I decided that it was a perfect time for dinner and a movie. The food of choice: cheap Chinese and the movie: Entrapment. I was captivated by this movie from the second it started and in the 12 years that have passed I have rewatched Entrapment countless times. I have always had a determined personality. It is something that I have grown to embrace. When I saw the Petronas Towers in the movie I was determined that I would one day see them.  Isn’t it funny how half of my life, to this point, passed and I suddenly found myself living in South Korea. When vacation time showed u p on the calendar the first thing I did was search for flights to Kuala Lumpur. Rachel lovingly agreed to blindly follow me to this bustling city to fulfill this goal of mine.

Day 1

After 10 days of energy draining travel we landed in Kuala Lumpur. It was the middle of the day, the sun was shining and my eyes began to scan the horizon. It is hard to put into words the feelings that I was having at this moment. They ranged from sheer exhaustion from our travels, disgust at the BO seeping from every pore of the man in front of me, shame that I had traveled this far just to look at a building, and eagerness to get a glimpse of such a beautiful set of twin towers. Sitting on the hot, bumpy bus with my eyes glued to the horizon I finally saw them! Towering above the landscape these silver bullets dwarfed everything in sight and I couldn’t help but smile. For the next hour I continued to giggle, fight passing out from BO and stare at the towers as we slowly crept closer to them. We arrived almost 2 hours later at our hotel in Bukit Bintang, a small part of Kuala Lumpur. Rachel humored me as we threw our bags into the room and took off on a mission. From our hotel we had a direct skywalk to the mall that goes under ground and resurfaces inside the towers. Rachel and I spent a long amount of time that day staring. We sat by the fountains and just looked at the towers. The rest of day 1 is a blur to me. In my head I was really convinced that I could leave Malaysia and be satisfied. Little did I know it would be a country with some really unique things to offer.

Day 2

5:30 am is early no matter where you are in the world. Our hotel receptionist told us that if we wanted to go into the towers on a tour we needed to be waiting in line at 6, so we trusted him and got up before the sun. After 3 hours sitting in a line in the basement of one of the towers we were finally given tickets and were able to start the tour. Being the first tour of the day we were able to enter each part of the tower before they became congested with tourists. Our tour was not terribly long but consisted of a short amount of time taking in the view from the 46^th floor sky bridge and then continuing to the top floor, 86^th, to tower about the city and see everything surrounding it. After our tour we decided that we had earned the right to nap so we went back to our hotel for a few hours and caught up on sleep. After a very refreshing nap, Rachel and I decided that since the weather was uncertain we would spent the afternoon at the aquarium.  I have been to many aquariums and know a far amount about fish and coral but I have never seen an aquarium like this one. They have the world’s longest underwater aquarium tunnel and one of the most impressive fish feeding shows I have ever witnessed. We had front row seats to the feeding of giant Rays, 8 foot sharks, sea turtles, and hundreds of other beautiful fish. We then raced to the freshwater exhibit to watch the piranhas devour some dead tilapia. After indulging our nerdy fishy sides we had to rush to the hotel for our dinner date. One of Rachel’s good friends, Ellie, is living and working in Kuala Lumpur. Ellie and Rachel played softball together for many years and have been chasing each other around the globe. After college Ellie moved to Nashville but our visits never worked out to where we could see Ellie. We were escorted by Ellie to a great Vietnamese restaurant right around the corner from our hotel. The rain had stopped for the day and the night air was very fresh and cool. We were able to enjoy our food on an outside patio where we exchanged stories and caught up on one another’s lives. Time seemed to fly over dinner and suddenly we were saying our goodbyes to Ellie. Being in a predominately hindu part of town Rachel decided to have some Henna done. Half way through the process we ran into some issues with the police but we were able to sort it out and her hand was successfully henna-fied.

Day 3

We only had two things on our agenda for day 3 so we slept in a little and had some breakfast by our hotel. We then boarded the train for the Kuala Lumpur Bird Park. This park is the largest open air aviary in the world. My visit was authenticated the second I opened the doors, a very angry, blue parrot decided to disrespect the small amount of hair that I have left on my head and went in for some prime nest building material. I almost hit the deck in fear and then proceeded to snap pictures of this phenomenal creature. For several hours Rachel and I wandered around looking at peacocks, feeding parrots and parakeets and being blown away by the diversity. I won’t bore anyone with all of the detailed pictures we took but some of them can be found on our facebook pages.  After an overly priced hamburger at the Bird Park Kafe, yes with a “K” we skillfully negotiated a taxi to take us to the Batu Caves. At the Batu caves, a hindi temple has been integrated into the caverns which are littered along the mountains slope. At the foot of the caves, and rising to what seems to be taller than the mountain, is the world’s largest statue of Murugan. It would seem that on our 2 weeks of travels we found a lot of sites whose builders had size complexes, but that is an entirely different subject. We were disappointed to find the Batu caves in poor shape, there was trash littering the steps, a stench of urine in the air, and the most aggressive monkeys I have seen. Although we were upset with the state of this temple we decide to push on and see what was waiting at the top. 271 steps later our question was answered: more trash, monkey and pee. I would not count it as a total loss though because while on our trek to the top we watched a monkey swipe someone’s Fanta and proceed to pour it out for himself to drink off the ground. No sooner had we stopped laughing at monkey and descending the stairs from hell did the torrential rains of SE Asia roll in. We took cover in a train and then made our way back to our hotel. We decided that we should spoil ourselves, as if this entire experience isn’t being spoiled enough, so for dinner we went to Chilis. I had a quesadilla explosion salad and almost cried it was so good. Our table was over-looking the fountains at the base of the towers which was very neat to watch. We then rolled out of Chilis and went to a movie. I have seen movies in a lot of places around the world but I have never once watched a movie with such an active crowd. The entire movie the Malaysians were uncontrollably laughing out loud which really added to our experience. After Chilis and a movie we had filled our Western culture quotient for the month so we took a casual walk back to the hotel and began to prepare for our journey back home.

We have been blessed beyond our wildest dreams. After only 3 months in Korea our marriage has grown stronger, we have realized childhood dreams, and have been pushed to better ourselves. There is not a day that goes by that I don’t think about and miss friends and family but the opportunities that have been given to us continue to put wind under our wings and keep us pushing forward. 


For more pictures of Kuala Lumpur follow this link

"You need tuk-tuk??"

Cambodia.

Day 1:

We flew into Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Saturday, February 18^th.  A friend of a friend’s mom (who is a missionary in Cambodia) picked us up from the airport, and it was really wonderful not having to worry about finding transportation in such a big city.  She dropped me off at our hotel and I spent the evening sleeping in the room, still really sick from food poisoning in Thailand.  She took Luke on a quick tour of Phnom Penh and drove past “Happy Pizza”, a restaurant that apparently serves pizza with weed as a topping??  Diners can even request “extra happy” if they so desire!   Needless to say, they went elsewhere for dinner J

Day 2 in Cambodia:

7 ½ hours of bus driving from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap gives a person ample time to observe.  I learned a few things driving across Cambodia:

·      *Many people support the Cambodian People’s Party

·      *Drivers love their vehicle horns

·      *There are 4 major modes of transportation in the country:

o   Lexus

o   Toyota

o   Motorcycle

o   Tuk-tuk:  This is a motorcycle with a small covered trailer/carriage attached behind and they are MUCH more widely used than taxis

·      *When driving, there are no rules EXCEPT that the biggest vehicle always wins … and pedestrians are the smallest vehicle of all!

Upon our arrival in Siem Reap, we dropped our bags at the Guest House and hailed a tuk-tuk who dropped us off at Viva, a Mexican restaurant in the little downtown area.  They had great tacos, enchiladas and fresh fruit smoothies and it was nice to eat something familiar.   A trip to a night market was cut short because of my misbehaving stomach, but we vowed to explore the city more when I was feeling better. 

Day 3:

We spent the day temple exploring.  Tom, our hired tuk-tuk driver for the day brought us first to Angkor Wat, the most well-known temple in Cambodia.  The detail and precision with which people used to construct and hand carve each piece was incredible…and the temples are all over 1000 years old!!                                          Next, we toured around the larger complex of Angkor Thom to see Bayon, the large stone Buddha heads, and elephant terrace.  Elephant terrace is an area filled with elephant carvings and statues.  After just a few hours of touring, we were sad to realize that a lot was missing from the temples.  Almost all statues were beheaded, without torsos or gone completely, simply a pair of feet left on a pedestal.  Apparently there is a black market for temple artifacts that is still at large.  Despite this, there were still some incredible carvings to photograph and examine.  It was also fun to tour the temples along with monks from around the world who were doing some exploring of their own.  

Souvenir shopping led to lunch and we decided to head to our last stop of the day, Ta Phrom, the site of Angelina Jolie’s Tomb Raider movie- we’re excited to watch the movie now to see if we recognize anything!  Trees had grown intermingled with the temple walls and doorways so it’s a very unique looking temple.  A random observation: the temples all smelled very fresh, some even like very fragrant flowers.  I felt much better so it was a good day of walking and exploring. 

We ate pizza for dinner and bought souvenirs at the old and new outdoor markets.  We walked around the small city that reminded us strongly of Latin America and the Cambodian Batmobile tuk-tuk drove us back to our Guest House for the night. 

Day 4:

At 8:00 am, Paul picked us up and pointed his tuk-tuk to Banteay Srei, a temple about an hour outside of Siem Reap.  It’s a sandstone temple that is incredibly well-preserved and the details were truly astonishing.  We could even make out shallow writings on the temple walls.  From there, we moved onto Banteay Samre, Pre Rup, East Mebon, Ta Som, Neak Prean and Prea Khan.  They started to blur together a bit, but all were unique in their own ways.  We must have liked what we saw because we took over 400 temple photos ... We ended back at Angkor Wat where we had hoped to watch the sunset fall behind the temple, but it wasn’t very colorful, so we left, showered up, had some dinner and took one last walk around the small city and its night markets. Cambodians are incredibly persistent sales people and even we couldn’t resist.  We bought some cool things and went on to Malaysia a few pounds heavier with art, t-shirts and a lot of trinkets that I’m sure we’ll regret when we try to pack for home in December, but oh well!  

Thailand

Day 1

Holy smokes Thailand! (Feb 14-18) We arrived last night at the Baiyoke boutique hotel and had a quick meal in the lobby.  We ventured out and had a $5 dollar foot massage…how relaxing! Our feet were so tired after walking all over Singapore!

Day 2

A mere 6 hours of sleep later, we were picked up by a van and we began our long journey to the Damnoensaduak Floating Market.  Car and long boat brought us to the market where we boarded yet another boat that took us inside.  We had a rowing guide behind us who took us past the many floating markets.  

Vendors sold food from small stoves they had on their boats, drinks, and all sorts of souvenirs.  They had long poles with hooks that they would use on the tourist boats.  If you even LOOKED at something, it was enough of a reason for them to start offering you “a good price lady.”  We had to be careful not to get our fingers pinched by passing boats while we navigated ourselves through the market.  We bought some stuff for “a good price lady” if you remember and then we found them being sold for 1/3 of the price in the shops surrounding the floating tourist trap. Oh well, it was an experience J

We loaded back into the van for a stop at the JEATH War Museum and Death Railway Bridge.  We drank a fresh fruit smoothing for 30 baht ($1) and then ate lunch.  

More driving took us to the KANACHANABURI tiger temple.  A big reason why we can to Thailand was because of this temple.  At a summer art fair in Minneapolis, there was a photographer who had a picture of a monk walking beside a tiger.  Luke took one look at the scene and decided that he needed to see that place, and we went!! It was neat to see all the tigers in this large canyon, about 15 full grown tigers in all.  On the other hand, it was a little depressing because they seemed so sad, sleepy and almost drugged.  The temple guide was insistent that no drugs are used, but we’re not so sure.  The monks, who wore orange robes trained small tigers that were like puppies, wanting to play, bite and run around.  The little ones were fun to see and photograph because they were so active.  We left as the monks were taking the larger cats back to their enclosures for the night.

A quick stop at a small waterfall and then we went off to a floating restaurant for dinner.  It was really yummy, a nice change from Korean food!  Another boat ride took us to our hotel, a floating hotel on the River Kwai and we spent the evening outside chatting with a Dutch couple, a Danish couple and Raquel from Barcelona.  They were all traveling for 4+ weeks around Asia…and we thought 2 weeks was a long vacation!  There were geckos everywhere and it was warm and wonderful to sit by the river.  It was a GREAT day.

Day 3

We left the hotel at 8:00am the next morning after breakfast and visited Erawan Falls National Park.  We spent 3 hours hiking the 7 tiers of the waterfall.  They really made you work for the beautiful view!  Luke almost got attacked by a monkey who freaked out from the sound of the camera flash.  He threw some tourist’s make-up he was munching on and nearly bit Luke’s face off!  Understandably so, we were a little skittish around monkeys from them on, so we tried to avoid them for the rest of our vacation.  However there were so many in Cambodia and Malaysia and they seemed to sense our fear so they followed us around!!

We had lunch again on the floating restaurant: The Pad Thai and Watermelon were delicious!  After, we set off for our 3 ½ hours back to Bangkok.  We had some Indian food for dinner and got a 200 baht ($7) Thai massage which was a little strange.  We were put into a room and told to strip and put on these flowy clothes.  Then these two ladies came in and forcefully stretched us in all sorts of unnatural positions for an entire hour.  Luke lost his voice for a few days after the “massage” and he was convinced they stretched something in his neck that wasn’t supposed to be stretched J

Day 4

On Friday, we visited the Jim Thompson house.  Jim Thompson is a man from the US who fell in love with Thailand and built homes in and around Bangkok.  The country’s silk market was revitalized by his efforts before he disappeared in Malaysia in 1967.   Recently, the country has made his compound of houses into a museum and we got to explore the buildings and see his many pieces of ancient art he had collected.  Luke started to feel sick so we took a cab back to the hotel.  Before we arrived, Luke puked out the window, just missing a lucky motorcyclist with his projectile!  That night, with Luke still not feeling well, we went on a belated Valentine’s Day dinner cruise that we had booked earlier that day.  I ate from the buffet while Luke looked on, still feeling sick from earlier.  We saw the Grand Palace; Wat Arun, the “Temple of the Dawn”; Wat Kanlayanamit; and Bang Palace Khunprom, which were all lit up and very grandiose to see at night.  It was nice we saw them at all because I got sick that night and we were not able to explore the city the next day like we had planned.  All in all, we had a great time and we did some very unique things while in Thailand.  

If you would like to see all of our photos check out Luke's Facebook page or follow this link Thai Photos