Puerto Rico cont'd: El Yunque and La Cueva Ventana

Hello from Old San Juan, Puerto Rico! I am writing this slightly hungover. I can now say I've had rum in the world's rum capitol, and I never have to do it again. Drink rum, that is. I had one rum. Oh, head.

When Seth and I left Vieques (the tiny island off the cost, check out the post on that), we took the ferry back to Fajardo, the harbor town and portal to Vieques. When we got off the boat, we decided not to take a cab – we were done with cabs – and follow Google maps' directions on how to get to Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Imagine our surprise when, after 35 minutes of walking confidently with a 35lb. suitcase under the Caribbean sun, answering concerned-looking passersby who asked, “Are you lost?” with “No! We're great! We're following Google Maps!” several times, we found ourselves in the middle of nowhere on a hill. I'm thinking Google maps took us to the P.O. Box, or something. A mailman and a dude with an SUV simultaneously tried to save us, causing greater confusion (Puerto Ricans are so friendly!). The man in the SUV, with some room in the back seat, drove us to a hotel called “El Conquistador.” Dropping us off at the guard house, he assured us that Enterprise would be there. While he was correct, it was the wrong Enterprise and after about 45 minutes of further confusion spent with a rather peeved security guard, we eventually were picked up by Enterprise and driven to the top of a golf course. El Conquistador turned out to be an all-inclusive resort on top of a mountain complete with about 14 pools and cable cars that take you down to the beach. For those interested in traveling to Puerto Rico but NOT interested in the way Seth and I travel, here's a picture.

El Conquistador Resort and Spa! #notinourpricerange

Anywho, by 3PM we had our car and hopped on the road to look for the Cuban restaurant I had found on Google Maps (because I have no memory). It turned out to be nicer than we were dressed for, but we gladly went in and ate whatever we could get our hands on. Seth accidentally ordered 24 ribs (and ate every single one), and I got something called “mofongo,” which is a Puerto Rican and not Cuban specialty of mashed plantains in a pile. Mine came with mariscos (seafood), which included octopus, shrimp, scallops and possibly fish. As with most things in Puerto Rico, it was more expensive than we had hoped. But delicious. This is definitely the Caribbean – you get Caribbean culture, sun, beaches, food AND mosquitos, but unfortunately, at American prices. After touring around Southeast Asia and eating $5 lobster on the beach cooked right in front of me, I have to say I'm a little spoiled.

We arrived in San Juan to our first Air BnB, which was a little studio apartment in a neighborhood called Ocean Park. The beach at Ocean Park is directly across the street from an active soccer field surrounded by a track. I'd like to take a brief pause to mention that even though it's hot and humid, Puerto Ricans seem to be all about some outdoors. We haven't seen a park or a playground that didn't have a healthy sprinkling of families and friends enjoying their time together. I love seeing that -- it gives me hope for humanity! Anyway, the beach is more popular with locals but there were a few tourists there, too, spottable by their white bodies and loud American accents. We had direct access to the beach via a 30 second walk, which was just as gorgeous as the other beaches we'd seen up to that point. We spent the afternoon enjoying the beach and subsequently rubbing aloe all over Seth's back. In the evening we went to a bar called "Mango's," with live music and good sangria. 

The next day, awoken by direct sunlight to my face at 6AM, I thought, Puerto Rico should really be on another time zone. Then I dragged Seth out of bed to beat the traffic and drive us to El Yunque National Park at 7:30 (he really does love me). We picked up some Cliff bars and drove up the windy rainforest roads to the middle of the park, which turned out to be awesome because we were hiking to the summit and basically were almost there when we arrived at Palo Calorado Information Center by 8:45, 15 minutes before it opened. That turned out to be a good move, because we pattered around and walked the wrong way and back until 9 when the man working there, surprised to see us, explained the map he handed us and sent us on our way in the right direction. The hike took about 3.5 hours, with lots of lizards and amazing views at the top. Once we got out of the clouds, that is. 

In the evening we had a SIRLOIN STEAK SANDWICH for dinner at a place called Piola Pizzeria Artesanal & Rum Bar. There was egg on it. We were so distracted by the egg on a sandwich with garlic sauce and olive oil that we forgot to try the rum (like I said, that didn't happen till last night). 

The next day we wanted to go see the La Cueva Ventana, a.k.a. the Window Cave! Again I dragged Seth out of bed early, but when we got in the car, Google Maps informed us that it would be closed upon our arrival because it didn't open until 10. So we thought we'd check out the Arecibo Lighthouse and historical park, about 20 minutes away from the Window Cave. When we got there, we realized: it was a children's park! Complete with fake pirates, a tiny aquarium, a REALLY sad little zoo, and water park to cover all their bases. I guess that's why we paid $12 per adult and $5 for parking, but the main attraction we were there to see, the lighthouse, was not accessible to the public so as to preserve the archaeological significance of it. Yeah, don't go to Arecibo lighthouse. Stop anywhere along the coast for free and get a nice view, sparing yourself of the depressed donkey in his pen. However, we DID learn about the Taínos, the indigenous people of Cuba and Puerto Rico that the Spaniards wiped out with smallpox within a century or two. There are no full-blooded Taínos left. Colonization! 

Seth on a 1/3 scale model of "La Niña" (not pictured: La Pinta and La Santa María).
To the left of the golf cart is a model of a Taíno village.

the forbidden, 100-year-old "historical" lighthouse

After an hour of mixed emotions, it was time for the Cueva Ventana to open (at 10) so we drove over. There, we took a guided tour with a group of about 30 people. The guide was very knowledgeable about the flora and fauna of Puerto Rico, and told us about the coquí, the local frog. We heard it the whole 3 hours we had spent the previous day in El Yunque, thinking it was a bird the entire time. Seth kept whistling back, and I even commented, "that's a very social bird." Here's a video of what it sounds like, so you don't think I'm insane:

Inside the window cave we saw bats. Our kind, soft-spoken guide explained about 5 times not to shine our flashlights at the ceiling, since it could give the bats a heart attack and they could fall and die. Our group was full of dumbs who couldn't follow directions, but luckily no bats were harmed (as far as we know). Finally, we got to the main attraction. The view from the window cave explains its name. 

Beautiful.

On the way back to San Juan we were hangry and stopped by a place called Costa Azul in BFE Puerto Rico (a little town called Tierras Nuevas Poniente) that we found on Google Maps. We had a typical Puerto Rican dish called "asopao," mine with shrimp and Seth's with chicken. It. Was. Magical. We had amarillos on the side, or fried sweet plantains, along with a couple beers. And Seth forgave me for starving him again, dragging him to the ends of the earth for things we found on Google. With full bellies, we made our way to one of the prettiest beaches I've ever seen.

We made our way back to Ocean Park for our last easy night in the barrio before we headed to the historical part of the city. More to come on that in a few days!

Oh yeah, and I'm pretty sure I already have Zika. The mosquitos here are all about some Patrice.

Vieques!

We're taking 8 days out of it to abandon all responsibility (with a serious case of #catownerguilt) and hang out in Puerto Rico. So far it's been … um, worth it. Also, this blog will likely gather dust for another year or so … unless we drunkenly buy flights to an exotic paradise again before I finish my MBA.

Vieques!

So our first stop is Vieques, a.k.a. Island Bum Central. Monday we arrived in San Juan, then took a very expensive cab for an hour to Fajardo, a city on the coast. From Fajardo we took a ferry to Vieques. It's a small island off the coast of PR, but it's bigger than it looks: most people rent a jeep to get around. Stubbornly, Seth and I refused to spend $60 per day on transportation when we already had cool things scheduled, so we succumbed to more extortion. It took about 15 minutes to take a cab from the ferry terminal to Esperanza, a little barrio in the south with a single convenience store and about 6 restaurants, but good access to beaches. That's where our hostel was. Upon telling our cab driver we were staying at “Lazy Jack's Hostel,” he said, “Oh! Party central!” and we thought, “oh my – we have plans!” (because we're old now) and then we arrived and realized it was a very relative term. With signs in the shared bathrooms reminding you to save electricity (“How would you like it if somebody turned YOU on and then left?"), a kitchen with a very slow coffee maker, and a bar outside, it was just where the young people hang out. There are about 20 young people there on any given evening who like to have some booze and pizza, and it's open late. Oh yeah, and they're all the same people. I'm pretty sure there are about 50 people in Vieques. Yesterday, we went scuba diving and saw the same couple who went diving with us THREE TIMES after our tour. It eventually got awkward. If we end up seeing them in San Juan later, we've decided to just turn around and abort any activity we had planned.

Esperanza!

It's been said that Vieques is a good representation of what the Caribbean looked like about 30-40 years ago. There are a lot of transplants here (we've met a few U.S. nationals who moved after visiting the place from childhood), but many were also born and raised. Casually, there are an estimated 200,000 horses on the island, along with their accompanying piles of manure; some of them are branded but most are wild. They like to have fun – they're known to frequent Lazy Jack's on the weekend and drink the beer out of the garbage. And they get stumbling drunk. Otherwise, about 1/3 of the island is reserved as a national park, and most of it is natural growth, too – a great place for wild horses to roam around. There are mango trees all over the place, and yesterday I learned that mangoes do not fall gracefully when they are ripe. In fact, it's probably wise not to hang around under a ripe mango tree. Mangoes are heavy fruit, and they fall that way: with a loud thump, usually splitting open a little at the bottom so the horses and bugs can get to them. Seth picked up a fat, red, juicy one outside Lazy Jack's on Tuesday morning and ate it for breakfast.

FREE MANGOES IF YOU CAN MAKE IT

After consuming some mango and finally some coffee, we took another expensive cab to meet Arnaud for a scuba session. First was a 3-hour refresher course/dive, because of the high possibility of death that comes with Self-ContainedUnderwaterBreathingApparatuses if you don't know what you're doing and get excited underwater. The location was pretty original: in the 30s, the U.S. Navy wanted to build a 6-mile bridge from Vieques to Puerto Rico, and got about half a mile out before they stopped, LIKE QUITTERS. Also Pearl Harbor happened so their efforts were needed elsewhere. But that turned out to be a blessing for divers: the pillars from the bridge have become overgrown with coral reefs and algae, and it's a perfect place for... SEA TURTLES. Yes. We swam with sea turtles. At first I was sure it wouldn't happen, because our dive master Arnaud (a French sommelier, no big deal) told us that he had done the dive at last 1500 times, and had never not seen a turtle, so he could probably guarantee it. That's a sure-fire way to jinx it, but nonetheless we saw 4 or 5 sea turtles, one about half the size of Seth (so 3-4 feet). Arnaud the dive master/sommelier/casual professional photographer/restaurant owner told us he had seen one almost the size of his respectably-sized pickup truck – a leatherback, but they hang out deeper than we go, which is a max of 60 feet with our current certifications. We just saw some very technically named “green sea turtles,” although one of them was yellow with black spots? And we swooned. We also saw eel, cuttlefish, and other fish. It was le'badass.

Seth and pillars

the elusive "green sea turtle"

me

In the afternoon we ate our weight in island food and drink, before the BIO(luminescent)BAY TOUR. I have zero pictures of it. Even if my gopro hadn't mysteriously died halfway through the day (I know why – I left the wifi on) and I'd been able to try to capture it, you need a special camera anyway and apparently the gopro isn't “special enough.” But here I go, I'll try to explain it to you in great detail.

We took a price-gauging cab to Sun Bay, where our super fun van driver Pepe asked us if we were READY TO RUMBLE. We replied that we were, indeed, ready, ahem, to, um, rumble, and he loaded us into a van with eight other excited tourists who appeared more ready than we were for said rumbling. We then took an extremely bumpy ride down a dirt road to the aptly-named “Mosquito Bay” (actually named after a pirate ship conveniently called “el Mosquito”) and got in 2-person kayaks under a clear sky with an amazing view of the stars. Emilio, our guide on his own kayak, enthusiastically led the 5-boat group (some could kayak, some could not) out to the middle of the lake. It didn't take long to start seeing the glowing algae. As soon as you, your boat, or your paddle touches the water, the water lights up in a fiery blue. The algae is a kind of dinoflagellum, and uses the same chemical as fireflies to light up in the dark, possibly for evolutionary purposes. The environment can't be replicated anywhere else at this magnitude – the Vieques Biobay has consistently been in the Guinness Book of World Records for the highest concentration of these microorganisms per gallon of water. You're not allowed to swim in the water, as the chemicals we wear on our skin are harmful to the bacteria, but we were welcome to stick our hands in the Avatar water and watch it light up as we swished around. We also grabbed a handful of water and let it run down our arms, and saw little lights run down our arm. It's not uncommon to see fish, small sharks and stingrays illuminate as they dash around under the boats. Emilio pointed out Scorpio in the sky to us, and a few other constellations with his super strong laser pointer. We crashed after the tour – from the turtles to the stars to the fire water, we had some REM processing to do.

In the morning we took a brief visit to Coconut beach before grabbing a taxi back to the ferry terminal. Following vague instructions from the small child who worked at the reception of Lazy Jack's (OK maybe she was 18), we walked through a blue gate and down a path, eventually finding ourselves at a secluded beach lined with coconut trees and brimming with crystal clear blue waters. Seth rested his sunburnt body in the shade while I walked the waterline. I think I found some kind of dead sea urchin. Yeah. It was a good day.

Coconut Beach from above!

urchin? anybody?

And that's it! We're off to Ocean Park, a small neighborhood of San Juan. We will be renting a car in Fajardo!

PEACE

NEXT: El Yunque and La Cueva Ventana, and a few other shenanigans sprinkled in there

Maeshil. It's called maeshil. (MAY-sheel)

Today I want the world to know something SUPER IMPORTANT. It's a little random, though, to be honest. But the majority of the world has no idea and that's because of a few things.

I want to talk about maeshil. It's the South Korean pickled plum. They have them in Japan and China, too, but they're different in Korea as far as I can tell. I learned about these plums within my first year of working in Korea when I went to the Maewha festival in the Gwangyang, near Mokpo (in the South)

Here's my disclaimer: I enjoyed my time in Korea, but I was not so impressed with the country as a tourist destination. They have done well for themselves, but there's a reason nobody goes there for vacation, and it's because South Korea SUCKS at marketing itself. Just the fact that I feel compelled to *specify* "SOUTH Korea" is a really bad sign. It should be common knowledge that Americans just don't go to the North to teach, and the South is über-developed and dare I say over-the-top. But culturally they don't come close to competing with other countries, because nothing is old there except the mindsets of the people over 55. I actually had a REALLY interesting conversation with a Korean War vet last weekend, who was there in the early '50s. He said they all dressed in funny costumes. Of course after brief clarification, I knew exactly what he was talking about. That means everyone was wearing the traditional hanbok just 70 years ago, which you now see in folk museums and at formal events (and in that case, only the bride and groom at a wedding or family at a funeral, or just everybody in a home but not out in public). That means that just 70 years ago, everybody still walked around looking like this:

pinterest.com, design.co.kr

The men would never cut their hair because it was considered shameful -- their hair was sacred. They kept it on top of their head under a cap. I'm sure women used to hide pregnancies under the Cinderella skirts that started just at the nipple (of course, no one would ever SAY that in Korea but it totally happened!) But the point is that Korean mentality has changed really fast in the last half a decade, and all they've got to show for it are folk museums and heated toilet seats in every restaurant.

I don't think that was actually my point at the beginning of my digression, but I digressed and I guess that's what happens.

Where was I! MAESHIL! Today I was writing one of my three Korean friends from my 2 years in the country, and I told her she should come visit me and bring her mother's maeshil. Then I remembered that might be illegal. But then again, I know people who have refrained from eating it long enough to bring it into the country. So maybe there's still hope!!

Maeshil is a little green plum. Its Latin name is prunus mume, and apparently you can order it on the internets in fresh form. It is amazing. First you harvest it, and it's inedibly hard and sour. Then you put equal parts sugar and de-pitted plum into an air-tight container and keep it in a dry, dark place for about 100 days. After 100 days, it becomes the elixir of life. Some may think I'm being dramatic, but THEY HAVEN'T HAD MAESHIL. Maeshil, this blog post is for you. You might not be famous, I mean let's face it -- you come from a place nobody really cares about. But dayum are you good. The end result is many little nuggets of heaven in a syrup they make juice out of. A friend of mine said it kind of tasted like wine, and Hubby says they taste more like baked apples in cinnamon than anything. I'd say that's the closest they come to: crisp, baked apples with a hint of alcohol in a thick clear syrup packed with sugar and antibiotics. Since there's so much sugar, one should not eat too much maeshil at one time. It's meant to be taken as a digestion supplement, especially when one is not feeling very well. One or two pickled plums, instead of 30 or 40 or as a meal replacement, you see (ask me how I know). And it makes sense -- they're fermented, essentially, so packed with probiotics, and they're plums which are known to help clean out the digestive system. Japan also ferments plums but they use a different kind of plum which is usually mango-colored and they use SALT, not sugar. And I liked Japan, so this part is sad: these plums are disgusting. Sorry, that's putting it lightly -- the ones I tried made me want to vomit on the spot in front of the asshole who gave them to me thinking they would fill my void of the real thing when they were unavailable. "Unavailable?" You ask. "what is that word? Sometimes you have to pay a bit more and search the internets, but nothing is ever impossible to find!"

WRONG. I have tried everything, including searching the internet in Korean (which I CAN do, no big deal). Nobody sells pickled plums. You know how you get them? Your grandmother makes them. Maybe she'll sell her extra at the festival in Gwangyang the following year which lasts for a whopping 2 weekends at the end of February, or if you're my friend's mother, she'll give some to the poor foreigner whose attempt at pickling her own ended in a moldy, devastating, crushing failure of life. I have no idea how the Koreans make so much extra maeshil. Where do they keep it?!?! And WHY don't they sell it at any stores??? In the US, you can buy literally anything in the store or on the internet. The Koreans really aren't thinking this one through. I have been from store to store in Korean and asked nonstop about their maeshil (call it a bit of an obsession I had for a while) and all the clerks laughed at me. Partly that was because they saw a white girl speaking English and had a mixed reaction of awe and anxiety of performing correctly in front of someone with a different color skin from them -- it's amazing what isolation of a race does to mass mentality -- but also they thought I was dumb. Nobody sells maeshil. You have to buy the fruit when it's in season (again, 2 weeks out of the year) and then *successfully* pickle a shit ton of it if you ever want to eat it. Granted, binge-eating it is not what is recommended, but if I'm a paying customer I get to do what I want!

So before I conclude this ode to maeshil, here is a picture of it, in all its glory:
... AAAAHHHH I can't find the picture I took of them. This is a picture I'm taking from a different website and apparently they're Chinese salted plums, but they look exactly the same so maybe the Chinese use the same fruit but with salt instead of sugar:

21food.com

If anybody finds these and wants me to eat them for you, let me know. I'll be there, as long as it's not in Korea because, well, that's not very exciting.

Till next time!

BABAGANOUSH

My current obsession: babaganoush.

It's meant to be eaten as a dip with vegetables, or pita bread, or SOMETHING. For me, it's like crack in hummus form.

Every time I go to the refrigerator now, I look at my container of babaganoush and say, "oh one more spoonful." After all, I made it with my own ingredients and it's all vegetable!! There's nothing bad about it. Basically for dinner I have eaten the following:
- many green grapes
- some raspberries
- a tablespoon of olive oil
- a generous amount of lemon juice
- a few spoons of tahini
- a head of garlic
- some spices
- ... an entire eggplant. (peeled, sliced up, and broiled for about 3-4 mins on each side)

EGGPLANT? You say. There is nothing exciting about eggplant unless it's fried, smothered in tomato sauce and cheese, and pronounced with an Italian accent before the word "PARMIGIANO!" But people give eggplant a bad name. It has a lot to offer. You've just got to give it a chance!! OK I will admit that if you refuse to get creative, babaganoush can come off as a little bland. But don't be afraid of the spice cabinet! Add crushed red pepper! Sea salt! Black pepper! Chili powder! MORE GARLIC. In my non-professional but really strong opinion, it's pretty much the healthiest thing you can possibly eat ever in the whole wide world. Because garlic.

I've come to realize that I don't hate anything. I even will eat broccoli if people prepare it right, although I won't enjoy it the way I do babaganoush, probably. I think this is better (sugar-wise) than dried mangoes. If I'm being honest with myself, I'm hoping the babaganoush will distract me from my dried mango obsession for a while.

Speaking of mangoes -- fun English fact! TIL that there is a rule about the -o at the end of a word. Here it is:
- If a word ends in consonant-o (like mango) you add an -e before the -s to make a plural (hence "mangoes", not "mangos")
- If a word ends in a vowel-o (like radio) there is no -e before the -s to make a plural (hence "radios," not "radioes")
There are some exceptions, but I felt like that was pretty useful.

I will now attach a picture of my creation from when I made it for the first time last week! I just cooked some chicken and onions on the side in coconut oil to eat with it. NOM NOM.

Life's a "Beach"

With every new place Seth and I go in Vietnam, I feel hit upside the head with happiness. So far (knock on wood), nobody has scammed us into giving them too much money, everybody has been really friendly and spoken reasonbly good English, the food has been amazing every single time, and the country itself is just gorgeous. It is turning into my new favorite country, and if they could just get rid of that damn humid rainy season with disagreeable levels of heat, I would be able to convince Seth that we need to come back someday and stay here indefinitely. So far there's not much progress in that area though.

I mean, it doesn't suck.

So Vietnam has done nothing but shock us with its wonder and goodness, and Hoi An was no exception. Everyone on the internet and whom we had met previously had already raved about its charm, and after a little exploring upon arrival we realized they were completely right. In Hanoi (and every other city in Asia we've visited, to be honest) we were way too intimidated to rent a bicycle to help ourselves around the city, although it was pretty easily navigable on foot. In Halong Bay, well, bicycles were not an option as we spent the whole time on a ferry or in a kayak or on a beach, but in Hoi An the hostel where we stayed (Nature Homestay -- very nice) offered free bike rental, so we figured why not. It wasn't too crowded and the beach was over 2 miles away. It turned out that since most of the population here gets around by scooter or motorcycle, there's pretty great road etiquette toward bicycles. When we were being passed, people would honk to let us know they were coming and then give us plenty of space. We also knew that, since we were the slowest things on the road, we could count on other vehicles to just zip on by while we went at a leisurely pace on the right-hand side.

We could even take pictures while riding!

The beach was one of the most beautiful I've ever seen. As long as we promised to buy some food from them, any restaurant along the beach would let us park our bikes right outside. The beach was lined with straw umbrellas and lounge chairs, although not too close together, and after enough stretch for people to play, tan and walk, you could see gorgeous crystal-clear blue and then turquoise waters. On the horizon were a few islands, but the sky still stretched forever beyond them. We parked right under some straw umbrellas ($3/day for two lounge chairs and an umbrella) and periodically ordered drinks from the restaurant where we parked our bikes. Every once in a while, people would come by trying to sell us necklaces, sunglasses, newspaper, or chips, but the one I really couldn't resist was the little old woman who sold fruit. It would start with a really high-pitched (almost ET-like) voice behind me going, "Hell-oooooo!" And I would turn around to see a tiny, hunched-over figure with a basket, many layers of clothing to protect herself from the sun, and a Vietnamese straw hat. She got closer and I saw her face resembled ET a little, too! So wrinkly, but still with a twinkle in her eyes and innocent little nose. Unable to tear myself from her adorable Vietnamese old lady spell, I would ask, "how much for rambutan?" (To be explained later) and, continuing her impression of Spielberg's alien, would say, "FOH-TEE." As in, 40,000 dong or $2 for half a kilo of rambutan. SOLD. And then I would pig out for the next half hour before deciding to have a drink and go eat fresh crab with local spices at the beach-front restaurant for $5.

Stoked eating my rambutan

But the craaaaab!!!!

OK. Rambutan (pronounced RAHM-boo-tahn) is a fruit that is round and red, about the size of a ping-pong ball, with soft spikes that taper into green and yellow. You peel away the top layer with your nails as you would a lychee -- it's very easily broken, and under it is a white pulp that surrounds a seed. You eat the sweet, juicy pulp with a satisfying little crunch, and let the tiny bit of juice run down your forearms. You spit out the seed, and repeat! Over and over. I am smitten with rambutan, and it is all over Vietnam. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've described it before but I am always happy to describe rambutan. I'll probably do it again in a future post. Anyway we spent two days mostly just lounging on the beach in Hoi An, eating sea food and rambutan, having a nice cold drink here and there (and lots of water Mom), and reading our books. The sky was completely cloudless and the water was crystal clear. I already miss it and I'm still at the beach :(.

The other thing we did in Hoi An was have some articles of clothing made. Downtown Hoi An was commercial seaport for over 300 years, but about a century ago the harbor was switched to Da Nang, thus preserving the historical part of the city. Since it's pretty close to silk central in Vietnam (the Nam Quang province), tons of silk merchants sold their goods there and what do you do with silk? Why, make clothes! That tradition has been preserved and the historical streets next to the riverbank are lined with tailor shops, where you can go in, choose a design (or submit your own), choose a fabric and have your clothes made! I brought in my favorite dress I got in Seoul that was already a little small when I bought it and is tearing at the seams. The tailor we went to said she could remake it (or "clone"it) for $40 -- and also resize it to fit my body, so I had two made. In retrospect I should have been a little pickier about the material because I walked by other shops with prettier designs, but lesson learned. I have to remember to be picky when I'm in a candy store. I guess being in Hoi An was like being in a completely foreign candy store: you're so excited to try it and you forget to really examine the package, then you realize you bought caramel which you don't even really like that much but what are you going to do, return the caramel after you've eaten half of it? No. You'll just have to eat the caramel and be able to say later that you got some pretty cool caramel from a foreign candy store and shut your mouth about how you should have gotten the dark chocolate. I got another pretty maroon dress made later when Seth had two nice dress shirts made, and that made me feel better but I.... I still wanted more dresses. Seth wouldn't let me. Oh well. I'll have to go shopping at Kohl's with Mom when I get home (right Mom!?! >:).

Gorgeous little street in downtown Hoi An, filled with tailor shops

Oh yeah: a miscellaneous addition to our time in Hoi An: Seth got his beard trimmed for $6. But what he didn't expect was after the beard cleaning, the barber produced a head light and some long instruments. Before we could protest or even realize what was going on, he cleaned out Seth's ears. He used the longest tweezers I've ever seen and pulled out big, healthy chunks of earwax. It was... disconcerting. And what did he do with them? Why, he placed them exactly where they belonged, right on top of Seth's hairy forearm for him to stare at during the rest of the procedure. It was weird.

Not pictured: enormous chunk of ear wax

We ate cao lau, the traditional Hoi An food which includes rice noodles boiled in special water from a certain Hoi An well, topped with pork and soy sauce, bean sprouts and croutons. We found some pretty great happy hour specials next to the riverbank, and paid $2.50 for a half hour canoe ride (pushed by another ET-inspired woman with arms of steel) down the softly lantern-lit river at nighttime. There are no cars or mopeds allowed near the riverbank at certain areas, and very few neon lights, preserving the old-timey feel and making it all the more peaceful, accompanied by dinner boats with live acoustic music and low stone bridges. What a dream. We have to go back to Hoi An. I'll make sure to give fair warning so anyone who wants to join me can!! :)

Another cool Hoi An restaurant

Ok so after two nights and two days in Hoi An, we took the night bus twelve hours south to Nha Trang, where we got to the Rainbow Divers bar and took a shuttle two hours back north from there. A boat picked us up and took us to Whale Island, where we spent the first afternoon on a 2-hour hike around the island. We saw dragon fruit trees, tons of butterflies floated in the air around us right out of Snow White, we walked through mangroves and fought through the spiderwebs that came with them, and took success pictures on top of a cliff overlooking the bay.

He doesn't seem to hate it.

I was disappointed not to be able to find the mango trees we had been promised at reception, but they're probably not in season and what does a mango tree look like anyway? I'm thinking nobody knows. But anyway, the whole reason we were to spend three (expensive) nights at Whale Island was to learn how to scuba dive! We had already taken the online theory (a 10-hour endeavor) before we left Korea, so the first night we reviewed it a little after having met our scuba instructor, a 22-year-old Frenchman from ... not France. Where then, you ask? Tahiti. He is from Tahiti. He's 22, has been scuba-diving for 8 years, and lives on a secluded island off the coast of Vietnam with gorgeous landscapes and crystal blue waters and he grew up in FRENCH POLYNESIA. What a cool life.

Haha! This is not the real world.

Anyway he spoke very good English and was very kind when I scored an 84% on my scuba theory review test (not my proudest academic achievement). We feasted that night on tomato and sausage soup, marinated strips of beef covered with peanuts, grilled shrimp, a green papaya salad, rice and pineapple cake for dessert. We had an option to pay $28/person per day for lunch and dinner, or go hungry because there were literally no other companies or restaurants on the island or a 15-minute boat ride to shore for that matter. So we coughed up the cash and that my friends, plus the cost of the scuba course and hotel, will be three of the most expensive days I have ever spent (with my own money at least) but also some of the best.

Some views from the bungalow

Sunset from the bungalow 🔻

General Whale Island view

The scuba course was so cool. I don't know what has always drawn me to the idea of breathing condensed air under water for an extended period of time, but it was exactly as great as I thought it would be and a million times better than any aquarium I've ever been to. We saw puffer fish, a tiny white sea slug, an eel, LOTS of sea urchins (Seth got stung -- TWICE), stunning coral and grouper, and lots of other stuff I don't know the names of. Our Tahitian guide showed us a "star feather" which looks like a plant but when you touch its little branches, it grabs on to your finger. We found a little family of clownfish living in an isolated anemone at around 8 meters (24 feet) below sea level and the anemone did the same things to our fingers. The clownfish were funny -- they seemed really curious about us and swam around our fingers and right up to our noses if we stayed still (which was hard). I was actually kinda sad to swim away from them.

Real scuba divers!

Not only did Seth get stung by two sea urchins (he's OK now), but after the first dive an oxygen tank landed on his toe. Little known fact: although oxygen tanks are made of aluminum and filled with nitrogen and oxygen, they're 17kg, or about 40lbs. Seth's toe was not the prettiest it's ever been, but it wasn't broken. He might be losing a nail soon, but so far it's hanging on and his toe isn't quite as purple as it was yesterday. Anyway. Watch out for scuba cylinders. 

Scuba, in case you didn't know, is one of my favorite acronyms: Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus. It turns out, this requires a lot of patience. It's not like holding your breath and going down under the water and just using your limbs to get everywhere you want. You have to use your breath to "hover": breathe in to go up and out to go down, but the effect is pretty delayed and it's hard to know if your breath has done anything until about three seconds after you've started the inhalation or exhalation. There's a chance it hasn't done anything, if you don't have enough air in your BCD or "buoyancy control device" which is a vest into which you inflate air from your oxygen tank. If there's not enough, you'll just sit at the bottom. If there's too much, you can go up too fast and risk lung overexpansion, which is bad and potentially fatal. So you have to be really careful and not press the wrong button, which I did once but I'm OK! Anyway I love the BCD because once you get to the surface, you can just inflate it and hang out. There's no energy whatsoever involved in keeping yourself afloat, and I'm all for not using energy. You need to deflate it to go down, but in order not to fall directly onto coral or a sea urchin after a few meters, you need to pump a little bit of air back into it. Seth and I both needed at least another ten pounds of lead weight on our weight belt to be able to control our buoyancy underwater and not fly back up once we added a tiny bit of air to the BCD, which was a bit of a pain at first but eventually we got the hang of it. We learned how to handle emergency situations, like if one of us runs out of air or the equipment malfunctions. I learned that as long as I'm diving with Seth, I will never run out of air because he will first. He's a big guy and uses air almost twice as fast as I do, so if he ever gets really low it will be easy to share and ascend. At one point, our instructor wanted to show us what it would feel like to run out of air so he closed our oxygen tanks for one second. When he was doing the demonstration on himself beforeand, however, he had trouble opening it again! That was a little scary. I gave him my alternate air source until he finally got it. 

Look at me! Sounding all technical. I'm not sure how many opportunities I'll have to dive again after this trip, but I hope I can do it a few times per year. It will be hard to top the first few trips we've ever done though, off the coast of Vietnam.

So this morning after our last dive we took a boat and a shuttle back to Nha Trang, which is apparently Russia Central of Vietnam -- on every store and restaurant there are signs in English, Vietnamese AND Russian, which is a first as far as I've seen here. Also, there is fruit --including mangoes >:( -- on every street corner. So after writing about rambutan I went out and bought some more for dinner because well, YOLO. If anyone wants to put in a request at the Knoxville area and Charlotte area grocery stores for this succulent little piece of Southeast Asia, I will reward you with a ... piece of dark chocolate from a foreign candy store :).

Till next time!

Back to the real world

Seth and I came back from our fabulous vacation in mid-November. Of course it was inevitably, albeit creatively, altered by my unique digestive system, but for the most part it was a successful trip. We saw everything we wanted to see and then some, and then we learned about ten times as many places that we have yet to see and must go back for, and of course we spent too much money. We could have done it all for a much smaller amount but in the end it all came down to accepting and enjoying life. And not sweating money too much.

So in January we found ourselves here, in Charlotte. I started working as an ESL teacher again (funny how it came back around) and Seth started working in sales in March. We do not make a lot of money. I make roughly what I made in Korea, in fact a bit more, BUT that is minus taxes and soon I will be paying for rent on top of car insurance, and we have been reintroduced to the daily struggles of life. Seth isn’t really quite sure what his salary will look like, because it will all depend on commission. Overall we make about as much as we need right now, but if we ever want to do something exciting like go on a trip, well, we have to figure something else out.

Back in November I signed up for the ACE personal certification course, and have studied off-and-on since. I’ve taken a break since starting my job in February, and with the wedding last weekend I really just thought it wasn’t going to happen since my life had turned into a void of planning, grading, working, exercising, eating, sleeping, and repeat. But two weeks post-wedding, I find myself with a little extra free time, a little more settled into my job, and wondering how I plan to make more than $22,000 per year. I checked my ACE profile and it turned out not to have expired yet, so I signed up for the test. I’m giving myself 3.5 more months to study, which means I’ll have to really get cracking on it. But it doesn’t seem unrealistic. A little extra motivation: the median salary for a full-time certified personal trainer in my area is $55,000. This makes me think, what the hell am I doing teaching??! You don’t even need a bachelor’s degree to be a personal trainer. I am such an idiot. The test alone costs $400, and a my college education cost… well, many many more dollars.

But I was never really smart with money. I mean, come on, I studied psychology. One of my mom’s personal favorite stories about me was when she found me crying as a toddler and asked what was wrong, to which I responded, “I need a money.” I consider this story to be symbolic, as I didn’t even know how to use money in a sentence with proper grammatical structure, which is one of my fundamental strengths.

So maybe what I’ll try to do is write a little every day about something I know that’s good for my health. One of my more new-found fundamental strengths is health and fitness. So today I’m going to preach this: skipping breakfast.

I know everybody says NOT to skip breakfast, and I used to be the biggest breakfast advocate I knew. Like an Italian mother, I would shake my finger and my head at people who “woke up too late” for breakfast or said they weren’t hungry in the mornings. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day!” I would parrot. But at some point I realized that whenever I ate breakfast, it seemed to stretch my stomach and make me hungrier all day, rather than what everyone says it’s supposed to do, which is fuel you. I tried everything though! Oatmeal, eggs, fruit, wraps, yogurt, bread-y cheesy meaty German breakfasts, even smoothies. It would just turn me into a more extreme form of the usual ravenous monster I inevitably become at the normal meal times. But the result would be that if I was trying to be calorie-conscious, my calorie budget would run out by dinnertime, which is the most fun part of the day for eating, let’s face it guys.

So here’s what’s worked for me, especially in times of getting ready for bikini season: skip breakfast, do a fast until an hour or so before lunch (like 10:30) and eat an apple. Then have a delicious salad for lunch with lots of fats like olive oil and avocado and a date or two for a snack, work out in the afternoon and then pig out for dinner. At least kind of pig out, you’ve definitely earned it by then. Oh yeah and water — lots.

Ah well I won’t divulge all my secrets right now. But there, Niya! I wrote. I’ll maybe do it again tomorrow.

Pinching Ourselves in Halong Bay

After our last night in Hanoi, we woke up early to catch the bus to Halong Bay. We hopped in a minibus with about 15 other people -- all cool and interesting from all over the world, between the ages of 23 and 45, and took the 4 hour ride to the bay. From there we got on a boat, were assigned our rooms (Seth and I somehow got the only really nice room with a big window on the second floor, instead of down below) and ate lunch while driving out to the bay. After lunch we all went above deck and took in the scene. It was breathtaking.



There are about 2,000 limestone cliffs sticking straight up out of the water, covered in their own ecosystems. I really don't know how trees grow straight out of rocks, but they do here. Halong bay was formed over the last 500 million years by the shifting of tectonic plates. But according to Vietnamese legend, when Vietnam was just starting to become a country, there were many people who wanted it. So the gods sent dragons to the shore and they shot gems and jade out of their mouths, which turned into little islands to form a massive wall against the invaders. The mother dragon and her children decided to live in Halong Bay to oversee the peacekeeping of the Earth.

We went to see a cave that the tour guide called the "Surprise cave!" And he didn't tell us why it was a surprise until the end. The surprise turned out to be ... more cave. It was really cool though, and well lit for uncoordinated tourists.





He said when a girl came to the cave one time to study it, she was surprised that when you walked through, you came to three chambers, each bigger than the next. The fact that the surprise was cave inside of a cave did not seem very creative to me. But in the first chamber, we saw some different formations that looked like animals. In the second chamber, there was a formation that looked like a Buddha! Before we walked into the third chamber, our guide Daniel said "OK, we're going into the third chamber and just so you know, you're going to see a formation and I want you to use your IMAJATION when you see it! IMAJATION. Remember, I'm not going to tell you."  So We were all like, "OK Daniel. We got it." We walked into the third, biggest chamber which was lit up in different beautiful colors and saw a, ehm, cannon? Sticking out of one of the columns. At the bottom of the cannon were two big ...cannon balls. As if the cannon had shot a cannon ball into the ceiling, there was a hole exactly where that sperm-I-mean-cannon-ball would have gone. We didn't need to use much imajation for that one.

"Cannon" on the right

After walking through the "surprise cave!", we did some kayaking around the cliffs for 40 minutes. It was surreal. The water was a warm, calm turquoise and the cliffs just towered above us. Seth and I went under one through a tiny hole in the bottom  and came out on the other side to total peace and quiet with no sound except our voices echoing off the cliffs and the water gently hitting our kayak.





I will admit that, about halfway under the cliff I thought to myself, "if this thing decides to fall, there is absolutely no way out" but it only took about 30 seconds to go under the cliff and we made it out the other side. But I really couldn't believe how much it felt like a dream. Then after that we went to one of the beaches and swam until the sun set on the horizon. There were monkeys playing on the cliff next to the beach, schools of fish swam near the people in the water in jumping waves and there was a bar at the beach where you could sit under a straw umbrella and watch it all go down. At one point Seth and I just went into a fit of maniacal laughter about how we were swimming on a beach at a UNESCO world heritage site and not teaching 50 classes per week in Korea.



That night back on the boat, we got tipsy with our new friends, went squid fishing, I ate a passion fruit (delicious!) and Seth and I carried the karaoke party until nobody could stand it anymore. 2 years in Korea made me forget how shy people can be at karaoke.

pano beach shot

The next morning after breakfast, we went to a pearl museum on the water. We learned about how they harvest pearls and get oysters to be more likely to produce them. First they grow the oysters for two years, then they kill one and take out the part of the oyster that's most likely to produce a pearl. They then inject that part deep into another oyster, and let that oyster grow a few more years. Seth got to pick out a potentially-ready oyster from a basket, and we watched a woman open it and.... it was dead. And rotten. It had probably died in the injection process. So he got to pick another one and... it had a perfect pearl! Daniel told us that usually 30% of the oysters have pearls and of those 1 in 3 have good enough quality pearls to make into jewelry.

Seth's pearl (did not eat)

So Seth did a pretty good job, but wasn't allowed to keep the pearl, which is fair. After the pearl museum, we took a cooking class and learned how to make Vietnamese spring rolls! If I remember correctly, Daniel mixed together strips of green papaya, spring onion, mushroom, ground pork, garlic and egg in a bowl. We then rolled them up into dampened rice paper. The cook fried them up until they were golden brown and we ate them for lunch. Next it was time to go back to Hanoi, where we had some final Hanoi-style pho bo before jumping on a bus to Hoi An. Most of the group stayed for 2 nights, which we wish we had done because (A) there were beach bungalows involved and (B) they were all really cool people and it would have been fun to hang out with them a little longer. But oh well. If anyone reading this blog is going to Halong Bay, stay for 2 nights! Or a week. It was just unbelievable.

Henna leftover from Kathmandu, too!

I think when we got the details from the woman booking our bus to Hoi An for us, I heard the words "nine to ten hours." That sounds bad, but it was an overnight bus and the seats are beds! We had heard bad things about these buses because they had erratic drivers, but after two 5-hour cramped, hot, bumpy bus rides in Nepal last week, the Vietnamese bus was a walk in the park -- it had a bathroom, air conditioning, a TV and wifi. So we slept on the bus overnight and if you don't count the guy snoring next to Seth, or the man who decided to sleep right next to my bed on the floor (making my midnight bathroom run a bit complicated), it was a pretty successful night overall. The bus left at 6 so I figured we'd get to Hoi An in the wee hours of the morning. Ah. But it turned out not to be "nine to ten hours" but rather "NINETEEN HOURS." You can imagine my disappointment when the sun shone on southern Vietnam at 11AM and I desperately wanted to go outside, but had to stay exactly where I was: reclined on the same stupid bus, with the battery dead on my tab and phone and thus no books to read.

My feet go under Seth's head when we recline, super innovative

But we made it eventually and now we're in Hoi An, which is another paradise in Vietnam. More on that next time!

see you again someday, Halong Bay!