The news from Korea regarding our payment is grim. The Korean labor Board has said that it can not get our funds for us so we have to sue if we want the money. Pretty much, there is no chance that we will get paid. Guess who is getting a job when he returns to the states?
On a traveling note, we are headed to Costa Rica tomorrow to meet up with Louie, Jasmine, Andreas, and Lane! How much fun will that be? I am so excited!
My dad was in a picture similar to this one 27 years ago.
My parents travelled to Guatemala the winter of 1979-1980, and since I was born in October of 1980 it comes as no surprise that I was conceived here. My mom thinks that it happened on Lago Atitlan and gave Melanie some photos taken near their camp. One is of my dad swimming in the lake and another is of my mom washing clothes. Both photos have distinct mountains in the background as clues. The other bit of information was that the conception occured under an avocado tree.
We set out in kayaks on this quest for the avocado tree from San Pedro because we believed it to be the closest town. The kayaks turned out to be very nice because the road is far from the beach in many places and separated by resort properties. What we planned on taking an hour or maybe two ended up taking 4. We paddled about 5 miles across the lake to a cove near Santiago Atitlan and I got a bad sunburn. The photos matched the mountains perfectly but we could not find the tree. I suppose it has changed a bit in 27 years. We settled on taking pictures of me in the same place as my dad 27 years ago. That was really cool. I wonder if the tree my placenta is buried under is still alive?
Chicken Busses
Guatemala has the best public transportation I have ever encountered. There is an individually owned fleet of retired American and Canadian school busses. When they are deemed unsafe for America's children they are sold to Guatemalans. Here, they proceed to give them sick paint jobs, roof racks, bumpin sound systems, chrome grills, Jesus stickers, naked women, disco balls, and other bling. The thing that often remains is the sticker that says, "Your children's safety is our business." Which is totally bogus because they drive like maniacs. It is really a twisted combination of Nascar and timber-sports. Nascar for obvious reasons and timber-sports because of the bus-boy, who can do a 20m. dash, climb a ten foot ladder, and throw 30 kilo bags like nobody in Albany. And, Yes!, there are chickens.
I love Guatemala and I don't know why. It is not the most beautiful or the most anything. Mel and I have been travelling around and having a splendid time. Kyle and Garrett we parted ways as they went on to Mexico. We headed to the secluded mountain town of Nebaj well off the gringo trail. It was a rewarding experience with good hiking and insight into non-touristy daily Guatemalan life. We hiked through the poorest neighborhood I have ever seen or imagined. The inhabitants were Mayan Refugees struggling to survive after decades of oppression and genocide.
Now we are at Lago Atitlan on the opposite end of the touristy spectrum. I soon begin the search for the avocado tree under which I was conceived...
Out of time, check my photos.
Garrett on the summit of Tajulmulco
Friday afternoon we finished Spanish lessons in Xela. At 5pm we planned to meet up with Garrett and Kyle Dickman to attend a pre-trip meeting for our weekend ascent of Tajulmulco (4,250m), Guatemala's highest peak. They stumbled in near the end of the meeting wondering, "What's the name of the volcano we are climbing?" It was great to see familiar faces and tell stories over some beers and dinner.
Saturday morning we got up at 4am for a day of riding chicken busses and hiking in cold, soupy fog. Our group of 32 could only go as fast as it's slowest member which led to half an hour of sitting around freezing for every 15 minutes of hiking. We chose to pass the time, in typical Dickman fashion, trying to determine who in our group was weirdest. This eventually let to closed ballot voting were we each listed our 5 top choices. Instantly upon reaching camp it began to rain and the evening culminated in undercooked, burnt pasta. Ummm. At least the conversation and card playing was good.
In the morning we awoke way too early for a clear morning of hiking. We made the summit about an hour before the sun and spent a bit of time shivering. The hike out proved to be wonderful!
Party of the facade of the church in San Andre Xecul
Today is the third day of Spanish classes here in Xela, Guatemala. We are staying with a host family that is super nice and both enjoy our teachers very much. Our room has a beautiful vista of the volcano Santa Maria, which we plan to climb soon. My Spanish is still awful, and I feel sorry for my teacher Carolina because she has to suffer through five hours a day of listening to me. Monday afternoon we visited a small village with a bizarre technicolor church and yesterday we climbed a smallish volcano, La Muela, with a great view of the surrounding countryside.
I love Guatemala. It´s dirty, cheap, the beer is fine, the food is good and the people are friendly. The public transportation is the best I have ever seen, although not necessarily the easiest for a foreigner to figure out. More on that later. And my favorite attribute of all, everything is so colorful (see photo).
I brought one pair of shoes. One right shoe and one left shoe. I almost always take my shoes off and relax on long flights, and the red-eye from LAX to GUA was no exception. We land and I go to put my shoes back on except there is only one shoe. The right shoe. The left shoe is nowhere to be found. I looked, I looked some more, then I made Mel look. Sometimes I can be blind. She couldn't find the missing shoe either. The tears in her eyes from laughing so hard could not have helped. Who loses one shoe on an airplane? ...Me! Who takes only one shoe? Maybe it was in an aisle and a steward picked it up while I was sleeping. Nope. There was no turbulence during the flight that could have launched my shoe into the lavatory. "Why is that gringo getting off the plane and going through customs with only a right shoe?" I can't help but think how much it will suck to cruise around Guate at 5 in the morning with only one shoe and wait for the shoe store to open. I did find my shoe. It migrated four rows back from my seat and gave me quite a scare in the process. I love traveling.
I keep saying that I will chill out and stop trying to do so much, but this has yet to kick in. Before we left I decided that it would be fun to watch the Civil War...in Reser Stadium. Jake and Molly snuck me in and I stayed for the first half. I was pretty pleased to leave with a 20-7 lead. That was totally squandered by the time we got to the airport and we watched a very exciting 4th quarter in the Eugene airport. I got some dirty looks for cheering too loud in the airport bar.
After a five hour bus ride this morning we arrived in Xela. We plan to stay here for the next week and learn Spanish, climb volcanoes, drink coffee and generally settle into a routine.
Becca and Jake drop into one of the warm up rapids on Opal Cr.
Tuesday of this week, we went rafting. It was awesome. One of the best river trips I have ever been on. Jake, Melanie, My sister and I went and ran Opal Creek. This is actually a 4 mile section on the Little North fork of the North Santiam. The class IV canyon was spectacular with numerous fun drops and interesting rapids. We R2ed in two rafts and I think there is a chance we were the first rafts ever to run this Northwest classic. I have been asking around and nobody else seems to know of rafts on this stretch. Maybe the one mile hike to the put-in and the heinous portage around Big Fluffy keep the rafters away. We actually ended up running the last class IV, Thor’s Playroom, in the near dark after a long day on the river.
Becca, Mel and Pa around the Thanksgiving dinner table. I ate so much.
I am on vacation, at least I am supposed to be. It sure does not feel like a vacation, hopefully that will change soon. Mel and I leave for Central America today. We will be flying into Guatemala and making our way down to Panama where we will meet up with Louie, Lane and Jasmine. I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.
We returned from Korea 6 weeks ago and I have hardly sat down since. It has been a steady stream of friends, family and travel. There was the 55 hour trip back to Korea. We still have not seen any money. Mel and I briefly thought we had each been paid $168.03, but it turned out to be from the Korean Pension Service and not Epark. Darn. Still no money, but we remain optimistic. Then there was the whirlwind trip to Montana. It was so nice to see my sister and road trip with my mom, but holy crap was it a lot of driving.
To continue the epic adventure, I am going to try to see the Civil War game before getting on my flight this afternoon. Go Beavs!
The travel marathon continues. After returning home from Korea, Mel and I got a good night's sleep and hopped in the car with my mom. We ate dinner at a wonderful Basque restaurant in Boise to break up the 15 hour drive. The three of us are now in Bozeman visiting my sister at college. It has been so nice to spend time with my mom and Becca, although the 3 on 1 situation means that I am taking the brunt of their teasing. I think it is good for me to be on the receiving end every now and again.
Today we are headed to a cabin that my mom rented in Yellowstone NP. I have never seen a geyser, although I'm not sure that streak will end today because it sounds like a bunch of the roads are closed. Oh darn, I guess I will have to come back to Montana.
1 Number of papers I signed today
2 New stamps in my passport
6 People filing against Epark
23 Hours in Korea
30 Days Mr. Ha has to pay or be arrested
55 Hours car-to-car
80 Movies to choose from on Singapore Airlines
12,182 Miles Flown and frequent flier miles gained
8,400,000 Amount we hope to collect in Korean Won
It is tradition to put pumkins in cool places along the Rogue in October.
I can not express just how happy I am to be back in Oregon. We had a nice three day visit with Mel's mom that included canoeing at Summit lake near Diamond peak and a trip to the Oregon coast. After June departed, we made a quick trip up to Portland to take care of some business at Patagonia and visit with Graham and Greta. Graham gave us an awesome tour of his place of work. Precision Castings makes jet turbines and other incredibly-difficult-to-manufacture-giant-sized-awesome parts in vacuum chambers. This tour was just as cool as going to Boeing to watch the 777 get assembled. We finished the evening with a nice Mexican dinner and a new game called Settlers.
The five day Rogue trip was great! We took day-two as a lay-over 4.5 miles from the put-in so we could wait for Jake to run in. We finished out the remaining 30 miles over three days with sunny skies and great food the whole time. We saw tons of wildlife including; river otters, tons of deer, bears, salmon, bald eagles and a nice 4-point buck. The most notable part of this trip is that Cota came with us. He loves camping, but is not too keen on the boating part. Mel feared that she has lost her beloved dog forever when we let him out to portage Blossom Bar and he was lost in the bear infested wilderness for a couple of hours. I got to play the hero when I brought the wet and shivering Cota-Woda back in my arms. I would also like to add that I won the pumkin game after spotting a record 24 pumkins. There were upwards of 70 of the little buggers lurking in the most unlikely places.
Next up... Back to Korea! We are leaving Sunday morning to fly back to Korea for a quick three day trip. We have to attend a labour board hearing that will hopefully result in us getting our money. As soon as we return it is off to Montana to visit my sister for a few days. Whew! We have been busy.
Oregon kicks ass! I am so happy to be home. I have loved living in Korea and travelling in east Asia, but Corvallis is awesome. Two dollar micros, my family, good friends, great food, clean air, sane driving, and traffic-lights with sensors are some of the things I have been enjoying most. Cota was stoked to see Mel when we arrived at the airport but she has had a kidney infection since we have been home.
Mel's mom is currently visiting here in Oregon. She had her first time on an airplane today, but she seems to be doing fine. Tomorrow, we are planning to canoe up at Summit lake with my parents.
We were supposed to get paid today. We didn't. The office was locked and the boss man didn't even have the decency to tell us. It is now a legal proceeding and we have to be present if he does not pay in the next two weeks. We are coming home, so we will fly back to Korea if it comes to that. Being screwed out of $8,000 is tough to take.
Happy birthday to me.
I have always thought this would be a fun job, until the whole washing part started.
Mel having fun posing for tourist photos along the waterfront in Shanghai. This particular pose was very popular among Chinese tourists, so Mel decided to give it a try.
Well, we made it back to Korea and we still have not been paid by our school which is not particularly surprising. Tomorrow we are headed to the Labor Board to see if the government can make them pay us. We ate kimchee for lunch and realized that we missed it quite a lot. Might be hard to find good kimchee when we get home. I guess I will have to learn to make it.
The remainder of our China trip was great, mostly we just settled into Shanghai and ate a lot of really good food. We had some great Thai, good Indian, funky cool fusion in a place that was impossible to open the front door, and Chinese vegetarian that was made to look exactly like meat. The veggie place was so good we went back. And yes, we ate at some great hole-in-the-wall Chinese places too.
Aside from shopping, eating and riding around on old bicycles we really enjoyed the Shanghai Museum. Their collection of jade was up to 7,000 years old and they have the oldest discovered bronze at around 4,500 years old. They also had a really cool exhibit on Assyrian culture on loan from the British Museum.
