Cambodia 4AM

I should tell one quick story about crossing the road last night.  I was on my way to the shopping center (five minutes from the hotel) and I needed to cross a very busy road in order to get there, but there were no stop lights or cross walks in sight.  So I approached the first person in sight and asked him if he could speak English.  He said, "No.", smiled and laughed.  He looked official.  He had a uniform on with reflector tape and a red light like the people who signal planes at an airport.  He called someone over to help us communicate, but he didn't know what I wanted either.  I would point at myself and then point to the other side of the road.  I explained in perfect English, "How do I safely cross this road?"  Finally this new helper decided that we needed someone else to help us and this man and his wife got it!  The man told the official looking man something and BOOM the light bulb went on.  "Oh yes, yes! You want to cross the road!  Well why didn't you just say so!  That is why I am here standing by the road with this red light saber, duh!"  (This was his internal dialog in his own language).  So he turned on his light and started entering the busy street all the while blowing on his whistle.  I followed him closely, and we were able to make it safely to the other side, ahhh.  As I was crossing I was wondering what a fair tip would be for helping me cross the street.  It may have not been enough but I gave him 1000 Riel (equal to 25 cents).

Tomorrow we will visit the Killing Fields.  Maybe this is where I will die.  ( Before I left I was telling some friends that I couldn't imagine this next phase in my life, so I thought that I would die before I was able to experience it -- it was the same feeling I had when I was a young teenager thinking that I wouldn't make it to 17 because I couldn't envision myself that old.)  So if this is the end of bub-headingwest.com then farewell, goodbye and enjoy!

YES!  The monotone music just quit!  5AM.

Welcome to Cambodia!

We made it to Cambodia!  The last flight from Tokyo to Ho Chi Minh was the hardest part for me.  It was the nicest plane with the best touch screen TV's but I was so tired that I couldn't sleep.  I feel sorry for LeAnn because I was a cranky baby for a couple hours.  But I cried myself to sleep and finished the flight happily playing a cool Brickout video game.

Exiting the airport into Ho Chi Minh was interesting.  We were met with hundreds of people lined up as if they were there to welcome us in.  We quickly found our ride and had a nice night meeting the program coordinator and a few of the students who were celebrating their very recent graduation of the program.  The $20ish hotel was nice enough.  I had to wait to use internet until today because it wasn't working at the hotel...I'm so spoiled.

A lot of what we saw reminded us of Mexico, the shops along the side of the road, the scooters, the foreign language...  

The $13 bus ride from Ho Chi Minh to Phnom Phen was nice.  But once we got here we quickly got into a scam job...welcome to Phnom Phen!  First of all, the stewardess said that they changed the drop off location, so we then needed to let LanguageCorps know that the pickup address needed to be changed. The stewardess let us use her phone to let them know.  But right when I get off the bus I see a man running up to me with a sign that had Brian Shafer and LeAnn Winter spelled out on it.  So, great, they figured out the location change and met us there.  But...we ended up seeing another guy with our names on his sign as well, but his clearly said LanguageCorps, and I couldn't remember if the first guy's sign had said LanguageCorps.  But thinking that they send two drivers by accident we decided to go with the first one...whoops.  He took us in his tuk tuk (a small framed cab hooked to the back of a motorcycle) a couple blocks away and stopped.  He got out and asked us what hotel we needed to go to and then tried to get us to confirm a tour of the city with him tomorrow before he would take us to the hotel.  I told him that I would just pay him to take us to the LanguageCorps hotel, but he said that it was too far.  We were both uncomfortable with the whole situation and we asked him to just take us back to the bus station.  He reluctantly said okay but said that we needed to pay him $5.  I said that I would give him three.  He rolled his eyes and said $4.  He took his time getting back, I'm not sure why or what he was doing, but once we got there the driver with the official LanguageCorps sign was still there, thankfully!  He was able to call some LanguageCorps people and they told me to give the driver who scammed us $2.  He was trying to get his $4 but I told him that he manipulated us and that I didn't what to give him any money, but I did as I was advised and gave him two dollars, yeah thanks for scamming us, here's two dollars!

We are now getting settled into our hotel rooms that we are staying in for the next two weeks. They are nice!  But we don't have the right voltage adapters yet so we can't charge phones or computers.  There's a shopping center close, I might go for a walk later.  We are planning on doing some sight seeing in the morning tomorrow with one of the drivers from LanguageCorps and then we have a welcome dinner with the rest of the teachers, oh yeah!  It's looking up...glad internet works.  

13 Hours Over the Ocean

We left Manhattan KS yesterday morning at 6:20AM.  I stayed up all night last night with a few friends from Manhattan so that I would sleep on the plane and be able to sleep when we get to Ho Chi Minh City at 9PM the following day.  LeAnn and I are sitting in Tokyo as I type waiting for a couple hours for our flight to HCMC.

Everything is going well so far, except for when I spilled my pop and then later LeAnn's plastic fork broke and her chicken and rice blew up all over the place.

I always tend to elaborate and explain my random bits of information within this blog, since that is probably the purpose of a blog.  Such as:  how I now have a girlfriend, and how this whole teaching overseas idea came about, but sometimes I think it's important to leave room for people's imagination.

But just to officially make this a 'real' blog I will give a few details to fill in some gaps.

LeAnn and I met in grad school. We were both public speaking GTA's at K-State.  We both share the desire to travel around the world and we both enjoy each other's company quite a bit.  Okay moving on...

We are both being trained to be TOEFL certified with a company called LanguageCorps.  I heard about them through a colleague.  LanguageCorp has offices all around the world, we choose Vietnam because neither of us have been to Asia, it is very different from our western world, and it will be more profitable for us.  (LeAnn has a small debt to pay off, so going to a place where we could save some money was a high priority.)

It's nice to be looking out a window to a rainy Tokyo.

I'm going to Nam!

Well I graduated college, again!   And now I'm currently packed and ready for my next BIG adventure, teaching English in Vietnam.