The Summer Vacation Recap

I lapsed and, for a summer at least, scuttled all goals and commitments with regard to posting on my blog.  In this first attempt to redress my breached blogger status, I shall synopsize—how’s that for a verb form generated from a noun—my summer, a summer very much structured by my job description for ten months of the year:  teacher who works overseas!

Bangkok, Thailand, and round about:  It began the weekend after the teachers’ last contracted day of the school year.  I traveled to Bangkok with my friend Lori and spent a week there, largely in the city itself.  Although in two previous summer trips to Thailand, each about six weeks long, I connected travels through Bangkok on multiple occasions, I never spent more than two days in a row in the city itself.  This time I repeated the experiences of three of my favorite Bangkok memories—Wat Pho and The Reclining Buddha, the floating market at Damnoen Saduak, and daily consumption of pomelo—but I added quite a range of new Bangkok adventures and enterprises…perhaps enterprises being the operative word because Lori is a shopper!    I visited a whole lot of markets, and there are actually several I would revisit with any future travel buddy because they fully cater to entertaining and memorable travel moments whether one is a serious shopper or not.  (As one who has a diminished shopping gene, I can attest to this fact.)

 

Medical Appointments in the USA:  Unless something arises during the school year that requires medical attention or intervention, I have my medical check-ups, tune-ups, and screenings taken care of in the USA.  Certain summers—like this one—they wield a heavy hand in shaping my overall summer schedule.  All of this summer’s appointments evolved in generally conjectured ways except that I had one more crown inserted in my mouth—for a grand total of TWO—than originally anticipated.  (I broke a tooth on a miniscule fragment of walnut shell lurking amongst actual walnuts.) 

 

10K:  I ran a 10Kfor the first time in over ten years—okay, I did walk a bit of it.  My brother Dan and his son Justin ran several 10K races this summer and invited me to join them in the 10K held in conjunction with other events during Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Day celebration on July 24.   Although I had undertrained for the race, I did finish.   Not with Dan and Justin, of course!  I told them—we can start together and then maybe you can wait for me at the finish line.  And that’s what they did.  All three of us finished the event with times in the mid-section of our gender/age group, Dan at the highest position in that middle range.  My sister Diane played photographer at the starting line and at the finish line.

EPILOGUE:  Even before the race, I had extended my morning runs to farther than I had ever run during previous summer stays at my father's place since he moved there over ten years ago.  When I returned to Seoul in August, I ran farther on my first run than I have ever before run in Seoul.   Now I’m wondering if I have another 10K left in me.

 

DG Hatch Family Reunion:  At the end of July, I drove to Spokane, Washington, with my dad, his wife Clarine, and my sister Diane to a reunion of all the descendants of my dad’s father, Daniel George Hatch.  Organized by my cousin Dana and sister Diane, the reunion was a grand affair, and I saw cousins I had not seen in over twenty years and met some of their posterity!  Our route to Washington included a piece of western Montana, and I fell fast in love once more with the lay of the land in that part of the country.  (In fact, one night after returning to Seoul, I plundered my box of DVDs in search of A River Runs Through It, found it, and settled into an evening of western Montana landscape schlepping characters and a story.  The next morning I located the book on my personal shelves and reread it.)  We spent one night in Deer Lodge, Montana, the location of an old prison now established as a historial site.  I found its aura intriguing.

 

 

Water Park with the “Grands”:  The week before I returned to Seoul, my nieces Kimberly and Ashley (Justin’s wife) invited Diane and me to a waterpark afternoon with their families.  (The men, Justin and Chris--both definitely responsible sorts--showed up after work in time for a pizza supper.)  Since I’m not a grandma, being a grandaunt must be the next best kind of magical designation.

Love these kids !

(Thanks to Kimberly and Ashley for the photos.)

 

 

A Week in Bangkok

Bangkok is the preamble to my life in Asia, the city that inaugurated my mind to the notion that I would really like to learn this space; I wanted to explore and experience the endlessly diverse endowment offered to the planet by its largest continent. 

June, 2001, marked my first arrival in Bangkok, Thailand.  I returned in June, 2002.  Then ten years slipped away before I found my way back to Bangkok this June.  In the interim, though, I visited Sri Lanka in 2004 and then moved to Japan in 2005.  Asia became my place of residence, work, play, and on-going discovery.

Even if Bangkok now ranks behind a few other Asian cities on my list of favorites, it will always hold a sentimental advantage in my heart.  Until this summer, I never spent more than two nights in a row in Bangkok; it was merely a necessary stop on the way to somewhere else--Thailand's glorious beaches, Chiang Mai, Cambodia, or Laos.  A week of days all in Bangkok was something I didn't realize I could truly enjoy, but then I did. 

I had such fun checking out some of my remembered highlights from a decade ago and then learning Bangkok in ways I never could have before because I had not given myself time for such a venture.  Transport (foot, tuk-tuk, taxi, Sky Train, boat) and food (and I will refrain from listing these) options evolved into moments of engaging entertainment in and of themselves.  The hotel where we stayed was located in a very Muslim section of Bangkok, a part of Bangkok I had never seen before. Each day of the week ultimately unfolded its own tale woven with a rich cast of characters, humor, uncertainty, discovery, an "oops" or two, another insight, and unexpected pleasures.  Now these tales are added to my story.

Here are some photos . . .

One day we took a day-trip to Ayutthaya, an ancient capitol of Thailand, and visited the ruins from centuries gone by.

This is a Buddha image set in the tree.

We took a boat back to Bangkok from Ayutthaya, and these photos come from that excursion.

 

And, here are ones taken in Bangkok and its environs:

The Reclining Buddha at Wat Pho.

I do love his feet!