Malaysia Part 3: Taman Negara

The first bus we took from Mandarin Pacific Hotel took about 3 hours. We were dropped off at a restaurant/travel service. We had lunch and took a 30 minute bus ride to get our national park permits. From there we had a very relaxing, 3 hour boat ride to Taman Negara-- the final destination! We were taken to our hotel, which was very nice, overlooking the jungle and quiet except for the sound of nature.
That evening we ate a delicious, albeit lukewarm, dinner provided by the hotel that included soup full of vegetables, curry, rice, broiled fish, mixed vegetables, and fruit for dessert. We went out after dinner to see some nocturnal creatures in the jungle. We saw spiders, scorpions, a millipede, a bat, a red grasshopper, and more. The next day we saw some monkeys, water buffalo, and a water monitor lizard.
We woke up early to hike in the jungle. I don't think I've ever sweat so much! We walked back over a canopy bridge, had lunch, rode down some white water rapids, and did some swimming to end our day. It was a good mix of exercise, relaxation, and fun.
We relaxed that night to prepare for the long journey back to Kuala Lumpur the next morning. We had dinner at one of the floating restaurants on the river.
We finally got to Chinatown, found a cool bar, called Reggae Bar, and ate dinner. Delicious!! Then we walked around Petaling Market before heading to the airport. 12 hours later we were back home in Korea....

Malaysia Part 2: Langkawi

We got to Kuala Lumpur from Shanghai late Monday night so we decided to stay the night and take an hour flight to Langkawi in the morning. We spent the first two days of our Malaysia trip on the beach on Langkawi Island. Words cannot express the serene beauty of this place. We stayed on Cenang Beach, which is only an 18 RM ($4.50) taxi ride from the airport. We stopped into a couple of hotels before settling with Shirin Guesthouse for 50 RM (about $12) for the night, right next to the beach! Shirin Guesthouse has a nice feel of nature outside. The room is simple: a big bed, air-conditioning, and a shower (although no hot water in our particular room), just the necessities! The place is run by an Iranian man and his Japanese wife, who are as sweet as they are entertaining. After a nap we came out to sign in and they offered us a welcome drink! We were hungry so we wanted to get out and have lunch, but it took a little while to tell that to the owner, who was enthusiastically engaging us in political debate. We finally found a way out and had a great lunch before relaxing on the beach for the rest of the day.

One of the many cats at the hostel, Monica:

Our room:

At night we went to the Tuesday night market nearby, which I highly recommend. There was great food with a decent amount of vegetarian options. I had flat ,stir-fried noodles (kuay teow) and some little pastries filled with sweet corn, pineapple, coconut milk, and more. Delicious!

We then took a taxi to Kuah Town, but didn't see much to do once we were there. We walked around for a bit then went back to Cenang Beach. We found a bar on the beach called Babylon that had a reggae band and hookah, so we hung out there for a while. We even met two nice Korean girls.

On Thursday we went to the Langkawi Cable Car that goes up about 700 meters. For only 30 RM (about $7.50) you can ride the gondola up and see a gorgeous view of mountains, ocean and sky. There is also a recently built observatory deck that provides a unique look of the lush trees, ocean and mountains below. We saw some hiking trails and explored a bit, but the climbs were steep, so we headed up to the gondola after a short walk.

Near the cable car, you can meet Zanah for free and even take pictures for a small donation:

Then we took a taxi back to Cenang beach and rented a jet-ski. It was fun! After about an hour at the beach we went back to Shirin Guesthouse (they were kind enough to store our bags for free), changed clothes, and got a ride to the airport. A 1 hour plane ride later and we were back in Kuala Lumpur. We took a taxi to our hostel in Chinatown and met up with some friends. We shared a room with them and woke up at about 6am to make it to our bus stop for the jungle trek!

View from one of the restaurants on Cenang Beach:

There are so many flavors of Pringles here:

Malaysia Part 1: Shanghai

After a week hanging out with Randy in Korea, Steve and I had another week of vacation so we decided to spend it in Malaysia! We flew into Shanghai with a 7 hour layover and decided to take advantage of it. We were happy to find out that Shanghai is a city in China (possibly the only?) where you don't need a visa to leave the airport, as long as your stay is less than 48 hours. Yay! We took the Maglev train that got us into the city within 8 minutes (the world's fastest commercial train). From there, we got into a taxi and pointed out a cool looking building on a map. After a few minutes we see this massive building, which we find out later is the 2nd tallest building in the world, and has the tallest observation deck, so we had to check it out. In this incredibly tall building, called the Shanghai World Financial Center, we went up 100 floors and saw an awesome view of Shanghai. Unfortunately it was a pretty overcast day, but still breathtaking.
We walked around a bit and passed by the building where the 2010 Shanghai World Expo was being held, but didn't go in. Then we stumbled upon the "Bund Sightseeing Tunnel." The name doesn't really say anything about what it actually is, but it sounded touristy so we gave it a shot. It's basically just a dark tunnel you ride through for about 10 minutes with cool looking lights. When we came out of the tunnel it was raining so we found a taxi back to the Maglev station. Then we were at the airport ready for our flight to Malaysia. Short but sweet!

Jisan Valley Rock Festival 2010

Jisan Valley Rock Festival is a 3 day music festival held annually at the end of July in Icheon, South Korea. We decided to go on Friday July 30 with the hopes of seeing Belle & Sebastian, Vampire Weekend, and Massive Attack. We arrived later than expected, partly because we were exhausted from the night before, partly due to the horrible directions on the festival's website. We took the Subway to Suwon station, exit 1 and got on the 60 bus to Ori station that took over an hour. From Ori there was a 30 minute shuttle bus to the festival for 3,000 won organized by Jisan. We arrived, got our wristbands to go in, and caught the end of Belle & Sebastian's set before eating some samosas and exploring the festival.
There were many tents with different products and food, some of the most popular being the Mexican food and the Turkish Kebab tents. There was a tent that sold cocktails in plastic pouches meant to look like IV bags, a Jägermeister tent with bean bag chairs and cool music playing, as well as a booth that sold Miller (the only beer at the festival).

After watching Vampire Weekend and Massive attack (both amazing!) we hung out at a drum circle and watched some fire dancers.
Massive Attack:

Overall, the music was great but the festival itself was frustratingly unorganized. We bought tickets to stay in a Jjimjilbang (bathhouse with floor space to sleep) and a bus was supposed to pick us up at 1am. Only two buses showed up at 1am, leaving over half of the people waiting another hour for the buses to get back from dropping the first load of people off. After less than 5 hours of sleep on a hard wood floor with no blanket or pillow, we had to take a bus back to the festival at 9am. From there we kept asking the security where the bus back to Ori station would be, and no one knew! We even asked in Korean, so I know it wasn't just a language barrier. We waited for over 2 hours before a bus finally came, a block away from where we were waiting, and took us to Ori Station. At that point we were not looking forward to the 2 hour+ journey back home so we said, "Screw the bus!" (who said that?) and took a taxi to Suwon station. We overestimated the distance and agreed to pay the taxi driver way more than the meter price... (you live, you learn).

We canceled our plans to go to Seoul that night and had a lovely night out in Songtan playing shuffleboard at Osan Lounge followed by some epic Noraebang (Karaoke).

Randy trying to figure out which Ace of Base song to sing next:

Randy left with a bang by making a vegan dinner Sunday night of Indian food and frozen bananas covered in a clove caramel sauce with cashews for dessert. Sweet!! Have I ever mentioned I have the best friends in the world... all over the world? :)

DMZ

On Thursday morning we woke up at 4:30am to catch the first subway to Namyoung station in Seoul. We walked a few minutes before finding the U.S. military base Camp Kim, where our USO tour was departing from. We took a bus for about 2 1/2 hours until we reached the JSA (Joint Security Area). We listened to a brief history of the DMZ from a U.S. soldier before going into a room and actually stepping into North Korea.

One of the stories that stood out was the 1976 Axe Murder Incident. As the story goes, a tree was blocking the view from the southern side of the JSA into North Korea. A group of U.S. and South Korean soldiers went to trim it, and were met by some North Korean soldiers warning them against cutting the tree (something along the lines of, 'Kim Il Sung personally planted and nurtured this tree'). The trimming was to continue until more of the North's soldiers came with weapons and injured almost the whole group of U.S. and South Korean military personnel. Some of the North's men picked up the axes meant to chop the tree down, and killed a U.S. captain and a lieutenant. This lead to "Operation Paul Bunyan" to finally remove the tree 3 days later. Here is the Axe Murder Monument:Here is the room we went into, where all of the talks are held:

Here is the border between North and South. I am standing on the Northern side of the border at this point.

Here is a North Korean soldier in the distance starring at us with binoculars. The South Korean soldiers in this area stand in a very intimidating stance of Taekwondo nicknamed 'ROK ready' position.

Here is a view of the tallest flagpole in the world in Kijong-dong, North Korea. At an estimated 600 pounds, this flag usually doesn't get enough wind to fly:
This is called the "Bridge of No Return." In 1953 when the Korean War came to a close, people were given the choice to cross this bridge into the North or South and never return again.

Next, we entered the "3rd Infiltration Tunnel." This is a tunnel built by North Korea that would have allowed the North's soldiers to be in Seoul within an hour. It was discovered in 1978, and it is believed that there are still more undiscovered tunnels. The South Korean government frequently drills all over to find more tunnels like the four that have been discovered so far.

After walking through the tunnel, we went to an observation deck where there are many coin-operated binoculars to look into North Korea in the distance.
Next was probably the most touching part of the tour. We went to Dorasan train station. This station was built so that if and when North and South Korea reunify, trains from this station will go into the North's capital, Pyeongyang. The train will even be equipped to go through many key cities in the world, all the way to London.
Going to the DMZ was a very unique, informative experience. It was definitely bizarre and full of propaganda (from all sides), but definitely worth seeing.