Bangkok Street Food

For some reason, I was more excited about the food in Saigon and Hanoi than Bangkok. I don't know why. Maybe it sounded more exotic or something. In hindsight, Vietnam had some great hits. The thought of an iced coffee makes me salivate, and I could eat a bahn mi once a day 'til I die. However, of all the places we traveled to over the last two years, Bangkok turned out to be the king of cuisine. We barely made a scratch in the famous street munchies that make the city so famous, but at least we took pictures.

Okay, so this first example isn't necessarily street food. We stopped off in this restaurant on Khao San Road on our way to the Grand Palace. Khao San Road evolves into a hopping party when the sun goes down, but at this hour, we and hundreds of additional tourists were just searching for a cool place to avoid the heat. We sat inside and Sami ordered greasy Pad Thai (hey, someone had to do it). I had an appetizer of fried pork strips. I wanted to save my appetite for tasty street food along the walk. The pork, fried with sesame seeds, was crispy, hard and dry. The Thai chile sauce it came with was good though. All around it was not the best introduction to Thai cuisine.

This was something I snagged after the restaurant on the walk to the Royal Palace. These little guys are everywhere, and if we hadn't exchanged our Bangkok Lonely Planet at the English Bookstore in Korea, I would look up the name. I like to think of them as little Thai tacos. The yellow that you see is not cheese, but rather caramelized coconut shavings. They say they come in two kinds, savory and sweet but the sweet one is pretty savory and the savory is quite sweet. I actually bought another variety in Kanchanaburi, but I guess I forgot to take a picture. They are all about 3 for a dollar.

Having struck out in finding famous grilled chicken in Hanoi, I couldn't pass up the grill lady who set up shop just across the street from our hotel. She had a great English menu that listed the prices for each different piece. I bought two skewers of skin and back meat. Being a foreigner, she tried to skimp out on the sauce, so I made sure to point and the condiments and grunt approvingly. She got the message and placed the skewers in a plastic bag, squirted in a stream of soy or fish sauce, and then dusted in some salty, spicy seasoning. With my hand on the outside of the bag, I rubbed the tasty goodness all over the hot skin. Usually, I don't like fatty meat, but the juju she threw over the chicken pieces left me gnawing on every tendon. I made a mental not to visit her again for a piece with more substance.

Obviously, I wasn't expecting my best meal in Thailand to be found at the Bangkok zoo, but this salad was incredible. Hot and sour, salty and crunchy. Probably the same thing I glance over on Thai menus in the US in search of Pad Thai.

This was our favorite dish in Bangkok, and I say "ours" because Sami stole most of it from me. Tom Yam noodle soup purchased at a street stall on Khao San Road for around a dollar. The coconut milk tried its best to mellow the fiery heat, but I still sweated like Glen "Big Baby" Davis throughout spoonfuls. The rice noodles are a little more firm than the ones we sampled in Hanoi Pho, and overall I find the freshness of Tom Yam preferable to the Vietnamese specialty.

Sami's first pregnancy craving was the fruit in Bangkok. Every morning I woke to the sounds of a fruit vendor hacking away at watermelon and carving up papaya. Right now, you can purchase a small watermelon in Korea for about twenty dollars. When we were in Bangkok, we bought giant bags of the sweetest watermelon for about a quarter. Sami was in love with the watermelon, whereas I chose to be less monogamous, venturing into pineapple and papaya territory as well.

The fruit is served in plastic bags with a bamboo skewer, and I told myself not to worry about future environmental repercussions while sampling God's juicy fine fare.

These wontons I bought were served the same way. I actually don't remember much about this item except for the fact that a fellow foreigner came up behind me and quizzed me about it. "What's that?" "Is it good?" How much is it?" I don't know dude, everything is good just get it.

This is a terrible picture, but this sausage type thing stuffed with rice was bomb. I think it is just a good rule of thumb that if it is served on a stick, it's awesome. I should have eaten about thirty more of these, but it was one of those things where I wasn't really hungry and I wasn't sure how much it cost.

Finally, on our last night I decided to ignore my bulging stomach from the street food extravaganza and follow up on the promise I made to revisit the grilled chicken lady. Here is a better pick of her station.

Before she throws on the sauce and Asian taste dust, she warms the piece over a charcoal grill. This sweats the skin and makes the dust stick. This worked great with the tiny skin strips I ate earlier, but with this leg, she should have left it on the grill for another half hour. There is nothing worse than slimy chicken.

Sure enough, slimy and undercooked. I couldn't eat it. So much for my theory about food on a stick.

Muay Thai and Lady -Boys

As much as I envision myself plugged in to American culture and events, living abroad the past 21 months has undoubtedly hampered my ability to share in my home country's collective conscience. Sure, I know when the big things occur- killing bin Laden, the Ft. Hood shooting and Gabby Giffords for example- and I can probably even recite the weather forecasts from the Pacific Northwest further out than many current residents. But that doesn't mean that I can imagine the cold rain steadily dropping and soaking the front of a pair of khakis. I experienced terror and shame when I read of the senseless violence in a Tucson Safeway parking lot, but it felt a world away. Like reading from a novel. Even the reactions espoused from comparatively meaningless occurrences- the likes of which are obsessed over by my generation- are lost on me. I can't for the life of me understand why so many people hate LeBron James for taking less money to play for a contender, and I don't see even ironic humor in "The Jersey Shore."

When it comes to movies, I am downright pathetic. No, I have not seen Avatar. The last movie I saw in a theater before we left for Korea was The Hangover. Now the sequel is out and I recently learned that the plot of The Hangover II is set in Bangkok. While Bangkok has a reputation as a debauched city specializing in sexual deviancy, I can safely assure all friends and family out there that our experience in the Thai capitol was nothing like that of Zack Galifianakis or 'Nard Dog. In fact, the only real taste we got of that famous gender ambiguity was from our lady-boy hotel receptionist. He/she wasn't all that friendly, and the only thing that sticks out in my mind from our encounter was the confusing tickle of his/her fingernails scraping my palm as she dispensed the change from a root beer purchase.

We did, however, seek out something Bangkok is equally famous for- Muay Thai, the national sport of Thailand. Muay Thai is often referred to as Thai kickboxing and, although I am far from an expert, I would call that a fair comparison. The only difference that I see is that Muay Thai competitors are tiny, the heaviest fighters were under 120 lbs. or around 55 kg. Some were even under 100 lbs.

Our plan was to buy tickets at the door. We walked into the stadium and before we reached the ticket counter we were accosted by good looking young women who attempt to sell only to foreigners. Their job is to sell the ringside seats, and downplay the rest of the auditorium by making false claims such as it is standing room only or too far away to see. By an unusual act of persistence brought on by lack of funds, we were able to persevere past the hot hawkers and buy tickets at the counter for the cheap seats.

We arrived early to an empty stadium, but we could already see that we made a wise choice. Fat white people in shorts and sandals, and young MMA wannabes sat ringside in cushioned chairs while the true fans roamed our section taking and placing bets. There were ten fights on the card and with each match, more and more of the true fans came in. Eventually, we moved out of their way and peered through the chain link fence in a calmer section.

The stadium was over 30 years old and looked it. Seats were concrete slaps and the timer and scoreboard looked like something out of the movie Hoosiers. Before each fight, the competitors would perform a strange squatting dance ritual called Wai Khru Ram Muay, which is done to show respect for the opponent and the crowd , and also serves as a prayer to Buddha.

The fighting itself is fast and furious. The fighters perform strikes with their fists, elbows, knees and feet in addition to clinching and grappling techniques. We found that the first round or two would start out slow as each fighter attempted to figure the other one out, but by the end it was a free for all swinging frenzy. We never could figure out how the score was kept, and no one was ever knocked out. The gamblers in the crowd gasped and cheered at actions we couldn't figure out. They were quite partial to the kicks to the legs, while we looked forward to punches in the face. Soon we decided to make our own little game of guessing who the winner was at the end of the fight. I think we were right a little more than half of the time.

Afterward we went back to the hotel where I hoped to hop online and catch up on the news from the states. Remembering that our laptop was broken from the night before, I sat down with the lady-boy receptionist and talked Muay-Thai.

Hypnobirthing Classes, Part II

You would think that after the second time attending our birthing class I would remember how to get there, but of course, before our 3^rd class I went the wrong way and we ended up 10 minutes late. I blame the so-called “baby brain” that affects women in the 3^rd trimester, or possibly it is the steadily decreasing amount of sleep I am getting each night. Whatever it is, Joe is very distressed over the fact that my memory hasn’t been the best lately, especially considering that he isn’t the best at navigating…

We started the class with a discussion about nutrition during pregnancy. Being that we are a multicultural group, it was interesting to hear how greatly advice regarding nutrition can vary from country to country. For example, Koreans and Japanese eat raw fish throughout their pregnancy. In US, we are warned to eat fish and seafood in moderation, but Koreans often increase the amount of fish and seafood they eat during pregnancy because research shows that it has a positive impact on the baby’s intelligence. While protein is encouraged, Koreans are encouraged to limit the meat that they eat. Note that Koreans do not consider fish meat. This can cause a lot of confusion for vegetarians that visit Korea. Most Koreans also take iron in addition to their prenatal vitamin, whether they need it or not. Once they know the gender of their baby, they eat certain foods to make the baby more attractive. Eating fruit while you are pregnant with a girl supposedly makes her prettier.

All Koreans, no matter their size, are told they should gain no more than 12 kilograms (approximately 26.5 pounds). If you gain more than that your doctor will probably tell you that you are fat (Koreans are pretty blunt about weight), and sometimes they will refuse to give you an epidural or won’t allow you to have a natural birth (in Korea a natural birth is defined as the absence of a c-section). Korean babies are typically a little bit smaller than western babies, but I have heard that this is changing as a result of increased hormones in their foods. At our last ultrasound (5 weeks ago), the doctor informed me that my baby’s head was small (the baby definitely gets this from Joe- my head was huge when I was born) and that her arms and legs were very long. Actually, the length of her arms and legs pushed her due date up by almost 3 weeks. However, Korean babies are known for their large heads, and Koreans in general have much shorter arms and legs than Caucasians.

Our next topic was birth plans and what they should include. A birth plan expresses your wishes (pre-labor, during labor, and after the baby is born) to your care provider. Unless the baby is born early or we have to be transferred to a hospital, we shouldn’t need a birth plan. All of our care providers have worked with Lisa (our doula) before, so they are very familiar with what her mothers want.

These are the highlights from our discussion on birth plans:

- Korean males are typically not circumcised until they are 9 or 10 years old, and about 50% of the male population in Korea is circumcised. Doctors don’t like to perform the procedure on infants because they believe it traumatizes them.

- Vernix, the white stuff that is all over babies after they are born is actually very good for their skin. No lotion compares. It is much better for the baby’s skin if you don’t give them a bath for 24 hours after they are born in order to allow the vernix to soak into their skin. I apologize in advance to my daughter that all pictures of her during the first 24 hours of her life will include the sticky white substance!

- It is better for the baby not to cut their cord until it has stopped pulsating. This ensures that the baby has the maximum amount of blood in their system when it is cut. If you want to save the cord blood, the cost is around $2000 in Korea. This can potentially help if your baby develops certain disorders, but it does require the cord to be cut immediately.

- After the baby is born it takes a while for the mother’s milk to come in. I guess the Germans swear that Guinness helps speed the process along, the Koreans say that seawood soup does the trick, and many European countries encourage new mothers to drink red wine. I am thinking the Guinness option sounds the best!

Hypnobirthing Classes, Part I

Joe and I have now attended 2 out of 5 of our hypnobirthing classes. The classes are located in Seoul, so we have to take the subway and then walk about 40 minutes after that. There is actually a closer subway stop, but it requires 3 transfers and I prefer the walk, especially when the weather is nice. The class consists of two instructors: Lisa (our doula) and Stacey (her back-up doula). There are four different couples including Joe and myself- 3 people from the US, 1 man from Morocco, 3 people from the Netherlands, and 1 woman from England. Everyone speaks English very well, and the variety of perspectives is fascinating.

The first session of the class primarily focused on what the body and baby are doing during childbirth, and the second session of class focused on relaxation techniques. During both classes we watched several birth videos, but these were nothing like how childbirth is typically depicted on TV or in movies. In fact, the births were all so relaxed that I am worried Joe is going to be frustrated with me if I am not that calm- hopefully I won’t let him down! We practiced 3 different breathing strategies, but they were all very calm and slow, similar to the kind of breathing I have practiced in yoga. Hypnobirthing advocates “breathing your baby down” rather than forced pushing. It is similar to pushing, but it is a lot more fluid. You take a quick, deep breath, and then a strong, directed breath out. We tried a few visualization strategies, but they weren’t as effective for me as breathing. Perhaps it is the years of dance classes I have taken that made rhythmic breathing the easiest way for me to relax. The best part was the massage techniques they had us practice on one another. The first was called light touch massage and it consisted of lightly running the back of your hand up and down the back, arms, and neck. This was very relaxing for me, but Joe didn’t get much out of it (I doubt I will be giving Joe a massage during the birth anyway). The second massage technique we practiced was deep touch massage. We used the palms of our hands firmly along the back and arms. I also found this to be very relaxing, unlike many massage techniques that cause me to tense up.

We spent a lot of time during both classes discussing the different birth options available in Korea. Joe and I are strongly considering having our baby at home with a midwife, an option that less than 1% of women in the US select. 3 of the 4 couples (including us) in our birthing class are leaning towards homebirth, while the other couple is going to have their baby at Mediflower (where I am doing my prenatal care now). The homebirth discussion began with a warning from Lisa about sharing this information with friends and family. She said that usually the idea of homebirth, or even birth with a midwife, is not positively received. When Lisa finished giving her warning she asked, “Have any of you experienced this?” She received an affirmative from the Americans, but everyone else was looking at one another with surprise. The three individuals from the Netherlands had a completely different perspective- their families were thrilled that they were birthing outside of hospitals, with midwives rather than obstetricians. In Europe and Japan, midwives attend over 70% of the births, and homebirth is widely utilized. In the US, less than 8% of women give birth with a midwife, and 99% of births take place in a hospital. The fact that the US has the highest infant mortality rate and one of the highest mother mortality rates of all industrialized countries, while spending 3 times as much as any other industrialized country per birth, was shocking to hear. Immediately apparent, however, was the difference in how childbirth is viewed in Europe and the United States. In the US, childbirth is viewed as an inherently dangerous medical event, whereas the Europeans in our class have been encouraged to pursue the least medical options possible.

For me, I am happy that I will have the option of having a c-section if I need one. I will not be disappointed if this is the route I have to take because I know that I will have done everything possible to have my baby naturally. However, I don’t want to bring about a c-section by unnecessary interventions such as pitocin or an epidural considering they both greatly increase your chances of having to have a c-section.

After our first class, Joe and I went home and watched “The Business of Being Born.” I highly recommend it if you are interested in learning more about the problems with childbirth in the United States.

The Bridge on the River Kwai

In preparing for a vacation, Sami will spend months pouring over guidebooks and scrolling through travel blogs searching for the most interesting activities and least expensive, quasi-bearable hotels. Sites of cultural and historical significance are high on her list as are multiple-reviewed eateries (her logic: if a restaurant is in a guidebook, it has a name, and if it has a name, it is not a dirty food stall, and hopefully even serves the old Western standbys because when you travel anywhere away from Korea, even to one of the top foodie havens of the world such as Bangkok, chicken strips must be found and devoured with ranch sauce). She creates up to the hour schedules that include travel time, addresses, phone numbers and directions. I fully admit that this is the smart way to go and she always sends the info to our family members to potentially shorten the amount of time our bodies would decompose should something happen to us. However, it does take some of the spontaneity out of travel.

After deciding that she had enough of playing the role of master scheduler, Sami put me in charge of creating the itinerary for our three days in Bangkok. I started my research by watching the Hollywood classic "The Bridge Over the River Kwai," and quickly decided that we would take a day trip to see the site of the famous bridge built by mainly English and Australian POWs during WWII. I enjoyed the movie so much that I decided to watch "Apocalypse Now," "The Quiet American," and "The Killing Fields" even though I knew I would have nothing to do with the itineraries for Vietnam and Cambodia.

We took a bus to Kanchanaburi, a small town in southwest Thailand that is the home of the bridge and Death Railway, numerous museums depicting POW life under Japanese rule, and the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery. The bus had no A/C, rattled uncontrollably, had narrow, worn out seats. There was the kind of bathroom in back where you ladle water down the hole and let the natural level dilute and carry the waste away in some act of primitive and mysterious physics common only outside of the first world. Sami took one look and decided to hold it.

I couldn't help but listen in to the conversation a young couple was having in the seats behind us. They were comparing the bus to others they had ridden on in India and to the Greyhound they took from Eugene to Reedsport. Yes, that Eugene and that Reedsport. I turned and enthusiastically notified them that we were from Oregon as well. Not only that, they were pregnant just like us, and the girl's brother had actually been one of Sami's students at Glencoe High School in Hillsboro. Small world right? I dozed for most of the rest of the ride while Sami compared pregnancy notes with our new friends, confident that she was pleasantly entertained by common talk of health and home. Turns out I made an unwise decision and was later scorned for leaving my wife to carry the conversation. Apparently I have a bad habit of starting conversations with strangers and then letting Sami do all of the talking. Not that she didn't want to talk to the young couple, just that she thought I was coming off as anti-social. My rebuttal is that most of the time I just wait a second longer than she does to fill in an empty space with words. I try not to interrupt. It's what I would like to think of as politeness. True, sleeping in that situation aint polite, but I was tired.

We decided to walk from the bus station in Kanchanaburi to the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre, which is the newest museum dedicated to the "Death Railway" and also the one the Lonely Planet recommended as the must see. First, we traipsed over to the tourism board to snag a map and soon after picked up a street snack from an independent vendor. I am planning to reserve a blog entry exclusively on the Bangkok street food I ate during our trip later on in the week so I will save my description until then. However, I must mention the Thai iced tea I fell for at a coffee shop later on this same walk.

Here is a Thai iced tea I had another time in Bangkok

Kanchanaburi sort of reminded us of Korea. The main thoroughfare we walked on was lined with uniformly boxed buildings similar in style and height to those in smaller Korean towns we've visited like Jeonju and Sokcho. The difference of course was that the weather was extremely hot in what was late January. We stopped off in a coffee shop we knew was air conditioned and that is where I ordered my Thai iced tea. If you've never had one, it is strong black tea severely sweetened and spiced with what I think is anise. Milk was added to it and it was the perfect drink for a hot day. Pretty sure I will order it every time I see it on a menu from now on and it will trump even my favorite alcoholic standbys.

On the street in Kanchanaburi. Much more modern than small towns in Cambodia and The Philippines. Kind of reminded us of places we've visited in Korea.

The Thai-Burma Railway Centre in Kanchanaburi. An absolute must see if you find yourself there.

The Thai-Burma Railway Centre is an extraordinary museum. The curator, Australian Rod Beattie, has dedicated his life to uncovering every possible piece of information that exists about this misunderstood piece of one of the darkest times in world history. It was here that the Japanese Imperial Army used Burmese "volunteers" and British and Australian POWs to construct a supply railway running from Burma to China. As you can imagine, the true story is nothing like the movie "Bridge on the River Kwai" where the English POWs are treated to a live show and celebration at the completion of the project. The Japanese guards (actually, it was interesting to hear that most of the guards in this area were Korean- Korea being part of the Japanese Empire 1910 until after the war) were extremely harsh on the prisoners- working them to death in many cases.

Kanchanaburi War Cemetery

In addition to extensive information and large scale models displaying the logistics and geography of the railway, Mr Beattie made frequent use of the journals of POWs to present an accurate and brutal account of life in the camps. Nearly 100,000 soldiers died of diseases such as dysentery and cholera and were fed no more than a few spoonfuls of rice a day. The most harrowing image inside the museum is a sculpture of a bony thin Allied soldier slumped and held up at the shoulders by two like-framed friends. His pants are at his ankles as he is being dragged along, undoubtedly dying from dysentery.

More scenes from the War Cemetery

After that sobering experience we rented bikes and peddled to the reconstructed Bridge over the River Kwai. Along the way there were dozens of little bars and discos and hotels. According to the Lonely Planet, this little section of town actually gets pretty jumping after dark.

The bridge itself was clean and surprisingly well maintained having been rebuilt only a few short years after the war. Being there had none of the mystique of the movie, which is just as well because I later learned that the film was shot in Sri Lanka (I was equally bummed to find out that "Apocalypse Now" was famously shot in The Philippines, but I guess I should have known that Vietnam was not the most US-friendly place circa 1978). It was such a nice late afternoon and there were so many smiling tourists around that all of the evil we learned of inside the museum minutes earlier was unfathomable.

Tourist pics

After taking enough pictures against the backdrop of the bridge, we rode past to a restaurant Sami found highly recommended. It was a large but empty establishment being that we walked in at an awkward hour between lunch and dinner. We were seated outside, overlooking the bridge. We ordered an appetizer of wontons stuffed with shrimp meat and later I had an incredible green curry. There was a Chinese party at a table near us smoking cigarettes and drinking from a bottle of Johnnie Walker Red. I was surprised when the left and took the bottle with them. Apparently, the Thai custom is to bring your own and only be charged a small corking fee. It is a great idea, but not as good as a Thai iced tea.

Green curry

Stuffed wontons

A Movie Makes Joe Think

We flew Qatar Airlines from Hanoi to Bangkok. Only a few dozen passengers sat scattered in plush, roomy seats on our red-eye flight. Anyone who chose to had an aisle to themselves. Sami and I sat across from each other in one and immediately set into thumbing our remote controls, scrolling through the impressive menu of movies, TV shows and games. I passed on old episodes of Mad Men and The Office in favor of The Social Network. Sami picked The Rescuers. I know. All those quality shows and she chooses a thirty year-old animated Disney feature about detectives who are mice. Her selection was met with little more than a halfhearted eye-roll from me though. I have grown accustomed to her head scratch inducing tastes.

It goes without saying that The Social Network was incredible and, if I can be honest, probably one of the highlights of my time in Southeast Asia (and this has more to do with the fact that living in Korea makes it a little more difficult to see new releases or semi-new releases in this case- unless it is in low quality on my small computer screen). However, I am not ashamed to admit that the movie left me pathetically envious of kids around my age who were able to become so successful so quickly. It wasn't the technical skill nor programming prowess I coveted- let's be honest, I have a hard enough time figuring out the buttons on the microwave, and if I did have the tiniest bit of computer knowledge, the first thing I would do would be to retrieve all of the old blog posts that didn't save (nothing frustrates me more!).

No, it was the way that these fellows were able to capitalize on something as simple as the way college students communicate with each other that really got me. I was in school during this same time period where technology was just minutes away from launching into an entirely new frontier. Yes, we all got cell phones our Freshman year, but no one used them to text. It was too slow, clunky and expensive. If we wanted to communicate without talking we used AOL Instant Messenger. Everyone had goofy screen names- I was JBoydstyle. It was much easier to talk to people- especially girls who were out of your league- by typing witticisms. How else do you think I was able to land a date with tigra1341 (aka my future wife Sami)?

Having a child on the way has made me evaluate the world I was born into and how it differs from what will be my daughters birth year. When I was a kid, the years my parents were born in seemed like a foreign country- Korea, Thailand or Vietnam, something out of reach to be seen only in the pages of books. Now that I have traveled and lived abroad, the world is smaller, and I've come to realize that 1960 and '61 were not that different than 1982. I believe an employee from Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price could walk into an ad agency in 1982 and hold his own. Transport him into 2011 and he'd be so overwhelmed he'd drink himself to death.

On our first night in Bangkok, I stupidly left our laptop on the hotel room floor overnight. As I should have envisioned, Sami stepped on it during one of her frequent pee trips. The screen cracked and was rendered useless. We spent the rest of the trip unable to check our Facebook pages, which wasn't such a bad thing. The only person I really needed to talk to was the person who loves me even though I haven't come up with that great business idea. Someone who understands my fear of technology and how it will shape the future. Tigra1341.

Go-oon-mahm Card

I have had the last 5 days off of school. Tomorrow makes day 6 and then I return to school on Wednesday. Pregnancy has made me really lazy, at least when it comes to cleaning, grocery shopping, and running errands. The first trimester I had an excuse, but now it is just getting ridiculous. I keep waiting for that "nesting" urge to kick in so that I will have some motivation to clean my apartment, but I am starting to worry that it isn't going to happen. During the last 5 days, there has only been one item on my to do list: go to the local Kookmin Bank and complete the application for the Go-oon-mahm Card. Today was the last possible day I could go without taking time off work, and I still barely made it out the door. It didn't help that the weather was dark and dreary, threatening thunder and lightening at any moment.

The Go-oon-mahm Card is one of the perks of having our baby in Korea. The Korean government offers every pregnant woman in Korea (including foreign residents) 400,000 won (about $370 USD) to help cover the costs of prenatal care. 60,000 won (about $55 USD) can be used at every appointment. I have heard you can also use it towards birthing expenses, but I haven't confirmed that information. I have 6-8 prenatal appointments remaining, as long as my pregnancy remains low risk, so I am pretty sure we will use it all up by the time the baby decides to arrive.

Korea offers this card as an incentive for women to have more children. Just like Japan, Korea's population is aging. Women are choosing to have a career over a husband and a family, and Korea's birthrate is plummeting. Though Korea is one of the most densely populated countries in the world (55 million people in a country the size of Indiana), the decreasing birthrate will cause huge problems in the future. Without a young (tax-paying) population, there is no way Korea will be able to sustain their current healthcare and pension system long-term, so the financial incentive is one way they are trying to combat this looming problem.

In some ways Korea is a great place to have a baby, particularly for those who work in the public sector. Women can take a 60 day paid maternity leave, and an additional 30 days at half-salary. Unfortunately, most women will tell you that the rights of women are far from equal to those of men. Many women are told they will be fired if they get pregnant, and there are few legal protections in place to keep this from happening. While the financial incentive is nice, unless Korea targets the social problems keeping women from having children, I don't expect that it will make much of a dent in increasing their birthrate.

As I made my way towards where I thought the bank was (I had never actually been to this bank), I felt slightly guilty that I was going to apply for the card. Considering we are leaving Korea as soon as we can after the baby is born and our baby will be an American citizen, I am not really the type of applicant the card is intended for. I kept reminding myself that I pay into both the healthcare and pension system in Korea, therefore I qualify for the financial assistance.

I was able to find a branch of the bank after a short walk through the area of Guri (the town where we live) that has just about every business that exists in South Korea. I took a number and waited 20-30 minutes before my number was called. I always get nervous anytime I have to interact with Koreans outside of my school. My Korean is very limited, particularly my speaking ability. I feel guilty using English because I am living and working in their country, but expecting them to use my language. Fortunately, the man who helped me spoke English very well. He tried to use Korean with me at first, but after I in told him in Korean that I couldn't speak much Korean, he kindly switched to English. Koreans are very modest about their ability to speak English, but almost all of them have studied English in school and can understand and read it when they need to.

The whole process was quick and simple, and I felt pretty silly afterwards that I had been anxious about going. The card should arrive in 5-6 days, plenty of time before my next doctor's appointment. The best part- it didn't rain, especially considering I forgot my good umbrella at the home of the woman hosting our birthing classes.

Wrapping Up Vietnam

A few last ramblings about the Vietnam leg of our trip...

-The night we stayed in a hotel on Cat Ba Island I woke up at 3 or 4 or some crazy hour of the morning to watch football. It was the NFC Championship game. The Packers were at the Bears and it was that strange game where Jay Cutler was supposedly hurt, but stood on the sidelines looking like an asshole. Everyone thought that he wasn't really injured and he didn't seem to be encouraging his back-ups or showing any emotion. It was pretty bizarre. Anyway, Tor is a big Bears fan so he wasn't too happy to hear it. Two weeks later we landed back home in Korea on Super Bowl Sunday (which was actually Monday for us). I hustled to a PC bang (public computer room where all the gamers spend every spare minute) to watch the big game. But that is a story for another day.

-The first book I read on our vacation was Matterhorn, a novel about Marines in the Vietnam War. It was a good story and I recommend it, but I kept trying to imagine scenes from the book playing out in the landscape around me and I just couldn't. Maybe if we had been camping at night out in the mountains it would have gotten to me, but as it was, we were engulfed in the neon buzz of the major cities and surrounded by either fat, middle aged tourists in shorts, socks and sandals, or tattooed and dreadlocked backpackers who never went home. Anyway, I plowed ahead in the book almost every opportunity I had. When I finished we were being ferried back across Ha Long Bay to the van that would take us to Hanoi. Since I require constant entertainment, the four of us played a game of pinochle. Sami and I were on opposite teams for once, and this was probably a good thing. We've never really meshed as pinochle partners. She takes too few risks and I take too many.

-Shortly after the banana incident in Hanoi, we bought tickets to see the water puppet show at the Thang Long Theater. After the Chinese acrobat show in Shanghai a year ago, this was the most incredible and authentic live performance I have seen (and yes, if 25 year old me would have read that sentence three years ago he would have rolled his eyes and gone back to playing Tiger Woods Golf on Playstation). The theater was built during the Vietnam (or as they say- American) War. The seats are set at a steep incline looking down into a square pool of water. A live orchestra featuring musicians and vocalists adorned in traditional garb stood to the left of the pool. The wood puppets are supported by an underwater rod and are controlled by puppeteers hidden behind the pool and pagoda setting. The implements seemingly dance across the water and re-create nationalistic fables of farmers and royalty. The live music is a shrieking combination of what sounds like Beijing opera, drums complete with crashing symbols and the ubiquitous sounds of stringed instruments so stereotypically far east. The only drawbacks were that the rows of seats were set painfully close together and no one was asked to refrain from taking photos. As a result, the place was lit up with illuminated view screens and constant flashes. Despite the distraction, I am certain that none of the pictures turned out very well. At least mine didn't.

Can you see all the camera framing screens?

-The next day, we rose early to get to Ba Dinh Square, the location of the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, where the famous communist leader's embalmed body can be viewed. It took us awhile to find the place and when we did there was a big grass field between us and the mausoleum. We attempted to cut through it but were thwarted by what appeared to be elderly gardeners. Fearing we had unknowingly performed an horrifically insensitive act of disrespect, we walked around, but soon noticed that large numbers of Asian people cut across without admonishment. We had to go through a long security line and pass through a metal detector before entering. Everyone's cameras (even those belonging to Vietnamese) were confiscated and would be returned after the viewing. The guards even attempted to disallow Sami's prenatal vitamins and morning sickness pills. They relented after an impressive display of frantic arm waving and facial pleading from my wife. Inside, the long single-file line moved fluidly over a red carpet that directed us in a rectangle around the raised glass coffin. At least a dozen impeccably uniformed guards watched over every step. The scene was eerie and the mood intensely serious. The body was small and thin. The face waxy and deeply lined with the famous goatee intact. The entire process of walking past the body probably took less than two minutes. When we left and walked back out into the brightness of outside, I joked "Mommy, Mommy! Let's go on the ride again!"

The mausoleum and the field we tried to cross

-My biggest regret in Hanoi was that I never was able to find the vaunted "Chicken Street" supposedly lined with vendors all selling grilled cuts of bird over an open flame. We were slated for a red eye flight to Bankok so an hour or so before we left for the airport, I decided to walk around the alleyways near our hotel looking for some. I knew I wasn't on Chicken Street, but I figured the taste of anything I found couldn't be that different. What I didn't count on was how difficult it would be to find the local culinary treasure. I circled blocks for nearly a half hour before finally giving up and settling for chicken pho. It was one of those authentic street restaurants with tiny red and blue plastic stools. There were easily 100 locals dining in this small area on the sidewalk. I pointed to the nastiest looking cuts of meat and made my order. Sadly, I didn't have my camera with me, but the soup arrived with all sorts of tendons and what looked like gray rubber golf balls on a string. There were at least a dozen of them and when I bit into one I noticed the texture of a hard boiled egg, but with a runny yolk. Of course, it wouldn't be Hanoi without being ripped off. This time, I didn't have enough money to pay for my soup and beer even though I was obviously being charged more than twice what the locals paid. The server stood there angry as hell, but I just shrugged my shoulders more embarrassed than I have been in years (of course, I didn't want the beer and didn't ask for it, but she set it down on the table and like an idiot I opened it). I was feeling the eyes of every diner turned on me when the couple sitting next to me offered to pay the difference. The server accepted the payment of what turned out to be the equivalent of a US quarter and gave me one last scowl. It turns out that the woman at the table was an English teacher in Hanoi, and she kindly explained to me that, as a foreigner, I was expected to bargain with the server beforehand. Her sympathetic husband, noticing how flustered I was, offered me a cigarette. Even though I don't smoke, I took it and smoked and drank beer and ate hot soup with runny golf balls. I consumed all three poisons as fast as I could, knowing full well that my tardiness was most likely stressing Sami out.

Where will Baby Boyd be born? Part I

Joe and I visited Mediflower Women’s Clinic and Natural Birthing Center on Saturday, April 23^rd. It took us a little over an hour to get there- about the same amount of time as it takes to get to Asan Hospital, but it requires a lot less walking (not sure if that is a good thing or not). We arrived early so we scouted out a place for lunch. We don’t eat out very often, so whenever we do we get pretty excited. We settled on a small Korean restaurant because they had naeng-myun, one of our favorite dishes. Naeng-myun consists of buckwheat noodles in an icy cold broth, topped with cucumber, carrots, a boiled egg, and red pepper paste for seasoning. The first time I tried it I was a little scared, but now I crave it all of the time, especially during the summer when it is hot.

When we finished lunch we headed to Mediflower. It is a very impressive facility on the second floor of a large office building. It consists of 2 separate wings- the doctor’s office and the birthing facility. The lobby was modern and comfortable, and helped create a very friendly environment.

When it came time for our appointment, I double checked that Joe could accompany me (you never know in Korea). They assured me that the husband was encouraged to be a part of all aspects of pregnancy and childbirth. We talked with the doctor for around 20 minutes and he made a very good impression on us. Not only did he speak great English, but he came across as very friendly and kind. It was easy to see why expats rave about him. As I have said before, I am preparing to have a natural pregnancy without an epidural, however the doctor did explain that I could have an epidural at Mediflower if I wanted one. He did say that because Mediflower is focused on natural birth and the women who give birth there often follow the hypnobirthing method, women do not request them. We also talked about induction if the baby is late. He informed us that if there are no complications he will wait 2 weeks, and sometimes 3 to induce labor. Obviously, if our baby is more than a week late it is going to cause us some problems (no housing or insurance after August 31^st), but receiving an induction increases your chances of c-section, and that would be even more problematic. We are just hoping she comes around her due date, and if she doesn’t, things will work out… somehow.

After we met with the doctor, we toured the birthing facility. It consists of 4 regular sized rooms and 1 large room. There is also a giant tub if you are interested in having a water birth (additional cost of 350,000 won- $325 USD). Everything is new, clean, and comfortable, and medical equipment is completely absent from the rooms. It looks more like a hotel than a hospital, and definitely gives off an immediate comfortable vibe.

We really liked everything about Mediflower, but we are not sure we can afford to have the baby there. Actually, we can afford to have the baby there, but we don’t know if we want to “afford to have the baby there.” Considering we are coming home in late August/early September and won’t have any income until November after I have gone back to work, we are really trying to save as much money as possible.

Estimated Costs at Mediflower… (pretty sure these aren’t covered by insurance)

2D1N room fee- 800,000 won ($744 USD)

3D2N room fee- 1,200,000 won ($1116 USD)

Doctor’s fee- 1,000,000 won ($930 USD)

Birthing fee- 600,000 won ($558 USD)

Looking at 2.4-2.8 million won, and that is if there are no complications ($2,232-2604 USD)

If I have to be transferred to a hospital, the costs will likely double or triple (because most likely I will only be transferred if I need an emergency c-section)

If I am going to have a natural birth, and it seems that the only way I can avoid giving birth at a Korean hospital is if I have a natural birth, then it may make more sense for us to give birth at home or in a less expensive birthing center. Mediflower is a beautiful facility, but there are more cost effective options that wouldn’t vary that greatly in the experience. Not to mention, depending on the circumstances, I could have to be transferred to the hospital no matter where I have the baby.

So, we still haven’t made a decision about where to have the baby, but our goal is to have everything figured out by the end of May. While we haven’t ruled out Mediflower, we are definitely going to explore a few other options before we make a decision.

Two Days in the Life

One Tuesday morning about a decade ago, I drove off for work in the white, 1988 Ford Bronco II I shared with my brother. My hair was still wet from my morning routine of cupping water from the sink onto my head. This worked much faster than actually showering and, because I worked at Lube Express, the benefits of a proper bathe would surely have become nullified minutes after the first customer gently rolled in anyway. I would lean in to check fluid levels and soft dirt would collect in a line on my issued polo. My hands and fingers were forever brown and encrusted black under the nails and my greasy skin stunk of burned oil.

I got in the rig, buckled the seat belt that was broken and hung too loose and released the emergency break- a safety feature rendered useless after repeated (and often successful) attempts at driving with it engaged. I searched for a song on the radio. Finding a song was incredibly important. My drive was really only about five minutes (in hindsight I don't know why I didn't just save gas and walk) and I seemed to leave right at the time half of the handful of stations available in my small town went to commercial break or blathered about the weather. The right song could make or break my drive. On this day though, there was only news. I seeked through all of the stations twice before catching the gist of the story. And it was all the same story. A commercial aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York City.

Today is May 2, 2011, and even if nothing significant happened on this day it would have been notable to me because it is my brother's 27th birthday. We no longer share a Bronco II. In fact, I haven't driven in about two years since I moved to Korea. Some days I still wet my hair down instead of shower (lay off me, I shower at the gym after work), but not today. This morning I woke up early for one of my thrice weekly sprints. So a shower was necessary.

I went to school earlier than usual to watch the NBA playoffs. The games had taken place earlier, but I had them recorded online. I watched the Miami-Boston game assuming that the east coast game had tipped off earlier. I like to do this to avoid any spoiler alerts. I was wrong. Memphis and Oklahoma City had played earlier in the day and of course I caught the announcers touting Memphis' win.

Nothing too eventful happened during class. My co-teacher was back this week after missing the last three work days due to her uncle's passing. It was nice not to be the only one to yell at the students for stealing each others' pencil cases. Why can't they keep their hands to themselves?

After our fourth period class before lunch I logged into my twitter account. My head spun as I began to notice that all the people I follow were talking about the same thing. I called my co-teacher over in disbelief and clicked over to cnn.com. The headline was bold and to the point: OSAMA BIN LADEN DEAD.

On 9/11 I went into work and the crew was in a state of disbelief I never could have imagined before that moment. Customers drove in and huddled next to to cheap boombox that carried out grim news and stern warnings from callers to those responsible. Today at lunch, minutes after I found out, I asked my vice principal if we could watch the breaking news, but the news wasn't on. The teachers at the table talked about it only after I brought it up and even then I wasn't able to understand what they were saying. After lunch I had one more class to teach and, understandably, the students had no clue as to the historical event that took place hours ago.

In the summer of 2001, I was at a crossroads. I had graduated from high school and was headed to college, but since my university was on the quarters system, most of my friends had left well before me. For so long my high school and athletics had been my world and now it was all gone. Friends a year below me seemed to relish their role as seniors, while I was stuck in limbo. What I didn't realize at the time was the world would soon open to something so much bigger. Today I find myself at a new crossroads. My time in Korea is coming to an end, and I will be re-assimilating into the United States with my first child, a daughter, and while I cannot be certain where I will end up professionally, I do believe the experiences I have lived through these ten years have given me strength and confidence.

Back on 9/11, I remember the distinct feeling that things would never be the same. I felt that again today. And this time, I liked it.