Chuuk

Chuuk is basically indescribable, but let me start off with how I ended up there:

Two days before my trip I was all set to go to Korea. I had a place to stay, people to meet up with, and I was pretty excited to go (although kind of dreading the cold weather).

The day before my trip there was a major change of plans, per my dad's suggestion, to go visit Micronesia. There's this one island in Micronesia called Pohnpei that has amazing ruins of a city built on coral reefs and I was planning to go see that.

The flight route from Hawaii is pretty interesting and brought me first to Majuro (Marshall Islands),

then Kwaj, 

and then Pohnpei. 

Due to poor weather in Pohnpei we actually didn't land there and went on to the next island, Chuuk. 

*In this photo I have absolutely no idea what I'm getting myself into*

Chuuk is the poorest state in the Federated States of Micronesia. It felt like a third world country (and I think it may actually count as one). The average GDP per capita there is somewhere around $3 a day, but I believe that your typical Chuukese person is making under $1 a day.

I could have gone on to Guam instead, but for some crazy reason I decided to stay in Chuuk. It turned out to be a terrible and great decision. hahaha.

I had no plan of what I was going to do and internet access was very limited (super slow in a restaurant I found that had it). I was planning to just stay for one night and was not going to spend $100 on a hotel room. I messaged some friends on facebook that had connections in Chuuk, but was basically planning to sleep at the small airport. Chuuk has three hotels, and two of them are associated with dive shops because of the great wreck diving.

As I was walking around, a little shocked at how crazy everything seemed in Chuuk, I saw a white guy! So I said hi and talked with him for a minute and as soon as he heard I got stranded in Chuuk he offered up his couch to me!

Jay. He's from Australia, he records and produces music, and he's living in Chuuk for one year as part of World Teach.

*recording studio at the high school made with torn up old matresses*

It's a really cool program where people volunteer to come teach at the high school (and trust me, Chuuk really needs it).










I ended up staying in Chuuk for a couple nights, and had a great time there. It was hot, humid, and definitely didn't feel much like a vacation, but it was also a really authentic travel experience and I'm grateful for the new friends I made!

At breakfast with a couple girls in Peace Corps. 

There's a lot more I could write about this place, but I'll leave it at that. 

Overall Rating: Don't visit. 

I loved it because I got to hang out with some amazing new friends and experience a really crazy place, but I think for your average person this would be a terrible place to go visit. If you have lots of money you could got there just for the diving. 

Pingxi (平溪) Crags

I don't even know where to start. Today was awesome. So I guess I better just start getting into some photos.

After we all met up we took the metro and had awhile to hang out before the bus. So...naturally we went into the nearest convenience store with an A/C to hang out. We spent as much time there as we could, but it was pretty small so eventually we felt like we should leave. 

Secret club house!

Our bus driver was awesome! The road to the trails isn't actually even a bus stop and he totally stopped for us there! 

The bus ride was quite the windy adventure itself. 

Pingxi is famous for people going there to light off lanterns! We found them all over the place. Apparently you're supposed to write your wishes on them. This one is my favorite: 

Find a girlfriend in 2014! haha. 

Start of the hike! At the foot of the mountain. (We're all clean and full of energy!)

I can't even begin to describe how LEGIT this place was! This photo is before we even got to the really cool stuff!

Now is where it starts getting good. We knew there were three options to hike/climb the crags, so we decided to do rock, paper, scissors to decide which one to hike first!

Round 1 - Tony Loses

Round 2 - Yuan Yuan Loses

Ray is the champion!

So this is the path we would take. 

Up one of those "this trail is no longer in use" or whatever it is-type trails. haha. 

Lunch at the top. 

One of our next two stops. If you look close there are a ton of stairs. haha. 

Our next stop. 

To the top of another crag. 

The view from the third crag. 

For the hike down we could either choose to go with the normal route, or...an alternate route. Thankfully, Yuan Yuan said that we should of course take the other route! It turns out that...we ended up going on a trail that after a certain point wasn't a trail at all - which made it awesome!

Yay for forging your own trail!

It got kinda cray.. 

but don't worry, we all made it out alive! Tony felt especially grateful to have survived. As he pointed it, "這裡好滑" "It's really slippery here" 

His shoes looked really good but they were actually really bad. 

When we were nearing the bottom (or maybe halfway) we reconnected with the original trail and made it down!

After the hike we rewarded ourselves by cooling off in the river. It was sooooo nice. : )

Garlic and sausages? Yes please!

Pingxi! A very successful and fun day. 

The last three weeks (England, Wales, Czech Republic, Italy, Spain, France, Monaco)

I haven't been doing much as far as blogging for the last three weeks because I was far too busy enjoying myself and didn't have a computer to blog with either. 

Now I'm in Taipei, it's 5:00AM and I'm awake with some really weird jet lag (stopped by the states for two days on the way over from Europe). 

Anyway, to sum up the trips: AMAZING

Highlights: 

This was taken at Seven Sisters (white cliffs near Eastbourne) That was probably the most amazing thing I saw in England and it was basically like paradise. On top of the cliffs are rolling green hills and there are rivers nearby that lead to the sea. Totally amazing. 

Mom and I took a day trip to Wales. That was probably a pretty crazy thing to do but we got a killer deal on the bus because we used the national express with their "fun fares". They're really fun because they're really cheap!

Czech Republic was nice. I didn't find Prague as fairytale like as everyone says, but I definitely enjoyed it. I had very low expectations for the food and I actually loved it! It was also fun being in a country with a pretty strong language barrier for us. We traveled to the Bohemian Paradise which was really beautiful and we hiked up a very green trail that was great. 

I have four favorite foods in the world in no particular order:

Pizza margherita from Napoli

Double Double Animal Style from IN-N-OUT

Clam chowder in a Boudin bread bowl

Kebab from Sydney, Australia 

It's always a wonderful occasion when I'm eating one of those foods. 

Back in Barcelona. Such a cool city, but I don't feel like it's the best to go and visit. I think it's more of a city to go and hang out at or maybe to live in. 

Monaco/Southern France, always as nice as ever. 

The cruise was amazing. Highlights include winning 2nd place in the speed climbing competition, and being a Top 8 Finalist for the world's sexiest man. Hahaha. We also dominated the trivia games and won enough keychains to give them away to all of our friends. 

The food was great (read: unlimited), and we definitely are into cruises when they're free. Hahaha. We're probably also into them when they are close to free and we're going to be looking in the future for discount cruise deals. 

After the cruise my family left and I went to the YSA conference. 

Allora, dopo la crociera sono andato alla conferenza dei GANS a Pescara.. MAMMA MIA!! E' stata bellissima! 

All'inizio mi aspettavo di andare a divertirmi un sacco con i miei vecchi amici,,,poi quando ci ho pensato un po' di piu' volevo anche riprendermi un po' spiritualmente e riguardare le mie mete spirituali. 

La conferenza e' stata veramente piu' bella di quanto avessi mai immaginato. C'erano piu' cari amici li', mi sono divertito di piu', ho imparato piu' cose spirituali, e ho trovato anche nuovi amici! Una cosa che non mi aspettavo. 

Sono grato per la mia appartenenza alla chiesa di Gesu' Cristo e per tutte le cose che so di essere vere. E' fantastico che possiamo comunicare direttamente con il nostro Padre Celeste, e questo mi porta sempre molta felicita'. :D

Le ultime tre settimane sono state bellissime e sono sicuro che i prossimi mesi saranno anche bellissimi. 

I'll try to keep up my blog as much as I can while in Taiwan!

Seoul - 서울시

Finally made it to Seoul! I say finally because it's such a major Asian city and somehow I never made it there until now.

Went to some random store to grab a bite to eat. They had some sort of buns filled with different ingredients, and of course one of them was: Kimchi! So I had to get that. It was pretty good. 

 

 Ignore the statue. Check out those kids in the bottom left! They were super funny. 

 

These were signal beacons used in ancient times to communicate across the whole region. Depending on how many were lit there were different meanings. Basically, if all five were on fire then they were in really big trouble and the battling had begun. 

 

 This is Hoshi! She's awesome. On the left is me. haha. That's right: Eating Korean BBQ, in Korea, with a Korean. So great! 

To help you realize how awesome Hoshi is: Her favorite pasta her whole life was pasta alla carbonara (that's the one made with pancetta and eggs). Anyway, in Korea instead of using eggs they just use sauce! So she found out her carbonara was fake! She saved up her money and traveled to Italy to try real carbonara, and spent three months going throughout all the regions eating their best food.

How cool is that?! I asked her about all kinds of places where I served my mission and if she tried foods there and she totally had tried it all! Amazing.

My friend Tony from college told me that I needed to make sure I tried Jun while I was in Seoul. So even though we had just eaten, we ate some more! What a fantastic day! : D

 Okay, so I had to get a photo of these apartments because they seriously all look the same. I had a pretty tough time finding my way home.

The airport in Seoul is the best in the world. I mean, it's literally the best in the world. It even says so!

In the above photo you're looking at free massage chairs that are provided for everyone. In the photo below is a room full of La-Z-Boys in front of a big screen playing movies. 

 Next is their rest area: 

And of course a free blanket, book and even tablet. That's right. This is airport is ridiculous. It is so awesome.

Okay, so that's my blog post on Seoul, but if you really want to get a feel for my visit you have to check out the video I made. Being in Korea it only made sense to me that I would make a PSY video. Check it out: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrTZ69VDepw