Besties Reunite in Tropics :)

I’ve made it back safe and sound to the land of Sunshine and Smile. The 27 hours of plane torture were well worth the 80 degree weather and the .50 cent pineapples and two of my bestest friends who greeted me soon after I deplaned. :)I’m now in Bangkok for the first time! It’s not really as bad as I thought it would be. I had avoided this monstrous place for the past 8 months believing that I would be walking into a dangerous land of pick-pockets and hair pullers, but have been pleasantly surprised that no one has even once tried to pull my pony tail! The Thais are just such gentle people.But tomorrow we're leaving the big city behind and guess where we are off to? The beach! I’m pee your pants kind of excited. I know I’ve lived here for 8 months, but you see I’ve never ventured to the beach.I live in the mountains so I have not even once been to the south to stick my big toe into the salty ocean. Nope, never! Can you believe it? I can’t either! And tomorrow My besties and I are going to take a well deserved trip to the ocean. I don’t think I’ve been to the ocean for almost 2 years!We're bringing loads of Trader Joe’s sunscreen, UNO cards, flip flops and just enough money to buy an I.V. drip of fresh pineapple juice 24/7. Oh! This will be the best beach trip to date! 

Great Expectations ~ Self Portrait #22

The new year is in full swing. After 2.5 weeks in Americaland with my beautiful family and friends, but today I've packed my bags and I'm boarding a plane back to sunny Thailand. Oh, I'm so sad and excited all at the same time!... I want to stay, but at the same time I want to go. But I'm going because I know deep, deep down Thailand is where I need to be now, and really, who am I kidding? I can't complain. How am I blessed enough to live in the tropics? Really? I'm not sure, I slap and pinch myself daily to make sure this life is real.

I have no idea what this year has in store, but it promises to be one of amazingness. I can just smell it in the air. The smell is as good as walking into a room full of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Who knows all the beauty God has in store for 2012? So get ready ya'll, it's going to be crazzyyy and as delicious as pumpkin pie with whip cream :)

 

Dove Wisdom

Last night after dinner I cracked open a delectable Dove Dark Chocolate Almond morsel, and this piece of deliciuos wisdom greeted me. How would your life look if you did just remember to keep the promises you make to yourself? Think about it. 

Green Curry or Egg Nog? That is life's most difficult question!

It's a new year, woot, woot! And TODAY, my dear friend Elizabeth Lauer slapped me in the face. Ouch! What? Why?! Jerk! (can you believe her violence? I have red markSSS to prove the attack!) and then she told me that I should get it together and blog more often. Blog about what? I asked. "Blog about your life," she said ::I yawn:: "Who really cares?" I inquired.Lauer thinks that since I moved to Asialand 3 years ago that I am hard to get in touch with.. Can she really be talking about me? Me, hard to contact? really? no, no, not me!?! I am awesome at the keeping in touch! I'm really fabulous in this department. You know I think that I'm as good at keeping in touch with people as Superman is at flying or Garfield's is at eating or perhaps, perhaps! I am better!Ok. you're right, dear readers. The above analogies may have been exaggerations...er... or uh... boldface lies (sorry Mom, that won't happen again.). So this year I resolve to write more about the mundanities of life on this blog to keep in touch, and I shall also eat more pineapples!!Sooooo let's began...hmmm...Where shall I begin in my journey of story telling!?Life Story #1.One day long, long ago.. er..about 3 weeks before Christmas, I was riding my bicycle blissfully through the rice fields. Listening to my iPod 'White Christmas'  song to be exact! And then it hit me, almost as hard as Ms. Lauer slapped me today! This year an 80-degree, green curry-filled, no eggnog Christmas was not going to work for me, no sir!  I was not going to settle for a Christmas without a good measure of dark chocolate, ugly sweaters, weight gain and family drama. It wouldn't be Christmas, would it?So I turned my little bike around and peddled as fast as I could to the nearest Expedia.com hotspot, so fast my bike pedal fell of.. And there I booked my ticket back to Americaland for 3 weeks to surprise my family and enjoy a sweet Tennessee Christmas with them. Ahhhhh! It has been so worth it, and I'm so happy that the spontaneous side of me won over Ms. Practicality.Oh, you see! that ride made me realize that it truly doesn't really matter if I live in the most beautiful or tropical places, make oodles of money or most notably eat papayas and pineapples until my stomach explodes..... If I have all of these things, but I don't take the time to live life with the people I love, who cares about the rest?So Happy New Year Ya'll,... Aren't you excited to see what beautiful things will ensue? :)My beautiful family is below!   

Lift Up Your Head!

 Sometimes life doesn’t make any darn sense. During those times I’ve got to remember to lift my eyes up, up, up! All the way to the sky! The world is full of beautiful possibilities, if I just keep my head up, and my heart open. :)Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Psalms 24:9

'Suck it up cupcake' It is Time to Shine! #20

 There are those days that I feel like hiding. Crawling into a bag of rice and trying to forget how much I don’t fit in here.Here, I always feel as though I am on stage, and the spotlight is shining so brightly it blinds my eyes.I am the only foreigner in the mist of thousands of people, and there is no hiding my difference. No clothes that I can wear, no makeup that I can slather on, no dye to tint my hair or iron to straighten it.I am different.Yet, I chose this world, a place where I am completely conspicuous. I breathe, heads turn. I fear what will happen when I dare sneeze!People here worry whether I can preform simple physical tasks or fret about my health because I don’t eat a mountain of white rice every time I sit down at the table.At times, the peoples fascination with the color of my skin or hair annoys me. I didn’t do anything but be born to get them. They aren’t me.Why do people give me more respect because of them? Why do they ask me to speak in their churches or celebrations because of the color of my eyes?Their color does not indicate wisdom or mean that I should be respected or privileged above others. I’m 23 (well almost 24, NOV 3, ::cough::presents, people?::cough::). There are plenty of people here much wiser than I. My light eyes are no more beautiful or wise than dark ones, but no one seems to believe me.I dislike this inequality. It goes against all the values that were pounded in my head from the age of 2.5 months.Yet these same discriminatory people also look at me and smile and welcome me into their homes for no reason. They feed me, visit me, let me practice their language with them, wave at me and give me an odd amount of awe and respect.I’m learning to take the good with the bad, and to use my situation for the best. If I have to be on stage, then I might as well have fun, right?Though most importantly, if they do respect me then I’ve got to understand this precious gift and use it empower them by letting them know that I think that they are beautiful and smart and can do whatever they are determined to do and be confident., Never hiding from the world.Because when you hide from life, you’re only doing so out of fear. Fear is such a nasty little captain of life. It squashes you and your potential for greatness, hurts people around you and drains all of the brilliant colors out of life’s rainbows.And I’ve decided no more hiding for me either! I’m crawling out of this rice sack, putting on my brightest dress and curling my hair Afro style. It’s time to shine, people. It’s time to laugh, sneeze, fart, burp, fall in the mud, relax and enjoying my lovely audience.

And in the words of my dear friend Reid 'Suck it up, cupcake!'

The above is my current life motto., or at least what I say to myself every time I stumble into my dark, spider-filled squatty potty bathroom at 4 am. ::shudder::

Leafy Dreamer - SP #19

My friend Mandy and myself are still trucking along and shooting our self portraits, just at a much slower rate., due to all the country moving, job-changing, adjusting, that we've been in the mist of. But no worries, we're still on the war path.And I'm actually getting a little bit addicted to photographing and creating these self-portraits. Regardless of the quality of the final pictures there is something really fun and satisfying about this creative process. It's a bit like my own form of art therapy. It's not about the product, but rather the process of expression.This week I feel asleep, AGAIN!  The caffeine must not be as strong in Thailand as it is in the States. Boooo! Where is a legitimate Starbuck's Coffee when you need it? Not in the jungle apparently. :) 

Let's talk about my Korean Angels...Finally!

So I've been saying for ages that I will let you see my little orphan angels who I love so dearly. Well finally! I'm sharing! Remember a few months back, in April, I had a 5-month challenge for myself to submit my work to a magazine and do a portrait series on my little orphan boys (challenges number 1 and 6)? Well I did it! and I submitting this piece to 3 or 4 different magazines. And for political and editorial conflict reasons it was rejected by a couple of different Korea magazines, but I kept trying AND my favorite of the 4 magazines published it! So this is my first official spread in a print magazine. Yay!And a much bigger WOOT! WOOT! to my little angels who put so much joy into my time in Korea! You are surely missed.I did this portrait story on my ancient film Yashica Mat TLR Camera. Which was a fun challenge :) Here is how the story ran in NEH magazine's Aug/Sept Issue. And to read the more legible, full story look below the pictures :)

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An Unlikely Family

By Inge Kathleen 

Tucked in the Korean hillside, two hours east from the madness of central Seoul lies a small bustling village of sorts called Shinmang where a family of more than 40 young boys and girls live.This family looks nothing like your traditional Korean family, quite the opposite. Their ages range vastly from just a month old to 17 years of age; they all have unique stories, personalities and aspirations, yet the thread that ties them together is that they have all been orphaned or abandoned.Shinmang Orphanage has been in operation for almost 60 years, since 1952. It has slowly grown to house more than 30 boys, 10 girls, and an assortment of bushy dogs. Shinmang is a place where these children can grow up with a loving family until they reach 18 years old and then they will become independent.Most of these “orphans” still have one or both of their parents alive and almost all have closely related family, but most will likely never return to their families nor be adopted.The children come to Shinmang for a variety of reasons. A few have no parents, others have parents who are mentally or financially unable to provide for them, others have been abused or abandoned or others have single parents who have given them up because of pressures from their family or a future spouse. This pressure is rooted in Koreans’ Confucianist beliefs of bloodline. The blood is an important link between a parent and a child. It is so valued that new spouses do not want a child that does not have their own blood. Furthermore, the idea of adopting a child, a completely unknown one is that much more foreign to many Koreans. This is why adoption is so rare here.“They [Koreans] don’t want a kid from another bloodline,” says Myung Hee Park, the director of the Shinmang Orphanage.When Koreans chose to adopt, however, they usually do so without their friends or family knowing. One way they hide it is by faking a pregnancy and then adopting an infant.Since the 1950s, more than 200,000 Korean children have been adopted with more than 160,000 of these children going to international homes.However, most of the children at Shinmang are much too old to be adopted. According to the U.S. State Department, 86% of children adopted in Korea are under the age of one. Additionally, the parental rights for most of the Shinmang children rest with their families, even in cases when they are abandoned.I began visiting Shinmang Orphanage about a year and a half ago. I found it with the help of my Korean friend. The orphanage is just a subway stop and a 25 minute walk away from the little country school that I teach at.I remember the first time I went. It was a frigid winter day, and the director, Myung Hee Park, came to pick me up at the train station. I got in her car, and almost immediately we turned off the main road in favor of a back road that took us by little farms, worn hanok houses, and frost-kissed rice fields. We then wound up a narrow road and arrived at Shinmangan orphanage that at this time was only for boys.I was there not to teach English. I was there to do nothing but play with them. I was a little nervous about what I would do with them; my Korean language level was barely higher than survival. However, I figured despite this language barrier, I was a child from a family of nine kids, and I would improvise, somehow.Park toured me around the house and then led me to a room with a few little boys inside. She said that I could hang out with them for a few minutes while she finished up some office work. The boys were all gathered around the television enthralled with a Disney cartoon. I went and sat with them for a moment and tried to impress them with my Korean, but they just looked at me like I was a white ogre. Fair enough, I thought, apparently my language skills weren’t the way to their little hearts. I instead managed to bribe one of the smallest ones away from Mr. Walt Disney with crayons and white paper.With crayons and paper at our disposal, we sprawled on the yellow laminate floor, laying flat on our bellies. We began drawing anything and everything we could think of. I would draw a bunny and then he would draw the same one. He would draw a flower, and I would color it in. Then I drew a tree, but apparently it wasn’t up to his standards, so he dramatically scratched it out and then giggled mischievously. Before we knew it, time had flown by, and it was time for dinner.He motioned with his hands that it was time to eat. We guarded our masterpieces in his closet, and then he grabbed my hand tightly and led me up the stairs to the little dining hall. He then told me with grand authority where I was to sit. I must sit right next to him! My heart just melted right to the floor.From that moment forward, he and all his siblings have had my heart. On this day orphans became real to me. These little ones were not from Oliver Twist or the Little Princess. When I left them that evening, the movie didn’t end. They didn’t get to go home and be tucked in bed by their mother or father. They weren’t going to get chicken noodle soup when they had were sick or play catch with their dads. It wasn’t their fault either. There was nothing wrong with these children, they had brilliant personalities, and beautiful hearts, but that didn’t matter.Since that winter day, I’ve gone to visit their ever-growing family almost weekly. We’ve drawn quite a few more masterpieces; they’ve made me the official piggyback ride giver, human horse, tickle monster, and I am even required to give unlimited airplane rides for a nominal fee of 뽀뽀 (kisses) and hugs.After two years in Korea, I only have a few days left until I leave for Thailand to travel and to work with Burmese refugees. It will be sad to say farewell to my friends and all the delicious Korean food that I love so dearly, but I have Skype and a kitchen. These losses can be remedied.My greatest sadness is knowing that gone are the days of walking up the hill toward their house and hearing them scream at the top of their lungs ‘Inge wasayo!’ (Inge has arrived!) Or having them hug me tightly and then spending the evening spinning round and round until we all fall to the floor from blissful dizziness and then doing it all over again!If only I could take a couple of them with me, I pray, maybe one day soon.Shinmang Orphanage is located in Gyeonggido Province in Shinwon-ri between Yangsu-ri and Yangpyeong. For more information about how you can help go to http://www.shinmang.or.kr/ or contact director Myung Hee Park at 031-772-6244, email at shinmang1952@hanmail.net and their address is 경기 양평군 양서면 신원리 산 53번지published in NEH Magazine South Korea

One Late Night! #17

Ohhh.. ! I’ve been bad! Yup it’s true! Me and my self portraitness has been tardy, tardy, I’ve been worse then all of my Latin American friends put together!, but I have good excuses. Cause I always do! They're fabulously fun to make up, you know!So what’s mine this time? Oh you want to know, do you? Well over this past month since Aug 13th I’ve moved a total of 3 times and finally, finally as last week or Sept 3rd I reached my permanent destination.. Well, at least for the next 6~8 months, let’s be honest a 6 month location is pretty permanent for me and my meandering self.Where did I decide on? Thailand! The sunshine and the fruit signed and sealed that deal! I’m living up in Northern Thailand in the Jungle!......., It’s sorta of awesome actually. Sans the squatty potties :shudder: and those pesky hand-sized spiders that crawl up my bedroom walls at night.At least I don’t live in Australia, then I might be dead by now. But the hand-sized spiders are totally non-poisonous, Mom, I swear! And really they are only the size of a 4 or 5 year olds hands not quite man-sized., or at least I haven’t seen those yet.But lets be honest, folks. I would take a man-sized spider over a squatty potty any day of the week. Squatty potties are just a real travesty, and cut out any chance of ever reading the newspaper in the bathroom again. It’s a shame. I don’t know how countries with squatty potties ever become literate. I’m going to start a campaign called “Kill the Squatties, increase Literacy!” It would really be that easy!So coffee shops and wireless internet haven’t quite made it to these parts. It’s quite a bit of a trek to find internet in these parts. A hard day’s labor really., akin to hiking a mountain, slaughtering dinner with your bare hands and then tearing it to bits with your teeth., which sounds like a fabulous task for my third week here. I’m a little too youthful for that one now.But back to the internet issue, if you want to use Skype you have to pay a cool 12 dollars an hour! Yikes! Yet luckily I found a nice little bamboo hut that lets me surf the web and email my dear friends and family for free, as long as they can crowd around my computer and stare at all the interesting things that the foreigner is looking at. Ehhhh, well I guess nothing in this world is really completely free., eh, eh?I think I’ll be using ‘Eh’ a lot in the next few blog posts. I’m learning a new language in this jungle to pass the time so that I don’t go mad and get jungle fever or go ape or whatever one of those random wilderness diseases are..  My point?  They say ‘eh’ a lot in this language and ‘La’ too.. So excuse my ‘eh, eh’ and ‘la, la’ overkill if you can help it., dear readers.So I’m trying to get back on the Self Portrait schedule. I will try my best. It may take me a week or so more to get adjusted here and get my life in order again. but it will happen and more portraits to come. Here is #17. This is the last portrait from my time in Korea..Here, here to creating the next set of portraits here in this jungle.

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Meanderings...

I've been having a lovely time meandering on my bike around Thailand and asking unsuspecting people for their pictures. Luckily for me almost everyone has said yes!. Why? Well I'm not sure why people say yes to a stranger with a big camera. It has always confused me, but I'm not dumb enough to ask them why. I just smile real big and thank them profusely. :)You know as nervous as I get before I get up the nerve to walk up to another stranger to ask for their picture (sometimes I fight with myself  ~ don't worry not physically, well not usually.... ~ I argue for quite a long time before I actually stop to ask.., I'm quite sure I look like a crazy as I wobble around on my bike, muttering profanities at myself and then finally turning around to go back to talk to the school girls on the roadside or the old man with the fantastic face.., why people would say yes to my craziness is a mystery) ,But when I do get up the courage to ask, Wow, almost every time the pay off is greater than a picture, the interaction and the little bit of relationship we have because of it is incredible. And on those really blessed days the payoff is 1000x better than a picture. Like yesterday, I stopped at a little roadside family daycare and ask the nanny if I could take pictures, she said yes and somehow after that, I ended up spending 2.5 hours in her house drinking tea and coffee while listening to her friend play and sing traditional music on his guitar. It was a wow moment, I couldn't have planned a better morning if I had tried.By the time I left, I think I might have taken about 10 bad pictures., but it's not about the pictures really, it's about the journey, the people and the relationships. Now every time I pass her daycare we wave and nod at each other, and I know that I'm welcome back whenever I want to drink tea and listen to hours of beautiful music... :)Below are some images of my meanderings this morning....  

Dreams of Coconut Curry and Tea Leaf Salad!

I recently made a life goal to learn how to eat and cook as many different foods possible.. My first challenge was Korean food and now my current one is Thai food! Oui! How delicious it is! Good thing I have to bike everywhere I go.. If I didn't, I might soon become Inge super~sized with all the delicious coconut curry that floats around this place and tempts me with its devilish smells.The next challenge is figuring out how I can fuse Korean and Thai Cuisine?., Now this is a quandary!And don't you dare suggest that I add fermented kimchi to coconut curry! I might just excommunicate you from ever eating delicious food again! And yes, I have that power. I know people in very, very high places., very important people who can make you eat only kimchi for the rest of your life.. Kimchi with nothing but rice! Muahahaha :)

Hello Dear Thailand! #16

Have you noticed that it's taken me longer than our allotted 16 weeks to get my #16 self-portrait live? Well I'm very sorry dear world, I've been terribly busy with all the moving about, from this plane to the next, and then buses, boats, motorbikes, donkeys and even llamas my head is practically about to spin off and I'm still not done moving! I have one more trip yet to make!, but at least I have made it to my next country of residence, Thailand!It feels so good and warm to be here., and hopefully I'll be settled into my new home before the end of this week and then I can show you all my new pad.Be sure to check out Mandolyn's beautiful blog here!p.s. Ok, so this picture might not have exactly been taken in Thailand, but it was as Thai as my little Korean town could manage.. :)

Hellos and Goodbyes....

It is hard to believe that just 2 years ago I arrived in South Korea., and today after 2 years of teaching English in South Korea. I am finished, done.  No more are the days of eating pounds of kimchi, chatting with my favorite fruit lady, slurping delicious Korean soup, sleeping on heated floors, nodding to the nameless man at the garden store, trudging to Paris Baguette for my morning watery, overpriced coffee or seeing if I could coax a smile out of Mr. Grumpy, my school's old crossing guard each morning. (It worked twice!)All these familiarities will never be again. They took months to build but were gone the second I stepped on this bus to the airport., This is the weirdest thing about traveling. All these things that you take so long to carefully construct dissipate when you pack your bags and board the plane to another land. Life will, once again, completely change.  Your normal will no longer be the same, it will and must adjust. It's strange and sad leaving a place you get to know, but then it is also so addicting to know the next destination will be full of unpredictability, challenges and newness.So I'm in that weird, magical period of transition. Saying goodbye to my old haunt, South Korea and greeting my new one, Thailand.Yet before I jump into learning what makes Thailand tick, I will wait a moment. And in honor of the past and all the happy memories that Korean life bestowed upon me, I wanted to make a list of all the beautiful things that I will miss ever, ever so much., in no particular order. And please excuse all the food references. I have a big love affair with food. If it were legal, I would be in holy matrimony with food. It would be the best husband. No ring needed, Sir Food, just give me Tuscan wedding full of what I love the best, food! ^^1. The Korean Apple ~ the most perfectly crisp, sweet, fantastic apple ever.2. Korean Elevators ~ ahhh the ride is so smooth!3. My students.. Of course not all of them. some I thank the Lord above that I'll never see again, but there were some angels among the devils. ^^ As you may have guessed, I'm one of those bad, bad teachers who had favorites. It's True!Gasp! Inge!? You what!?!Well, let's be honest here. It's just easier to like the kid who remembers to bring you a nectarine after lunch versus having affection for the one who steals one off your lunch tray without asking..hateful child! Yes! Again my world revolves around food, sad but true., and you better not ever steal fruit from me, or else!4. Koreans and their never ending willingness to help you.5. Slurping Korean stews (jjigaes) in the Winter, Yum, yum, yum!6. Market Day7. Eating7b. Eating with Chopsticks (Oh don't roll your eyes all you awkward chopstick eaters, these little devilish sticks are fantastic for more than just eating rice, If only you knew!, Angel hair pasta was never so easy to retrieve from a vat of boiling water and then when you're finished you can use the chopsticks to keep your hairdo up! Mr. Fork has nothing on you! and I bet you didn't know that you can eat cake with chopsticks too?)7c. Ordering a meal at a almost any Korean restaurant and getting it 8 minutes later. The service is incredible!7d. Korean Barbeque ~ but mostly BBQ Eel., Oh so tasty!8. Sleeping on the toasty, heated Korean floors in the bone chilling winters.9. Tea fields, sweating in rooms of jasmine ovens, and bathing in Green Tea saunas with Koreans.. Oh yes, I did!10. Getting told by a student that my hair 'looks like ramen noodles.' The most creative assessment of my knotted nest of hair yet.11. Eating silkworms, rotting skate fish, boiled blood, live octopus, and ehh... a bite, just ONE bite of man's best friend!... Yes I did it! I'm a terrible human being, I deserve death, but how many people do you know have done that, eh? Ruff, Ruff :)12. Learning that thanks to Kimchi, the Korean's manna!, garlic breath was the only acceptable smell for one's breath. No need for mouthwash in this country. So freeing! I feels as good as being old enough to tell your mom that you won't wear tights ever again! (don't judge, I had a weird childhood! and tights are oppressive!)13. Realizing that it is actually a complement and not an insult when Koreans tell you that you have a small face,white, white skin, and a pointy Pinnochio nose, who knew?14. Learning that the way to get out of trouble every time is to play the "I'm a dumb foreigner" card. Magic!15. Using toilet paper to clean up everything. No napkins needed.But Some of the most special memories, the ones that will stick with me forever and ever?1. My little orphan boys and girls., Without them I'm not sure I would have made it out of Korea sane. I would return to Korea just to see them again. I will write much more about them soon, I promise!2. My lovely Waygookin (foreign) and Korean friends., Amazing, Amazing, Amazing lifelong friends.3. My sweet North Korean Grandmother, chef extraordinaire that always made it her mission to fatten me up by giving me double the kimchi and a double-decker Korean pancakes., and never letting me leave her restaurant without giving me a million hugs and telling me how much she loved me.4. Learning that salsa dancing is my caffeine., Give me 32oz of espresso coffee at 1am and I'll be asleep by 1:30, but get me salsa dancing and I'll be going till 6 in the morning. ^^5. And every other amazing blessing, relationship, lesson, trip, conversation, etc.. that there is no time to write about, so, so blessed!So we need pictures, yes? Well I decided to focus on fully enjoying my last month in Korea will all my favorite people in Korea without the burden of carrying around my ever so heavy but beloved camera with me. Instead I decided to carry around the most awesome invention ever, the disposable camera, Magic! Here are the fantastically terrible pictures that came from all the fun!Pictures to come of Thailand, but right now I'm concentrating on napping, eating, yoga, eating fruit, salsa dancing and taking in all the sights and sounds without carrying around Sir Camera. He needs a vacation, like myself., but he'll be out in full force very soon I'm sure :)