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Yes, I’m off for the tropics tomorrow. My flight leaves for Bangkok in the afternoon from Casablanca, arrives in Doha, Qatar around 5:30 a.m. Saturday, leaves Doha about 8:30 a.m. and arrives in Bangkok around 8 p.m. Of course, this is Qatar Airlines, whose flights are invariably delayed, so those times will probably shift a few hours forward. As I’ve posted before, QA has top notch service in the air, but it leaves something to be desired in its ground service.
Anyway, this will probably be my last post for a while, but I will try to write as I travel around Laos and Thailand for the next 6 weeks. I’ll take the overnight train to Nong Khai on the evening of July 4th. Until then, I have to go to the U.S. Embassy to get some more passport pages, check in with the Korean Embassy to find out how long it takes to get my visa prepared (I’ll do that in August, just before leaving for Korea), store my big bags and computer until August, buy a ticket to Korea, and look up a few contacts at one of the schools in Bangkok and look up a former colleague who is teaching at a university there. Whew! I’ll be busy, but not so busy that I won’t be able to chow down on curry, seafood and pad thai, not to mention fresh mangos, pineapple and such. Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans. More later.
Sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while, but I’ve been quite busy getting ready for the move back to Korea. Yes, I signed the contract for Woosong University, and I’ll be going there around the 15th of August.
Right now, though, I’m busy doing final testing of the CPR students, packing things up, writing reports, and doing other chores associated with moving half way across the world. I fly out of Casablanca on the 30th, arriving in Bangkok the next day. Uhhhhh, let’s see, that’s almost 6 weeks in the Land of Smiles and in Laos. Yessssss. 
I’ll be seeing my friend Nai, of course. I just talked to him the other day, and right in the middle of the conversation his household was beset by “big big snake . . . it wants to eat chickens!” Well, he stayed on the phone to give me a blow-by-blow account of what was going on, even though he wanted to join in the chase with his brothers. (He said his mother told him to stay on the phone with me, a convenient excuse if I’ve ever heard one.) Eventually, things settled down, and I asked him if one of his brothers had killed it, but he said it “run away quick quick.” Now, I don’t know how big the snake was or what kind it was or how fast it was, but I usually spend a few days with his family. I’ll be sure to keep my eyes open. Maybe all the jogging I’ve been doing lately (I’m up to 50 minutes per run) will prove to come in handy!
I’ll definitely post again before I leave next week, so I’ll have more later.
Here are the photos I took today of my students at the CPR–our final regular class together. Parting is such sweet sorrow. Students, click here to view the photos. Click on the small photo to see a larger one, then click on the larger one to see another, larger photo.
Here’s another photo from my Sunday morning bike ride.
How the Yankees are maintaining their pace with many of their top-flight players being injured at one time or another or being out for the season is beyond me. I guess we Yankee fans can thank the “Baby Bombers” for coming of age at the right time. Like in last night’s 13-5 shellacking of Boston. Sweeeeeeet!
I took a short bike ride Sunday morning, when it’s quieter than usual. I felt in a “colorful” mood and took a few photos, some of which follow. More later.
Here is some detail of a lime-colored nursery school I thought was interesting.
And then there is this pink apartment building.
It’s a bit past spring, but there are still many blooming flowers on bushes and trees. (Actually, this is true pretty much year round.) Here are a few examples.
Here’s one of the areas I go jogging. The building in the background is going to be the new city library, I’m told, when it’s finished.
Thought I’d better post something, just to let everyone know I’m still kickin’. This starts the last week of formal classes at the CPR, and I’m giving my students an exam on Thursday. Next week they have off, ostensibly so they can study for final exams the week after. Then, we’ll start grading on the 22nd or so and finish off the final week in June. On the 30th, I’m outta here! I fly to Bangkok, via Doha and Qatar Airlines again. I found that they are one of the top five airlines in the world, according to this website.
I’ll spend about 6 weeks in Thailand and Laos before heading over to Korea around the middle of August. Hopefully, I’ll have a job at Woosong University in Daejeon (day-juhn). I’m waiting for the contract to arrive. Once it gets here, I’m sure I’ll sign it and send back all the other documentation they need. It’ll be a good feeling to officially have a job!
In the meantime, I’ve been practice packing, scanning my books onto my hard drive so I don’t have to send heavy, EXPENSIVE boxes all the way to Korea, and doing all the little chores that need to be done before leaving. Like jogging. I’ve increased my time to 45 minutes in my so-far futile attempt to lose some weight. (Maybe I should lay off the buttered popcorn.) I don’t go running until about 8 p.m. due to the hot, sunny days we’ve been having–temperatures in the mid 90s (that’s mid 30s for you celsius folks). Tonight, though, I felt very tired (sleepy) and my legs were pretty sore, so I decided that I’d only do about 30 minutes. I ended up doing 46! I’ll probably feel it tomorrow.
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