Tai (Fill in the Adjective) Le!

In Chinese, you can make an exclamatory statement by adding le after the adjective. You can further emphasize the word by adding tai, which can be translated as too, to the beginning. For example, if something is too expensive, I can say “Tai gui le!

My trip to Korea was tai hao le! (Too good or awesome). I had many adventures with Laura, Mollie, Grace, and mini-Grace.

Tai Educational Le!

On this trip, I learned a great deal about Korean history, specifically about the Korean War. In school, it seems like they usually jump from WWII to Vietnam and completely gloss over the Korean War.

On the first day, we went to the Seoul Library and we walked around the area near the American Embassy. Both places had tributes to the Korean war.

The second day we went to the Korean War museum. I thought that this was a museum that was about the Korean War that was fought in the 1950s, but it was really a museum about all the wars in Korean history. It was interesting to see the different weapons and military garb from the various time periods.

Another interesting aspect was how culture plays into how history is presented. On one of the plaques, it said something along the lines of Korea was shamed when it was invaded. If this had been in an American museum, I think that it would have something along the lines of “The dirty rotten malicious dictator invaded us, but we endured because we are America.”

Tai Yummy Le! (Actually in Chinese, you would probably say hen hao chi, but that does not fit with my theme of tai…le).

One of the best things about traveling is eating food from all over the word. While in Korea, I ate Korean, Vietnamese, Mexican, Italian, and Indian. Not to mention that Korea loves coffee and donuts, so I had a Starbucks coffee almost every day I was there and I ate several Dunkin’ donuts.

Not everything was quite to my liking. The calzone I got at the Italian place had a sweet mayonnaise on it, and I bought a breakfast sandwich at Dunkin’ Donuts with relish on it. Aside from that the food was fabulous.

Tai Surreal Le!

Laura and I went to the DMZ. It is hardly believable that I was able to get that close to North Korea. As we were driving along, it looked like we were going up any other hill. We could have been in eastern Ohio or Pennsylvania. The highways looked like any other highway except that the highway had barbed wire and military posted. I cannot even imagine what the lives of those who live across that boundary line must be like.

Tai interesting Le!

That night at the hostel we decided to do the hostel thing and hang out in the common room and meet people. We hung out with two guys who both happened to be Australian, but they had only just met each other. During this time, I had a fascinating revelation. I had been told that when men travel overseas, they travel to find themselves. Whereas, when women travel overseas, they travel because they have a purpose and they know who they are. After this trip, I think that this is true. I met and talked with three different men on this trip and all three of them were aimless wanders who do not really have jobs. Then it later hit me that this is why there are no single men in our company. We don’t want aimless wanderers who are merely want adventure. We want men who know who they are and who have a purpose.

Tai Shopping Le! (This is in no way grammatically correct, but you get the picture).

First of all, Korea has better socks than anywhere else in the world. I bought a pair of socks with a hippo head on the front and on the back it had a wide-open hippo mouth. I also found angora socks for a dollar, which seemed liked a pretty good deal to me. Their socks are just so cute and fun.

I actually didn’t buy that much, but I did a great deal of looking. I went to two different bookstores with English books and simply absorbed the literary beauty of the English language (or perhaps I just simply appreciated the fact that I could actually read and comprehend the books).

Tai Confusing Le!

We decided to be adventurous and take the ferry back from Korea to China. It was quite an interesting trip. The ferry was in no way catering to foreigners. Very little was in English. Some things were in Korea, but mostly it was in Chinese.

Honestly, I had no idea what to expect, but the boat ride was generally long and tiring. Meals were one of the most draining parts of the trip. The dinning room was only open for about 40 minutes at a time, and all 500 or so people on the boat came into the room at once when there was only enough seating for maybe 200 people. We tried to take our food out of the dining room, but there was a guard at the door who would not allow us to leave with our food.

There were four non-Asians on the boat, so we stuck out like an sore thumb. One was a French guy whom we befriended. We tried to play Dutch Blitz with him, but the waitress (we were at the bar/restaurant) told us no. She did not kick us out nor did she explain why we could not play. She simply told us no.

Tai Loud Le!

The first day on the boat was a very long day, so I immediately went to sleep. However, we were in the room right next to the tv room, so the tv woke me up at about 3 am, and I could not go back to sleep. Eventually, I was able to find sleep again, but it was interrupted at 7am when the made the announcement for breakfast. At least I believe it was the announcement for breakfast. I was in too groggy a state to understand Chinese, and they did not make an English announcement. Let me take this moment to say that I do not think that Chinese value sleeping-in like Americans do.

I was able to fall back asleep, but once our neighbors returned from breakfast, they decided that shouting and playing cards would be an excellent activity for 8 o’clock in the morning. At this time, I wanted to go over and shout at them tai loud le! (This is where I got the inspiration for this blog’s title). However, even if they spoke English, I would never have had the gumption to yell at strangers like that. Maybe if they had been teenagers, but certainly not middle-aged women. 

After listening to the many loud passengers on the boat, I reflected that this must be what it is like when other people are around my family.

Tai Glad to be Home Le!

After the boat, we took a taxi, a train, and another taxi to get food. Then one final taxi to get home. The trip was good, but there’s nothing like a hot shower and warm bed after a several days of traveling.