…my stay in Colorado is going to be the longest amount of time I’ve gone without getting on an airplane since I left Vietnam?
Thats a lot of moving around.
But I Don’t Wanna Leave… October 27, 2007
Well today is the day I begin the long trip back to North America. 
I am nowhere near ready and I’m seriously considering finding a hole to hide in, I don’t HAVE to get on that flight, do I?
The past 2 months have just flown by…I could definitely do another 6 months without thinking twice. The past few days especially have been a total paradise, Bali definitely needs at least another 2 weeks to do it justice.
Anyways, I’ll post up some more pictures and stories later!
Next Stop: Bali October 24, 2007
Well we’re off to Bali this afternoon for some fun in the sun and some good food. And some starbucks.
I’m not sure how much time I’ll be spending on the internet blogging over the next few days…I’m going to be glued to a poolside chair with a cold drink in hand for the next 4 days. Except for the small break I take to go and meet Balinese Monkeys.
Anyways, talk with you all later!
Sedentary October 23, 2007
Well my days here in Papua are coming to an end quickly. I’ve spent most of my time here relaxing. Alot.
Friday I had a good excuse for my relaxation as I had just finished my dive trip and was thoroughly exhausted, but now its just ridiculous. I spent most of friday uploading my photos and blogging….let me tell you that took me ALL day. Saturday was a bit better because I didn’t have to laze around by myself, I had good company while doing it. Eric and Cherine were happy to be sedentary along side of me. Sunday we decided to actually get up and expend a few calories so we headed down to the lowlands/Timika.
We stopped at the marketplace and then went to the Sheraton for lunch. We enjoyed some delicious barramundi, which is a popular fish around these parts of the world. After lunch we headed down to Portside, which is little village where one of the Papuan tribes live. They weren’t out in full force like we had hoped, they must have been napping or fishing or something equally exciting. But we still managed to get some great photos anyways.
Papua is such an interesting mix and clash of first world and third world. Overall, its still a very primitive place with little Papuan natives running around in a very national geographic fashion. You see them sitting on the side of the road with their bows and arrows and the little kids just running amuck on their own. Right now, two of the Papuan tribes are at war against each other…which will continue until equal numbers from each side have been killed. It honestly is a whole different world here.
But then smack dab in the middle of this third world and its gravel roads is the luxury Sheraton hotel….and amongst the few scooters and the Papuans on foot are the Toyota Land Cruisers. This is all thanks to Freeport which owns EVERYTHING on this island, all the buildings, cars, houses, restaurants, hotels, airport, you name it! But its nice for people like me who enjoy having internet and some good food every now and then.
I flew into Timika which was hot and humid…and into a funny excuse of an airport. The international arrival terminal was an open room. Immigrations consisted of a wobbly desk and the luggage “carousel” was a shelf that was open to the outside that they threw your luggage on. Welcome to Papua! But up here in Tembagapura, its a whole different world…from the airport here is a 20 mile drive from 600ft to 12,000ft. So you’re basically driving STRAIGHT UP for 20 miles on a very bumpy gravel road…and its even more exciting if its raining and you’re racing time because the roads will most likely wash out. We took a very bumpy video of one of our drives up, get ready for a little motion sickness! But as a result of the higher altitude, its a much cooler climate up here and not as humid. 
Anyways, I’ve posted up some photos of Tembagapura and Timika…so have a look-see!
[Update: Read the first comment from Eric regarding an update on the Papuan war...it came to an end over the weekend now that equal numbers have died. Its a good read though if you want to get a feel for the Native Papuan culture. My favorite quote, "After lunch break, the war continued from 15.00 to 16.00 WIT." Only in Papua do they have lunch breaks during their wars.]
Papua October 19, 2007
Well I’ve made it to Papua and I’ve gotta say they really weren’t joking when they called this place third world. The airport was comical, it was more like a barn than anything else. But anyways more about that later…
I’ve posted up some pictures from my dive trip, I just picked a few of my favorites, I have hundreds of photos. The trip was absolutely incredible and beyond my expectations.
We left on Friday afternoon amidst the rain and set sail for Challenger Bay. The first day was smooth sailing and just a bunch of orientation stuff. There were 30 people on the boat from all over the world…Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Ireland, Austria, the UK, Italy…the list goes on. Once we got away from land the weather started to clear up and a few of us sat up on the top deck and watched the lightning storm going on, it was so very titanic.
Each day we did 4 dives, which let me tell you, is very exhausting. We were up every morning at 6:45 for breakfast, a dive briefing and then the first dive around 8:00 to 8:30. Saturday we did Challenger Bay and then went on to the Cod Hole later that morning. The potato cod are absolutely unbelievable, they are massive and completely unafraid of people. They swim right up to you and I’m pretty sure you could sit on them if you tried. The best part is their ridiculously giant lips. The first dive was just our own free exploratory dive and then after lunch we went down for the Cod Feed. The trip director took down a bucket of some sort of fish bits and it was a feeding frenzy.
That evening I went on my very first night dive…which I will admit that I was initially nervous about. You get down there with a flashlight and when you shine it into the water as you descend it just shines into oblivion. You can see absolutely nothing. Once you get down to the bottom though the light actually has something to reflect off of and you can actually see a little. Of course it doesn’t help when they warn you during the dive briefing of having two little green eyes headed in your direction. But I’m still here…so if there were two little green eyes anywhere near me I didn’t notice.
After a big dinner I was mor than ready for a good night’s sleep. It is definitely interesting sleeping with a continuous swaying going back and forth. We were headed for Osprey Reef that night so it wasn’t exactly a still night, Osprey Reef is out beyond the Great Barrier Reef so the water can be a bit rougher. But it didn’t seem to bother me too much because I slept just fine…it must be what its like for babies to to be rocked to sleep.
The next morning was the big anticipated day. The first dive was at North Horn and it was just an exploratory dive…I saw a couple of sharks hangin around but they didn’t seem to care that I was there. The second dive later that morning was also at North Horn but this time it was the Shark Feed! This time when we got into the water there were sharks everywhere, they seemed to know what was coming. We all sat on a natural auditorium formed by the coral wall and once we were situated they lowered down a garbage bin of giant tuna heads strung on a chain. We have great video footage of the crew members drilling holes in their head to put them on the chain. As the garbage bin was lowered all the sharks were ramming it and there were swarms of fish around. Brad, our dive director, then opened the garbage bin allowing the chain of tuna heads to rise up…at which point the sharks all went in for the kill. You were definitely glad to not be on that chain! The amount of strength and power those animals have are just unreal. It was definitely hard to count the number of sharks but I’m guessing there were probably 30-40. They definitely don’t seem to care that there are a bunch of humans around because they were completely uninterested in us, one swam about a foot in front of me and didn’t even blink twice at me. But I guess a good lesson from this is…you probably don’t want to have any dead fish on you or they will actually take more interest in you.
…Which brings me to my next point. We found out later that during our trip there was a shark attack somewhere on a reef nearby. However, once you see how docile and calm these animals really are you realize that is most likely wasn’t a random attack. Sure enough a guy was spearfishing and had put his catches (dead fish) in a bag on his leg…thus it was pretty much like a shark feed.
After lunch we headed to a place called the ‘The Entrance.’ Now this was real diving. For the first dive, 6 of us got into a little motorized raft/boat in the pouring rain and they went and dropped us off along the side of this underwater cliff and then we all swam back along the wall back to the big boat. Its such a cool feeling just floating along a huge cliff/dropoff.
The next dive was actually at the “The Entrance”, which is where some bommies and caves are at the end of the wall. This is where we saw a sting ray just hanging out at the bottom and a couple more sharks….they really aren’t kidding when they say ’shark-infested waters’. We didn’t do a night dive on this day so it was nice to actually be finished a bit earlier (around 6) so that we could finally take a shower and be clean for a few hours. That evening the boat was going to be heading back into the Great Barrier Reef during the night…and they were predicting a pretty rough ride. On a scale from 1-10, 10 being certain death, they were rating this about a 7. Keep in mind that at a 9 they turn the boat around and won’t even attempt it.
Now I’ve never been sea sick/car sick or anything ever before in my life…until that night. As soon as we started moving the boat was doing some serious rocking. A bunch of us were laying down below watching family guy and after about 5 minutes of that, I made my way to the bathroom where a good portion of my dinner made a reappearance. I figured I should go and sit up top so that I could get some fresh air and try to get my stomach to ease up. I was doing fine for the first couple of minutes until 2 other people came and sat next to me and started spewing off the back of the boat. My body apparently didn’t want to be left out of all the fun and games so it joined in as well. It was fairly comical for the few that weren’t sick….there was about 6 or 7 of us just hanging off the back of the boat with a continuous trail of puke bags flying behind. The others that weren’t hanging off the back of the boat were sick in their rooms…there were only about 2 people that were lucky enough to have a decent night. A few of the crew members were sitting on plastic tubs riding them around the deck as the boat was rocking…somehow that just doesn’t seem to help your seasickness. And of course the two guys that weren’t sick were sitting up top having some beer and a good laugh at the rest of us…
Anyways, it was quite a long night. It was raining all night so for those of us that were on the deck, we were soaking wet. So at one point I forced myself into bed soaking wet and tried the positive thinking route…I’m not sick…I’m not sick…I’m not sick… That seemed to work until one of the other girls who was sick returned to the room and coughed and my body remembered that yes, it was in fact, sick. At around 7:30, I heard the most glorious sound…the anchor being put down! I was still a bit ishy but the best thing to cure a little nausea is to just get in the water, so that I did. I seemed to be much better after the first dive.
We dove several different sights that day…including Steve’s Bommie, which is absolutely gorgeous. The night dive that night was great, we saw a moray eel, an enormous sea turtle, a giant hermit crab, and some other interesting things. I, however, never did get to see an octopus…but it wasn’t for my lack of trying.
The next day was our last day of diving and we only had 2 dives in the morning…one at 6:15 and another at 8:30….talk about an exhausting morning. The ride back into Cairns was a bit bumpy…so I can’t even explain how happy I was to see solid land as we pulled in. However, it wasn’t all I thought it would be, I had the worst sealegs for about 2 days afterwards. It was the most bizarre feeling, you constantly feel like you were swaying and taking a shower is a very difficult event….the minute you close your eyes you just about topple right over.
…But it was all worth it. The trip was so incredible and such an amazing experience. If any of you are ever interested in doing it, I definitely recommend the company I went with, Taka Dive. The food was surprisingly good and there was lots of it. We were constantly being fed…after each dive we had fresh baked muffins waiting for us and fresh fruit. The crew was tons of fun and most importantly, we all made it back in one piece! 
Anyways, I’m going to stop writing now…sorry for the long post! Enjoy the pictures!
…Still In One Piece October 18, 2007
Well I have no exciting tales of having my leg bitten off by a shark or near drowning experiences…my apologies.
The dive trip was beyond incredible…it was definitely worth every penny and I would gladly do it again. We saw tons of wonderful sea creatures, sting rays, loads of sharks, massive turtles, moray eels, giant clams, so many things.
The trip was very exhausting and I’ve been really busy the past couple of days. I’ve had a great time here in Cairns and have met tons of people from all over the world. I’ve come to the conclusion that majority of the population here in Australia are backpackers as opposed to actual locals. But it makes for an interesting variety of people.
Anyways, I’m just waiting for the airport shuttle and then I’m off to Papua this afternoon. Once I get to Eric’s I should have loads of time to start posting more pictures and write more about the dive trip.
Later!
Cairns! October 12, 2007
Well I’ve made it out of Brisbane and I’m now in Cairns. I stayed in my first proper hostel last night and for $16AUD I definitely can’t complain. It was tons of fun and nice to meet some new people. We had a very international room…Ireland, Australia, UK, France, myself.
I’m downtown right now, I’ve dropped off all my luggage at the dive shop and I’m just waiting to leave for my big dive trip! I am all sorts of excited for it…some people at the hostel had already been out on the reef and were telling me about how amazing it is so I can’t wait to get out there. Thanks to all the tourists out there a lot of the animals are used to people so they’re not afraid to come right up to you.
Anyways, for all of you in Canada stuck up in the cold and impending snow…you can think of me out on a nice warm boat on the Great Barrier Reef! Haha, now that I’ve said that its probably going to rain the entire time. Karma.
Well the next time you hear from me I’ll probably be waterlogged and wrinkled from sea.
[Update: I tried to post some photos but this computer runs at about the speed of a handicapped Kangaroo so unfortunately there will be no new photos for a little while ]
New Photos October 9, 2007
I’ve posted the rest of the Vietnam pictures for now. Once I get home I’ll sort through everything and get them all organized and post any that I haven’t. Its fairly difficult to do that when you’re moving around from computer to computer all the time. 
Anyways enjoy!
I’m going to start putting up my OZ pictures in a day or two.
Vietnam, The End. October 8, 2007
I figured I needed to sit down and write this all out while it was still mildly fresh in my head.
Leaving Vietnam was a very difficult thing to do, I miss the people, the culture, and most of all the kids. To be completely honest, if I had it all to do over again…I would have spent another month there instead of coming to Oz (no offense to all you Aussies). Its just so hard to leave a country like that and come to a country that is so remarkably like home…but doesn’t have the soft bed of home.
Anyways, where to start? I have learned so incredibly much during my short time there and I’m so incredibly thankful for the opportunity to go over there. One of the very first things I realized over there was what a naive culture we live in back home. I refuse to become one of those humanitarians that believes everything related to western society is evil and terrible and we should all be ashamed of how we live…because we shouldn’t. Instead we should just be more grateful for what we do have and I think it’s so important for us to be more conscious and aware of what is going on in the world around us. We each need to be striving to do something, no matter how little it is, for someone else in this world who is less fortunate than we are.
My experience has definitely inspired me to do more to help these kids. You would not believe how many people said to me before I left for my trip, “you know…you can’t change the world…you can’t help ALL of those kids.” I even had some complete stranger on the plane trip over to Vietnam ask me what I was coming to Vietnam for and when I told him he said ”that’s great and all, but just remember that you can’t save the world.” I absolutely hate the attitude…so what, we can’t change everything so we all sit back and do nothing? I realize that my place in this vast world is so small but once you meet these kids you see that even if you only have $100 to help one of these kids you are making such a HUGE difference for them. And you know, if more people realized this and thought like this then we could eventually work to help so many of these kids.
Now obviously I so strongly support adoption…but that doesn’t mean rush out and adopt 20 kids. If you can give only one of these children a home to live in and a family to love them you’ve just drastically changed that child’s life beyond words. That being said, I also firmly believe that no person should adopt unless their heart is completely into it. Don’t do it because it’s a fad or because its your charitable donation to this world…do it because you have so much love to give and you know that no matter where a child comes from or what they look like or what their abilities are…they need a family and a mother and father to love them. Each one of those kids is so incredibly special and after only one very short month I can sit down and go through my photos and tell you so much about the individual children…that Le-Le just loves to be close to you and Ng Jung– she’s an independent child who loves to explore on her own but when the time is right she also needs that close cuddling and intimacy. Baby Lin, she’s such an easy going child and loves music, she especially loves it if you sing to her while she’s eating. I could go on and on, these children need homes, they need families to love them and learn all of their little quirks…whether those homes are in Vietnam, America, Canada, Europe…wherever.
One thing I ran into while in Vietnam was a resistant attitude towards adoption, which was something I had never expected. At first, I was appalled that people wouldn’t be glad for these kids to be getting an opportunity to have a better life. But after talking to many of the locals I came to learn more and respect their argument…I had never thought about it before but it is difficult for the Vietnamese people to sit and watch all of their kids being shipped out to other countries, away from their culture and native land. However, when you talk to these locals they all say that it breaks their hearts to see their kids being sent away and they are all afraid that these children will not remember Vietnam and will never return but at the same time they realize that nobody in their country can do anything about it and that overall, this is what is best for these kids because they will in fact have better lives than they will in these orphanages.
I completely support the Vietnamese people in keeping whatever kids they can in the country….but there is so much to be fixed before that happens. For starters, when I asked one of our interpreters, who is young and newlywed, if she and her husband were going to adopt she laughed and said no. She explained to me that she wanted to be able to give her husband a baby and that if she was unable to get pregnant he would divorce her, not necessarily because he wanted to but because his family would force him to. Now do you see the problem? Not to mention the complicating fact that the government makes it nearly impossible and outrageously expensive for the locals to adopt any of these kids. I don’t even know where to start.
One of the highlights of my trip was corresponding with several families who are in the process of adopting and being able to send pictures of their kids. The process is such a long and complicated string of events that it must be so difficult knowing that your child is just sitting in an orphanage while the government waits to get around to your paperwork. But it was so exciting for me meeting any child that I knew had a family waiting for them. Its such an amazing thing to hold a baby and know that somewhere out there is a family that is SO excited for them and has so much love for them….and they have no idea. You realize that there is hope.
What breaks your heart is holding the children that are caught somewhere in between…they have a family in Vietnam that won’t relinquish them for adoption but yet they won’t/can’t take care of the child themselves so that child will just grow up in the orphanage. We can’t have you but we don’t want anyone else to have you….that is what is depressing, because there really is nothing you can do. So for those kids, all I want to do is make a better place for them to live and give them more resources. That is where donated money really makes a difference, buying them more food, sending them to school, buying them new clean clothes, fixing the rooms they live in, buying them fans for the unbearable heat…the list goes on.
So many people ask me if I’m going to go back to Korea and if I want to meet my birth parents (not my ‘real’ parents…don’t ever ask me that). My answer is no, some kids have that desire but I don’t…meeting the person who gave birth to me won’t mean anything to me because she didn’t make me the person I am today. Not to mention the incredibly language and cultural barriers that would be there. This trip, this experience, was my connection or whatever you want to call it with my adoption. I feel more of a connection with these children who are waiting to be placed with families than I do with some lady who gave birth to me nearly 23 years ago.
Then a lot of people point fingers at me and say I am the perfect example of ‘that adopted kid’ who becomes Americanized and loses their culture. Yes, that may be true…but all I have to say to that is that you have to give kids the option. I think the adoptive parents have the responsibility of making their child’s culture available to them but you can’t shove it down their throats. If they don’t want it and you force it upon them, its just going to make them resent it even more. My parents bought me all sorts of little Korean books, dolls, figurines, food, and the works…but I just wasn’t interested. I remember as a little girl standing in a traditional Korean dress bawling my eyes out because I hated it. Some kids really love it and throw themselves into, but others don’t…every child is different. Everyone should know that.
Another thing I thought about while working with these kids was that every single child I worked with represented thousands more around the world in the same conditions. There are millions of children around in similar circumstances and worse conditions from all over the world…Cambodia, Africa, Romania, South America. Not to mention that these orphaned children are just one of the many problems in this world…there are so many other global issues that need more attention, the immense poverty, starvation/malnutrition, AIDS and other diseases, there is just so much. I just feel like we all need to get out of our boxes and just become more aware and know that no matter how small your contribution may be it makes a difference. Its that stupid attitude that “if I can’t change the world then why even bother?” that will accomplish absolutely nothing.
So anyways, I’ll get off my soapbox now. I don’t have an answer for any of these problems. If anyone gets anything out of my experience and trip, just know that any small contribution that you make towards these kids makes such a huge difference in their little lives. (Granted, you also have to be careful with corrupt organizations….which is a whole other box of worms). And…if you have any tiny little inkling in your heart to give one of these kids around the world a home and a family, I urge you to explore it.
I’m so grateful for my experience…and definitely could not have done this without the financial and emotional support of my parents and family. So thank you for that. Also, thank you to everyone who kept up with all of my blogging and sent emails! I’m going to continue blogging about the rest of my trip and posting pictures, its just that instead of cuddling babies, I’ll be cuddling koalas and giant fish in the sea. I leave Friday for my 5-day scuba diving trip so I’m excited for that and should have some great pictures to post from that…I’ve rented an underwater digital camera.
Well I will post up the end of my Vietnam photos and then start posting my Oz pictures. I have some cute pictures of koala cuddles! They aren’t as soft and cuddly as my babies though…
[Note: The photos won't be up till later tonite...but I did update my photo of the day]
