HOLY CRAP I AM HAVING THE TIME OF MY LIFE! That is only the half of it. It was very sad and heartbreaking leaving my family behind in Seattle but now I'm glad I left (sorry mom and dad, I will miss you). The first day consisted entirely of travel. My flight was at 2 am and when I got on the plane I was really bloody tired. The flight was about 16 hours (I think?) and I slept for about half of it (yay!). The other half was spent playing video games and listening to music and just being mellow.
One nuisance was the fact that I couldn't put my seat back all the way, I could only put it back a little bit. To get an idea if you're in a car seat and you tilt the seat back one notch, about that much. So I slept sitting up pretty much.
Anyway, once I got to Tai Pei (Taiwan) I was hungry. I didn't eat anything on the long flight because I was sure it would upset my stomach. I simply drank strong delicious tea the whole time. At Tai Pei, the epic search for breakfast began. One small problem, it was 4:45 in the morning! Nothing was open. I wandered the really long airport for awhile before sitting down and just puttering around doing nothing in particular. Finally things started to open up (around 6) and I decided to browse in hopes of finding something to eat. I found an electronics store that had Street Fighter 3 on the PSP. I didn't buy it but I found it very strange that I'd looked for that game in every game store in the US and here I find it in a Taiwan airport...
Right! Breakfast. I finally found a place that sold coffee. I ordered a cup of coffee and spaghetti! Of course! My bizarre breakfast was truly satisfying. One minor annoyance was the fact that I had to pay with my debit card but I do not actually know how much I spent, as I had no Taiwan currency. I think I spent around 5 dollars.
The next flight wasn't too interesting. I arrived in Phenom Penh after about 3 hours (catching the flight at 8:45). I went through immigration and customs without any problems. I went outside to find a guy holding a sign with my name on it, I felt really special (the good kind). The guy's name is Smith and he is awesome! I also met Rachel (another language corps student) and we became fast friends. Smith took us back to the hotel on what is called a tuk tuk. it is essentially a rickshaw lead by a motorcycle instead of a person. What a rush! We got to quickly see the city and it was beautiful. We got back to the hotel and were lead to our rooms. I got a room with 3 beds, a remote controlled AC and TV!!! I unpacked my stuff and went to lunch/dinner/??? with Rachel at 3:30.
This is where the culture shock set in. We sat in a relatively nice restaurant, outside within view of the river (it was very nice). What I mean by culture shock was the immense level of poverty that I saw during this time. Every so often a person would come by our table trying to sell something. These things ranged from books to movies to sunglasses. It was a sight to see and I didn't know what to make of it at first. I have reached a conclusion. Phenom Penh may have more poor and homeless people than I've ever seen in my life but they're doing something! They are actually trying to make a living for themselves and in a strange way, I respect that.
I returned home and watched some tv and dosed off around 6 and didn't wake until 12:15. I had a heck of a time falling asleep but eventually I did.
-end day 1-
I woke up at quarter to 6 and showered and got dressed. Then I fell BACK asleep (ugh) and woke up about 2 hours later. I opened my door and Rachel was standing there and we went to get breakfast/lunch/??? We went to a large mall that was about 5 minutes from the hotel. In the mall there were lots of American food selections ranging from KFC to burgers. The mall also had a grocery store in it (from which I bought a big bottle of water) and an arcade (worth checking out). We explored the mall thoroughly before settling on some food. I got a burger at a fast food place. It didn't quite hit the spot because it was probably real meat (gasp!). After I finished eating, Rachel decided to be adventurous and try some kind of ravioli soup stuff. The food court we went to was interesting. You buy food court coupons which is essentially your dollars turned into Riel or your Riel turned into food money. After we were full and content, we decided to head back.
This is where the adventure begins. I'll quote Rachel "lets not wander, we don't want to get lost". You know what happened? We got lost. Somehow when we left the mall we went in the exact opposite direction of the hotel. We wandered and wandered, and wandered some more before concluding that we were thoroughly turned around. It was very good having her there as I would have been terrified but during this whole thing she reassured me insisting that it was part of the adventure (and she was right). Eventually we got very tired and decided to flag down a tuk tuk. The man didn't speak a word of English... But Rachel showed him the card for the hotel and he seemed to know what he was doing, or did he (foreshadowing!)? He got turned around, twice, three times technically. First time he went the exact wrong direction, second time he went the wrong way on a street, and the third time he passed the hotel. After all was said and done we gave the guy 3 dollars and I returned to my room and watched a couple of crappy movies and fell asleep for about 3 hours.
I awoke to Rachel shouting "JORDAN!" I popped up and groggily stepped outside and we went back to the mall for dinner with ______ and ______ (so sorry, I forgot their names already) two more language corps students. We went back up to the food court and I decided to be adventurous and try some Ramen which cost approximately 2 dollars (wow!) Anticipating that it would be spicy (the broth was red...) I bought some juice to go with it. I have no idea what was in this juice but it was fantastic! It was like lime and coconut and orange or something strange like that but it was delicious! We talked for awhile, the two new guys told us about their adventure to Penom Penh's firing range...
Where apparently you can pay money to shoot coconuts. Or if you're really extreme, shoot an RPG (rocket propelled grenade), yikes. My dinner was delicious, hot but not too hot. We walked back to the hotel (we could actually find it!) and I tried to go on the internet and was successful thus explaining how this post was written. That's all for now, I am happy, I am having the time of my freaking life!
-end day 2-
Note: There is a lizard in my room, his name is Bob. I think Bob is a vegetarian because he won't eat the magically teleporting dead cricket that lives in my room.
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