Author: Sarah Gourevitch

This was by far my BEST day in Thailand.  Bridget and I wanted to visit an elephant park when we were in Thailand, but 99% of them treat the elephants in an inhumane way, using sticks and whips and hitting them.  We refused to go to a place like that.

The Elephant Nature Park was absolutely amazing.  It is a rescue and rehabilitation sanctuary for elephants in northern Thailand.  The elephants are not chained are able to roam free around the sanctuary.  Check it out at http://www.elephantnaturepark.org/.  It was all started by this wonderful woman, Lek.  I got to meet her, and she signed my book.  She even told me that a Texan donated all the land for the park.  Isn’t that cool?  They have 37 elephants and over 400 dogs.  What a perfect combination!  They also have some cats and water buffalo.

The dogs were chilling all over the sanctuary.  The dogs with the red ribbons are best to just look at and not pet.  But all the other ones just loved the attention and loved to be petted.

Our first experience with the elephants was being able to feed them from the platform.   They eat A LOT of food every day.  We got to feed her bananas and watermelon.

I love how she looks like she’s smiling.

Many of the dogs were rescued from the 2011 floods of Bangkok.

Gorgeous or what?  Each elephant has a mahout and stays with them.

What’s awesome about this place is that the guides know every single elephant by name and can tell you their story as well.  The elephants here have created their own little surrogate families and travel around the park together.  It was so incredible to see.  In fact, looking at these pictures is bringing tears to my eyes. I loved, loved, loved that place.  Such wonderful memories…

You can even sign up to volunteer here.  I met an older couple that had been volunteering here for a week and absolutely loved it.  You can volunteer with the elephants or the dogs.

The elephants here have such sad stories.  They have been made to use for logging, mining, begging on streets, and even trekking for tourists (when people ride in “baskets” on their backs…yes, you see this everywhere and you will understand later why it’s bad).  Money is raised so Lek can buy the abused elephants and bring them here.

At most places in Thailand (in fact practically every place), the handlers have a large steel hook to jab the elephants when they don’t follow directions.  They do not use hooks here or anything like that.  The handlers each have a specific elephant and they form very strong relationships with them.  It was truly magical to see.

So let me tell you about these 2 sweet elephants.  Jokia was in the logging business.  She was pregnant, dragging a log up a mountain.  She went into labor, and her handler made her keep working.  The baby was born and sadly rolled down the hill, still in the placenta.  She stopped to check on her baby, refusing to move further.  That made her handler mad so he shot her in the eye with a sling shot.  Several years later, he stabbed her in the other eye when she made him mad.  She was then blind in both eyes and no more use to her handler.  Lek rescued her and brought her to the sanctuary.  They were worried about her at first, not knowing how she would do in the herd, if she would be able to trust anyone.  Well, she met Mae Perm, the other elephant, who “adopted” her and took her under her wing, always guiding her around the sanctuary through touch and low rumbles.  They are now inseparable.  Because I am teaching at a blind school, this story really really touched me.  In such a profound way.  I even bought a wood carving of the two of them together.  I will never forget their story.

He was a special elephant, not quite ready to join a herd since he wanted to be in charge.  Such a teenager.

This is the clinic where the elephants got treated.

This sweet elephant had a boo-boo, an absess, that was getting treated.

An elephant’s tooth.  Bridget and I were in a group of 9 (each group there had only 9 people), and we were with 7 friends from London.  They were a fun group.

Check out that awesome mouth!

It’s lunch time.  We had a buffet.

The dogs know where to go to get food from the mahouts.

Naps after lunch time.

This sweet elephant has a broken hip, a broken leg, and a broken back.  Guess how her back was broken?  From trekking….having people ride her back in a basket.  I never knew this was harmful to elephants.  Never knew.  She looks like she’s in pain, but she’s doing fine.

This smart elephant had an itch and got a stick to scratch herself.  Smart elephant!

I just loved their ears and their eyes.  So expressive and loving.

Bath time!  Bathing is a daily ritual here at the park.  Elephants keep themselves cool by bathing in the river.  That’s one of the great things about this sanctuary.  It really mirrors their natural habitat.  We fed our sweet granny elephant while we bathed her.  As long as she was eating, she didn’t care what else you did.

Check out the elephant’s foot on the right.

Her foot was mutilated from a land mine.  They often used elephants to check out an area beforehand.  She gets around OK.  It made my heart hurt though.

Time to see the baby!

Elephants are very protective of the babies and ALWAYS protect it.  It’s so awesome to see.

When the baby makes a noise or gets startled or scared, the other elephants completely surround it to show the baby that it’s safe.  LOVE!

Snack time

How. Cute. Is. That?

The baby’s handler

In the gift shop, this sweet dog has the perfect spot for a nap.

Reminds me of Kobe…

In the afternoon, our guide took us to the dog shelter area.  Dogs that live there roam free around the park, and dogs that are available for adoption live in the shelter areas.  And to answer your question, yes, they adopt out to countries all over the world.

The brown one in front was THE sweetest dog.  I wanted to adopt him right then and there.  He is paralyzed in his two back legs and scoots all the place on the shiny floor.

Here are his wheels…

Scooting across the shiny floor…

The dogs had the best set up here.  Seriously.  They had places to sleep, explore, chill, and run.  Hay is used for their bedding.

He wanted to play SO bad with his next door neighbors.

Now, we’re in the BEST part of the dog shelter.  This place was awesome.  They even had a pond for the dogs to go swimming, and boy, did they love to swim.

Bridget getting some doggie love…

Me getting some doggie love…

This dog was a little scared of people, so he stayed in his little hiding spot.

This dog cracked me up. Just look at him!

I was NOT ready to leave.  I could have easily stayed there with the dogs several more hours.  Can you tell that I desperately miss my dogs?

Closing the gate… 🙁

The dogs are saying good-bye

One of the volunteers walking a dog

It’s a three-legged baby!  Like my Kobe!  And Angel…

This is the main area at the park.  Notice dogs are just anywhere and everywhere.  I loved it.

Good-bye elephants.  Good-bye dogs.  Good-bye Elephant Nature Park.

If you ever make it to Thailand, I urge you to visit this amazing park.  Words cannot describe just how incredible and awe-inspiring it is.

On Wednesday morning, I went on a field trip with the elementary classes.  It was one of THE best field trips I have ever been on.  It was SO much fun!

We went to O World in Daejeon, which an amusement park.  They have several different parts to the park, including flower world, rides, and a zoo.  We didn’t ride any rides, although a couple of them were open.  We were going sledding down a fake snow hill.  And it started snowing before we left, so that was pretty cool.

They may call it sledding here in Korea, but back home we would call it tubing.

You had to walk up these “stairs” which were difficult for the blind kiddos.  You got a tube and drug it up to the top of the snow hill.

These inner tubes were not necessarily designed for adults with normal sized booties.  My booty didn’t quite fit.  But I never fell out so that’s good.

We had been there for a while when a group of young children showed up.  They were so cute, but they sure did take a while getting up the hill.

After going up and down the hill 9 times (yes, I felt like a big kid), we went downstairs and had a snack of ramen noodles, crackers, and cookies.

All the rides looked sad in the winter.

In the afternoon, we had our older class.  One of the teachers sent his son to our class.  He is 9 years old and very smart.  Cute personality too.

Gayong had me start the class since she was going to be late.  I taught them Hot Potato, and they absolutely loved it.  We couldn’t stop laughing.  Gayong was SO surprised at how much fun they had that now she wants to truly work together next semester.  We shall see….

The guy in the blue is 27 years old and has a genetic eye disease.  He is coming back to school, particularly our blind school, so that he can go to college and become a special education teacher.  I’m not really sure why he had to come back to school when he has already graduated.

Some other pictures from this week…

I got a package from my sister!  Woo-hoo!  Here are the goodies I got…

One day, Gayong took her winter camp class and myself to this little coffee shop that is run by students with intellectual disabilities.  It is located in the school which is right next to ours.   It was really cool.

Walking into lunch one day, I saw two of my elementary school students holding hands.  Is that sweet or what?

So yesterday, I went to the hospital for my bi-weekly appointment.  In fact, I have good news to share.  My back is better, my hips are more aligned, and I don’t have to come twice a week anymore.  I only have to come once a week.  Woo-hoo!  Also, my doctor has noticed that there is a lot less fat around my waist.  Now that’s good news.

So back to my story, I had to walk 20 minutes to the subway station and then take the subway to the hospital.  It was cold.  Like really cold.  The temperature was 27 degrees, but it actually felt like it was 18 degrees.  So did I care that I wore brown boots with black pants?  Not.  One.  Bit.

Today was my last day of winter camp.  Yeah!  So in my 5th/6th grade class, we had a little party to celebrate.  We played balloon toss with rackets and then had shrimp pizza.  Yes, Domino’s has shrimp pizza.  I have never before in my life tried shrimp pizza, but it actually wasn’t bad.  It was a lot better than the potato pizza.

Since I have the largest apartment out of all my friends, I got to host Christmas at my place.  Now if you know anything about me at all, then you would know that I was super excited to do this since it’s right up my alley.  My spiritual gift is hospitality, and I LOVE to have people over.

The apartment is all set and decorated for the peeps to come over!

Patrick and Michael are twinkies.  Aren’t they cute?  And no, they didn’t plan it…although I secretly think they did.

Of course, the girls were in the kitchen and the boys were chillin’ in the living room.  If a football game would have been on TV, that would have been perfect for them.

Amanda was teaching Bola how to salsa.

Check out ALL the coats!

We were pretty crammed into my living room, but it was all good.

My little kitchen is definitely getting used today!

They rocked it by having an assembly line making plates of food.

Yum!

Melissa found a little corner on my bed to sit.

When in Korea, you leave your shoes at the door.  That’s a lot of shoes!

Time for Dirty Santa!

James got some great gifts!  Of course they were all “girl” gifts.  These were stolen several times.

In Korea, a big tub of peanut butter is an excellent gift!  And it was stolen from Julie.

Then James got some adorable ear muffs…which was stolen.

“Hope is the thing with feathers. That perche in the soul. And sings the tune with out the words, and never stops at all.”  Konglish CRACKS me up!  It actually cracks us all up.  We could make a fortune if only they would ask us to proofread things.

That’s a lot of people!

Of course, we had to do a funny picture!

I had a fantabulous Christmas!  In fact, I couldn’t have asked for a better one here in Korea.  I said the prayer before our meal, and I even choked up which surprised me.  I am SO incredibly grateful for these people in my life over here.  It’s hard to leave your family and friends and move halfway across the world to another country.  My new friends have really helped with the transition, and I know I’m not the only one who thinks that.  There’s something about being all put in the same situation away from everything you know to bond you all together.

On Christmas Eve, my school had a Christmas program.  It started off with a middle school boys handbell choir.  Boy, this game me BIG warm fuzzies because it immediately made me think of my mom ringing handbells at the handbell choir at church.  She LOVED being a part of the handbell choir.  I even had her buried with her handbell gloves, so she could play in the handbell choir in heaven.  These handbells were very different than the handbells back home,  but they sounded the same.  Now can you see middle school boys in America play in the handbell choir?  I think not.

Then a little skit by high school students.  The girl in red is the cutest thing.  She is so sweet and personable, and she’s not even my student.

These are students from my elementary classes.  They are all blind.

The high school students danced with the blind students, and it was SO cute!

These are the youngest kiddos at our school.  The girl in the middle is Gia, and I want to take her home with me.  She is absolutely precious.  She is the only student in kindergarten and therefore has her teacher (the lady standing behind her) all to herself.  Every time I see her in the hallway, I say hi.

These are 2 of my students, and they are both blind.  The boy is autistic as well and loves to move his hands and “direct” music.  I love it.

He was getting down!

He got so into playing the drums that the drum set started to move.  So a teacher came up and anchored it.

One of my middle school students.

OK…this guy was absolutely amazing!  Turns out he is going to college to study opera music.  He will do very well.  I could have listened to him for hours.

Now for the “funny” part of the show.  Apparently, Koreans LOVE  the movie, Titanic.  Like LOVE.  So the students (and one of the teachers) put on a Titanic play.  Now there were only 2 parts of this play that I recognized from the movie…when they hit the iceberg and when Jack died (although in their play a boy was leaning over Jack).   I mean do you remember a water gun being in the Titanic?  Cause I sure don’t!

I enjoyed it, especially considering I’ve never ever taught on Christmas Eve or even been at school.

Koreans don’t give Christmas gifts, but I wanted to give something to my co-teachers (all the teachers in the 1st floor office) and then something to my co-teacher, Gayong.  I had bought a blanket to use at school and even had another small blanket that the previous teacher had left.  About two months ago, Gayong asked to borrow them, and I never got to use them again.  So Julie gave me the great idea of getting her a blanket for Christmas.  And that is exactly what I did.  She LOVED it!

She uses it every day now and constantly tells me how much she likes it.  I did good.

My friend, Bridget, asked if I wanted to meet her in Daegu to go to the dog shelter.  Of course, I said yes.  I just love this little shelter and seeing the dogs.  Loving on the dogs fills my heart like nothing else.  It was pretty cold outside so we didn’t stay long, but we got to play with the dogs and love on them which was the important thing.  I wish I could take each one out of their cage and spend time with them.  I pray that they get adopted soon.  In fact, Bridget was going there to start the adoption proceedings on the little dog she had walked on the dog walk the last time we were there.  However, the dog had been adopted.  Good for the dog but sad for Bridget.  I know God will send her the right dog at the right time.

Enjoy the doggie pictures!

So which one is your favorite?

If you would like to know more about how you can help the dog shelters in Korea, please check out this website.  All these dogs are available for adoption (yes, they fly the dogs all over the world), and donations are always welcome.  Thank you!  http://www.animalrescuekorea.org/

Doing laundry in Korea is well….interesting.  It’s VERY different than back home in the states.  For one thing, there is NO dryer.  I repeat.  NO dryer.  You have to hang your laundry on the drying racks.  It wouldn’t be so bad if the washer didn’t beat your clothes senseless.  And the lint!  The lint goes anywhere and everywhere.  It’s supposed to be caught in these little lint catchers.  Check it out.

Look at all that lint!

And then you put it in the lint basket.

Since there is no dryer, you have to hang everything.  The sheets are too big for the drying rack, so I hang them on the door.  It works.

Aren’t you glad you have a dryer at home?  I will definitely be grateful for mine when I move back home!

Last Wednesday to Friday were final exams.  I didn’t have any classes except I had to read the English to Mina and Seora for their exam.  And then they wanted to sing and dance with me so we had an hour of singing and dancing.

Gayong texted me that teachers often leave early one of the final exam days to go do something together.  She invited me to come along.  We went to the movies to see About Time with Rachel McAdams.  Oh.  My.  Goodness.  What an amazing movie.  You absolutely must go see it.  I laughed.  I cried.  I laughed and cried again.  Again, please go see it.  I totally want to see it again.

The movie theater

After the movies, we went to dinner.  This place was not MY choice.  It was an octopus dinner.  I took videos on my phone, but I cannot upload them for some reason.  It’s a Samsung, and I cannot for the life of me figure it out.  In the video, you would see that the octopus goes in the pot alive.  Yes, alive.  All wiggling about.  Slowly it dies as it gets hotter and hotter.

The octopus is hiding.  Yeah, I would be too.

While it’s still alive, she chops it up.  I’m not kidding.

It’s still wiggling.

One of my co-workers had the exact same feeling as me.  It was awful.  She didn’t even want to look.

All chopped up in the soup.

Also, in the video, you would see one of the guys take the octopus head and cut it open so that all the black ink comes out.  Their soup turned completely black.  It was disgusting.  With that, I thought of and finally understood in Finding Nemo, when Inky says, “Ahh. You guys made me ink.”

My Christmas tree is all decorated, and I am all ready for Christmas to be hosted at my place.  Yep, that’s right.  About 15-20 people are coming over for Christmas lunch to my apartment.  I am so excited to be hosting!  It’s a potluck, so everyone is bringing a dish and a gift for our Chinese gift exchange.  I also have a couple Christmas movies if we want to watch them.

Last Saturday, we all went out to celebrate Saree’s (she’s on the right) birthday.  We went for Shabu Shabu and then to the Santa Claus bar to listen to some Irish music.

Check out her houseshoes…

Too bad I don’t like mushrooms because there were a lot of mushrooms.  They sure were pretty though!

Carlos being silly…

Everyone putting their shoes back on after dinner…

Santa Claus…I didn’t know this beforehand, but the guy in maroon playing the accordion is one of our fellow EPIK teachers.  Pretty cool, huh?

Two Korean women even got up and started Irish dancing.  It was so cool!

When in an Irish pub, one has to get Guiness.  James paid 8,000 (about $8) for his glass of Guiness.

Is the bridge beautiful or what at night?

Last Sunday night, we went to an orchestra concert.  One of Melissa’s co-teachers plays the violin in the orchestra and gave her several free tickets.  It was a good evening.  It would have been even better without the long Korean speeches and off-pitch flutist and violinist.  Man, were they off pitch.  So much that it made mine and Ashlee’s eyebrows go up.  We would just look at each other.  She told me afterwards that she had to stop looking at me because she would have cracked up.

Saree was REALLY hungry since she hadn’t had dinner, so she ate Pepero sticks that Ashlee gave her.

The one thing that was a little odd was that there was no bass in this orchestra, so it sounded a little high.  I missed the bass.

This flute soloist was SO good, and her dress was just gorgeous.

Julie and I went for a Costco run last week.  Costco is absolutely marvelous. http://kikinitinkorea.tumblr.com/post/31373166161/going-to-costco-in-korea

Of course we had dinner there because it IS the best pizza in Korea.

I saw a couch and HAD to test it out.  The last couch I sat on was my own back in August.  In my apartment, I sit on my couch aka second bed….which by the way, is as hard as a rock.  It is a Korean mattress after all.  They are NOT known for their softness that’s for sure.  I could have sat here for hours.  Literally.  Btw….I’m not sure what was up about the color of the picture.

Hello Mr Nutcracker!

Anyone want some corn silk tea?  Anyone?  It tastes like tea but with a funky not-so-good taste.  I much prefer Lipton.

El Paso!

Never have Julie and I been so happy to see Pace picante sauce.  At home, we would have been whatever.  But in Korea?  Hand it over.  Now.

Oh come to mama, you yummy apple pie!

Oh. My. Gosh. These cinnamon rolls looked SO good.

Cheesecake?  Yes, please.

Walnut pie instead of pecan pie.  It’ll do.

This, however, will NOT do.  Why do they all look like they’re still alive and have this weird expression on their face?

This pup was hanging outside the Costco with a tag around his neck.  We weren’t sure what it said.  Gorgeous dog!

Anytime I am missing home, I go to Costco.  It’s THE closest thing I can go to that reminds me of America.  And even that, they don’t have a lot of the same American products (no Goldfish crackers, Rice Krispies, Pop-Tarts, Cheetos, etc).

Btw…I’m sure several of you are wondering what it’s like to try on clothes here in Korea.  Let me tell you…I went shopping the other day and wanted these legging things with a skirt attached which is all the rage in Korea.  They are all “free” size, which means one size fits all.  Hah!  Only if you’re a tiny size 2-4 Korean girl.  So I asked for the big size.  I tried it on, and this was literally how I looked.  Just click on the link.
http://kikinitinkorea.tumblr.com/post/36701854535/trying-on-clothes-in-korea

This tumblr blog by the way is absolutely the BEST and FUNNIEST way ever to describe what living in Korea is truly like.  I see some of these and literally shout out loud “YES!”

My friend, Bridget, found out that I was going to be in Deagu for the weekend and asked if I wanted to join her on a dog walk for the shelter.  My answer was YES, YES, YES!!!

I met Bridget at the shelter, the Korean Animal Protection Society, or ARK.  Here is the shelter.

Here is some dog cages in the same lot.  I thought they were part of the shelter and sat down and talked to and loved on one of the dogs, but I later found out they these dogs belong to someone else, and sadly they are not treated very well.  No wonder why the dog loved the attention I gave him!

Is he not gorgeous?

He was the sweetest dog.  Never barked.  Just looked at my while I talked to him and gave me lots of licks.  I hope I made his day better.

Now we are inside the shelter.  Here are some small doggies…this first one just shivered and shivered.  Apparently she is an old girl at about 13 years old.

Out in the “yard”…all these dogs stay together in their big kennel inside and then play together outside.  They have friends which makes me feel good.

Now this one refused to be picked up…would run backwards when you tried.  However, he/she (didn’t get the gender) LOVED to pose for pictures!

Bridget with one of the cuties.  This one thumped the tail over and over when I talked to it.

How cute is this terrier?

Here is the one I fell in love with as the day went on…

See?  Posing again!

Saying “hi”…

Gorgeous or what?

This man was not very bright although his heart was in the right place.  He brought a couple of huge bones for the dogs to share.  This caused almost fights between the big white dog and the little dogs and therefore had to be watched and separated.

Posing again!  Beautiful markings…

The bigger dogs inside the shelter…

My little love…

Completely sacked out…

The dogs I took on the walk….all harnessed and ready to go!

Everyone waiting to leave…

Starting our walk…we walked the dogs through the city, to the park, and then around the park and back home again.  It was absolutely wonderful.  The goal of dog walks is to give the dogs some exercise, let the people know about the dogs in the shelter, and provide opportunities for people to meet the dogs and interact with them since many Koreans do not know how to interact with dogs and are fearful of them.

The little one in pink on the left kept laying down in the street on our walk.

This one got carried the whole time.  Content as can be…

Are they not the cutest things ever?

The greyhound that’s at the shelter…they have someone in Canada that wants to adopt her, but she needs to be in a foster home for 4 weeks where she can gain some weight, get crate trained, and get her health certificate.  I totally would if I wasn’t in my apartment.  Many landlords here do not let you have dogs.

At senior citizen central, where they congregate and play games…

There are no words…

Beautiful fall leaves…

Someone wanted to be carried…

Meeting and interacting with new people…

Gorgeous…

Meeting more people…

And more people…

Gorgeous husky…

Bridget’s in love…

And so is the dog…

On our way back to the shelter, this car stopped to say “hi”.

Haha! We look like a couple adopting a baby.  Too funny!

This was one of THE best days I’ve had in Korea.  Walking around the city and in the park, with a friend, and with dogs….perfect combination.  I can’t wait to do it again!