Hello from Korea - sorry it's been a bit. I'm in the airport on the way back to D.C.

A quick update: Chiangmai rocked - it's such a cool little city, and after being in the south for so long, it was awesome to explore another part of Thai culture. Our hostel was right in the heart of the old city, and we got to see a real mashup of different cultures: monks doing construction work, elephants walking into bars etc.

We moved on to Sukhothai, about halfway between Changmai and Bangkok, for about a day. Sukhothai can be explained like this: we went looking for the market after dinner, only to discover that the "famous" market is so small we had eaten in the midst of it and didn't even realize.

Then we took a night bus right on to Bangkok, possibly the most overwhelming city ever, except that the foreign ministry got wind that American journalism students were in town, and assigned some university students to take us all over the city. A sweet deal, since all our meals, entrance fees, taxis and tuk tuk rides were on the foreign ministry, plus we got the inside deal on all things Thai. I also discovered that you can fit four thais and two Americans in a tuk tuk, which, if you've ever seen America's Next Top Model (holler), I never thought was possible. (picture of a motorcycle zooming through the market near our hostel).



My friends left Bangkok yesterday (today? two days ago? I'm so confused) early in the afternoon - they're headed to Vietnam - so I spent the day at Siam Square, sort of like the Times Square of Bangkok. I had no idea that yesterday was some sort of rock concert/student art fair, but when I arrived via bus at Siam Square, Thai fashion students were laying out their wares - strangely decorated purses, handmade leather wallets, earrings fashioned out of all kinds of metal etc. etc. Bangkok's crazy malls were so completely different from southern Thailand, where everyone wears fisherman pants and old flip flops.

Ok gotta find some food before I hop on my next flight. By the way, I'm sending this from the bathroom. Who knew Seoul's airport had such great wireless?

Julie