Be Fearless, Travel Solo

Ajummas at the park with their trademark visors on.  Yes, this blog post is dedicated to South Korea’s favorite assertive little ladies, Ajummas! (say it with me now, Ah-jew-ma’s) Ajummas are the old ladies of Korea, notorious for their puffy- permed black hair, giant head visors, and decked out in glowing neon track suits or mismatching plaid and floral pants suits with fake sparkly rhinestones glued on. They like all that glitters. They also like nude colored rubber shoes and huge hand bags large enough to fit a small child that is usually stuffed with leftover kimchi, back-up head visors, and who knows what else. Now this is another Ajumma favorite, the face shield visor. They love to zig-zag their way through crowed people on the sidewalks, push you over as they make their way onto the buses or subways and talk, no yell, to their Ajumma friends. Do not be deceived, though they appear small and hunched over at the best of times, they can run faster than a c...

Playa Samara at sunset I was adding some sugar to my morning cup of coffee when the voice from my host Mom I lived with in Costa Rica popped into my head: "Ooh, la chica están una pequina hormiga!" "The girl is like a little ant!" Oh man and she is right. This girl never passed up a good Duncan Donuts or Diary Queen she didn't like. I remember Costa Rica last year, living on the ocean in Playa Samara, and skipping the coldness from last winter all together. For one precious month I got to call the ocean my home, and to an inland Midwesterner,  that is bliss! Then reality hit again when I took a teaching job in mountains three hours away from the ocean in a bustling town on the outskirts of San Jose called Heredia. It was difficult finding jobs anywhere else, let alone finding a school near a beach. (which would have been prime! but no.) I didn't want to end up in San Jose; I had heard to many stories about how high the crime rate was and ho...

Tenzin Choedron Dear Tenzin, It was the look in your eyes that first caught my attention when I saw your picture. I see a brave and kind looking women when I see your eyes. I only admire you more for how young you where when you carried out the act that you did. A monk from Kirti monastery said that you "spoke little, followed the rules, studied hard, got excellent grades." and "was smart as well as brave." You were the oldest of four siblings in a family of twelve. Most 18 year-old-girls were I am from are mainly pre-occupied about how popular they look, what college they will get into, and what boy will ask them to prom. Their concerns seem so pointless to me now. There is a nun in my family. Coming from an Irish family, my great aunt has served as nun for over 65 years in a Catholic nunnery. About three to four generations ago, when many Irish families immigrated to American towns such as Chicago and Boston, it wasn't uncommon for girls to become nu...

What Everyone Must Know. . . Right Now.  Friends and family back home, even with our first world education, I know of so many who could not point to Tibet on a map or find the location of Mt. Everest. I have friends who couldn't remember if Tibet was in Asia or not. I am going to guess the most Westerners know about Tibet goes no further than Brad Pitt and the   Seven Years in Tibet   movie. After the recent immolations and protests, however, Tibet is being shown more and more on international news these days. I hope this coverage keeps growing to become as mainstream as the coverage going on in Syria and the Arab Spring in the Middle East.  H ere is where Tibet is located, and here is a summary of what is going on in Tibet now, to best of my knowledge and research. After traveling here about a year ago, the country and its people have never left my head or my heart.  (*When I use the word 'China' throughout this post, I am referri...

When it was reported on Tuesday that Kim Jung-Il had died, Koreans all over Seoul stopped what they were doing and ran out of their offices in joyous celebration that this terrible dictator had finally died. There was rejoicing in the streets, confetti falling from the sky and fireworks going off from the roof tops and unicorns jumping of the. . . Coverage of Jong-Il's Death in an office building Just Kidding. . . Nothing happened. You would have thought the top news story of the day in Seoul was that Kimchi is considered a popular food in Korea. People went about the day the same as ever, all plugged into their smart phones and watching Korean talk shows and K-pop videos. The Ajummas (old Korean women) still pushed their way through the crowded streets, the plasma screen TV's all over the city didn't even show the news, no high alert warning, no heightened police troops on the streets, nothing. Had I not seen the BBC news that morni...