Are You Kamphey Approved?

For additional reading please check out these Peace Corps Volunteers maintaining blogs all across Mongolia.

Frequent Visitor: Trip Edington blogs at MrSillyInc.blogspot.com. He blogs once a month with massive updates on the minutie of Peace Corps Life and the many other volunteers he hangs out with and travels with across Mongolia.

Friendly Face: Nathan and his wife Leslie provide commentary on living in Mongolia

Nice Photos at Skyetalk

He knows his websites:  Travis has been interviewed by “So You Want My Job?” and has great writing.

Big Man around the Apartment:  Brandon maintains a blog and just went on a trip to Cambodia.

Another Big Man around town and Newsie hater: Matt Becker has photos and his personality to prove that Mongolia really will bend under his death stare.

Those blogs should keep you busy reading for a while so that I may go and plan a BBQ by the River this afternoon.

Got to the gate for my final leg of the trip with two hours to spare.  Within this mile long terminal there are exactly two cleaners and four other people who may or may not be going to Mongolia.  One man is sleeping at the wrong gate, One girl is going to Korea and lost her way, and there is one indistinct person sitting right in front of the gate, presumably they are indeed heading to Mongolia.

The 12 hour flight across the Pacific was not as tortorous as I predicted.  I can only speak for myself as I regaled the stewardesses with Hershey’s Kisses and tried to talk to one about the cities she has visited in her five years as an Air China Stewardess.  She kept thinking I was asking her how long the flight was when I was really asking her how long she has been working as a Stewardess.

The Man I sat next to was a nice middle aged Chinese Engineer who lives in the Irvine area of Los Angeles.  He slept for a good 8 hours of the trip and the rest of the time dozed off in a fetal position.  Thank the heavens above or the fact that I have an insane number of flights the past two months, I finally got a three seat row with only two people.  I requested the aisle the whole time so i could drink plenty of liquids and do the dirty deed that goes with drinking water. Also needed to walk around to avoid blood clots.  It was the best choice I made.  The entire plane was about 99% full as there were about two other seats not taken but something said Chosen One like an empty middle seat.  Oh and the Kosher meals must have helped.

When talking with Brian about booking these flights He asked me what meal I wanted. You know the regular chicken beef, or seafood.  I think I made the joke that I wanted Kosher AFTER I said Chicken.  But whatever happened I had a special meal request and there were Kosher meals for the flight for me.  It was quite an experience.  First the plastic packaging was really tough so I had to hack at it with a Pen after fumbling around with it for five minutes.  After that I tore into the stuff not realizing that it was Breakfast.  Finally I read the package and found it was Blueberries wrapped in Pancakes.  The Blueberries were huge and the pancake was brittle, fell apart as I stabbed at it with a fork.

I felt too embarrassed to admit that I wasn’t actually kosher so I ate the whole thing while a wonderful Publix Cuban Sub sat in my bag waiting for everyone to turn their heads away.  I didn’t get the chance until now to eat the final Cuban.  The mushy greatness that is 24 hour old cheese and ham.

IT was a nice surprise when 6 hours later they served a dinner meal.  This time it was a nondescript piece of meat that I can maybe put into the Meatloaf category if pressed to. Reading the kosher instructions I had to make sure I hadn’t drank milk within the last 6 hours.  Thankfully I don’t drink Milk at all (Allergic).

Now I have two hours to spare so I’ll tear into the Publix sub.   Kosher be damned!

Among the Internationals

Met a nice ad designer on my flight from Atlanta to LAX.  Arrived at LAX and followed a Chinese Man to the international terminal.  He arrived at China Airlines.  I was supposed to be at Air China in Terminal 2.  I tell a desk agent I believe I’ve made a terrible mistake.  “yes, yes you have” she responds.

Apparently I was in the unnumbered international terminal.  How could I have known that since there was no number?  After bidding my friends farewell and traipsing 1/3 of the way around the airport, I had to again travel another 1/3 of the airport to get to Terminal 2, an actual number with actual signs.  Of course everything would have been fine if I had looked at a map and seen that Terminal 2 was just a little jaunt across the parking lot and not around the entire 6 acre parking garage situated smack dab in the middle of this monstrosity of an  Airport.  But I would have also been one story short this early morning.

Found out that the dial on my wrist watch has rusted shut and I am no longer able to change time.  But this works out well since Mongolia will be 12 hours different, so my watch will be correct when I arrive.  Right now between it being 3:30 am or 12:30 am if I did my math right, and sniffling with hay fever, I can’t do my math very well and can’t figure out if I”m an hour early or an hour late to the terminal.  I feel like I’m at a casino. (as in this place is noisy and has no clocks).

only way to travel

It’s a reality.  I’ve finally arrived at the airport, got through security in 10 minutes and have just an hour to wait to board the first leg of the trip.  Tampa, FL to Atlanta, GA. Arriving at the airport I wrote down a few of the Last things I did in America in my new trusty Field Notes.  Don’t worry, I’m not leaving for good, as I’ve said don’t know when I’m coming back, 6 months, 12 months, 3 months? Follow along and find out.

Last Extended Family Seen: Grandma and Grandpa Trow.

Last American Theme Park:  a day at Busch Gardens.  Florida is way too hot to do anything during the day.  Even the water wasn’t cool enough to cool us down.  The water mostly smelled old.  Along with Elephant Dung and my own sweat, you can imagine the amazing time my nostrils had.

Last Letter Mailed:  To Genevieve Beller, Had to repay the quarters I forgot to give back to her after the day at Busch Gardens.

Last Meal:  Applebee’s,  A good ole American heart stopping A1 Smokehouse Burger that I’m sure will haunt me for the next 28 hours of travel.

Last Phone Call: Aunt Pam.  A few minutes before leaving phone in America.  Note: this was the first time she found out I was going to Mongolia.  And I left the phone on purpose, not accidentally.

Last TV Show Watched: Law & Order,  Watched a random episode on the DVR.

Last Hug: Father Kamphey, the dad not the priest.

2nd to Last Hug: Mama Kamphey, the Mom not the star of Big Mama’s House, Martin Lawrence.

The picture here is of the Kyokushu Tower in the heart of Ulaan Baatar.  I’m still unsure of how many A’s are in the spelling of the capital but will try to find out once I’m there.  Maybe it would better if I stick with UB.   Will you understand if I just say “in UB there is..?” I hope you will because I’m not waiting for  a response before moving on to other topics of discussion.

Near the top on the 15th floor is the office in which I will be working for most of my stay in Mongolia.  Here is the office of BTV.  The tv station I keep telling you I am going to work for.  I have finally located a website of theirs but unfortunately it is in Mongolian.  No use to my English speaking friends.  But go ahead and take a look at the lovely world graphic and some photos of a Mongolian festival.  In actuality I don’t know if it’s a Mongolian festival or even if it’s a festival.  It’s a picture of some sort of ceremony of something in some country. Wonderfully specific, eh?

I have found the Arts Council of Mongolia.  And to my dismay they merely have the Calender of Events for May.  Last checked July 8th. But at least it tells me they have many art galleries, a State Opera and Ballet theater, many clubs, An American Center for Mongolian Studies, the aforementioned Ex-Pat Theater Company is performing Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Of course they chose the worst Earnest movie of them all.  Even worse than Ernest goes to Africa and Ernest goes to Splash Mountain, the last one only made for TV and features Ernest becoming a “Splashtranaut.”  That’s almost as bad as my idea for a Blaxplotiation film called Afronauts.

My one night in Chicago proved to be a great escape from the frigid cold shoulder of Michigan.   Before heading back to Florida to accept my fate of world travels I got to high tail it around my favorite city, Chicago.  Meeting up with buddy of all friends and foes alike, Jamison Webb, who has recently been sharing his musings at his own damn blog.

We caught a 7:30 pm showing of Whatever Works. the new woody allen movie I’ve been frothing at the lips to see.  Larry David and Woody Allen, together at last, how could this go wrong?  I was so right.  How could this thing have gone so terribly wrong?  Because nothing was right.  The script was dusted off from decades ago, it shows.  The casting wasn’t special, it shows.  The editing lacked, it shows.  The performances were haphazard at best, it shows.   Larry David had a smirk on his face near the end of nearly every shot.  Even though there was the premise that his character knew we were watching… it didn’t give him the right to not take anything he himself said seriously.  The way the Office works is that they don’t break.  Coming from an improv background I can easily tell when those on stage or on film aren’t into what they are doing.  They don’t necessarily break but they bend.  This was pure breaking.  As Jamison says… it seems that Larry David forgot his lines then remembered half way through.  If you’ve seen any of his stand up you can see that this is a direct result of his way of performing.

Curb Your Enthusiasum gets away with Larry David’s lack of focus because the shots are very tight.  Scenes sometimes take but one or two lines of dialogue.   Woody had Larry doing minutes of monologues and carrying scenes that go from amusement to heart break.  That an actor actually needs to use his skills to get from one place to another.  Larry David hasn’t had to do that.  Even his writing, mainly seinfeld, was sitcom, it wasn’t feature length.   And if you want to go back to his feature length try.  Sour Grapes.  Has anyone seen this film? It’s mediocre at best.  His writing doesn’t allow him to carry on emotional scenes of any degree.  It’s always about the plot.  Too bad Whatever Works had a thin plot at best.  The only thing propelling the story were surprise entrances by characters who would eventually take to the title and theme of the film like moths to their death at the hands of a Zapper.

I say this will all love of Woody Allen.  In fact his latest movies I’ve seen have been wonderful and far better than the last 10 years.  I was very excited over this film and may be why it has fallen so far in mine eyes.   The title seems to be psychic now.  Like he just chose this script out of a pile of whatever.  A bunch of words, works, that just happen to be films in waiting.  “Whatever Works.”   But this film does do one very great thing.  It has given me more energy to write my own works.  My own “Whatever Works.”   It doesn’t matter if they are bad, just that they are done.  That they are your legacy.  We’ll have Woody Allen films for years, decades, after he is gone.  We have MJ songs now for the next few years to not remember MJ with, but to remember his legacy.  To remember the songs he brought us in our youth, teens, 20’s, however old you were when you heard MJ sing. or watch Woody be Woody.

I’ve been trying my hardest to have positive thinking through the process of getting a job in South Korea.  Once I decided to do this it was on.  Fortunately I had a friend who would share the work of researching and eventually getting a job in South Korea.  He was there through it all until this past week when he decided that he needs to stay home for a bevy of reasons from Family to Friends to Career.  It must be said that I see the warning signs but I’m disengaging the brakes from ever working and I’m going to run with this South Korea thing.

For the past week I’ve been talking to Footprints Recruiting. I had an interview with them on Tuesday and then Wednesday night they informed me that I will be contacted by their placement department which is Ben.  He’s a nice fellow for at least the 10 minutes we talked about where I wanted to go in South Korea.  “Busan, Only Busan, I don’t want to go to Seoul, Don’t bother sending me any job descriptions outside of Busan.  Oh and by the way, Ben, if that is really your name.  Don’t try to trick me into some other city like the last two recruiters I talked to.”

A note about the other two recruiters.  They did in fact get my many emails describing the things I wanted. Like to teach in Busan.  But they have been very nice but then only sent me job descriptions for jobs in Seoul, or Deagu, or 40 kilometers away from Busan.  I’m sorry but I don’t want to go to South Korea to live in the Suburbs. That’s what I’m getting away from here in middle ‘Merica.

So I also had an interview set up for Monday with a director. She was very nice but we talked for merely 10 minutes when it was clear that she had other plans and was not interested in me but did not want to say it.  It took me three days and five emails to finally get a response from the recruiters who got me that interview. They said the director was going with two teachers who were already in Korea.  Okay that’s the first interview so I didn’t have much invested.  The 2nd interview of the week went fine as I said before with Footprints recruiting.

In my random research this week I’ve discovered a network of blogs. One blog was utterly amazing by a large black man living in korea. But what got me was his enormous opus on dating in Korea. It describe exactly what I went through with a Japanese girlfriend. He pinpointed the exact reason we were together and why we ended up breaking up. It was incredible that it was a product of cultures and not actually anything special that I thought it was. He’s a great blogger and has photos. His blog has given me about four hours or more of reading material and I’m not even scratching the immense amount of material on his blog. I have read both articles that excited me and scared me.  One post about random beatings of foreigners mutated into me sweating and searching for more info on these supposed attacks.  It ends up that they are few and far between but to expect both reverence and demeaning attitudes from Koreans.

Just today I found a little blog with a few pictures that once more got me excited about going to Korea. Lee’s Korea Blog offered a couple strange pop culture references for Americans.  Yes this is in fact short for Uncle Tom’s Cabin.   It’s a country bar in Seoul.  It will have to be on my list of places to have at least one drink when I eventually visit Seoul.

The other item is a Kenny Rogers… not roasters but… Karaoke Bar.  It’s the first picture in the post and about 10 minutes of googling I might have stumbled upon the fact that it may be a front to prostitution.

I’ll let you know more of the process and I’ll also have a post about my trying to cook Korean style. Like I’ve created a fusion recipe I call Korean BBQ Turkey Burgers.

I’d like to announce yet another Kamphey.com venture. WTHTVWLS.wordpress.com explores the world without vowels. There are quizzes to guess countries or films spelled without vowels.

Just posted a list of 10 films without vowels.

BST FLMS or Best Films for those who need vowels