Scuba and moving

Well I had my first scuba course yesterday. We were in the water off and on for about 6 hours. Not quite what I expected. We are going through course work right now to become certified. It is an unreal experience breathing under water. I am not used to it yet. It will take some time. I get a bit freaked out and need to calm myself before I go under. When I am under, I use up a bit more oxygen than I should. I am a heavy breather anyway. One of my biggest problems is breathing out of my nose. I have to get used to being a mouth breather. I tend to flood my mask a bit more than I should. Though I now know how to unflood it underwater. Kinda a cool little trick. I would have to say I enjoyed it though. I have a few more classes to go before I am certified though.
We went through some skills that we might need while diving. We had to partially, then fully flood our masks and empty them, we also had to take off our masks for one minute, and put them back on and unflood them underwater. Other things we had to do were signals, switch from a snorkel to the respirator with our faces in the water, use a buddy's spare air respirator underwater for a minute. Clear our respirators of water so we wouldn't choke. That is just some of the skills we did on our first dive. That and setting up and tearing down our gear. Next weekend if the weather is good, we will be going again. Hopefully it will be better than last weekend. It was a bit rough out there for our first lesson.
Moving-I've been asking to move out of my apartment since I have seen it. Last Wednesday, I stayed at a friend's place on the south side of the island and the apartment was quite a bit bigger. The drive to work was shorter. So I asked if I can move down there and I have been given the okay. I am just waiting to hear back when I can move.

American Protests

For the past couple of days the nights have been a lit with candle light. The sounds of chants and shouts from the street have risen. Even on my tiny island of Jeju, these protests are getting larger and louder. Last night, while I was eating my BBQ after a horrific game of bowling. There came a parade of police followed by a 4 city block long group of protesters carrying candles and chanting slogans against American beef and the new Korean President Lee Myung-bak. The one here was small compared to the one in Seoul last night. The Seoul protest was over 1 million people strong. That is twice the population of my entire island. People are protesting all over the country.

This all started about a month ago. The new President Lee Myung-bak signed an agreement with the U.S., about beef imports to Korea. There were no limitations to the meat. In quality or quantity. He was just trying to lower beef prices for his people at home. It was also part of a larger free trade agreement between the two countries. An argreement that would have increased Korea's trade by an estimated $20 billion dollars. Korea used to be the US's third largest importer of beef. That was until the Mad Cow Scare of the 2003. Since that time the wealthier Asian countries have all baned US beef.

Now through the fear mongering of a few people, his entire cabinet have offered to stepped down. The fear mongers are saying that we will ship the lowest quality meat to Korea. I think grade E meat. Basically it is meat that we feed to dogs. While not entirely true, yes, some of the lower quality would be shipped here. But, some higher quality meat would also be shipped.

The fear mongers are warning people of the prevalence of Mad Cow Disease in American beef. They are especially worried about cows over 30 months of age. Apparently older cows are more susceptible to Mad Cow. The recent videos of American slaughter houses killing downer cows has not helped the situation.

Creekstone Farms Premium Beef, wanted to test all of it's cows for Mad Cow, and were blocked by the US FDA. Each animal costs about $20 to test. They were willing to do this, because Japan said it would buy the beef if it was tested. Other farmers are applauding the US FDA's block on Creekstone's testing, citing that it would cause consumers to ask too many questions and that consumers would start asking for more regulations. Creekstone Farms, has since had to lay off 50 people and still can not ship their beef to Japan. They are appealing the FDA's decision.

Horse, Fishes and Busan

Thursday, I went out with a couple of my friends for a feast of horse. I love horse meat. It is so tender and delicious. The horse here was unlike the horse I ate in Mongolia. Mongolians eat their horse cooked. Jejuians, like theirs raw. We ordered a set menu with a few different courses. The first course was thinly sliced raw meat. Quite tasty. The meat just melted in my mouth. So so good. The second course was a almost a ground meat, more stringy than ground. It was piled on a plate with a raw egg on top. It was drizzled with sesame oil and radish strips. Probably the best tasting part of the meal. The third part of the meal, I could have done without. It was steamed intestine. Intestine is something I have never enjoyed. It just has a strange flavor and texture. The next part of the meal was thin strips cooked on a hot stone. Also very good. The final course was a horse dumpling soup. Nice! The only other part of the meal was a tea that was made with the blood. At least that is what I think it was. That was.........ok.

Last weekend was a 3 day weekend, thanks to Memorial Day. I decided I needed a break from my island, and journeyed up to the mainland for a little break. So I went and visited some of my friends from orientation that live in Busan, just a short 45 min plane ride away.

I arrive Friday around 10. I go and ask for the bus to Busan and next thing I know it is an hour later. It should have been about 30 minutes to my friends house and I jump off the bus and have to hire a taxi. This was the wrong bus. It took me well out of my way. So this trip into the city that should not have cost me more than 7 dollars is now around 50, thanks to the fuckin Korean lady who was helping me. I arrive at my friends place and immediately take off for a baseball game. Korean Baseball is an experience. It was a holiday and they over booked the stadium. Standing room only. Not the best way to watch a game. But anyway, they chant all the time. Each player has their own chant. They put curses on the opposing teams pitchers Almost everyone in the stands had a pompom made out of newspaper. They are nuts. Everyone cheering in time. Busan was down from the first inning. I guess they aren't that great, but they made a small rally. That is when the orange plastic bags were brought out. They are filled with air and placed on top of the head. Strange rally caps, but when in Korea.

Following the game, we went back to my friends for a few drinks before heading out. Whilst in the city we decided to hit up this place called Dr. Fish. No not a restaurant. It is a place with fish baths. Basically these fish eat the dead skin off of your feet. Kinda tickled, but it makes the feet nice and soft. One of my friends decided to eat one of the fish for about $10. Kinda gross. Afterwords we went to a bar on the beach.

Saturday was spent shopping and sleeping, before going out for Marnie's birthday. We started with a tasty meal of spicy chicken. Following that we went to Fuzzy's We spent most of the night there. They had a fire show. I will try to upload the video, if I can. There we drank and danced on and behind the bar. Good good times. Following that we went to a club. The club sucked. Couldn't move, couldn't dance. So we didn't stay long. On the way to the next bar, Jason and John decided to wrestle. Jason is a big guy, strong big. He is a Maurrie, from New Zealand. If you watch Rugby and the All Blacks, they are the big fuckers. They look like muscular Samoans. They are going at it and somehow I get involved. Jason goes for a choke hold on me, and I manage to spin out of it and put him in one. Thinking he is going to tap out, I don't let up. Yeah he didn't tap out and I choked him out. I let up and his eyes are rolling in the back of his head. He came to in about 30 seconds and wanted to continue. But that was the last of it for John and me. Freaky freaky shit.

We had another drink at the beach bar and decided to call it a night, or morning as the case may be. John and I went out for breakfast and then called it. I woke up just in time to have a shower and head to the airport for the end of my weekend. Overall it was much needed and enjoyable. It is just taking me days to recover from it. I am not a young'n anymore.

Teaching and the like

I am now about 3 weeks into teaching at my new center. It is going pretty well. I have 3 classes a day, 4 days a week. I have my Mondays to plan. So they are my favorite day. That's right I like Mondays. My 3 classes are E1, or Elementary 1, E3 and M1, middle school 1. My E1 and E3 classes are great. Easy classes to teach and a lot of fun.

I have noticed a design flaw in my room. The chairs are way too big for most of my students, and they are on wheels. Who ever decided to get chairs with wheels for kids was an idiot and should die a slow painful death. They spend more time rolling around on them than sitting still. That is why they all sit on the floor now. No more bumper chairs.

My M1 class is probably the hardest to teach. They are of different levels. Well there are only 3 that usually show up. Two are smart and have a decent grasp of English. The other has minimal English. So they are hard to plan for. The class is a bit sporadic. Some days I will get only the 3 others up to 10. When there is only 3 kids, it is a difficult class. I run out of things to do with them. I go through my material so much faster.

My job also entails that I teach a simulation lab, or sim lab. Being a camp counselor was a big help in this area of my job. Being loud and stupid really gets the kids motivated. My center has a airport, airplane, restaurant, park, hotel, doctor's office, book store and a department store in it. I take the kids through the airport, airplane and the restaurant. It's not too bad. 20 minutes for those 3 sections and then I pass them on to the other teacher here. The airport they get to go through Immigration and then they go to the airplane where they basically learn some new vocab. The hardest part of that is getting to say seat. When they say it, it comes out as shit. So it is a shit, and a shit belt. Funny for me though. After that, security. There is an x-ray machine. Well it is just a conveyor belt with a box over it. They get to put bags through it. The younger kids get to go through it. They get a kick out of it.

The restaurant is just chaos. I get the kids screaming. I WANNA CORN DOG!! Basically I have them name off all the fake food we have. But they are usually so quiet, I have to get them yelling. Which entails me yelling. So by the end of the day my throat is a little hoarse. They take turns being costumers and clerks. By then it is time for them to go. Easy easy work. It just gets to be a bit repetitive.