Updates

A lot has happened since the last time I wrote in this thing. My family came for a visit, I had a birthday, went to the Busan International Film Fest, amongst other things. So on with the updates.
First of all I will start with the visit from my brother and mother. They flew in on a Wednesday and I picked them up from the airport. Mom was all teary eyed like I expected her to be. It was really great to see them again. I didn't get to spend as much time with them as I would have liked. I was working most of the time they were here. I am lucky that I have a good boss, he gave me parts of some days off to spend with them. Saturday was the first real day I was able to spend with them. It was also my birthday. We started in the morning and went to the five day market. The 5 day market is an outside market that is held, you guessed it, every 5 days. They have just about everything you could want to buy, from house hold goods, to plants, to pottery, to fish and squid, to fresh produce brought in by the farmers, puppies, birds and turtles are also available to buy. You want a chicken, they have it, alive and dead. Need some new cheap clothing, hit up the market. There isn't much you can't find there. Following that we were going to go to a play here, but alas I could not remember the local of the play, so we went out for one of my favorite Korean dishes, galbi. From the reactions of the fam, they enjoyed it as well.
Following the eats, it was off to get my birthday present, a nice new shinny blue toaster oven. It has gotten it's fair share of work since I have gotten it. Mmmm I love toaster ovens.

After that it was off to the bars. The family stayed in. I think they were a little beat. Josh climbed sunrise peak the previous day and mom was tired the entire trip. I walked down to GP where my friends were waiting with a cake and some poppers. Stayed there for a while and had a few drinks. Then moved on to Led Zeppelin and had a drink or three. They kept buying me more and more drinks. Jumped from there over to the Dart bar and played some darts, I did crap as it was now on to shots and the like. Following the dart bar we went off and went to a photo booth and took pictures in funny hats. Following that it was off to the Just Blues for some music and some more drinks. We stopped by one of the street games, where my friend Darren broke his hand punching the punching game. I left shortly there after for bed. Being drunk and having a long day the next day with the family.

I awoke and we headed off down south. We were off to the Jeju United game. I wanted to show them the waterfalls before heading to the game, but we were passing by a beautiful temple and decided to stop. We spent a couple of hours there exploring the temple and the grounds. Then off to the game. Jeju sadly didn't play that well and we lost the match. Following the game it was off to Gecko's for some food and then off to Loveland to finish off the day.

The following day I had a half day of work so we went to a historical landmark type place. There was a primitive Jeju settlement found there. Following that, it was off to more Korean food Beebinbob. Tasty meet and vegetable dish. Also well liked by the family. Then it was off to work for me. My family came with and I sent them off to a folk village about 20 minutes from my work. I haven't been there so I can't tell you much about it other than they liked it. I we came home and chilled for the rest of the night.

The next day I had to work and the family relaxed before their flight the next day. We went out for the last dinner in Jeju. It was a traditional Jeju food, called black pig. It is pork, bacon really that is fried on a grill, wrapped in lettuce with some bean paste and eaten. The special thing about this pig is that it lives in the bottom of out houses. It is the shit eating pig. It is a traditional meal that is served at weddings and other functions. Now the pigs are not raised in the bottom of outhouses. There is a lack of them here. Gotta love the indoor pluming. But it is still a meal that Jeju is known for. It tastes almost like any other pig. It might have a sweeter taste to it, that is about it. The next day I awoke and got ready for work and put my mother and brother in a cab and said good bye.

The following weekend I headed up to Busan for the Busan International Film Festival. My original plan was to spend the weekend going to movies and hang out with some friends. I didn't get to see as many movies as I had hoped most of the movies sold out rather quickly. I was able to see three though. One was an anime by the director of Ghost in the Shell, called The Sky Crawlers. It wasn't bad. The movie broke towards the end and I had to wait to see the second part. It was close to an hour wait. But it was a double feature on the beach, so it wasn't that bad. The movie raised a lot of questions that never got answered. I hate when they do that in movies. The second movie was an Italian movie about the mob in Naples, called Gomorrah. Not that bad, but not good either. Those I both saw on Saturday, Sunday I only had time for one movie and the ticket I was able to purchase was for a movie called Salt of the Sea. It was about a Palestinian lady who was born in the States and tried to go back. It was actually a good movie. So it was worth the trip up there. I also went to the Busan Tower. It is on a hill and sort of looks like the space needle. It had views of most of the city of Busan.

Last weekend I headed down south to hang out with some friends for a roof top party. I stayed down there to hit up the African Museum with some of them and to check out the band. I ended up making friends with them and they are a pretty cool group of individuals. They all are from Somalia and are part of a larger group there. They send in 4 a year to play at the museum. They are out of control. They are all sweating and tired after their 30 minute performance. They will be playing at my friend's Brian's birthday this weekend. Following the museum, we headed off to the Horse track. It was the horse festival there and we decided to bet on some ponies. I lost about $10 and only won once. And I won 40 cents. Woo Hoo. They also were giving out free samples of horse meat to people. When we lined up they just ran out, so what did they do, they cooked or didn't cook us special servings. They made us some Horse Sushi, mmmmm tasty, and they also gave us some slices of roast. That was so good. It just melted in my mouth.

Last week my adult class took my and the other teacher here out for a ride on the Jet boat. Basically a little over powered boat that can do some fast spins and the like. It was great fun. We had a few old people in the boat with us, so when we were finished, they dropped them off and took us back in the harbor to show off and give us a nice little ride.

Monday I decided to take a long lunch and climb Sunrise Peak. It is about a 20 minute climb on this famous volcano cone. It isn't an easy 20 minutes, but not that hard. There are stairs the entire way up so it is walking stairs for 20 minutes. My legs hurt afterwards, they hurt before hand though as well. I have started playing frisbee again on the weekends. Much nicer now that it has gotten cooler.
That is about all that is new with me. Classes are going well. Life is well. I plan on diving this weekend, so I will probably be writing about that next week.