Red Pants in Korea

One night in India

2009-05-10T21:10:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was switching towns. I was going from Srignar, in Kashmir, to McCloud Ganj, which is in H.P. Not that the details really matter. Anyway after a jeep ride and then a bus ride (total time 16 hours) I get dropped off in this town called Gaggol. At a little past midnight, there isn't much to do there. Actually nothing to do. There is no hotel. Nothing is open. A guy on the street tells me that there is a bus coming at 12. It is a bit after 12 by my watch and 10 till by his. So I wait. Nothing. No cars, no nothing. Just the sounds of a bum talking in his sleep. What do you do at midnight with nothing around? My ipod is out of batteries, I just finished my book and don't have another.
I roll a , um cigarette and figure I will walk up the hill to there. A car pulls up and asks me where I am going. He says another bus will come by at 1:30. He also said that he would be passing by a bit later and if I was still there he would give me a lift. So I wait. And wait and wait. I am pacing up and down the street. Talking to myself. Trying to figure out what I want to do with my life and where I want to go live next. (I still can't decide)Finally at 2:30 someone drives by and gives me a lift.
I get into town and nothing is open. Nothing at all. Nobody is answering their doors, all the guest houses are closed. Then some guy pulls up on his bike. He starts talking and asking me what kind of room I want.
He says he has one and that it will be about $6 for the night. The guy is drunk and probably high. But what can I do. I get a good vibe from him. So I go with him.
Anyway I follow him to his place and see the outside. It's a tattoo parlor. Its also his house. 1 room.
It stinks. It smells like unwashed filth. But oh well. I roll up a cig and we smoke it. he tells me about himself, he's from Pakistan, his name is Ashok.

He says he's married to a Swiss girl. And he wants to call her. So he looks for her number in a book and can't find it after 20 mins. So he goes to the sink and pours fuel over the book and lights it on fire.

He leaves to book burning while looking through a different book and finds her number, but doesn't have a phone. He grumbles and then he goes to the sink and warms himself by the fire, which has now filled the room with smoke.

He burns all the hair off his hands and melted some of his hair. After about 15 min. I try to put the fire out. Books burn for a long time. The water doesn't work in his place. I put the fire out with a little water, that I found in a bottle. That is the end of my story. Hope you enjoy.
Oh and the room didn't cost me anything.

India continued

2009-05-05T05:22:00.000-07:00

India is fantastic. I love it here. Been traveling and studyinghere. I started off in the south, and went to a Hindu elephantfestival. Wild! Then I did a house boat tour of the back waters.Really beautiful place. They have a sort of commune there. Everything is pooled and shared amoungst the members. From there I went to Munnar and saw fields and fields of tea. It was pretty, but only worth a day.
From there I headed north and spent a couple weekson Paradise beach. It was amazing. My days were so relaxed. I spent my days smoking hash, swimming, chilling with somegood people and playing frisbee. Evenings were spend looking at dolphins playing the sea. It was just what I needed before mystudies.
I spent a month in Delhi. I was studing for a certificatefor English teaching. It will allow me to get better jobs and it mademe a better teacher. It was good. Didnt' have much of a social life.Spent much of my time with my studies and with my class mates. I enjoyed it, but I didn't have any free time for four weeks. I was in the British Council for on average of 12 hours a day. That is where the course took place. I didn't even notice how hot Delhi had become until the weekend and the one day I had of vacation.
Since then I have been in Kashmire. Spent a couple of nights on ahouse boat and then went to the mountains and did some hikng.I've been smoking a fair amount of Kashmiri hash. It is fantastic.While on the trek, my guide, mixed some with some cardimin. It wasfantasic. Now back on a different houseboat and going to chill for the next couple of days and explore the town, apply for jobs, update the resume all that sort of fun stuff. Next I am not sure yet. Either McCloud Ganj, where the Dalai Lama rests his head or off to another place in Kashmir. I have 't decided.

India

2009-03-16T06:04:00.000-07:00

So i haven't written for a while and the Red Pants have left Korea. It took me longer than I thought it would. I was supposed to leave on March 1st, but didn't end up leaving until the 11th.
I had some issues with my passport. My old one went through the wash and wasn't in the best of shape. I sent it to the Indian Embassy for my visa and they sent it back. I didn't have enough free pages in it. So I rushed out of Jeju, leaving it a week early. Didn't get the good bye I wanted. Was rushed out of there. and went to the American Embassy. They wouldn't give me more pages. They told me I had to get a new passport. So I get them to rush it. And I got it about 8 day later and then off to the Indian Embassy for my visa and that took another week. No rushing it. Frustrating. But I finally got out of Korea.
This is going to be short. I hate the keyboard I am typing on. Anyway so I get to India and go to Kochi and get a guest house. nice place. a bit outside the tourist zone, about a 10 min walk.
the people who run it were fantastic though. A Latvian woman with her Indian husband and his family. brother, who was a bit slow and his mom. His mom showed me how to cook and I usually ate with the family. Did some site seeing and caught a show and went on a house boat tour.
then went up to Munnar to get away from the heat spent a day there and saw the tea plantations. bought some weed and am smoking it. now i am back in Kochi waiting for the next train to Gokarna. that is it for now. will update soon, I promise

Since Thanksgiving

2009-01-05T19:45:00.000-08:00

I

So, it has been about a month since I have written on this thing. Sorry, I have been busy as of late. It is the holiday season and I have been on vacation from work, where I usually write this thing up.

I started off this Holiday celebration by going out to eat dog with a couple of friends before Christmas. Dog doesn't taste like any other meat that I have tried, and I have tried my fair share of different meats. The smell of dog isn't the best. Actually it smells pretty bad. The flavor of dog is nice. It is quite tasty. Thoroughly enjoyable to tell the truth. The first bit was a bit odd. I am a dog lover and have always respected the animal, that said, all meat is fair game for my belly. The dogs that are used for meat, are not pets. They are raised for their meat. There is a girl on the island who decided to save one of them and take it home. It is the stupidest dog I have ever met. They don't make good pets. So, if you get the chance to try a little dog meat, I say go for it. It tastes good, and according to Koreans, it is good for a man's stamina.

The following weekend, EPIK had a reunion for us. They flew us all to Seoul. Nothing like a free trip to Seoul. I was planning on heading up there that weekend anyway. So it saved me about $170. I flew up on a Friday. So it also gave me a day off of work. Got in and promptly started to hear speeches. That is after traveling on the subway for an hour and 45 minutes. Which is about twice as long as the flight took to get to Seoul. It wasn't that bad. The talk went on for about an hour and then it was break time. At that time we got to move around and visit with friends. I ended up hanging with some of my people from Busan and skipping the second talk session, which ended up being a bitch session anyway. Not something I needed to be involved it.

That night EPIK took us to a show called JUMP. It is a comedy, kung fu, thing. It was really funny and really enjoyable. I don't have any pictures to put up about it, just know that it was good. I followed that by going out with a couple of friends to a Mokoli bar. Mokoli is a milking rice drink. It was down this dank passageway., complete with a placard of drunk Koreans drinking mokoli. We stayed there for a while before heading off again to go onto another bar. It was a dive bar, my kind of place. Cheap drinks and a cheap atmosphere. We stayed there until closing and then tried to find a cab back to the hotel. That proved to be a bit troublesome. Cabbies in Seoul will only take people if they want to go in that direction. Our hotel wasn't in the most prime of locations and finding a cab was proving to be difficult. We finally found a van, which proved to be a blessing, as we had enough people for 2 cabs. We over paid, but between us all, it all worked out. Johnny and myself jumped into the back. I did a proper job of jumping the seat. I got my foot caught outside the van and got hung up, giving myself a nice bruise right above the knee.

The next day was the riverboat tour of Seoul. The last thing in the EPIK reunion. The tour would have been better if it were not fall. Seeing brown shores and bridges wasn't the most interesting of things. But it was a good way to unwind. They just kept telling us how many people died here and when. Sort of a depressing journey. Following that, I went with a few friends and checked out the 63 building. The tallest building in Seoul. It was tall, But not that pretty. The views from it were quite nice though. Following the tour of the building, it was off to a sauna for a nice soak and lunch.

It turned 4:30 and it was time for me to head off again and meet up with some other friends. We had plans to have dinner together and go see Evil Dead the Musical. I being myself showed up a bit late, but it wasn't so bad, as everyone was late as well. We still had plenty of time to get some grub into our bellies before heading off to the show. We went to some fusion restaurant. Here it is just an excuse not to cook the food properly. It wasn't bad. Just not the best. Then it was off to the show. The show was in Korean, but as I am a huge fan of the movies, it was easy to follow. The end of the show, was the gory bits, and I was sitting in the second row, being a big white guy, I was targeted. First i was shot in back of the head with a bloody squirt gun. And then the zombies came into the audience. I knew I was going to be targeted and boy was I ever. The pic of me is after the sprinklers turned on and washed some of the blood off. I got covered with blood, and the nice zombie told me that he loved me. We had a moment. It was touching. The show was awesome. If you see it playing anywhere near you, head out and see it. It is well worth it. Quite fantastic.

Following the show, we needed to find a place to sleep and clean up. Thus we headed to the subway. Our group was given a clear path and several odd stares along the way. Nothing like being covered in fake blood to clear a path. We headed to the area, where we would be drinking that night. We got a couple of rooms in a love motel. Love motels are cheaper hotels. They are usually quite nice and the foreigner population stay in them quite frequently, as they are cheaper than a real hotel. Koreans tend to use them for what they are called. Young couples get them to have a bit of fun, before heading back home to live with their parents. Koreans tend to live with their parents until marriage. Anyway getting a hotel wasn't my idea. When I head up that way I stay in the saunas. They are 8 dollars a night and have a sleeping area. The love motel ended up being $70, split in two.

We then headed off to the bars. We met some of Benney's friends and started to get our drink on. I didn't want to drink that much and was kind of watching my budget, as it was the end of the month and I was running out of cash. So I had 2 beers at the bar, and a shot. The shot wasnt' of my choice and I didn't ask for it. One of Benney's friends ordered a round of them. Then it was time to divy up the bill. Which they decided to split evenly. So my beers were going to coast me about $50 as they were pounding back girly shot after girly shot. That wasn't flying with me, so I told them that I was going to pay for what I drank. Oh and I had to pay for that shittly little shot that they ordered me. So I wasn't in the best mood after that. We went to a dance club afterwards. They weren't playing very good music, and I wasn't drunk enough to dance. So myself and another guy left and decided to head off to home. Thus ending my time in Seoul as I was flying out the next day. Christmas and New Years will be written in another post as my fingers are tired from typing and I want to get back to my book.

Thanksgiving and time since then

2008-12-07T22:18:00.000-08:00

I haven't done a whole lot since I wrote last. We had Thanksgiving. We celebrated about a week early on Saturday. There were about 20 of us who got together. We all went over to Robin and Candice's place and had a pot luck. I cooked a couple of pumpkin pies. There was no turkey. Though I am not a fan of it anyway. We did have some shepherds pie. Now that is yummy. We had a little bit of everything. The majority of the people at the dinner were not American. They were mostly English. Good times though.
Other than that, last weekend I went for a dive. This time we dove up north by my work at Sunrise peak. It was nice diving someplace new. We did boat dives this time. First time. Pretty fun flipping into the water. We did two dives and the first one was without a guide. I guess it was an evaluation dive for the guy. I don't know how he would evaluate us, with out going. Saw different fish, and corals than on the southside. The second dive was better. We had a guide for the second one and we went to a little better local. There was one point when we were on a wall and it looked like it was raining down fish on us. Absolutely fantastic.

Weekend trip

2008-11-13T18:25:00.000-08:00

It has been a little while since I have written. A little over a month to be exact. So I will do a quick catch up on what I was doing.
I went scuba diving with a couple of friends. The current was rather strong at the surface and we lost a couple of Koreans. They got washed around the little island that we were diving at. 2 were able to go around the island and make landfall another wasn't so lucky. The police boat had to go out to sea and pick him up. He was looking a little shaken up when he was on land. We had a couple of Koreans with our group. Well not diving with us, but with the dive shop that we went through. They had some fancy equipment. One had a rather expensive underwater camera. They decided to surface on the east side of the island, where the waves were crashing rather hard. Not the best place to get out of the water. They got a bit scratched up and broke their camera. Koreans like the best equipment. When they get into things, they buy the best. The thing is, they aren't good at it. Most of the Korean divers I have seen are down right scary. They don't have the skills needed to be good at it. Getting swept out to sea and poor choices on surfacing locals sort of point that out. The group I was with, all westerners, had no issues. I used up my O2 a bit quicker than the rest of the group, but was able to make it last longer than previous dives.
Halloween was also fun. There were a fair amount of costumes out. I went for the cheap and easy costume. I cut up one of my shirts and a pair of shorts. I found a santa beard in my apartment and turned it into a mullet. So I went as gay white trash. Not the best costume, but a crowd please er.
Last weekend a group of 7 of us went to Gwangju to attend the last Jeju United game of the season. We arrived on Saturday, around noon and decided to go for a walk about. It was a really pretty area. We saw some of their memorials to the students that started the uprising against the Japanese in the 30's. Walked along a nice river, that they created paths on. When most of the people went back to the hotel, Bree and myself decided to head up a hill and check out what we were thinking was a park. It was, it was a really nice park as the leaves were turning, so we chilled there for a bit and waited for our friend to arrive. Stu overslept and didn't make the plane with us, but was able to catch a latter flight. From there we walked around the town a little bit before heading off to Starbucks for some coffee before dinner at Outback. Outback was a bit of a disappointment. Then it was off to some bars. We went to an open mik night, that sucked, then off to Mike and someones speak easy. That was fun. I got a free t-shirt and they had a couple of Korean punk bands playing. We stayed there for a little while, before heading off to a club. The club had a $10 cover charge, but free tap beer. So it was well worth it. Danced into the wee hours of the morning before heading back to the hotel to get some sleep before the bus ride to another city to catch the match.
Before the match, we went shopping for some face paints and got all kitted up for the upcoming match. We doned our t-shirts that we had made for the match and painted our faces. We were walking down the streets giving our Jeju chants, getting looks from all the Koreans. We arrived at the stadium to find that we were the only Jeju supporters. Well there was one other fella that showed up a bit later, but we were louder and had better chants than the other team. At half time Stu and I left the stadium for a minute to stock up on some supplies and on the way back we stood infront of the home teams goal and had a chant off with the opposing fans. They were getting angry and swearing at us and flicking us off. We continued our chanting across the stands to our own goal. It was quite a good time. We ended up tieing with a score of 0-0. I have since lost my voice because of screaming at the game and it is Friday and it is not 100% back.
That is all that is new with me. Hope you enjoyed reading this.

Updates

2008-10-12T21:59:00.000-07:00

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.

Chudja

2008-09-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I was asked by a friend to take his place for an outreach program run by the Foreign Language Center. It was going to the island of Chudja, a bit north from Jeju, but still part of Jeju. We took a cargo ship out there and it took about 3 hours before we arrived. It was myself and 5 other foreign teachers, going to the island to promote the center and English education. We left Sunday and came back on Monday.

We arrived at the port, beautiful place. Really really nice. It is a small chain of islands. The largest 2 are inhabited, and connected by a small bridge. It was a bit more than a fishing village, but not much more. The islands hold about 2500 people and there is a middle school and 2 elementary schools. Once out of middle school, the students either need to go to the mainland or Jeju to finish their education or get employment on one of the boats.

We checked into our hotel, which caused some problems as there was not enough room available. Apparently some people checked in and then decided to stay longer than expected. But we got that taken care of and decided to go for a little walk before dinner. We ended up sitting outside a store and drinking some beers before the dinner with the school people and high-ups in the town. The meal was of raw fish and some cooked fish. Not bad. There were the obligatory toast. A few more than usual. Koreans tend to toast and thank each other a lot for the things that they do. So a few shots of Soju were downed that night. Following the dinner we went back to the shop and continued to play cards and have a couple of beers. Something we kept noticing as the trip went along. All the women on the island are hot!!! Beautiful women everywhere. There is one lucky foreigner living on the island and he is loving it. They have taken him under their wings and have included him in the community. They are teaching him Scuba diving and taking him fishing. He seems to be enjoying it quite a bit.

Monday we get up and head to the Middle school to do our little lesson. I am paired up with Neil, an English fella. We have a simple lesson set up about clothing. We introduce it and then play some games with it. Next comes the t-shirts. The Center has brought in a bunch of t-shirts as souvenirs for the kids. They get to design and draw their own. They all have fun. Some are better than others and some are just plain bad. But they love them and that is all that counts.

Following the t-shirt making session, we take the kids outside for a little game of cricket. Our kids loved it. Most if not all were participating and enjoying the sport. It was new to me as I have also never played the game. Following the game, we had lunch before moving on the the Elementary school. The smaller school was bused in to the larger of the two. So combined classes. We took the older students, 6th grade and taught the same lessons. Our kids were not that talented at making the t-shirts, but oh well. There were a few in the class who did get a bit out of control. There was one kid who was a class clown and was rather disruptive, but smart and did participate. That was until it came to Cricket. We took them outside and showed them the game. These kids were more interested in pushing each other around and throwing rocks at each other. We had to stop the game for a minute, when several of them took the wicket and were running around with it, being followed by a kid with the bat, who proceeded to hit them with said bat. We stopped the game and had them sit down for a minute while we talked to them and got it back on track. The class clown decided to flick Neil off whilst returning to the game and was given a talking to by Neil and he sat in the dirt for the rest of the game. Our poor students didn't' get the prices the others did for playing the game. But they enjoyed themselves nonetheless.

Following Cricket it was time to head back home. This time by a fast boat. It took about 1:10 to get back to Jeju. The sea was a bit rougher, but we were outside and enjoying the waves and the fresh air. Moving around was a bit difficult, but sitting and having congratulatory beers was not. Good trip over all.

Mongolian Adventures

2008-09-15T18:13:00.000-07:00

I was waiting to write this until I had some pictures to put up, but my camera is being stupid.

It was two weeks ago when I finally had my vacation and decided to head up to Mongolia. It has been a few years since I have been back and was missing the place. Before I left I called my old school director and asked him for a ride. The thing is when I called him we had some communication issues to begin with. Here is my recollection of the first part of the conversation.
Hello?
Hello?, Altanhoyig?
Yes it is, who is this?
It's Tim
I know, but who is this?
It's Tim,
Who?
Tim,
Who?
My name is Tim.
Yes, yes, who is this?
It's Tim, Tim teacher.
............Tim teacher!!!!!!!
The thing is my name is the same as yes and thus it is hard to figure out who is calling. It is a pain in the ass, but a little patience usually wins out and they figure out it is me.
I get to the airport on Friday before my flight. I check in and they say my flight might be delayed to Mongolia due to weather. Ok, it's Mongolia. They do this often. Not the best airport and not the best weather. It's often windy there. I'm waiting in the lounge when I get a text message and I ask someone what it means. My flight has been canceled. AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! A short while later a man comes down and finds me walking around. He gives me a new ticket for the next day and asks me if I am going to stay in Jeju for the night or head up to Seoul. As I didn't have a place to stay in Jeju, I decided to go to Seoul.

The Friday I left, I had to be out of my apartment. Someone new was moving into it and I was getting a new apartment that is twice the size and closer to work. The thing is someone was still living there and would not be out of it until that Sunday. Everything I owned was packed into my car or on my back.

So I call up my friend Beney, who lives by the airport there and ask if I can crash. Of course it was ok. She was meeting up with some other people from training, and thus I went out to dinner and drinks with several people I didn't know or remember, and a couple that I did. We went to this dive bar in Incheon. I don't remember it's name, but it had a militaryesk theme to it. It had a bike on the roof, a wall made out of empty ammo crates, and a wall made out of TVs. Not a bad place, though it's smelled like wet basement.

So the next day I get on my flight to Ulaanbaatar. I arrive around 10 at night and wait for my bag and wait for my bag and wait for my bag. It was the last one off of the plane. I hate that. But get out and am met by John Hannibal. It was the only time I saw him, he was there to meet someone else and then I see Chris, Darren and Khaliunaa. I am fed a beer at the airport and then drive into town, to Chris's place. We are Chris's just long enough to drop off my bags and off to a bar we went. We stayed out drinking for a while and then headed back to his place and had a little after bar party.

The next day I woke up and went to a little sandwich shop that I used to like. I went in and they remembered me and I saw their son. Damn he got a lot bigger. But that will happen. It has been over 2 years since I have been back. I then called my director and he said there was a car leaving and to wait for a phone call. I get the call and am told to meet them at the usual place at 6. I go there and am looking for the car and I see one of my old friends. He tells me that we are going to his family's place for a little while, while they pick up people and repack the jeep. So that lead to drinking and eating.

We finally get on the road about 9 at night and start the long drive down to Sukhbaatar. Around 1:30 in the morning we pull over, the bearings on the trailer broke. It happens. It happens a lot. The cars usually have a spare. This one didn't. We are in the middle of nowhere and the driver and his friend head off to the nearest town to pick up a spare. So sleeping in the jeep. Not the easiest thing to do. I didn't get much sleep the night before and this night, I am not going to get much. 10 in the morning rolls around and still no driver. We decide to unhook the trailer and go and look for them. We start down the road and see him coming. Turn around fix the trailer and head off again. Finally around 11:30 at night we roll into Uulbayan. It is good to be back. It looks the same but different. They are building new buildings and there are street lights. Well a couple of them anyway. Big change. There were no lights when I was there.

I walk into my director's house and am meet by him in his underwear. He gets up and gives me a big hug and kisses my cheeks. He is unbelievably happy to see me. They all have cell phones now and he precedes to call up a bunch of people and we have a little party. Well a big party. 5 in the morning rolls around and everyone is tired and decide to crash.

I was awoken at 9 in the morning to people walking over me and I decided to get up. Another night with little sleep. I walk over to the school and see that it is finished. The school wasn't finished after the Russians left. They didn't have the money to finish it. They now have a gym and a lunchroom and a few more class rooms. I walk around and see all of the old teachers and students. Most of my old students have since left and gone to Baruun-Urt to finish up their high school and some have entered Uni.

My director wanted to know what I wanted to eat and I told him Horhug, goat that has been cooked with hot rocks. He said it might be a bit difficult as there hasn't been much rain in Sukhbaatar and most of the animals are far away. He ended up getting on and the teachers through a little party that night to celebrate my coming down. I wish I could have made it for a weekend because this was the second night in a row that the teachers were up late. They cooked me all the food that I have been missing and we ate, drank and danced the night away. Things turned a little strange during the party with teachers pulling up other teachers' shirts for me to take pictures of. It was pretty funny and we all had a laugh about it. Ah the vodka.

In the middle of the party, my director stopped the party to give me some gifts. They gave me a silver bowl, a gift basket of vodka, aruul and tea, and 300 dollars in cash. It was a bit much, but I was thankful for it. When I got back to the city, I used the money to buy myself a nice cashmere blanket. Something I would never have done without the free money. Oh and the blanket is fantastic!!!

The following morning, I was off again to the city. First we stopped by Baruun-Urt so I could pick up a ride and develop all the pictures I took. I figured they gave me all this money I could at least give them some pictures. We stopped by the museum there, which I never went to see and still didn't get to see because it was closed for repairs. Bummer. We also climbed to a new statue on a hill overlooking the city. Not a bad view. More construction going on. There is a theater there now. Place is getting bigger. My ride finally left around 6 that evening. Another night with little sleep. They gave me the front seat, but I had a child in my lap that was dead weight and was either moving or sleeping and falling off of me. We arrived in the morning and I dropped my stuff of at Chris's and went shopping and called up Meg and hung out with her for a little while. That night I went out with Chris and Adrian and then decided to crash at Meg's for the night. The next day I was off to the airport to catch my flight. But I fucked up.......My flight was not for another day!!!! So I was able to see all the things that I didn't get a chance to do.
I went to Sukhbaatar Square and checked out the government center. It was fantastic. They did a better job than I would have imagined they would have. It is stupendous. I also checked out the site of the riots and the MAXN building that was burned. I tried to get closer, but they wouldn't let me. Following all of that, it was time to go back to Jeju. It was a short night flight and thus I could not sleep for very long.

So when I finally arrived home in Jeju at 8 am I was in great need of some sleep. I went to my car and looked for my keys. My co-worker got my new apt. keys for me and said she put them in my glove box. They were not there. I called my co-worked and let the phone ring for a while, before she picked up. She had them. She is now my neighbor and she and Doug, unloaded a bunch of my stuff and put it in my apt. for me. So I got into my apt. and slept the remainder of the day asleep. Getting up only for a short time to get some grub, and watch a movie and then back asleep. A very good trip. I miss Mongolia already. Going there felt like home. It was good to be back.

Fire

2008-08-22T13:03:00.001-07:00

It's 5 o'clock in the morning, and I am awake. It's not by choice. I was getting the best sleep I have had in a while, to be awoken by a loud screeching sound. The fire alarm was going off. I got up and look in the hall, some of my neighbors are headed down stairs so I do the same. Going down 13 flights of stairs. To get outside to find out there was no fire. What a pain in the ass. If you are going to wake me up at this time in the morning, at least have a fire.

Oh and I found out I get to move. I have to move the same day I am leaving for Mongolia. There is one slight problem with it though. The apartment that I am moving to is occupied. It will be occupied for 3 days after I move in. EPIK fucked up with the housing. So I am going to store most of my stuff at work or in my co-workers apartment. But on the plus side, when I get back, I will have an apartment that is twice the size of the one I have now.

Well I am off to try to get back to sleep.

Feeding the hare

2008-08-18T17:44:00.000-07:00

So I have had a house guest for the past week. A friend came down from the mainland and crashed at my apartment and I got to play tour guide. Yeah me. I'm not a good tour guide, so on my weekend off I just took to being the driver on their little adventures. It all started on Tuesday when I picked up Beney and her friend Karen from the airport and took them back to my place to drop off their stuff before heading out again. Yeah I am a fast mover. Need to get things done. Actually it was bowling night and I needed to get my frames in. Needed to get my aggression out by lobbing an 11 lb. ball down the lane. Bowling went pretty much the same way as it always does. Bowling followed by galbi (fried meat) and soju.

Wednesday I left them to go to work and they did their little tourist things, followed by dinner. I chose to nap instead of going out. Dinner followed up by drinks at La Vie. We didn't stay out that late, even though it was Beney's birthday. There was really no one out. Thursday was more of me working followed by dinner of black pig and a trip to Loveland. Yeah that is my third time there. They had a few different things there this time. Little scenes of people having sex. Pretty funny actually. Followed by a nice night in of sleep, ah that precious sleep.

I had Friday off. It was Constitution Day!! So this is when my tour guiding really came in. Or more of my knowing the roads of Jeju. We started off going to the Lava Tubes. The tubes are about a 13 km long tube of lava, or would it be magma since it is under ground. Hmmm, I think they need to rename it. Well anyway it is a tube where magma used to flow and there is a hollow tube that we walked down. We got out of the tubes just in time for it to be pissing down rain. It was coming down hard. We waited the heavy stuff out for a little while to hit a break in the clouds to run to the car. Start the drive out and BAM!!!! the rain starts again. I can't see shit. Too much rain. Wipers going at full blast and me driving like an old man trying to see. My windows are fogging up, as they do when it rains. So I am driving and wiping the fog off of the window as I am driving and we decided to head to the Haneyo (women divers) museum. It was actually pretty cool. We got to learn more about the women divers that make Jeju famous. Checked that out for a while and then headed off again.

The next stop was Illchibong (Sunrise Peak). Which is very close to my work and I see it every day, just haven't climbed up it. My adult teachers told me it takes about 15-20 minutes to climb up. It was all stairs. It was hot and I was walking dripping sweat. I left the girls behind as I needed to get my climb on. Actually I was just a little faster than them and wanted to see the top thinking I would rest then. The view from the top was nice. I got to see where I worked from up on high. Then the waiting started. I just ended up helping people take photos while I waited for Beney and Karen to summit. Which took another 15-20 min. The walk down we saw a hare, which apparently they saw on the way up. I took some orange peels and tried to get it to eat from my hand. It did. I rock, animals love me. Then I decided to make it do some tricks for it's food. Which was begging. It is the only trick that I think I could get it to do. After a while he just got lazy though and put his front paws on my leg and ate that way.

We followed that up by going out to a couple of the local watering holes. There wasn't a huge crowd out. Actually it was hard to find people, Korean or foreign. Most of the islanders were on vacation for the long weekend and this is then end of the summer season for most Koreans. So they were all gone for one last shebang before the new school year starts. We did end up at the blues bar and did some karaoke. I told them that I can not sing and they forced me up there anyways. Followed by shortly getting me off the stage. People were covering their ears and just didn't like my singing. Serves them right. They should have listened to me.

Saturday I dropped Karen off at the airport followed by a day at the beach. Nice weather for it. Not too hot and a little overcast. Less sunburn for me. We took it easy after that. We were supposed to go diving Sunday morning. But that didn't pan out as Beney was tired and I was short on funds so we went down and hit the beach and met up with some of my other friends who were visiting the island from the mainland. Ended up playing darts at a bar down there and catching up. Monday was more work for me with dinner with friends at the local Indian restaurant. That is my life up to day.

Swimming with the fishes

2008-08-03T18:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I completed my Scuba training. I am now a certified open water scuba diver. Which basically means I can buy and rent scuba gear and dive to 18 meters in depth. I was surprised on how enjoyable it is. The worst part of it is putting on that damn wet suit.
I had to complete 4 dives last weekend to become certified. They were more fun dives than class type dives the first two were to 12 meters. I saw some cool looking fish and coral. The colors were amazing. I would take pictures, but alas I don't have an underwater camera. So if anyone wants to buy me one, I'll take some pictures. We did some basic skills on the second dive, putting on the weight belt and scuba tank while in the water as well as flooding the mask and unflooding it. We did some compass orientation stuff. Though I think I would still get lost. I am hopeless when it comes to finding things.
It took me a little while to get down to depth, I was having trouble equalizing my ears. As you dive the air spaces in you ears gets smaller causing ear pain if you don't equalize. You can even blow your eardrums, though the pain gets to be a bit intense. But I finally got equalized and was enjoying my dive doing skills and checking out my surroundings. So cool. We get out of the water and Paul, my instructor tells me that I have a bloody nose. I farmer blow it and low and behold, blood, blood, bloody snot. Not runny bloody, but blood in my sinuses. It freaks me out a little bit. I've never had a bloody nose before. Well I have had the bloody booger from the random pick, but nothing like this. We wait an hour before the next dive. We have to let the nitrous levels in our blood die down, before we can dive again, then gear up and jump back in. Go through the dive and having problems equalizing again, but I make it to depth and go about the dive. Come up an bloody nose. Little freaked out, but think I just burst a blood vessel from trying to equalize. Went out for a bit after diving and still had a bloody nose every time I blew it. Sleep it off and figure I'll check on it the next day.
Sunday morning rolls around and I blow my nose and still bloody. So I tell my scuba instructor and the dive shop owner and they aren't concerned, so I am not concerned. It's all good.
The next two dives we did the next day on Sunday. I was a bit burned from the sun on Saturday, so the wet suit was particularly annoying to put on. These dives I got to go deeper, equalizing was still a problem, but I am getting used to it. The second dive went much much better and was able to equalize with minimal stopping. I was some bigger colourful fish and I even saw a lion fish. Really cool looking. Big floaty fins and all. The first dive we tried to do a free descent, but were unable to due to a hell of a current. It took us and pulled us quite a way. It took a lot of energy to swim back to the ropes and descent. The last dive to tide switched and I was able to do the descent with out any difficulties. It was good times and now I am certified!!!!

Chris's Visit Cont.

2008-07-28T22:46:00.000-07:00

So Chris has left and I have my place to myself again. I liked having him here, but I need my own space and if you understood how small my apt is you would totally understand. My ger in the Mongolia countryside was bigger than the place that I have now. Though this place does have internet and running water.
So anyway Chris's last week was more of the same. We did some touristy stuff. We went to bowling on Tuesday. I bowled a 172. By far the best I have ever bowled. My second game wasn't so good. I think it was a 120. But enough to increase my average. Whoo hooo!! I wasn't feeling that great and took a night off of the usual post game drinking session. Wednesday was a pretty quiet night out, we went exploring and went to a local pub called La Vie. They had a blues jam session on and so we chatted with people there while eating dinner. I had to work early the next day so we left early.
Thursday was a bit more fun. After work I dragged Chris out of bed to try some horse. Most people who lived in Mongolia have eaten and enjoy eating horse. Chris isn't a fan of eating raw meat, but was willing to brave it. I think he enjoyed it. We went to a place by my house with a couple of my bowling friends. It was about half raw meat and half cooked. Quite tasty. It was much better than the first restaurant where I've eaten it on the island.
Following the horse, Chris,Paul, Jen and myself headed up to Loveland. None of them have been there before and so I thought it would be fun and a bit funny. Which it was. Lots of posing with statues and making asses of ourselves.
Friday and Saturday were about the same. Didn't do much. On Friday I ended up playing hooky from work and we went to Dreamland, which is supposed to be the Mongolian Circus here. There were horse acrobats and contortionists as well as plate spinners and a lot of mullets. There must be some world wide link with Circus folk and mullets. Everywhere there is a circus the mullet is not far behind. It was enjoyable, but alas no Mongols. Stupid tour books. They are always wrong.
Friday night and Saturday were the same, going out and meeting friends. Getting home in the wee hours of the morning and spending a bit too much money. Saturday was a bit more. Chris is a hot commodity here. Being a tourist with no real ties to the island make him prime picking for some of the local western girls. Such a commodity, that 2 drunk girls played paper rock scissors on who was going to take him home. The winner actually took him home and he stuck me with the bill at the bar. The bar that he had been buying drinks for others. Ahh the job of the wingman. My interactions for the night are private and will not be posted here. Lest someone on the island read this and I enter the rumor mill. Hate the rumor mill.

Chris's visit

2008-07-21T19:28:00.000-07:00

Chris, a friend from Mongolia, is down in Jeju for a couple of weeks for vacation. So far it has been one week and I thought I would give a short little write up. He came in on Monday and we basically just chilled and went to see a movie. Hancock is playing here and he wanted to see it. Tuesday is bowling night and thus I dragged Chris along to that. I stayed out a bit later than I wanted to. After bowling we went to GP bar and then to the Blues bar on the island. I drank more than I wanted to and ended up going home about 1:30. I felt like shit the next day but that is the price you pay. Chris stayed at the bar and ended up chatting with several of the other people. He rolled in about 7 in the morning. The next day was a write off as we were both feeling like crap. So off to another movie.
Thursday we went out again and drank some. I left around midnight this time and left Chris in the hands of strangers. Well other people. He rolled in around 7:30 in the morning, just in time to take my bed as I headed off to work.
Friday was a going out night. We started out at a local bar called La Vie. We were supposed to meet some friends for dinner, but we both overslept. Took a nap after work. After La Vie we headed into town and hit a couple of other bars. Got home about 4 in the morning. Chris was sort of angry with someone in the crowd so it was time to leave.
Saturday was an open mic night at Led Zeppelin. Before we went there we headed to the south side of the island to do some swimming. The weather was nice. Which was a bit surprising ads we were supposed to get a Typhoon rolling through. I guess it jumped up on the mainland and missed us. When we got to the beach they wouldn't let us swim. Koreans are bad swimmers, well most can't swim so they pulled everyone out of the water. The waves were a bit rough, but I have swam in rougher seas. So played some frisbee and tossed around the football before heading off to Led Zeppelin and met some of my friends and then decided to hop as it was busy and hot. Jumped across the street to GP bar and did some drinking there. We rolled on out of there and headed to another bar called Blue Agave. Some time during the wee hours of the morning Chris headed off home and I went to a Kareokee bar with a couple of friends. I ended getting home around 8 in the morning.
Sunday was a tame day with some moderate site seeing and the Jeju United soccer match. Jeju tied with a 0-0 score. We played really well and deserved the win. We just couldn't find the net.
Monday, Chris came to work with me and I gave him the quick tour and then finished up my work before leaving early. We went to Udo Island. And island just off the coast of where I work and rented some bikes and toured around for a bit. It was hot so we went to a white coral beach. Looked pretty but really dug into the ole feet. I swan around for a bit as the Chris and the Koreans stayed in waist deep water. From there we went back to my place and left for dinner of Pizza Hut and tried to catch the new Batman movie just to find out that it isn't playing here yet. Now that really sucked. Chilled at home for the rest of the night and watched a dvd. Tonight is going to be bowling again. Will write later.

Update

2008-07-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

I haven 't written in a while so I thought i would give a little update. I have done two more days of diving. It was so much better than the first day. The first day the regulator was a bit tight. It felt like I was breathing out of a straw, which was causing more anxiety than was needed. But on the following dives, I had a different regulator that was easy to breath out of and made the experience much much more enjoyable. Now I am just waiting for my next two days of diving so I am certified. The next two will be much much more enjoyable. We will be doing deeper water dives. For the first couple we only went to about 4 meters. I did see a small sand shark, but not much else. These next dives will be up to 18 meters and we will be diving around coral. They won't happen until the first week of August. Paul, my instructor, has another class coming up this weekend and thus isn't able to take us out.

Other than that the weather has been fantastic. I have been spending my weekends at the beach swimming. Yesterday we went to a river and swam there. It was fresh water and the surroundings reminded me of Wisconsin. I did some snorkeling there as well as swimming.

Work is going good. I started a new semester of classes. My kids aren't as fun as the first group. I have some of the same students, but my fun class got taken over by the other teacher here. She interviewed my students this time and took them for her class. Kind of pissed me off. I liked those kids. It has been hot lately, so I go to the beach at lunch. It is close and I have an hour off. So why the hell not.

Scuba and moving

2008-06-29T18:50:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-10T19:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-09T18:35:00.000-07:00

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

2008-06-03T19:43:00.000-07:00

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.

The New Indy movie and 1st Jeju home win

2008-05-25T19:16:00.000-07:00

Friday night. I went out and saw the new Indian Jones movie. I've been looking forward to it. I have heard some of the hype and bad press it has been getting, but still wanted to go into it with a clear mind. Sitting down beer in hand waiting for it to start. It started well. Until it came to the jungle scene, motorcycle chase was good, the jungle scene was not. It was the beginning of the downfall. It was a bad bad movie. Did not enjoy it. I will skip the details in case anyone has not seen it, but intends on seeing it. Spielberg hasn't directed a decent movie in a long time, with the exception of Munich. He keeps going back to the well trying to reinvent movies he has done and is fucking them up! Maybe I am bitter that they kept us waiting for so long for this new flick and it was that disappointing

On to happier new. Juju United have their first home win of the season. They did it with style and finesse. They played a much more aggressive game. The controlled most of it attacking quite a bit. I think they had more shots on goal in the first half, than we have seen all season long.

They started off with a 1-nil lead after a nice goal from about 15 meters out, 22 minutes in. The crowd went wild. We were jumping up and down. The flares were lit, the confetti cannons went off. It was pandemonium in the stands. That was until the game was equalized 8 minutes later. But Jeju was not backing down. Jeju kept pressuring before half, when in the 38 minute Romulo scored his second of the night. The Jeju faithful were up in the air. Chants were being sung. Hugs and high 5's were abundant, and the beer was being spilled. Jeju was on top again. This was twice as many goals as we have seen at home all season long.

The second half started off with fireworks to welcome our players back on the pitch. Jeju up 2-1, the crowd was behind their team. Jeju had a fair amount of fans in the stands. This maybe due to the $1 t-shirts that they were selling, with the t-shirt, you get free admission. The stands were amass with a sea of orange. It was a sight to behold. The stands were almost a quarter full. I haven't seen that many fans since opening day.

The ball was moving back and forth up and down the field. With a couple of near misses by both teams. That was until the 68th minute. Romulo received a nice pass, took the ball into the penalty area and faked out the opposing teams goalie along with several of their defenders to sink his 3 goal of the night. The fan faithful were running up and down the stands. Ponytail guy came up and started high 5ing all of the Soju Suicide Squad. The Soju Suicide Squad is the name of our little firm of loyal Jeju supporters. The die hards who never miss a home game and sometimes travel to the away games. We are trying to combine with the Insane Islanders, the local Korean supporters.

The Jejuians were chanting down the streets. The city was alive with the spirit of the Fighting Jeju. Chants were heard walking into Gecko's, shots were dealt out and chants were heard throughout the rest of the evening.

I finished off the evening with a nice soak in the sauna. Surprising how many people are there at 3 in the morning. I guess some Koreans stay there when they are on trip. They have a sleeping area and the like. It is much cheaper than sleeping in a hotel. It is also a place for the inebriated to sober up as well.

Loveland

2008-05-22T17:54:00.000-07:00

Jeju, being the honeymoon paradise that it is, has certain attractions to ease the new couple into marital relations. One such place is a gem that I went to with a couple of friends last weekend. It is called Loveland. It is a funny funny place. It has sort of become a foreigner must when on the island. The Jejuians love it as well. Families come to it. Which I do find a bit odd. Considering the parks theme.

The theme of Loveland isn't love, it's sex. They have statues of people in various different sexual positions. Some in more complicated positions that others. There is no way I can convey the wonderment of this place, so i will post some pictures for your enjoyment/ laughter.

Pics are in the newly created slide show on the right.

Car

2008-05-14T19:34:00.000-07:00

I have a car!! So if anyone wants to come and visit, I can give you a proper tour around the island. I rock. If you are wondering it is a 95 Kia Sophia. Now I don't have to spend 2 1/2 hours on the bus to get to work. Yay ME!!!!

Cheese, Hookahs and Assults.

2008-05-12T18:17:00.000-07:00

Jeju United lost again. My soccer team isn't doing so hot. We lost this weekend to the last placed team. Well they are no longer the last placed team, we are. I think we need new coaches. We were playing like we had the lead. Playing too conservative. We were down 1-0 from 5 minutes in the game and our game plan never changed. We never pressured the other team. We let them dictate to play. We have yet to win a home game this season. We have only scored one time on our home field. That shit just shouldn't happen. We need our home field
I missed most of the second half of the game though. Some little girls came up to me during half time and asked me some basic English questions. This apparently was enough for them to attack me during the second half of the match. Here I am just minding my own business, drinking my beer and screaming at the game, when these girls start climbing on me and trying to steal my beer. Yes these 6-8 year old girls were trying to steal my beer. Crazy kids. This went on for almost the whole 45 minutes of the half. They were talking to me, climbing on me, they just would not leave me alone. I had no idea who they were. My friends asked me if they were my students. They weren't. They just laughed. I tried to pawn them off on others, it worked, for a short short time. They just started coming back.

Sunday night I was treated to a new joint here on the wonder island paradise I live on. It is a small bar type establishment. This place had a hookah and cheese platter. I don't know which was better, the cheese or the hookah. I have been missing cheese. Cheese isn't something that is popular in Korea. And this was fantastic. Gourmet cheeses. So so so tasty. I was in heaven. The cheeses were complimented by our cherry flavored smoke in the hookah. We ended up ordering 2 plates of cheese and crackers. Though we didn't get a refill on the crackers for the second plate of cheese. Oh well. Still yummy.

Opening Ceremony and other hooplaa

2008-05-06T00:22:00.000-07:00

May 1st was the opening ceremony of my new center. It had all the hoopla and shenanigans of any Korean opening. There was a band, food, speeches, and famous Koreans and of course flowers. One can always tell when something is new here. There are reefs of flowers all around the entrance.
I missed the opening ceremony. Actually I wasn't invited. I had to work. Part of the ceremony was a tour. They brought in one class of students to run through our Sim lab. So I was teaching a bunch of girls how to order food at a fast food joint. Woo Hoo. I got to do this as my co-worker got to cut the ribbon. I'm a wee bit jealous. She gets to do all the fun stuff. My director was pretty proud. He told me that some guy's hand I shook was the big wig in charge of the school system on Jeju. Apparently it was a big honor. "Not everyone gets to shake his hand." is what my director told me. So what I shook some dude's hand, who I will never meet again. Come on! Not that big of a deal. It made him happy though.
Following the ceremony, we went to lunch. Nice restaurant. Though the food they served was a bit funny. It was all shellfish, prawns, clams, muscles, in a soup. The problem was, none of it was deshelled. So I had to go into my soup, dig out what I wanted to eat, pop it out of the shell and into my mouth. So go on eating. Some people are still eating, some are done. None of that mattered, when the most important guy in the room was finished, everyone was finished. Fucked up culture. Gotta love the Confucianism.
OK, little side track here. Confucianism is not a bad thing. Respecting elders and all that good stuff. The thing is, that Koreans have taken advantage of it. The old people and rich people think that they should get special treatment. They won't move out of your way, even if it is much easier for them to do so. I was in a car with a friend. An elderly gentleman, driving a nicer car was going down the street. Now streets here only allow one car to go at a time. My friend along with 2 other cars behind him, had to back up to let him pass. It was much easier for this guy to pull off to the side, but he wouldn't. That is just one example of many. I've played chicken with people on the island. I will walk in a straight line, with purpose, just to see if they will move out of my way. I've run into more than have moved. Then they look at you like you are crazy.
OK back to the school stuff. After lunch, we had to come back to work. Well come back and look busy. I've been doing the same stuff since then, nothing. I don't know what classes I will be teaching or if I will be teaching at all. If I do end up teaching, it won't be until the 20th of May. Until then, I don't have anything to do. I can't even lesson plan. So I am studying for my SCUBA lessons, and some Korean
So after school, it was dinner with the same people for lunch and drinking. That was fine. Food and a couple shots of soju isn't such a bad thing. I was ready to go and we start to leave, when Arielle and myself get hijacked. We are going to a Noribong, Karaoke bar. I wasn't in the mood for it, Arielle really didn't want to do it. But we had no choice in the matter. Our director wanted to go, so we were obligated to go. We get there and they order 4 bottles of whisky at $100 a pop. This was after Arielle got bitched out by our director for ordering a drink that cost $1 more than a bottle of soju, that they were sucking down. I tried to show them the proper way to drink it, yeah they were having none of that. Korean way is to shoot whisky. So they sip a $4 bottle of crap soju, but shoot good whisky. A bit backwards if you ask me. Sang some and danced some. The video is of my director dancing, enjoy. Sorry it is sideways. I can't figure out how to flip it.

Ultimate Frisbee

2008-04-29T23:43:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was the Gnarley Nines International Ultimate Frisbee Tourney. Jeju entered 3 teams and I was on one of them. There were 27 teams in total. They came from far and wide to participate in this, the 4th annual tournament. There were teams from the US, Korea, Japan, China, Philippines, and I believe Thailand amongst other places. There were 3 divisions and my team was thankfully in the 3rd division. That is the division that is not so competitive and people out for a good time and a little competition.
The tournament was spread out over 2 days. The first day was for rankings for the playoffs. Saturday was a hell day. We played 4 games, 3 games right in a row. Each match lasts to 11 points or a 55 minute cap. Most of our games went to cap. It was a rough couple of games. I think we had one healthy person on our team at the end of the day. Mostly muscle strains and bum knees and the like. I pulled my alkalies tendon. It hurt to run, but I played on. We needed everyone out there and everyone was in pain. Plus when your in a match, pain doesn't bother you.
We ended up winning 2 games and losing 2 games on Saturday. We lost a heart breaker. We were down 5-1 with less than 5 minutes to go and came back and tied the match and losing in a sudden death overtime. The other loss was to another Jeju team, a team we practice with every weekend. We are an evenly matched team. We just couldn't play. The day got windier and windier as the day went on and it was our last game of the day. So on top of being dead tired, we were dealing with gale force winds. We lost that one by 2 points, 2-4.
The next day we won 1 and lost 1 and were knocked out of the playoffs. That sucked. All the games we won during the tournament we handled the other teams. Most ended up 11-2. But the game that knocked us out of the playoffs, we got handled, their girls were good tossers and fast runners. I found out after the game why we got beat so badly. They were a division A team. That is the top division and they were placed in the C division for the playoffs. So they just flat out played us.
So it was a good weekend out. Pretty sweet deal as well. The entrance fee for the tourney was about 50 bucks. With that we got 2 nights in a hotel, 2 nights of food and drinking. Food and Drinking were included, Soju and beer. Lunch at the field as well as more free beer and soju and a free Frisbee. Saturday night they threw a party for us, the theme of the party was scandles. A few people dressed up, but most did not. It is kind of a hard topic for people to dress up as.
Most teams were sponsored as well. We had shirts made, 2 pairs of shorts, a bandanna and socks donated to our team.
Oh yeah I almost forgot on of the best things about the tourney. I got to use my Mongolian. On the way to the fields on Sunday, someone found out that I used to live there and there was a MONGOLIAN guy playing on one of the other teams. A team that we crushed the previous day. So I introduced myself and talked Mongolian for a while. Good guy, fun guy. He was his teams cheerleader. Keeping them laughing and motivated. I have lost some of my Mongol, but I still managed to get by. I was so happy to speak it again. FAN-FRICKIN-TASTIC!!!!!

Chair Racing

2008-04-20T23:53:00.000-07:00

Ah! Mondays. I love them. Today might be my last Monday at the Center. We were informed today that this will be our last week working in the schools that we have been working at. Our Center opens up on the first. So we will be moving out there next week. I am looking forward to it. Today we had a meeting with Ellen. She is the director of the foreign language centers. She came and told us that we would be taking part in the opening ceremonies. We are just running things in the sim labs. I don't know if we'll be giving speeches or anything. Hell I don't even know where I'll be going for the most of next week.

But now on to the title of this post. Today at work, typical Monday, we (Arielle and myself) started off the usual way. Checking email, doing crosswords and reading. When we started sliding around the room in our chairs. It progressed to a designed figure 8 race track. I am proud to say that I won. I kicked ass. I rocked the house. I won with a triumphant block with a double chair push block. There are obstacles that we can use to our advantage. Arielle was coming around the corner, when I threw two chairs to block her and rolled my way to victory.

Parent observation

2008-04-15T21:14:00.000-07:00

Last week my co-teacher informed me that the students parents would be watching my classes today. Of course she didn't tell me until it was time to go. She has a tendency to do that. It is not a quality I like in her. Most of the time when she tells me about something, it is right before it is time to go. I've been sitting around in the office, all day with nothing to do. I finish at 12:20 and sit here until 4:30. It doesn't take me all that long to plan for my classes the next day. I usually do that on Mondays anyway. She was stressing out. She called me several times during the week to ask me questions.

I wrote her up a lesson plan and told her to do whatever she liked for it. Take things she liked and get rid of stuff she didn't. That seemed to satisfy her. That is until 4:30 yesterday. Apparently she ran through the lesson with the class and they thought it was to difficult. I was done for work for the day and really did not want to write up another plan. I sent out a quick email to her explaining my new idea. She then proceeded to call me and text me throughout the night. I guess she didnt' really understand what I was trying to do. The kids had a firm grip on the topic. They have been studying the same thing for the past 3 weeks trying to look good for their parents. It was a bit of overkill if you ask me. I would have prefered to teach something new and not rehash the same ole thing just to look good in front of their parents.

But it was all good. I killed that lesson. I rocked the house. I am a god. No, I'm that good. People worship me. I know what I am doing and I am good at it. She got her wish that the parents liked the lesson. The principle was happy. Everyone was happy. My next lesson was also watched. I don't know why that one was. The parents for the 5th grade seemed to enjoy that lesson as well and that one had minimal prep. I would have to say almost no prep. I didn't even know what they were learning until I stepped into the classroom. Which is fine at this school They seem to be a bit behind my other school, so I have covered and planned for these classes already.

Jeju delicacy

2008-04-07T16:47:00.000-07:00

Friday I got a call from my co-teacher asking me if it was ok to stay late. There was a PTA meeting that they wanted me to attend. I was fine with it. It meant free food and drinks. Though it was a bit pointless for me to go, as I am only teaching here for another week. Or so I think. I haven't been well informed on the subject.
It was less of a meeting and more of a dinner party. I guess the parents take the teachers out to eat to get to know them before the real PTA stuff starts. We went to this nice restaurant overlooking the ocean. Beautiful really. I was then informed about the night's fare. Black Pig

Black Pig is a delicacy on Jeju. It might be a delicacy in all of Korea. The Black Pig lives a life, no other animal would like to live. At least that is my thought. Traditionally the black pig is put into outhouses. It lives it's life eating the waste, we poop out and piss out. Then on special occasions, it is hauled up and killed and eaten. Though now thanks to plumbing, it no longer fulfills that duty. I am sure in parts of the countryside it still wallows in the deeps of the outhouse.

It tastes like pork, as it is pork. But there was something else to the flavor. There was a uniqueness to it. I don't know what it is fed now. They could still be feeding it shit. I would have to say that I enjoyed it.

Frisbee and the like

2008-03-30T19:14:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago, I joined an Ultimate Frisbee league. We practice every Saturday, rain or shine. We are preparing for an international tournament that is coming here at the end of April. We have 3 teams from the island that will be competing. We are just out to have fun. Last Saturday it was raining, and we had the largest turnout so far. By the end of the 2 hour practice, I was covered in mud. I was wearing street shoes and was sliding all over the place. When I play sports, I get into it. Plus I am not the most agile person, so I fall a lot. I ended up injuring myself almost at the beginning of practice though. I slid and pulled my groin. I kept on playing until it hurt too much. My team was tired by that point and most of us left. I now have cleats. I am hoping that they help. I missed practice yesterday. There was an extra one, due to the rain. I just couldn't walk well.

The only thing I did yesterday was lay in bed, cook and watch movies. I did have to run Emart to get something to cook. The 5 minute walk took heaps longer. I was walking so slow. On top of the pulled groin muscle, I have a bruised hip. There was an 80's themed party on Saturday as well. At the end of the night, I went back to the bar with Anne-Marie. She forgot her phone and we went back to pick it up. It was still raining. It rained all weekend. Anyway I was coming down the stairs in my wet shoes on wet marble stairs and slid. Hitting my hip on the edge of the stairs. So now I have an nice softball sized bruise on my hip, as well as a bruised elbow, knee, and a skinned ankle.

In other news, Korea has been over taken. There are people dancing in the street, they are bowing to passing cars and big tv's on back of trucks are everywhere. People are walking around with sashes, with numbers on them. There is probably other things on them as well, I just can't read them. At first I had no idea what was going on. Then I found out that next Wednesday, I have the day off of work. It is election time. So the candidates have their posses out doing crazy shit. Could you imagine Obama and Clinton having people dancing in the streets.

First week of Teaching

2008-03-27T22:26:00.000-07:00

Well I just finished my first week of teaching. For the most part it has been rather enjoyable. Some classes were better than others. The school I work at on Tuesday and Thursday is quite a bit bigger than my Wednesday Thursday school. The class sizes are around 25 students per class on Tuesdays and Fridays. The class sizes are from 7-14 students in my other school. It is so much easier to teach in small groups.

Today I had a hell class. I moved several kids around the class. The homeroom teacher had no control over them. They just did not listen to her. She was a quiet one though. When I have class with her again on Tuesday, I will attempt to remedy the situation before class. This Wed, Fri, school has an English Language classroom. She lets them sit where ever they like. That shit just isn't going to play. They don't listen and just talk to each other. So Tuesday they will be moved into a seating arrangement where I can control them.

I would have to say that my favorite classes are my younger groups. I teach a mixed class of kindergarten and first graders. They are so cute and so much fun. It is a high energy class and thus I am constantly having to do run around trying to get these kids to speak or do the songs that I am teaching. I taught them head shoulders knees and toes. Then I followed that up with a drawing segment of the class. I needed to check their understanding. So we drew monsters. I told them what to draw and how many. Most of the kids understood.

So this is what I gathered from my one week of teaching. There aren't English Language teachers. The homeroom teacher is in charge of teaching everything. Sort of like it was like, when I was in elementary school. I think they should have teachers, who just teach English though. Both of my counterparts, speak really really well. One has done a fair amount of travel and the other hasn't been out of the country. Both are attractive. It is fun to teach with them. Just hard to concentrate. My mind kind of wonders. Some of my teachers can hardly speak any English. Some can speak fairly well.

Koreans are of a different breed. In my smaller school, I have a teacher, who is rather young. Really friendly and all, but when I went into her classroom, I just laughed. She got up and she had a smile on her face. I could see why she was so happy. There was a buzzing sound coming from her chair, and 2 glowing knobs. I just can't see someone doing that while at work. On that note, I'm outie

Work

2008-03-24T17:23:00.000-07:00

Well I finally figured out where I will be working for the next three weeks. Both my co-teachers called my yesterday. I was wondering if they were going to get in contact with me at all. I was supposed to meet them last week, and they never showed. Then they were supposed to call me on the weekend. Yeah that didn't happen. At 4:30 yesterday they both called. I am working at 2 schools. I don't know my schedule. All I know is that I am working at one of the schools on Wednesday and Thursday. That much one of my co-teachers informed me of. That and that her mother is going to pick me up to drop me off at the bus stop. I could walk. I would prefer to walk. That is just going to be a whole lot of awkward.
Today I was picked up at 7:30. I haven't been up at 7:30 since I have been here. That was rough. Especially rough given the fact that my main center had a party yesterday. Lots of free food and drinks. You can't say no to that. That and Koreans forcing you to drink. So first day of work and I am hungover. Not fun times, kids. Good thing I can whip up a class with little or no warning. I didnt' have time to lesson plan. I wasn't even sure I would be teaching today. I found that out when I got to work. Introductory lesson here I come. I will have to talk about myself for 45 minutes several different times today. That and getting to know my students. Students that i will only have for 3 weeks. Maybe once a week.
Well I have finished with work for the day. My first class was cancelled. The 3rd grade teacher had a tickle in his/her throat and didn't come in. My second class went swimmingly. The teacher used the time for me to talk about myself. It took up most of the time. I didn't know I was so interesting.
The third class was a bit off. The teacher didn't know how to use me and I ended up taking over his class. He wasn't a very good speaker and thus it hurt his English language classes. The kids just didn't listen to him and they were doodling and talking with eachother instead of paying attention. So I stepped in and layed the smack down. There was no introductions in that class. I didn't even get his name until the end of class. I forgot it already. I really need to start writing these things down.
My last class of the day was fun. The teacher, who also didn't introduce himself, gave me the book and said "this is what you are teaching" I've never seen the book. I've seen him in the halls once or twice today. It would have been nice to have had some time to prepare. But I am a god and did quite well on the fly. I got all the kids moving and interested.
Other than that, pretty good day overall. I have retained my rockstar status. Kids coming up to me and sniffing me, pettting my beard and looking at my ear piercing. They like to talk to me and I have no idea what they are saying. Let the good times roll.

Mongols

2008-03-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

Before work I was out walking about. In reality I had to go to the bank and get a new bank book. I haven't even used it yet and I already destroyed it. I put it through the wash machine. This happened after I washed my passport. I really need to start checking my pockets before I wash. My passport is a little beat up as well. The cover is starting to pull off the picture page. I need to take a picture of it and ask the Embassy if I need to get a new one.
But anyway I was walking down to the bus stop after going to the bank. And I see for guys who are not Korean. Plus the fact that they were wearing track suits with the Mongolian flag on it, kinda gave it away. So I yelled at them and shocked them with my mad Mongol skills. They are in town for the Asia Games. They are wrestlers. One of them was from Sukhbaatar, that is the area where I used to live. It made my day. I could finally communicate with someone. They needed to go and my bus was coming so, it was a short conversation. But fantastic to talk to them

Random things

2008-03-17T18:18:00.000-07:00

Ok. Here we go. 2 weekends ago, I went to see Jeju United play down in Sogwipo I doubt if I spelt that even remotely close. It was a fun experience. There was a bus that picked us up on my part of the island and we had a full bus. It was free. The tickets were free. I love free. The bus arrived at the stadium and we went and got some beers and sat down to watch the match. Wasn't much of a game. Both teams were a little lacking in the skills department. During halftime another EPIK worker and myself went on a quest to find a scarf or a jersey. Walking around and asking where we can buy one, yeah, they don't sell them at the stadium. Well that didn't deter me. I saw people with them. I wanted one. So I was walking around and I saw this VIP area. I want over and start talking to the guard. Where can I get a scarf. I see a guy with one. "Like that one!" They are not for sale. He looks around, gives me the shoosh. How many do you need? 3. He goes and gets them. I ask him how much, nothing!!! I rock! Persistence and charm, what can I say!

Last weekend was St. Patty's day celebrations. There was an open mike night at a bar called Led Zeppelin. It was good. Way too many whitie in there. Smaller venue, and there were probably 75 foreigners in there. Pain in the ass trying to get a beer. They ran out of mug, and it took something like 15 minutes just to get to the bar. It seemed like the whole bar needed to shift when people moved. I really don't like bars that crowded. From there, moved on to a bar called Angel Sin. Yeah, I know, they have interesting names for bars here. Took me a minute to realize that I have been in this place before. I went there my first night on the island. I have pictures, but not with me. I'll post them later.

Alright weekends are caught up with. Yesterday, my boss came in right before we were about to leave and told us that we would be working in Sogwipo, for the next month. Today, I guess we are meeting with the co-teachers. I'm not even sure they know about this yet. All I know about it is that there are 3 schools. One of us will be working at 2 the other at 1, and it will be 4 days a week. Mondays I will stay in town, and Tuesday-Friday we will travel. They might have been told this morning. The thing I am not too keen on is travel. It is on the bottom of the island. I live on the top. There is a mountain in between. When I travel to my permanent placement it is coastline driving and rather flat. I was asking about being reimbursed for bus fare or gas and they kind of gave me the run around. I will have to talk with the co-teachers about it. Otherwise, work travel is going to seriously cut into my budget. I will write more about this new teaching situation when I find it out.

Quick note. It takes 1 hour 15 minutes for me to walk back to my place from where I am working now.

I am also buying a bike. I was planning on buying a scooter, but as my travel is great and I will need something a bit bigger. I got a call last night, that knows a guy who is leaving next week. He is selling his 125 cc bike for about $400. It is cheaper than I would by a scooter for, so there you go.

Cell Phone

2008-03-13T01:29:00.000-07:00

Who could have thought that getting a cell phone could be so much work. It took me the better part of 2 days just to get one. I started of at KT, Korean Telecom. I was there for probably 3 hours. The lady who was helping me spoke little English and tried and tried to help me. We finally got on the same page and she hooked me up with a cell phone, or so I thought. She was setting up a plan and asked me for my credit card. They want a safety net against foreigners running up large bills and leaving the country. So I happily give her one. Thinking alright, three hours here and I am almost done. She looks at it questioningly, talks to a co-worker, makes some more phone calls, asks me where it is from, makes some more calls, and then says "Do you have a Korean credit card?" No I don't have a Korean credit card. Why would I have a Korean credit card? They won't give a foreigner a credit card. Oh I'm sorry, we can't give you a phone. WHAT?!?!?! 3 hours of sitting here and now you are telling me that you can't give me a phone. You could hook up my cable and my internet, NOW YOU CAN"T GIVE ME A PHONE!

Nothing I could do. Stressed out and pissed off I head back to work. My boss, who is in charge of finances of all the EPIK teachers, looks at me questioningly. "Did you get a phone?" No I didn't get a phone. Oh they won't give phones to foreigners. You told me to go there. I went there. Wasted 3 hours there. You've dealt with this situation before. God DAMN you. Oh but you might be able to get a prepaid phone. Not through them though. Why didn't you tell me this before? I scream in my head. So I she gives me a sticky note saying prepaid in Korean, that's it and sends me on my way.

So after work I head out to one of the many many many cell phone shops. They have no idea what I am talking about. Show them the note, Most of them shrug and say something to me in Korean. I have no idea what they are talking about, and it is painfully obvious that they have no idea what I am asking for. Several shops later, I find a guy who speaks bad English. Save the day! He tries to sell me a phone for $600. I ask if he's got anything cheaper. The cheapest phone? Yes oh here, It's a lime green Razr for $450.

So I head out on my way. Checking out more and more stores seeing if they have used phones or something a bit cheaper. I find one. The girl speaks no Englishee. Through my phrase book and persistence, we are able to communicate. I she shows me a phone for around $90. A bit beat up but workable. Yes. I think. I will have a phone tonight. Oh was I dreaming. She calls her friend. She speaks English. Wow. So now I am able to figure it out. I get a phone here and I have to go to the central office to get it hooked up. But they close at 6. It is 7. Good thing I work at 1 the next day. So I go to SK telecom and 45 min later the next day I finally have a phone. I have a phone that works. I have prepaid service. Ah!!

Fishlips

2008-03-11T07:01:00.000-07:00

The movie, the legendary movie Fishlips. Made by several of my friends. Funny funny stuff

New School

2008-03-11T04:46:00.000-07:00

So on Friday I went and saw my new school. We spent a couple of hours there. The school is really really nice. There is a bunch of things there that I will have to get used to using. My experience teaching in Mongolia didn't prepare me well for all the technology in the classroom. I have a dvd player with an overhead projector. I have a computer with a pen that allows me to write on it and project it on the wall. I have a microphone, which I hope that I never have to use. My classes are going to be small. At least that is what they are telling me, about 16 students per class

It is sort of stressful opening up a new school. My director is under a lot of pressure to make it work. It really isn't a school. It is more of an after school program. The classes are free for the students. It is only for spoken English. The way it appears to work over here, is the Korean teachers teach grammar and we get them speaking. Which can be a challenge. There was a study done and the biggest reason why Koreans do not speak English is that there are other Koreans around. They are afraid of screwing up in front of other Koreans.

We do have aids to help. There are simulation labs to help with real world applications. There is a restaurant, shop, doctors office, airport, and bank in the lab. Some of the English is wrong. It is an easy fix, but when they put that much money into a new facility, they should've gotten it right. The prices are wrong on the menu in the restaurant. Most of the prices are $1.7, or $5.5. I told my director that is not the way we write prices. Ours has 2 decimal places. I think he understood.

My Apartment

2008-03-11T04:36:00.000-07:00

Video of my apartment. It isn't that large. I'm on the 13th floor and I have quite the view. You'll see it if you watch the video.

Out with the Director

2008-03-06T16:39:00.000-08:00

Last night Arielle and myself went out to dinner with my director Mr. Kim. We ended up going to a Japanese Resturant. We had sushi. Not really sushi, but tons of raw fish. I miss cooked food. He ordered so much food for the 3 of us. They filled up our table with various different types of raw fish, and we scarfed it down. Most of it wasn't too bad. Some was a bit chewy for my taste. When we made a sizeable dent in that batch, they come back into the room with this boat. Probably 3ft long and a foot wide and place it on the table. It was more raw fish. They gave us some lettuce leaves to wrap it up in and thus we started eating again. Eating and drinking Soju.

So after getting well stuffed and relaxing for a little bit, thinking the meal is finished, more comes out. This time a bowl of soup. The soup was followed by frozed raw crap. Ah me belly is full. I don't think I can eat another bite. Take down a couple more shots of Soju with Mr. Kim and Arielle. Thinking it is time to move on and finish up, when yeah, you guessed it, more food. I'm a big guy. I like to eat. But come on. This is getting rediculous. They brought out cooked food this time, Shrimp fried in Tempura batter, as well as fried cucumber and potato. Oh yeah and all the other raw fish we couldn't eat, now came out and it was also fried. I was so full after that. Good thing that was the end of the food.

We followed up the resturant, by going to a bar called Beer Life. There we ordered beer. Yummy yummy beer. We had a pitcher of beer. It came in this little mini keg type thing. Kept the beer nice an chilly. Good good stuff. And of course more food was needed because we were drinking. So we ordered dried squid. Not too bad actually. This stuff actually tasted good. I think because of where we are and the freshness of it. It is caught right off the coast here. Looking out across the city, it is usually possible to see squid drying on clothes lines.

Drinking and eating go hand in hand here. Korean men like to drink, but they only seem to do it when there is something to eat. Even at bars, they get some kind of snack. The snack is usually dried squid and a chili sauce.

First fuck up

2008-03-05T16:46:00.000-08:00

Well yesterday I had my first fuck up at work. It was only my third day and the only day I had anything going on. It was actually a busy day. So Tuesday I was cooking dinner when Brian stopped by my place and told me to stop cooking. We were going to go out and meet a bunch of people for dinner, drinks and bowling. We went to a buffet. The buffet's here are a bit different from that back home. You go and pick your meat, and fixings and go back to your table and fry it up. We ended picking pork, beef, a marinated beef, shrimp and octopus. Tasty little buggers, them octopi. The cooler was behind us so the beer and Soju were free flowing.

You are not allowed to drink in bowling alleys or pool hall here. Which I find a bit odd. Bowling and drinking go hand in hand. I don't think I've seen too many bowlers with out the required beer belly. I think it helps with the spin. So anyway, I was on fire. I bowled my first turkey. A turkey is 3 strikes in a row. Yay me!!! So that was my best game. I think I bowled a 149. From there it was down hill. I bowled 2 more games. I finished over 100 in both of those games. So I did rather well. I am thinking of joining the PBA. I would rock it with my palm the ball style.

After bowling we went to a bar by the bowling alley to say good bye to some girl that I met once before. We stayed there for I little bit and then the group decided to break up and head to our respective homes. I jumped in a cab with 3 others who were traveling to ShinJeju. That is the part of town I live in, I guess. Well we were feeling good and thus we decided to stop off at a bar close to home for a night cap. Basically the plan was to have a shot and a beer and go home. Yeah, that didn't happen. We ended up talking to some of the locals and making friends with the owner. So they were feeding us drinks. I think I had a couple of whiskys and 3 tequila shots. After a while we made our way home and I promptly went to sleep.

Before I went to sleep though, I thought it would be a good idea to set my alarm. Which, in my inebriated state wasn't the best idea. So instead of setting my alarm, I turned it off. I woke up at 11, to my door bell ringing and I throw on some pants and check the camera. Yeah I don't have a peep hole, I have a camera. But whose face do I see, my school director's. I open the door and tell him to give me 5 minutes and I'll be ready. He just sorta laughed and said to hurry up.

We were going to Hallim that day to check out the Western Foreign Language Center, which is on the west side of the island. I get rush and get to the car that is waiting outside my building and get in. It is at this point I realise that I am still a wee bit drunk. So hangover averted. Hey you gotta look for the positives in everything, right.

Well the hour long drive allowed me to sober up and keep it cool. Good thingI was in the back seat. Though I would guess that I reeked of bar and had alcohol draining out of my pores. I was a bloody mess. That will not happen again. At least not for a long long time. If I could have only have woken up, I could have showered and sobered up with a nice cold shower.

I was able to get done most of what I needed to get done. I went back to the hospital and got my drug test results. I am clean. Wooo Hooo! I am able to get my alien registration card. I pick it up next week. When I get that I can get my cell phone and join the masses. I wasn't able to get my internet and cable set up. They were supposed to do that yesterday as well, but we stayed in Hallim longer than we were supposed to. Some big wig was coming there and my director wanted to have a chance incounter. So I had to reschedule internet for Friday.

Work

2008-03-03T17:58:00.001-08:00

I think I may have alluded to this in a previous post but I will fill in more information about my work and what I will be doing once I actually start work. I think I just wrote about how far I will be traveling for work.

I'm working for Jeju Foriegn Language Institute, Eastern Section. I guess I am lucky. I will not be working with a co-teacher. I will have my own classes. That is what they are telling me. There is one other foriegner working there. She is also American. We might rotate classes so the students get a variety of classes. We will be getting the cream of the crop. The institutes are for the best students who want to learn English.

The foriegners' job is basically to get them speaking. There are a lot of aids to get them speaking we will be running kids through a simulation area as well as classes. The simulation area is a small mall type area with a resturant, post office, clothing store, airport, and the like. Basically a place to practice real world application of English. This area we are going to have to write scripts for, but the students should be running this section themselves. At least in theory.

From what I can tell I will have longer hours than most of the EPIK (English Program in Korea) teachers. But will have a lot more time off. I have ever Monday class free. It is a prep day.

I'll be teaching the gambit of levels. From high to low. But from what they tell me and from what others have told me, they are all highly motivated students. I am really excited to start teaching again. I'll let you know how it goes once I start teaching again. For the first couple of months, I will be observing the other teachers here at the central center to see what they do and how they do it. Which I like. I like having more ideas for classes.

Food

2008-03-02T21:55:00.000-08:00

This was written while I was in orientation and I am now able to post it.

Food here is fantastic. That is once you get away from the food that they were serving us at the hotel. The food there was horrible. It is what I imagine prison food to taste like. Mass produced and flavorless.

So for the most part my dinners have been away from the hotel. I have been going out to dinner with 2 Kiwi's and 2 Ausie's. Dinners are a communal thing here. I guess it is really hard to go into a Korean resturant and get served if you are by yourself. They just don't understand the lone dinner thing. Last night we went and had some spicy chicken dish. It consised of chicken, potatoes, cabbage, speghetti, some rice noodle and sauce. Brilliant. So so good. We killed off 2 wok platters of it. It's cooked right in front of you. Most of the food is cooked in front of you. With tons and tons of side dishes. I've eaten this BBQ dish here a couple of times. Well not exactly BBQ, more like bacon cooked over a fire that you wrap in lettuce with some other fixin's

First few days in Jeju

2008-03-02T21:19:00.001-08:00

Ok. I am now home. My home is small to say the least. This place is a bit smaller than my Mongolian Ger. It is new and I am the first one living in it. So I had to peel plastic off of everything. I guess it was built 2 years ago, but has not had anyone living in it. So it was a bit dirty. There was still plaster dust everywhere. I'll post a video of it once I get internet.

Apparently I can't get internet or a cell phone or cable until I get my alien registration card. So today for most of the morning I was at the hospital getting my drug test done. That was a pain. I was being being shuffled from one place to the next. This is the first year that the drug test is being done so nobody knew what to do. So after about 3 hours and several stops later I was given a dixi cup and showed the bathroom. I was told to fill it up half way and bring it back. I could have put someone elses pee in the cup and they would not have known. Who knows maybe I did do that.

Ok I will give a run down of everything I have done so far. Not to say that I have done much. Friday we arrived in Jeju. I found out that I will be living in Jeju-si or Jeju City. The city is divided up into two areas. The western area, where I live is mostly banks and government buildings. Not the best area for a night life or anything really. The eastern area is more shopping, resturants, bars, basically more of city life. This is the area I would prefer to live in.

It takes me 20 min to get to work from where I live. That is by cab. Today is my first day and I have nothing to do. From the sound of it, I won't have much to do for the next month and a half. I will be working at the Foriegn Language Institute, Eastern section. So I will be travelling to the eastern side of the island for work. On this map I live in Haga-ri and I will be working in Sehwa-ri. So it is a commute. I guess it takes over an hour to get there. I'll have to buy a scooter. I am trying to get them to move me to the eastern side of the city, to make the commute that much shorter.

So anyway, my first couple of days on the island have been alright. The first night I was in town I met a guy in my building. He helped me set everything up, heat, door code and some shopping. He showed me around the area, the local marts and the like. Later that night we went into town and went to the bar area. We met up with one of his friends and went out to eat. The first meal I had on the island was raw fish. Sushi and various other types of raw fish. Most of it wasn't that bad. Some chewier than others. I would have to say I enjoyed it. From there we went out and shot some pool. Wow I sucked. I haven't played that bad in a while. I guess that happenes after a couple bottles of Soju. Soju is the local Korean alcohol. It tastes like watered down vodka. Played pool for a bit and then went to another bar to meet some other people and ended up going to another bar that was a dart bar. Played some darts and sucked ass. Horrible. I gave up on playing, that is how bad I was doing.

Came home to my apartment around 5:30 in the morning to find it absolutely freezing. So I went to bed. Woke up in the morning, or afternoon, about 4ish and it was still cold. Fiddled around for a while and then decided to take a shower, yeah no hot water. I went and talked to Brian, the guy in my building, to see if he could figure it out. So after fiddling around for a little while, went to see the manager and the told me my gas was off. So went up and turned it on and low and behold I had hot water. Took and shower, went to Pizza hut and I started feeling ill so didn't do anything. Sunday I woke up feeling like crap. I had a feaver and spent the day in bed. I tried to get up and explore the area. I walked for about a mile, till I had to turn back. I felt like I was going to pass out. So that night was spent napping and watching movies.

Today, Monday, was spent at the hospital and then Areil, a girl I work with, who also had to go to the hospital, went and got some food. We went to a Japanese resturant and had some sushi. It seems like I will be eating a lot of raw fish. It is the mainstay of the Jeju diet from what I am told.

My Start in Korea

2008-02-26T05:48:00.000-08:00

2-26
I've decided to start a blog. I know I am not very good at keeping in touch. I just hate addressing emails. I've been keeping a journal, and this seems to be the easiest way to keep people informed of my going ons in my travels.

So far I am loving my time here in South Korea. I am in Daejon. I don't know if that is how it is spelled, but it is close enough. I am working for EPIK, English program in Korea. I will be moving to the island of Jeju in a couple of days. But right now I am with 170 other teachers who joined the program. There is a week of orientation before we leave to our various locations around South Korea. We have 4 classes a day, each lasting 1 1/2 hours. The classes are on Korean culture, and various teaching methodologies. I'm getting tired of classes. Most of the stuff that they are teaching I've learned in my time in Peace Corps.

But now on to the stories.

Today I skipped one of my classes. My back was killing me and I needed a break. The hotel that they are putting us up in is a Spa. It's called Yousung Hotel. I decided to get a massage. Anything to help alleviate the pain. I don't know what I did. I just woke up with a kink in my back. So I go down to the Spa area and try to ask for a massage. It was difficult. I can't wait until I speak the language. It took some doing, but I was able to get my point across. I think mostly because the words are the same. Well when I said massage, she said massagie. So she shows me how much it is going to be. She is the girl at the desk, by the way. I go into the locker room and try to figure out where to go. A lot of wondering around and being confused. A worker in the spa decides to help me out and shows me where to get a massage and gets a masseuse.

The Spa area is NAKED. I guess the area we are in is known for their hot springs. The tables are in an area where you soak. There are 3 pools, a cold water pool, a hot pool 45 degrees C and a 41 degree pool. Everyone is naked and Korea, that is except me. Well I am naked, just not Korean. If you are wondering, it is true what they say about Asians. They are not the largest of people. They are short and thin. I felt like John Holmes walking around in there. Being white in an Asian culture, people stare at you. When you are walking around naked, they stare at you.

I walk over to the table and talked to the guy, He says "Sports Massage?" I give him the thumbs up and tell him yes and lay down on the table. And he starts the massage. Every other time I got a massage, they throw a towel over you. Not here. I was on my stomach and didn't think much of it. The guy throws a bowl of hot water over me and goes to town. He was good. Got deep into my muscles and it did help the pain. About 45 minutes into the massage he throws more water over me and then grabs a towel and rubs it on this huge thing of soap and soaps me up and continues the massage for another 10 minutes and then has me flip over. Soaps up me front and massages my front for another 15 minutes. That part got uncomfortable. It is kinda strange having a dude massage you with a bunch of naked guys walking around or soaking right next to you and everything is out there in the open. Yeah no towel over the bits and tackle. Great massage, just a bit weird.

So after the massage, I decided to take a soak. Hell I was in the spa and the water is known all over Korea. This is supposed to be the best. Magical waters that are great for the body and skin. I didn't notice any thing, but the soak was great. There were a couple of Koreans doing some strange things in the pool. Stretches and the like. Oh well it is their country and their culture. I just chilled in the pool. Not bad. It helped. After a while I went to the hot pool. The hot pool was hot hot. Really hot. I could only handle it for a couple of minutes and then jumped into the cold pool for a minute before showering and getting out. But that is my story of my day in the Spa.