English Festival and Flaming Lips!!

Last week/weekend was pretty nice. The week was easy cause i didnt  have school on friday cause it was the day of the Korean SATs. But the Korean SATs are REALLY intense here! They only get 1 try at it and it pretty much determines the rest of their life. This test determines where they will be able to go to school.. and therefor where they will get a job.. which pretty much means for Koreans how happy they will be. The test is so serious that the country stop all air traffic during the time of the test!! But yah, no school last thursday for me. Wed night me and some friends went into Itaewon so my friend could pick up this fitted suit that he had made.. and then i started looking at the suits and well one thing led to another and then I decided to get one!!! Im REALLY excited for it :) Tomorrow i am going in to have it altered and im pretty pumped about it. Now i just need to have reasons to rock a suit... anyway after the suits we grabbed some dinner and i found out my cousin was in soul at some bar where he and some friends were gonna do some stand up.. since i didnt have school the next day i met up with them and it was a pretty fun night.

The rest of the week went by pretty easily.. fri night i just chilled cause i had to be up early for the english festival.. So the English festival ended up being really really awesome!!! We get there and the kids put on these song and dances and they were hilarious!! Little koreans are really cute and funny!!! Here are some pics from the performances.

So after their song/dance i went to my room where i was running a color/shape/body part game.. they would repeat after me and i would say the names of colors/shapes/body parts as they would come up on the screen..  and then they would listen to my instructions to color in a picture like 'color the hair blue.. color the pants green' etc.. it was a kind of nice change of pace teaching the little kids opposed to my high school kids. The little kids are cuter but are a lot more work.. so it was nice for the morning but i think i am happy that i teach high school. Heres me teaching the kids the word 'shoe'.

After a few hours of that we were finished and the school provided an AWESOME lunch for us!! Soooo much food! It was fun helping out at the festival because everyone was soooooo thankful that we were there and were like waiting on us for whatever we wanted.. the principal was so happy to have us and everyone was just really nice.. and they paid us like $100 bucks which was a great bonus!!


SO, after the festival/lunch we headed into seoul and met up with some people that we were going to the concert with.. we grabbed some food and drink and then headed into the show. I was SO excited to see the flaming lips!! I had never seen them before and i had wanted to for a long time.. They did not disappoint! They put on an awesome awesome show. They played almost all of the songs i wanted to hear and it was just wild. The lead singer came out in this big ball and was rolling around the crowd which was sweet and that had so many balloons and confetti and lights!! And it was cool cause it wasnt at a huge venue so we got to be pretty close to the action. It was a great time.




After the show we went to this hookah bar that i like and i ended up running into my cousin and his gf and ended up chillin with them for the night. Pretty solid. It was a nice, eventful weekend in Korea!




This week my kids are taking their written test so i pretty much have 0 teaching i have to do.. just sit around and grade their papers which isnt so bad.. and this weekend we are having a Thanksgiving potluck which im looking forward to. Im kinda bummed that i wont be home for thanksgiving and will miss out on seeing all of my friends.. but im glad that we get to do something here as well. And now all of the sudden ive been in Korea for almost 3 months and its almost december!!! Crazy crazy crazy. Oh yah.. MELANIE GOT INTO MADISON!!!! Fiiiinnnaaalllllyyy!!!!! Im sooooo proud of her and i am glad that i will have two more years after jeremy is gone to still have reasons to visit madison!!! AND not Dori is coming in 5 weeks!!! Its crazy that it is almost starting to get to be 'soon'. The time has been going by pretty quickly so even thought it still feels like a long ways away.. i know itll be here before i know it!! Our whole trip is pretty much planned at this point and i could not be more excited!! Another thing, i found out last week that Koreans CAN tell the difference between Koreans, Chinese and Japanese (in case you were curious). Well i think thats about it for now.. I hope you have a great thanksgiving and i wish i could be there!!! Thanks for reading :)

Yangyang Surf Festival

What a weekend! Soooo glad that I decided to make the trek up to North East Korea for the Yangyang surf festival!! It began on friday with kimball and me catching a 3 hour ish bus to some city where we transferred to another bus which took us the remaining hour to yangyang. The bus there was fine.. i just watched episodes of The Wire which is getting really AWESOME by the way.

So we get to Yangyang and call the guy that was directing the festival and find out that we are in yangyang CITY and the beach was somewhere in yangyang COUNTY. On the phone the guy made it seem like it was SUCH a big deal.. but it turned out we were only like 20 min away.. regardless we decided just to stay the night where we were and make the remainder of the trip the next day. We are starving cause we kinda skipped dinner so we sit down at this place for some soup (Koreans LOVE soup). Right after we sit down, this old, drunk Korean man starts trying to talk to us (probably the millionth time this has happened in Korea). We are being polite and nice and after a few minutes he asks us if we know where we are staying that night.. me and kimball exchange glances and answer a hesitant '...no...' Then this drink Korean tells us in broken English that he owns a motel and we can stay there FOR FREE. We werent sure if this 'motel' even existed.. or if it was a dump.. or if he was trying to kill us but we eventually decided.. what the hell. So we finish up our meal and then we follow the korean man a short walk away to his motel (which DID exist) and showed us our room (which was actually pretty sweet!).  Here's me in our FREE room :) (I won the coin flip so i got to sleep on the bed too!)

Anyway, Kimball and I get settled and are just relax for a bit while we wait for two of our friends
(Quinn and Greg) to meet us at the hotel. Once they arrive, they decide that they are hungry and want to grab some food.. so we all walk out of the motel right past the owner korean guy that we met earlier. We tried to explain to him that our friends were staying with us too.. and at first he didnt seem too pleased. But he did point us in the right direction of a restaurant and even decided that he would join us!! So we sit down the 4 of us at a table.. and the korean at a table next to us.. and Quinn and Greg order food. After a few minutes, the korean has a pizza given to him from a restaurant across the street! And then he motions for Kimball and me to join him! So we do, and the pizza actually wasnt too bad.. And then he decides that he wants to buy us beers too! So there is me and kimball getting this free beer and pizza and chillin with the drunk korean motel owner.. and greg and quinn are just eating their soup haha. (The korean eventually bought beers for them too) After beer and pizza and a lot of laughs.. we crash back at the hotel.

The next day we hop in a cab that takes us to the beach. Once we get there, we drop our stuff off in a room and attend the opening ceremony for the event.. followed by lunch. The waves dont look so great and it is pretty cold.. but we are determined to surf! We decide it would probably be a little warmer if we drank a bit before so we grab some beers and chill on the beach and watch the other surfers. While we are chilling, we meet some of the other people attending the event. They are (like almost everyone i have met in Korea) really cool! They are, of course, english teachers and were just good people. We chill with them for a bit and get realllllyyy excited to actually surf and one of the dudes we met hooks us up with wetsuits and boards and then we are off! Heres us in our wetsuits. I know.. were pretty badass.

Anyway, then we hit the water! With the wetsuits it really wasnt so cold. And it was just awesome to be out in the water!! The waved kinda sucked but i caught a few and it was still just really fun to be out there. After a bit, my toes started to get numb and i decided to get outta there.. So i had a nice loooonnngggg warm shower (probably the most amazing shower of my life) and headed back to chill on the beach. They served dinner which was LOTS of chicken skewers and there was FREE BEER! There was music and one of the dudes that we met earlier performed and it was real cool/chill. So we all chilled around bonfires and ate our chicken and drank beer until we decided to go to sleep.. overall REALLY solid day!!

Heres some Korean cooking the skewers over one of the fires.

The next day we woke up.. grabbed some breakfast (kimchi mandoo and kimbob) and then headed back to the beach to try the waves again. The waves were MUCH better on sunday.. they still werent that great but were so so much better than the day before. So we get wet suited up and go back out there and it is AWESOME! We all catch a bunch of waves and just have an awesome time winter surfing in Korea!!! When our feet started to get numb again, we decided we were done and showered up and headed home..

The 4ish hour trip there turned into like an 8 hour trip home!!! Seoul weekend traffic SUCKS!!!!! It would have been no problem but my computer died like 3 hours in so i was stuck, The Wire-less, for the majority of the trip >:( But whatever.. we eventually made it home and the trip was well worth it. We got contact info for some of the people we met there and are hopefully gonna meet up with them again and go surfing another weekend!

This weekend is the FLAMING LIPS!!! Sooooo excited for that!! I cant believe that it is the middle of november.. this month has FLOWN by.

Hope all is well and thanks for keeping up with me while im over here

Korea Update

So its been about two weeks since I last posted.. and this weekend I am going to this surfing competition that should be worth writing about.. so I thought before that I would just update on what has been goin on the past few weeks. A few weeks ago was Halloween.. which was fun but not quite the same as Madison. We went out in a part of town that is popular for foreigners so there were a decent amount of people in costume.. but it just didnt have the same feel as Madison Halloween. Im both happy and jealous that Jeremy got to enjoy another halloween in Madison.. but hey there is always next year for me! For hallowen i 'dressed up' as a panda.. and i sad dressed up because i just bought this pretty silly panda hat and wore it with a black shirt. But what is the funniest is that the hat, in korea, is just an ordinary hat.. while i thought it was pretty hysterical. Jeremy would have loved it (kinda like his penguin hat), maybe ill send it to him...

Anyway the next weekend was fun.. it was Wolfish's birthday and he rented out a bar which was pretty cool. Before we met up with him at that bar, me and Kimball ran into a friend that we met on Jeju (this german guy who is studying at a university in Seoul) and ended up joining him and his friends for some food and a little bar hopping. It was cool hanging out with them because they were so international. In our group there were germans, and italians, and french, and dutch, and spanish and swiss... and americans (us)!  It was cool to talk with all of them and it was also cool to 'add' to the international-ness of the group by being american.. there havent been a lot of situations where me being american has added to the globalness of the group before and it was kinda cool. They were all nice people and well probably go out with them again.

Uhh.. lets see what else.. school is going fine.. teaching is easy and getting easier. I am getting better at putting together and executing lesson plans and the kids still LOVE me. I know ive said this a million times but it is really cool being an actual celebrity here. And its nice if i am ever feeling anything less than happy about teaching or anything, i just walk into class to about 45 screaming/smiling 'HI NATE-UH!' and its pretty much guaranteed to put a smile on my face. Another funny thing that i like is seeing students outside of school (which happens pretty frequently) when i am walking to/from the subway or the gym or getting groceries and they freak out! They start giggling and poking each other and always give me a BIG bow :)

I was kinda sick this week.. just a really bad cold (sucked!). And so on tuesday i went to the korean doctor.. it was fine. I was in and out of there in like 10 minutes and they gave me some unknown pills to take and now i am feeling much better. I wanted to take a day off of school but decided not too to try and score some points with the koreans who dont take off school for ANYTHING. For example, my co teacher had his wisdom teeth taken out a few weeks ago after our morning classes.. AND THEN HE CAME BACK TO SCHOOL IN THE AFTERNOON!!! I thought he was crazy.. and decided i could 'show' them that i will come to school when i am sick too!! (And i didnt want to waste a sick day cause i plan on using a bunch while Dori is here and I dont want to them give me shit for it)

Some other random funny things.. so this week part of the lesson was working on pronunciation (koreans have trouble pronouncing certain sounds that are very common in english.. such as z). So for part of this lesson.. i was working to get them to say 'ZOO' which in Korea, often is pronounced 'JEW.' It was pretty hysterical trying to get them to make this seemingly easy distinction. Individual students would stand up and i would have them repeat after me and i would say 'zzzzzzzzzzzoo' and then they would say 'zzzzzzzzz jew' haahaha some of them just could not say zoo!! I actually was cracking up in class.. and the other kids were laughing too!! Id try and have them say 'the jew went to the zoo' and it would come out 'the jew went to the jew' HA! Koreans.. so koreans also have trouble saying pizza (pija) coffee (copy) rice (lice) bee (pea) and they add certain sounds to other words like they add an extra 'y' such as fish(y) or finish(y) and they add -uh also such as nice-uh or NATE-uh. All of these things the students had SO much trouble correcting!! It was a pretty funny lesson..

Haaaa Koreans also refer to dreadlocks as 'reggae hair' and whenever they say medicine it comes out 'madison' ... that one gets me nostalgic.

So im going to this surfing competition this this weekend and it should be pretty cool. Hopefully ill be able to go surfing (they said that wetsuits are available) and there is some beach BBQ and some live music and yah.. should be a good time.

Ive started watching The Wire. I have 1 episode left in season 2.. im definitely enjoying it and im looking forward to watching a bunch of episodes on the bus ride to the surf competition (like 3ish hours away). My fantasy bball team is doin pretty well.. im pretty pumped for this year and i am so glad to have the NBA as a fun time waster during my seemingly endless hours of time on my computer here.. Dori comes in like 6 1/2 weeks and im trying hard not to get too ahead of myself but im getting REALLY excited!!! We have pretty much our whole cambodia/thailand trip booked and its going to be ridiculous. I CANT WAIT!! My fam is going to NY this weekend.. wish i could be there and see everyone.. And i cant wait for Melanie to hear back from Madison!!!

Alright i think thats most of it.. hope all is well back home and thanks for keeping up with me!

Geumsansa Temple Stay

So, I just returned from a two day, one night stay at Geumsansa Buddhist Temple. It was something that I had heard of and had wanted to do since I got here and I am glad that I can cross it off my Korean bucket list. The trip started off a little rocky with both me and Kimball arriving late to the bus that was to take our group to the Temple. We both hopped in cabs thinking that it would be quicker than the subway but traffic was HORRIBLE! The ride should have taken like 40 minutes but ended up taking almost two hours!! So our group had to wait for us for a bit but we eventually made it.. WHEW! By the way, we went on the trip through this organization in Korea called 'Adventure Korea' that organizes all kids of trips for foreigners.. it was highly recommended and ended up not disappointing at al. So we finally make it to the bus and embark on the 4ish hour ride to the temple. The ride wasnt so bad.. There were a  lot of cool people going on the Temple Stay with us so conversation + napping made the ride go by quickly.

We arrive at the temple and first the give us our monastic robes (which were AWESOME!). Honestly getting to walk around in these things for the two days almost made the trip worth it right there. After we got our gear, we had some time to explore the temple grounds. Here'e me and Kimball in our robes in the temple courtyard.  We were laughing at all of us in our Monk robes.. with our Nikes on haahaha. So anyway, after exploring the temple a bit, we all gathered in some room to learn how to bow.  Here's our Master Monk (who was HYSTERICAL by the way) teaching us how to bow correctly.

After we learned how to bow we had Lotus Lantern making time. Heres me and some friends working on our lanterns and me with my finished lantern. I enjoyed making the lanterns a lot!

 

Next we had dinner (which was not very good) followed by some buddhist bell ringing (kinda fun) and then a short prayer service. The prayer service was pretty interesting.. there were like 6 monks all chanting and all of us in a room bowing repeatedly to a bunch of Buddha statues.. I had never really done anything quite like it before and it was definitely an experience i will remember.. 

After our prayer session, we had tea and Q and A with our monk. People asked all the questions that you would think that they would ask (why did u become a Monk, do you ever have second thoughts, are you happy, how did your family react.. etc) and the Monk did a pretty good job answering. The monk didnt speak any english so he spoke to us through a translator. I mentioned it before but our monk was HILARIOUS! He was always smiling and giggling and trying to make little jokes and fit almost perfectly the stereotype of a happy-go-lucky monk. Following the Q and A we got ready for bed to try and get a little sleep before the 3 AM morning prayer!! 

So after a short nap, we all woke up for the morning prayer.. We all gathered in the same prayer room that we had the service the night before.. what we DIDNT know.. was that the morning prayer consisted of bowing 108 times! ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT TIMES! Man that KILLED your knees!! The number 108 has something to do with 36 (something representing your body/mind) X 3 (for your past, present, and future sins). After what seemed like forever, we finally finished our bows (at around 4). Then we had some free time before some meditation in a dark room laying down (nap time) and then breakfast. Breakfast was just not that good. The food at the temple was not very tasty at all and the breakfast was no exception. I was the designated rice server for our side of the room and heres me serving rice to the monk (see how happy he looks?!). And here is our breakfast.. rice, some korean side dishes, and some bean curd soup.. a pretty typical korean breakfast. We were encouraged by the monk to 'eat slow and enjoy'.. and breakfast took like an hour. When breakfast was FINALLY finished.. we had some more nap time (which was amazing). 

It was raining when we woke up which was kinda a bummer cause i think we were supposed to go on some walk which we ended up not doing.. but anyway when we woke up we had buddhist bead necklace making. The way we made the necklaces was place one bead on the string for every bow we did.. and of course there were 108 beads.. meaning we were supposed to do 108 bows again! BUT they gave us a little break and said one bow for 3 beads would be alright too.. and 36 bows was much more doable than another 108! So we made our necklaces which was kinda fun.. and then just kinda bummed around the temple for another hour or so before we left to go home. 

Overall the trip was cool.. it was really interesting to experience what it is like to be a monk for a few days.. but i would have personally liked to learn more about the religion. I am very glad that i did it, and now dont really feel the need to do it again! So that was my buddhist temple stay :)

Other things this week.. i had my fantasy basketball draft!! I took a sick day from school on thursday cause my draft was wed night america time and that was the only way that i could make it. It was VERY worth it and i am pretty happy with my team!! CANT WAIT for the season to start in a few days. Ive been more seriously looking into planning Dori and my trip to cambodia/thailand. Its pretty fun.. there are so many amazing 3/4 star hotels for SO CHEAP (like 20-40 dollars a night) and there are some 5 star (literally nicest hotels i have ever seen) for less than 100!! Its going to be SO FUN! Its hard to not get too far ahead of myself when thinking about/planning the trip.. when im looking at stuff sometimes it feels like its coming up so soon.. when in reality its still a good 2 months away.. by the way I have been in Korea for almost exactly 2 months now which is CRAZY! On one hand it feels like ive been here forever and on the other hand i cant believe that it has already been two months! 

Well i think thats about it for now.. hope all is well at home!

Global Gathering, Live Octopus, Lotte World, BADGERS!

So quite a bit has happened in the past week and a half or so.. Starting with Seoul Global Gathering music festival!! Last weekend a bunch of friends and I attended this music festival in Seoul. It was pretty sweet. All of our friends met before hand at this fireworks show right on the Han River.. getting there was ridiculous! IT WAS SO CROWDED! Literally we were PACKED into the subway! SO uncomfortable/many asians!!! It was a time like this that you really realize that there are 24 MILLION people in the Seoul area.. and it seemed like they all were going to the same fireworks show! This is the crazy crowded subway.. and here Kimball in a crowd of people rushing out of the station..

After we got off the subway we met our friends at the park where the fireworks were going on.. and stayed for like 10 minutes because we realized we needed to leave if we wanted to make it to the show on time. Justice was playing first and we wanted to see them.. i never really listened to them that much aside from that song 'D.A.N.C.E.' but other people were pretty excited which got me pretty excited regardless. So we all go back on the subway and end up having to walk something like two miles to the show because that was as close as we could get to the festival grounds and cabs refused to drive us (for some reason). But the walk wasnt so bad because we all got a bunch of beer and soju. So FINALLY we get to the concert and it was pretty wild. We saw Justice, Fatboy Slim, and Armin Van Buren. I never really listened to those guys that much but it was a pretty ragin party with everyone dancing and having a good time.

The next week at school was midterms.. which meant that I did not teach AT ALL and just sat at my desk until around noon when school got out and the teachers went to teacher lunches. On monday all of the teachers in my grade went to lunch at the seafood place. There was some really good/fresh sashimi (which was delicious) and other random fish that i did not recognize. Lunch was going good and was pretty uneventful until they brought out a tray of still squirming octopus tentacles!! AHHH!!! I had heard that they eat live octopus (or very freshly killed.. and freshly killed octopus tentacles STILL SQUIRM!) but had yet to encounter it.. until today. I, of course, had to try it (even though i was honestly kinda freaked out by it.. seeing that stuff squirming on the plate did not look very appetizing!) But i ate it and it wasnt SO bad.. i definitely dont feel the need to eat it again though. I had also heard at these teacher lunches/dinner the koreans would try and feed me shots.. i didnt think this applied to my school because i thought all the teachers were christian and didnt drink.. well they do. Some of them at least. Not Joseph or the teachers i was originally sitting with, but by the end of the meal a bunch of the other teachers had come over and gave me shots and it was (kinda) fun. It was fun to drink with them.. but that still didnt quite bridge the language barrier. The rest of the week was easy.. tues and wed i went out to more teachers lunches (no drinking this time) and they were nice cause it was free and the food was pretty good.. but its hard to sit for a whole lunch with these people who really dont understand me and i dont understand. Everyone TRIES to be nice and talk to me.. but they really dont speak much english and the conversations dont get too far.. most of the lunches i end up sitting quietly eating while the other teachers chat in Korean.. The lunches were ok but i was very glad on thursday when we just went home and there was no teacher lunch. Also, on Thursday night my cousin Adam (who is also teaching in Korea) had organized some open mic hip hop event in Seoul and I was going to play guitar for a part of it while he beat boxed and his other friend rapped. I was pretty nervous/excited for it. So that night me and some friends went into Seoul (Itaewan) for the show. It ended up being pretty cool.. not what i was expecting but really fun. It ended up being a few other musicians and me jamming while these other guys rapped over it. All the other musicians were SO good and i was just trying to keep up.. but at least i didnt embarrass myself (i think)! Here's me on stage

So i played on stage with them for a while.. and then took a seat and enjoyed some more of the acts before heading home.. (it WAS a school night!) It was a really cool experience and hopefully ill be able to get involved with it again.

Friday though i went to Lotte World! Here is me with Joseph (on my left) and other random teacher that wanted to be in the picture. And me, Joseph, and some girl students who wanted to be in a picture with us. Lotte world is some indoor and outdoor Korean theme park. The kids pretty much get the day off after mid-terms and one of their options was go to Lotte World. Even though the teachers went.. we drove separately and didnt have to supervise the kids at all (NICE!). In the morning we went on a few rides.. nothing too exciting (even thought Joseph would SCREAM on all of them haahahah) and then we had lunch and explored some Korean Exhibit (actually really interesting) for the afternoon before heading home. It was a pretty fun day.. but again, it gets kinda hard being the ONLY one who natively speaks english and being surrounded by people who dont speak your language.. i just am left with a lot of time to my thoughts which is fine but kinda wears on you after 8 hours of it! It was an alright day but i was definitely ready to get out of there.

Friday night a bunch of us went out in Seoul for Zoes birthday.. pretty wild night  (like most nights in seoul). Saturday me and some friends tried again (unsuccessfully) to see a movie around Suwon! We get there and they sell us tickets to one of the two 'english' movies.. and we sit down in the theater and the movie is in FRENCH! AHHH!!!! SO ANNOYING! At least they didnt give us a hard time giving us a refund.. still really annoying! Sometimes Korea can be real frustrating.. that night was one of those times!

Sunday though was AWESOME! A whole bunch of us from wisco met at this bar that was replaying the game in the afternoon AND serving american breakfast! So we all got there.. got some awesome breakfast (eggs bennedict and hash browns) and pretty much drank the entire day while watching Wisconsin beat #1 ranked OSU!!! It was really really awesome and we all had a great time. We all talked about how being with all these wisconsin fans and day drinking made us feel like we were back in college again.. and also miss madison SO much! It was fun watching the game from Korea.. but we all would have much rather been in madison (where ALL of our friends were visiting!) Jeremy hung out with some of my friends that were visiting Madison.. made me wish i was there SO much!!! It was still nice to get a little taste of being back in college though.. P.S. Hurry up acceptance letter for melanie!!!

And now i have my first normal week of teaching in 4 weeks! The past four weeks i have only really taught 3 days!! And i got paid for it!!! Im honestly happy to get back to my normal schedule again. This weekend were talking about maybe doing the DMZ which would be really sweet.. or maybe a buddhist temple stay. ALSO last week me and Dori booked our trip while she visits over winter break to go to Cambodia and Thailand!!! YYYEEEEESSSS!!!!! Its gonna be so awesome and will be so fun and exciting to plan further.. but for now we at least have our plane tickets!!! AND this week i have my fantasy bball draft.. I CANT WAIT! Itll be great to get back in touch with all those guys AND will be a great time waster during all of my free time at school. Well thats about it for now.. hope all is well at home!

Thanks for reading

Orientation and some other good stuff

So since my last post I have had a pretty nice week(ish). Last wed-friday I attended an orientation which was pretty cool. I only had to go to school Monday and Tuesday.. and the orientation was a great way to meet other English teachers living in my area and get a few good teaching/Korea tips. We were staying at this retreat hotel place and during the day we had some speakers and classes and then at night we all hung out at the convenience store drinking and getting to know each other. Overall it was fine, albeit a little boring at times, but it was cool only to have a two day school week.
Friday night after orientation I grabbed dinner with some friends (some new that we met at orientation) and then we bar hopped around Suwon. I went home earlyish cause I had to go into school sat morning for the staff picture (LAME). So sat morning i drag myself out of bed before 8 and put my suit on and head to school for the picture. One thing that made it a bit better was the TON of compliments i received! They really do love me at my school.. and Koreans are so funny because they are super modest and are heavy on giving out compliments but often refuse compliments given to themselves.. multiple teachers came up to me and complimented how 'so handsome' i looked and when i complimented them they replied 'no.. not as good as you!' I wasnt gonna argue with them.. HA This place is a ridiculous ego boost. After the staff picture, I needed to get my individual picture taken for the school year book as well (i guess the other teachers already had theirs taken) so in front of most of the staff i had my own little photo shoot! Pretty hysterical.. i could hear all the teachers commenting about it in Korean.
Later that day i met up with a few friends and went into insedong which is a  neighborhood of Seoul. It was a cool place and has lots of traditional shops and street vendors. (If i had pictures i would post them) So we got dinner and walked around and then just headed home and called it a night. I was exhausted from having to get up so early and my friends were tired as well.
Sunday was great! I joined and played on an ultimate frisbee team! The park we play at is on the bank of the Han river in seoul and was really scenic. The game was a lot of fun too and i met some really cool people. It was great to be playing sports outside.. i havent really done that since ive been here.. Definitely made me miss James Madison park.
After the game me and some of the other players ate at this 'western' restaurant which was great! I got a bbq quicken sandwich with cheese and peppers and onions and it was pretty fantastic. Dont get me wrong, i LOVE korean food, but it was also great to switch it up a little bit.
This week at school has been a pretty big joke. My kids have speaking tests and i am the one grading them. So for class i just sit in a room and the kids come in one at a time and answer two questions and i grade them. REAL easy but a little boring. BUT out of my 12 classes, i see 7 of them twice a week.. and the 2nd time that i see each class this week they have a study hall so i dont even need to go! So today, for example, i had one class in the morning.. and now have been/will enjoy a solid 7 hours on my computer in the office. AND next week the kids have midterms so i dont need to do ANYTHING! Literally i am going to sit at my desk for 8 hours a day on my computer. AND i just found out that on friday the kids are going to some amusement park which i will be going to also! Im sure that is going to be hysterical! SO over the course of 4 weeks.. with chousouk break, orientation, speaking tests and then midterms.. i will have taught a TOTAL of 3 days of school! WHAT A JOKE! AND i am getting paid!! Not too bad..
Also, they are really starting to like me at my school. I brought gifts for some of the teachers/principals at my school from my trip to Jeju (koreans love gifts) and I really think they are paying off. My principal the other day gave me a nice ballpoint pen! And the head teacher, my korean 'mom' yesterday gave me a HUGE bag of fruit! TONS of grapes, apples, and what she called pears (but really looked like giant apples). Pretty sweet! And the kids are still hysterical. Yesterday i left school with Joseph a little early cause we had to run to the bank.. and when we were walking out all of the kids were outside because they were having a fire drill.. as we walked out.. literally past all of the students in the school, no less than HUNDREDS (yes plural) of kids were yelling out to me as i was leaving 'HI NATE' 'NATE!' 'WHERE YOU GOING NATE' 'TEACHA NATE' 'NATE HI!' "NATE NATE NATE"!!!! I legit felt like a celebrity walking down the red carpet.. it was hard not to smile :).
I am finally meeting up with my cousin Adam tonight for dinner in Seoul which will be nice.. and this weekend i am going to some Seoul Global Gatherings music festival.. im REAL excited for that. And i am staying busy during all of my free time at school researching fantasy sports and Dori and my's trip to Cambodia/Thailand over winter break! (IM SO EXCITED!) If anyone has any tips/recommendations for cambodia or thailand please let me know! With all of the exciting sports stuff going on in MN (MOSS IS BACK! TWINS PLAYOFFS) I do wish that i was closer/more able to be a part of it.. and hearing how much Jeremy is loving madison makes me miss that too.. Jeremy/Melanie have an AWESOME weekend with gab! I wish i could be there!! BUT i am feeling more and more comfortable in Korean culture/society which is nice.. Hope all is well with everyone.

JEJU

AMAZING!! This was just one of those trips where you go into it without much planned and not really knowing what to expect.. and EVERYTHING just works out perfectly!!! The trip was fcking awesome! So me and Kimball met up and headed to the airport together wednesday afternoon.. we dont screw up on the trains getting there (so far so good) and arrive at the airport without any problems. A small feat itself considering that navigating this country where you dont understand anyone/anything and no one understands you can get pretty tricky.. so anyway we get to the airport and board this funny little plane with murals painted on the walls of little animals.. AND during the flight the flight attendants auctioned off (i think thats what it was.. but again kinda hard to tell cause i couldnt understand anything she was saying) what i think were free tickets for another flight! The flight attendants stood up and held two tickets in her hand, and then all the Koreans raised their hands and threw out different numbers. After a few rounds of this the attendants gave the tickets to one of the passengers who looked pretty excited! HAAAHAHA Whatever happened it was pretty hysterical to me and Kimball. So anyway after about an hour we land on Jeju (Jeju is an island off the south of Korea.. think Korean Hawaii). And we catch a bus that takes us about an hour to the south of the island where we were staying and we find out hotel no problem. So far so good! So we shower and change and meet up with Wolfish and some people he was traveling with for dinner. We didnt even plan to stay near them but.. it just worked out :)! So yah we all get dinner and then go to some bar and get drinks and hang out for a while before headin home to pass out.

We awake the next day to this:

This was the view from right outside our hotel.. not bad!! haahaha It was hot and sunny and fuking awesome! We were a little nervous about the weather because the forecast said there was a chance of rain.. but it was BEAUTIFUL! So we grab some breakfast at the coffee shop next to our hotel.. find out how to get to the beach and hop in a cab and go! We roll up to the beach at the same exact time Wolfish and crew was which was convenient cause we didnt even plan it.. 

So here it is.. Jungmoon Beach: 

No Maegans Bay.. but not too shabby. Me and Kimball REALLY wanted to surf.. but the waves were too small which was kinda disappointing but wateva. The beach was hysterical.. we get there and there are all of these signs that say 'no swimming.. beach closed after August' We didnt understand why because it was hot and sunny.. and there were plenty of westerners in the water.. but no Koreans! Koreans are so funny sometimes.. they think that because it is September it is all of the sudden not beach weather.. so they refuse to go in the water. But it was great for us.. it was so not crowded! So we chilled in the water for a bit and hung out. We met some more people that we knew were in Jeju.. one person we met was Wolfish's friend Dan.. more about him later. 

After relaxing on the beach for a bit me and Kimball decided we wanted to go ATVing.. so we did. We got some Korean to write down a place that we could go ATVing.. hopped in a cab and went. That shit was pretty sweet. Heres a pic of Kimball and me in our badass gear/masks. ATVing was really fun!! We went on this pretty intense course through jungle right by the ocean and it was just really cool. After ATVing we went back towards our hotel and checked out this waterfall. On the way to the waterfall we stopped and got a snack.. chicken kebob (which was tasty) BUT the girl selling the kebob also was selling what we have been told was cocoons.. ive seen them a bunch of times and they always kinda grossed me out.. but right after we got our kebob some korean came and ordered a big cup of these cocoons.. the lady selling them noticed me and Kimball staring and offered to let us try one.. she described it as 'between bug and butterfly' haahaha (also GROSS) so Kimball tried one.. and then i felt pressured to so i tried it too.. sure enough it was nasty. I feel no need to try those things again. This is what they look like by the way .. they are just as gross as they look.. i honestly felt sick for a few 

seconds after i ate them.. but ANYWAY we continue on to the waterfall and see so many couples in 'couple shirts.' I guess instead of kissing in public, Koreans wear hysterical matching outfits (.... @Dori???) 

SOOOO FUNNNYY!!! Me and kimball took more pictures of the couples then the waterfall (which you can notice in the back of the couple with the rainbow sweatshirts AND matching red sox hat). After some good laughs at the Koreans we headed back to the hotel to shower and change for dinner. Kimball and I grab dinner #1 at some random restaurant we found.. it was dec.. and then went and met up with wolfish and crew which now included Jack.. who is an english teacher living on Jeju and bought a motorcycle from Dan (who was introduced earlier). So Jack, as a local, brings everyone to this awesome chicken wing spot (our dinner #2). The wings were great.. REAL spicy. And they gave us plastic gloves to eat them with which i thought was pretty brilliant. 

So dinner #2 was great.. chicken wings and beer with some good people. It was at dinner that Jack told us that his hobbies on Jeju include spear fishing.. and that if we wanted to he would take us all tomorrow! SWEET! After dinner we headed back to Jacks apt and chilled and drank on his roof for a while.. and then when it got too cold we headed into his room. In his room, he had this 'hot sauce' that was CLEARLY not meant to be tasted straight.. notice the warning on the label.. 

Well the combination of the alcohol and peer pressure led most of us to try it on our tongue.. NOT A GOOD IDEA!! THAT SHIT BURNED!!! AHHH it was one of the most unpleasant things i have ever tasted/experiences.. it burned in my mouth for legit 20+ minutes.. so so stupid of us! But whatever.. now i can say that i did it :)

After chillin at Jacks for a while Kimball and I peaced back to our hotel.. we woke up the next morning.. and hit up Jack to see about the spearfishing.. Weeeellll it turned out that not only were we going spearfishing.. these dudes at the dive shop next to Jacks apt were taking us all out on a boat to some island to spearfish for the entire afternoon!!! SO COOL!!!! We were all real stoked. So we get all wet-suited up and hop on this boat that takes us to this pandoraesque island. Heres the whole crew.Yah.. it WAS pretty bad ass. So we all spear fish for the afternoon. To those who arent familiar with spearfishing.. its pretty much snorkeling (which itself was pretty spectacular) with a huge spear that you kinda hurl at fish that look big enough to eat. It took me a little while but i caught one! Most of us ended up catching something (Kimball ended up catching like 6 haaha) But at the end of the day we had a decent catch! After a few hours of fishing and chilling on the island.. we headed back to shore. Heres a pic of the sweet sunset from the island before we headed back. It really was an AWESOME AWESOME afternoon.. So we headed back.. showered up and went back to the dive shop where Jack and his buddy were cleaning/cooking the fish so we could eat it for dinner! So it was Jack's buddy Weston that was helping us clean/cook the fish.. after talking with Weston for a bit i found out he went to KU.. and played frisbee.. and knows Joey, Justin, Abe and Usem!!! WHAT A SMALL WORLD!!! Its crazy the random connections you have with people.. and how you get connected to them.. So Me -->Weston was I was in Jeju.. met up with wolfish.. who was with his friend dan.. who sold his motorcycle to jack.. who took us spearfishing.. who called his friend Weston to help us cook and clean the fish!!! SO RANDOM!!! And awesome! Weston was a cool dude.. and he is livin large in Jeju! He has like his own 3 bedroom house and is really enjoying his time there. Its so cool traveling and meeting all these people.. i really really enjoy it. But anyway.. Weston cooked up the fish and they were delicious! Then the Koreans at the dive shop took the remains o the fish and cooked up this really good fish stew with rice.. which was great also! Koreans are SO hospitable! Those dudes at the dive shop really hooked it up for us.. it was a great meal and it was free :) WHAT A DAY! Kimball and I headed home earlyish cause we had plans to hike the tallest mtn in korea the next morning..

We get up early the next day cause we were told we need to be at a certain point up the mountain by 1230 or we werent allowed to go higher (or something like that). But of course we slept later then we were planning and ended up having to book it up the mountain.. And this mountain is BIG! It was like 9 kilometers up and 9 kilometers down (about 10 miles roundtrip.. i think) But it was HARD! It took a legit 7 hours! We started hiking at 10 AM and didnt finish until 5 PM. Im in decent shape and i was dying towards the end of up.. But we did it and it was awesome! Maybe the coolest part was that towards the top of the mountain we were literally above the clouds. Here are a few other pics from the hike too.. it was pretty spectacular. And my legs are still sore! 

After the hike we travelled to Jeju City to stay the night because that is where our ferry was leaving from early the next morning. We went to this weird sex themed sculpture garden which was kinda funny and kinda just made me miss Dori.. Kimball and I were probably the only non-couples there together. We were told that place was a 'must see'.. it wasnt. The next morning we got on the ferry which was SO BUMPY for the first hour and half.. i had to take some korean motion sickness stuff cause i thought i was gonna get sick.. but then it calmed down.. then we had lunch with some friends from the ferry in the city of Mokpo while we killed time waiting for our train home.. then we got on the train and another 4 hours later we were back in suwon! 1 hour flight down.. and 12 hours of traveling to get back.. flying was definitely the right move. Overall AMAZING AMAZING trip.. i got to do everything that i wanted and everything worked out SO well!!! :) And now i leave for this orientation tomorrow and so im done with school for the week! My fantasy teams went 1-1 again this week.. both were real close! And when i get back form orientation NBA PRESEASON STARTS!! YES! I cant wait for that.. fantasy bball is starting soon!!! AHHHHH SOOOO EXCITED! AND DORI BOOKED HER FLIGHT TO COME VISIT!!! Shes coming for 3+ weeks for her/my winter break :)!!! CANT WAIT! Aight.. sorry its so long.. thanks again for reading!!! Oh yah, i FINALLY got a cell phone today! My number us 010-2298-4452. HIT ME UP FROM SKYPE/GTEXT!!!