Spring has turned into summer, and time has been FLYING here in Korea! It really is starting to feel like its the home stretch.. which is crazy! Its been a great past few weeks and i wanted to update on what ive been up to.
First, the weekend after i went to Beijing i went to Busan for an ultimate Frisbee tournament. (Busan is the 2nd biggest city in Korea and is in the south and located on the water.) I had been really wanting to get to Busan for a while now and was happy to have a reason to go. Overall, it was an awesome weekend!! We played frisbee on the beach all day (which was awesome AND my team won!!), had a seafood feast for dinner one night, and bar hopped around both of the nights we were there. I really really enjoyed my weekend.. i met so many awesome people and really enjoyed spending time on the beach and the beach atmosphere of the whole city as well as checking out a new city in Korea.
The next weekend was this Riverside beer and mexican food and music festival located a few hours outside of Seoul. Me and wolfish went to check it out and had an awesome time. They were serving really good micro brews (which are super hard to come by in Korea) and tacos/quesedillas and had live music going the whole time. We didnt get there till the afternoon cause it took us forever to get to, but we ended up staying till the event finished drinking and playing cards and chilling by the water and meeting people and enjoying the music. I was really happy with my decision to make the treck out to this event!
And then last weekend we had a 3 day weekend and a big group of us went to Muuido island. This place was sooooo cool!! We stayed on this beach filled with these little huts and just relaxed and drank and ate the freshest sea food and and had bonfires at night and played a little bit of sports and music and just had a great weekend get away. The island was packed with foreigners and it was pretty much just a weekend long foreigner beach party!
That brings us to now.. all of the sudden i have 1 (ONLY ONE!!) week of real teaching left before the summer break!! next week i give an exam.. then the lone week of teaching.. then self study week.. then finals week.. then movie week.. then SEMESTER IS OVER! A month or two ago i kinda felt like i was in a rut at school and just SO bored and fed up with teaching english.. but now all of the sudden i am beginning to really get nostalgic.. about the teaching and just being in Korea in general. It is a really interesting shift in perspective..
At school, ive been passing the time by playing a lot of scrabble and chess which has been keeping me pretty entertained/busy. And im watching the HBO show Treme (set in post-katrina New Orleans) and have been reallllllllyy enjoying that as well! I definitely would recommend it to anyone looking for a new show to watch.
Anyway, all is well here and i have been staying busy and having great weekends and enjoying the summer weather. And i have REALLY been enjoying Korean food! I always enjoyed it, but recently i have become obsessed with galbi (korean bbq) and have been getting it every chance i can get and loving it!
Thanks for keeping up with this and i hope all is well wherever you are!!
Thursday, June 9, 2011
Thursday, May 19, 2011
BEIJING!!
My trip to Beijing was AMAZING!! I really had an incredible time! I was a little nervous heading into the trip because it was my first experience travelling alone, but everything worked out perfectly and was just great.
First, Beijing is such a cool city!! It was sooooo different from Korea. Korea is really modern and feels like an advanced city, whereas Beijing still has a really old/traditional feel to it. Beijing is a HUGE city (like 15-20 million people) but it doesnt feel like the sprawling metropolis of Seoul. It kinda felt like a really big, small city (if that makes sense). There are still traditional Chinese Hutongs (alleys) all over the city which were so cool to explore. Some of my favorite memories from my trip were just exploring the Hutongs near the hostel and observing the people in them. People spoke about as much english as they do in korea (barely any) and i forgot how difficult the language barrier can be and made me appreciate the very little Korea that i do know.
So I arrived in Beijing Tuesday afternoon and actually had a bit of trouble finding my hostel.. the directions i printed off were not very good.. and nobody spoke english (of course) but i eventually found my way and that was the only blip in an otherwise perfect vacation/trip.
When i got to the hostel (which apparently was the 2nd rated hostel in all of Asia!!) i checked into my room (which i had to myself for the first few nights) and met this Australian guy who had been living/hiking in Nepal for the past 6 weeks. We grabbed some dinner and decided to check out this Kung Fu show (#whynot). It took forever to get there cause the traffic in Beijing is absolutely miserable but the show itself was nice. The show was about this Kung Fu master who told his story. It was pretty cool and had some amazing acrobatics and fighting. After the play, on our walk home, i ran into these other guys from my hostel and decided to join them for a drink. Then it was back to the hostel to sleep.
The next day we woke up, had a leisurely breakfast and then me, the australian guy from the night before, and this German guy i met, tom (i ended up doing a lot of things with tom the rest of my trip), went to check out Tiennaman Square and the Forbidden City. Tiennaman Square was pretty cool.. tons of tourists and some hillarious Chinese propaganda videos that are always playing haaha. And then the Forbidden City was pretty cool too. Honestly, after being in Asia for almost 9 months ive gotten kinda jaded by some of the temples and asian history stuff. It IS really cool.. but is also pretty similar to other stuff that ive seen in Korea or SE Asia. The Forbiden City was pretty huge though.. and also packed with tourists and chinese people trying to scam you one way or another.
That night i got dinner with Tom and a friend of his who was studying abroad in Beijing. We got some peking duck which was pretty good. And then we went out to some bars/clubs in an area near her university. It was a nice night.
We slept in and kinda bummed around the hostel for the morning and then met up with a friend of a friend who showed us around the University that he was studying at. Later that night we checked out the Olympic Village which was pretty sweet and then tried to get to sleep earlyish cause we were goin to the great wall the next day!!
There was a bus that picked us up from the hostel at 6 AM to take us to the great wall. We decided to go to the part of the wall that was farther away, less touristy and a bit more of a strenuous hike. The bus took like 3 or 4 hours to get there and then we were free to explore for 4 hours before grabbing lunch and the bus back. The Great Wall was SO AWESOME!! It was every bit as amazing as i thought it would be! And it was cool because it was not crowded at all so at times we were the only ones on a section of the wall. It was just crazy to see how vast it was. Parts were also pretty difficult to hike.. soooooo many steps! Tom had some ipod speakers that he brought so we walked around and explored while listening to music. Really really really awesome. So we explored as much of the wall as we could in our time there with sporadic breaks to chill beside the wall and enjoy the Chinese countryside. When our time was up we hiked back down and had a great lunch and then passed out for the bus ride back to Beijing. The wall really was everything i was hoping it to be and i am so glad that i was able to see it. That was one of the things on my Asia bucket list for my experience here and im glad that i was able to cross it off!
We were exhausted when we got back and just chilled around the hostel and watched a movie and had a relaxing night.
The next day was my last day in Beijing :( but it was a good one. We rented bikes which was such a great move! Beijing is a very bike friendly city with really wide bike lanes on every road. So we biked to the Temple of Heaven which was this pretty cool park with a bunch of shrines and stuff. The temple/park was pretty enjoyable but even better was just biking around the city. It was a beautiful day and it was awesome to get to see the city by bike.
After the Temple of Heaven we went over to the Pearl marker which was HILARIOUS!! While no one in Beijing seemed to speak english, it was funny how all of the old Chinese ladies who were trying to sell you stuff spoke perfect english! I was warned before i went that you REALLY need to bargain with them because they start their prices ridiculously high. And the ladies were SO PUSHY!! They would literally scream at you 'COME LOOK AT MY SCARVES!!!,' 'LOOK AT MY SHIRTS!!' and would actually grab you and try and pull you into their stalls!! It was definitely an experience. And bargaining with them was great. They would try and sell you something at a price.. and then you would come back saying you would pay 1/10 of what they said.. and they would make a face and tell you you were crazy. But then you would walk away and they would just keep lowering and lowering until the decided price was close to 1/10 of what they were originally asking!! I got some pretty good gifts for people and a nice carved Chinese chess set for me :) We left the market and had another enjoyable bike ride back to the hostel and had a nice dinner and relaxing last night.
These guys from Oxford who were attending a robotics conference in Shanghai and came to Beijing for a few days arrived at the hostel that night. We ended up chilling with them and drinking and playing some cards for the evening. They were pretty cool and were all so smart. It was really interesting to talk with them and hear about the stuff they were doing. One thing that was so cool about this hostel and i guess most hostels is that everyone there has such a cool and unique story. That night, the group that was playing cards consisted of English/American/German Oxford Graduates, a German who was backpacking around Asia (Tom) and an American who was teaching English in South Korea. It was a pretty diverse group that all had their own interesting and very different experiences to talk about. Then the next day i just went to the airport and flew back to Seoul.
Again, i was a bit nervous about my first time travelling alone but after my experience i would absolutely recommend it. It forces you to meet people and you do meet such interesting people! This trip also reignited my passion for travel and got me even more excited for my trip in the fall. After being in Korea for so long, it doenst even feel like i am travelling here or doing something out of the ordinary. Leaving for a few days was a great refresher and has made me re-appreciate things that i had begun to take for granted here in Korea.
And im going to Busan this weekend for a Frisbee tournament which im really excited for, and then i cant believe its almost June!! Its crazy to think that i am closing in on having only 1/4 left of my time in Korea and less than 2 months of actual teaching left! I am so excited to be done with the teaching bit.. recently i have been getting really sick of this job and am excited for whatever i do next. But its so crazy to think that i am beginning the 'home stretch'.. ive been here so long and for so long felt like i would be here forever.. all now of the sudden i am approaching the end. Theres still a lot that i have to look forward to here and when the time comes i will be ready to leave. This has been quite the experience, to say the least. Anyway, im excited to check out Busan and ill write another blog once i am back!
All the best,
Here are links to my pictures from the trip:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1893460857711.2099211.1277220060&l=cad9e1012d
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1893433257021.2099206.1277220060&l=e1c724e027
First, Beijing is such a cool city!! It was sooooo different from Korea. Korea is really modern and feels like an advanced city, whereas Beijing still has a really old/traditional feel to it. Beijing is a HUGE city (like 15-20 million people) but it doesnt feel like the sprawling metropolis of Seoul. It kinda felt like a really big, small city (if that makes sense). There are still traditional Chinese Hutongs (alleys) all over the city which were so cool to explore. Some of my favorite memories from my trip were just exploring the Hutongs near the hostel and observing the people in them. People spoke about as much english as they do in korea (barely any) and i forgot how difficult the language barrier can be and made me appreciate the very little Korea that i do know.
So I arrived in Beijing Tuesday afternoon and actually had a bit of trouble finding my hostel.. the directions i printed off were not very good.. and nobody spoke english (of course) but i eventually found my way and that was the only blip in an otherwise perfect vacation/trip.
When i got to the hostel (which apparently was the 2nd rated hostel in all of Asia!!) i checked into my room (which i had to myself for the first few nights) and met this Australian guy who had been living/hiking in Nepal for the past 6 weeks. We grabbed some dinner and decided to check out this Kung Fu show (#whynot). It took forever to get there cause the traffic in Beijing is absolutely miserable but the show itself was nice. The show was about this Kung Fu master who told his story. It was pretty cool and had some amazing acrobatics and fighting. After the play, on our walk home, i ran into these other guys from my hostel and decided to join them for a drink. Then it was back to the hostel to sleep.
The next day we woke up, had a leisurely breakfast and then me, the australian guy from the night before, and this German guy i met, tom (i ended up doing a lot of things with tom the rest of my trip), went to check out Tiennaman Square and the Forbidden City. Tiennaman Square was pretty cool.. tons of tourists and some hillarious Chinese propaganda videos that are always playing haaha. And then the Forbidden City was pretty cool too. Honestly, after being in Asia for almost 9 months ive gotten kinda jaded by some of the temples and asian history stuff. It IS really cool.. but is also pretty similar to other stuff that ive seen in Korea or SE Asia. The Forbiden City was pretty huge though.. and also packed with tourists and chinese people trying to scam you one way or another.
That night i got dinner with Tom and a friend of his who was studying abroad in Beijing. We got some peking duck which was pretty good. And then we went out to some bars/clubs in an area near her university. It was a nice night.
We slept in and kinda bummed around the hostel for the morning and then met up with a friend of a friend who showed us around the University that he was studying at. Later that night we checked out the Olympic Village which was pretty sweet and then tried to get to sleep earlyish cause we were goin to the great wall the next day!!
There was a bus that picked us up from the hostel at 6 AM to take us to the great wall. We decided to go to the part of the wall that was farther away, less touristy and a bit more of a strenuous hike. The bus took like 3 or 4 hours to get there and then we were free to explore for 4 hours before grabbing lunch and the bus back. The Great Wall was SO AWESOME!! It was every bit as amazing as i thought it would be! And it was cool because it was not crowded at all so at times we were the only ones on a section of the wall. It was just crazy to see how vast it was. Parts were also pretty difficult to hike.. soooooo many steps! Tom had some ipod speakers that he brought so we walked around and explored while listening to music. Really really really awesome. So we explored as much of the wall as we could in our time there with sporadic breaks to chill beside the wall and enjoy the Chinese countryside. When our time was up we hiked back down and had a great lunch and then passed out for the bus ride back to Beijing. The wall really was everything i was hoping it to be and i am so glad that i was able to see it. That was one of the things on my Asia bucket list for my experience here and im glad that i was able to cross it off!
We were exhausted when we got back and just chilled around the hostel and watched a movie and had a relaxing night.
The next day was my last day in Beijing :( but it was a good one. We rented bikes which was such a great move! Beijing is a very bike friendly city with really wide bike lanes on every road. So we biked to the Temple of Heaven which was this pretty cool park with a bunch of shrines and stuff. The temple/park was pretty enjoyable but even better was just biking around the city. It was a beautiful day and it was awesome to get to see the city by bike.
After the Temple of Heaven we went over to the Pearl marker which was HILARIOUS!! While no one in Beijing seemed to speak english, it was funny how all of the old Chinese ladies who were trying to sell you stuff spoke perfect english! I was warned before i went that you REALLY need to bargain with them because they start their prices ridiculously high. And the ladies were SO PUSHY!! They would literally scream at you 'COME LOOK AT MY SCARVES!!!,' 'LOOK AT MY SHIRTS!!' and would actually grab you and try and pull you into their stalls!! It was definitely an experience. And bargaining with them was great. They would try and sell you something at a price.. and then you would come back saying you would pay 1/10 of what they said.. and they would make a face and tell you you were crazy. But then you would walk away and they would just keep lowering and lowering until the decided price was close to 1/10 of what they were originally asking!! I got some pretty good gifts for people and a nice carved Chinese chess set for me :) We left the market and had another enjoyable bike ride back to the hostel and had a nice dinner and relaxing last night.
These guys from Oxford who were attending a robotics conference in Shanghai and came to Beijing for a few days arrived at the hostel that night. We ended up chilling with them and drinking and playing some cards for the evening. They were pretty cool and were all so smart. It was really interesting to talk with them and hear about the stuff they were doing. One thing that was so cool about this hostel and i guess most hostels is that everyone there has such a cool and unique story. That night, the group that was playing cards consisted of English/American/German Oxford Graduates, a German who was backpacking around Asia (Tom) and an American who was teaching English in South Korea. It was a pretty diverse group that all had their own interesting and very different experiences to talk about. Then the next day i just went to the airport and flew back to Seoul.
Again, i was a bit nervous about my first time travelling alone but after my experience i would absolutely recommend it. It forces you to meet people and you do meet such interesting people! This trip also reignited my passion for travel and got me even more excited for my trip in the fall. After being in Korea for so long, it doenst even feel like i am travelling here or doing something out of the ordinary. Leaving for a few days was a great refresher and has made me re-appreciate things that i had begun to take for granted here in Korea.
And im going to Busan this weekend for a Frisbee tournament which im really excited for, and then i cant believe its almost June!! Its crazy to think that i am closing in on having only 1/4 left of my time in Korea and less than 2 months of actual teaching left! I am so excited to be done with the teaching bit.. recently i have been getting really sick of this job and am excited for whatever i do next. But its so crazy to think that i am beginning the 'home stretch'.. ive been here so long and for so long felt like i would be here forever.. all now of the sudden i am approaching the end. Theres still a lot that i have to look forward to here and when the time comes i will be ready to leave. This has been quite the experience, to say the least. Anyway, im excited to check out Busan and ill write another blog once i am back!
All the best,
Here are links to my pictures from the trip:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1893460857711.2099211.1277220060&l=cad9e1012d
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1893433257021.2099206.1277220060&l=e1c724e027
Catching up on the spring
I’m on my way to Beijing right now and thought id update on what ive been up to the past monthish. Overall everything is good and time has been FLYING! School the past month or so has been the biggest joke ever. Ive had one wee where I gave a test and then just read during class while they were testing; one week where they had self study before their midterms. I didn’t even have to supervise while they were studying so I just sat at my desk alllllllll week. Honestly while that week was super easy, all of the sitting at my desk gets to me.. it gets SO BORING! The news and stumbleupon and tv shows can only enterain you for so long before you start to go crazy; and then a third week where the kids took midterms and then I just sat at my desk for the mornings and got to go home or out to lunch at noon. This job is the biggest joke and its hard to believe how much money the Korean government spends on us to do nothing half of the time at school.
One afternoon after midterms my coteacher invited me to lunch and then over to see his apartment. He took me to a shabu shabu (you dip thin slices of beef into a hot and spicy broth to cook and then eat) place which was pretty good and then we went for a walk/hike around this mountain that he lives by. When we finished we went back to his apartment and it was hilarious! First his apartment is almost completely empty (he lives alone). He has about 4 decent sized rooms and none of them have anything in them!! Then he showed me pictures of him from high school and college and of him doing hapkido (some Korean martial arts) which was also so funny. I also convinced him to give me a nun-chuck (yes, he as nun-chucks or however you spell them) demonstration in one of his empty rooms HAAA!!! We finished off the afternoon my Joseph playing and singing some traditional Korean song on guitar. It all was hysterical and also nice to see how/where joseph lives. I really have a great coteacher and am very thankful for all that he has done and helped me with.
During Passover me and a few of my friends went to a seder at an army base that isn’t too far from where I live. That was quite the experience as well. From the moment you walk through the gates onto the base it is like you step back into America. English signs… American restaurants… American architecture.. and all americans. It was interesting cause I went onto the base for Rosh Hashana a few weeks into my time in Korea and was not nearly as taken aback by how American everything was. I honestly felt culture shocked. The seder was nice also.. it was super chill with a few military families who were all very friendly. The jewish stuff was nice too.. when youre in SUCH a different place little bits of familiarity are really appreciated and feel really nice and comforting. Throughout the seder I kept feeling like I was back in America.. the whole thing was definitely an experience.
I went to a soccer and baseball game a few weeks ago. The soccer game was great. The Koreans were going nuts the whole time and some of them were waving Che Guevara (??) flags at the game haaahaha! And the baseball game was awesome and hilarious too.. the Koreans were singing the entire game and there are cheerleaders constantly trying to interact with the crowd and get the crowd involved. All of the games are BYO anything you want so everyone was getting wasted and bringing in pizzas and any other sort of food you could imagine.
My Aunt Jill and cousin Carrie are currently visiting Korea (I have a cousin who is teaching in Korea as well) and I had a really nice weekend with them. On Saturday we did a lot of walking around Seoul and had some nice meals and some nice chatting. Then on Sunday I met them for dinner and some more walking and talking. It was really nice to see them. Again, in such a different place, any semblance of home and things that remind you of it is really nice.
Well I think that’s about it. Im pretty excited for my trip to Beijing! I am traveling by myself and this is the first time I have done something like this which is pretty exciting. Ill write all about it once I am back.
Best.
One afternoon after midterms my coteacher invited me to lunch and then over to see his apartment. He took me to a shabu shabu (you dip thin slices of beef into a hot and spicy broth to cook and then eat) place which was pretty good and then we went for a walk/hike around this mountain that he lives by. When we finished we went back to his apartment and it was hilarious! First his apartment is almost completely empty (he lives alone). He has about 4 decent sized rooms and none of them have anything in them!! Then he showed me pictures of him from high school and college and of him doing hapkido (some Korean martial arts) which was also so funny. I also convinced him to give me a nun-chuck (yes, he as nun-chucks or however you spell them) demonstration in one of his empty rooms HAAA!!! We finished off the afternoon my Joseph playing and singing some traditional Korean song on guitar. It all was hysterical and also nice to see how/where joseph lives. I really have a great coteacher and am very thankful for all that he has done and helped me with.
During Passover me and a few of my friends went to a seder at an army base that isn’t too far from where I live. That was quite the experience as well. From the moment you walk through the gates onto the base it is like you step back into America. English signs… American restaurants… American architecture.. and all americans. It was interesting cause I went onto the base for Rosh Hashana a few weeks into my time in Korea and was not nearly as taken aback by how American everything was. I honestly felt culture shocked. The seder was nice also.. it was super chill with a few military families who were all very friendly. The jewish stuff was nice too.. when youre in SUCH a different place little bits of familiarity are really appreciated and feel really nice and comforting. Throughout the seder I kept feeling like I was back in America.. the whole thing was definitely an experience.
I went to a soccer and baseball game a few weeks ago. The soccer game was great. The Koreans were going nuts the whole time and some of them were waving Che Guevara (??) flags at the game haaahaha! And the baseball game was awesome and hilarious too.. the Koreans were singing the entire game and there are cheerleaders constantly trying to interact with the crowd and get the crowd involved. All of the games are BYO anything you want so everyone was getting wasted and bringing in pizzas and any other sort of food you could imagine.
My Aunt Jill and cousin Carrie are currently visiting Korea (I have a cousin who is teaching in Korea as well) and I had a really nice weekend with them. On Saturday we did a lot of walking around Seoul and had some nice meals and some nice chatting. Then on Sunday I met them for dinner and some more walking and talking. It was really nice to see them. Again, in such a different place, any semblance of home and things that remind you of it is really nice.
Well I think that’s about it. Im pretty excited for my trip to Beijing! I am traveling by myself and this is the first time I have done something like this which is pretty exciting. Ill write all about it once I am back.
Best.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Mom and Jeremy's visit, St Pattys Day, and My Birthday
Ive been lazy about updating this recently and so now i have a lot i need to cover.. First Jeremy and my mom's visit a few weeks ago was SO NICE!! They got here on a thursday and i met up with then in Seoul on Friday and we had an awesome awesome weekend and following week together. We did a bunch of sight seeing.. Jeremy and my mom did a bunch of shopping at the Korean markets that sell all kinds of crazy stuff for real cheap had some nice meals and just really had a nice time. Jeremy and my mom came into school with me for a few days and that was great. The kids all were freaking out at meeting them and were just super excited and hilarious. One class that i had, Jeremy walked in like half way through because he was doing some work at my house, and the kids literally all started cheering and clapping and it was just too funny. It was really really really great having my family here.. it was great to show them a bit of what my life is like here and just to have some pieces of home here while i am so far away. And my school hooked it up and gave me a day and a few afternoons off while they were visiting so i got to spend more time with them. My school is pretty legit and really has been great to me.. so its good to have no complaints on that end.
The day that my fam left was St. Pattys day and there were some celebrations going on around Seoul that me and my friends went to. It was a nice spring day and real fun to be outside and celebrate with lots of other foreigners. Then, that night, we went to this all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink thing at this irish bar which was awesome. We got there around 630 and stayed till 1 so we all for sure got our moneys worth.
Last weekend was also my birthday! And thank you to all of people that wrote me messages and had kind wished for me. I had a really really nice time talking with friends that day and weekend which made it really special and enjoyable. So anyway, on my birthday, which was a friday, me and a bunch of friends met at this Memphis BBQ place in seoul. BBQ is really really hard to find here and the place that we went to ended up being awesome.. well definitely be back. After dinner, we went to this cool hookah bar that was around the area that i really like. AND at this place they have a bunch of drums for the guests to play around with.. and every time that i have been there i have wanted to play them soooooo badly but hadnt.. but this time me and a few of my friends jammed out on them for a while which really made me soooooooo happy! I loved playing the drums in madison and really miss the drum circles that we got involved with.. so it was great to get to play a bit over here :)
After that bar we bar hopped around and drank and hung out and it was just a nice night. It was a fun night and getting to talk as much as i did with some of the people from home made me really happy and the weekend special.
I saw MGMT last weekend which were pretty fun. And it was a buddy of mines birthday last weekend so we went to this AWESOME brazillian steak house on saturday.. that place was SOOOO good!!! These birthdays have been awesome for discovering some more great places to eat in Seoul.
And now here we are into April and i can hardly believe it. I cant believe that i am already 1/4 finished with this semester! AND the next month is going to be such a joke at work!! Next week I give an exam, so i just hang out while the kids are testing.. and the following week the kids have self study all week for their mid terms which are the following week.. and then for their midterms i dont have to do anything and get to leave school at noon!! And then its already May!! I just booked a trip to go to China may 10-15 which i am also really excited for! I am travelling by myself because no one else i know has those days off of school (again, my school pretty much hooked it up) which i know will be an interesting and exciting experience.
Overall, things are well.. i still get bored with some of the teaching and all of the time just sitting at my computer but the weather is getting nicer which is good and i am getting increasingly excited for my upcoming travels.
Thanks again to all of you who made my birthday so nice!
Hope all is well and be in touch!!
The day that my fam left was St. Pattys day and there were some celebrations going on around Seoul that me and my friends went to. It was a nice spring day and real fun to be outside and celebrate with lots of other foreigners. Then, that night, we went to this all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink thing at this irish bar which was awesome. We got there around 630 and stayed till 1 so we all for sure got our moneys worth.
Last weekend was also my birthday! And thank you to all of people that wrote me messages and had kind wished for me. I had a really really nice time talking with friends that day and weekend which made it really special and enjoyable. So anyway, on my birthday, which was a friday, me and a bunch of friends met at this Memphis BBQ place in seoul. BBQ is really really hard to find here and the place that we went to ended up being awesome.. well definitely be back. After dinner, we went to this cool hookah bar that was around the area that i really like. AND at this place they have a bunch of drums for the guests to play around with.. and every time that i have been there i have wanted to play them soooooo badly but hadnt.. but this time me and a few of my friends jammed out on them for a while which really made me soooooooo happy! I loved playing the drums in madison and really miss the drum circles that we got involved with.. so it was great to get to play a bit over here :)
After that bar we bar hopped around and drank and hung out and it was just a nice night. It was a fun night and getting to talk as much as i did with some of the people from home made me really happy and the weekend special.
I saw MGMT last weekend which were pretty fun. And it was a buddy of mines birthday last weekend so we went to this AWESOME brazillian steak house on saturday.. that place was SOOOO good!!! These birthdays have been awesome for discovering some more great places to eat in Seoul.
And now here we are into April and i can hardly believe it. I cant believe that i am already 1/4 finished with this semester! AND the next month is going to be such a joke at work!! Next week I give an exam, so i just hang out while the kids are testing.. and the following week the kids have self study all week for their mid terms which are the following week.. and then for their midterms i dont have to do anything and get to leave school at noon!! And then its already May!! I just booked a trip to go to China may 10-15 which i am also really excited for! I am travelling by myself because no one else i know has those days off of school (again, my school pretty much hooked it up) which i know will be an interesting and exciting experience.
Overall, things are well.. i still get bored with some of the teaching and all of the time just sitting at my computer but the weather is getting nicer which is good and i am getting increasingly excited for my upcoming travels.
Thanks again to all of you who made my birthday so nice!
Hope all is well and be in touch!!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Clapton, Whiskey Live and quick update
Hello!
So currently Jeremy and my mom are en route to Korea!! They are scheduled to arrive tonight at like 10 PM and are heading straight into Seoul to stay for the night.. and then I will meet up with them after school tomorrow!! Im realllllyyyy excited!!! It'll be great to show them what my life is like here and show them Seoul. Once they leave, I will make sure to write and tell about what we did.
Anywayy.. the past month or so since i got back from Hong Kong has been nice.. The weather is starting to warm up which is real nice and im getting settled back into the 'normal' work routine. Teaching this semester is going to be even easier than last semester because i have new kids and can use the same lessons that i used last semester with them. While the teaching continues to be really, really, really easy.. i am starting to get kinda sick of it. I dont mind actual teaching and the kids are good (for the most part) but doing the same lesson over and over again each week just gets so repetitive and mindless!! And i am already getting bored with all of the time i just sit on my computer between classes.. This has been and continues to be a great experience.. but i will be happy with my year here and will be glad to move onto something new once my contract is finished. Its crazy.. i pretty much have 4 months of straight teaching (maybe with a weekish break somewhere in the middle where i hope to go to China) and then mid july the semester ends and i have a few weeks off for summer break and a few weeks of 'camps', like i had in the winter, for a few hours a day and then i am outta here. Its crazy being on the count-down side opposed to the count-up side of my time here.
One of the highlights of the past few weeks here was seeing Eric Clapton. He was AMAZING! His voice sounded great and his playing sounded great and it was just a really great time. He is incredible and didnt seem to have lost anything in his increased age. I am really glad that i was able to see him live.
By far the coolest thing that has happened the past few weeks and one of actual coolest things i have ever done was Whiskey Live Seoul. Whiskey Live is a travelling whiskey taste testing event that goes all over the world and for the first time this winter, stopped in Seoul. It was hosted at the Intercontinental Hotel and was just incredible. It was a little pricey.. but sooooooo worth it! We got there, paid our entrance fee and paid some extra to get some premium tasting tickets and then hit the tastings! The event was held in the ballroom and the way it was set up was all of these different whiskey companies had booths around the ballroom.. and you just walked around and could taste all of the different brands' whiskey. The bottom level of each brand's whiskey was included in the ticket price (jonny walker red and gold label, makers mark, jamison, jack etc..) and then the premium whiskey cost a one or a few premium tickets. AND at the event they were serving unlimited Guinness!!! Which is my favorite!!! As well as other cocktails which i wasnt really interested in.. So, me and a few buddies spend the afternoon (from about 2-7pm) walking around and sampling all of the different brands and drinkings tons of guinness. We started off, while we were still pretty sober, sampling the nice ones and using our premium tickets. We sampled this one whiskey, which was AMAZING, that retails for over 1500 USD a bottle!!! It was really really awesome. And then, after we used all of our premium tickets and had tasted the ones we really wanted to.. we just went around the room booth by booth getting samples of everything!! I can not say enough how awesome this thing was.. one of the coolest things i have ever done.
Well that about wraps it up.. overall things are good and im looking forward to a nice week with my family. Thanks for reading and I hope everything is good at home!!
So currently Jeremy and my mom are en route to Korea!! They are scheduled to arrive tonight at like 10 PM and are heading straight into Seoul to stay for the night.. and then I will meet up with them after school tomorrow!! Im realllllyyyy excited!!! It'll be great to show them what my life is like here and show them Seoul. Once they leave, I will make sure to write and tell about what we did.
Anywayy.. the past month or so since i got back from Hong Kong has been nice.. The weather is starting to warm up which is real nice and im getting settled back into the 'normal' work routine. Teaching this semester is going to be even easier than last semester because i have new kids and can use the same lessons that i used last semester with them. While the teaching continues to be really, really, really easy.. i am starting to get kinda sick of it. I dont mind actual teaching and the kids are good (for the most part) but doing the same lesson over and over again each week just gets so repetitive and mindless!! And i am already getting bored with all of the time i just sit on my computer between classes.. This has been and continues to be a great experience.. but i will be happy with my year here and will be glad to move onto something new once my contract is finished. Its crazy.. i pretty much have 4 months of straight teaching (maybe with a weekish break somewhere in the middle where i hope to go to China) and then mid july the semester ends and i have a few weeks off for summer break and a few weeks of 'camps', like i had in the winter, for a few hours a day and then i am outta here. Its crazy being on the count-down side opposed to the count-up side of my time here.
One of the highlights of the past few weeks here was seeing Eric Clapton. He was AMAZING! His voice sounded great and his playing sounded great and it was just a really great time. He is incredible and didnt seem to have lost anything in his increased age. I am really glad that i was able to see him live.
By far the coolest thing that has happened the past few weeks and one of actual coolest things i have ever done was Whiskey Live Seoul. Whiskey Live is a travelling whiskey taste testing event that goes all over the world and for the first time this winter, stopped in Seoul. It was hosted at the Intercontinental Hotel and was just incredible. It was a little pricey.. but sooooooo worth it! We got there, paid our entrance fee and paid some extra to get some premium tasting tickets and then hit the tastings! The event was held in the ballroom and the way it was set up was all of these different whiskey companies had booths around the ballroom.. and you just walked around and could taste all of the different brands' whiskey. The bottom level of each brand's whiskey was included in the ticket price (jonny walker red and gold label, makers mark, jamison, jack etc..) and then the premium whiskey cost a one or a few premium tickets. AND at the event they were serving unlimited Guinness!!! Which is my favorite!!! As well as other cocktails which i wasnt really interested in.. So, me and a few buddies spend the afternoon (from about 2-7pm) walking around and sampling all of the different brands and drinkings tons of guinness. We started off, while we were still pretty sober, sampling the nice ones and using our premium tickets. We sampled this one whiskey, which was AMAZING, that retails for over 1500 USD a bottle!!! It was really really awesome. And then, after we used all of our premium tickets and had tasted the ones we really wanted to.. we just went around the room booth by booth getting samples of everything!! I can not say enough how awesome this thing was.. one of the coolest things i have ever done.
Well that about wraps it up.. overall things are good and im looking forward to a nice week with my family. Thanks for reading and I hope everything is good at home!!
Monday, February 21, 2011
Hong Kong and Macau
Sorry its a bit belated but... My trip to Hong Kong and Macau for the lunar new year was AMAZING! We all had the best time and everything just worked out really great without us doing too much planning in advance. Hong Kong is such a cool city! It is definitely one of my favorite cities that i have ever been to. It really is a perfect mix of east and west. There are two main parts of the city that we were in: Kawloon and Hong Kong island. Kawloon has a really 'chinese' feel to it opposed to Hong Kong Island which feels like a big international city. It was really cool to have both east/west feels to the city opposed to Korea which is overwhelmingly eastern feeling. Its cool that Korea is so eastern though, because its a crazy different experience than any other even remotely western city, but Hong Kong has a nice blend that made it seem cool and different, but also familiar enough to make it livable. Hong Kong is definitely a city i would like to go back to.
So anyway.. out trip. We arrived to our hostel (in Kawloon) around midnight and dropped our bags off and went out exploring a bit. The lady running our hostel directed us towards an area that has some bars so we went to check it out. On the way, we passed a place that looked like it was serving dim sum.. and we were starving.. so we decided to check it out. It turned out the be a great decision! and about the first dim sum meal out of many many many many in our time in Hong Kong. The dim sum was delicious, fast, and cheap! They had a lot of the familiar favorites that ive had back home and some new stuff. But overall the meal was amazing and we got a ton of dishes and it only cost like $4 a person. ... So far so good in Hong Kong!
After we ate, we walked around the bar area more trying to find a place to sit and have a few drinks. At first we were deterred by the signs reading ~$20 USD for beer.. until we realized that they were advertising for 6 beers! (I guess at a lot of places they sell beer in sets of 6) This made the price waaayyy more appealing and we eventually settled on a place and drank our beers and relaxed and enjoyed our first evening in HK.
When we woke up the next day we went to another dim sum place for breakfast and then walked around exploring some markets near our hostel. I got a pair of 'Beats by Dre' headphones for like $12!!!! (They retail for over $100) So i was pretty pumped about that. After exploring the markets for a while we headed over to the harbor front to the 'Avenue of the Stars.'
The Avenue of the Stars is like Hong Kong's version of Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Its a stretch of promenade adjacent to the harbor that has handprints of famous chinese celebrities. We only recognized a few of the names (Jackie Chan, Jet Lee) but the coolest thing about the Avenue of the Stars is the view. The view of Hong Kong Island from the other side of the harbor is really really amazing. It reminded me of like a smaller, cleaner and newer Manhattan.
So we hung out along the promenade and enjoyed the view of Hong Kong for a bit and then headed back to the hostel to relax before heading back out for dinner. When we ventured back out to try and find something to eat, almost everything was closed due to it being Lunar New Years Eve. After walking around, we eventually found a dim sum place that was open to have dinner. The rest of the night we bar hopped around the area we were the night before.. people watched at this packed flower market.. played some darts and ended the night by eating some delicious chinese beef brisket soup that we all put WAY too much chili sauce in which resulted us in all getting the spicy hick-ups. Despite the spicy hick-ups, the soup was delicious.
The next day we explored Hong Kong Island and ended up going on a bus tour of the city. The bus tour was a cool and relaxing way to see the whole island. After the bus tour we explored a pretty sweet park that was in the city.. Hong Kong had a few pretty cool parks. I cant say enough how cool this city is!!
Later in the day we went to the big New Years parade. It was pretty cool but was kinda overhyped. It was SO packed and we could barely see and honestly, as far as parade quality goes, id take the hollidazle or the macys parade over the new years parade in HK. But, it was still real cool to experience it. During the parade we discovered that they sold dim sum at 7/11!!! Amazing! And it wasnt bad either! Again, Hong Kong is the coolest.
After the parade we checked out the Intercontinental Hotel which we were told has amazing views of Hong Kong.. and we were not disappointed. We all felt pretty cool enjoying drinks and the skyline in one of the fanciest hotels in the city. Then we went over to Lan Kwai Fong which is like the bar/club scene area on Hong Kong island which was also really cool. We had a few drinks and enjoyed the night before heading back to our hostel.
The next day was a BIG day! So we had hostels booked for the first 3 nights we were in HK.. and the last night that we were in HK.. but we were going to Macau (Chinese Vegas) for that night and everything was either booked cause of the new year or too expensive so we were homeless until 2PM the NEXT day when we could check into our final hostel.
We woke up, got suited up in our sweet fitted suits (we thought that Macau was a good opportunity to rock our new suits), grabbed some dim sum lunch in HK and hopped on the ferry over to Macau.
Macau was another really really cool place. Hong Kong was the perfect cool mix of east/west and Macau, being a formerly Portuguese colony, had the super cool feel of european/chinese... plus vegas. There were parts of Macau that we were walking around in that had all of these beautiful European style buildings and cobblestone streets and european-esque squares... all littered with chinese ballons and lights and writing. The city felt really awesome. Parts literally felt like you were in Europe. And then of course there are the HUGE casinos and lights!! One minute we were walking in this quaint european feeling square and the next we were in front of a huge casino and felt like you are in Vegas! Macau was a really cool place to experience.
When we arrived in Macau, we did some exploring, ate some traditional food (which was delicious) and did some more walking around before hitting the casino. We had a LONG night ahead of us so we were in no rush to get anywhere.. When we were done exploring the city, we checked out a few casinos to see what we liked. We began at The Wynn where we found a cigar bar with a really cool garden area that we relaxed in and had a few drinks.. then we relocated to another casino and sat down at the blackjack table.
We played blackjack and a little bit of craps for most of the night and somehow, we all ended up winning $$!! With our winnings, we ordered a dim sum FEAST at like 6am and were trying to ride the high of winning as long as we could. After our meal, we went back to the ferry terminal and took an 8AM ferry back to HK. Once we were back in HK, we wandered around for a while (literally hours) looking for a place where we could just sit and watch sports.. finally we were directed to a part of town, Soho, where we found an awesome restaurant that had western breakfast and was playing ESPN. We waited out the last few hours till we could check into that nights hostel there.
FINALLY, at 2 we went to our hostel and took an extremely needed nap. After the nap, we went down to the Avenue of the Stars to check out the famous light show. Every night, at 8 PM, the skyline of HK island puts on a really sweet light show which im happy we got to see. Then, we headed back to Soho for dinner. Soho ended up being a really sweet part of HK that I am glad we discovered. It was really western and nice and had some amazing looking western restaurants. We settled on this mexican place and the food and drinks were excellent.
Once we finished dinner, we headed back to Lan Kwai Fong and chilled in a hookah bar for a bit, went to this ice bar (pretty cool experience), and then went to this bar/club on the top of a hotel that had really sweet views of the city. It was a fun end to a crazy day and a nice last night in HK.
Hong Kong was everything that i was hoping it to be and more! I can not say enough how much i enjoyed that city. It was just so cool and eastern AND western and i would love to go back there some day.
Heres a link to my pictures from the trip
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085530&id=1277220060&l=f31036c802
Back in Korea things are well. This month ive only had to teach in the afternoons which has been really nice and easy and the new semester starts the beginning of March. The time here continues to FLY and i cant believe that i have almost been here for 6 months!! CRAZY! I continue to really enjoy my experiences and am so happy that i decided to come to Korea.
Hope all is well a home!
So anyway.. out trip. We arrived to our hostel (in Kawloon) around midnight and dropped our bags off and went out exploring a bit. The lady running our hostel directed us towards an area that has some bars so we went to check it out. On the way, we passed a place that looked like it was serving dim sum.. and we were starving.. so we decided to check it out. It turned out the be a great decision! and about the first dim sum meal out of many many many many in our time in Hong Kong. The dim sum was delicious, fast, and cheap! They had a lot of the familiar favorites that ive had back home and some new stuff. But overall the meal was amazing and we got a ton of dishes and it only cost like $4 a person. ... So far so good in Hong Kong!
After we ate, we walked around the bar area more trying to find a place to sit and have a few drinks. At first we were deterred by the signs reading ~$20 USD for beer.. until we realized that they were advertising for 6 beers! (I guess at a lot of places they sell beer in sets of 6) This made the price waaayyy more appealing and we eventually settled on a place and drank our beers and relaxed and enjoyed our first evening in HK.
When we woke up the next day we went to another dim sum place for breakfast and then walked around exploring some markets near our hostel. I got a pair of 'Beats by Dre' headphones for like $12!!!! (They retail for over $100) So i was pretty pumped about that. After exploring the markets for a while we headed over to the harbor front to the 'Avenue of the Stars.'
The Avenue of the Stars is like Hong Kong's version of Hollywood's Walk of Fame. Its a stretch of promenade adjacent to the harbor that has handprints of famous chinese celebrities. We only recognized a few of the names (Jackie Chan, Jet Lee) but the coolest thing about the Avenue of the Stars is the view. The view of Hong Kong Island from the other side of the harbor is really really amazing. It reminded me of like a smaller, cleaner and newer Manhattan.
So we hung out along the promenade and enjoyed the view of Hong Kong for a bit and then headed back to the hostel to relax before heading back out for dinner. When we ventured back out to try and find something to eat, almost everything was closed due to it being Lunar New Years Eve. After walking around, we eventually found a dim sum place that was open to have dinner. The rest of the night we bar hopped around the area we were the night before.. people watched at this packed flower market.. played some darts and ended the night by eating some delicious chinese beef brisket soup that we all put WAY too much chili sauce in which resulted us in all getting the spicy hick-ups. Despite the spicy hick-ups, the soup was delicious.
The next day we explored Hong Kong Island and ended up going on a bus tour of the city. The bus tour was a cool and relaxing way to see the whole island. After the bus tour we explored a pretty sweet park that was in the city.. Hong Kong had a few pretty cool parks. I cant say enough how cool this city is!!
Later in the day we went to the big New Years parade. It was pretty cool but was kinda overhyped. It was SO packed and we could barely see and honestly, as far as parade quality goes, id take the hollidazle or the macys parade over the new years parade in HK. But, it was still real cool to experience it. During the parade we discovered that they sold dim sum at 7/11!!! Amazing! And it wasnt bad either! Again, Hong Kong is the coolest.
After the parade we checked out the Intercontinental Hotel which we were told has amazing views of Hong Kong.. and we were not disappointed. We all felt pretty cool enjoying drinks and the skyline in one of the fanciest hotels in the city. Then we went over to Lan Kwai Fong which is like the bar/club scene area on Hong Kong island which was also really cool. We had a few drinks and enjoyed the night before heading back to our hostel.
The next day was a BIG day! So we had hostels booked for the first 3 nights we were in HK.. and the last night that we were in HK.. but we were going to Macau (Chinese Vegas) for that night and everything was either booked cause of the new year or too expensive so we were homeless until 2PM the NEXT day when we could check into our final hostel.
We woke up, got suited up in our sweet fitted suits (we thought that Macau was a good opportunity to rock our new suits), grabbed some dim sum lunch in HK and hopped on the ferry over to Macau.
Macau was another really really cool place. Hong Kong was the perfect cool mix of east/west and Macau, being a formerly Portuguese colony, had the super cool feel of european/chinese... plus vegas. There were parts of Macau that we were walking around in that had all of these beautiful European style buildings and cobblestone streets and european-esque squares... all littered with chinese ballons and lights and writing. The city felt really awesome. Parts literally felt like you were in Europe. And then of course there are the HUGE casinos and lights!! One minute we were walking in this quaint european feeling square and the next we were in front of a huge casino and felt like you are in Vegas! Macau was a really cool place to experience.
When we arrived in Macau, we did some exploring, ate some traditional food (which was delicious) and did some more walking around before hitting the casino. We had a LONG night ahead of us so we were in no rush to get anywhere.. When we were done exploring the city, we checked out a few casinos to see what we liked. We began at The Wynn where we found a cigar bar with a really cool garden area that we relaxed in and had a few drinks.. then we relocated to another casino and sat down at the blackjack table.
We played blackjack and a little bit of craps for most of the night and somehow, we all ended up winning $$!! With our winnings, we ordered a dim sum FEAST at like 6am and were trying to ride the high of winning as long as we could. After our meal, we went back to the ferry terminal and took an 8AM ferry back to HK. Once we were back in HK, we wandered around for a while (literally hours) looking for a place where we could just sit and watch sports.. finally we were directed to a part of town, Soho, where we found an awesome restaurant that had western breakfast and was playing ESPN. We waited out the last few hours till we could check into that nights hostel there.
FINALLY, at 2 we went to our hostel and took an extremely needed nap. After the nap, we went down to the Avenue of the Stars to check out the famous light show. Every night, at 8 PM, the skyline of HK island puts on a really sweet light show which im happy we got to see. Then, we headed back to Soho for dinner. Soho ended up being a really sweet part of HK that I am glad we discovered. It was really western and nice and had some amazing looking western restaurants. We settled on this mexican place and the food and drinks were excellent.
Once we finished dinner, we headed back to Lan Kwai Fong and chilled in a hookah bar for a bit, went to this ice bar (pretty cool experience), and then went to this bar/club on the top of a hotel that had really sweet views of the city. It was a fun end to a crazy day and a nice last night in HK.
Hong Kong was everything that i was hoping it to be and more! I can not say enough how much i enjoyed that city. It was just so cool and eastern AND western and i would love to go back there some day.
Heres a link to my pictures from the trip
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2085530&id=1277220060&l=f31036c802
Back in Korea things are well. This month ive only had to teach in the afternoons which has been really nice and easy and the new semester starts the beginning of March. The time here continues to FLY and i cant believe that i have almost been here for 6 months!! CRAZY! I continue to really enjoy my experiences and am so happy that i decided to come to Korea.
Hope all is well a home!
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Cambodia and Thailand!
Alright so I have quite a bit of catching up to do starting with Dori and my trip to Cambodia and Thailand. In one word the trip was AMAZING! It was everything I was hoping it to be and more and everything worked out so well.
Our trip began the day after the badgers lost in the Rosebowl (bummer, but was a good time regardless). We flew into Phnom Phen Cambodia and arrived around 10 at night. We were greeted by the warm smiles that seemed to be permanently fixed on all of local Cambodian’s faces.. as well as warm weather J (PS. Asian airlines are awesome! Every flight that we took, even if it was less than an hour, served foo!) It was a great start to a great trip.
I loved Phnom Phen. Its this little city on a nice riverside which has a cool promenade with lots of bars and restaurants. In Cambodia, stuff is SO cheap, and things are listed in and they accept USD everywhere so it feels really cheap too. Meals were maybe 2-4 dollars and these were for nice meals! In korea you can get tons of cheap meals, but they feel kinda like cheap meals. In Cambodia, you can eat really really well for next to nothing. Although the food was so cheap, it was not the same for alcohol (maybe $4ish a drink). Also, massages were SO CHEAP! Like $6 for an hour massage (we probably got one almost every day of the trip) and there were massage places on every corner.
But anyway, we were staying at this nice little place along the river which was perfect for walking along the main strip. To get around to the other parts of the city we took tuk-tuk which were just mopeds with carriges on the back of them. These guys were everywhere and would take you most places for just a dollar or two. In our one full day in Phnom Phen we hired a tuk tuk to chauffer us around to the major attractions, which was great.
We went to the killing fields first which were pretty horrifying. So much senseless death.. walking around the fields had a similar feeling to a concentration camp.
After the fields, we went to the Egyptian Market which was just this big market. It was cool.. I got some shirts and that is where we discovered sugarcare and mangosteen!! Both of these are now at the top of my favorite things to eat list and I will most definitely eat as much of them as I possibly can whenever available.
Later that day we checked out the royal palace which was pretty cool.. but honestly you get kinda jaded by all of the crazy but similar architecture. That being said, it was still a pretty sweet place to walk around. After that, we got Dr Fish foot massage!!! I had heard about this a while ago and have been wanting to try it and was glad to finally have the opportunity. Dr Fish foot massage is where you stick your feet in a pool of these little fishes that eat the dead skin off of your feet (or something like that). At first it was honestly a little bit nerve racking and when you first put your feet in the water it takes a lot of restraint not to squirm because it feels so weird/ticklish.. but after you get used to it, it is honestly kinda nice.
Overall Phnom Phen was AWESOME and I would love to go back sometime. The next morning we headed to Siem Riep.
We got to Siem Riep in the afternoon and were pretty burnt out from the long ride so we decided to have a pretty chill first day and just explore the city. Siem Riep was also so cool! They have this Pub Street area which is pretty much a street filled with bars/restaurants and at night they make it pedestrian only so you can walk from bar to bar with your drinks and its no problem. It felt like a SE Asian Beale Street. So our first day in Siem Riep we walked around, got a cheap massage, and got dinner and drinks and hung out around Pub Street. That place gets pretty wild at night and we had a really great time.
The next day we hired a tuk tuk to take us around the major temples in the area highlighted by Ankor Wat. All of the temples were really really cool and crazy and amazing to see but Ankor Wat was definitely the coolest. We climbed around and explored different temples for the morning/afternoon and by the time we were finished were ready to relax by the pool and have another enjoyable night around Pub Street. Also, at one of the temples we rode an elephant!!! That was one of the things on our to-do list and it was definitely an experience. After our ride, we got to feed and pet the elephant which was really really cool.
Overall Cambodia was amazing! I am so glad that I got to go there and experience it! Everyone is so nice and everything is so cheap and its just a great place to see. The next day we took a flight to Bangkok.
That afternoon in Bangkok we went to the Royal Palace which is home to the Emerald Buddah. It was cool to see and to walk around the gardens and stuff but again, you kinda get jaded by all of these temples and palaces.. but it was still cool.
That night Dori wasn’t feeling well so we just hung out at our hotel and went to bed early.
The next day we woke up and took a flight down to Krabi en route to Ton Sai Bay on the SW coast of Thailand. To get there, we took a cab from the airport to Ao Nang bay where the only means of getting to Ton Sai is by longboat. We decided to go to Ton Sai on the very very very high recommendation of a good friend of Dori’s.. so needless to say our expectations for this beach were very high.
We arrived and checked into our hut which was just a few minutes walk from the beach and very soon learned what a gem Ton Sai bay really was. Its pretty much this stip of hippie beach filled with rock climbers (Ton Sai is knows for its rock climbing) and people rocking dreads. It was not touristy at all and the food was cheap and the music good and this place was about as close to paradise as anywhere that I have ever been. Its really just this amazing strip of beach scattered with restaurants and bars in the Thai jungle. I can not do this place justice at all by describing it, it was just that cool.
While we were there we spend our days eating pad thai, mango and sticky rice, tom tum, playing in the water, playing chess, watching the rock climbers and monkeys and just chilled out. One morning I played with some boatmans pet monkey which was SO COOL! I know this seems obvious, but monkeys are crazy good climbers and it was so fun to have them climbing all over me.
One afternoon we hiked through a bit of jungle that separated Ton Sai with the more touristy Reilley beach. The travel books raved more about Reilley beach and when we asked anyone on Ton Sai about it, all they would say is that it was ‘touristy’. I didn’t even know what they meant by that but wanted to see it for myself. So we hiked through the jungle separating the two beaches (which itself was amazing.. one of the many highlights of the trip) and arrived at Reilley Beach to find it… touristy. It was more crowded with more obnoxious chachke shops and more expensive and compared to Ton Sai was just annoying. We grabbed a snack and smoothie there and then quickly heaed back to Ton Sai. On our way back, instead of climb through the jumgle we decided to swim which ended up being really cool as well.
Our time in Ton Sai was really really amazing and we were really sad to leave it.. I could not be happier that we chose Ton Sai out of the many many different beaches in Thailand and would love to return and just bum around there for a while some day. But alas, after our few days we headed over to Ko Samui which is an island off the east coast.
Getting to Ko Samui was so obnoxious.. a longtail ride.. a cramped thai taxi.. 2 annoying bus rides and a ferry later we arrived at our place on Ko Samui. The only nice thing about this journey was on the ferry to the island we got hour foot massages for just a few dollars J The whole transit though was annoying and long.
Once we arrived at our beautiful place, all of our tensions were gone and we were back in paradise. Our place on Ko Samui was really really relaxing. A lot of nice meals and walks on the beach and just enjoying the beach and each other. The reason that we chose ko Samui as our other place to go was because of the famous full moon parties which take place on the nearby island of Ko Phagnan every full moon and we had heard were the wildest parties ever. The full moon didn’t happen to coincide with our trip, so we opted for the half moon party (not as cool as the full moon party but still quite an experience.)
There were supposed to be ferrys running from Ko Samui to Ko Phagnan hourly throughout the evening and night, so we were planning on taking an evening ferry and coming back whenever we felt like it in the middle of the night. But, our hotel informed us at around 6 PM that because the half moon party was smaller than the full moon party, only normal ferrys were scheduled which meant the last ferry to depart was at 630 PM and the first ferry in the morning was at 7AM. We quickly decided that despite this, we still had to go to this party. So we quickly got our stuff together and raced to the port and made the final ferry over to Ko Samui.
In Ko Samui, we grabbed dinner and walked around and got another massage to kill time before the party started. While we were walking around, we also found out that there WERE ferrys running throughout the night which was a huge relief to us because we didn’t really want to have to wait until 7AM to go back to our place on Ko Samui.
So eventually we head to this party in the jungle with tons of cheap buckets of alcohol and neon lights everywhere and drank and danced and enjoyed until we decided we were tired and wanted to begin our journey home. Overall the party was cool, but from what we gathered not quite as cool as the full moon party. It was still quite an experience though.
We hardly slept that night and spend our last day in Ko Samui just lounging around and recovering from the night before. The next day we departed for one more day in Bangkok.
We arrived in Bangkok in the aftternoon and walked around the city and just explored. I really liked Bangkok, it was pretty cool. That night, for dinner we went to this nice restaurant on like the 30th floor of a building that had amazing views of the cit. After we went to the red light district and bar hopped and had a really fun last night in Thailand.
Then we had a really nice few days back in Korea before Dori left to go back home L. The trip was so so so amazing just as was the time with Dori. Everything was as good or better than I ever imagined.
Back in Korea things are really really good. Ive only had to work in the afternoons which has been great. It seems the longer I am here, the more I am enjoying Korea. It is such a cool and hilarious country and I am so happy with my decision to spend the year here. Korea has been, and continues to be just a great experience that I am sure I will look back on positively for the rest of my life.
Now I am en route to Hong Kong for the lunar new year for another adventure. Hope all is well back home! I wrote this on the plane ride to HGK so sorry for not putting pictures on here.. there are a bunch up on facebook if you want to check them out!
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Snowboarding and enjoying Korea
Things have been really really good since my last post. The past month has FLOWN by and I have really been enjoying myself! Teaching continues to be a hilarious joke of a job.. i have taught a total of ZERO days the past 3+ weeks. One week the kids studied for finals.. I watched TV shows. The next week the kids took there finals.. I watched TV shows AND left school at noon every day. And the following two weeks we watched the Lord of the Rings for class! This job is not bad at all.
So the weeks have flown by with little to no work, and then the weekends have been great partying in Suwon and Seoul. There's a really great group of people here and we have all been really enjoying ourselves.
Last weekend I went snowboarding with Wolfish which was pretty sweet. We kinda hopped on this organized trip so we were able to use their discounts at the resort. We got to hit the mountain all day Saturday and Sunday morning and it was just a great time. Everything worked out really well and I hope to be able to go at least one more time this winter.
Now Dori, who was supposed to have arrived here yesterday, is still sitting at the airport waiting to be able to board her flight. At this point, I think her flight is supposed to take off at at like 430AM (when she was scheduled to leave at 1240 PM). That would have her arrive here Thursday morning.. or two days later what was planned. The stupid blizzard over the NE really messed things up.
And I just got word that for whatever reason my winter break starts a day early and i do not have school tomorrow. I was planning on taking a sick day to hang out with Dori anyway but I guess its nice that i dont have to pretend to be sick. It definitely feels like the day before winter break on the office with everyone running around trying to tie up any loose ends before the break. Its exciting despite the crummy mood im in due to all of the ridiculousness surrounding Dori's flight.
I can't wait for Dori's flight to actually take off.. then i can start to get excited for new years and the Badger bowl game and my trip to Cambodia and Thailand!!
I guess thats all for now.. Korea is really good. I am very happy here and hopefully Dori will get here soon!!
So the weeks have flown by with little to no work, and then the weekends have been great partying in Suwon and Seoul. There's a really great group of people here and we have all been really enjoying ourselves.
Last weekend I went snowboarding with Wolfish which was pretty sweet. We kinda hopped on this organized trip so we were able to use their discounts at the resort. We got to hit the mountain all day Saturday and Sunday morning and it was just a great time. Everything worked out really well and I hope to be able to go at least one more time this winter.
Now Dori, who was supposed to have arrived here yesterday, is still sitting at the airport waiting to be able to board her flight. At this point, I think her flight is supposed to take off at at like 430AM (when she was scheduled to leave at 1240 PM). That would have her arrive here Thursday morning.. or two days later what was planned. The stupid blizzard over the NE really messed things up.
And I just got word that for whatever reason my winter break starts a day early and i do not have school tomorrow. I was planning on taking a sick day to hang out with Dori anyway but I guess its nice that i dont have to pretend to be sick. It definitely feels like the day before winter break on the office with everyone running around trying to tie up any loose ends before the break. Its exciting despite the crummy mood im in due to all of the ridiculousness surrounding Dori's flight.
I can't wait for Dori's flight to actually take off.. then i can start to get excited for new years and the Badger bowl game and my trip to Cambodia and Thailand!!
I guess thats all for now.. Korea is really good. I am very happy here and hopefully Dori will get here soon!!
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Thanksgiving and 'on the brink of war'
Here's just an update of my past week and a half (or so). So last week, as I am sure that you know, N Korea fired at S Korea which was the first such attack since the Korean war ended.. I was definitely a bit scared that I was about to be in the middle of WW3.. I read every article that I could find about it.. some making me feel better and some making me feel worse. Now that things have cooled down a bit (i think/hope) i can say that i will never trust an article from CNN anymore and will only be reading BBC for news. CNN posted article after article of how the Koreas were 'on the brink of war' and how war was 'imminent' and how the US and S Korea going through with their training exercises was surely to start a war.. well the training exercises came and past and still no war! The BBC maintained a much more level headed approach to the whole thing and wasnt exaggerating anything or trying to make the issue into anything that it wasnt. So anyway, we seem to be safe.. at least for now. I mean the whole time i was never afraid for my personal safety.. i was just afraid that if something went down i would have to leave prematurely which i did not want.. especially with Dori and my's trip to SE asia less than 1 month away!! If i had to leave korea before that i would have been so pissed.
But anyway.. so last weekend me and a bunch of friends got together to celebrate thanksgiving. It was really really nice. We all met up at my friends apartment sat afternoon and hung out and played a little football and drank and ate and played games the whole afternoon evening.. It felt as much like thanksgiving as i ever could have hoped while being in a country that hardly knows what turkey is. We all ended up rallying that night and making it out into Seoul and it was, like usual, a pretty good time.
This week i picked up my (1st) fitted suit!!! It is pretty sweet, im really happy the way it turned out. The process started a few weeks ago with getting my measurements taken.. and then going in a week later to have it altered.. and then finnnaallllyyy picking it up for good last tuesday. Getting a sweet fitted suit was something that i knew i wanted to get while i was over here and i am glad that i did it!! Now i just need to find an excuse to wear it...
Also this week I went to, and am now planning on joining, a boxing gym. Ive always been interested in learning how to box and one of my students is something like one of the best in the country for his age group.. and he told me that the gym that he trains/teaches at is walking distance from where i live. So the other day i checked it out and had a pretty good time. The first day i learned a ton and i am planning on going back tomorrow to join for the month.
Well i guess thats about it for now.. i cant believe that its December already!! November FLEW by and all of the sudden Doris visit and winter break are just around the corner.. Im mid way through the 4th season of 'The Wire' which has been really really great. With all of my free time during school i have started following the news more.. all of this Wikileaks stuff is crazy!!! Alright, schools about to be out..
Hope all is well in America
Sunday, November 21, 2010
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 :)
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'.
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 :)
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
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
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
Thursday, November 11, 2010
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!
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!
Sunday, October 24, 2010
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!
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).
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!
Monday, October 18, 2010
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
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
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