Kim Jong-il is dead.

I thought such a historic event deserved a blog post.  First I will link to a website about photos taken in North Korea.  If you want to watch video, here is one I saw before coming to Korea on Netflix.  A good watch.  So lets get to it.  I am going to be discussing feelings and views more than facts, so if you want those may I suggest the Korea Herald.

Everyone says they remember where they were when they heard about the twin towers, or when they heard about JFK being assassinated.  I remember the former, and was not alive for the latter, but I do believe I will always remember the moment I heard about the death of Kim Jong-il.  I was sitting at the end seat of the second teachers lunch table across from my co-teacher Woo Jae-beom.  It was a normal Monday afternoon, and we were silently scarfing down our food as we always do.  During the meal he gets a phone call, which is not unusual, and he takes it.  I hear him agreeing and sounding a little surprised, and then hanging up the phone call.  "Do you know Kim Jong-Il of North Korea?"  "Yes." I almost laugh aloud, "He is a very bad leader.  Mean to his people."  "Yes.  Yes.  He died."  "What?  He died?"  "Yes.  He died on Friday, but they are just making the announcement now."  I finished lunch and scampered back to my desk to try and read as much about it as possible before my next classes.

In my next class I talked to my co-teacher Bong Won-ha about the issue.  He brought it up to me actually, and said that he was of course very happy about it.  I asked him what he thought about the whole situation and he basically said that he was kind of nervous about it.  He talked about how over the history of Korea there had been plenty of young kings who had ruled very successfully, but that in the modern era there had never been a ruler so young.  Mr. Bong said that what really made him so nervous is the shift in power.  Kim Il-sung had plenty of time to set up Kim Jong-il as the next ruler.  He had been groomed for the position and had shown a certain amount of ruthlessness in several bombings directed at the South.  Kim Jong-un on the other hand has not been groomed for that long.  He is in his late twenties, and "he does not have his hands in everything" the way his father did.  The majority of North Korea seems to be based around the military, and all last night they were showing pictures of who was supposed to be his most likely advisors.  The consensus seems to be that he will do something to show the military that he is not going to let them sit idly by, and to show that the North is still strong and not to be trifled with.  It is times like this that I am glad I live out in the middle of nowhere.  He might do some sort of posturing like shooting at a ship near the border, but he wont risk an all out war when their relationship with China is so shaky, and South Koreas relationship with America seems to be stronger than ever with the new free trade agreement.  Either way I am ready to head out of here if the proverbial shit hits the fan, but I doubt my luck is bad enough for that to happen.

Last night we went out for some bbq and sat around staring at the tv.  The news was nothing but announcements about Kim Jong-il dying.  They showed the people screaming/crying in the streets over the news and the lady on tv who read the official announcement on the North Korean tv stations.  It was interesting that of all the people who were crying, I didn't seem to see many tears.  I saw some, but a lot of them seemed forced.  Overly dramatic.  Maybe I am just not familiar with how Koreans show grief, but it seemed pushed. At one point when the lady was reading the announcement for the third time, the owner of the bbq place was bringing us beer and stopped, looked up at the screen, then made some derisive noise.  He then proceeded to mock her tone, and say what she was saying in a fake crying voice, which sounded absolutely hilarious.  He was obviously not impressed by her show of emotions, and we must have laughed hysterically for a good minute or two.  There are about eight shots of soju in one bottle, and their was four of us, so we took the opportunity to toast Kim Jong-ils death, and then for good measure toasted the death of Kim Jong-un as well.  The reality is that as long as Kim Jong-il was alive, short of a massive implosion or revolution, that reunification of the Koreas was not possible.  Now it is.  It is not probable, but it is possible.  Whatever happens, I just simply hope that those nukes don't get put in the wrong hands.  Bong Won-ha went even a step further than toasting his death when he said "I wish that he hadn't died from a stroke, but like Qaddafi had died a couple months ago, in a revolution where he was murdered by his people."  Today in class my high school students said "Do you know Kim Jong-il?"  "Yes.  He is dead."  "Yeah!" the whole class shouted.  Obviously the view of it over here is that it's a good thing he is dead, but it seems there is an edge of uncertainty now that the new guy is in power.  Kim Jong-il was mean, but a predictable amount of mean.  Kim Jong-un... who knows?  The guy could win a Nobel peace prize for his efforts to reunify the Koreas, but most likely he will bee more of the same.  That seems to be the most likely scenario, and the pervasive thought among most South Koreans.

It's been too long old friends

So I haven't updated in quite a few weeks.  I was on the bus to Muguk one night and deleted some pics off my phone, and suddenly they aren't on this site anymore, so I'm gonna find another place to host them and just link to that.  The good news is that I haven't taken a bunch of new pics or anything, so you really haven't missed a whole lot.

Nothing has really happened in the past few weeks.  Not that I can write about, anyways.  No trips to Gwangju, a couple to Seoul, but that's about it.  I am going to do this update differently and do it personally instead of chronologically, so don't be alarmed.  Lets start inward and work our way outward I guess.  I got sick this week.  Really sick.  Really really sick.  I haven't had stomach cramps like I was having in a couple years is what I would say.  I hung out with Phillipa and the crew on Thursday and felt fine.  Friday it felt a little funny after lunch, but seemed to be ok.  Friday night it hurt like a bastard, and I was stuck on the toilet all through the night and into Saturday morning.  I had plans to go to Gwangju for Mike Dispignos birthday, and had to cancel those plans because it felt like I had a belly full of tiny fishbones trying to poke their way out.  Saturday I tried to take it easy and just have a little bit of kimbap and soup.  That seemed to work and by Saturday night I was feeling much better.  At about 8 o'clock I decided that if I didn't get out now I wouldn't get out at all, so I hopped a late bus to Seoul.  While in Seoul I felt fine, but made the mistake of eating a lot of various things like a hamburger and some eggs and bacon and pancakes.  Sunday I felt funny again, but not bad.  Monday was ok, and Monday night I went out with Graham to wish our Korean friend in the Navy, Nam Wu, a safe voyage for the end of his term of service.  I didn't necessarily eat strange food, just grilled chicken and ramyeon, but I was munching on peanuts, and I think the tiny hard peanuts is what must have done it.  Tuesday was the worst.  I almost vomited on the way to school and was doubled over in pain for most of the day.  It wasn't like a "my appendix is going to burst" sort of pain, but it felt like I had a cramp all morning.  Once again, it wasn't like "get me to the hospital now" bad, more like "it comes and goes about every hour for about ten minutes or so" bad.  Either way it was bad enough that I was not hungry and didn't want to eat at lunch time.  My co-teacher was quite alarmed by this, so he took me to the doctor.  I agreed, and if I agree to go to the doctor, you know I must be sick.  The doctor actually spoke almost perfect English, and agreed to see me on his lunch break.  He pressed around on my belly and there was tenderness at the top right under my xzyphloid process at the base of my sternum.  He diagnosed me as having "gastritis" and gave me a prescription.  I basically didn't eat anything at all on Tuesday except for some tuna fish and crackers late in the evening.  Two days out from that and I feel much, much better, though still not one hundred percent.  The whole doctor and then pharmacy interaction cost me about 7,000 won, which is about 6 bucks and change in America.  This only reinforces my position that Americas healthcare system is messed up and should give coverage to everyone.  If I am sick, it would be much cheaper to be treated over here in Korea than to have the same procedures done (even under insurance) in America.  Anyways, I am feeling much better now, and am looking forward to feeling 100 percent soon.

Another person who got sick recently was Phillipa.  I can almost assure you that it had little or nothing to do with me, as I didn't see her since Thursday when I hadn't even been feeling bad, and everyone else with us hasn't gotten sick.  Hers seemed to be more violent and abbreviated than mine, but she still had it pretty bad.  Things with her seem to be going swimmingly.  I can't really talk about it a whole lot on here like I want to, because she would effin' kill me, but I will speak about it a little bit.  We see each other maybe once or twice a week, three times if all the stars align.  I obviously dig this girl a lot, and it seems that every vibe I have sent her way, she has sent right back to me.  We have both been hurt quite a bit in the past and are not looking to repeat that hurt, but we get along rather well, and you cant argue with that.  So we take it slowly, and if everything goes according to my plan, there may be a relationship in our future, although I seem to have a bad habit of messing up sure things.  We went out a couple of weeks ago for some fried chicken and beer (our choices were that or pizza and soju) and sat around talking.  All night she told me how she didn't want to like me, and things would only be complicated, and how if we started dating that I would get possessive over what she did, or hurt by the fact that she wouldn't be able to spend much time with me when she went to see her sister, or when she picked up a new hobby, or was busy at work, or started to learn more Korean, or went home for a month at break and couldn't talk to me all the time.  So many reasons for us not to see each other and it went on for so long.  I sat back and smiled, knowing perfectly well who she was, and what she was like, and not worrying about anything she was saying, because if we liked each other, it would all work out in due time.  So we agreed, nothing official, nothing serious, and nothing public until after winter break.  By then almost all of the people from our district will be changing, and there will be a lot of new faces.  During the course of the night she comments about how awesome I look after shaving, and takes a picture of the new awesome.  She took one of me with a beard earlier in the month, so I am sure this provided some good contrast.  Fast forward a couple of days to when we are going out with our group of friends and meet up to get some coffee.  We are discussing what a good time we had the previous night, and she is texting someone on her phone.  She sets it down on the table and what picture is there in the background?  "Whose picture is that?" I say.  "What?  This?  No one" and she starts blushing.  It obviously makes me feel good to know that she is thinking about me on a regular basis.  She tells me over coffee how she talks to many people throughout the day, but with me it's "different", like she doesn't have to try and talk about cool things or try and keep the conversation going, it just kind of moves itself.  I actually think that part is kind of funny, cause we don't talk about anything interesting at all.  It is always "Hi.  How was your last class?  How many more do you have?  What are you teaching them?  What did you eat for lunch?  What are you doing tonight?"  I think the bulk of our conversations revolve around what we have for our school lunches every day.  Apparently my school feeds us very well, a fact which does not really surprise me.  Anyway, I put her picture on my phone, and since then a couple of my co-teachers have been very direct.  "Is that your girlfriend?" "Not really, I am not quite sure." "How can you not be sure?" "It's complicated, but let us just say for now that we are very good friends."  "So she is your friend, and a girl."  "Yes but not my girlfriend."  "You should make her your girlfriend."  "Yeah, I'll get right on that."  "Get on that?"  "It means I will work on it."  "Oh... Work hard.  Fighting!"  Who would have thought fighting with a girl would be a good thing :p

I guess next in the scheme of things is my group of co-teachers and students.  I am officially finished with after school classes, which is nice, so I get to go home every day at 4:30.  One of the last days of after school classes was me making up for one that was missed due to voting, and I had to make it up on a day when I normally didn't teach them.  You don't know difficult teaching in Korea is until you are debating with about thirty twelve year olds who don't speak your language whether you are supposed to be there or not.  "Oe nega yogi isoyo?"  A truly existential question.  "Why am I here?"  Eventually after a couple of trips to the teachers office I was able to convince the class that I was indeed supposed to be there, and we had a nice lesson of them not understanding most of what I was saying, and me trying to keep them from playing "angry birds" by throwing a pillow around the class.  If classroom management is easy when you have a Korean co-teacher, you pay for it double when you don't, because they don't understand anything of what I say.  I have had to learn some basic commands though.  "Yedara! Hajima! Joyongi! Anjo!"  "Hey you!  Stop that!  Be quiet!  Sit down!"  I  have to use the last one waaaaay too often.  In my other classes though it is going fine.  There was an awkward moment though when we were playing a version of connect four where the kids had to make sentences.  You had to pick a square, then make a sentence with the word I gave you.  One kid picked a square and the sentence had to use the word "buy" in a question.  "Can I buy a condom?"  "NO POINT!"  the teacher screams out, "No point."  "Ok.  No point."  I say.  After class she apologizes to me for their behavior, and I tell her "It's ok, I have taught teenagers ever since I was one myself.  I understand why it happened." She stayed behind to yell at them as I left.  They weren't a problem the next week.  My favorite class is by far the girls that I teach on the second to last period of Friday.  I like teaching girls more than boys anyway.  The energy with them is more transferable, and they get my sense of humor more.  With boys it's all about ego and showing them who is boss.  With girls you can play the pity card and they will eat it up.  When we were playing that same game in this girls class one of them got the word "Shut" and had to use it in a question.  "Will you please shut up?" she said.  I made this overly happy face that she got it right and was about to congratulate her, then turned it into a displeased realization of what she said with a big show of closing my mouth mid sentence formulation, followed by an overly sad face with a pouting lip, sunken shoulders and sad posture, as I slinked over to the board to give her the point.  It was all obviously planned but everyone in the class was like "AWWWWW!!! Joke!  Joke!  Game!"  While the other half were squealing in delight that I would respond so seriously to what she said as an answer.  Or the other day, when I had to explain why I cut off my beard, and I pantomimed zipping up my jacket and getting my beard caught in it.  They were screaming with laughter at that.  Just a good group of girls who is very energetic and, as I said before, is the perfect way to end the week.  Speaking of the beard, when I first told some of the students I was going to shave it, they quite literally yelled at me to not do it.  I thought they were going to cry.  They were really upset that I would even consider it.  I arrived the next day at school and couldn't walk ten feet without someone saying "Cute-u"  "Handsome" and when I arrived in the teachers office it was "You look very handsome" "Smart" "Young" "Very good."  I like the beard and everything, but it feels nice not to have to worry about how my hair or beard look every morning.

I have to say I love it over here in Korea.  I am not sure when this honeymoon period is supposed to wear off, but I don't know if it will.  I mean, I think I already went through the toughest part, when I was alone and had no internet or TV.  Ever since then I have met wonderful people, and have done wonderful things.  This culture is all around me, and makes me feel thankful for everything that I had back in America, not because it is better or worse, but because it is what made me who I am.  I have only been here about four months now and I just am absolutely blown away by how much I love the food and the music and the people.  They keep telling me that I am going to go through a sort of depression, but I don't know if I see that happening.  Obviously I go through little ones that sneak up on me, when I see all the facebook posts of someones birthday, or think about what I left behind, or what I could be doing in America right now, but those only last for a night or so.  I just feel like I love this culture.  I think having a friend like Graham who enjoys everything about Korea so much helps this situation greatly.  We go and get a beer or two a few times a week, and all we can do is talk about how much fun we have with our students, or the newest K-pop hits.  Obviously our conversations are colored by what it was like in Scotland or what American politicians are saying to dig themselves in a hole this week, but he is a very positive person, and his love of Korea is really keeping me afloat.  I am glad to have a friend like him.  If you need any more reason to love Korea than the ones I just gave you, I highly suggest you check out this video.  The song is Arirang, the traditional Korean folk song that I love so much, and is set to a time lapse video of Seoul.  I know you are fiending for K-pop, and I assure you I will update next week and maybe drop some new stuff on you.

Pictures from Busan, Gwangju and Seoul.

Elvis outside the Texas bar.  Apparently all things from the South are from Texas.  I have seen this exact statue in several cities actually.  I'll try and put up some more pictures of him.

Just an idea of which beers I was able to choose from at the Texas Ice house.  Alex was really self conscious about his receding hairline, so I figured I'd leave it in the picture like the good friend I am.

A side view of a lantern palace gate in Seoul.

A blurry picture of a light up carriage.  The line for these things was like twenty deep, and the horses were tiny and overworked.

Front view of the palace gate lantern/structure.

There was a couple of lantern guards in front of the palace gate,  also there were little pools of water along the middle of the walkway.  We were up on the side looking down and in, thereby avoiding the line that literally stretched for one or two city blocks.

Some lantern people and their lantern things.  I honestly expected to see them start moving at any second.  They were very well done.

One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong.  Can you drink a whole can of Dr. Pepper by the time I finish this song?

"Pepero" is what the box says.  These are the variety that are pretzel filled with chocolate.  Most I have seen have chocolate on the outside.  The arrangement of them in a line looks like sticks, or ones, so they designate the day 11-11 to give pepero to people you like.  I got a couple of boxes out of pity I think, but I ate them with full voracity.  It is a completely manufactured holiday, much like blurnsday or the three days of kitten juggling that come right after Halloween.

Who is this handsome devil?  Hope you like it, because it will probably be gone right after Christmas.

Have you S-oiled your car recently?  If not, why not drop by  my local car repair place and S-oil it today?

My Dr. Pepper at the Lemon Table.  In the background is a typical bottle of Jinro Soju, preparing itself to be downed.

Anyong Koyangi!  This little guy was at the place I went to called "cat & coffee."

Another cat at the coffee place.

Same guy from the first photo, plotting his escape.

Up top you can see the cat just hanging out.  The window is where you order your coffee, and the cats  pretty much climb everywhere in the place.

John Smith III trying to poke a cat in the eyes.

Graham Leans hookah that he had shipped from Lebanon.  "Free shipping to anywhere.  Israel excluded" was the deal online.

Just a couple of cats on the wall of the bathroom of our local Hof.

The students told me I looked like this guy.  I checked out the rest of the book and its a story about this little wooden puppet who lives in a town of puppets.  He is told not to go up on the hill, but eventually he does and meets this puppet maker.  I am pretty sure it is a metaphor for God.  It also strikes me as funny because a few of the students have told me that my beard makes me look like God.  Good times.

A foggy street in Gamgok.  

The soccer field right outside my apartment.

I had to guess these girls costumes in Busan.  "Miss Canada and a flamingo!"  Let's just say the woodpecker was mad at me for the rest of the night.

A saffer, a limey and an Irish lass walk into a bar.

The design that the Zimbab painted on my face.

The two coolest South African dudes I know.

Lasers in between fireworks.  The screen was on a boat floating in the middle of the river, and just showed the fireworks all night.

More lasers.  

The initial view of the fireworks show from the top of the building where we were drinking.

My awesome view of the fireworks show from inside the pub.

It rained really hard while we were up there, so we just packed up our stuff and moved into a bar.

Me and my orientation leader Chris.

Me trying to make the shot better by pulling down the rope.  

Yes.  That's what I was looking at while the fireworks went off in the distance.  Lucky me got a view of the back of some dudes head.

Lantern Festival.

Howdy!  How are you doing today?  What did you do this weekend?  What will you do next weekend?

That is pretty much how I begin every high school class I teach.  Then I play games.  With no multi-media and no textbooks I am in a unique situation in this country.  No other teacher I have talked to is in the same low tech type of place that I am teaching.  I am not required to do anything per-se, but in order to keep the students involved, and actually work on creating stuff, we play a lot of games.  Other English teachers, if you ever need a game to last all class, just ask me.  I have two or three Waygook.org threads that I have been running off of, and I have created some games on my own, so just let me know if you need anything from "The Game Master."  This week we were playing A-Z or scattegories as some people call it.  I throw out a subject and they try to list a word for every letter.  If the word is the same the two teams must cross it out.  Whoever has a different word gets to circle it, and the team with the most circles wins that amount of points.  Fun, fun, fun.  My favorite two classes are with my smokin' hot co-teacher on Friday, and by far my favorite is with the girls class which is my last class of the week.  Why, you ask?  Because they are the highest level, and they have the concept of "Aegyo" down to a T.  If you don't know what Aegyo is I will explain in story form.  There is a girl I always say hi to at my school.  She is cute, but not because she is tinier than average, or prettier than average, or anything really.  It is because she always tries hard to say hi, and look made up, and she puts her voice up about an octave and uses a lot of inflection.  I was walking behind her today and she was speaking normally, then as soon as she saw me her voice jumped an octave and she said "HI JEPPU!"  Here is an example from Korean mainstream media.  I imagine most women would find it supremely annoying, but I think dudes can't really help it.  I find it effing adorable personally.  So where was I, ah yes, we were playing scattegories and the kids were really excited and cheering each other on.  The category was animals, and we were on Y.  The girls in order of their team number say "Yak. Yellow Tail. Yearling. Yorkshire. Yellow Jacket!" and everyone in the class cheers because they all got points.  The next letter, building on that excitement, with each girl doing a different pose like someone is going to take a photograph; "Zebra. Zebra!  Zebra!! Zebra!!! Zebra!!!!" and the entire class is howling with laughter.  My co-teacher is almost doubled over with laughter, and I am guffawing loudly.  I just love that class, and they are always excited to see me.  So I finished the week on a good note, and the best way to enter the weekend is to do so excited about getting back to school the next week.

This weekend I had planned on going to cheongju to watch Sungha Jung play the guitar, but in the middle of the week I got invited to go to Seoul to see the lantern festival.  All the Eumseong crew was going.  I couldn't be the only one not going.  So I packed up my stuff and gave Justin a call and headed out.  I was in Seoul by seven.  The bus moved pretty good but hit quite a bit of traffic.  A bus to East Seoul (Dong Seoul) leaves every twenty minutes from my town, so any time I want to I can rocket up there.  Once I got up there I took a couple of subways to meet up with Justin (I officially have earned my Seoul Subway Merit Badge) and once we met up I expressed my desire for Western food.  We needed something quick though, so I got my first taste of Korean McDonalds.  It is literally the same.  That is not necessarily a bad thing when you have been eating kimchi every day for the last month.  I still love kimchi, but sometimes it's nice to get a big mac, yaknowwhatimean?  After that we dropped my stuff off at his place and went to meet with my peoples.  They were all in Hongdae, which is like, Northwest Seoul, where I marked our hostile last time I posted about being there, and Justin lives in Bundang, which is like, Southeast of Seoul, which I marked in my first post about traveling to Seoul.  This time I will mark City Hall, showing you where we went on Saturday night.  Well we had to travel across the city, and were gonna take a bus to get us there, but apparently there was a wreck on a freeway and suddenly what should have been a forty five minute trip turns into about an hour and a half... well ok, there was no suddenly about it, but you get the picture.  We show up at the bar everyone is located at after another subway journey, and it is almost literally everyone from Eumseong county.  All eleven or so of us.  They are all three sheets to the wind because they were drinking in the park first, so we have our work cut out for us.  Two whiskey shots, Two Budweisers, 12 dollars.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.  A couple rounds of that later and me and Justin are almost caught up.  Everyone is drinking and dancing and having a good time.  There was some debauchery that took place that I am not allowed to tell you about, but it is far less interesting if you don't know the people who were out with us.  Anyway, at the end of the night one of the girls was sick, so while most of our crew goes on to another club, some of us are left to take care of the sick one.  We try and get cabs... nothin' doin'.  For a period of about twenty minutes I am left with this girl alone, while she is sitting on the curb throwing up, and I am trying to find her a cab, and all of my friends are off in the club dancing.  I have a phone conversation with Justin, who is in a very very loud club, saying "Come out here and help me!" "We're in the club."  "I know, I am alone with this sick girl and need someone else." "It's club NB2."  "I know, I need help."  "Just come in the club." "HELP!" "Help?" "HELP!" and then he comes out and gives me a hand dealing with this girl.  There is a point where we had to move her down the block to another intersection, and I swear nothing has hurt my back more than trying to lift this girl up and drag her three legged race style towards this intersection.  I don't remember who took over for me, but I couldn't have gone another step.  I pull a completely drunk Phillipa out of the club, and then we wait around for a cab that looks like it can take us to the hostel.  After a few tries Phillipa does exactly what should have been done in the first place and says "Eff this!" and hops in a cab without asking.  We load the drunk girl in the cab along with the other people going to the same place, and they are off.  Me and Justin are there alone not wanting to go back to the noisy club, and wanting to get something to eat.  We head back towards his place and get some KFC and then meet up with a couple of his friends.  I am about to fall asleep, but what is it that they suggested?  The only thing that can keep a drunk and tired bear from his cave?  That's right, you guessed it, noraebang.  NORAEBANG!!!  We head to one close by and proceed to sing for an hour or more, I don't really remember.  I got to sing my Muse, and added another song to my repertoire.  It was fun, especially because one of the girls was really talented, so I would sing one part and she would sing the harmony, or the other way around.  Eventually we got back to Justins place right after the sun started to rise, and we passed out hardcore.  Not so much from drunkenness as much as from general exhaustion.

The next morning came too quickly.  Before I had time to think we were on our way into the city.  I heard from Justin that they had an On The Border in Seoul somewhere, so we shot for that, as I had not had decent Mexican food in a long time.  The salsa was lacking, but if that's the only problem I consider it a successful venture.  We stuffed ourselves with cheese and fried dough and rice, then headed towards City Hall.  The lantern festival was going to be taking place right by City Hall, and we had planned to meet up with Phillipa, and her sister Rowena.  I only got to talk to Rowena for a couple of seconds, but it was awesome!  Imagine telling someone where you live for two months and them not having any idea even where in the country that is, much less within your province, then all of a sudden someone says "Yeah, I used to live there.  You guys have that awesome place X right?"  Apparently Rowena and her brother are both twins, and Phillipa used to live right near them.  They moved to Seoul this year and she stayed in the countryside.  They are going home next year and Phillipa is staying.  I imagine it must be hard on her part to have her family situation change every year, but she is a trooper.  So we met up with them, but they hadn't eaten so they went on their way.  Phillipa, Justin and myself then walked past a huuuuuge line of people to get to where we were meeting Theresa and Alex, and we decided that the line was way too long to want to get in.  We walked along side of the path, and before long we were at the end of it.  It was pretty lackluster as far as festivals go, but the lanterns themselves were excellent.  I have a couple of photos that I will post soon.

We got some coffee then headed to a place that was right outside the lantern fest.  It was called the "Texas Ice House" and it had a crap ton of beer.  The bottles were all in the middle of the table, and you would reach in, grab one, drink it, and they would automatically charge you.  It was kind of expensive, but not ridiculous.  We had a couple beers, and shot the breeze for awhile before adjourning to somewhere else.  We walked around and found a place called "700 Beer" that looked halfway decent.  We ordered some beer and some soju, and before long were well on our way to that good feeling.  Phillipa consistently tried to get out of doing shots of soju by pretending like she was drinking then setting her glass back down, but after doing that once, we caught on.  She kept exclaiming, "If I have anymore to drink, I will die!"  but she hung in like a trooper.  Alex and Theresa were pretty much still recovering from the previous night, so they didn't have anything, but me and Justin were full steam ahead by this point.  We downed a couple more glasses then headed outside.  We decided that a noraebang was a good idea, (NORAEBANG!!!) so we looked around.  In this country there is pretty much one about every block, and sure enough we saw two within sight of the bar we had just exited.  We walked in, were shown to a room, and began a second wonderful night of singing.  Phillipa sang, even though she claims she is awful, she isn't that bad.  Alex did a lot of singing, and I sang just about every song you can think of.  It was really fun.  I felt bad for hogging the mic, so I paid the lions share and we left.  That was pretty much the end of the night as a group as we were headed in opposite directions.  Me and Justin went back towards his place and wound up at this bar called the Dublin.  We had a couple of beers, but they tasted sour.  Not like they had gone skunky, but like someone hadn't cleaned out the lines in the bar or something.  We noticed they had hookahs, so we got one of those.  It was cheap, only 8000 for one.  Back in the states it's like 15 bucks.  Granted this wasn't as big, or as nice, but the flavor she gave us, a mixture of cherry and menthol, was freaking great.  It tasted so smooth, and before I knew it we were both feeling totally chill.  We ordered another round of a different type of beer that also tasted sour, then some guy that Justin knows sat down to talk to him.  He had some story about getting kicked out of a KFC because he wouldn't take no for an answer when they told him they didn't serve a certain type of wing.  I contrasted this with last night when we were told they didn't have biscuits and said "meh" and moved on.  We downed our drinks and headed back to Justins place and crashed out yet again.

The next morning we exchanged what was on each others hard drives and I headed out for the subway station.  We went to a place called "Burger Hunter" that looked pretty good, and I got the "Angry Burger" which was like a spicy chicken sandwich.  It was quite delicious.  We then parted ways and I got a bus back to Gamgok with no problem whatsoever.  I feel like these are starting to get kinda boring.  Sorry if that is the case.  I am not having as many interesting cultural interactions now that I am beginning to assimilate.  To be honest that makes for bad blogging, but good living.  It is starting to get cold over here, and there was frost on the ground this morning.  Oh, and remember that guy who I said ran the radio station?  Well I have been listening to his show for a few days now, and won a trivia contest of his last night.  It was fun, he gave me a shout out and told everyone where I lived, then awarded me an 8000 won voucher to the bar where I saw him at.  Yeah it is only 8 bucks, but that's like two drinks.  I only answered one question anyway, but it's fun to know someone on the radio, and request the music I want to hear.  They keep advertising jobs on the radio in that city, which is something I have always wanted to do, but this teaching gig is too sweet to give up.

Before I leave you, here is some hot Korean girls dancing and singing.  Enjoy.  Notice how all the lyrics are both in English and Korean.  English is everywhere over here.  I am amazed at how little I have to use Korean, and even how everyone in Seoul seemed to know English.

In the Classroom.

This is a day when we had finished our little game for the class and I had a couple minutes left over to play hangman.  Notice how into it they get in the guys class.  It is hard to see, but in the girls class they are guessing so many wrong answers that she is drawing little ears and whiskers and shoes on the person.  She eventually realizes I am filming, and hides behind the desk.  Both these classes are on Monday, with my teacher Mr. Bong Won-ha.  He lives in my building and is a very intelligent and proud man.  Apparently part of his English education involved living in Phoenix.

Videos of the Janghowon hike.

These are the video I took when we hiked up the hill here for the school trip.

Gwangju - Round 2

So maybe you noticed that it posted an old one of my blogs recently, that's because I went back to reread a couple, fixed a typo, and BAM!  It published the whole thing.  C'est la vie.  Also for those that are new to this, I suggest you start from the beginning.  I know its long, but it is fun, and starting from the beginning will give you insight into my thought process, how much Korean I know and don't know, and will explain help explain my experiences and cast of recurring characters.  I know I romanized the word for bear wrong, but romanization is not a set thing, and that's why you make it the name of your blog instead of getting it as a tattoo.

This weekend I took a trip to Gwangju.  I was talking before about how I was gonna try and drag Phillipa, but that didn't work out.  She has been swamped at work with an open lesson coming up this week, and has spent all week trying to work out all the kinks.  She's awesome, so I hope everything goes smoothly for her.  I missed a couple of parties up here in the countryside, but I had a friggin' blast, so I'm not really that sad.  The weekend started with me catching a bus out of town for the city of Daejeon.  I had done this once before, so this time I knew where I needed to be going.  No asking random people for directions anymore.  I walked off the bus stop and into the terminal and ordered a ticket for Gwangju.  I still had five minutes to spare before the 7:40 bus left, so I thought I was golden.  "Apsoyo."  She says at the counter.  I now am beginning to hate that word.  The good news is that they weren't totally out of tickets, just ones for that bus.  I got a ticket for ten o'clock, which was about two hours and change away, so I decided I would get something to eat.  I had a little walk around the neighborhood, and all I found that looked appetizing was a little noodle shop on the side of a street.  I got Dul Sut Bibimbap, or "Hot stone Bibimbap."  It was served in a hot stone bowl so it carmelized the rice while you were eating the rest of the dish, and boy was it delicious.  I killed some time by watching you tube videos of a Korean show I have recently found, and got situated on the bus when it arrived.

I got into Gwangju about midnight, and everything seemed so different from the last time I was there.  All my friends have phones now, and I was in constant contact with them from the beginning.  I knew exactly where to go and how to get there, and I had enough money to get there and back comfortably.  I hopped a cab to the station where Graham had told me to go, and before long I was there.  It was raining pretty hard, so I put on my waterproof jacket and walked around a bit trying to locate my friends.  A couple of phone calls later we were on our way into the noraebang.  (NORAEBANG!!!)  It was much different from my other two noraebang experiences because it was mostly westerners.  We drank some beers and they made me down lots of soju to catch up to where they were at.  I, of course, sang Muse because they are absolutely awesome, and many other songs were picked.  I even found another song to add to my repertoire.  By the end of the night we were all pretty drunk and sung out, so we paid and left at about three.  I was consoled by Kristin, a Cardinals fan, because she obviously knew my pain as a Rangers fan.  She was very civil through out the series.  We filled each other in on big plays when we had to go teach class, and did a mild bit of trash talking.  I prefer my rivalries to be mild and civil, and this was definitely both.  I am a hugger by nature, and have not been getting my fill of hugs over here, so I was psyched when she gave me a big one.  It was after that though that I opened my big mouth and said "I will hug anyone anywhere!"  I was not prepared for Sarah Bosch to suddenly dart inbetween two people and attack me with a hug.  It nearly knocked me over.  Two good hugs in one night and some singing.  What more could I really ask for from an evening that had started at midnight?

Everyone was on their way home and I had only been going for a couple hours, so of course I am still wanting to go out.  Graham was nice though and offered to let me crash at his place.  He has a magnificent hookah that he bought from Lebanon, and we smoked some shisha out of it.  It was quite delicious.  I haven't smoked a hookah for a good four or five months, and it was the perfect way to relax.  He also had Duvell, a fine beer, on hand to drink.  The best beer I can buy in stores out here is pretty much Budweiser, so I was excited to be sipping on a nice beer with a fine bit of shisha to smoke.  We listened to some music and hung out, then went to sleep.  Once again it was nice to have my air mattress.  I would have had to sleep on a wooden floor otherwise.  It seems like this thing has already paid for itself twice over.  

The next morning came too early.  I took a shower at Grahams place and commented on his cute little decals in his place that were of Winnie the Pooh.  "Yeah, just like back home, Pooh all over the walls."  That gave me quite a laugh.  We got moving and headed downtown.  Christina was having a birthday that night, so we had a few hours to kill before meeting up with everyone.  The first thing we did was plan on getting something to eat.  We went to a restaurant that served a dish called "Shabu Shabu" which consisted of a spicy broth with lots of vegetables.  You would take little strips of beef and add them to the broth till they cooked, then eat them.  After that you added more vegetables, then finally udon noodles.  After all of this cooking of the soup was done, they gave us what was close to Bokembap.  It was rice that was cooked on the thing we had just eaten out of.  Of course it was delicious, and by the end of it we were pretty full.  We then went to a bake-sale at the GIC (Gwangju International Center) and took a look at the books and baked goods they were offering.  I know I have said it before, but I will say it again a bunch of times before I am done.  I get kind of weirded out in the city.  There are a lot of foreigners, and everything is so cramped.  I think if I had been living there all along I would be totally used to it, but every time I go to a city and see a foreigner I want to smile and wave, and they always pretend like they don't see me... awkward.  So we spent some time at the bake sale and met up with a couple of other people from our group, then headed to the place we went last time called Coffee and Cat.  It was as epic as it sounds.  Cats everywhere, running around and playing.  I got a couple of pictures of said cats, and we had a cup of coffee, then headed out again. We ended up at "The alleyway" a place that had real Mexican food that I have been dying to try.  I didn't get to that day because we had just eaten the shabu shabu, but I did get to sit around and drink beer with my homeys.

I debated whether or not to include this next part, as it is kind of gross, but I think it will probably give you a laugh, so I am gonna go for it.  The shabu shabu had really spicy broth, and was pretty oily from having the meat cooked in it.  All the food has sat well with me over here, but this did not.  Something about the oily spicy broth just made my stomach rumble, so as I was sitting around drinking beer I felt the all too familiar uncomfortable bubbles.  I thought it was just a bit of gas and that I would be alright, but very soon I realized that things were accelerating.  I knew that we had a long night ahead of us, and that likely I would not be able to reach a civilized looking bathroom for the next twelve hours, so I excused myself and hit the head.  Protip: Don't expect the bathroom in a place called "The Alleyway" to be very nice.  It wasn't.  It is not attached to any one shop, but shared by three different places.  I was just thankful that it did indeed have a sit down toilet so I made the most of it.  As an Eagle Scout, I have had my experiences with gross bathrooms, and compared to those, this one was pretty nice, so I did what I had to do.  There was water all over the ground (I hope) so I tried to not let my pants get any on them.  The door didn't lock, and the light was outside, so I was sitting there in a tiny room relieving myself while trying to keep my pants off the ground and hold the door shut.  As I am sitting there I hear some guy come in and use the restroom.  I thought "Oh, crap! (no pun intended) What if this guy thinks he is the only one in here and trys to come in.  So I give a little cough to maybe alert him to my presence.  Obviously it didn't work, because when he left, he turned the lights out.  I am now sitting in a pitch dark dirty bathroom in the back of a placed called "The Alleyway" trying to get my phone out of my pants without letting them touch the ground.  I had an application on it called "Flashlight" that I knew was going to come in handy one day.  I found it, turned it on, went about my business, and right as I finish up and leave this poor poor girl comes in.  It is then that I realize that this horrifyingly dirty bathroom has just been made even more horrifying by me, and I try to make a quick exit, hoping that she wasn't a fellow bar goer at the place where I was drinking.  On the way out I, like an idiot, do the same thing the guy did before and turn out the lights.  I quickly realized my mistake though and turned them back on for her, as she already had it rough enough.  Feeling like a million dollars I returned to the bar and continued on with the night.  The bartender put on Jurassic Park, and I reveled in the glory of the good ol' days, when crappy (again, no pun intended, and enough with the poop jokes) animatronic velociraptors still scared 11 year old me out of my frickin' mind.  They played some classic southern rock, and for the next half hour, all was right with the world.

Chrissy had wanted to meet up for her birthday and get some pizza, so we did that.  We went to a pretty nice restaurant called "The lemon table."  It was delicious!  They had all kinds of things on the menu, and I ended up getting something called the "Onion Mountain Burger."  It was recommended to me by the ever beautiful Sarah Bosch who happens to have new bangs, and I will tell you exactly how awesome she looks with those bangs... well she looks awesome just like I said.  Let me take this moment to give a shout out to all my Gwangjuish friends.  They truly are the chosen people.  Everytime I go down there they are concerned about how I am doing and how things are going.  It is nice to be able to hang out with so many people that get along so well.  There are a bunch of different personalities, so if I am feeling up, I can talk to someone and if I am feeling down I can talk to someone else.  Well this onion mountain burger comes out, and I'll be damned if it isn't literally a mountiain of onion rings on top of a burger.  I ate the whole thing ravenously.  Cleaned my friggin plate.  I then happened to see that they had Dr. Pepper in stock so I got one of those.  What a good meal.  Onion rings, a burger and Dr. Pepper.

It was then that we headed out to a place called "Speakeasy" to watch a Korean band.  We got there in time for soundcheck and it was obvious that the guys were very talented.  Apparently one was a drum teacher, one was a guitar teacher, and the singer was also a songwriter.  They played all original material that was very high energy and sounded great.  After that was a band of all foreigners who played nothing but cover songs.  I have to say I much preferred the band of foreigners.  I was quite drunk by that point, as we had been going for about six or seven hours by the time they got on stage, but they played a great selection.  Our Irish friend Joanne hated it when they played a song by the Scottish group the proclaimers.  So, like the true gentleman I am, I arranged to have it sung to her in stereo.  She was a champ about it and let us sing away while she took it.  Because I know how much restraint that must have taken I bought her a beer.  At one point in the night an older Korean gentleman sat down at a table near ours and I gave him a friendly nod.  He was in a foreigner bar as a middle aged man, and was sitting with a table full of young adult Korean women.  How are you not going to give a guy like that a friendly nod?  Well a few minutes later he asked me to come over and speak English to the group so that the girls could have some English conversation.  I left the table full of shocked western dudes like a boss and sat down to talk to some pretty ladies.  They were locals, who taught English and math, and I was more than willing to help them out.  We made small talk, and I was forced to tell them which one was the prettiest.  What a hard life!  Being forced to talk to beautiful Korean girls while drinking!  Woe is me!  The band started back up and I couldn't here anything so we parted ways.  I went back and I spent more time hanging around with my friends right by the front of the stage.  I was cheering the band on and singing along with all their songs.  The dude right in front of me was wailing on the bongos, so I told him how awesome I thought he was.  At the end of the night he found me and thanked me for being such a great crowd member :)

I also met a wonderful, but very confused girl that night.  After the dancing and drinking I came back to our table, which was pretty much empty except for one lady.  She was not with our group, but was an adorable doe eyed beauty.  I sat down and chatted her up.  She was pretty easy to talk to and from New Jersey.  I mentioned that my whole family spent a lot of time in the New Jersey area, and it seemed like she was from outside Newark.  We hit it off, and things were going quite well.  Normally someone so flirtatious would set off alarm bells in my head, but as of late I have been on a streak of awesome.  So we shared a laid back drunken conversation about many things.  Things were going quite swimmingly so I go to get her a beer and what does my friend tell me?  "Shes engaged."  "Aww damn!" I think to myself  "Go figure that an attractive easy to talk to girl is already spoken for."  Anyway I brought this up to her and she said they were on a break.  Last time I checked it is not against any rules to talk to a girl that is on a break, so I don't feel that bad, but I also didn't realize her ex or whatever he was, was in the bar with us.  In my defense she didn't point him out or tell me, and we really weren't doing anything but talking and flirting a bit.  It sure does explain why he was giving me bad stares at the end of the night.  I thought he was just some dude, but apparently he was THE dude.  Oh well.  No fight, no foul.  I didn't cause any drama that wasn't already there, and I didn't do anything but talk.  I still feel like a scumbag though, so I made it a point to apologize.  While she was doing her own thing in the bar I saw another girl who was chillin with just her Korean girlfriend, so I invited her over for a drink and some conversation.  We talked for awhile and hit it off rather well.  What do you know she was South African.  It really does seem sometimes that I am a "Saffer Magnet" as Craig called me last weekend.  She was interesting and had a good sense of humor.  Sometime during the conversation I got up to get a beer.  I met a dude at the bar who had a rockin' beard and I told him so.  Once again the brotherhood of the beard goes far.  This guy was laid back and totally chill, which is good cause I was pretty far gone at this point.  I remember some guy spilling the bearded mans own drink on him, and what is his reaction? "Can I get a towel.  No dude, keep your money, it's cool, I already paid for my next drink."  Straight up classy guy.  Just seemed genuinely friendly, and kept a cool head when he was around dumbasses.  I also befriended a girl with him from Canada because I kept referring to it as "Americas cooler northern neighbor."  Graham also had brought a co-teacher of his out whose name was Stan, and the guy was really nice.  We talked about baseball for awhile and he thanked me for being nice enough to talk to him.  I suggested that he try to insert himself into conversations around our group, because we were all really nice people, it's just a matter of who he wanted to talk to.  I honestly probably have more experience hanging out with Koreans than I do westerners in Korea at this point, as it seems like I am getting to do that a few times a week, while westerners I only see every weekend or so.  Koreans are very hospitable, and a lot of fun.  They love to practice English, and they love to talk about ladies, sports and beer.

It is about this time that the party at speakeasy starts winding down and everyone starts to take off for other places.  I decide I am going to follow the party and head with my friend to Bubble bar.  When we get there Clare Gutjahar (The Gooch) gives me a huge hug.  You may remember her from my previous posts where I said she was my favorite, because... well... she is.  Well she gave me a big hug and gushed to me about some things.  I listened and sympathized and got a free awesome hug out of it.  It was then that everyone was like "Ok we are leaving!" and Graham said "Yeah, I'll stay and drink with ya mate!"  Fast forward thirty seconds and they are all in a cab and leaving without me.  We were all totally drunk, as by this time it was about three something in the morning.  Wait, let me check my phone records.  Yeah it looks like around three people were taking off.  I stayed because... well... why not?  I went walkin' around for a whole minute to pull out some money, and went into the bubble bar where I proceeded to not spend a penny.  How do you do that?  Make friends with some Korean guys.  They were way too willing to buy me drinks as I was older than them.  "Older brother!" they kept saying as I would take my wallet out and they would push it away.  We had some conversation, danced for a bit, drank for a bit.  They wanted me to introduce them to some cute American girls.  I wasn't with anyone there, so I found the first two cute Korean girls that walked by and got them to hang out with us.  The South African was at the bar also, but by that time I was so drunk I just left and hopped in a cab.  I apparently told him the wrong subway stop, and had to walk for a half hour to get to where I needed to be.  It probably shouldn't have been a half hour, but I got really really lost.  Who knew that being drunk and in a new neighborhood would keep you from recognizing your surroundings?  I walked past a group of Ajumas who looked like they were getting ready to go hiking up a local mountain or something and got some really strange looks followed by laughs.  Eventually after a few calls to Graham and quite a bit of walking I was back at his apartment.  I was kind of drunk, and REALLY tired, so I hit the bed and lights out.

I woke up the next morning to a phone vibrating.  It was Graham.  I had slept for seven hours already, which put me at 2:00.  I raced to shower and packed up my stuff and left his apartment still drunk.  I hopped on the subway and rode it alone for a couple of stops before John Smith III came over and sat down next to me.  He apparently was going to the same place I was and looked in a lot worse shape.  He had the little burst blood vessels all over his face from drinking too much and getting sick.  I just had a small headache.  Upon arriving at the destination of the alleyway again, we sat down with all of our friends.  They gave me a good ribbing for hitting on an engaged chick, but what are you going to do.  I wasn't going to sleep with her, and my understanding is that she was on a break.  I had a delicious breakfast of biscuits and gravy with LOTS of water, then headed out from there.  I had a long bus ride back, and lots of liquor in my system.  Learning from last week I didn't want to get stuck in Gwangju or Cheongju, so I hopped in a cab, got to U-station, and took the 5:10 bus out of there.  I had a comfortable seat and a long nap accompanied by an uneventful journey.  It was pleasant.

I have a couple of pictures that I would like to put up soon, it's just a matter of remembering to do it.  This weekend I will probably take it easy, but am planning on heading into Ulsan next weekend as it, and the north eastern province, are probably the only two places I haven't been in this country.  I really want to go see THIS!!!! kid who Graham the Scottsman turned me onto last night/today.  He is apparently from Cheongju.  I mentioned him to my co-teacher and wouldn't you know it, my co-teachers wife used to teach him.  He has often been spotted practicing guitar at the local lake.  He was taught by his father, and this weekend he is performing in some gymnasium.  Crazy good.  He is only a couple years older now than he is in that video.  I highly suggest you check out some of his music, as he covers a lot of Abba and Michael Jackson and about every other pop song you can think of.  Until next time, I hope you are all doing well and keeping safe with all those earthquakes going on in Texas.  With all the hydraulic fracturing going on I am sure they wont be the last earthquakes, so prepare yourselves.

Awakening from a cultural hibernation.

Hello all!
Hanguk (Korean) Kum (Bear) is the name of this blog.  Hongook Koom.  헌극 금.  So basically I will be talking about all the adorable food I am teaching and all the delicious students I eat.
Scratch that, reverse it.

I am about to finish my third day and the differences in culture are already glaring.  The dress code here is like casual Friday everyday.  I was told during orientation that I was not supposed to have a beard.  In Texas at the school I worked at they told me I was not supposed to grow a beard, so I said "screw that, im gonna rock this beard all over the world."  All I have heard since I got here was how nice it is, and how natural it looks on me.  "You look familiar.  Like we have already known you" is what the principal said to me on the first day.  I was sweating bullets because I forgot to pack a single tie or tie clip (sorry Titus) and thought I was going to catch some "This is how you dress for work in America?" comments, but apparently it has been me overdressing everyday and them saying "Weren't you hot in America?  Aren't you hot now?  Why do you always wear long sleeves?  Did you not pack any t-shirts?  Your pants are so nice!"  I get to choose what time I come in and leave, as long as I am here for eight hours.  I am using something that looks like a smartboard on steroids because it has a wide screen and its own speaker system as well as not needing a projector.  It's basically a giant touch screen computer!  The students work very hard here, and basically can go to school from 8:00 or earlier to 6:00 or later.  School technically ends at 3:15 though, and is followed by a twenty minute cleaning period, when the students, to quote a meme, "Sweep all the things!"

I do not have the internet at my apartment yet, but that is ok, because they have these rooms called PC Bangs (PC rooms) that you go to and pay to use their insanely fast internet (Koreas internet is 3x the speed of Americas) and their large monitors and fast moving desktop computers that are wiped every morning.  I can sit in one of those bangs for about three hours and come out paying 3500 won.  The exchange rate here is about 1K won to a dollar.  You can buy a bottle of water for about 750 won, and a beer for about 1200 won.  A bottle of 자츠 (Soju, which is like rice wine or rice vodka depending on the potency of the bottle you buy) costs about 1700 or 2000 won.  I pay for lunch everyday at the cafeteria which costs 2500 won a meal, meaning im only spending 2.50 a day at school, instead of the 5.00 plus I was spending before.  The waiters and waitresses are not tipped here at the end of the meal, and you always pay at the front of the restaurant.  You also never wait for a waitress or waiter to come to you.  Each table has a little bell, or electronic buzzer that you press, and if it doesn't have one you say "Chogyo!" and they come right to your table.  It is not considered rude to do that.

I wear slippers all day (they are sandals really, but the difference is that they can not have the little toe thongs) because shoes are not allowed in the school.  If you try and cross the street without looking both ways, you will get run over.  I have had a couple of close calls already.  I have walked home after midnight on a weekend through some pretty poor parts of town, and never once have I felt threatened.  I keep looking over my shoulder to make sure someone isn't coming after me, then realizing that people in this country don't have guns or knives and I am twice their size and strength.  It's the American paranoia that keeps me walking fast and nervous, but in my entire time here I have not seen but maybe two cop cars.  People just don't seem that concerned with crime.  The Koreans either completely ignore me or stare at me like I have a giant patch of hair growing on my face... oh wait... now that makes sense.  The ones who do talk to me though are super friendly and willing to try to help you with anything.  If you ever overpay them (which happened to me the first day when I didn't realize I was handing over a 10,000 won bill instead of a 1,000 won bill) they give the money right back to you.  If you come visit me (which I highly suggest you do because its Em-Effing beautiful out here) you should learn how to say, left (wencho) right (orencho) bathroom (hwajangshir) and thank you (kumsamnida) everything else will fall into place.  Also, learning to count in Korean couldn't hurt.

I think the easiest part about this trip is going to be the teaching.  With my five years experience I can pretty much lesson plan in my sleep, contrary to the belief of some, and knowing English as well as I do combined with the interactive textbook we are using in the lower grades, I am not even sure how I could lesson plan.  It would look like "Doing pages 1-3 in the textbook.  Objectives: Learning to say 'I would like a'  Activity: have students repeat phrase and different combinations of products. Use: Have students ask each other for things they would like, and practice ordering food."  Bam, one day right there.  Just that one phrase would take up a period. What will be difficult is the upper level high school classes.  The teachers don't have textbooks and want me to teach their students conversational English, but are not sure what they want me to teach, so I'm going to start off with some geography, and social colour.  Teach them about the major cities, and how to blow it up when they give fist bumps, how to talk back to authority (just kidding Cogswell), maybe move into some American movies, music and television.  We will see where this goes.  It could be very interesting or very stressful depending on how things go, but I only see the same class of students once a week for fifty minutes, so worst case scenario, a lesson bombs and I have to play the dancing bear, then I get a week to figure out what went wrong.  They play "the entertainer" to finish every class period, so when I go home at night, that song echoes in my head all. night. long.

The food.  OH THE FOOD!!!  First off, toast sandwiches.  They have these things called toast sandwiches.  They are like... sandwiches... but made with toast.   SO DELICIOUS.  Take a piece of toast, add the meat of your choice, add some egg and or cheese, and some veggies on top (diced up cabbage and carrots) and some sweet and spicy sauces, wrap in paper, serve to hungry American that voraciously devours them.  They have a strange custom over here of not drinking with their meals.  They don't serve water or juice.  I think it is because traditionally most Korean meals are served with soup.  So everyday when I eat in the cafeteria (which I am told is not very good food) and I eat what tastes to me to be the most delicious food in all of Korea, I am forced to eat massive amounts of sticky rice with no water.  Man does that suck when you really need some water and you have none.  They traditionally drink a cup of water at the end of the meal, so I always get two or three then.  I was told it was impolite to eat rice with chopsticks, and that you were supposed to use a spoon, but everyone here eats rice with chopsticks, so I am following the cultural norm.  Today we had Bibimbop.  Look it up.  Its delicious!  This version was made without egg and without red pepper paste, although the place I am living is famous for its red peppers.  They are all surprised that I can read and write Korean, and that I can use chopsticks so well, and that I like spicy food.  "No, you won't like this, it's too spicy.  Oh, you like it?  You must like very spicy food" is a conversation I have almost daily.

Well there goes "the entertainer" so it's time for me to wrap this up and go home for the day before they say "why are you here after 4:30?"  I am not gonna lie, this place is pretty awesome.  Wonder how long it takes me to get sick of the food and the strangeness of it all?  I guess we will find out.

Fireworks festival

This weekend was a good one.  I got let off early on Friday so that I could make the buses that I needed to.  I took that early time to go home and pack, and then I set off on my eventful trip to Busan.  First step was getting a bus from Gamgok to Cheongju.  This is where I got stuck last weekend, but would not make the same mistake twice.  I got on the right bus as soon as I saw it, and don't you think for a second that I didn't double and triple check that ticket.  Well after a couple hours I ended up in Cheongju.  First stop was the place that I got off at the first time I went there, and I knew I needed the express terminal.  So I waited.  I was probably one of ten that finally got off at the terminal, and I knew from previous trips that it was across the street from the express terminal.  I got the ticket, and a bite to eat from a Lotteria (not really a decent hamburger, but I was totally craving a hamburger) and soon I was actually on a bus to Busan.  I informed my South African mates that I was on the way, and soon enough (read 3 1/2 hours later) I was in Busan.  It was kind of anticlimactic considering how much trouble I had last week, but however easy it was on the front end, I paid for it with interest on the back.  Quite literally.

Arriving in Busan was simple, and I walked out of the terminal and into a cab "Haeundae Beach" I said.  "Beach?  Haeundae beach?"  the driver asked.  "Haeundae Beach" I said quite sure of myself.  "Pataka?" he asked.  "Yes.  Pataka.  Beach."  I replied, once again thankful I had learned some Korean.  He dropped me off by the world aquarium which I book marked as a place to hit on future visits, then walked towards "The Wolfhound."  Sound familiar?  It should.  I visited the one in Itaewon, a neighborhood of Seoul, about two months ago.  It was easy to find as Craig gave me good directions, and I was able to look it up on my phone. The directions for foreigner bars over here are very good, with English and Korean directions, pictures, and even videos of people going there.  When I walked in they were blaring Irish music and people were packed in there dancing.  I immediately remembered why I like living out in the country.  So many people who were so loud and so drunk dancing up a storm to songs that were just OK.  I had a couple of really delicious beers that I cant get back where I am from, then did a shot of jaeger with the South Africans.  We closed our tabs, got out to the street where we ate some deep fried street food, then we hit the road.  After a couple of confusing minutes walking around in the middle of nowhere, we met up with the rest of Craigs friends including Lucy, who due to her house being in the middle of nowhere was staying at Craigs like I was.  It was some bar whose name I cant remember, but we got in there and had a couple beers.  The bartender was a really sassy Korean girl who shouted "Its three thousand!" "Too expensive!" (average price actually) "Then you don't get beer!" (still sassy) "Then you don't get tip" (you don't tip in Korea) "Ok.  For you.  Special price.  Three thousand!"  "Deal!" (hand her the money and the tip)  She loved me.  Kept my beers coming quickly, tried to get me to switch to the house deal that was some name brand liquors for cheap, and danced with me for quite awhile when I gave Craig and Lucy some alone time.  I saw the DJ get off stage and I offered to buy him a beer and told him his set was awesome.  I may have only half believed that, but I am a firm believer that there is no personal interaction, no matter how small, that won't somehow help or hurt you later on.  By that time most of the people in that place had left, and we had only been there about thirty minutes, so it turned into a personal dance party, where it was just me and a couple of bartenders (including the cute sassy one) and a couple of guys dancing.  I talked to a Korean guy a little bit, and told him he was a good dancer, because he totally was, and he told me "You service drinks."  I knew "service" was the Korean word meaning "Free stuff."  So I said "Kumsamnida" as he poured me a shot.  We had to leave almost immediately, and walked over to another bar.  The Basement, another foreigner bar that was packed with Waygooks and Koreans alike, was where we ended up.  A little dancing, and more drinking, and eventually we had had enough.  We caught a taxi home and passed out.  They totally made fun of me for "Spooning  my air matress" while I blew it up on the ground, but if you found something that made you so comfortable night after night, would you have a problem spooning with it?  Yeah, I didn't think so.  It is waaaay better than having to sleep on a floor, and folds up really nicely.

The next morning I woke up to a massive hangover and the news that the Rangers had lost the world series.  Boo to both of those things.  I got myself cleaned up and then sat around eating kimbap with Lucy and Craig taking a look on Google earth at our respective hometowns.  It was interesting to see the different locations, and the comments about Texas were "It looks... bleak."  Which I cant say I disagree with.  Over here there are so many mountains and trees, and in the pictures I showed them, everything was just grass and flat.  I love Texas dearly, but it's hard to tell someone why, especially when one of the most beautiful parts about it is the blue sky that stretches on for miles uninterrupted.  The sunsets and sunrises are a thing that are only dwarfed by the rolling thunderstorms that happen not often enough to give us the rain we need.  It's funny, it rains all the time here, but no thunder.  In Texas you don't really ever get a storm without thunder.  Talking about it is making me homesick, so lets move on.  We woke up really late because of the hangovers, and went out into the city to wander around a bit.  Hopefully we could find ourselves something last minute to wear for Halloween, but if not, who cares.  Spoiler alert, we didn't.  Eventually we got the word about some fireworks watching party, and struck out to do it all over again.  Taking the subway was quite a task.  I swear the Seoul subways during rush hour were not as packed as this.  This was people shoulder to shoulder and still more people pushing their way on to a car that was already packed.  We were even right next to the door and were like "How the hell are we gonna get out of here?  Where will all these people go?"  It was interesting.  If only I could have gotten a picture of the look on their faces when I said "Syllermida" and they realized I was gonna try and get off.  We managed to shuffle around a bit, and I got off in a giant pack of people all going to the fireworks festival.  We got some beers for the party then met up with KB (the other South African) and headed towards the party.  We ended up on the roof of some apartment called "Amiga Beach" and there was no one up there.  We were two hours early.  We started drinking beer and soju and just generally causing a ruckus (in a good way) on the top of this roof when who shows up, but my orientation leader Chris.  It was awesome to see him.  Totally random and totally awesome.  We sat around drinking and listening to internet radio being played from smart phones while one kid used his to load up a Russian Roullette program that we used as a drinking game.  It was funny making it to the sixth chamber and then giving a speech about what you would miss most in this life, then having to take a giant swig of soju, which is almost as lethal as a bullet let me tell you.  Anyways, the party got crapped on pretty quickly when it started to rain, and we decided if we were going to be wet, we were going to be wet closer to the show.  We bought umbrellas (mine was pink with little frills on it) for about 4 bucks a piece.  When we got to the fireworks show, we went into the only bar that wasn't totally packed.  Guess who frequented the bar?  Thats right, waygooks.

The bar was nice.  I can't for the life of me remember the name, but it had a foreigner bar tender and some other cute ones that spoke almost perfect English.  They loved that I tipped them, and that I brought up all the empty glass cups and plates.  They were friendly, and when we asked for a food recommendation he said "you have to try the fish and chips, they are getting kind of known around town."  I got two double orders of the "2 fish and chips" and the other three dudes who were with me helped me scarf them down.  I, at one point, had to order more forks and said "Pokuga" and a girl next to me said something to the extent of "Well that's rude."  "What's rude?" "She speaks perfect English." "Oh, I didn't know that." "But you didn't bother to find out?" "I figured speaking her first language would be more polite than speaking her second,  she seems to be in quite a bit of a hurry behind the bar, and where I come from no one speaks English, so how bout you mind your own business instead of acting like you belong in this five second interaction." "No it's rude that you just assume..." I didn't hear the rest as I turned my back on her.  I really wasn't in the mood to start an argument with a random girl in a bar about whether it was rude to speak Korean to a Korean.  She was obviously drunk and just looking to argue.  We ate some delicious fish and chips and watched what was probably the most spectacular fireworks show I have ever seen.  I can't really describe it, other than saying Huge, Bright, Smoky, Full of lasers and all around Spectacular.

We hung around for awhile after the fireworks show ended and most of the foreigners cleared out.  I met a bunch of people from orientation, which makes me glad I had my beard.  You would be surprised how many people out of the maybe a thousand at orientation have seen me randomly and said "I was at Jeonju with you, I would recognize that beard anywhere!"  Well one of them talked to me in the bar and it was obvious she was having a tough time.  She was at a school where the kids were tearing away at her, and for the third or fourth time I was directly thankful for my five years experience.  Plenty of times do I think "I am glad this isn't my first job" but not ever more directly than when I am talking to a teacher who is having the first bad day of their career.  I had administration to fall back on, and other teachers, and even then at the place where I worked I can't say that I got a whole lot of advice.  My mentor was on her way out and left after my first semester.  No one taught me how to lesson plan (a problem which haunted me for the next couple of years when one person would require it one way and another person would require it differently) and no one even seemed to care that I was not experienced in classroom management.  They all told me I was doing things wrong, but when I asked for help there was slim to none.  It was all colleagues that helped me.  I had to go to teachers in other departments and ask what the hell I was supposed to do.  Emotionally they helped me stay in this business, and I will never forget people like Diego Morillo, Beth Burau (who is awesome beyond belief) Rick Dunn, David Post, Judy Porter, Jen Allen, Bill Storey, Vic Bartolotta and a score of others which are so great in number I can't even name.  They all were my mentors, and I owe any successes I have to them, while the failings I will bear as my own.  Anyways, it is not what I want to do, sit there and listen to a semi drunk girl dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz talk about her problems as a teacher, but I knew it was something that I should do.  She vented and I reassured and before too long she was feeling better.  Her confidence seemed to be restored, and she realized that "Yes, if you are left in a classroom by yourself with thirty kids who barely speak the same language as you, it is going to be difficult to get them to follow your directions, especially if they are behaviorally challenged."  After that I saw her around the bar and she was in significantly higher spirits.  I only hope that she stayed that way for more than just this weekend, as I know the sense of dread returning to an unruly classroom can heap on you.  I met some South African from across the bar who was wearing a fake mustache, and complimented me on my real mustache.  She came over and talked a bit, and I introduced her to the other South Africans.  I met a Zimbab, or girl from Zimbabwe, who looked and spoke like she was mostly English.  Forgive my ignorance of world cultures but I am surprised to meet so many white people from Africa.  Having never traveled there I only have my interpretation of what the media tells me, and what it tells me is that all Africans are black, except for missionaries or aid workers.  Obviously I knew that wasn't correct, but I have no idea how to tell one African accent from another.  So I was quite surprised when she was telling me that the markings she was making on my face were more or less based on cultural marking from around where she was from.  Pictures forthcoming.

After we made our way out of the bar we decided we needed a cab, but oh crap, there were nine of us.  Four in one cab five in the other, with the driver being quite irate that there were so many in his cab.  When you have an irate cab driver is a time when it's good to not speak the language, and we tipped him big so I hope that made up for it in his eyes.  We ended up back at "The Basement" where we had been the previous night, and there was much dancing and drinking to be done.  Somehow a native Korean, Micky, ended up in our group, and man did he love to dance.  I did some dancing, but was more interested in the drinking and talking part, so I went up onto the street.  I don't know how you can get away with it, but they don't have doormen here, or laws against open containers in public.  I would buy a draft Hite, walk up the stairs to the street and stand around on the street with my beer basically talking to everyone that walked by.  Perhaps no one minded because it looked like I worked for the place.  To everyone that walked by, I would say "Hey, this place is awesome, come dance down in the bottom here!"  I even got quite a few people to go in.  I saw some awesome costumes and discovered my talent for meeting "Saffers" as Craig and KB call them.  It turns out I am a "Saffer magnet".  A "Saffer" it turns out is a quite derogatory term for a South African which is apparently based on the German word "Affe" meaning "Ape."  Anyway, there were two very good looking South Africans walking by who I stopped and talked to for a whole second until I got a phone call.  "Hello?  Is this Jeff Wester?"  It wasn't KB's voice whose phone the call was coming from, so I hoped for the best.  "Yes.  Is he ok?" "Yes, but he left his phone in this cab.  Where are you?"  "Thank God!" I said, then consulted Craig as to our location.  "Ok, we will meet you there in thirty minutes."  A couple of conversations with random ladies later (including a girl dressed as a pirate who was fascinated with my beard) we got the phone from a cab and Craig gave the guy 10 bucks, which considering what a hassle it must have been, is a fair trade.  On the way back another group of Korean girls stopped us for a picture.  "Handsome!" they said to me "Yepoyo!" (beautiful) I said to them.  We tried talking to them more, but it is very difficult when your command of Korean is even less than a small childs.  Standing around outside the bar I met the DJ from the previous night who told me how much it meant to him that I tried to buy him a drink for putting on an awesome set.  Apparently the people who ran the place asked him to leave because like I said before, the place pretty much cleared out at a certain time.  It wasn't due to music, as people were still dancing and the tempo was still upbeat, it was more just a matter of the time of night.  So me and him talked for awhile.  Nice guy.

Warning, rant approaching.  Craig returned to the club and I wandered down the street towards the big crowd of people.  One of the guys in the crowd had a stand that he was selling "Shwarma" from, so I bought some.  It was good to have jalapenos again, but the ones over here just aren't spicy enough.  While I was eating I ran into a dude who was dressed like the king of hearts and his girlfriend was dressed like the queen, so I stood and talked to them a bit.  His beard was almost as epic as mine, but he had obviously never shaved his mustache.  We talked for a bit and he was a nice guy.  Then something annoying happened.  We were standing in a crowd of foreigners and cars were trying to get through and one guy goes for a taxis door and says "you shouldn't be driving here!" to a closed window when the door won't open.  Yeah who cares, it's not that big of a deal, but then some lady drives her SUV through and he opens the back door and says "You shouldn't be driving here" to the lady.  "What the F was that?" I said not so nicely.  "She shouldn't be driving here" he said.  "Do you think she understood that?  Do you think it is your place to tell her that?  Do you think we are at fault for shutting down an entire street intersection or her for peacefully trying to get through?"  he had some arguments prepared about how he was just saying what everyone was thinking.  "No dude.  You are wrong.  Not everyone is thinking that, and you are making us all look bad by doing stuff like that?  What would you do in the states if some foreigner opened your door and shouted at you in the middle of a festival?  Don't be that guy because you make us all look bad, and I don't like having to clean up after your mess.  Go home and be drunk, don't represent our country like that."  "She didn't know where I'm from."  "I'm done with this, don't pull that again or I'll get my buddies over there to finish this argument." (me pointing to the police)  If there is one thing I know how to do it is be respectful to those that deserve it, so I then walked over to them and gave them a very respectful "Hello" in Korean and a deep bow from the waist.  I said "Thank you" and gestured to the crowd, then walked away.  The ranking officer didn't break his hard glare, but all the others smiled and returned my courtesies.  I talked to the King of hearts a bit more and then something else annoying happened.  A dude who was dressing up as a fetus (by wearing a singlet with a rubber you know what hanging off the front and an umbilical cord attached to some girl) was dancing around in front of a car.  It was a taxi that was obviously trying to get through, and there stood this guy just dancing in front of it, obviously taunting it.  The king of hearts reached out, grabbed his shoulder and ripped him out of the intersection.  "Dude, I know you are dressed like a fetus, don't act like one."  Apparently the fetus was very offended by this.  He pushed up real close so he was chest to chest with the king, who might I add was a few inches taller than me at about 6'6, while the fetus was about a foot shorter.  "Did you not see the taxi driver laughing?" "No. I didn't" the king said. "He didn't care, notice how he didn't honk." "Should he have to honk for you to not dance in front of him?"  "We are all having fun, nobody else cared." "I cared" I piped in.  He then decides to go chest to chest with me.  "Why?" "Because you make us all look like ass-holes.  You are an embarrassment."  The king of hearts had a few more words with him, and even took his shirt off like he was gonna fight, but the guy for all his talk realized that A) both of us were way bigger than him, and B) there were cops right behind us.  I wasn't about to get taken to Korean jail, but I am not against telling a jackass that they are a jackass.  ISLT that makes me glad that I'm not in a city.  For like the third or fourth time since I have been over here there has been some foreigner acting like a complete jackass that has made us all look bad.  I want to chalk it up to ignorance, since they are all usually drunk and about 22, but I have met plenty of drunk responsible 22 year olds.  It's just stupid people.  They are everywhere, all over the globe and of every nationality.  Out here in the countryside if you made a fool of yourself like that you would be blacklisted by the entire community.  In a big city like Seoul or Busan you can get away with more stuff, so it doesn't matter right away if you act like a jackass.  I seriously hope these people are only here for a year though.  I don't like having to bear the responsibility of their actions.  Here I am trying to be respectful to police officers and generally not be a burden to the country of Korea, and this guy is erasing all that hard work within thirty seconds to a minute.  For every one thing these people do I am required to be polite to 10 or 20 Koreans.  That's fine.  I like being polite.  It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling down inside my stomach, but I absolutely hate the fact that I seem to be the first person that is telling the foreigner mosh pitting in Seoul, or the dude opening random car doors in Busan that they are acting like complete tools.  Alright, rant over.  It's just times like this that I am glad that I live out here in the country around a bunch of people who are, for the most part, very polite.  I think being out numbered does that to you.

The rest of the night was uneventful and so was the next day.  I left Craigs apartment and went to the place where all the Taxi's gathered.  I hopped in one and went to the bus station.  I even used my new Korean term "Gosuk Termina" which means express bus terminal.  I went up to the window to buy tickets and got one for Cheongju.  Like an idiot I didn't check the time right then, but I don't think that would have mattered.  I went to the line of buses and what do you know, I met a bunch of people who I knew from around here.  Alex who threw the party last weekend, and came to my birthday the week before was there.  We shot the shit for awhile and then compared bus tickets to check on the gate.  "Hmm, thats funny, yours is blue and yellow, mine is yellow and blue.  Hmmm, yours says a seat number.  Hmmm, yours says a gate number."  The usual.  Then I found a problem.  Mine said 20:10.  "What the hell?  8:10?  I'll be right back." This was at 16:30.  I got to the counter and said the google translate for "Before."  She obviously didn't understand and canceled my ticket and gave me back the money.  I asked for another ticket to Cheongju, and this is where it gets frustrating.  "Apsoyo" (none) she says.  "Cheongju.  Cheongju.  Hana."  "Apsoyo." It was at this time that I realized to my horror that all the buses to Cheongju were sold out, and she had just refunded my ticket and not been able to sell me one.  Next line, one to Daejeon which is just south of Cheongju.  "Hana, Daejeon." "Apsoyo."  I look up at the signs and realize what they are displaying is not only the price, but the time of the next bus.  "Holy crap!" I think "There are no more buses for Cheongju, Daejeon, Daegu or Gwangju. My only chance of getting out of here is Dong Seoul."  I go up to the counter "Hana Dong Seoul."  She turns the screen to me.  "I-ship-sa.  Midnight."  I was honestly hoping before she said midnight that I was just hearing her wrong with the I ship sa thing.  I really didn't wanna sit around at a terminal for the next ten hours to catch a bus to a place where I wasn't even going, which would probably put me there at about four, then with another hour bus or so to get back to Gamgok, and that is assuming there was no wait, and that the buses to Gamgok started early.  I made a risky decision at that point.  Walk out and try a cab to another city where I could buy a bus ticket.

I walked down the stairs and made eye contact with some cabbies.  "Daegu" "O Mon" (fifty thousand won)  "Crap."  I thought, but was resigned to my fate.  I paid the price and got driven to Daegu.  In Daegu I had him drop me off at the express terminal, but I am assuming from the outcome that everyone else had the same idea.  No buses were available to anywhere near where I was going.  I knew that I was in for the most expensive cab ride of my life.  I once again steeled myself for the coming conversation, walked out the door, and into the eyesight of the predators. As soon as they saw me, they dropped their cigarettes and stepped on them.  The slight smirk betrayed the greed that they're helpful body language and tone were hiding.  "Odieso?" "Eumseong." "Eumseong?" "Chungbuk.  Eumseong."  "Chungbuk, Chungbuknam, Eumseong." they said to each other.  "Sa ship mon"  (forty ten thousand, or four hundred dollars)  "Sa ship mon!" I said genuinely surprised.  "Aneyo, Aneyo, Aneyo. I bek cheon" (two hundred thousand, but said incorrectly) "Aneyoooo, Chungbuk-do, Eumseong-gun somethinginkoreanwayfasterthanicouldunderstand"  "I bek cheon" I insisted.  "Sam ship mon.  Sam ship mon." (three hundred dollars) This was a definite move in the right direction, but I still didn't want to pay that much for a friggin taxi.  "Aneyo.  Aneyo.  I bek chon" I said sticking to my grammatically misfiring guns.  "Aneyo." they said for the final time "Sam ship mon."  "Anejo" I said and began to walk away, knowing that I could either try the bargaining again with a taxi down the line or get a deal right here.  "Chinchal" (Okay) I heard one of them say "I ship o mon."  (250 bucks, or 25-ten thousand won)  "Great!" I said and quickly went towards his car and threw my bag in the back.  The other cab drivers said some stuff to him and made sure that he understood the price, but I was already in the cab and he took off.  It was a long drive.  A few hours.  But we eventually got to Eumseong.  He tried to pull some crap when we got there about only driving me so far then needing to turn on the meter for the rest of it.  Had some random Korean guy he stopped on the street try and communicate it with me, but I kept saying "Aneyo, Aneyo.  He said 'I Ship O Man' for 'Eumseong.'  I ship o man Eumseong!"  I think the cab driver realized it was worthless to try and hassle me for more money at that point, so he got back in his car.  I gave him a little tip anyways, because the guy did just drive for several hours.  He looked at me like I was crazy.  I am assuming it was because I refused to pay him extra, but then was willing to tip him.  Either way he took the money and drove off.  It was a quicker, and way cheaper taxi ride back to Gamgok, as by that point it was eight something and I had no idea where the Eumseong bus terminal was.  In fact, it was my first time in Eumseong, and I was ready to just get home.  I didn't even eat dinner I was so tired.  I just got back home, did a little facebooking, blew up my air mattress again (way less spooning this time) and passed out on my bed trying not to have nightmares about how much I had just spent.

As of now I have hit every major city in Korea for at least a couple minutes.  I want to spend more time in Daegu as it looked pretty and ginormous, but I will save that for the future.  I have a long time to go.  I also have yet to hit Ulsan, but from what I have heard it doesn't have a whole lot to offer.  Jeju is pretty much the only place I really really want to go, but as of now it is out of reach.  It would take too long to get there and it would take too long to get back.  Next weekend the agenda calls for a trip to Gwangju to see all my orientation buddies again.  I am very excited for this, as I get an apartment to stay in and will be able to have a bunch of drinking buddies.  Hopefully this time I won't get lost in the city (pretty much no way I could now) and I will be able to make it there quicker.  I am trying to drag Phillipa along for the ride, but she may be hiking a mountain somewhere East of where I am going.  Either way, I have yet to travel anywhere in this country with a companion, and I think that would be something fun to do.  Here is your K-pop fix for the week.  Hope all of you had a happy Halloween, and stayed safe out there, especially with all the ghouls and ghosts goin' around.  :)