Quick Update

It's been a while since I last updated; that time being for the May 21st weekend. Here's a quick update of what has happened after my trip to Seoul.

The next week the replacement for Nikki Teacher showed up. He has been in Korea before, and I met him a few times before he left. He fits into the culture Joel and I have created in the teachers room--lighthearted and humorous where no one is safe from jokes or schenanigans, but slightly more serious than it sounds but not really. We're just larger versions of the children we teach. Nikki had fun and was sad to leave but I know she was more happy than sad to go. She was ready to leave Korea. I wish her the best and I'm sure I'll see her again at some point in the future.

The new teacher's name is Dominic, but his Korean driver thought it was Bominic (thankfully this was outside the airport), and the Korean teachers at work thought his name was the abbreviated version of Dormitory, Dorm; most teachers still call him that, myself included. He's British, so there is a good WC rivalry going on, but it's all in good fun. Dorm is an awesome guy who, I am pretty sure, is less mature than Joel and I, and we've been reading the Harry Potter series and the Percy Jackson series, respectively, for the past couple weeks.

Daniel never fit in as well. He had his moments and a few of the best zingers, but he always took things a little too seriously and got frustrated too easily. Part of that had to do with the fact that he just wanted to be in Seoul. It's not as much that he didn't like Busan, he just didn't have eyes for it. His dreams and goals are in Seoul, and now he is too. He's smart and dedicated enough that whatever his goals are, nothing will stop him. To replace Daniel upstairs we are stealing a teacher from downstairs (elementary), DJ. He's a bit older than we are but he will fit in well. I'm looking forward to his arrival and working with him. He and Joel will be competing in a mock teaching to see who will get to teach Daniel's Nokjiwon classes, they are the highest level, speak the best English, and are the best classes to teach.

I've told you a bit about how my work life is changing, now for my personal life. On Memorial Day, May 30th, I quit smoking cigarettes. It's been two weeks and a day. I still have cravings but I know that if I have one I will start again, that's just how I operate. Next up, my living situation. I was living in a hallway that was called an apartment, but when I was promoted to Head Teacher they moved me to a much nicer place. I moved, literally, across the street. It's a much bigger apartment and it even has a loft, which I started sleeping in, but because of the heat I've moved back downstairs. The pictures below are the ones I took when I originally moved in and hadn't unpacked yet, I took new pics but they were blurry and not as crisp.



Also, I might be adopting a dog. It's like a bigger chihuahua and is a rescue dog that was going to be sent back to Seoul to live in a crate so I offered to take care of it. I'm going to do a trial run and see how it works out; the dog sounds really cool.

And now for something completely different....
North America: U.S.A.
South America: Chile
Europe: Germany
Africa: Ghana
Asia: South Korea
Oceania: Doesn't Count

서울 (Seoul) Part 1 of n

I'm not sure how many blog posts it will take to get across my adventure in Seoul, so this is the first of n amount of blogs. Odds are this will be an ongoing story for a few weeks, unless I'm really diligent; although you should expect off topic posts in the meantime.

Religion in South Korea is an interesting thing. Most are not affiliated with any religion but of the approximately 40% who are, Buddhism and Christianity are at the top, but both only combine to make up 65% of the 40% or 26% of the total population. This is all according to Wikipedia.

However, from what I've seen Jesus is everywhere in this city. At night it's lit up like the red light district of most countries; a giant glowing cross in the scenery of the city. In Korea you don't have to look far to find Jesus.

Buddhism however, is everywhere else. It has influenced the architecture, culture, traditions, etc. Most things Koreans do have roots in Buddhism; and most Koreans that don't affiliate themselves with any religion still follow Buddhist practices. This leads to some interesting conflicts between Christianity and Buddhism, but that isn't the topic of this post. Instead this is about my trip to Seoul during Buddha's Birthday Weekend Bash.

I'm sure some people celebrated the birthday of Buddha with something holy, but it seemed as though most of the people I saw viewed it like any other holiday; especially wei-gooks. Myself and a group of my friends ventured up to Seoul for three days of exciting fun.

We stayed at a hostel where we met some interesting folks. There was a guy from England, Paul; Steve, from Maui who was traveling the world and showing off his six year beard; and Stefan from Norway, but he still sounded like an Englishman The hostel was pretty awesome, there was a few rooms full of bunk beds, almost all of our crew were in the same room. Joel and Jehan slept in the main room, and Jamie and Dylan stayed with their friend. It was a cool arrangement until K-pop (Kirill) kept waking everyone up at night with his incessant, unwieldy coughing fits.

We got to Seoul from Busan via the KTX (Korea Train Express), which is a high speed train that only took three hours to get up from the South to the North. It was a cool train, and I slept for almost the entire trip. The night before had been a going away party for our Korean boss, so we (Joel, Jehan and I) stayed up drinking until the wee hours of the morning. The rest of our crew went to bed on time, and woke up early enough to take a shower. The three of us crawled off the floor of the rented condo (for the party) and raced to the subway station at about 800, 30 minutes after the others left. My first day in Seoul was plagued with exhaustion and sleep deprivation, but I made the most of it and had a killer first day.

Below is a picture of the hostel with the people who were there when I took the picture--a little circular logic there. This was the living room area. The picture at the bottom is the best pic of the sleeping arrangement I could take. There were too many beds to be able to accurately represent with a picture--10 beds.


(L to R) Steve, Derek, Mickayla (outside), Chris, Allison, Joel, K-Pop, Stefan


Mine was the top bunk with blue sheets and a black backpack. I think I woke Mickayla up everytime I went up there.

10K

The above title is not representing how much I won at the casino, it's the distance I ran on Sunday the 16th. I participated in the Busan "Marathon" but you can choose half-marathon, 10K or 5K. I chose to run in the 10K race. I didn't win the race, but I did finish, which was my only goal. My final unofficial time was 1 hour and 10 minutes; they never sent me my official time, and since I am moving soon, I'm not sure if I will ever know.

Some people's strategy is to run fast, keep running fast, and to not stop running fast. I tried to use this strategy, but my lungs and knees protested. Instead I adopted a new strategy--with finishing being my number one priority. During the race I scored a bunch of free water, gatorade, and spray pain relievers. I took advantage of every stop and came out of the race hydrated, sore, sunburned, and reeking of icy hot.

I ran with three other people I knew (another six I just met, and another 5 thousand I didn't know), but in reality I only really ran with one, Jana. Everyone else was way further ahead, or Korean.

Most wei-gooks wore their own clothes, but the race gave us a service (free) shirt, so most Koreans wore that. Instead, I represented my team. It was a fun race, and I even won a medal.


(Left to Right) YT, Jana, Nikki, Jin

It's been a newsworthy past couple of weeks. The weather has started warming up with the spring deteriorating into summer. That means that the beach has become the most popular weekend destination, replacing Kino Eye (Bar). This also works out well since my favorite chill bar, Rock and Roll, is right next to the beach; as is another popular destination, Paradise casino.

Cinco de Mayo also took place last week, but in Korea it's called something slightly different, but the idea is the same. Instead of celebrating a major Mexican military victory, they celebrate the children for Children's Day--parents have to buy their kids video games and there is no school that day. I was happy, as was my mustache.



That picture was taken a while after Cinco de Mayo, but I'll get to that later; I'm also not sure what's going on with Torie there. In celebration of Children's Day we all went to the beach. I also bought the hat you see above. As per usual a frisbee was brought and then proceeded to be thrown around. In the process of the fun, I was chasing a frisbee that I thought I had a chance to catch so I dove at full speed, completely laid out with my right arm fully extended. I didn't catch the frisbee, but my right shoulder did catch the weight of the rest of my body. At first I thought it was just a minor shoulder tweak so I stopped playing frisbee and dug a person sized hole--I'll see if I can track down a pic of that. After a couple of days I was concerned that it might have been a bit more serious because there was very little improvement. Sleeping hurt and I couldn't move my right arm outward or beyond a few inches from my side without sharp shoulder pain. Turns out that it was only a sprain, and one week later I've regained a bit more movement but I'm still missing my strength; sleeping isn't as hard anymore, but mornings suck.

One of my coworkers (Nikki) is leaving in a few weeks, so she said she is going to throw two more big parties. The first took place on the eighth and was thenceforth known as the Ocho de Mayo party. I won Best Costume, but Chris had a better mustache:



In my gift bag for best costume included some roman candles, and in the same foyer that the first picture was taken was where all three were lit off. Fireworks and soju are a bad combination, especially for me. I was pretty close to being arrested. At the time it was hilarious, but looking back it was a poor decision--yeah soju. Thankfully, another of my coworkers, Kyeung Hae, had brought her boyfriend, who speaks fluent Korean. He defused the situation; not literally, the fireworks were still going off while the cops were yelling at us, and then after I stomped on my roman candle it exploded--that part would've been way cooler it we had been at the beach like Nikki, the party thrower, had intended us to be; it was still really cool though. I bought beers for all those I involved in my stupidity; Carlsbergs all around.

Later that night we wound up at the casino; I don't have a picture of that because they don't like it when you bring cameras inside. I lost 40,000 won, ate three sandwiches, acquired two packs of smokes, had several drinks, watched my friend, Jesse, purposefully get kicked out, and all before 8 am. It was a good night.

Some final thoughts: I am happy to be running Mac OS X again which is so much better than Windows. Also, I have a 10K on Sunday, and I ran twice in the past two weeks, so I've fallen a bit out of shape. It's really hard to get motivated to go running when you wake up and have a strong sore pain in your shoulder, but that's just an excuse. I'm not too concerned though, I just have to pace myself in the beginning and focus on finishing rather than finishing at a certain time.


Till next time, whenever that'll be

Aaron

Part 2 of 2

Then there was the weekend we all went hiking. Our plan was to take a cable car up and then hike around this mountain (Gymeuonsan?) to Beomeosa on the other side, which is the most famous temple in Busan, and where Dad and I hiked around when he was here. However, despite our best efforts we never made it there, something crushed the plans we made and knocked us off our feet.

Chris, one of my many Canadian friends, was hit by a car. Thankfully, he walked away with only a head wound, some scraped elbows and knees, and a sprain in his right knee. Imagine if he were standing a foot further to the right.

To end on a happier note, last weekend a bunch of us went to a Lotte Giants baseball game. There were a bunch of wei-gooks (foreigners).

Busan loves their baseball team, even though they aren't doing very well right now. That game, they lost 9 to 2, but it was still fun. Especially this strange tradition where we all put orange bags on our heads. The stadium literally became a sea or orange.

After that, we were trying to get some autographs from the players by yelling at them in English as they walked past us from the locker room towards their buses. After a 9-2 defeat they were not in high spirits. However, Chris (who was hit by the car a week earlier) and Allison (his gf) made friends with this Korean family, who were surprised at how tall Joel and I were.

Despite having a group of 13, they still took us all out for drinks and food at this awesome German pub. That stuff doesn't happen in America. I love Korea.


Til Next Time,

Aaron

Part 1 of 2

It's been a while since my last blog, so here's a quick update of what has happened in no particular order:

I dated a Irish girl, Aideen, for roughly 2 months. We're not dating any longer but we are still friends.

I saw a bullfight in Cheongdo, which is in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't like a Spanish bullfight. Bulls weren't fighting matadors, nor were they killed. Instead, they fought each other, like two giants facing off in the ultimate battle for honor and glory. It reminded me of what it must've been like to see a gladatorial battle, but without humans, and much less blood. It was in a round stadium that all focused on a single circular dirt pit.

Bulls that weren't fit to fight could be found outside the stadium.

I also went to a cherry blossom festival, which was cool except for the fact that the trees hadn't blossomed yet. However, there were a bunch of vendors, like a minicarnival of shops. That part was cool, as was the view. Apparently it was really beautiful the next weekend, but it was enough to go there once.


More to follow later.

4

The beard is growing, the belly is shrinking, and I went skiing in South Korea.

Last weekend, the first weekend of February, Joel and I took to the slopes with three of our Korean teachers and a couple of their friends. We went to a place called Muju, where there are hills everywhere, and every single one is brown; except the spots where you can ski. It was all artificial snow and it was only in the runs and five feet on either side past the fences that mark the edges of the course.

We took a bus to get there, leaving at 4:25am; neither of us bothered going to sleep before then, we just stayed out at the bars. I bought snow pants and gloves the day before and Joel was just going to try his luck at the slope. He wound up finding XXL pants that fit snugly when the button was undone, and he never found gloves, so he used my backup cotton ones; they didn't last the trip. Boots were also an adventure, thankfully they had my size with room to spare. But even with the biggest boot size they had (315 mm; I was 300) Joel's foot fit only well enough to get by with significant pain.

There are two hills at Muju, Solcheon and Mansan. On the Solcheon side, my favorite side, at the very top is an area that can be best described as Black Diamond heaven. None of the runs compared to 7th Heaven, the steep mogully face that goes back down to the chairlift, but at least they had the right idea at Muju. There was one high lift and one lower lift (at the top of Solcheon), both bringing you to the same place. There were seven runs from the top; 2 Double Diamonds, 4 Black Diamonds, and one Blue Square. I spent half of the last day riding down the diamonds to the almost always empty upper lift, and then skiing the diamonds again. It was awesome. Joel, who's skiing abilities were put to the test opted to enjoy himself and spent his day riding skid row, the blue square. We didn't explore Mansan for the simple reason that that is where everyone goes to learn how to ski/board. Where we were there were significantly less people. Joel had to fight his way through crowds on skid row, but I rarely had to compete with anyone for space--the diamonds rarely had people on them.

Two of the Korean teachers were learning how to ski and snowboard, respectively. The third Korean teacher, who has skied for 10 years, was stuck as a teacher; it was her boss trying to learn. I tried to help too, but my itch to go ski bigger things was too strong not to scratch.

This was probably the best weekend I've had so far. Although it may be surpassed by this upcoming 4-day weekend for the Lunar New Year. Abbie's and Joel's birthdays are during the weekend, so we are hitting the 4 corners of Busan for 4 wild and crazy, drunken nights. We're going to start in Haeundae, then move to Kyungsung, spend the third in Seomeyon, and I have no idea what the fourth night is; maybe Gwangon. Technically speaking, the weekend is half over, last night was KYU, but I'll write about it later.

One Awesome thing: Cell phone coverage. I've only lost reception once, and that was on the bus back from Muju. I have service in elevators, underground parking lots, on mountains, everywhere. It is understandable since everything is a lot closer together here, but it puts all of the USA company's networks to shame.

One Hanus thing: Creepy old Korean businessmen that want to learn English. Just because I am an English teacher, doesn't mean I want to teach you. Every teacher in Korea has experienced this, unless they are new or actually want to teach creepy old Korean businessmen.