Annyong Compadres!

First a few photos.

That's whale meat in the middle. Not too awesome.

I wake up and ask myself, "where am I?" Oh, yeah Korea.

Snow Day! Well, not really. Still had class. But, pretty fun!

Basement of the Busan Mall.

Haeundae Beach, Busan.

Another couple of weeks have blown on by and I've been up to more fun stuff. Two weekends ago, I made a trip south to Busan to check out the city and hang out with some new friends. Busan was an impressive city and at 2.5 hours south by bus, pretty accessible. I went on a pub crawl that was lined up for some of the people from my program to a few spots around the city. All and all pretty cool scene. Hung out with a bunch of South Africans mostly for the weekend which was a good time. Saturday it really warmed up down there (talkin' t-shirts!) and I spent some time down at the beach hanging out. The markets in Busan are pretty busy and were a great place to stop in for some spicy seafood ramen. Also checked out the world's largest mall (so to claim) aptly called Busan Mall. This place was hectic! Most people I've ever scene in a mall. Endless escalators leading to endless arrays of the designer clothes Koreans seem to obsess over. I decided to spend my money on a cool little sushi restaurant buried somewhere deep inside of this place. Sushi was served on an endless conveyor belt with different colored plates signifying different prices. The sushi was amazing. Soft shell crab. Eel. Salmon sashimi. Best oysters I've had in a long time. It was surprising that having sushi was a welcomed break from Korean food (there is a difference!).

St. Paddy's Day was a real event here in Yeonghae! Nope, not really, but it was still pretty fun. For my teacher course I spent some time telling the Koreans about St. Patrick's Day and what it is all about in the US. This involved some pretty great pictures including the Chicago River dyed green, funny Guinness advertisements, pictures of Santa Barbara events past think Ian Anderson, Peter Burks, V-Town, and Dan Man. Needless to say, my teachers thought it looked pretty fun. So, next day at school (March 17th here) we all wore green. Pretty fun! Some of the westerners here and I went out for traditional Irish drinks like Hite beer and soju.

This past Friday I decided I would spend this weekend here in Yeong-hae. Friday night I was wandering around the fish/fruit market in the middle of town when I ran into the principal of the high school and two new high school teachers that used western names Julie and Alice for my sake. The three of them had been hitting the soju and were ready to head home until they saw me. They grabbed me, dragged me around the market, and asked me things like, "have you ever tried these?"(pointing at a barrel of peanuts). Same thing for bananas. Same thing for oranges. Then they started to move towards larvae (which I have tried here), unknown dried thing #1, unknown gelatinous item #1, and so on until they arrived at a bag of apples. I said I had not tried apples and they proceeded to buy a bag for me. Nice! Then they took me back to the same stall they had been hanging out at and ordered the same thing they had just had so I could try it. We had a sort of blood sausage casing stuffed with rice that was really good. Included was a side dish of liver that was pretty good and lungs which definitely are not my favorite. But hey, with the two new bottles of soju we were passing around everything was pretty great! The high school principal cannot speak much english at all, but I think this old dude is pretty hilarious. The only english he ever says to me is, "You, Chuck Norris. Kombe (cheers/salud)!" Julie spent a year in Vancouver and translated a ridiculous conversation for me. Pretty fun. I call the principal Elvis Presley and he does the hound dog walk. Fun hangin' out with this crew and we plan to hang out again this week.

In other Korean news, yellow dust has set upon northern Asia. Check out this write up in the Korea Times http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2010/03/117_62750.html. The air looks pretty clear out here, but pretty wild nonetheless. When I cruised into work this morning, my co-teacher Eun-sil asked me if I spent time outside this weekend because I was coughing and my nose is pouring snot (sorry). My words to her were, "yup, I cruised around outside a bunch on Saturday." Eun-sil's response, "oh, John, we don't go outside...yellow dust we mustn't go out." So, I saw some stuff on TV about air quality being poor this weekend, but down here it looks pretty great. Plus, on Saturday morning it was really nice and I was cruising around in flip-flops. I definitely spent Saturday afternoon sleeping as well as Sunday trying to stave off this strange illness. Yellow dust or not (I think not), pretty crazy.

Wondering with all these going-ons whether I'm going to school? I am, really I am. So, I teach at three Korean middle schools. Whoa. Ridiculous? Yes, it is. I've been having a lot of fun. I taught a lesson about what will be important to you in life when you are 16, 25, 40, and 60. Student had to write "I want to..., I will..., I would like to..., I hope to..., etc." Then, the students had to draw a picture. Now, I got some pretty typical responses (for Koreans) like the following: At 16 I like to talk to my friends. At 25, I want to get married. At 40, I would like to have a family. At 60, I hope to have grandchildren. Sounds straight forward (think lots of d's that are p's and backwards r's), but pretty good. One kid's blew my mind though. I wish I had saved his paper. Oh, so good. This kid wrote at 16 I want to fight people (kid punching people). At 25, I want to drink beer and smoke cigarettes when I ride horses (what the hell?). At 40, I die (draws self really fat being stabbed). At 60, I am a ghost (strange Korean ghost drawing). All of the girls around this kid said he was crazy. He asked me what I thought. I slapped him on the back and told him it was pretty rad. Great job! Creative right? Probably not to far from what some kids see anyways.

Well that's it for now. Gotta prepare a new teacher lesson for tomorrow about California (how do you start that?). Hope everybody is doin' great. Too bad the Gauchos couldn't put down the Buckeyes (look at UNI and St. Mary's!). Enjoy your lives!

Paz!

John