Annyong Cunados!
Photos first...
Ji Sung Park runs Korea. World Cup is gonna be crazy here.
Alley market in Seoul. Quick snack of sea cucumber. Mmmm...
Daegu's scene.
Seoul mornings.
Santa Barbarians? Papa Gorilla Bar in Seoul.
Hotel in Daegu. This is what I always heard about Korea.
Me and Gandolf in Seoul. This is how I could find my hostel in this zoo!
Wow, times seems to be flying by. I've been leading a pretty busy life out here in Yeong-hae. School has been moving along great and I'm really enjoying my time teaching. In addition to my regular teaching hours these past couple of weeks I've been given a bunch of extra overtime classes that I'm excited about. Mondays through Wednesday mornings I teach an english class at Yeong-hae Middle School before school starts. After school on Tuesdays I lead a 3 hour course for teachers about American culture. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays nights I'm teaching extra high school classes. I'll be teaching these classes regularly the rest of the year which is great as I'll pocket a nice extra chunk of change. With all of these classes I've had to start digging deeper for fresh lesson plan ideas. For example, my teacher course this week included topics such as who is Lady GaGa (they love Lady GaGa), a news clip and debate about the safety of a new beer called Tactical Nuclear Beer (google it), and an extensive brainstorm session and discussion on various crimes and potential alibis (Koreans, it turns out can be pretty crafty). For my regularly scheduled classes this week I taught the story "Tortoise and the Hare" and had kids acting out the story. Really fun. Sort of read this story now 15 times and it is only Wednesday, so I think I have the moral of the story down pretty good.
I've enjoyed some great nights out with my teachers here in Yeong-hae these past couple of weeks. The most memorable to me was a crab dinner they set up. Crab here is ridiculously delicious. We went to a random house out on the coast near the next little town called Chuksan. The lady cooking brought out huge and I mean huge tubs filled with whole steamed crabs. I ate crabs till I thought I'd be sick. Literally mountains of crab debris in front of me. Some of the crab shells were saved and made into a bamboo crab shell type of soup which was eaten with some delicious fried rice. I have to figure out how to arrange this meal again. Of course, following the meal things, as they do in Korea, got a little ridiculous. All of the women teachers were sent home and all of the men remained. Odd, yes. Then the soju came out. I learned that when the women go home and the soju comes out the only thing that can follow in Korea is an arm wrestling competition. Yup, an arm wrestling competition. I came in as the heavy favorite being a foot taller and weighing easily 40 pounds than many competitors. Still, in this strange soju infused environment arm wrestling Koreans was a fun time and I took home the gold over the school P.E. teacher.
Outside of school I've not slowed down a step. After my trip to Busan, I made the long haul up to Seoul to finally see the big city. Most visitors to Korea don't really venture out of Seoul. I felt it was time for me to see what it was all about. Of course it was a blast. I stayed at a cool hostel run by a Korean named Mr. Bong. It had an awesome little bar attached and was off the subway which is connected to everything. I saw lots of Seoul during the day, checked out the electronics markets which took up a whole neighborhood, and generally wandered around the city trying lots of food stalls. Nighttime in Seoul is unreal! I made friends with a bunch of students from the University of Seoul and they showed me around. I spent almost an entire Saturday night at a place called Club Hip Hop. I was one of two non-Koreans in this club the size of Wildcat (SB people know what I'm talkin' about) but packed with 2,000 people. My knowledge of Pitbull, Lil Wayne, and 2pac led to a lot of fun. Every dance move I did was closely watched and then copied. Everybody in this place was loving us! Too fun. Met lots of people that night. Went with new friends for an awesome 6 AM dinner. Leaving Seoul was interesting. I thought I'd try a new route and took a train to Andong. Ended up being the slow train and I got to Andong in about 5 hours. Then waited in Andong for 2 hours for a bus. The bus to Yeongdeok ended up taking another 2 hours. Needless to say, I'm sticking to the 5 hour direct bus ride next time.
These past two weekends I spent my time in Daegu. The first trip I tried to catch a Samsung Lions baseball game but it ended up being a high school baseball tournament. I figured might as well take in a couple of innings, so I grabbed some mekjus and a gigantic bucket of chicken and went on in. Fans and players were stoked there were foreigners treating it like a Lions game. Lots of fun!
This last weekend I attended an actual Lions game which was crazy. The stadium isn't all that big and seats maybe 5,000 or so. But, man the fans are awesome. Cheerleaders dance on the dugout and people eat squid burgers. The game went to 12 innings with the Lions coming back to win. I stayed that night at a ridiculous hotel that for about 60 bucks had a huge waterfall shower, a movie theatre room in-room, a noraebang in-room, disco lights, a fog machine, and so on! Had no idea this was coming but it was pretty rad. I spent the next day figuring out a visa to China. I'm looking at starting in Beijing, doing a trek along the Great Wall for a few days, eating lots of food, and maybe an overnight train down to Shanghai. Ended up getting everything squared away for a trip at the start of May. Originally I thought I had school holiday from May 5th through the 9th. But, I found out our school has midterms on the 10th, 11th, and 12th as well. This being so, I may have these days off as well! If so, I may postpone a trip to China for a week to the nearby Philippines to enjoy some surf and sun (check out Zambales in the China Sea)! Flights there are short and cheap. Plus the Philippines has been described to me as the Mexico of SE Asia. Sounds pretty great! Regardless, I'll be heading somewhere at the start of May for some exploration and fun.
No plans yet this weekend, but I'm sure I'll find something fun to get into. Hope everything is going great for all of you around the world reading this thing. Always fun to hear about what's going on with everybody. Anybody that's up for a trip to the Philippines or China at the start of May call me up!
Bueno Suerte,
John
