Ninja show! oh i mean baseball game

So this was a pretty awesome experience. Normally I am not a huge baseball fan but this game was actually really fun and exciting.

This is how it happened. I went to a foreigners bar and met the first person I saw there and he happen to be from San Clemente and he went to APU. He also just so happen to be friends with one of my close friends. Small world huh?

He said that in a couple days he was going to a baseball game with someone and he invited me to join. It happen to be on my 1 day off so i said of course. (yes i do work saturdays :( but not that saturday for Korean memorial day)

So we meet at the subway station and hop on. This was my first experience on a subway and it was pretty cool. I just swipped my hello kitty card at the entrace rails and walked on. The biggest problem was we had to stand the whole way because there were soooo many people.

Some things I should point out:
First off I was extreamely confused and didnt know where we were going since this was my first subway experience but I was very concerned with being able to retrace my steps because I didnt know the guys I was with that well. It became very confusing very fast because we had to do over 5 subway transfers and the subway stations are hard to tell apart but I think I had a decent grasp on it.
Secondly this was just funny, some guy on the subway was selling things and moving up and down the subway car to car. I cant even believe that is allowed, but he was selling arm warmers or something.

Anyway we find our way to the game which was no small task because all 3 of us were pretty new here. And the ticket only costs like 9$ super awesome price right? And the seating was great, first come first serve. Let the true fans get the good seats.

And then the best part of all; 2$ beers. So before the game while we were sitting in our awesome seats for an hour we had a couple rounds and feeling pretty good.

Then BOOM OMG NINJAS! First they walked out on the field and set some things up and I was super excited then they left and I was bummed ;(



But dont worry a awesome funny mascot came out and I had no clue what he was saying but it was a lot of fun and we would just yell along with the people. Check out this mascot it was pretty awesome and very funny.

So finally, a car starts driving on the field and a bunch of ninjas dressed in black start leaning out the windows with toy guys and weapons. Honestly, i have no clue what that was about since it just made a circuit of the field and drove off it, maybe it had something to do with the narration.

Shortly after, a helicopter flys over and hovers above the outfield and four ropes get thrown down from it. Then these crazy ninjas in black just start jumping face first towards the ground down the ropes! yeah! and they were going really fast too. Not just like inching down, almost like they were hardly using the ropes and the helicopter was way up there! Like 12 ninjas jumped out of the small helicopter too. It was great. So then they get down on the field with more of then and get into lines and start doing forms and yelling and putting on quite a show but the best part came next.

They starting breaking out into a huge kung fu fighting (to be technical it was Taek won do). But they were going pretty hardcore. Obviously it was staged but it looked cool. Then they started breaking stuff. Some tiny Korean chick broke through like 20 pieces of roofing tile with her elbow (ouch!).

The best though was when they started fighting again and someguy came up behind the master or head guy and *Shattered* a long wooden board on his head. Yeah *shattered* into 5+ pieces. Full swing too.

Then the same guy jumped over three people and broke a board that another guy was holding on his stomache with the top of his head. (BA BA BA BA BA) So yeah he probably isn't overly smart but he wins the most awesome ninja award.


OOoookay back to the baseball game.

The stadium is reallly really small compared to USA stadiums. No seating whee you could catch homeruns and there was only like 10 rows back out in the sides of the outfields. But the game was completely filled up with thousands of people still. It might have been minor league, like I can tell.

So one side of the stadium was cheering for the bears and then my side of the stadium was cheering for the Seoul Heroes. almost everyone in the stadium had thunder sticks and was using them 90% of the game.

So of course I did the foreigners things and kept drinking cheep beer after beer so I was cheering super loud the whole time too. Well at least until the 6th inning when I started to feel uber sick. Then I went and stood near a trash can and cheered. But fortunately I get to keep my reputation of never having thrown up due to alcohol.

The game was close and kept going back and forth which increased the excitement. Sometimes we were in the lead and sometimes them. There was an american player on our team so when came up to bat we went wild. And there was a really fat player on their team (dont see to many fat people in korea) who we called a fatty fat fat fatty and he hit a home run against us multiple times :(

Despite my being especially tipsy and boarderline sick it was a wonderful game and the guys I went with were very nice people who looked out for me. I know it is horrible manners to get drunk when you first meet people but we just said I was doing things the Korean way. And they drank waaay more than I did, I just suck at drinking.

The game was extra exciting because it went into extra innings where we inevitably lost :(

On our way back home we couldnt find the subway so I had to ask some people, which consisted of me looking clueless and saying subway?! they pointed us in the right direction and we made it.

I would say that makes for a pretty good night!

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!

Yeah I have pictures, click the link!

http://picasaweb.google.com/drobison100/DustinSMostExcellentAdventure?authkey=Gv1sRgCPiMnunxyK_1hAE&feat=directlink

So today I tried going to a coffee shop with wireless for the first time, lots of fun and a little expensive but I was able to talk to my family for over and hour on skype and upload some of my pictures! it was great. Tell me how that picasa website works for everyone, I can put them on facebook but it is a lot harder for me. Especially seeing how facebook automatically switches to Korean while I am here.

Anyways, sorry for giving you a brochure blog post last time, I was a little rushed but dont worry the next one will be cool.

I have to tell you about a lot of things:

The Baseball game (W/ NINJAS)

Riding the subway

Going to Ittae won

My students (sooo fun)

Meeting other expats in bars

Poolhall

Crazy french and english

Attempting to meet koreans

Singing with a Korean Music teacher

Ilsans great malls and all their amazing shops that we dont have in the USA (if i ever earn enough cash i might try starting some of them in California)

The bars, Korean culture is partly defined by the drinking (Irish of the east)

Meeting a crazy frenchman, very nice guy.

Learning Korean

So it seems to me everyone is most interested in hearing about the female expat I met here and maybe went on a date or two with. But I dont know if I am going to blog about that, I will let you know when I decide. It depends on how things go this week, it would be really unfair to her if I write about it. So be patient, because if it doesn't go anywhere then I will probably write about it. It definately has been an experience.

A good author pleases his readers but maybe I just like to build the suspense, although i must say i do have a good story or two. So just wait a little ^^

Sadly most things I cant communicate because I don't even know how to explain what is happening here myself, all I can say is that living in a completely different culture has been very interesting and difficult but I love it.

Yeah so I have a lot of writing to do which I will try and do on Sunday (tomorrow). For now it's Saturday and I have to hurry and get dressed for work.

I need a 'I <3 ILSAN' shirt

Hi everyone,

Sorry I am such a bad blogger! Blogging is suprisingly hard when you don't have internet. So its another sleepy Thursday today because here I am at work with not too much to do until 3:30 when my classes start. Today I had a little more to do because it is Testing time next week so I am trying to figure out the best way to make all the kids cry. No I really hope they dont cry, I would probably start crying if one of my sweet little kids started crying. Could you imagine that? Ya anyways to the topic at hand.

So I have about 30 minutes max to write this and a crap load to say because Ilsan is my favorite city ever right now and I want to tell you all about it.

Lets start with Lake Park. It is soooooooooooo beautiful that it really really makes me wish I had a girlfriend to take to it. As it is, I just go and walk around it or sit down on some nice green grass under trees full of noisy mannys. So basically it is a lake about 2 - 3 times the size of lake poway which is surrounded by really beautiful walking paths (many of them not just 1). There is one that goes real close to the water and over these big beautiful asian arcitecture bridges. Then another that is a little further back from the water and it goes around the whole entire lake. Then there is a bike or scooter whatever one that I haven't done yet because I haven't rented a bike yet.

Here is more about Lake Park:

But Lake park has no fishing or boats (kinda a bummer but it keeps the place beautiful) and a huge stone plaza which overlooks the center of the lake and is where you can always find Korean teen agers and many couples hanging out more so during the night.
Then there is a little zoo with some funny looking birds and the only bird I know is an ostrige which really enjoys sticking its head in the ground.
There is a rose garden which, 'no I am not gay' but I will say it is very pleasant.
One of my favorites is that there is a old style asian castle home and it is awesome, I really really wish i could upload pictures at work because I have good ones.
After that there is a few buddhist asian small temple like structures that you can always see people sitting and relaxing in. The arcitecture is done with very intricate designs and paints.
There is loads of free exercise equipment everywhere which is commonly used and of pretty decent quality.
There is a waterfall side of the lake that is beautiful.
There are pieces of modern artwork, like sculptures positioned around the 3 walkways and they are very interesting.
Then there are basketball courts and some other sporting things.
There are many play structures for kids.
There is a great beautiful hill on one side that is all natual like rain forest like trees and growth that you can hike up and it has like trials area where you can do things like walk across pointed concrete with your bare feet.
The lake has area's with lots of lilly pads and other water plants which are really pretty especially at dusk.
There are docks with people feeding the ducks.

The best parts of Lake Park for sure are these:
During the day you can see hundreds of familys camped out under the trees on the grass all around the whole lake so it isn't crowded AND you can see lots of families riding bikes around the lake. Normally the bikes are the tandem ones with the 2 seats on one bike or have different wheel sizes or just really small wheels or random things (and normally flat tires) but it is just too funny to see and it looks like loads of fun.

Also! in the evenings people are getting exercise much more so than the days and it isn't wierd for some 70+ year old asian woman to be powerwalking hardcore in full exercise equip and they always overtake me even when I am trying to get a work out.

The best part of all is the Music fountain.
This i have over 30 pictures of. At one end of Lake Park there is a gigantic fountain that does shows on the weekend for free with lights and fire and music. It is super awesome and possibly extreamely romantic. I actually did end up there with an expat girl but that story will have to wait. Anyways there are literaly thousands of people that come to see it evey night and it is totaly free in a huge stone plaza in to lake park. I can't even describe the scene at the music fountain or lake park because it is sooo amazing.

Also the people here are really nice. One night, as is often do, I went to lake park and was hanging out by the music fountain reading and watching the hundred of people riding in circles around the fountain or playing badmitton. I was alone and watching all the families play together and a kid from a nearby family came up and had a very basic conversation with me. We both wanted to say more but the langauge barrier was too great. So a few minutes later he came up and offered me a can coffee that he bought from one of the vending machines and then ran back to his family. Canned coffee here is pretty good. Later he came up and offered me a badmitton raquet and I played badmitton with him and his family. Koreans dont play with nets or points, its just hit the birdie back and forth as long as you can. I was enjoying myself. Finally I figured out what was going on; the family just thought I looked lonely by myself so they were nice enough to include me.

This really amazed me and I have had other similar things happen with very nice Koreans. I really love this country and these people. I haven't met many Korean's around my age but I know lots of expats around my age so I mostly hang out with them but I would love to meet some Koreans my age too. Mostly I have become good friends with children and old men. The old guys here are really really nice which i didnt expect at all.

Sorry I wrote so fast and sloppy, I wrote all this in under 30 mins and I skipped like 90% of what i wanted to say. OH and lake park is 100% artificial but it is super nice.

OMG im in Korea

Hi everyone,
I can't upload photo's yet because I am at work. So that leaves me with writing a brief summary of some of the things that have happened here.

I am Dustin Robison and this is the longest day of my life. (enjoy the 24 reference) No not really the longest day of my life just a rather stressful day.

First off the plane flight from San Diego to San Fransico: zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Secondly the 3 hour layover and 12 hour flight from San Fransico to Incheon, Korea: First I had to find my flight and get my boarding pass which was.. interesting. I had some really good exercise running around the airport but I did eventually find everything and it worked out but I may have been at risk of a heart attack. Anyway that first part only took about 45 minutes but then everything worked out great, infact I was very bored for the rest of the lay over while i waited.

Now the 12 hour flight was with Singapore airlines! i.e. voted the nicest airlines in the world. Lucky me, I had a whole row of 3 seats on one side of the plane all to myself! And not only that but there was this awesome little TV infront of me that I could watch really awesome movies on. Inluding the new Star Treck!! I'm not a treckie by the way but that movie rocks. Not only that it had all these fun games on it AND a learn a langauge program so I worked on my Korean for a few hours.

Ya pretty sweet right!? NO! it was only pretty sweet for the first couple hours then I was wicked bored : / Then I decided I am going to Korea right? so of course i want the tea the very nice flight assistant was offering me. Umm... might have been a very bad idea instead of sleeping like this -_- i was much more awake like this O_O the whole time.

But whatever, i survived it but it was very long and boring because I couldnt bring myself to do much of anything i was so bored. Some middle aged Korean woman really impressed me because she played Bejeweled 2 for 9 of the 12 hours of the flight. I attempted to be as cool but I was bored after an hour of sucking big time compared to her.

One other cool thing is that there was a screen that showed our flight trajectory and we went north along alaska and then almost to the north pole and then back south along russia, then south past the east coast of Japan before turning north west to fly across japan to korea.

So when we finally landed it was a little scary because right as we exited the plane there were a bunch of dudes in hazmat suits that were scanning everyone with some machines and their masks said "QUARANTINE" on them. But their machines made a few beeps on me and they waved me through.

So as normal I was rather lost on where to go but I decided just to follow everyone else because they 'must' know where they are going. So the airport was totally different than a USA airport because in order to get to the baggage claim you have to take a subway and go through all these processing booths after walking for over a mile. So while it was scary not knowing where i was going or what I was doing it didnt compare to the next part.

So I finally got my baggage, and made a quick phone call to my mom I decided to walk out into the common area of the airport where people actually are other than the people I got off the plane with. There were crap loads of people holding signs and yelling names and the place was madness. I knew I had to find a bus to my town of ilsan and make a phone call to my korean contact but in all that madness with all that luggage I must have looked pretty hopeless.

Fortunately people in Korea are really nice. Some random dude grabbed my hand and showed me over to the pay phones but of course I didn't have any korean money to use the phone so he took out his own telephone and called my korean contact for me. He was very nice, i wish i had got his name and phone number but I was a little baffled.

Next I had to find the right bus. There were literally hundreds of buses and an amazing amount of people. But i found a bus ticket station and said my city and I got my ticket with some korean money a friends parent gave me before I left. Finding the right bus was very difficult, there are many Koreans who's job is to load peoples luggage onto their bus that stand in the street where the buses park and I would run around between them saying "Ilsan, Kintex!?!?! Ilsan, Kintex!?!?!" Yeah i was literally doing that. But hey, it kept me from getting on the wrong bus and then the next challenge came along.

What stop to get off at? Yeah so my korean contact just said get off when you see the big KINTEX sign (Kintex is some sort of international convention center). So after 40 minutes of riding the bust I see the sign but I see no bus stop. I look around a little bit and very nervously wait. We pass the kintex : / oh but then we take a right at the next stoplight so we are going along the side of it. I cant let that happen again right? So i wander up to the front of the bus (getting every odd stare imaginable) and say to the bus driver "Kintex?" He said something i couldnt understand and waved his arm around a little. I just decided to sit back down defeated and to think about what I should do.

HAHA we turned right and the KINTEX building was adjacent to me with a bus stop! ^_^

So now I had to find my director whom I have never seen before and talked to once before on the telephone because he was picking me up from the bus stop and taking me to my apartment. I was very very very nervous about this one because there could always be, "what if he doesnt show?" like where would I go then and what would i do? I cant figure out how to do anything in this country or read anything.

But i was lucky because as i was getting off the bus my director Mr. Cho said, "dustin?" So that worked out great. He drove me through this HUGE amazing city (I didnt see a building under 10 stories for miles) and showed me into my apartment.

It was on the 6th story of some building with a korean name (now I know it was Bobo county) and I was showed into my tiny little apartment. This was kinda a bummer because it was really really dirty and had just disgusting amounts of hair and dust all over the place.

Anyway it was okay, he handed me the keys for the place and then invited me out for a beer. I had been awake for 20+ hours (not counting the hour of sleep on the first airplane) but of course I was going to say yes to the only person I kinda know in Korea.

So we went to a fusion place and it was very tastey. Had some big Korean lite beers and I met another foreign teacher named Matt. Matt works at the same place as me and lives two floors above me. I will tell you more about him later but he has been really great and he is from orange county.

So Mr. Cho went home after a hour or so at the fusion resaraunt and Matt and I went out for some more beers at a foreigners bar. I met a lot of other very friendly foreigners who were delighted to see some 'new blood.' They filled my sleepy head with loads of advice from working in Korea for years which I can't honestly say I remember any of because I was soooo tired. Finally I told them I was about to collapse on the table and matt took me back to my apartment so I could get some much needed sleep.

We walked through the streets back to the apartment between skyscrapers and surrounded by Koreans but it didnt hit me until I laid down in bed and looked out my window.

Oh my god, I am in korea.


p.s. the reason I wrote so much is because my boss asked me to be at work at 10 am but I dont have a class to teach until 3:30 pm : / Well at least I am glad i wrote this because now I wont forget it.

Here I go!

The time has come and I am off! I am waking up in less than 7 hours for 14 hours of traveling! Yeah talk about leg cramps. Anyways, I really wanted to thank my family and friends for all their input and help everyone has given me. I might have chickened out if it wasn't for all of you so I want to thank you guys so much. I am sure this will be a great learning experience and now is the best time in my life to pursue this opportunity, although there are many things around home that I wish I was around for. Most importantly I will be an uncle soon and there are other family and friends things that I wish I could be around for. But, I am off to Korea by my own choosing because I am fulfilling a dream and it is where I need to be right now.

But once again, I am so thankful for you all and even for the people who I didn't get a chance to see before I left I hope we can all keep in touch.

And sorry my writing is horrible tonight, it is getting a little late and well I sure you could understand how nervous I am despite my continued attempts not to be.