Snowboarding!

Hiya guys! As normal life is busy but I have found some free time, so here we go!

Fail:
I was trying to go on a snowboarding trip for a while with my church members but we weren't having any luck because of the massive amounts of snow we were getting. Funny right, too much snow to snowboard. The problem was getting to the mountains. Nobody wanted to drive through 27cm of snow. Yeah, that was just one of the few snow storms we had. It seems I chose to come in the winter with the most snow and cold ever. Well, I did come asking for some snow since I haven't seen much of it in my life. And it has been really fun. Here I and most other people don't drive and the snow isn't a problem. (i could live without the -20 degree C though, its not normally that cold, it was just for a week)

Woohoo:
So anyways during the beginning of January I was a little bummed because the holidays were over and my friends are in Seoul so I cant see them as much as I would like but then I came to work and my coworker Nari invited me night time snowboarding later that week! yeah how awesome is that!!! Nari is a Korean English teacher who I have spent some time with before, but not much. I was sooooo happy that even though my students were being total brats, that day and the next it didn't even matter. I just smiled the whole time because I was happy.


So Thursday I worked most the day then later I went to a going away party for a friend going back to America. It was fun but I got to sleep later than I should have. Next I woke up Friday and hurried to work and taught for 8 hours then ran home shoved some food in my mouth and grabbed my bags to hop on the subway to meet Nari.

My favorite people:
First I met Nari's friend Nikki who is really nice then Nari was driving and picked us up and then we picked up one more of Nari's friends named Hyeong-ju. Also super nice but she was tired from work so she went to sleep. It was a long long drive but i wasn't tired so I stayed up and talked with Nari and Nikki. They are both English teachers who lived in Australia for a while so conversation was easy.


Finally we arrived and about a mile away from the snowboarding resort we stopped to get our rentals. It is cool in Korea you rent everything. I rented my blue jacket and snowboarding pants. The funny thing is it is mandatory that you wear hip and knee pads under your pants. I didn't complain ^_^ I think they saved me. So snowboards, lift pass and all that was under 50$! really cheap!

So we headed over to the snow boarding resort and it was really nice. It was actually really difficult to park even though it was 1am but we left that to Nari as we went and claimed our boards. So we had time for some pictures.

The slopes:
I wish we could have taken some pictures of the slopes but no such luck. But I will tell you about some funny things. So there are employee's watching the lifts of course but here they are more like amusement park employees. They wave at you and act way overly happy to see you and greet you every time. I thought it was funny. One time under my whole mask and hat they realized I was a foreigner and they stopped talking Korean and said, "Uuuuwoh! Hello!" Yeah it makes for a fun atmosphere.

I haven't snowboarded since I was a little kid and I didn't remember how to very well so I was a little slow to start. Well I mean my ability was, I would go down the hill quite fast but my amount of control was pretty limited which I realized when I almost killed some poor korean girl I never met before. It wasn't a bad or hard collusion at all and I made sure I took the impact not her but it was still a difficult situation since I don't know how to say much to her. I made sure she was okay but I think she was more frightened that I was a foreigner than anything. Anyways I am glad that she was okay. Snowboards are super easy to loose control of since you cant move your feet :/

I didn't see it but apparently someone took down Nari too so she had a headache most the night from it. So after an hour I became much more confident in my ability and could do heel side turns just fine but toe side was still difficult but I was figuring it out. Nari and Nikki were still learning so they were sticking together most the time.

After about half the time I was trying to keep up with Hyeong-ju. She is quite good and goes often. She is super nice but I couldn't communicate with her too well.

The Cold:
SO it was REALLY COLD! But we came prepared so when we were down on the ground it wasn't so bad at all. We had masks and hats and the only thing showing was our eyes. But I felt bad because Nari lent me an extra mask she had that was the same as hers just different color. So we looked like a couple and the worst part was in the cold the snot just falls right out. So i totally snotted up her mask. ^_^ She said it didn't matter and wouldn't let me wash it after. Too nice huh?

So the lift was the worst! Soooooo cold! On the ground there isn't any wind but on the lift way up high there was lots and lots of wind. By the end of the ride I couldn't feel my hands normally but fortunately at the top of the lift was a snack place selling hot food and drinks. Stupid me forgot my wallet in the car so Nari would buy and my hands would survive.


Idiot Dustin:
So we decided to start a snow fight but I haven't really done that since I was a little kid and the snow was hard to pack together because it was too powdery. But we did it. Of course the first good snowball I make, what do I do? This is where the idiot part comes in. So i see Nikki kinda running through the snow maybe 10 feet away and I launch a pretty big powdery snow ball at her... and it hits her right in her face when her mask was down :( :( :( T_T T_T T_T

So she was in an awesome amount of snow ball to the face pain and I couldn't do anything to help her because I caused it. T_T

Ah well she forgave me, these people are too nice to me.

Poor Nikki: (long before the snowball)


Lastly:
So we snowboarded through the night until 5am (oh starting to feel tired). Most this part is a complete blur because I was beyond tired. I don't know how Nari was able to stay awake because the whole long drive back to Seoul i was falling in and out of sleep. I really wanted to stay awake and talk to Nari so she wouldn't feel sleepy but I couldn't.
Thanks Nari!


We stopped for some 헤종국 which the literal translation is 'hang over soup' because it is supposed to give you energy and it totally did which was good because I had to go work for another 6 hours. Nari was beyond nice, she knew I was going to be late for work and she drove all the way to my workplace in Ilsan! So after being nice enough to drive all the way to snowboarding and back when she was tired she made and extra trip to Ilsan for me so I could be at work on time. Fortunately I have a pretty easy day on Saturday but I still fell asleep a few times for a brief moments while grading papers or things like that. One paper had a half written grade on it then a line of my pen going right off the side of the paper from me falling asleep while writing a grade on it. ^^

So I have spent a good deal of time the past few weeks with Nari, Nikki and Hyeong-Ju and they are really really great people! I have been praying to find some more friends who I can hang out with and now I am beyond content.

There are more pictures on my facebook if your interested. Just look in my photo albums.

Christmas time!

Hi everyone! I have been meaning to talk about Christmas for a while but I was waiting on photo's and things. Now it seems like it was soooo long ago since so many things have happened since then but thankfully Christmas was pretty unforgetable. I was worried I would be alone on Christmas but it turned out to be really great.

Okay so if you read my last post you learned I had to work on Christmas eve until 5 which kinda sucked and my boss wasn't so awesome that day but dont let that fool you. Christmas was really amazing once I made it to Seoul and met up with my friends.

So first things first, I had to carry a big Costco Cheesecake all the way to Seoul from my house in Ilsan because it was kinda like my christmas gift to my friends. It was really more specifically directed at my buddy Calvin but like he could eat a whole cheesecake, so I shared with everyone.
It was interesting carrying the cake around because here in Korea Christmas is pretty much Valentines day and I wrapped the cake so nobody would get hungry and eat some (mostly just for myself ^^ ). But the reason I mention it is like valentines day is because I could feel many eyes on me wondering who that big package was going to. Odd feeling. I am especially glad nobody asked me who it was for because if I had to say a dudes name they would probably run away.
For Christians, Christmas is obviously a lot more than valentines day and much more like a night of worship.

So after a 2-3 hour bus ride through Christmas eve traffic and a subway ride I made it to church and I met up with Calvin. Our young adult group was supposed to be doing a song performance in front of the whole church at the 11pm service but I arrived late so Calvin and I skipped that and just watched the other members do it. (I must say I was quite thankful for that since all the songs were in Korean) So after service our young adult group had candles and we stood ouside the church and sang christmas charols in Korean for people as they were leaving. It was pretty fun; I was part of the humming section ^_^



So then we went around to a few houses near the church which belonged to church members and we sang for them too and at a local convenience store. It was fun being with my church friends and they asked me to sing the charols in English sometimes but the syllable emphasis is different so even though it is the same song it sounds a lot different. Most songs I could do a few words in Korean but that is about it.

So after the charoling we decided to go visit some of the church members homes. It was pretty late at night so they were expecting us. The funniest thing is the gifts we brought for them. We brought toilet paper. haha no joke. It has symbolic meaning in korean because it is wrapped up in a roll and it has symbolism that means your troubles will be rolled away. I think we need to get some symbolism going in america, it would make getting gifts much easier.

So that was my first time in a Korean's home. It was quite shocking because they went all out with different foods and such things to welcome us. A huge ice cream cake with lots of fruits and some other foods that looked great!



A funny tangent that makes me look stupid:
So as always when going in a Korean home you take off your shoes. Well.. my feet stank! This is the first time too, > . < I wore heavy socks because it was really really cold that day but the bus was crowded so I got stuck in a seat that had a heater right next to my feet. So my feet got cooked by the heater for 2 hours in heavy socks :( My feet never stink, I always wash them well and wear new socks but that day i was totally S.O.L. It just had to be the first time I went in a Koreans home too :( Everyone was very polite about it and nobody ever said anything. I kinda wished they would have so I could make fun of myself or something. oh well...

Anyways the people in the house were super nice and welcoming even to a foreigner like me. I was worried that it wasn't appropriate for me to come along because I am a forienger but everything worked out wonderfully.

Next when we got back to the church we had a big wonderful meal which was shared between 25+ young adult church members. And everyone got to enjoy the cake. In Korea we never have our own food plate or dish, it is always group food. As in the food sits in the middle and we all get chop sticks and take some. It was quite fun and everybody loved the cheese cake, especially Calvin. I had to keep telling him to stop eating so much because i think he was trying to be more than polite.

So after that we organized into teams and played lots of fun games. The first games were Korean word games which I probably wasn't the best teamate for (slight understatement). Then there was a game where we had things like toothpics in our mouths and we had to transfer rubber bands from the toothpicks to other people down a line. (Score! I was next to 2 pretty girls that i really hope arent going read this) So there was a tall dude on our team having trouble and backing up the line so I had to start getting like 3 or more rubber bands on my toothpick to pass on.
I feel like my depth perception is much better with my left eye closed so while transferring the rubber bands I would only use my right eye but Calvin called me out on it! "Dustin! stop winking at her!" hahaha yeah, still makes me laugh. I was planning on telling him my nose was to big to see with both eyes but I was busy with the game. (I.E. koreans dont have big noses)
So we lost that game but it was cool. Next we played a the game where you tie a baloon to your ankle and try to pop the others. I lost big time because while I am here here I am overly cautious and gentle since I can't really explain myself. (okay in truth i tried to do a huge stomp on some girls baloon while she wasnt looking but i totally missed and lost). It was fun though. We played games like that until almost 4 in the morning.


Then we had a really great time where we all shared stories of our lives from the past year and gave prayer requests for the next year.



Finally we went over to my pastors house and he let us sleep in a small room. It wasn't uncomfortable at all. We had a few hours of sleep and then went to another church service which wasn't bad. (although i wish i had some more sleep) It was nice though, when we woke up the pastors wife made us a delicious breakfeast and the pastors kids were lots of fun. So that was my second experience in a Koreans home. (once again with smelly socks :( ) I will tell you more about that in the next post because I went back to his house for new years.

So next most the young adult members went to a handicapped people's facility on christmas day to volunteer but I didnt go because well as a foriegner who cant communicate well I would probably cause more harm than good.

I got a couple more hours of sleep in one of the pastors office cubicles because we were waiting for people to come back so we could go Ice Skating. Unfortunately, most people were too tired to go ice skating but that is okay. It was just me calvin, 원희, and 진길. It was really great for 원희 and 진길 to come because they were really tired too.



So we went to LOTTE WORLD! It is like the best theme park in Korea (or one of them at least). It is all indoors and it is truely an amazing sight. I have never seen a building so big and with so many people. We didnt go to the amusement park section, we just went ice skating. Ice skating was really fun but as with anything in Korea it was very very very crowded.
But of course that didnt stop me from showing off big time. Koreans aren't that great of ice skaters, generally (No offence Koreans or Yoona Kim). So I got to show off my years of hockey training. They only allowed figure skates so I was very limited but it was still cool. Afterwords I bought us some 1$ ice creams to help us get over the sleepiness.



So after that (yes i know, this just keeps on going...) we rode over to one of the rich shopping districts in Seoul called 강남 and did a little shopping. I was suuuuper lucky! I was really hoping for snow all day on Christmas and I got my wish! In 강남 it started snowing and I was really excited.

After shopping we made our way to a wine bar and it was nice to sit and relax (omg we were sooo tired). We enjoyed the wine bar to ourselves and had a couple glasses. It was a cosy little place where we could watch the busy, snowy street outside.

After that we called it a day thankfully. So I rode home for a few hours by subway and bus but I was completely content. Err more than content. It was a wonderful Christmas. I definetely missed my family but that was an unforgettable experience.

The good the bad and the ugly

Hi guys! Looks like i left you hangin for over a month now :/ yeah... my bad. Anyways I have two reasons for that.

1. I have been really busy. Life here is getting to be pretty routine and normal now but it still takes me a really long time to do anything. Partly because I am a little shy. But it's about time I got over that huh? I think most the people here are much more afraid of me than I am of them. Funny this just made me remember that one of my goals when coming here was to get over being shy. ah well.. everything takes time.

2. It is getting harder to blog because I am not always O.O anymore. Things here are becoming more routine so when I see a crazy big street filled with thousands of people and 10 floors of different shops and restaurants in every direction I am no longer staring at it for 5 minutes so my brain can comprehend it. I am getting used to living here. I think that is a good thing though ^_^

So I actually have a lot I could talk about right now. I normally just let my thoughts flow without any structure into this blog, so lets see what comes out.

First I wanted to make sure everyone had the real story on how I am doing and feeling about Korea.

I love it here! I really really really love it here. I want to stay here for a long time, I think. BUT that being said there are definitely days where I am extremely frustrated. Christmas was the first time I seriously considered packing up my bags and heading home. I get annoyed when people go some place and they just brag about how awesome it is all the time non-stop because you know that cant really be true. As with any place there are great things and there are difficult things.

A difficult thing would be work, or more specifically my boss. He is a decent sort of guy but simply he is only concerned with himself and his business. So he gives me 1 day warning before my vacations and then extends them in the middle of the vacation. Also I beg for him to give me less hours because my kids are little energy suckers that bleed me dry but of course the next day he just slaps down a new schedule with more hours on it. . <

Other than that, there is just the culture shock value to everything. It can make life very exhausting sometimes. I want to do something simple like get a gift for a friend or get a haircut or deposit a little bit of money in an account but... Well all those things are full day tasks and I often put them off because they are soooo difficult and embarrassing.

You tired of hearing me complaining yet? Yeah I am tired of it too. I made a decision the other day that I am completely done complaining. Especially to my Korean friends. They do such a good job taking care of me and helping me out when they have no benefit from doing so.
(oh no more complaining coming!)
That is another thing that annoys me! My friends here are so great but I might as well be a helpless child because I dont know how to do anything. For example I have these 2 friends from church that I talked about earlier in the blog who I have been looking to buy gifts for but its been over a month and I am still empty handed :( I have gone to the shopping stores looking for them many times but they are a little paticular about the clothes they wear and most other things I dont understand. >.<

puff... well I am done complaining! It doesnt do anybody any good, including myself. I used to complain every saturday about having to work but enough of that. Sorry I just wanted to show you that traveling and/or living ones dream doesnt mean there wont be very difficult things along the way.

I am just trying to give you a real picture of what it is like over here. All that being said I still love Korea and I have no regrets in coming here. I have learned more than I ever thought possible here and I am making friends. Everyone here is soooo nice to me even though I can't really speak their language. They all just accept me and include me. Infact they do more than that, they go out of their way to help me. (well especially my church friends, they are the best).

You could probably tell I wrote this right after finishing work. ^_^

Yeah well I must say, I had a wonderful Christmas (after the whole [insert swear words here please] boss thing finished and I met all my friends at church after a 2 hour bus ride through snow). And I look forward to having a great new years too!

Oh and by the way in Korea i am turning 24 years old on January 1st! (their age system is pretty neat) So I cant wait to tell my brother I caught up to him. yeah quite difficult to understand. well hit me up on skype or Facebook. I promise I will throw a few more posts up soon. I have to write about Myeong Dong and Christmas and other fun things! I will post a new one soon I promise!

Peace 안녕

I <3 Korea + my Korean Students

Hi guys! I know it has been forever since I blogged and I am sorry. I have literally been going from one thing to the next all the time and any spare time I find I devote to studying Korean. But this is important too, so I can remember everything later and let you guys know I am still doing well.


First I think I should say a little something about my students.

Most of them I really like and maybe I like them too much because sometimes I need to be a discipline figure but I have a really hard time doing that :( So often I just let my students do whatever they feel like doing instead of studying. As you can plainly see here:


Yes that picture on the board is of me ^_- They often like to draw me and call me funny things. I think that is how kids show their love ^_^

I figure even if we arent studying out of the book as long as we are talking and interacting their English is improving so I am happy.

Anyways that is one of my 13 classes and they are about the average age that I teach. (maybe 3rd grade in the US) They are really funny. I often have my cell phone taken by them and they all enter their phone numbers in it so I can call them and they can call me even though that will probably never happen but it is regarded as a Korean sign of friendship. Friendship is taken pretty seriously here. You don't have many friends and it is very very rude to talk to people you dont know so my students are fun.

These students:


Are really into getting my cell phone and going through all my messages to see if I have a girlfriend or just to learn about my life. They are a lot of fun and I really enjoy them.
I showed them pictures from back in San Diego but many of them were on the beach so I didn't have a shirt on or something and they were like "OMG teacher were girls you cant show us this!!"
It gave me a laugh, I didnt realize that was a big deal here in Korea until then.
Korean culture is very odd to me sometimes.

Some of my older students are trouble makers and enjoy throwing muffins and the like out the window of our building on the 3rd floor to hit people down below and are always hitting each other (in a not too voilent way). Or my favorite was when they decided to test if the fire extinguisher worked on my 3rd day of work :/ Yeah that was fun.

Anyway I wish i could explain most things about this culture but EVERYTHING is sooo completely different that I really couldn't but I will explain a few things, or try to anyway.

One of the first things Korean's ask when they meet is, "how old are you?" and then they want you to guess how old they are (at least in my case). Now really, this is quite difficult... I really really have a hard time with Korean age so I guess so far off that people dont take me seriously. Honestly, guessing korean age is near impossible. So of course when I meet a lady I always go for the undercut of 3 years or so then I find out I actually guessed 10 years or more off the mark so it didnt matter anyway.

Another question that Korean's always ask is, "do you have a girlfriend?" I always blush when asked this and I am never quite sure how to respond. This is one of the first questions they ask when meeting you. Unless I misunderstand my own culture, you dont ask this question unless your interested in the person. I mean, I dont have a girlfriend but if I just say "no" or "앖어요" it looks a little pathetic especially since I still blush at the O.O effect of the question.

Some other funny things are that Koreans have no problem informing you about their weight gain or loss or telling you that you should loose some weight. They mean it in a nice way to show concern about you but I have heard people tell others they are looking a little fat this week.

So koreans drink. yes alcohol. And yes they drink a lot. Not all koreans of course but culturally it is very important. If you ever walk by a restaurant you will see *Every* table has at lest 2-5 green glass bottles on it, which is soju. I am a fan of soju but it is quite strong and the Koreans often drink way more than their fill. So it is very common to see men in very expensive business suits or just anybody asleep on the sidewalk or planters or just all over the place at aroun 11 pm.
Also there are very formal drinking guidelines here. If i was to tell you about them all I would be typing for a very very long time but the basics are you never pour your own drink and you always use 2 hands when doing anything with people you are showing respect to. And then when you drink you look away from the most respected person and have one hand over your heart. I think it is quite cool.

Also an awesome part of Korean culture is that the oldest person with the most prestige always pays ^_^ Sometimes I really like being 22 because Koreans my age are still in the university or military service. So I rarely pay.


One of my favorite things about Korean culture is music and movies. Korean movies are really really great. They are very real life and very stubtle, well most of the time then something along the way is a little rediculous but anyways I love them. They are soooooooo funny. Humor here is much different and I really appreciate the humor. If you care to watch any here is a link i use and one of my main reasons I watch is to help me learn the korean language. There are english subtitles though so dont be afraid. I would recommend the top one on the next page... very very funny.

http://www.mysoju.com/browse/korean-movie/popular/

Okay next up is Korean music. Apparently because my hair is white many many Koreans call me G Dragon. He is probably the most popular pop idol in Korea and everyone knows and loves him except some of the older generation. So I think it is a compliment when they call me G dragon. Here is a video of him (I actually really like this video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOXEVd-Z7NE

I saw Girls Generation in concert on Korean thanksgiving which was pretty fun. So here is a video of them. This is the main song they performed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yb5GxZEZvt8

Next up I will just link some other popular bands because I am running out of time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlTqQjOJ7jk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwq-XdPfpeA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4MgAxMO1KD0&feature=channel

Well that is all the time i have ^_^

Of course there are many more things I would like to tell you about. I went to Costco in Korea which was very interesting (and different of course). I also have vacation this coming week and I think I am going to Busan which is the other side of Korea. Also as with most things around here I just dont know where to start. One night I was at a restaraunt with Korean friends who dont speak English and I was really liking this drink that tasted a lot like horchata, so it was a little nostolgic and I was drinking bowls of it. But then of course later I figured out that 막걸리 was actually a quite potent traditional korean wine (kinda like japanese sakae). Well, that was a culture mistake ; _ ; Anyways my Korean is getting better but it still sucks but I wont give up.

I am sure there are many spelling and grammer error's, sorry. Time for me to hurry to work so no time :/

안녕 peace!

Do you like seafood?

Why yes, yes I do like sea food.

So that was how my conversation went with some of my Korean friends. So next they asked me, 'Do you like shrimp?'
'no i dont like it... I love it'

So they decided to put that to the test, although they were completely unaware that they were doing so.

So after work I met up with them at a local subway station. My close friends 수미 (sue-mi) and 홈 시 (mr hom) decided on sea food and went out to eat. Sea food is cool right?

So as we are walking into the restaraunt 수미 and I stopped to admire the huge water tanks out front. One of them is full of octupus, another full of live crab and another full of live squids. Then there was another full of some sort of creature that had like 8ish tiny legs and a big head, and a long tail swimming around. After asking 수미 what they were I learned that those were shrimp.

I thought, 'oh! cool they like to display that their food is fresh, right?'

So we sit down and order the shrimp and our first dish comes out. Some yummy Brown Seaweed Soup. And dont bother asking what it looks like, it looks exactly like it sounds. It is a bowl of brown seaweed.

As sarcastic as I am being about it; it actually was pretty decent. I ate most of the bowl.

So now for the main course!

I see one of the waiters finish preparing a large skillet with salt and some sauce and a heavy glass lid. THEN!!!! He walked over to the shimp tank with a big net and scooped a whole load of shrimp into the skillet! THEN he walked over to our table and set down the skillet on a fire he lit in the middle of our table!!

Yeah! the shrimp were still all moving and their antenee were going crazy! (But that isn't all)

So i think my jaw was on the table ever since they brought the brown seaweed soup but this was waaay beyond that.

So the shimp are just chillin' in the pan being cooked alive for a minute or 2 but then I guess it started getting hot and that is where the heavy glass lid came in handy!

The little dudes were jumping so hard and smashing into the glass lid and trying to fight their way out. My poor little friends never had a chance. It was amazing to watch, for like 5 minutes they were jumping around and fighting each other!

My korean friends fully caught on that this was my first time ever seeing anything like this and they were having a really good laugh. They were talking about how I felt bad for the shrimp (which i kinda did because we were cooking them ALIVE. But whatev, their little black eyes boiled out and they curled up after about 10 mintues. After thinking about it... It is kinda convenient that they were alive.. I mean, we never had to stir the meat, it was self stirred food. ^_-

Oh believe me, I am not done yet!

So next we all put on some thick cloth gloves (common in Korea) so our hands wouldn't get dirty or the shrimp wouldnt burn us.
Then Mr. Hom grabs a pair of siccors and starts picking up the shrimp and giving them a nice lil decapitation and throwing the body into a bowl and the heads back in the pan.

(Phew! we dont have to eat the heads!)

By this time I was sucking down the soju figuring maybe it could be a stomach disinfectant or something ^_^ i think it worked, but i havent gone #2 yet so I will let you know.

So then we use our nice protection gloves and rip the shells off the shrimp and pop the shrimp right on in!

OMG OMG OMG THEY WERE SOOOO TASTEY! 진짜 아주 나무 맛있어요

best shrimp I have ever had... I tell no lies.

I'm not done...

So we finished the waaay too tastey shimpies.. Well the bodies at least and then we started digging into the heads!

Yeah, at first I was stunned and as wide eyed as could be as my korean friends started eating them.

speechless...

Then they offered me some.. so speech came, "More Soju Please!" (translation of course)

Yeah so with the heads, I would rip off the shell (I.E. the freaking exoskeletin skull) which had the boiled eyes sticking out the front and the antenee and then I would squeeze it a little to see if there were brains in there. Why, yes i think there were : /

Yeah I was poppin those suckers right on in my mouth. They were OK. Still tasted good but I think next time I will stick to the body.

No.. I am not done.

So then Mr. Hom... ... ... (hold on, still recovering from the shock) just grabs up a head, boiled eyes, exoskull, antenee and all and pops that sucker in his mouth!

ME: "WWWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY!?!?!?!?!?!?!" (korean for what / why / wow)
Hom: "Your turn, good for you, makes you a man, good for stamina" (translation)

So after staring at the boiled out eyes for a hell of a long time, I did it.

yeah, i did it.

wait one more time.

i did it.

I ate that.

So that was not so tastey.. a little on the crunchy side. The antenee were the worst part.

Okay I am done for now.

After that the rest of the night was pretty chill, good old singing and hanging out with lots more food (though not quite so ... .. unique food)

But actually I am NOT DONE!

Next time we go out we are going to get some yummy pig skin. I cant wait ~~~~~~ O.O



Off topic and a bit more serious:

Okay well, I have a lot more to talk about but i never have the time to do it. Lots of work and lots of other things. Life is good here, infact I really really love it here. I have my regrets about missing important things in San Diego but I am living a dream I have had for a long long time. So I love you guys and miss you soo much. Please understand that I had to come here and do this; I have had more experiences here than I ever thought possible.

Back to the fun stuff:

So I would love to post about my students dome rocking some poor university student with a muffin from the 3rd floor window, or any of the things my students do all the time that leave me very wide eyed O.O , or my church family, or my constant study of Korean, or my many korean friends that I try to communicate with, or just the amount of crazy experiences here, or even my foreigner friends who are all very interesting people but time is a big issue here.

as Koreans say: 빨리 빨리 hurry hurry

Thanksgiving! (추석)

Korean thanksgiving was great! It is based off the lunar calandar though so it changes which day of the year it falls on. Unfortunately this year it fell on saturday so I only got 2 days off work, but enough complaining! It was wonderful! The picture above in inside a great concert / TV broadcasting hall where the President of Korea sat 10 rows infront of me then read poems on stage and many Korean famous music groups performed. But before that I want to talk about some other very fun things that happened first!

So first my good friend Calvin (궝선) and I went to the far east side of Seoul to go to a traditional Korean festival. Calvin is in the same shape as I am with family, his family is in Japan and so we were some of the few people in Korea who weren't with their families. But that is OK! We had fun anyhow, first it took around 3 hours of travel because of subways and buses and the like but when we got there it was a rather quiet peaceful park with only like 50 cents admission fee so I couldn't complain.

We went over to the festival area and there were loads of Koreans wearing Hanbok's and playing the Korean traditional games (which i sucked big time at). First there was the making of Duc which is basically rice pounded by a big hammer until it becomes more like a paste and it has seasoning put on the inside then after it is rolled into a ball. But we practiced making some Duc!

Starts like this:


Ends like this:


I dont think I actually ate that one for fear of germs but I eat Duc all the time and it's not bad. Then we got to see some old school Korean cultural music and I even got a picture with one of the guys. Calvin is the best buddy to have around because he hooks me up with great pictures all the time. They were interesting but it got a little dull after a while and I think it was even more dull for poor Calvin because he didnt see anything that new or special. I was wide eyed the whole time because I had never seen anything like this place.

First off the Kids in hanboks are the cutest thing I have ever seen.


Then there were all these fun games where people were using rope whips to keep tops spinning on the ground and rolling metal rings around with a little metal racking stick. Hmm hard to describe... But anyways the kids and the Korean middle aged men in suits sucked, then the old 아자씨 (Korean old man) comes up and shows everyone up. It was pretty funny. But anyway I got to see many super unique things that I am at a loss to describe.

One last thing i will try to describe because it was pretty sweet. So the festival music guys with the drums had this thing on their head that would whip around all over the place the whole time. It looked really cool, like it was always floating and that is the of my ability to describe it sorry...


So then after that and another hour in the Subway Calvin and I had some wonderful soup and met up with another of our best buddies 이정아 (Jeong-ah Lee) and she was super awesome! She got us tickets to see this wonderful TV special on thanksgiving for free and the president of Korea was there! yeah crazy right!

Well first we had some time to burn so 정아 (Jeong-ah) brought some thanks giving food that her family made and it was very very tastey! So we hung out in 요이도 (Yo-ei-do) park which is like The Park in Korea. Comparable to Central Park in New York and it is very close to where the Korean congress meets. Anways I can't communicate with 정아 that great but she is a really awesome person. Almost every Korean I have met has suprised me with how nice they are.


So the concert finally started and the security was huge because the president was there sitting in the middle over everyone and many other important dignitaries from America and other nations were also present. But other than the dignitaries who were old dudes I was the only foreigner there and as much as i try not to I kinda stand out. So I was getting odd looks all the time but I am pretty used to the by now but I cant kick the habit of checking my fly sometimes when people are staring at me.

The show was wonderful and it was about being generous and giving to others. So a good thanksgiving message. Some of the artists had birth defects or problems but it was about helping them and each other and encouraging people to do so. So the president read some poems about giving and helping. It was a good thanksgiving message.

This show was broadcast on Korea's biggest TV channel the KBS (Korean Broadcast station) and it was very well done. And yes 소녀시대 or Girls Generation was there but they didnt do "Gee" because apparently that song is pretty old in Korea so they did their newer songs which were pretty well done and I am pretty sure they were actually singing, i dont think it was lip syncing. Either was it was great and they are really fine! Calvin was yelling for one of the girls named Jessica the whole time, and it was pretty funny.

We weren't allowed to take pictures during it but Calvin was brave enough to snap one off at the end. My white hair was already drawing enough attention so I didnt but his photo is at the top of the post. It has 소녀시대 on the left in the blue outfits.

It made for a great thanksgiving and the next day was sunday so I went to church and that day was just as wonderful. Even though it was a Korean holiday it did make me wish to be with my family but the church members were really great. We hung out together all day and played games and even though I can't communicate well with most people they are really accepting of me.

We played 윷놀이 or the Korean game with the sticks that is very traditional and fun. And they really tried to include me in the other games as much as they could. I feel bad because things didnt work exactly as expected with the other games when they try to include me but well we all had a good time.

Then after spending the whole day with everyone who just about welcomes me as a family member everyone (except Calvin and I) brought loads of thanksgiving food and we shared it all. It was a really great time but I will admit it was a bit difficult being away from home during thanksgiving; even if it is the Korean thanksgiving.

Link to my other pictures: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fpicasaweb.google.com%2Fdrobison100%2FkgTWyI%3Ffeat%3Ddirectlink&h=10f599a075b1d6903f35d44351a0781f

Well as normal I dont have much time which means I dont have time to proof read this so, sorry for my many errors. I am an OK English teacher I swear!

안녕 annyeong peace

What i would give for a boring day!

Okay so life here is soooo busy. This is one of the first times I have been able to sit still lately because I am normally running around and doing different things all the time. Which is great right because I am not bored at all but all the fun and all the stress of work and other things are making me tired. Anyway I think I have easier times coming. Testing at my school is mostly over and we have Korean Thanksgiving soon so I get a few days off of work.

So I am starting to loose confidence in this blog because I am so bad at posting and even when I do post I feel like I cant communicate much.. if anything. The reasons for the bad communication is that I don't understand half of what I see over here myself, its just amazing or extrodinarely different. But hey, I think I will keep it going and just write what I can when I can.

Anyways hiking in Korea is a huge deal. Simply put the hiking here is the best and can you guess the age group that hikes the most? Nope! All the middle aged and older people are the ones who hike in Korea. Yeah how crazy is that? These aren't just normal hiking paths either, there is lots of scrambling and climbing. They are really hard and steep. Apparently the older generations for the most part don't watch much tv and they go on these unbelievably challenging hikes often.

I was truely amazed to see all the Korean middle aged and old people doing these really difficult hikes but there were also a few amusing things. If Koreans go hiking they have the gear. When I say the gear I mean they are decked out in the best hiking shoes, hiking pants, hiking shirts, hiking goggles, hiking sticks, hiking backpacks and more with all the best brand names and a full load on their backs. I am talking like REI top brand quality here. And not just a few people, every single person is in the best gear available.

Oh and when they get to the top of a mountain (yes I mean mountain, not like the little hills or little iron 'mountain' we have in poway) they throw down a picnic cloth and sit and have a picnic for an hour or so. And they dont just have a picnic, they have a huge Korean meal for their picnic. It is pretty amazing. And of course a huge korean meal always includes a green glass bottle or two of their favorite drink, soju.

Here is the picture album i made: http://picasaweb.google.com/drobison100/HikingKorea?feat=directlink

eeeeh I didnt mean to spend much time talking about the hike.. oh well.

Anyways what I really wanted to talk more about is my awesome Korean friends. I have made a lot of really great Korean friends through church and seeing them is always the highlight of my week. I am glad to have Christian influences again in my life and people I relate to really well.

They are the best and I am learing loads of Korean. I am finally able to start using it too because I know enough to ask where things are or just to make very very basic conversation. At church I have a good friend who is teaching me Korean and I teach her English. But the awesome thing is this weekend is Korean Thanksgiving so I have some time off work and we are going to go to a concert with one of the most famous music groups in Korea! Yeah and the president might be there! And it is a TV broadcast too! Yeah how awesome right? Well the group is called Girl's Generation but wait dont think I'm gay, the men here love them just as much as the girls do. Infact my elementry school students love them and so do older people. Music in Korea is much much much different than in the US. Middle school kids are normally into pop music and like the same music as their parents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mPqycQ0tQ&hl=ko



And then after that on Sunday it is the day of Thanksgiving (Chuesok) one of the pastors at the church is going to have me over to his house or maybe ther church or whatever for a thanksgiving meal! I can't wait. Maybe there will be a bunch of Koreans wearing the traditional clothes called hanbok's. Who knows? well I should probably blog about those after the fact.

Ok c ya, 안녕히 계세요