Monday, July 30, 2007

Birthday Weekend

Another week has come and gone without a single post. Oops. So much for trying to do it more often.

The truth is that everyone around the entire country seems to be extra busy these days. The regular schools (elementary, middle, and high) have summer break from July 23-August 24 so those of us at academies are left to pick up the slack. Every academy runs summer 'intensive' courses, sometimes instead of regular classes and sometimes in addition to regular classes. Of course, ours in additional rather than substitute. I am travelling to another branch of our school (about 30 mins by bus) for 2 classes, 3 days a week, which adds an extra 4 hours onto my day. Kelly is busy with some other stuff that she can explain, but neither of us have it as bad as Leah who is at our school from 9am-9:30pm 5 days/week.

We all brushed aside our fatigue and rocked Seoul pretty hard this weekend. Friday night Kelly and I went to Outback Steakhouse - who give away a pair of complementary steak knives for birthdays - and came back here to meet people. Jennifer, Jeremy, Leah, Andy, Mark, and Jessica came over for a night of chilling with beer, wine, and soju. Jessica is Leah's cousin and Mark is her boyfriend. They are replacing Mark and Julia, who went back to Ontario this week after 11 months of running amok. Sad to see them go, just as North America must've been sad to see Mark and Jessica come our way. You gotta give up something to get something, as Bryan Colangelo has taught us all.

Saturday was the real fun however. Jay Huth, a friend from Laurier who lives down south of Seoul, Jennifer and myself all celebrated birthdays in the weekend so we had a three-way party. It started with 2 hours of all-you-can-eat-and-drink buffet in a university district called Hongdae. Most of the people you've heard about were there, including Seoul's freshest couple Justin Page and Erin Brownlee from Orillia. It felt like we had just seen them last week.

After the buffet we hit Rocky Mountain Tavern, a 3-store chain of Canadian bars. The pictures that Kelly will post tell most of the story about that stop, but let it be said that I was outperforming Michael Jackson at his own game. They also did an awesome birthday shot routine that ended with a bartender lighting his fingers on fire and spitting alcohol across them resulting in the bar catching on fire. The drinks were also delicious.

After too many drinks for everybody involved we hit up a luxury noraebong for some karaoke. The details are a little hazy, but everyone seemed to have a good time and I have yet another palm bruise from my overzealous tambourine playing. We cabbed it back after that, Justin and Erin slept at our place after some McDonald's.

Now for the best part of the weekend....my gift (I'm a narcissistic bastard). It started off great, with a Buckaroo t-shirt (my favourite Korean brand, hilarious to see people walking around with a giant BUCKAROO across their back like a baseball jersey), a little coffee table book about the history of the Raptors, and an Adventure Korea trip to go rafting. It got exponentially cooler when I followed the book's directions to look under the bed. I pulled out a blown up picture of the 8 guys who gained fame (in apt. 305 where Laird and I lived at least) for spelling Bargnani across our shirts (if you don't know about that, we don't talk enough). I was happy with that, enjoying the view for a while before I realized that IT IS SIGNED BY BARGNANI HIMSELF!! Definitely A1 gift giving on Kelly's part. I don't know how she does it, I just hope it doesn't stop.

We're going on a little 4-day vacation Thursday-Sunday this week, but I hope to post 1 more time before that. I'd like to give a little insight into Korean life, maybe starting with their insane driving.

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Another Robbery?





I hear phrases like, "Third time's a charm," and "Bad things happen in three's" and before coming here, I don't know if I believed in all that!



So, as Ian mentioned in the last post, our Mud Festival trip was amazing- definitely in the top 2 best excursions we have done here so far! Ian also mentioned that I had a story to tell, and I do. I just wrote this intro to build the anticipation. Alright, alright, so here is the story....



Saturday night, after a long day of beaching it and mudding it up, Ian was super tired and wanted to head back to our motel room that we also shared with Andy and Leah. So I said I would go back with him and told Andy and Leah that I would take the key, and leave the door unlocked for them. (Can you see where this is going?!) So, Ian and I head back to the motel, he fully passes out within 1 minute of his head hitting the hard floor where were slept, and I am left to try to sleep myself.



A few minutes after closing my eyes, I hear Andy and Leah come home quietly. I kept my eyes shut because they turned on the radiant light in the main room and I knew that if I opened them they would burn! I thought it was strange that they would even bother turning on the main light, but continued to keep my eyes shut and tried to sleep. Then, I felt the light go off and Andy come in the room. 'Ah, that's nice,' I thought in my head, 'Andy and Leah and coming in to get their clothes, so they can change in the other room so they don't wake us up.'



Have you ever had the feeling when you are almost asleep, but you feel like someone is standing over you? Well, I felt like that and slowly winked open an eye. I caught a glimpse of Khaki shorts and legs too hairless to be Andy's. My eyes slowly travelled up the man and I realized that it wasn't Andy and Leah in our room at all... it was a Korean man, going through Leah's wallet and bag, right beside where Ian and I were sleeping on the floor!


So, I stood up and shouted "What the hell are you doing, get the "~BEEP~* out of here!" He Korean man dropped the wallet, and made some hand gestures that could be interpreted as "no, no" and I just kept yelling "What are you doing? Get out!" And he finally bolted. My heart was racing so fast. I tried to wake Ian up with all my might. I tried kicking him and yelling to him that a robber was in our room- everything. He was fully passed out. And I clearly didn't want to stay in the room by myself anymore, so I grabbed some warmer clothes and ran outside with my only weapon- the key. I locked the door behind me and surveyed the area, hoping to catch a glimpse of the criminal. I started my trek down the strip to find Andy and Leah and continuously tried reaching them on their cell phones, but I found out later that their cell phone weren't on them.


To wrap the story up, after searching for Andy and Leah down the strip at the Mud Festival for about an hour, I headed back to the motel room and there was Andy and Leah, Andy glaring at me because he had no idea what had happened- all they knew was that they couldn't get in our motel room, had been knocking on the door and woken up the neighbors. They knew something was wrong because I was completely sober, so I should have heard the pounding if I were inside the room.


So, after a night of craziness, and talking with the Korean police (which is usually a challenge enough in itself!), we went to bed that night with our hearts racing. Luckily, the robber had dropped Leah's wallet when I yelled at him and took none of our belongings. Leah and I went and got a mud facial the next day and felt a little more relaxed.


After these past two months of insanely coincidental incidences, I feel like we can handle anything! While all these things have happened, we still have to credit ourselves as extremely lucky! it could have been a lot worse. And, after all, it makes for a good story in the end! ;)


Cheers!


Check out our Mud Festival pictures at the following links:








Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Mud Festival

This past weekend was another terrific Korean experience, with the Mud Festival at Boryeong beach.

We got up nice and early to leave here at 7AM so we could catch the buses heading down at 8:30. Our tour included 5 buses and around 225 people, mostly from North America. There were 6 dudes on our bus who brought insulated backpack coolers with cases of MGD for the bus ride, and they start their drinking day at 8:30. And when they started, they didn't stop. That was a foreshadowing of the weekend to come.

We left at 9 and arrived at 'military training' around 12:00. There we were handed army pants and long-sleeved shirts and led down to a massive mud pit. The tide here goes out forever, well over 1km, and we were in the remains of the ocean for this part. It was really fun, consisting of mud wrestling, mud ball fights, and mud sliding.

One game called for volunteers to lay in a row and my brave/stupid ass decided it couldn't be that bad. Once they had 15 people lying there, everyone else was instructed to come and bury us. My last vision before I closed my eyes and parsed my lips was the biggest dude at the whole place gunning directly for me. (His belly hung below the one-size-fits-all shirts, which were big) The next thing I felt was a ball of mud bounce off my chest and splash directly up my nose. The 2nd was a mud ball land SQUARELY on my testes. In the words of Ron Burgandy, I immediately regretted that decision to get buried.

Unfortunately we didn't get any pictures of that part, but I don't think anybody had a clean spot on them.

From there we went to the beach, dropped our stuff at the hotel, and headed to the beach. The beach was absolutely rammed and it took a while to walk anywhere you needed to go. The festival was a little different than I expected, I thought it would be like the military training place where people were running and splashing in the mudsands when the tide went out. Instead it was normal beach activities, with mud stations where you could go and paint yourself with grey mud. I was also surprised that the festival has only been going on since 1998. I thought it was more traditional than that, and I'm amazed at how big its become in 10 years. It runs from July 14-22 and will have more than 1.4 million people visit.

We hung out with people we've met all over Korea on Saturday. Leah and Andy, Marois, Cyrus and Eamon from Incheon, Josh and his girlfried Michelle from Suwon area, and we saw Courtney from Laurier for the first time since we've been here because she lives on the south coast in Busan. We also met some Brits that Andy and Leah knew from a previous tour, Neil, Andy and his brother Richard. We met Jay, Steph and their friend Matt for dinner, watched some great fireworks, and ended up at yet another noraebang. I played the hell out of that tamborine though, ended up with a bruise that went from my thumb about halfway down to the base of my palm. But it was worth it to provide that rythem section!

After the great Saturday, Sunday was more subdued. We walked around to the various tents they had set up, sat on the beach for a while, pretty much just took it easy. We caught the bus at 4, those same guys drinking from the morning before were so loud and obnoxious for the better part of the 5 hour ride home.

We had a great time, although Kelly had to deal with some more drama. Unfortunately I was unconscious for the whole thing, so I'll let her tell the story in a later post.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Another Lil' Update

Helloie Everyone!

Well, we promised we would write more, so here we are.

This past weekend was yet another great weekend here in K-Town. The sun was shining, the smog was thick, and the company was fantastic. Seriously, though: it was a really good weekend.

Friday night it was Saveena's Goodbye party. Her boyfriend B-Rod, as mentioned in the last post, is staying at our school, but Tina's contact position was temporary, so she is at another branch now. We had a big party at an indoor galbi restaurant (korean barbeque) with our new and old foreign teacher friends, as well as some of the Korean teachers. We then decided to go back to Leah and Andy's, have some drinks and play some humerous games until almost 5am.

Saturday was a great day because, for the first time since we have been here, Ian and I chilled out ALL DAY. We just watched episode after episode of "the Office" and were quite content. Later that night, we dressed our best, and went to the Outback Steakhouse and realize that we have been here for exactly two months. Time flies!

Sunday, we decided to go to Dongdaemun which is unofficially the 'biggest shopping district in all of Asia.' We took a few pictures of gates that were built on the 1300's but we could not get any closer because it was made into an island, surrounded by streets with no way of getting to it. We actually got pretty frustrated in Dongdaemun because we couldn't find anything we were looking for, and many of the stores we approached were closed. Next time we go, we'll have to do a little more research! Next, we decided to go to Dongdaemun Stadium which is the home of a massive flea market named the "Pungmul Flea Market", otherwise known as the "Goblin" market. Our friend Leah has said many fantastic things about the Goblin market since day of being here, so we finally decided to check it out. All I have to say is, it is insane in there. Narrow aisle ways, tables after table of similar junk and old goodies, and people swarming in ever direction. We will definitely go back sometime and give ourselves a bit more time to rummage, but we did end up buying a really cute, fat Buddha statue for our coffee table! Ian then headed back home, in hopes of making our bi-weekly Plus Academy men's soccer game, while I headed to my favourite shopping district, Myeongdong. Let me tell you, the shopping here is fabulous. Carrie from Sex and the City would be in Heaven at the amount of cute shoes available, the handbags are adorable, and shirts rarely cost more then $4 to $9! To sum up our day for you, Ian didn't end up making it to soccer practice because none of the cab drivers knew how to get him to the filed, and we just made a huge spaghetti dinner and watched some more Office.

Pictures:! http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2095735&l=a9ee2&id=187905622

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

New semester begins

Hey everybody, glad to be back. Sorry we've been gone for a while, this whole blog thing still isn't part of our regular schedule. I promise we'll try to keep up on it.

First an update on who we hang out with in Korea, how we know them, and where they live.

Leah & Andy: Minnesotans living in the building across from us, working at the same branch. They've been here since our 1st day and have been awesome in helping us out. Our best friends here in K-town. What would we do without them? They enjoy a beer or 2-4 and Soju Jenja.
Jenn & Jeremy: Came from Columbus, OH, raised in the southern US, they live in a building across from us in the other direction and work at our branch. They were here last week for "training" (it was a joke week so they probably didn't learn a thing) and start the new semester with fresh classes. They are a little more experienced than us in life, both have masters degrees and Jeremy has 11 years of work experience under his belt. There is no real gap in our interests though, they like to have a good time and isn't that what life is about??
B-rod & Tina: He's Brad at our school for immigration reasons, but Rodnie by birth. B-rod can work anywere, so its stuck with us. They were substitutes at our school for June before Jenn & Jeremy arrived. Brad is here for another 2 months before a Laurier grad comes in September (Melissa King) and Tina is working at the Gireum branch for some special summer classes that are offered. They live in Sinchon, which is a good hour from where we are, but the spare bed has come in handy a few times as they aren't afraid to do what it takes to have a terrific night. Real gamers, these 2.
Mark & Julia: They live in Giruem, about 25 minutes from us by subway, and work at the Plus Academy branch there. They've been here from our beginning as well and they keep it real. They grew up in St. Catherines and were corrupted by the Western 'scene'. Honestly though, more fun than a barrel of monkeys.
Dylan & Naomi: New teachers at the Plus branch in Chang-Dong, which is 2 stops away from where we are, 15 minutes by bus perhaps. From Iowa (which I was politely reminded is NOT the potato state), they are on the same schedule as Jenn/Jer and we met them over a delicious Greek dinner last weekend. They seem like a good time too.
Rob, Ian, & other Topians: Topia is the biggest Hagwon in Korea, and the branch in our neighbourhood has 20-25 teachers. We met some of their posse at the beach a few weeks ago, and we run into them around Seoul on occasion. They really enjoy their lives, and there will be no shortage of parties for us to see more of them.
Matt Marois, Chris Aikens & their boys Ehmon & Cyrus: They live the exact opposite side of the subway line as us (at Incheon, near the airport), so it takes some special occasions for us to get together. We will be watching the race for 1st in the KBO closely between their SK Wyverns (honestly, the worst team name since the Salukis) and our Doosan Bears. For those that don't know, we know Matt & Chris from Laurier.
Joshman & Michelle: We have yet to meet Michelle, but from all accounts she's a real bombshell. Again, they live way away so coordinating something is tougher. Josh is from Laurier as well, Michelle is his Korean girlfriend.
Jay, his girlfriend Steph, & their crew: Another friend from Laurier and his girlfriend who is Minnesota-raised. We met them in the foreigners district a few weeks ago and had a blast, they live in Suwon where my boy Justin and his girl Erin are coming in a few weeks. We can go down there and visit 3 different groups (Josh, Jay, Justin are all in the same area) soon enough, which will be cool. Get 2 birds stoned at once.

Absent from the list are Anne & Colin, who lived just 1 stop away from us in Nowon and are also Western grads. Mark & Julia met them while here, they got to talking about became very close. They are back to the Ajax area (I assure you there are justifiable reasons for them to return to Ajax) and their good nature won't be easy to replace. Just terrific people in all respects.

Aren't we popular? I go to sleep every night thinking about how many friends we have, it is the best feeling in the world. You should really try to experience it sometime....

A new semester is underway at all Plus locations as of Monday the 2nd. It will be nice for Kelly and I to have our own classes from the beginning and see what causes some of the bad kids. Some of them are respectful by nature, are anxious to learn and want to have a good time while doing it. Some, on the other hand, view time with their foriegn teachers as free time and can't be controlled at all.

It is understandable in a way, since many of these kids work their tails off. English Academy (us), along with science, math, music, dance, Japanese, and other academies occupy these kids lives. Most don't have all of those, but many have 4 difference tutors they see a week, in addition to their regular school. When you consider that they may have English for 2.5 hours 3 times a week, it can get pretty busy. Add to that the homework they receive from them all, and it's hairier than Chewbacca. Some of these kids are running on 5-6 hours of sleep a night. Some hate Sundays (their only day off from school) because they spend it all on homework. A VERY competitive country, this Korea.

I have learned that when I yell I smile, which really doesn't help keep the kids in line. Anger really isn't something that is common in my everyday life, so I need to work on that emotion. I need more Dick Chaney in my life, that guy has anger absolutely perfected.

That should be enough for now. That's why I don't blog often, because when I do I write so damn much that I can't imagine anyone can possibly make it through the entire thing. I will do more frequent, less verbose postings from now on. Until then.

Recent Pictures:

Classroom Pictutes and Itewan Pictures: http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2093068&l=1ba83&id=187905622
Anne and Colin's Goodbye Party: http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094191&l=8b7a6&id=187905622
The Rest of Canada Day Weekend: http://wluca.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2094194&l=1a079&id=187905622