more of the same

flashback to friday night.

a big white kid with a stupid grin is skateboarding through crowded subway stations. the stark and awed faces of hundreds of koreans. old men scorning, old women hardly moving. nods of approval from a few likeminded souls. giggles from the younger female crowd. kings of leon blasting from headphones, the song "trani" comes on and everything dissappears. you could call this bliss, or nirvana. those in the recreation field know it as Flow.

exit stage left onto a crowded bundang street.

the twang of a guitar, youth and young manhood. flashforeward. the lyrics "dirty belly of my secret town, cheap trick hookers are hanging out at the bar by the greyhound station" singing dolefully from somewhere.

the taptaptap of wheels on a brick sidewalk. a breeze tickles the hair on the back of my neck. a sway in my movements on the sidewalk turning into a swagger with my board. im dancing. and everyone walking along this road is dancing with me, weather they want to or not. weather they know it or not. the twanging in my head picks up. a shiver runs up my back from pure excitement, a green light at a crosswalk just in time. the nights calling to me, and im smirking in her face.

those of you that know me well know exactly what the glint in my eye means.

tonights going to be fun.


i drop my stuff at elizabeths. enjoy a few adult beverages, a soju for the road. and then on a bus to patricks going away party at gogo's. let me preface this by saying that as one of less than 5 straight guys at the party, gogo's is an awesome bar, even if you ignore the smell, the shit part of town, the constant barrage of drunks. it really is a fun place. we stormed the dancefloor, and i did my best to keep up...for the next 6 hours. around 4:15 it was time to turn in...pooling money for the 30 dollar cab, we crammed in and fell asleep. around 5 we were back at elizabeths and determined to sleep.

have you ever blacked out? or as i like to say time traveled?

i fell asleep so fast at elizabeths it could have set a world record.


The next day was pretty chill, alot of hydration, a few much needed pancakes, some skating around bundang. then a shower and off to a restruant around the AK Plaza. The nice part about the resturant was it was all you can eat and drink until 9:30. Talk about brilliant. or talk about disaster. however you look at it. Then off to itawon. A few different bars, innumerable conversations, laughing at the drunks, and some of the best street food on the planet. we then called it a night.

woke up the sunday feeling great with amanda, elizabeth and ryan and headed to a pub for breakfast. a word to the wise. no matter how hungover you are, when you order breafast and it comes with a cup of coffee, a guiness, and a shot of jameson. you can say goodbye to your hangover.

after some conversation, a few recounts of the evening and possibly one more guiness, i hopped on a train and made it back to Siheung City just in time to catch a law and order svu marathon. and in bed by 9:00.

i love this life.



to everyone reading this. please please please. come visit me. words can hardly describe how awesome this place is.

im awaiting your flight info.

Another week down...50 to go.

So as my 2nd week is quickly coming to a close i have started to notice a few things about my surroundings and my co-workers.

For starters, i never get to talk at lunchtime with the other teachers until the vice principal asks me the same question that he has asked me every single day since i got here which is "what you eat breakfast?" and since i have had the same thing every day i give him the same answer...eggs, toast, and an apple, yet for some reason he asks this every day like clockwork. then after that it is open forum for the other staff to ask me really random questions, most of which are in korean. They know i do not speak korean, yet they ask anyway like im going to suddenly understand what in the hell it is that they are aking. Like today one of them asked if i play volleyball....its already a pretty random question, let alone the fact that it was in korean.

I really like my co-workers, dont get me wrong, they are kind, helpful, and overall pleasant people to be around, its just that sometimes they make me feel like i am on display at a zoo, or a western culture museum. This probably has something to do with the fact that I am only the third westerner that they have had working for them in the history of the school and from what i have been told about my predicessors is that they were not exactly cut out for the job, nor did they maintain any professionalism within the their working or social lives.

Another thing that i have noticed is that their diet is almost entirely carbs. I wonder how everyone both male and female are so skinny because they eat nothing but carbs and veggies, (very little meat in any given meal...except seafood...way too much weird seafood). Take todays meal for example there was rice ("pop" in korean), a potato dish similar to hash browns with a little bit of pork in it, a side of noodles with a spaghetti"ish" sauce to it, soup with tofu and cabbage, and turnip kimchi (not as gross as normal kimchi, but not far). so thats rice, potato, noodles, and tofu....or carbs, carbs, carbs, and protien and carbs mixed.
Its a good thing i have been running everyday.

Finally one of the things that has bothered me the most since i have been here is the ammount of pollution everywhere. By comparison Korea is much cleaner than all its neighbors (with the exception of Japan) yet i was on my run yesterday and saw a man burning a pile of old truck tires...not only was it one of the worst smells i have ever encountered, the air is very stagnant sometimes in the valley that i live in and the smoke was so thick i couldnt finish my run, due to the fact that i couldnt breathe. Another aspect of the life here that you have to get used to is the Yellow Fog. Due to the wind patterns here, there is (most of the time) a breeze that blows from west to east, it starts over russia somewhere and then when it crosses northern china and mongolia, specifically the Gobi Desert, it picks up tons of fine particulates of sand and carries them...along with the massive ammount of pollution from northern chinas industrial districts directly into Korea. Thus every day you can look out to the west and see a yellow haze in the distance, making visability less than a few miles, on a good day. Yet on a bad day...it is tough to see the apartment buildings on the other side of the highway near our school (about 300 yards away).

While this country is beautiful in a way that is totally different than the US, it seems that we both have the same problem with placing "progress" before anything else.

Ok, im going to get off my soapbox and go do a few lesson plans, so that i can go home, go on a run, and then possibly enjoy an adult beverage before i fall asleep.

Peace out!

my first week

so. where to begin. after my excursion friday night things started to go a little bit more my way. sat morning came with my journey to meet elizabeth, and while i ment to get on the bus to Bucheon, i missed it and hopped on the one to Ansan instead, both had subway stations so i figured what the hell? after a pretty long trip across the southern half of seoul, i managed to find Seohyeon station on the Bundang line and met with liz and started my first journey into seoul. We first went to Itaewon and met with some of her friends because they needed to do some shopping, then went and had dinner with alot of other foreigners where i med a few people from app! Then after a couple of rounds of drinks, some mexican food (chilichili?) and a few more drinks we went out to cause some trouble. I could recount all the bars we went into, or Ryan talking to a 92 year old prostitute, or how i made some canadians angry by implying that they were from manitoba, but thats all in the details. the point is that i had a blast and made some new friends, and cannot wait to go back out with them soon.
overall i would say the weekend was a success.

First Friday

To sum up a day.

So i started out missing a bus. Then i made up for it by finding my way home. I taught 3 lessons, did 2 lesson plans, and sat around for an hour waiting for my workday to end.

Then the fun began.

I spoke with elizabeth, and we were to meet up and go out for drinks with a number of other people in Seoul. And here we go.

So after getting directions, working my way to the Siheung City hall and waiting for the bus to take me an hour across Seoul, i attempted to find out how to transfer to my next bus only to sit on the 32 bus for two hours and realize that the transfer did not exist, then i fell down and ripped my pants, cut my ass on an old bus seat and stumbled out of the bus half a mile from my house in the rain....having missed the opportunity to meet up with liz and her friends.

You would think i would be angry right?

dead wrong.

Its supposed to be an adventure right?

So once i stumbled out of the bus into the rain, (which is it just me or does korean rain smell like rotten shrimp? probably just me) i happened to take refuge under a small canopy which to my suprise was a small 5 seat bar in my town. Of the 3 long walks i have taken around the area i live i have never noticed it. Was it random luck to find an empty bar when its pouring down shrimp rain, i think not, because the bartender (a quaintly cute young korean girl around my age) happened to be a liverpool supporter, and a tar heels fan. you have to be shitting me.

after a few oat sodas, and a hasty walk home while the rain died down i stopped in a chicken shack outside my apt. Now if you have ever had mexican fried chicken in korea. i recomend it. It is definatly fried. Its for sure chicken. Now which parts of the chicken...i have no idea.

An hour later here i am drinking a cold bottle of CASS Fresh, which by the label is "the sound of vitality," enjoying myself, writing this, and enjoying my weekend.

like i said, its supposed to be an adventure right?

and through the open window, the constant smell of shrimp.


now im off to watch dubbed american movies in korean, and enjoy another bottle of CASS.

adios, or should i say...

an-nyong-hi kye-se-yo!

here we go

I am adjusting quickly....or trying to. I usually catch the bus to and from work and it cost about a dollar per ride, but today i got on the wrong bus and ended up an hour from work with no idea where i was...total fiasco, i was so stressed that i worked up the biggest zit you have ever seen on my cheek...damn thing is the size of a golf ball, and im not even joking. although it took me almost 2 hours to get back to work and 3 bus transfers...i did it, which i am very very proud of myself for doing. overall the food is getting more palatable, and with my first weekend coming up i am looking forward to getting out and seeing more of my town.

I am going to put a list of things that i need sent over on this blog, so all you reading can send me little gifts now and then.... but not quite yet.

everyone that reads this, I wish you the best. Keep in touch. and if you can swing it, buy a ticket and get your ass over here! i have plenty of room.

love you all.

First Post.

This is my first post and really just a test to see if it works.