So much to do, so little time!

My blog has become a bit quiet. Sorry about that. Perhaps I'm not a writer, or perhaps I've been preoccupied with other things. Perhaps a bit of both.

The past two months have been going well, albeit very, very cold. It's finally getting warmer and I couldn't be happier. I did go snowboarding twice, which was great. Coming to Korea, I basically gave up on the idea of hitting the slopes but turns out Koreans love racing down the mountain almost as much as I do. I went to Yongpyong Ski Resort, which is the largest resort in the country. I also went to Vivaldi Ski park on Lunar New Year weekend, which was cool but the park was the smallest one I've been to in my life.

I'm not an expert snowboarder by any means but compared to most Koreans, I'm Shaun White (he won gold for us in halfpipe). The mountains they have here are nothing compared to what we have back home. I'm attaching a few pics for your viewing pleasure.







Right before I left for the Philippines, I was Santa for all the kindergarten students at my school. They loved it! I wore shades so that they wouldn't be able to tell who I was.

What else. I'm playing ball hockey now with a bunch of waygooks (Korean for foreigners). I've never played hockey before, so I've got a lot of learning to do. It's pretty fun, a great work out, and so far I love it. Below is a video from the rookie only game. This was all the first timers playing, with the captains of each team scouting us out to later draft the players they want. Check out cbhk.org for info on the league.



One of my best friends has decided to move to Korea and become a teacher, which is great news for me. I lived with Joe for three years while in college and having a good friend here will only make living in Korea better. Here's another video he took of us eating galbi. I eat at this restaurant at least once a week. We call it Chuck's Beef Strips. The owner's name is difficult to pronounce for us, so I asked him if I could give him an English name. He was all for it and after some careful thought, I gave him the name Chuck because he reminds me of Chuck Norris. He's well built, stocky, and can probably kick some butt, just like Chuck Norris. The name caught on and everyone I know that goes here calls him Chuck.



There's plenty of other things to write about but I have to go. 'Til next time!

The Philippines!

Happy New Year to everyone! This year, I had the opportunity to spend Christmas and ring in the new year on the tropical island of Boracay. The island, one of over 7,000 in the Philippines, was voted one of the most beautiful in the world by Yahoo travel and I can attest to its ranking being so high. This place was great.

I left Seoul with 8 other friends on Christmas eve and landed in Manila an hour before the 25th. I booked a hostel near the airports for us, which cost $5.70 for the night per person. We spent the night there and flew out of the domestic airport for the town of Kalibo, which was about an hour's flight from Manila. After landing, we took an hour and a half bus ride to the port of Caticlan. Caticlan actually has a little landing strip, but its been closed down due to a landing accident a few weeks ago. This is according to the Filipino man I was sitting next too. Apparently, domestic flights don't have the same safety measures as international flights. Not the most reassuring thing to hear, but whatever, when have I ever been afraid of something like a little airplane flight.

Once we got to the ferry terminal, we were directed away from the port to the "luxury private" ferry boat. There was nothing luxurious about this thing. Basically, if you want to get to Boracay, you have to take a little ferry, which is half built from bamboo poles, for a 15 minute ride. Boracay isn't very far from the main island (I wasn't able to figure out what constitutes a main island) but there are no bridges going here. Transportation is very water based. After hitting the beach in our ferry boat, we had to jump into the water, with our luggage over our heads, and wade on over to the beach. There, we hired a van/truck/vehicle thing. I felt like a sardine sitting in the back of this windowless, bumpy, third world truck. The van dropped me, Jon, and Kevin off at our hostel, Trafalgar Cottages. The girls decided to get a hostel with AC. Being the rugged men that we are, we thought an $8/night room would be just fine. Anyway, the hostel owner was a really nice British lady (Trafalgar...can you make the connection?) who met her Filipino husband while volunteering for the UN in Africa. After unloading our stuff in our room, we met up with the rest of our group and had a predictably fantastic seafood themed dinner. Unpredictably, we had this at a Mexican restaurant, which was recommended by the girls' hostel owner, who was from New Zealand.

Boracay is a pretty small island, about 9 km in length and only about 1 km across. White beach is the main beach, which stretches for almost the entire length of the island on the side that is protected from the ocean winds. The sand is absolutely wonderful and doesn't get hot in the sun at all. The water, a perfectly cool, clear, and refreshing temperature, could not have been better. Wading around on the beach knee deep, I could see tropical fish swimming around me.

A few things that really struck me over the course of this 8 day adventure was how nice Filipinos were. No one would bump into me, jump in front of me while waiting in line for something, or rush me like people often do in fast-paced Seoul. In addition to speaking Tagalog, Filipinos also speak English, which was convenient and a nice change from the charades I've grown accustomed to in Korea when trying to get my point across. The people are much poorer though, compared to Korea or the US. I got to see where the locals live, and a lot of these homes seemed like places I could build with my own two hands. Definitely a different world.

Another thing that was surprising but really cool was how diverse all of the vacationers were. There were people from all over the world. I met people from Norway, France, Russia, UK, Korea, Germany, Australia, South Africa, Poland and overheard Indians, Africans, South Americans. The majority of people vacationing on the island were non-Filipinos.

One of the days, we went to a beach called Bulabog Beach, which apparently is one of the most famous beaches in the world for kite surfing. The sport, which I had never seen before, consists of a snowboard like board strapped to a persons feet and a parachute pulling the body across the water. Bulabog beach is on the opposite side of white beach and has strong winds, which is perfect for the sport. There were literally hundreds of kite boarders surfin' up a storm. We just stood in awe watching the action for over an hour before finally moving on, it was that cool. I was told the sport is very difficult and believe it, based on the couple of brave souls clearly still attempting to control the free-willing parachutes doing what they please.

One side note: Korean tourists were the easiest to spot on the island. Boracay is a popular destination for Koreans, especially for newlyweds. I've learned that once in a relationship, Korean women pretty much dress their men from head to toe. Vacation gear entails wearing matching outfits, which was pretty funny to us. Peace signs are ubiquitous when taking pictures. I also saw a Korean girl driving an ATV crash into a parked moped. Hilarity ensued.

I took an island hopping tour one of the days with my group of friends and a couple other teachers we ran into that were mutual friends. The tour consisted of going to an island that had some caves to explore, a nice beach, snorkeling, another island with an all you can eat seafood buffet, some more snorkeling, and then back to White Beach. While coming to our second snorkeling spot, we asked our guides if it was deep enough to dive. We were told that of course its deep enough, dive right in. Turned out it wasn't, as I got a nice cut on my foot from the coral reef right below the boat. Apparently, corals grow under a persons skin so I had to clean out my wound that night, which turned out to be a bit of nuisance. Be careful where you dive! (my foot is fine now)

There is only one road on Boracay, that runs the length of the island, which is full of tuk-tuks running around. These things were great. A tuk-tuk is simply a moped with a side car attached that will fit as many people as are willing to get on. Safety didn't really seem like a priority, which Jon experienced first hand when he fell off of one them. I had never been on one of these before but I can't wait to get on one again!

I don't know if I'll ever be able to beat the new years I had. There were fireworks along the entire stretch of White Beach that lasted for about half an hour. Very memorable.

We left Boracay at the horrible hour of 4am on January 2nd. This time, we were able to use the official port and didn't have to go into the water...getting onto the ferry boat. Getting off was a different story. I don't know what happened, but the ferry couldn't get close enough to the shore for whatever reason and we were about 25 meters away from dry land. Jon and I were the last two to get off the boat and when I stepped out of the enclosed passenger area, I had to rub my eyes because I couldn't believe what I was witnessing. Everyone that had been on the boat was being carried by little Filipino men on their shoulders. Since we were still kind of far out, there were skinny and what looked like malnourished men in their 50's hoisting people, which held their luggage above their heads, onto their shoulders and walking them to shore. I couldn't help but laugh. A kind looking man tugged on my arm, directing me to jump onto his shoulders. I looked at him in disbelief and said "thank you, but I don't want to break your back". He tugged on my arm harder but I just went ahead and jumped into the water. The man was probably 5'2" and 130 pounds! A little water never hurt anyone, so Jon and I were the only ones that waded to the shore on our own two feet. This last ferry experience was probably my favorite part of the entire trip.

The travel back to Korea went without hiccups, and before I knew it, I was back in Korea. Cold, snowy, freezing, Korea. The weather went from 33 degrees Celsius to -15. This January has seen the largest snow fall since Korea started recording weather. And it is soooooo cold here. It hit -20 Celsius a couple of times. It feels like someone punches you in the lungs when stepping outside.

On another note, a friend of mine from Seattle visited. We both worked on a final GIS project in Geography my senior year and have since become pretty good acquaintances. He now works for a Korean bank in Seattle and came here for business but crashed at my place. He is actually Korean-American, having emigrated with his family to Washington when he was 5 years old.

Below are some pictures from my trip.

The people I went with at the airport on Christmas day. 4 Americans, 5 Canadians.

This is the "luxury" ferry boat we took to Boracay.

The crew on the way to the island.

Boracay sand castle

Seafood!

Paradise

Tuk-tuks

Bulabog beach

Snorkeling

Ice cream man coming out to our snorkeling boat

Filipino kids dancing on the boat and singing a Korean pop song!

A cave on one of the islands

Island hoping

Pretty nice

The view from a ferry boat

The sunsets were unreal

White beach

My buddy Yo (that's his name) visiting from Seattle

Ho-ho-ho, I'm a Gorilla?

Christmas time is near and the festive spirit can be felt in the air in Seoul, but no where near what its like in America. At school the other day, I joked to my second grade class that if they didn't do all of their homework, I would call Santa Claus and rat 'em out. No cool Christmas presents this year kids! The moment they heard this threat, a reaction occurred that I really did not expect. These kids are 8 year olds, and they still believe in a Santa! They wanted to know how I knew him, what he was like, does he really speak Korean, was I lying (I reassured them I met him personally in Finland), if he could please bring them a Nintendo DS/some Pokemon toy/a new cell phone (most of the toys were heavily technology based. Each kid here has a cell phone), and other questions I can't remember. I then asked them, how does he get into your apartments on Christmas Eve? One of the girls exclaimed "through the chimney!", but before I could help direct my question another kid blurted out "but we don't have chimneys here! Does he know our apartment codes?" After some discussion amongst my little pupils, the consensus was that Old Saint Nick does in fact know their apartment codes.

The next day, I had one of other teachers call me on my cell phone because I had told the second graders that I have Santa's cell phone number. When they saw it was "Santa Claus" on the caller ID, they had to talk to him. "Santa" reminded them that not completing their English homework would result in last year's Samsung or LG toy instead of this years cool, new one. Needless to say, the students are looking forward to Christmas. One thing to note is that my third graders did not fall for my knowing Santa. I guess that's about the age where they realize Santa is in the same boat as Spiderman, Superman, and King Kong; they don't exist.

Which leads me to another thing. I've been called a lot of things by my students in my short tenure as a teacher. Here they are, in no particular order (all of these are typically screamed by kids):

* Supermaaaaan! (A fellow teacher told a group of Kindergartners that's what I actually am. They're 5 year olds. haha)
* Chinaman! Chinaman! (why? I have no idea)
* Koreaman! Koreaman! (I told a few of them I can speak Korean. When 'proved' it by saying a few phrases, I had them convinced I'm actually a Korean in disguise)
* Gorillaman! or Monkeyman! (I have a slight beard right now, and this is a big deal since I'm told its harder for Korean men to grow facial hair. The kids are terrified of touching my facial hair. On the other hand, they love to come and 'pet' my arm hair. For some odd reason, they can't get enough of this. When it was still warm and I wore shorts, they loved pulling on my leg hair.)
* Ajashi! Ajashi! (In Korean, Ajashi is a term for a married man. Now, why they call me this? No clue. I think it might be the facial hair.)
* Pom-Pom (A Cat's name from a book we read in a Kindergarten class)
* Oookraeeen! (Ukraine. Two of my kindergartner's are moving to Ukraine in January because of their father's work. I'm not sure what he does, but these are not poor kids, so I imagine they'll be doing well in Ukraine. Also, talk about coincidence)

These are but a few of the nicknames I've heard. I'm sure there will be more.

We are taking pictures will all of our students to send to their parents as Christmas cards. Here are two pics with two of my favorite Kindergarten students.
Dorothy

Edward

BTW, my fourth graders are NOT as cute as these little people. :)

Being thankful

I've past the three month mark of living in Korea. This is the longest I've been out of the United States in my life (besides Ukraine, of course). A few things I want to update the blog about, including Thanksgiving.

Seeing how this is my first Thanksgiving away from home, the other teachers and I got together to celebrate Turkey day. In preparation for the day, each person was to prepare a dish for this potluck dinner of ours. The week before, I went to one of the six Costco stores in Korea. Inside, the place was nearly identical to the Costcos in America. The main differences were that there were two levels and half of the food being sold was food no one would be interested in at home. Frozen octopus tentacles sold in bulk probably wouldn't sell like hot cakes.

We decided Chicken would have to be the Turkey substitute because a frozen Turkey costs about $70 here, and a ready-to-go chicken is less than $7. We got three and a pumpkin pie. For the dinner, I decided to make the Ukrainian version of potato salad, Olivye. We also had mashed potatoes, Ceasar salad, glazed carrots, stuffing, fruit salad, deviled eggs, bruschetta bread, steamed broccoli, and lots of chicken. For not having any ovens to work with, the dinner turned out fantastic.

This is the "family" away from home.


Last weekend, I went to a Korean co-worker's wedding. The wedding was held at a building specifically for weddings and was incredibly nice. Chloe, who is about 30 years old, met her husband while studying English in California. The reception was very short, lasting only about 25 minutes, but that was fine since everything was in Korean. We were able to take a picture with the bride, although as you can see I stick out like a giant compared to Ellie, another co-worker of mine.

The ceremony was an "American" style event that really didn't seem much different from anything back home. The most notable difference was the mothers and grandmothers wearing traditional Korean dresses. Other than that, the most notable difference was that it was all in Korean.

Natalie, Becky, and I were the three that went to the wedding.



The reception was held in the same building and was surprising in its elegance and level of sophistication. The catered, seven course meal consisted of raw tuna, shrimp, mashed potatoes, steak, salad, and desert. There were people that came out and spoke about the couple, sang songs, and said their wishes. All in all, I was honored to be there.

A nine year old's essay

The following are short essays some of my nine year old students wrote for a weekly test. The instructions are to summarize the story "Montigue of the High Seas", a story we covered the week before.

"In big hole the mole is live. Mole name is montigue. One day montigue's home is flood. So montigue is flow to sea. And He is went ship. Then He find a new home. It is good home."

"On day montigue's house is swept. So He hide a bootle and He start adventure He met a mice and made a ship and. They are start adventure. On day they see a ground and live together."

"The main Character is Montigue. Montigue is mog, Montigue live in hole. Montige's home is at afternoon it's cool, and at evening, it's warm. One day, ..."

These are pretty average essays. Some kids have better writing skills while others are worse, so this is to give you a taste of the level of English I'm working with. There is still work to be done.

Getting chilly!

It's been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. I'm in month three of living in Seoul and I think the honeymoon period has finally worn off. I'll talk about a few highlights that have happened over the past month.

On Halloween weekend, together with Kevin, we went to a city about 45 minutes south of Seoul called Daejeon. This town is known as the silicon valley of Korea but that's not why we went there for the weekend. Ultimate frisbee is pretty big with the foreign community here, I wanted to try it out, and this weekend Daejeon was hosting a tournament for English speakers. Ultimate is a game that is similar to soccer and football, but played with a frisbee. Kev and I left our neighborhood around 5:30am, took a cab to the KTX train terminal, where we met a few other guys that were going as well. KTX is Korea's high speed rail service that was very comfortable and quick. These trains go up to 350 km/h! We got to the fields, which were on the bank of a river, around 9am and prepared for a day of frisbee. About 50 to 60 people showed up and we played the entire day. I got a chance to meet a lot of new people from all over the world, with people from the states, Canada, UK, New Zealand, Australia, etc.

Around 11:00am, two Korean businessmen showed up with a bunch of goodies for all of us. These included cases of vitamin water (which are small bottles that people drink for sole purpose of having more vitamins and staying healthy), snacks, drinks, etc. We took a break at noon to each some lunch but were all asked to listen to the what the two men had to say. They provided the drinks and food, so it was the least we could do. The two men in the shiny suits turned out to be representatives from a local pharmaceautical company looking to advertise a new miracle drug their company manufactures. Everything they said went through a interperter (one of the Korean Americans playing ultimate with us) and a few things may have been lost in translation, but what happened I have never seen or experienced before.

They began by asking us if we had ever heard of their company, a name which now I do not remember. The guy translating told us to just say yes, which we obediently did, much to the joy of the Korean men. They proceeded to tell us they were here today because they would like to share this new pill that will revolutionize the world. Before telling us what it does, they asked us what the number one cause of death in the United States is today. It was decided heart disease is the most common problem (I'm pretty sure that's right...), and we were told that with this new drug, heart disease will become a thing of the past. The representatives with the wonder drug asked us if we knew that smoking and drinking also is bad for one's health. A couple of the guys smoking cigarettes responded that this is just liberal propaganda engineered by Obama and the like (the irony didn't quite transfer to the Korean men as expected).

Anyways, they revealed that this drug will help lower cholesterol, decrease the chance of liver failure, help quell stomach problems, improve skin, etc. When someone asked if it cures Aids, they said it has not been proven that it does but that it might. At this point, everyone is chuckling to themselves and making jokes about this pill. The reps finally asked if any of us would like to try the drug, since they brought samples with them. A few brave souls decided to give the thing a shot and popped a few pills. One of the guys said his stomach wasn't doing too well but the drug was supposed to make him feel normal in about a half hour. Here's a pic of the man presenting the pill.


It was at this point that one of the representatives pulled out a block of styrofoam form his suitcase and announced that he would like to show us first hand what the drug does to clogged arteries in our body. He punctured the liquid gelcap pill and poured one out onto the inch thick styrofoam. Within five seconds, the liquid created a hole an inch and half in diameter. Everyone was stunned. This is what this thing does!? One of the guys, a brit, that took two pills (you're supposed to take one) was not pleased and let everyone know what his thoughts were, using British style curse words and word 'bloody' quite a bit. Part of the reason for this is because the reps said one of the side effects of this drug is Viagra like (this was revealed after people popped the pills). The reps then showed us a half full water bottle, threw in a few chunks of styrofoam, and then one of the wonder pills. After shaking the bottle up, the styrofoam was gone within half a minute. The name of this drug, btw, is Pine Needle Plus and has yet to be released on the market. We were told it should be approved by the Korean equivalent FDA next year sometime. And in case you're wondering, the guys that took the pills turned out fine in the end.

After a full day of Ultimate, everyone headed for the motels, or "love" motels as they are called here, due to their romantic aura and themes. Apparently, regular motels do not exist in Korea, they are all called "love" motels. After changing and showering, Kevin, Vinnie (a guy from Montreal I've befriended), and I headed to the dinner party/halloween party. People dressed up a lot more than I expected (I wore a pig snout and a face mask, otherwise known as swine flu). The coolest costume went to two Korean American girls that set up a bars representing a jail in the restaurant, that were 'saved' by a guy dressed up as Bill Clinton waltzing in and breaking them out of 'North Korea'.

Being on the topic of Halloween, the foreign staff at work also dressed up for Halloween, which our students absolutely loved. We had Jon as a cowboy, Kevin struck by lightning (although his students called him Grandpa), Ian as an elf, Liz as a detective/sherlock holmes, and three cats. Halloween isn't as big in Korea as it is in the states, but some people do dress their kids up. All of the apartments have security doors, so I don't think there was any trick or treating.


Moving on to a different topic, work for the past three weekdays has been a joke. The reason being, the school has been kid free. No kids! They've been ordered to stay at home because of recent swine flu outbreak in a few of the classes, so hopefully the spread of the virus will slow down. All of the teachers still have to show up for work, but there is only so much lesson planning to do. Some hagwons have shut down for a week or more, without pay for the teachers but fortunately for us, we will still be paid.

On November 11th, it was Pepero day in Korea. This is a holiday that is similar to Valentine's day, but seems like a clever way for companies looking to sell more Pepero's, which are pretty much Pocky sticks that come from Japan. The sweets are simply cookie sticks dipped in chocolate. People give Peperos to friends, loved ones, and teachers! I got a note and some peperos from one of my students. The note reads "Hello ~ teacher. I am sally. You are very friendly. and nice. I think you are good teacher. have a nice day!" A lot of the teachers received similar notes and Peperos from their students. Needless to say, I feel that Pepero day should be implemented in the states.

Another interesting anecdote happened about a week ago or so. Kevin and I decided to branch out a bit and find a new place to eat at after work. We walked a few streets over from ours and walked down a random bright lit, crowded, scooter screaming, pedestrian unfriendly, sign infested street, which is like every other street in Seoul . I saw a place with a picture of bbq chicken strips and a barbecue grill outside. We let the owner know that we would like an order of bbq chicken and pointed to the large picture with what looked like bbq chicken strips. He asked, in broken English, if we would like boneless or bone chicken. Boneless. No bone. Bone 'aniyo' (no in Korean). How could this possibly go wrong? How could one possibly go wrong with boneless chicken you may be thinking to yourself? Well, the plate that the owner set in front of us took a while to figure out. We couldn't believe what was in front of us. After half a minute of pocking and touching the food with our chopsticks, we realized that we had about 50 or so chicken feet. I'm talking about skinny chicken talons. The three claws and the foot that a chicken uses to walk around with. No meat. All bone, cartilage, and skin, smothered in barbecue sauce. BTW, the owner is hovering above us the whole time, waiting for us to take our first bite. We had no choice and had a talon each, which to put it simply, was unpleasant. The sauce, although tasting similar to what buffalo wings are coated with in America, were tear producing. But the main challenge was chewing through the cartilage and skin, plus, there was absolutely no meat. After about 10 minutes of awkward pocking and moving around of the stuff in front of us, we politely paid and fled. Unfortunately for us, our stomachs were not happy with these foreign chicken feet and both of us got to know bathrooms very well that night. I'm all about trying new food, but dakbal, which is what these things are called in Korea, will not be on my to do list anytime soon.

Fall has been fantastic weather wise, but the past week has brought chilly air to the area, apparently from the God forbidden freeze-land called Siberia. Winters are very cold here, but the good thing is that buildings are heated through the floor. Instead of electrically heated air being pushed into a building, floors are heated by water pipes that lie underneath. Hot water circulates through the pipes, heating the floor, thus heating the apartment.

I'll finish the post with a picture from the COEX Aquarium, which is in COEX mall, supposedly the largest in all of Asia. "Creepy but Okay, Thanks Earthworms!"

Climbing mountains

The past few weeks have seen a change in temperature and its safe to say that fall has arrived in Korea. That's fine though, because now is the best time to sight see.

Last weekend I went paintballing with a fellow teacher from my school through adverturekorea.com. We went out into a forest, northwest of Seoul, with 50 or so other foreigners. Everyone was pumped to shoot some guns and have some healthy battles. It was a little shocking to see so many trees and breath fresh air, seeing how it has been over a month now that I've last had a deep breath of Washington air.

Paintballing was a whole lot of fun, lasting about 3 hours. The games included team elimination and capture the flag, starting with 25 vs. 25 and dropping in size to 5 vs. 5 at the very end.


This past Saturday, together with four other people, I made a hike to the top of Mt. Bukhansan, about an hour and half from where I live. The mountain nestles right against Seoul, but to the northwest of the city, whereas I live in the southeast. I had no idea before coming here, but Koreans are obsessed with hiking. South Korea is covered with mountains, taking up about 70% of the land, so there is no shortage of trails to tackle. But these people take it to a professional level, wearing the latest hiking clothes, backpacks with hiking poles, and everything else that comes along with climbing Mt. Everest. During the weekends, Seoulites flee the city to get some exercise and spend time in Buddhist temples littered all over these mountains.

The hike started simple enough, a steady but gradual climb up with lots of other hikers. The first half hour was spent weaving through tiny streets sandwitched between korean barbecue stands and little restaurants. Eventually, we were making our way up, enjoying the changing colors that fall brings to the trees. Whenever we took breaks, Koreans would stop to talk to us, practice their English, and brag about their children and their accomplishments. One elderly couple, that had spent 15 years living in Philadelphia, beamed about their son scoring perfectly on the SAT's and graduating from Carnegie Mellon. I guess parents are the same the world over; they love their kids, especially if they have something to brag about.

After about 3 hours of an increasingly vertical climb, using a cable as the only thing keeping us from falling down the steep slope, we made it to the top, 830 meters above sea level, 4 kilometers from the bottom to the top. The view was absolutely breathtaking and unlike anything I've ever seen. The city of Seoul and its suburbs seemed to stretch endlessly, only to be curbed by other mountains. The pictures don't serve justice to the amazing experience of being on top of this mountain. Needless to say, I'm going to hiking again soon.

This is the mountain at the start of the hike.

A description for ya

These food stands are all over Korea, and this trail was no exception. This lady was making some sort of pork bbq and dumplings on skewers. I'm trying lots of new food with mixed success. Unfortunately, even my stomach can't always process everything...gotta be careful.

These are kimchi pots. The pots stay outside and ferment for a few weeks or months until they are ready to be served!

One of the Buddhist temples we saw along the way.

The inside of the temple. I've been told Koreans come to these to meditate during their hikes. No one was inside when I looked.

A part of Seoul.

It was really windy and cold at the peak. The pole behind us is a South Korean flag waving in the wind.

Near the top.


I uploaded two short videos from the hike.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om28ifJ_vNo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6l4YEfUzvq8

After the hike, we went to TGI Fridays because a few of us have been missing American food (myself being one of those people). It was like being right at home! Burgers, quesadillas, mac and cheese bites, etc. They even split the bill, which is the first time I've ever seen it dong in Korea.

I went to an English speaking church, Jubilee Church, with two of the girls from my hagwon on Sunday. Everyone there was in their 20's and 30's and it really wasn't very different from modern non-denominational churches back home. A band playing and leading worship and one sermon, led by a Korean-American that grew up in Philadelphia. Half of the people there were Korean-Americans and the other half were regular Americans/Canadians/westerners teaching English here. There are other churches here that have English services. The next one I plan on checking out is the largest church in the world in membership.

A few last tidbits. Don't write a Korean's name using a red-ink pen, its considered bad luck, as I found out at school today. Also, having facial, arm, or leg hair is proving to be problem. My kindergartners love touching my leg hair especially, then jumping back in excitement. Now they're moving on to tugging and pulling the hairs on my toes, and that's not cool at all.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop right now, called Tom N Toms Coffee and there is a large flyer near the doorway advertising the 2009 Korea International Music Festival. The reason it caught my eye was because of the Ukrainian trident as one of the sponsors. Here's the website, http://www.kimf.or.kr/eng/index.asp. This isn't the first time I've run into Ukraine here, I've met a few guys that are from Ukraine dancing hip hop for a few weeks in Korea. Small world.