Danny's Seoul

1 Month Since My Last Post

2011-08-05T19:28:00.000-07:00

The writer has been busy of course. Important people are always busy. If you somehow expected him not to be busy then he would of course not be as important as you had been led to believe. One might ask about or point out that the author should have had at least some downtime to write even a small and marginally entertaining piece for your eyes to snack upon. Busy people of course have no time for your snacking eyes. So here's a few photos.

I went to Busan with my girlfriend for my birthday. Suuuuuuuuuun!

Did I mention it was my birthday at some point last month? My buddy Soohyun got me this hat and a cake too.

It was Jesse's last day. He moved into my class from the DC area and now he's moving back. You know how awesome it was having a student who knew what awesome meant? (He's the little dude in green)

3 Photos of Food

2011-07-05T16:42:00.000-07:00

Tuna kimbap take out. I ate it while Skyping and playing Starcraft 2 with friends back home two weekends ago.

Went to a buffet restaurant called Ashley with unlimited wine. They also had pizza. The black one is made black with squid ink. It's really sweet tasting-- I mean once you can get over the idea of it being squid ink of course.

A different take on galbijim as it included lots of noodles for one. We had extra mushrooms. Shiitakes are cheap here. I love it.

Anyway, I'm going to be late for work. I'll write something longer later...

1 Way to Make Easier Impulse Buys

2011-06-25T08:10:00.000-07:00

I haven't seen this yet, but I think I will soon.

5 Reasons to Go to Ocean World

2011-06-22T16:43:00.000-07:00

I think each girl represents a different water slide or something. Anyway, I've been twice. It's alright except that you have to wear life jackets on everything except the water slides (you take it off and clutch it to your chest as you go down).

(Taken from my camera's phone of posters I saw in a lobby)

1 Festival, 1 Parade and 2 Orders of French Toast

2011-06-19T06:19:00.000-07:00

Posing and drinking Peruvian beer at the Latin American Festival at Hansung Station near my old apartment.

First order of French toast hit the spot. Tasty stuff found at "The Place" down by Jongno 3-ga. Apparently its a New York style dining cafe-- it works!

The girlfriend had spaghetti with white sauce topped with flying fish eggs, jealous?

2nd order of French toast a la mode hit another spot.

A parade we encountered by the Cheongyecheon stream.

The guard led by the black knight.

3 Cold Towel and 3 Serving of Samgyupsal

2011-06-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

Today after work, Susan, Alicia and myself went down to the nearest samgyupsal (삼겹살), roughly bbq'able bacon, restaurant and had dinner. Besides being delicious it came with free cold, wet towels. They also took down the walls to the "sun porch" area which induced a conversation about whether we were actually outside or not. Anyway, photos:

Susan and Alicia modeling the towels and some cold noodles.

My much better modeling of the cold towel.

From 5 Days Ago

2011-06-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

Olympic Bridge over the Han

June 14th Is Finally Over

2011-06-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

Open Class:

On one hand, a simple day in which parents come to see you teach in action and see if their children have learned anything.

On the other, a terrible few weeks before hand where hagwon management and everyone around you is worried that you're going to do terrible.

I did well. So did my girlfriend (and she had 2 of them). So we went and had sushi and expensive beers down in Jamsil.

Salmon sashimi with salmon roe on top. The way they pop in your mouth is amazing. I'd recommend it.

6 City Shots on Sunday Near City Hall

2011-06-13T07:26:00.000-07:00

Downtown Seoul:

And on the 7th Day He Rested

2011-06-12T06:07:00.000-07:00

And what might your tteokboki-eating demi-hero be down for on days when he has no school?

First he visited Deoksugung Palace:

No entry

Line up by rank, jusaeyo

Yeah, I live here

Changing of the guard

Then he went to Boston or rather a coffee shop in a rather brick filled neighborhood of Seoul that had some delicious green tea patbingsu (sundae):

Then to Myeongdong for some sunglasses shopping, and then a late curry lunch-- all with the girlfriend.

Not exactly a quest for the ages to be told in an oral tradition for generation to generation but hell, it's not teaching and it works for this beleaguered and busy Byrnes. Tomorrow though, shall be spent kicking it with the kimchi kids.

1 Cup Please/ 한잔 주세요

2011-06-10T18:12:00.000-07:00

"Let's get it pumpin' now"

Ye Ara - Americano

This song is dedicated to probably the most popular coffee beverage in Korea: the Americano. Its the strongest/cheapest you can get. So I get it a lot when I get coffee. Anyway, I post this while I sip my earl grey at home. Ha.

3 Day Weekend Part 3

2011-06-10T07:35:00.000-07:00

I think they're in chronological order... no promises. Anyway, some more photos from the Memorial Day weekend. Hope they're to your liking!

Crabs in Yeongdeok

They cook them and then cut them up for you! This makes it entirely too easy to shovel crab into your mouth. Scissors + Crab = Why haven't we thought of this yet?

Talk no, crab yes.

What's a "waman"?

On the beach in Yeongdeok

Temple guardians

Me and the lady

Bulguksa Temple

This is on the back of a coin-- at Bulguksa Temple.

Senior photo

Bulguksa Temple (UNESCO)

Fancy restrooms

Seokguram Grotto (UNESCO) in Gyeongju

Gablijim in Gyeongju, a local dish (that's tastier in Seoul)

An ancient royal Shilla observatory that everyone was psyched about except me. How does it work?? Wikipedia told me it was probably more about astrology. I'd buy that. It's just a tower...

Let's go see some burial mounds, kids!

Blending in

Gyeongju burial mounds

Everything in Gyeongju is "ancient" themed. Someone's Shilla-style house (contrast intended).

(Ancient) electrical box...

Pagoda-cut-out building in Gyeongju

(Ancient) gas station

This is the (ancient) toll gate to leave town.

4 to 1 LG Loses

2011-06-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

No matter who I go to see, they lose (9 times out of 10). LG is like the Yankees of Korea-- and they lost! Come on!

3 Day Weekend Part 2

2011-06-08T05:45:00.000-07:00

I'm still too lazy to write about it but I'll post some more photos instead.

If you can spend about US$9-$11 you can have all this.

Danyang, SK

Suuuuuuuuuper Asian.

Danyang, (obviously) SK

According to one sign, touring these waters was the best luxury a person could afford. It costs $7.50 now.

3 Day Weekend Part 1

2011-06-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

Happy Memorial Day, I went on vacation/hiatus from the blog and I'll update soon. For now, enjoy this picture of me comparing side burns with this nice Shilla gentleman. Shilla was a kingdom in central southern Korea a while back. Back then people's heads was huge I take it.

Yerba Mate 2: The Southern Cone Strikes Back

2011-06-01T07:32:00.000-07:00

That one in the middle is yerba mate (마테차). Saw this at a local family grocer or "mart" on the way back from having some 5 layer bacon barbecue (오겹살) down the street from my apartment. Yum. I still prefer to buy from the Paraguayans and drink it loose leaf but I do have some mate bags at my house.

2 Sad Fisherpeoples

2011-05-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

Fishing on the Han River in the middle of Seoul.

6 Seulítos Hablando Español

2011-05-29T06:42:00.000-07:00

Me at the Han River today.

Cool video of Seoul that is all over facebook right now: Seoul Time Lapse

And another thing that isn't mine: 50 Reasons why Seoul is #1 on CNN Go

Also, what's up? I've started a Spanish conversation group that meets once a week on Sundays in Kondae if anyone is interested. Drop me a line if you are. Se llama La Mesa Español: Seúl. Today we had 6 people total (including me) and spoke mucho Spanish.

The post Spanish group Han River trip.

That is all.

3 Kids and Triple Word Scores

2011-05-27T08:57:00.001-07:00

We had some extra time and I found a scrabble board...

0 Photos of Cool Acrobatics

2011-05-26T01:58:00.000-07:00

You, the inexplicably audacious author, has no doubt realized that this is not the blog of your grandfather, or of two weeks ago for that matter. The ever self-bettering author has decided to take upon himself a task larger than that of Atlas holding the world upon his shoulders: updating more often. Yes indeed, he won’t be the always loquacious but lethargically lazy letter wrangler that he’s been in the past. The reader’s renaissance is at hand and as such the management expects you to visit more often, or he’ll probably get bored and just updated monthly. So please comment. The best part is that it’s free! That’s right, for an unlimited time offer, commenting on this blog will be free of charge. Or as the Koreans say: Service! So you should really get on that, because if you don’t, you’re basically just saying that you despise anything and everything you saw or read on this blog and that’s not how you feel, right? So show a little love and get on that. Anyway, read about some stuff that happened.

At the beginning of the month I had the immense pleasure of going to Cirque du Soleil’s Varekai with his pretty girlfriend. The circus tent and seats were all made just for Cirque du Soleil and the atmosphere was crazy cool. There were amazing acrobatics and some comic relief as well-- in all, a really good show. I don’t know how to describe it really. I couldn’t take any photos inside the tent but I’m posting a youtube video of some stuff we got to see.

Tuesday my school had our Spring Picnic field trip. We headed out into the country, into Gyeonggido and went to an organic strawberry farm. The kids were able to gorge themselves on strawberries and even mock make strawberry jam. Aside from having to get to work slightly earlier than normal, I can’t really complain. I’d like more all you can eat strawberry adventures that I get paid to go on.

This month I joined a gym! It’s in no way as cool as my gym last year but it’s called Chocolate Fitness, so it has that going for it. It’s also next door to a Domino’s Pizza and the deliciousness wafts right in some days. I’m quite reticent to go actually have some Domino’s but it still smells bomb.

Last but not least, I’m being retired from art teacher—which was probably my favorite hour out of any day, and being reposted as gym teacher. Apparently my enthusiasm has been noted and redistributed. Does anyone know any good games for tiny kids in a really small space? The gym is only about a 20ft by 40ft space. Then again, I have no idea how to measure with my eyes.

Chao

The 3rd Reich was: FABULOUS!!

2011-05-24T07:46:00.000-07:00

Found in Dongdaemun.

7-6 (I think), We Lost Either Way

2011-05-23T04:31:00.000-07:00

Went to a game last week. Great game-- even though Doosan lost. They tend to do that when I attend...

2 Minutes Without Caffeine

2011-05-22T06:16:00.000-07:00

Jongno Tower, Seoul

I got a coffee today and this was the little vibrating thing that let's me know it's ready. It came with movie trailers on it. Because the 2 minutes that you have to wait for your coffee is just too damn long.

24 Inch Secret: Yerba Mate

2011-05-20T20:17:00.000-07:00

I found yerba mate at E-Mart! It turns out that South American tea is invading Korea. The writing at the top promises the drinker with get the "24inch secret." It's working. ;) I've always been able to get loose leaf yerba mate for my gourd in Itaewon at the Paraguayan owned, El Comedor, but this is pretty nice too.

2 Cabbages, 5 Jars, 3 Dudes and No Idea

2011-05-19T16:36:00.000-07:00

When I got back home to the US in September, one of the first things I did was go on the YouTube, look up how to make kimchi, and do it. Here I am cutting the Napa Cabbage.

Blending my own sauce.

This was the fun part.

We look like we killed something. Me on the right, a Mr. Alex Pearson on the left.

It wasn't the best stuff ever. One jar even molded. However, it was great for cooking with. I'll have better luck next time I hope.

(Photo credits to Mark Gifford and his expensive camera)

Cirque du Soleil - Seoul 2011

2011-05-18T09:11:00.000-07:00

Cirque du Soleil - Seoul 2011

8 Year Olds with Cell Phones and Cow Intestines

2011-05-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

These are some students from my oldest group. They are Korean age 9 but are more like 7 or 8. One girl got an Android smart phone the day after this photo was taken.

Big puppets with the 63 Building in the background.

Cow intestines! I prefer the pig ones though. Also on the grill: mushrooms, onions, tofu, cow heart, stomach and liver.

So I Missed 1 Day-- It'll happen again I'm sure

2011-05-16T04:54:00.000-07:00

But it's because I went to Neverland Ranch with some coworkers! Whoops! I mean Everland. It's like Disneyland but forever?

There's even a zoo with a seal show. Also I saw 2 bears attempting to make a 3rd bear. I'll try and acquire a picture from a friend if 5 people comment on this post. Especially you, that person in Singapore who keeps reading my blog... who are you!?

If you are a native English speaker you can be employed as an English teacher. If you are Russian (I think) you can be parade eye-candy at Everland.

1 Photo a Day aka The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done

2011-05-14T07:02:00.000-07:00

Here's 3, so there ya go. Captions too!

Last Weekend I went to the Hi Seoul Festival and saw some of the craziest junk ever. Almost impossible to describe except that in this photo all these people are hanging from a crane. Everything else at this festival was lackluster and the ticket system left something to be admired. Either way, I saw people flying/hanging from/hamster wheeling from a giant construction crane.

Totally sci-fi apartments being built next to the Seoul "Forest" park. I want to live there with my robot roommate.

You've heard of rally caps? What if instead it were shopping bags that are handed out by the team's employees. Bad for the environment, great for team spirit!

p.s. I've started writing some pieces for NERDTREK.com and you should go check it out. :)

U-238 Millimeters of uRAINium

2011-04-19T05:24:00.000-07:00

Despite those who might think this audacious and awe-inspiring author down and out of the blog game, he’s back. He’s back like a warm spring after a cold winter, he’s back like the prodigal son, he’s back like the phoenix — reborn anew into this humble excuse for a blog. Also back are the exciting, egotistical, egomaniacal intros that have so made him famous in the realm of unintended Google search results. So pack your sunscreen, grab a drink, a snack, and please remember that the author in no way guarantees that you will like even half this crap, but his mom and dad read it so he does it anyhow. You of course read it not out of any kind of boredom but because you probably know that this is your one stop shop for tales of excitement and intrigue, more titillating and tantalizing than tartar sauce. Ready?

So, yes, I’m a lazy sonofagun, but come on. I’m back in the land of the morning calm and it’s awesome. And by awesome I mean slightly more exciting that sitting on my butt at my mom’s house during the cold, dead months of a Washington winter with all three cats and two dogs staring at me. Not to say those happy hours with high school buddies, seeing my family, and hiking were so bad.

I have no idea whereabouts I should start but probably the tsunami? So, as you probably heard, there was quite the earthquake and resulting tsunami over in Japan (no we didn’t feel a thing). However, last week-ish it was raining and I’m informed by the girlfriend (oh yeah, I have one of those officially now by the way) that I should bring an umbrella due to nuclear rain. Now, I’ve heard of acid rain, but nuclear rain?? If you pay attention to the news you can probably piece together that the fall out filled showers are due to the damaged nuclear power plant in Japan, damaged by the tsunami. I wish I could say I have three lungs now, or that my sixth toe fell off, or of course that I had spidey powers but I did get to leave work 30 minutes early. I’m not sure how leaving work early and radioactive rain drops affect one another but I don’t question time off. So that’s my story about how I learned to stop worrying and love the rain. Is it because it could affect our precious bodily fluids?

This year I work for a medium sized hagwon down in Gwangjin-gu. I’m very close to the Han River which is a huge bonus. I’m also very close to the aforementioned girlfriend-- also a good deal. Other junk you wanna know: I went to an island off the coast of Incheon this last weekend with the twice aforementioned girlfriend and some Korean friends, I’ve had pork intestines twice, more sushi than you can shake a fish stick at, and I’ve been to two baseball games (both of which my teams lost) however, I might go to one after work tomorrow and if you are in Korea reading this, call, text, email and meet me in Jamsil by 6:30.

Other stuff happened too. I’ll get to it, calm down. You’re worse than my students. Seriously, I’ll get to it. I’ll give you a sticker if you stop asking about it for just 10 minutes. Awesome.

2 More Weeks Until Seoul

2011-02-09T19:50:00.000-08:00

Finally, something worth posting about on this neglected and long-forgotten blog: The author is going back to the land of live octopus lunches and cheap haircuts! That's right, he's returning like a long over-due library book. What's a library? Moving on... After almost six months of sitting on his butt, perfecting the art of doing okay at Starcraft 2, walking the dogs, going to the gym, and drinking copious amounts of delicious, finely crafted American beer, he in fact, is going back (feel free to send beer). This year the loquacious language instructor will be tucked away in a corner of Gwangjin-gu, Seoul somwhere over near the Han River making millions of Won every month.

Fun Fact #1: My cousin, Geoff, was just in Cairo studying Arabic-- as of the end of the month, he'll be in Seoul actually. Not sure why Cairo didn't work out...

Fun Fact #2: I miss kimchi something bad.

Anyway, here are some more photos from my trip around Thailand, Philippines and Hawaii:

Poker in Cebu City/Mandaue, Philippines. Derren (left side) had the table made. Pretty sweet.

Sunset at Boracay, Philippines.

Maui.

Crater on Mt. Haleakala, Maui (or was it Mars...).

Spices in Thailand.

Bangkok Airport, Thailand.

Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Magellan's Cross, Mandaue Philippines. He really put it there-- then he died of a spear to the body.

3 Months or so Since My Last Post

2011-01-04T21:57:00.000-08:00

If you really want to know about Thailand, the Philippines or Maui then come find me. Let's have a beer and I'll tell you some wild stories. Other than that I don't really want to delve into that right now. You should know that Diana and I had a great time in Thailand, I was never robbed once the whole trip except by taxis drivers and their ilk, and ate awesome things. I'll throw some photos on after this post.

Next item on the agenda AND the most important. I AM TRYING TO GO BACK TO KOREA. I use all caps to definitely get your attention if you are reading this. One, I need a job. Does anyone know any good leads? Anyone have something maybe in March that is open?

I am ready to go back but I have a small PROBLEM: I am waiting for the delightful FBI to get my my clean background check back to me so then I can have another government agency put apostille stamps on it (like a notarization) and then be FULLY eligible for another position in Korea. So if anyone at the FBI reads this or anyone who is familiar with the process, do you know what's up? It says up to 4 months but that has to be a joke. But then again I've been waiting for several months now and am learning that I hope its the truth because I'm beginning to suspect a dog ate it and I'll never get it back.

So if you know about those two things please hit me up at: sidebyrnes@gmail.com PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE.

Now some photos:

Penang Curry Me in the Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) Airport

Old temple in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Cooking class with Diana in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Riding Elephants in Chiang Mai, Thailand

Pineapple Crab Curry, our favorite, in Phuket, Thailand.

Diana enjoying a Thai ice tea in Phuket, Thailand.

On the ferry into Ko Phi Phi, Thailand.

Catfish soup, extra spicy, Bangkok, Thailand.

My couch surfing hosts who didn't sell my organs, Derren and Anna, Cebu City, Philippines.

Chicken blood and chicken intestine bbq in Mandaue, Philippines.

Balut (look it up), Mandaue Philippines.

Awesome poker playing Pinoys + Derren and me in Mandaue, Philippines.

Fire dancing in Boracay, Philippines.

Sunset in Boracay, Philippines.

Adobo in Boracay, Philippines.

Island hopping in Boracay, Philippines.

Me having more balut with the local massage girls.

Ken flying through a bamboo forest on Maui, Hawaii.

Me posing in Maui, Hawaii.

Sunrise on Mount Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii.

And now it's like you were there too.

1 Country Down 2 to Go

2010-08-27T19:38:00.000-07:00

The egotistical, egomaniacal author of awesomeness has certainly taken his damn time getting around to the readable writing of this entry and maybe his last while on the peninsula of Korea. He has had a hell of a time here and you his avid reader (or maybe you just google searched something dirty and got this blog) have had the obvious pleasure of living vicariously through him.

Secrets, untold stories, and many opinions have probably been kept from you and will only be unkept if you buy the thirsty author a liquid libation or two upon his triumphant return. Or does he really have any? Maybe he just wants a free beer or two (a beer that isn’t the color yellow).

Yes, I am returning to the picturesque Puget Sound, even though this place has been mighty kind to me, and who knows, I may come back—and not just for the kimchi. The terrific teacher also learned things. Simple things, such as rice is awesome, or beer shouldn’t be yellow and I am capable of eating a creature that’s still alive (which I did again the other day). Other things like a baseball game can be called even before the first pitch has been thrown or just about any animal or vegetable is actually quite consumable.

One thing that I never got into was many of the more trying experiences of being an immigrant (however temporary) to this country and now I’d like to think that I understand the experiences of my friends back home just a little more. It’s not an easy thing living in a country that isn’t your own and which you have so little in common at first. I’ve seen firsthand here that it’s not for everyone.

Anywhom, I am leaving Monday for Bangkok via a layover in Kuala Lumpur where I will meet up with the legendary Diana Sundermeyer of the WWU Rec Center Pool. Me and Sundermunder will spend a few hours in the Bangkok airport wearing shirts that are not the color red because one, we’re no longer lifeguards and two, well, there’s that minor “Red Shirt” thing in Thailand. Then to Chiang Mai in the north, then Phuket in the southeast and that’s where I part ways with Sunderwunder who flies back to the US to return to her normal life of huffing chlorine fumes. Then I have another week by myself in Thailand to basically stay out of trouble and apply and REapply sunscreen to my (after Jeju) humbled skin. I plan on eating grotesque amounts of phad thai, phad see ew, and host of different curries. It’s gonna be yummy.

Once I find my way back to Bangkok I fly to Manila only to then jump to the city of Cebu on the island of the same name. There I will drink San Miguels for $1 a piece and try my hand at couch surfing for the first time-- just trying to trust the world a little more. After a week there I will head to the island of story: Boracay. Once there, there will be more $1 San Miguels complimented by chicken adobo, lumpia, and mangoes. Oh the mangoes! This man goes for mangoes! Haha.

Then I will rescue some razor blade wielding roosters from their gladiatorial lives and be on my way out of the shark infested waters of the Philippine archipelago. From Manila I will cross the gynormous Pacific and arrive in Maui to visit a high school friend, one Mr. Ken Sandin. Yes, that’s the only reason. Really, it’s a good enough reason, right? Okay, so I’m looking forward to Hawaii too.

After a week there I will find myself back amongst the tall trees and well-watered mountains of my home town. Let’s just hope all of this works out the way I say it’s going to.

Keep reading, I’ll try and update from the road.

대니 (Danny)

P.S. I'm going to miss my students so much. Aren't they adorable?

2 Sun Byrnes

2010-08-03T05:51:00.000-07:00

Hey look! It’s the self-styled Marco Polo’s own mother. She hopped on a jet plane and made her way to the magical Orient to see what was what and all she got was several mouthfuls of kimchi. Yes, the author’s momma thought it would be worth it to fly for a full day and visit her eldest son here in the war-paused peninsula of Korea. You of course, haven’t done this. So this makes her better than you in all quantitative and qualitative ways possible. She found not only fermented vegetables but sun burns, subways, and stone statues to boot.

So as of today, my mom is safely back in the US and at home. First, thank you mommy for bringing back my winter clothes and things I didn’t need. I’ll pay for that extra-bag fee. Anyway, I hope you had a good trip, especially for your first outside of North America.

I got to flex my skills as tour guide again (first time with my friend Carla who was in town). It’s fun showing someone around Seoul after you’ve been here as long as I have—even if you just make up information a most of the time. I also got to use a bit of my Korean on during her time here and I think I may have almost sounded fluent (to the untrained ear of course)!

So other than taking my mom to the usual haunts and tourist traps around Seoul I also flew her to the mythical island of Jeju-do which Koreans usually only speak of in hushed tones hoping that they can go there soon. It’s Korea’s Hawaii as they tell it and while I haven’t been to actual Hawaii, yet, I don’t think they are too far from the mark. And boy do they have everything there: beaches, oranges, and a sizeable number of statues that are little people but pretty much just look like penises. And furthermore, if you touch the nose of one of these penis-people statues you’re supposed to be in line for a boy child. Sure beats the Chilean troll of unwed mothers: Trauco. He’s pretty neat actually. Ironically, he’s also from an island. What’s up with islanders and weird myths?

On Jeju we took a taxi tour of the island and stopped at two craters, a pretty coastal area, a coastal waterfall, and a strange lived in Korean folk village. At the aforementioned stone hut community we had some not so tasty snacks from some nice old ladies and then their pigs got me all muddy because my mom didn’t like her snack and fed it to the black pigs. Fun fact: black pigs are supposed to be more delicious. Sad fact: black pigs are more expensive to eat.

Anyway, as the title states I did get myself a nice sun burn since I never get to go outside anymore; I just stay indoors, breathing processed air and then breathing it out only to yell and 6 year olds. It’s mostly okay now but let’s say there was a moment where I almost tore the skin off my back.

However it was totally worth it to play in the waves and lay about on a beach. Hotel was a 2 minute walk from the beach with ocean views—livin’ the life of Riley. Hooray for my one vacation of the year! Back to work this week, boo.

Starcraft II. Like a good denizen of this half of the peninsula, I’m playing it. It’s gorgeous, great and glorious. Yeah, I’m sometimes a computer game nerd.

Anyway, that’s all the new fit to print. Eat your kimchi.

1 Language to Rule Them All!

2010-07-11T07:46:00.000-07:00

The author walks like Gulliver among the giants. The buildings here seem to notice the writer just the same. How’s that for poetic? This lackadaisical, lethargic lycanthrope—wait, doesn’t that last one mean the writer is a werewolf?

I wanna talk about the English language aka the current lingua franca of the WORLD. What an incredible tool that can make or break everything. When I was taking Korean classes we weren’t supposed to be speaking in English (or any other language for that matter) but English eventually rose to the top and was used by instructors and students of all nationalities to discuss vocabulary and points of grammar despite some detractors. At one point we had a Chinese guy, a Russian guy, a Japanese guy, and English guy, a Colombian guy, a German girl, a Canadian guy, and me (the Amurkican). English was used! (Though one time the CoIombian, the German and I used Spanish to communicate so that our teacher didn’t know what we were talking about because she didn’t enjoy us using English to discuss Korean grammar.

The other night was the aforementioned Colombian’s farewell party. So I met the German girl and the English guy at a club to see him off. I found out that a Colombian friend of his was in the room and was looking as bored as I was, so I went up to talk to him and see if I remember any Spanish. Well, I did and it turns out that he didn’t speak any English. He really wanted to go dance with the girls but was afraid that without English he wouldn’t be able to really do much. Point in case; to dance with the ladies: you should know English. Also I want to ask if it’s legal to throw down a semi-colon and a colon in the same sentence like that. I’m looking at you, English majors.

On the other hand, one night while on the bus from Korean class, my friend Sean and I were mumbled/yelled/shushed at by an elderly Korean man for speaking in English. The irony is that we were discussing Korean grammar.

Also English is on everything over here. It’s on street signs, menus, and products. If you don’t have a basic grasp of how our alphabet works and you then probably have no idea how to read Hangeul then you’re SOL. I like to tell my students that with English they can use it anywhere. I may not be 100% right but it helps give meaning to what I do and to those English teachers here who just want to have a gap year where they don’t have to worry about much. (Also you can't read awesome blogs like mine if you ain't got the skills.)

Speaking of English being used everywhere, this Friday I went to Ocean World with the kinder kids and got to play in all the shallow water they had! There were some awesome looking waterslides but since we were the kids… nothing. Weird stuff included the need to wear any kind of hat while in the water, life jackets for just about anything, and when we were done Andrew and I were asked to scrub down all of the boys’ arms, legs and scalps with soap and then dry them off. I have now scrubbed down most of the kinder program at my school.

Also, the world cup happened and you all know about that. But I went to city hall a couple times and it was nuts. I have some weird insights into East Asian group-thought but that will have to be for another time.

All in all, I’m here for about 2 more months. And I’m going to probably try to eat and do a few more stupid things before I’m done. Please comment too! Especially if you’re a friend from back home and you made it this far!

안녕!

2-0 South Korea! but 1-0 North Korea...

2010-06-14T05:12:00.000-07:00

Nestled between the dumpling-eating giant that is China, the smaller robot-filled island-nation of Japan and below the absurd “North” our humble hero has not for at least a month told you, his army of beautiful readers, what he’s a been doin’. Many notable and noteworthy news items have passed this small peninsula like the rainclouds over Seattle lately. Some of which were probably already noticed by nearly all of his more “up on it” fans.

The biggest would have to be the leading news item of the WORLD other that big black eye that BP gave the Gulf of Mexico. That would be the sinking of a South Korean battleship by (we’ll say presumably) North Korea. Now not to belittle the situation at all but when confronted by South Korea and the majority of the nations of the Earth, North Korea was all like: ‘What? We totally don’t even know about that battleship we destroyed that you’re talking about. You should go ask the US. They probably did it. Yes, you should ask them. We were here just minding our own business and stuff.’ The author thinks this was possibly the most immature reaction to an act of war one could ever come up with—even off the top of their head. Flying false colors went out with the swashbuckling kind of pirates because, well, we have science now and it points fingers squarely at North Korea. I know they don’t have electricity but have they forgotten about science? Galileo and those dudes didn’t even have electricity.

Now it’s time to sing the body electric. You know the part more about me and not just the Kim “Kanye West-sunglasses” Jong Il and his hermit, semi-communist, dark-at-night democratic people’s republic. Though, they did make it to the World Cup, good for them—seriously.

So for Mr. Buddha’s birthday, which was in May for all the folks not living within semi-Buddhist borders, I plotted a trip down to the island of Anmyeondo for myself and several colleagues. 2 Koreans, 2 Canadians, 2 Americans, 1 Irishman, 1 Australian on a bus that doesn’t have a bathroom and don’t stop, not even for pedestrians that at times seemingly jump in into harm’s way as if they were Superman.

What we saw: One day of great sun and picturesque walks on the beach with new kinds of starfish (sea stars?), millions of hermit crabs (second time I’ve dropped ‘hermit’ in this blog so far), and white sand covering several miles of beach. Then the rain…

…it kept raining all weekend on and off but we still managed to have some fun. The rain wouldn’t have been all bad if there had been more taxis and fewer tourists. We visited a national park which had some amazing pine trees unique to Korea which have an umbrella shape at the top. The down side was that most of it was devoted to cabins for staying the night or well manicured flower gardens and ponds. I managed to lose the group and get lost in the woods for a while which was heaven. Nearly… nearly like hiking but not quite.

Basically the weekend would have pleased Mr. Buddha, equal amounts yin (good) and others yang (bad).

Moderation is the key to life I suppose. Overall, it was a good trip and well worth getting out of this concrete jungle. Just too bad that after a solid week of hot, muggy sun this past weekend was quite rainy. I think the US should officially celebrate more religious holidays. Koreans get both Christmas AND Buddha’s birthday off… we need more Buddhists. On the way back the kid on the bus next to me slept on my shoulder (normal here) and I saw more rice patties than Iowa has corn fields.

Umm, there was an election and stuff. Nothing much changed politically though. Seoul’s mayor is the same. The candidates have cheerleaders. Check the videos/photos. They consist of old women who apparently have nothing better to do than learn chants and choreography that usually just add up to repeating the candidates name over and over. They also send little flat bed trucks with sound systems all over, even on back country roads on little islands like Anmyeondo. These trucks again, just blast the candidates name over and over. Sometimes, if you’re lucky one of the trucks will have the candidate making speeches from the back—sometimes while moving! Either way, it was definitely a new way of doing elections for me.

And then the World Cup! My friend David is in South Africa presently and I’m sure is having a great time. He is seeing the South Korea-Argentina game and I am very jealous. I went to World Cup Stadium here to watch the game with no fewer than half the stadium worth of other fans all decked out in Korean red. Others went to the malls or city hall to see the game. I can’t even imagine Americans going together somewhere to watch sports on a screen together—never mind in the rain. Anyway, Greece got their hummus handed to them by Park Ji Sung and the Korean squad. The US got a tie against England, and I was very tired and dehydrated the following day…

Anyoung!

Eaten 99 Things But A Dog Ain't One

2010-05-09T00:46:00.000-07:00

Me and Ethan

God says to Danny: Eat anything stupid lately?

Danny says to God: You know it.

Despite the despicable dinner options sometimes used as spicy and savory sustenance by the man who’s blog you now read, he would invite you to also believe that he does not always eat the chopped up intestinal tracks of Babe and really has only done so twice. But PETA be damned, he has had his share of crazy animal meats, sometimes whole, sometimes still alive.

Silk Worm

At least here in Korea I often know what is going into my body. From what I can tell there are a lot less processed foods here, at least in the way of Korean food. When I eat a live octopus for example, I can tell you what is in that dish. Can you tell me what was in your salad dressing? Even with more complicated dishes you can plainly see what goes into them and how they are made, often since they are prepared by you or right in front of you.

"Penis Fish"

Off the top of my head since coming to Korea I have consumed sashimi prepared moments after the fish’s demise, live octopus legs, cooked silk worms, pork intestines, pork liver, chicken liver, sea snails, giant clams, more squid than he can imagine, raw squid, raw sea squirts, raw “penis fish,” coagulated blood soup, spicy chicken feet, small whole octopus, sweet potato derived grain alcohol, rice wine, heaps of fermented vegetables, more garlic that is necessary to kill off the entire cast of those stupid vampire movies set in Forks, Washington and probably more crazy stuff that he’ll think of later and add to this delicious list of edibles.

Silk Worms

Apart from the things I choose to point my chopsticks at, I should say that I had a chance to hang out with a friend from Bellingham and trivia night rival, Carla Galland. Carla’s mother is Korean and initially was my biggest source of information about the peninsula other than David’s cryptic messages on Facebook or my amateurish researching on Wikipedia. Anyway, she came with her mom and dad for about 3 weeks and I was able to show her several of my favorite spots in town AKA the touristy and 20 somethings stuff that she doesn’t get to do with her family present. Basically I took her out to a lot of places that I like to eat. Haha!

Carla's Cousin's Apartment

Her family was kind enough to invite me over to their house just outside of Seoul twice for dinner and David was able to come the first night before his eastward trek towards the Dark Continent. We had a feast fit for a king—a Korean king. Too much kimchi for King Arthur, I’m sure. It was my first time getting to go to a Korean household for dinner and it was a lot of fun. Always bring a gift! The second time I ended up using a lot of my Korean skills and loving it. It’s great when I get to speak in Korean to someone I don’t know and am not trying to buy/get anything from.

Especially big thank you to Carla for getting on the military base in Seoul and getting me American style bacon and several cans of refried beans! THANK YOU! I love and miss beans as much as some of you might imagine.

Okay, so that was about a page. I think I’m done. I’ll be sure to get crackin on the next one soon. I hope everybody had a good Cinco de Mayo, we had Children’s Day instead—we didn’t have to work!

Cherry Blossoms

Over and out. 안녕히가세요!

2 Intense Times!

2010-04-21T05:29:00.000-07:00

The food worshipping writer was totally just published on www.SeoulEats.com and has no other reason to post this other than to show off. Word. Also, welcome to visitors from the aforementioned blog. The author would like to thank Mr. Dan Gray for posting the article the writer wrote on delicious pork intestines one can consume in Seoul.

For the article please visit: http://www.seouleats.com/2010/04/gopchang-house-by-danny-byrnes.html

40 Minutes of Hell at a Time

2010-04-14T06:20:00.000-07:00

Once this teacher learned that he preferred prowling, probing, and pestering the populous and palatable peopled portions of this previous part of Pangaea the reader’s writer found that he might not need to update as much as you or his blog’s God character might desire—even if he does write awesomely long, awesome sentences. The thing about blogging he’s unearthed is that one must have time to write in order for words to appear on a page and thus allowing you to live out all of your teaching in South Korea dreams vicariously through this modest piece of internet writing.

Well with the New Year we both ended a school year and began another. Too much has really happened in the past month to really remember or do it justice. To summarize I hosted the kinder graduation. Which was fun and I’m sure not even half the parents in attendance were able to really understand most of anything I was even saying. Either way, I looked good in a suit, so you can look at the photos and at least see my prettiness.

With the promotion of some of the less than angelic kinder kids, ridding them from my life for good (as well as losing some of my favorites) came an ominous sound of hooves-- the kind of hooves that only demons make when thundering through the halls of my humble hagwon. I am the main phonics teacher now for two of the new “6” year old kinder classes (meaning some of them might be 4 years old). Thank goodness I still have my best class which is now 7 years old and have one more year at ECC. Some of the kids are way too young and makes me disagree with Korea’s practice of counting everyone’s age together, allowing younger kids to enter into school before they are really ready.

Some of my older kids singing along to Peaches by the Presidents of the USA of Seattle, WA:

From Korea III

(You may have to scroll down to the bottom of the album??)

Other than the hellions which have been unleashed upon me for 40 minutes at a time I have dropped out of Korean classes but have been continuing to study (but not as much as I should) and my life has gotten a lot easier—though I still can’t find a lot of time to blog, can I?

I’m in love with Korean baseball games now. Its loud all the time, the beers are about $2, and there are cheerleaders. It’s a lot more entertaining game than its American cousin. I’ll be going to a lot more games. Tickets are no more expensive than $30 for the best seats in the house too. Photos and videos are up.

Anywhom, check out the photos, lots of good ones. Some videos too. You know you love it. Get on it.

My 2nd New Year of the Year

2010-03-08T06:23:00.000-08:00

This humble denizen of the Far East was walking about the high-heeled metropolis the other day when he ran into God. He asked God a question: What am I doing here in Seoul? God replied, I don’t know, you haven’t updated your stale, crusty old blog in a month so I wouldn’t know, would I? Thinking that his version of God was correct, though kind of fresh, he decided that it was high time to write more seeing as how Jehovah was keeping tabs on how often he was updating.

The awesome, octopus wrangling writer has been giving his blog a chance to recuperate while he has gone out into the land of the “morning calm” and planted, picked, and gleaned new stories for you, his discriminating audience, to sink their teeth into. He does understand the insulin like need for you to read more of his deft descriptions of spicy, fibrous kimchi and trips to naked-time jimjilbangs (since most of my hits are for this reason). There are so many things which he could casually enlighten you—such as no drinks at meal times, usually just a soup (unless you ordered the soup), or how sometimes he feels so welcomed to this wonderful (yet awkwardly racist) peninsula when old men tell him and his friend Sean (on their way back from Korean class) to be quiet on the bus when talking about Korean grammar in their best “inside voices.” So in short, sit back, pour yourself a beverage and prepare to be assaulted by stories so controversial and awesome that 3 of them have already been disqualified by the Olympics (written at the time of the Olympics).

Speaking of the Olympics, Kim Yu-na (Yu-na Kim) is all Korea can (could) talk about—well that and their hate of Ohno. Who is hated almost as much as the nation of Japan (and their figure skaters). We were returning from a kinder end-of-the-year party (with all of the kids in their prom best) when Kim Yu-Na came on the bus’ TV and all of the Korean teachers immediately gave her full attention and silence—which made all of us foreign teachers shut up and watch too. She skated beautifully and the Korean teachers did the Korean equivalent of high fives all around. Then it was the Japanese skater’s turn. Even though she did a stellar job (but not getting as many points) all the Korean teachers could do was berate her and say how she wasn’t as good as Kim Yu-Na. I’ll give them that Kim Yu-Na is a fantastic figure skater but damn are they… let’s say: prideful. On that note, it sucks that the US didn’t win hockey gold!

We had another new year. It seems like Korea can’t get enough of them, so they say we may have 5-6 more in the coming months. Actually, we celebrated Seollal (a pronunciation I really can’t, CAN’T get the hang of). This is virtually the same thing as what we know of as “Chinese New Year” or lunar New Year. This is traditionally a very family oriented holiday and as such my coworkers and I were left on our own to find activities to fill the void that was the long weekend.

Alex, Andrew and I went looking for traditional games and music that we had read about on the internet—cuz you know that’s the best way to find out anything. So we hopped on the subway and like Bugs Bunny, popped our heads out when we thought maybe we were in the right place, only to find, like an aforementioned rabbit, that we were not in our intended destination or rather our event was not in the right place. Eventually we found it, filled with traditional games, which we watched and took pictures of them since some of them seemed downright dangerous-- jumping on sea-saws (in heels) for example.

We took photos wearing some traditional hanbok (Korean clothing). I guess I was dressed as the guard, Alex as the king, and Andrew as the prince. I liked my hat. During this episode we met a Jordanian and an Egyptian and went with them downtown for some ice skating and New Year’s parades and festivities. Long and short of it: I can still ice skate and I got a strike bowling on ice (granny style).

I went to another Korean wedding, this time my Korean teacher's. My friend Gabi sang.

Some other weekend (it’s been so long since I even took down notes to write this thing) I went to a pension with mostly Korean coworkers and had a good time. It was lent to us by one of the student’s parents. We barbecued, drank beer, and had a good time. I think I ultimately like Korean and Chilean barbecues more than American ones—at least the ones I’ve been a part of. They do it more often and they taste better. No offense, cheeseburger.

Random animal parts of I’ve eaten: Pork intestines, both long and short. Delicious. I’d have to say that I prefer the long intestine to the small but that’s just me.

Other news, my beloved Chile suffered a pretty gruesome quake, not far from where I studied and Taiwan got one too. I was kind of hoping to maybe go there for Buddha’s birthday in May. Any thoughts? As far as Chile goes, I’ve heard from most of my friends and host family down there and they seem to be okay but a lot of their stuff ended up on the floor. We also had a smaller quake and North Korea/China had a larger one. Good luck, US west coast.

I’ll end with a random commonly held Korean belief: ducks can not fly (at least very high). Wassup with that?!?

안녕!

1 Excuse

2010-02-22T04:35:00.001-08:00

The author knows he should update the hell out of this blog but he's a lazy son of a gun and you probably already knew that.

8 Legs Dancing on my Tongue

2010-02-01T16:22:00.000-08:00

The author has chosen to grace the blogosphere with his humble and subtle presence once more. He is alive and kicking in a way not dissimilar to his seafood supper several nights ago. We can crawl to that subject in a moment or two. Why has the righteous and respected writer taken so long to tap a few nouns, verbs and adjectives your way? Well, he has had the pleasure of working two 6 day weeks in row; and has instead handily directed his energies not at his beautiful blog but rather at not devouring the souls of the children who call themselves his students.

Enough about my eager little tattle-tales who spare no moment to mention that so-and-so has spoken Korean and I try in a professional manner to tell them that teacher couldn’t care any less than he already does about that. A video is under my more recent photos with some of the cuter ones talking about what dreams are. Take that, Mr. Bill Cosby—Korean kids say the darndest things. Actually it was funnier until I got the camera out. Those are some of my favorite kids in the whole school and I think I’ve had to punish only one maybe once in five months of teaching them.

Another video which you should check out is from another trip to the alien world that is the Noryangin fish market—though you don’t need to don an avatar body or 3D glasses to experience it. Just to remind the friends, family and random Google hits out there; Noryangin is an old, utilitarian yet colorful and animated market. If it’s edible and has been discovered in the ocean it can be purchased and eaten here. Fish tanks after fish tanks of mostly live fish of all sizes, octopus escaping out of their tanks or bowls, and vendors aggressively hawking their sea creatures who themselves can be scarier than anything you will see while walking through the rows and rows of swimming, crawling, shelled, spongy, little and large sea monsters for sale.

I went with one goal in mind: to choose and eat live baby octopus legs. Oh yes and it was done. I went with a friend and picked out several fish (who were ~~clubbed to death~~ readily dispatched) for a stew and raw Korean style sashimi and one very unfortunate (baby) octopus. I’m not entirely sure if it was a baby or just small but either way: it was still very much alive.

So we were led up to what I think was the same restaurant that I ate at previously and anxiously awaited the still-live, squirming plate of octopus legs that would be my appetizer. And sooner than maybe I had hoped, there it was. Moving, pulsating it was very much still “alive,” though just the legs. They cut the legs off (scissors?) and then douse the poor guy in tasty sesame oil. The video should take care of any more need for descriptions but in it I wasn’t all that frightened by it, just feeling how the suction cups were grabbing onto my teeth, lips, and tongue. It was an interesting sensation for sure—I’ve never had a food grab me back. I felt the most Klingon I ever have while gobbling this dish up. Warning: Chew everything; this dish can kill you by getting stuck in your esophagus. I was not killed.

Afterwards when the plate of raw halibut came it was hard not half-expecting it to start wiggling in my chopsticks which made it slightly less enjoyable than the first time—which was crazy delicious. We finished off the octo-baby-legs by throwing them into the stew and putting them out of their misery. They managed to retain life for about 30-40 minutes after they were put on a plate and introduced to their new home: my mouth.

Anyway, then I spent the next couple of weeks NOT updating this blog and working a lot and some other stuff that involves Iran and Nicaragua that’s totally legal but I just can’t tell you about it right now. Also Korean is still hard but it’s starting to click in some areas. Korean makes me feel so embarrassed about any and all errors I ever made/make in Spanish.

All for now,

대니 (Danny)

I'm 27 Years Old Now

2010-01-11T06:23:00.000-08:00

Understandably unsure how our underappreciated and utterly unclear author can attempt to accelerate the accomplishment of another agonizingly overproduced introduction is beyond explanation. Forgive him for maybe this time he has something that will tickle your fancy, though of course not as interesting as anything found on Wikipedia or IMDB. Snow has blanketed this small Korean village known as Seoul and cold, dry temperatures squeeze all of the moisture from the writer’s kimchi-filled body. He has learned to appreciate certain things in life: namely lotion and humidity. Oh humidity, how this poor, wretched soul wishes for your soggy embrace and for you to wash across his hands and face and bring life once more to his destroyed and desiccated pores. The author has also lost many of his fantasies about deserts and tundra as he now assumes that those must be worse—he might even miss the mold. This cold and dirty city air has also not been good to his lungs, causing him to cough and hack as if he were just beaten up by a wookie.

Wookies luckily I didn’t have to face on my New Year’s vacation—though my friend Alex and I forwent shaving and looked an awful lot like those friendly sasquatch-like aliens that my brother, Sean, can do such a good impression of, by the end of it. So after inviting the entire office with an offer of ice fishing festival, I received only two bites, my friend Alex and my Korean coworker Elly who also managed to net her friend Hye Won into the trip. Oh boy do I like puns. So we loaded up on gear, booked a pension next to the festival, and reserved space on the ice to dip our fishing poles into fishing holes.

Elly volunteered to drive her SUV (which made it to the east coast of South Korea from Seoul in one tank of gas—buy Hyundai!) and we squeezed everything and everyone into our Millennium Falcon and once the iPod was hooked up, hit the hyper drive and sent it into light speed.

Pyeongchang was a beautiful place which is located in one of the snowiest areas in South Korea. It’s located on a river and is a major contender for winter Olympics—though from what I know was just passed up on for possibly a city in Russia? The air was clean, the snow was white, and the festival was vibrant and fun. You should go!

While we didn’t catch any trout we did try and try and try. Elderly Korean men who worked the festival would come over and grunt at me until I could grunt back enough for them to be convinced that I understood their initial grunts. Still didn’t help any. Grunting aside, we also did some ice sledding, snow sledding, and ATVs on ice and snow right on the river! That was my favorite part even though in Korea eight year olds were given their own ATVs in some cases and let loose out on the river with them—I know my mom the elementary special ed. teacher had just read this and freaked the hell out. Now even though we were racing 2^nd graders it didn’t deter Alex and I from having fun out on the ice and snow.

We mostly cooked for ourselves in Pyeongchang, check the photos, delicious barbecue and frying pan mixes that were scrumptious. We did however get really close to over dosing on kimchi.

We also made detour to the east coast and a city called Sokcho. We visited a beautiful temple which was just short of Shangri-la beauty but located on a coastal cliff and not in the Himalayas of course. A giant statue of Buddha, amazing architecture, and many places to say your prayers were swirled into this mix of man and nature so expertly done. My photos won’t do it justice.

In Sokcho we visited the fish market and loaded up raw fish (hwea) and went to a hotel to eat them. We had raw halibut, squid, sea cucumber(?) and several other fish who didn’t happen to give me their names. The next day we packed up and got back to Seoul at about 1 o’clock and I dined on delicious mandoo (dumpling) soup with the women while Alex washed up for a date.

In other news: A few days ago all the women and girls started wearing pants! Apparently Korean women can only handle a few days of freezing weather in nothing but skirts and tights for so long before they need to “man-up” and put on some pants. It got down to -17C which is about -1F for all the haters.

Also according to Korean rules I am now 27 years old (I think) and everyone in Korea just celebrated another year with the new year. So I’ve been 26 since I got here and I was 25 for a total of a month and a half. I’ve grown so much in these few months…

Also I did other stuff but this is what you wanted to know and needed to know.

The end for now.

1 Inch of Snow

2009-12-28T06:02:00.000-08:00

*** New Photos are up in "South Korea II" and "Korea III" ***

Tantalizing times abound in the Far East and the absent-minded author broke a pledge to have photos up for you— whoops. Every day, 17 hours ahead of his friends and family he wakes up, and sets forth to find and explore something new, not unlike a modern Marco Polo—you know, like if Marco Polo taught English to little kids and spent a lot of time avoiding his beloved blog. But like summer, he has come back to shed more light upon you (summer will come back right?). So having no noodles to share as Mr. Polo did, the rambling writer has instead tales so incredible, unbelievable and downright unimaginable he shall not even attempt nor endeavor to communicate them through this clumsy and awkward medium known as the written word. Instead he shall tell you stories of a lesser quality, so ready yourself for a few stories instead so credible, believable and downright imaginable; prepare yourself to be bored out of your mind but at least this former part-time model has updated within a week’s time!

A few weeks ago I was invited to go to a temple with my friends David and Abby (who spent Christmas in Paris—lucky them). I invited my buddy Alex, a name which all too many of my friends have had, and we set off to meet them at Jogyesa Temple in the Insadong/Jongno area which is the main Buddhist temple located within the confines of Seoul. I hear that it’s quite the scene on Buddha’s birthday. Well we found our way there but David and Abby who had arrived before us were eating and we decided to explore a bit on our own. We found a whole lot of people all gathered in the main courtyard with bags of kimchi that they then started loading onto the trucks. I found out later from David and Abby that the people had been making the kimchi right there in the cold—and kicked myself for not getting there earlier to witness the making of one of my favorite foods that this wonderland has to offer me—at every meal.

I was eventually approached by a tour guide (in training), who had spectacular English, located Alex and we began a tour of the temple grounds. We were soon joined by David and Abby and saw and learned a bundle about Buddhism that we would not have known otherwise, except Abby who apparently took a class on it and is totally an expert. Our guide explained the paintings on the outside of the temple with great detail and while I knew that there were many similarities between Buddhism and Christianity, I was stunned to realize how many there were. Both the Buddha and Christ were tempted by demons, preformed miracles, their fathers were gods, they both were teachers, and both had large followings of disciples. All things I suppose I knew already but it was still so vivid to see it all within the context of the murals at a temple with a guide explaining it to us who I think had little knowledge of Christianity himself. Another interesting tidbit was an explanation of the drums and giant bells which are used to start and end every day—which went back to see and were not disappointed. One is for all the land animals, one for the sea creatures, one for the birds and flying creatures and one for all the human souls stuck in hell. I wasn’t aware that Buddhism had a hell, good to know. Anyway, there should be video of the drumming and I would advise you to check it out.

Christmas was good; my mother sent me medicine (thank you!) and anyone else who wishes to send gifts may do so… ha. I spent Christmas Eve working (bah humbug!) and then went to my friend Dan’s house (of Seoul Eats fame) and had turkey and all the fixins’ all prepared by the army base here in Seoul. There are some advantages to having a large American presence here—even if it does come with lots of tanks, jets, and guns. The weirdest part is where the MPs come into the bars at about 1pm and round up any soldiers who are breaking curfew. I swear all the MPs are the biggest soldiers we have; I wouldn’t wanna cross ‘em.

Next day went and attempted to go ice skating down town, which feels like a massive valley made of buildings straight out of Blade Runner. Turns out my Korean coworker friends didn’t realize that you needed reservations to go ice skating downtown. So we gave up and wandered around looking for food, ate at the Outback Steakhouse (the Korean teachers’ request) and then rode off into the sunset…

This weekend I’m off to Pyeongchang for ice fishing, snow, sledding, ATVs, and fresh air! So expect slightly more interesting stories worth the five minutes it takes you to read all of this.

PS It’s really flippin’ cold here right now.

5 Stories to Make Your Stomach Jealous

2009-12-21T07:51:00.000-08:00

The author would like to again bring you up to speed while his life has finally slowed down. This downtime is a precariously tense truce at best between the enjoyment of life and its many decadent pleasures, not excluding any species of squid, and a real need to rest the writer’s weary bones so that he might feel the desire to resurrect his celebrity here on the internet. The last entry was one of catch-up and this might include that as well. And without further adieu the author will shed the third-person that are his clothes and bare all with the raw honesty that is the body:

So several weeks ago in a country far, far away (from you) I was checking out a food blog I like called www.seouleats.com and noticed that they were having a “meet-up” at a Canadian pub in Sinchon. I emailed the author of the blog and I now had Friday plans that were with people other than coworkers or my college friends. Finally after 3 months my social circle would finally grow! I went to Korean class that Friday and afterwards made my way to Sinchon to find the Seoul Eaters and see what was what and if they had any nachos left because I was famished. Indeed there were nachos left (with jalapeños!) and the owners of the bar are all from Vancouver, so I was like told them I was from Bellingham, scoring me some points: West Coast Best Coast.

The next weekend I found my way to another Seoul Eats meet up at an Uzbek hole-in-the-wall where I had amazing mutton meatballs, mutton filled pastries, and mutton shish kebabs. They also had delicious non-mutton options like spicy shredded carrots, amazing beats, and bread—oh lordy the bread, real bread! All washed down with cheap Russian beers, all Soviet era-named. I liked the dark one, number 8, the best. Number 9 was like soju + beer and just as strong.

Deliciousness continued the following weekend at a place I actually had been before, the Wolfhound, and Irish pub, located in that Mos Eisley of places: Itaewon. We all ordered lots of food and spilt it between us. My favorites were the fish n’ chips and the Irish stew. Yum.

This weekend I treated myself to more curry in Dongdaemun—if there is a god, I think he eats curry. I also had Paraguayan empanadas in Itaewon. Suffice it to say, this country mouse is okay with the big city. Though I do miss the simplicity of Bellingham once in a while—not to mention real tacos…

Plans for the holidays include ice skating at city hall on Christmas, ice fishing for trout on the east coast for New Years, and anything else I can think of.

Photos will be up soon—by my tomorrow night.

Also my friend David, who I have mentioned before of course, made this video and CNN may show it during their New Year’s programming: http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-369408

1 or 2 Things I spent 3 weeks not telling you

2009-12-15T05:32:00.000-08:00

What wondrous and envy-inspiring things the author has been up to lately and if you weren't lucky enough to be his skype-enabled parents you would have very little knowledge of any of it. The writer sits here in his office trying to find any amount of time that he isn't tired from adventuring or adventuring while not tired to hammer out a paragraph or two, while you, now are able to sink your teeth into the juicy kimchi that is this, your favorite blog on the internet. The humble writer understands that it is indeed your favorite blog, is it not? For if it is not then he will take another 3 week long vacation from these forthcoming accounts which are to run the gamut from awe to awful, better to benign, and spicy to sweet. He now takes you on a three week run from Thanksgiving to Hanukkah. One of aforementioned holidays he will be teaching about in a few hours to 6 year old Korean children who barely have a concept of Jesus so really, how are they going to know what the festival of lights is all about?

Major Jewish holidays aside, for now we begin our journey into the recent past with Thanksgiving-- turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie to boot! My college friends, who many of you may know at least through their presence on my blog, hosted a Thanksgiving celebration at their apartment in the "suburb" of Anyang where an ample number of people (including several of my coworkers) became plump and merry on an American style feast to satiate our kimchi-coated stomachs. I say "suburb" because it's just as giant and high rise feeling as any smaller area of Seoul. I’ve yet to see any rural area of this country. I’m hoping to do that soon enough.

Highlights included a turkey that was cooked in a crock pot and a mega rice cooker since most small apartments like the ones we live in do not have ovens (the rice cooker totally worked). We asked my friend Minha, who had come down for the beginning, to see if that might work, he called a friend and they said go for it, which turned out to be a gamble that paid off. Minha had to leave early due to “ancestor worship” that I don’t quite understand and won’t attempt to act like I do but from what I know he had to leave to remember the day that his grandfather had died.

We also had pumpkin pie from Korean Costco, Stove Top stuffing sent to us by Abby’s mom, I made deviled eggs-- using kimchi powder instead of paprika, and North Korean beer that I picked up at the border (which wasn’t bad) apart from other libations that were on hand. Minha was possibly the most excited to try North Korean beer. He had never seen it before.

On a run down to the convenience store to find more “maekju” I found a young Korean couple (?) and invited them up (using my underdeveloped Korean skills) for an American style Chuseok (Thanksgiving) thinking they wouldn’t come. Proving me wrong they came and consumed copious cups of “maekju” with us and even ran and got some fried chicken for everyone to share. I think they had a good time and will tell the tale of their experience of an American Thanksgiving…

Anyway, I ended up sleeping over and had eggs and American style bacon for breakfast with a slice of pumpkin pie. Not a bad way to spend the day after thanksgiving.

More updates to come… Seriously if I’m not busy I’m tired from being busy. The updates shall come, oh yes, they shall come.

And a side note, I ended up playing the “Hanukkah Song” by Adam Sandler, twice, while my kindergartners colored menorahs. I like this job…

38 Things Other Than the 38th Parallel

2009-11-22T05:52:00.000-08:00

So this a Part II of sorts, since the honorable author wanted to split up the post and if you haven’t read the post previous then you should go do that at a point before you, a reader feared and respected by other readers of blogs for how passionate you are for checking this, your favorite blog, forget about it. Follow? Good. The author, other than liking to refer to himself in the third person, likes commas, which separate his thoughts, sometimes his thoughts from his thoughts, and then allow you to reenter the normal stream of continuity that you were really hoping for, and making any English teacher the author ever had, assuming they read this, cringe at his willfully, flaunting disregard for the proper usage of punctuation. Now on to the excitement of Filipinos, fish, and Pepero!

So post DMZ, on 11/11, as a nation, South Korea celebrated a holiday more corporate, capitalist and frivolous than Christmas, Easter, Halloween, and yes, Valentine’s Day combined: Pepero Day. Pepero, also known as Poki in Japan I believe, are kind of bread stick lightly coated in chocolate. Well on 11/11 every year since whenever someone had some sort of mad-genius epiphany, little old South Korea has been celebrating a holiday in which you go buy one brand of candy and exchange it with friends (and teachers) just because 11/11 looks kind of like 4 Pepero sticks (or one could argue 4 sticks of dynamite, or 4 buildings, or mathematically the number 1 since 11 by 11 is 1.) and somehow this god amongst men was able to sell the idea to an entire nation so now every November the stockholders of Pepero Inc. do very, very well. One of the boxes I received, under the name of Danny Teacher, is featured as a photo in the photos on the right. ----------->

I still go to Korean class and to do so I must take the subway to get to class and I have to transfer in Dongdaemun which is a fairly large station. Rushing through the station is akin to being in Logan’s Run, underground running to see Carnival, while dangerous ajuma, little old Korean ladies, elbow you and ride the trains for free so you’re like, “Yo lady! What’s your problem? I had to pay to get on this train and you ride for free so stop giving me death stares after bruising my rib cage, what did I do to you!?!?” At least that’s what goes through my mind.

So today, today today, not a day from two weeks ago, which means this entertainment is more current than movies at the North Bend Theater growing up, I went to the No Rayng Jin fish market in Seoul with my buddy Minha. Pike Place in Seattle: Get a life, you ain’t a market or if you are you’re a mere child. I have been to several major world markets and Seattle is hurting for something so wonderful as this temple, this Costco of seafood. I want my readers to think of ANYTHNG from the ocean and that, whatever you’re thinking of, is something you can get and eat at the market. King crabs, lobster from Maine, sting rays, clams, mussels, tunas, salmon, and virtually anything that isn’t a mermaid and edible is available at the market. I even saw two fish chosen by a consumer and then beaten on the head with a pokey stick on the ground by a helpful fish vendor. Not for the animal activists out there. Unfortunately I didn’t get video of this.

Minha and I wandered around taking photos, avoiding the aggressive fish hawkers, and eventually decided to buy a whole halibut to eat raw. As shown in videos on the photo link, they killed it—more humanely than the other vendor, and cut it up right in front of us. They then put it on a plate of radish shavings that soak up the toxins that may be in the fish and wrap it in plastic. This plate, along with a baggie of the skin and bones, is then brought up to a restaurant of your choosing where they compliment your fresh, fresh fish with kimchi and side dishes and make a spicy fish soup from the non-sushi parts. We ate the fish raw, known as hwea in Korea—crazy delicious and if you haven’t had just-live halibut raw you haven’t had one of the top ten best dishes or fishes I have had the pleasure of consuming. I can still feel the texture in my teeth and it is good. Other dishes in the top ten in case you’re wondering are tacos in Mexico, baguettes in France, fried clams on Cape Cod, steak in Argentina, and empanadas in Chile. Admittedly, I gets [sic] around.

Last and probably least on this epically proportioned blog entry times 2. I went to Hyewa to get coffee with Minha after the fish and visited a Filipino market on the sidewalk which had sausages, pork rinds and people who spoke very good English and said excuse me!—which is kind of a big thing here in South Korea since the Koreas don’t seem to have a word for it. I enjoyed it and will be going back. Also to the fish market if you can’t tell that I was in love with that place.

Anyway, again the photos I took can’t in anyway make you seem like you were there with me but the videos might do a little better job. Last I leave you with a question: Have I been here 3 months already?

Please drop me off at 38th and N. Korea

2009-11-22T04:42:00.000-08:00

This humble raconteur has let another week go by without updating you, the loyal reader, to his whereabouts and otherabouts that have been going on here in east Asia; this of course is all you, the loyal reader, have been thinking about since you remembered that the author had a blog and you should probably check it but then when you finally got there, there was nothing to see. The author offers an apology and will not waste more text in third person as so that he might get to the meat of the entry, known in literary terms, as the “body.”

This body will be filled with tales of excitement, intrigue, and awesomeness and will no doubt be knee deep in extraneous commas, to boot. To start things off, I went to the 38^th parallel last weekend! I went with two coworkers and met up with David and Abby and some friends of theirs for the tour. While the tour is entirely worth doing and one of the most bizarre and surreal places I have even been, it was just plain odd to be frank.

For one, Koreans aren’t allowed to go on any tours that get all that close to the actual middle of the Demilitarized Zone, or DMZ, which just in case you haven’t kept up with major world events from the 20^th century or watched an episode of MASH on the Hallmark channel with my mom… then you should know that the 38^th parallel is where the Korean war came to a ceasefire and a truce is held between UN forces and North Korea. Set against this backdrop tours of westerners and Chinese come through every weekend and take photos. Photos have been uploaded and they have promised to try and can’t quite do it justice.

We were led around very quickly and the whole thing was only a couple of hours long. We got to go to a stone’s throw of the actual line between the divided nation, though I wouldn’t recommend throwing any stones near the line. There we saw UN soldiers half-hiding behind UN buildings staring down one or two North Korean soldiers who would come and look at us through binoculars and then hide behind pillars on their building, repeat. After this we were led to a see a video with the most stereotypical, shop class safety video of a narrator telling us of the importance of the DMZ, least of which is the fact that it is a default nature preserve (filled with landmines…).

All in all I don’t know what to really say. It was filled with soldiers and tourists who outnumbered the combined armies of North and South Korea and I thought a lot about Alan Alda, whose show ran for longer than the war it portrays. It was a weird contrast from the UN Memorial Cemetery in Busan. There we surrounded by the ghosts of the past and in the DMZ we were surrounded by a weird commercialization of a conflict over 50 years old now defended by the grandchildren of that war. Besides the CCTV which is everywhere in South Korea and watching your every move, you couldn’t ask for a more perfect, living example of Orwell’s 1984 in which the 3 nations of Earth are constantly at war with each other.

More updates with a more cheery tone above to break this up and for gettin’ ya down, up top.

3 Weeks Late/ 2 Rag

2009-11-08T06:46:00.000-08:00

Illness, lethargy, and toil are possibilities that the author would possibly proffer for why neither he nor a suitable ghost writer has been able to recount the accounts of late, lately. It has been a long few weeks but the man behind the keys has now finally gotten around to tapping them for you once more and will do his best to tell at least one anecdote of note that he finally got around to and wrote. So coughing and waiting to go to the doctor at least one more time, this sophisticated, soju drinking Seoulite will get scribbling so that you can be finally up-to-date with his fate.

So about two weeks ago I had acquired bronchitis from some unknown entity which left me coughing and hacking like an 80 year old smoker. The doctor was great apart from having the thickest accent in English imaginable—at least he spoke and understood English. He prescribed some medicine which I picked up at the pharmacy downstairs. The whole process (from the check-in at the doctor to the pharmacy) took 30 minutes and cost $6.50. If that is considered socialized medicine then I want it! They didn’t need to know a extensive history of all the medical problems of my entire family. They just prescribed medicine and it works. I wish I had that in the US. I really do.

In school news I had my open class—which promised to be scarier and more dramatic than a Twilight novel. It wasn’t. Open classes are times for the parents to come see what we are doing in the kinder program to see if they wish to continue to send their children to our school, basically a commercial for the school. My bosses were terrified and very nervous for especially for me since I seemed to not feel the same sense of fear that they did. It went very well however; I made jokes, the kids did good and the parents seemed to enjoy it. I ended up getting high fives from one boss afterwards and all smiles from the other one—so I think it went okay enough. Highlights included playing “red light, green light” and making jokes about how one kid was on his cell phone texting which is why he wasn’t moving during the “green light” portion of the game.

Since then I have gotten sick again and had monthly evaluations due for the majority of my kids. This has also kept me from writing you, my adoring fans who don’t leave enough comments for needy blogger in me. Halloween was fun. I dressed as Zorro, using a du-rag I picked up in Itaewon for the mask and a plastic sword I acquired in Sadang. I was a really cool Zorro—though I wish I had had a hat or a cape to go with the outfit because as you can see from the photos I could have been the “Dread Pirate Roberts” from “The Princess Bride” just as easily. The kinder kids did a good job dressing up considering there are almost no costume shops in the Republic of Korea. We went trick-or-treating as several of their houses which was fun. I’ve never had fruit and cake while trick-or-treating before… I was also the host for the costume fashion show which primarily consisted of me talking gibberish while the kids posed for a photo. I earned my pay that day.

Halloween weekend we went out and had a lot of fun which was nice but didn’t exactly improve my health. My friend Colm, who I hear is an avid reader of the blog, was a horse and quite popular with the kids as well as the bar crowd. To paraphrase one of his stories: one fellow bar guest was not surprised to find out that indeed the horse was Irish. I want what he was drinking, seems to have been working.

Since then I have gotten more medicine and felt better but not perfect, contemplating going again. They will only give you three days of medicine. All of which is divided into individual servings in little easy to open plastic baggies making it ludicrously easy to figure out what you need to take. I feel bad for my grandmother and anyone else who has to take quantities of pills and the real trick is dividing them up yourself.

I promise I will write more soon. I will try and not have any more lapses. For I am but a man.

Anyoung he kay seo.

10 Second Toast

2009-10-18T06:03:00.000-07:00

Admittedly this is the greatest and most well-written blog you have ever laid eyes upon; despite this fact today's entry will be kept shorter than the members of the lollipop guild, for our champion of the English language is still feeling kind of sick. Sick still after several days, he cannot help but sing the praises of sudafed and must find out if they sell it here in the Orient or if our fearless author will succumb to the use of elk horn shavings mixed with ginger and other meticulously weighed and chosen ingredients to heal his sinuses. We now continue our epic along this yellow brick road, better known as South Korea...

Today, Sunday, I did absolutely nothing except sleep in, nap, and eat and drink things that are good for me. So we should look at the rest of the week for something slightly more entertaining.

Other than going to the gym once and trying a bowl of absolutely terrible Vietnamese pho soup this week flew by. Taking Korean classes means that I have even less time to myself but slowly I am starting to understand Hanguk-mal, literally translated: Korean talking. I really enjoy the classes and it should become pretty helpful when taking taxis, ordering food or when I get invited to go hang out with Kim Jong Il and he gives me his favorite pair of sun glasses and it's totally cool and we have mojitos. Enough about my fantasies of sugary rum-drinks with narcissistic dictators-- I have much more interesting things to talk about.

Friday night I went out for a little with some coworkers, exacerbating my symptoms slightly, and during the taxi ride over and in the midst of our trying to communicate which bar we were headed to the taxi driver randomly asked if we spoke Spanish. I was more eager than one of my students, I was like: I do! I do! You've got to be kidding a Korean taxi driver who speak Spanish?! Better question, why not English? It turns out he has been listening to Korean--Spanish language lessons on tape while he drives around all day and spoke Spanish fairly well. Using Español I was able to get us to the right place much more efficiently than if we had used very broken Korean and hand gestures.

Saturday was the wedding of one of the receptionists of the school and it was held at a Catholic church and was not dissimilar to a Catholic wedding anywhere else in the world. We arrived a little late but snuck in and sat next to our other coworkers and sat through an hour mass that culminated in the part where they say they do and they kiss and all that stuff. I take it you understand the concept of wedding and I don't need to go into too many details. 100% in Korean so we only knew what was going on due to the rythm of the chants or through certain motions carried out by the priest. Colm and Rosie were both raised Catholic and took communion while I just watched from the ubiquitous hard, wooden pews.

Shuffling outside we were part of some photo ops before going down to a banquet hall to have some delicious foods. I'm sorry that I didn't take more pictures but I think I would have gotten a LOT of weird looks for taking pictures of their food. Options included prawns, sashimi, jellyfish noodles in a mustard sauce, chestnut noodles, small baby octopi that may have been boiled but they tasted pretty fresh as well as the less exotic like spaghetti, salads and egg salad sandwiches.

After we had sat down with our food we were treated to the first toast and strangely the only toast of the wedding which lasted for all of 10 seconds. It was not your standard toast after toast after toast and you're not sure if you can be eating or what. Great! More time to socialize and eat with my coworkers. Wrong. The whole lunch hour lasted maybe 45 minutes and most people sat, ate, and got the hell out of dodge. No dancing, no drinking bottles and bottles of champagne, no awkward speeches, a lot of things which I guess I kind of liked about the American style weddings I'm used to. It just seemed so anti-climactic. After, we had coffee then hopped back on the subway back home.

I'm not sure if this was all that short but compared to some other posts I think it was.

Anyang hi ka seo!
Photos on the right------------>

2 Dudes Nude

2009-10-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

With such a tantalizing title the author assumes assuredly that you will not be but drawn to read on to get to the unclad lads that is all but promised in such a provocative title. The writer of this rather humble internet entry device writes this as the sun sets silently almost unnoticed in such a teeming metropolis like Seoul; while on the other side of our small planet many of those kind enough to decipher the rants of a foreigner in need of attention, rise to a lazy Sunday morning which will apparently be spent, in part, reading this "web-log." So the man behind the keyboard will try and not start you off with something boring and hopes that you are not only here due to lewd references already alluded in the title.

Friday night finally came! Happiness is a word reserved for emotions far less powerful than what I might have been feeling when the weekend arrived one week too late. I have 10 classes on Fridays which only serves to motivate my feelings of flight. This week was however very interesting since I had two Korean language classes which I wasn't expecting to even have since nobody got back to us after we had expressed interest in taking them. The classes were very good and I am looking forward to learning some of this mysterious tongue which shares none of the qualities of the few languages I have tried my hand at. I hope soon to be able to order food and maybe even be able to count above the number two. Let's be honest, this is a tough language although the alphabet is pretty sweet and very easy to learn. The classes were also turnabout since I spend all days pounding English into children's heads and now I have willingly signed up for the same treatment with slightly more embarrassment since I am taking the classes with two of my better friends from the school, Gabi and Rosie.

Friday night I saw the movie Gamer at a very nice theater near the school and had an easy evening which was just fine for me since I was looking forward to a less exciting weekend with no crazy fish ladies or jaundice-men vying for my attention or money. Gamer was okay for the first half but the second just gets weird and lost me.

Saturday I hung out with a Korean guy, Minha, who works at the school as an aid of some sort and we went to an area called Insadong that is pretty touristy but we had some great food, lots of squid, pork, and kimchi, and some delicious traditional Korean style tea.

Though tea and squid is not why you have forged this river that is my babbling blog. The nudity! Yes, Danny, get to the part where there are naked people! Talk about the naked people! Fear not young padawan for I will do so. This weekend I invited David and Abby to go to a jimilbang, which is essentially a Korean bath house. My friend Rosie is a big fan of the jimjilbangs so she came along as well. So after a hearty dinner and several bottles of liquid courage we headed to Yongsan to have yet another new experience.

We walk in and first lock up our shoes and are given some pajama shorts and shirt and several towels along with a wrist band that will charge us for anything we buy inside of the bath house. We part ways, David and I going to the mens' floor and the girls heading to the ladies'. Upon exiting the elevator we see at least half a dozen Korean men naked, just hanging out, watching TV or talking, stretching-- basically whatever they feel like doing. This is the part for which we have imbibed a few beers but also very curious about since the "bath" portion of the bath house is done completely nude. We go to lock up our things and both try and muster enough energy to not giggle too much or make things weird for when we both know that we are getting nakeder than we ever expected to be in the same room. We put on the pajamas and look around the area, discover the baths, and aren't really sure what we're supposed to do or when we have to disrobe.

We follow a friendly Russian guy down to a different floor that is coed and everyone is wearing the pajamas, we follow the Siberian into a sauna which made me feel like a pizza since it was essentially just a large oven. After the oven we head back upstairs and figure out that we were supposed to lock up the pj's as well and decided just do it. So we got to the business at hand and wandered over to the baths naked, naked, naked. I mean, David is a good friend, I just didn't think we'd ever be this unclothed together along with 2 dozen Korean men who seemed to be really comfortable with the whole situation and only startled by our presence because we were foreign.

I didn't feel as awkward as I thought I would but that's not to say I didn't feel completely strange at first. In that baths there were several pools of different temperatures: hot, cold, very hot. There was a wet sauna which made me sweat like nothing ever has and several other rooms for body scrubbing and massage which seemed pricy so we just stuck with being naked in hot tubs with lots of other dudes. Also I don't know if I'm comfortable getting scrubbed down by some nice jimjilbang employee just yet-- no, not just yet.

After seeing more Korean men in their birthday suits and not their business suits than I had ever wanted to see we changed and headed downstairs to find the womenfolk. We tried out the saunas again and even an ice room which felt very pleasant and sat in some massage chairs which were pretty fantastic for $1.80 for 10 minutes. We found the women poked around a little more and then went out for some drinks to debrief our brief experience of brieflessness.

In short-- when in Rome do as the Romans and when in Korea do as the Koreans. You'll like it.

Today I went shopping bought some things and also got a cool haircut. That's right, Danny changed his hairstyle which has largely been the same since late high school. It looks similar but the "designer" took some artistic license with it and I'm actually really pleased with the result-- especially for a haircut/shampoo/scalp massage that cost $13 and no tip!

I end this admittedly over-hyped entry with some idioms I read recently. The first which is for my friends, "Even if you have to crawl on your knees, get yourself to Seoul!" The second being for my parents is, "Send your ox to market but send your son to Seoul."

Anyang and good night. Comments are encouraged... :P

5 Days of Chuseok: Part II

2009-10-06T08:44:00.000-07:00

The author would like to state that he has just come back from his first Korean lesson and was not aware that he would be having the lesson today since his employer, from whom the classes are offered, did not bother to inform him or his two friends that the classes began today. He is thoroughly confused but thinks that he is getting a handle of the 3 dozen kinds of “U” sounds but is feeling uneasy about the consonants whose sound seem to change with the wind.

But you the eager and well informed reader of this classy, little “web log” has not come here to necessarily hear about the author’s unplanned joust with the Korean language. No, not at all; you are here to complete the saga, the epic, the odyssey that was the Chuseok vacations here in the “land of the morning calm.” Fear not for we find ourselves in a new city, the city of Busan where anything can and does happen…

So Day one went down like any day in a new city; Rosie and myself asking each other where we think we should head and since neither one of us had ever been to this particular metropolis that didn’t seem to get us very far. We found the subway and were pleased to find that it worked very similarly to the system that we have in Seoul but not before I went up to a Subway attendant and asked a question in slow, English teacher English thinking he wouldn’t understand me and only to have him respond in fluent West Coast English. We then explored some, found a map to guide us, got lost and eventually decided to head to the beach since it was a muggy 70 degrees outside.

We took a taxi since the subway in Busan runs nowhere near the beaches and were pleasantly surprised to find that the rates were much less than in Seoul. We arrived at Gwang-alli Beach which makes a huge case for Busan being better than Seoul. See the link on the right for photos. We eventually started to hunger and made our way to a cheap looking noodle house with a very friendly elderly couple beaming at us as we entered their restaurant. Since we have little understanding of the Korean language, both of us, we rely on pictures and bad translations to order food. So we ordered #4 since they were all noodle varieties and everyone seemed to have soup and that seemed fine to us. We did not get soup. We received cold noodles. I’d like to state a fact: warm noodles > cold noodles. Okay, enough about the noodles.

After slurping up a reasonable about of spicy but very cold noodles we headed back to the beach area and took some amazing pictures of the bridge (and by amazing I mean I am still figuring out how my camera works so please forgive me) and the surrounding areas which give Busan a lot of charm—including its colorful “Millak Raw Fish Town”.

Come evening we headed to a bar on the beach and had some beers, played some darts, and eventually found a taxi back to our hostel to start again Friday.

Friday morning we explored the area around the hostel and eventually found ourselves starving but I love food so that was okay. We found a Korean pizza place (some of the tastiest pizza in the world is here) and split and overpriced half-shrimp and half-potato pizza. We ate the pizza with forks and knives (Koreans are the biggest fans of eating with one’s hands) as our neighbors are theirs out of little paper cups which seems to be the style especially for take-out pizza.

After the potato pizza (trust me, you want some) we got lost again but in 70 degree weather you can’t complain. I decided I needed to take out some more cash only to find myself in a similar position as I was in at the beginning of my time here in South Korea: hardly any ATMs accept foreign debit cards! I began to stress out as Rosie was also running low and had been covering things for me for the first half of the trip with the assumption that I would be reimbursing her. We tried what seemed like hundreds of different ATMs—even the bank that works for me in Seoul but only to be rejected by every single one. We made our way to the train station hoping that something there would work but even there none of the ATMs would give. We then asked some random foreign-looking girl if she knew of any international ATMs and she suggested down in the subway. I was about to give up all hope when alas! It worked! The nice lady candy vendor next to the ATM also celebrated my being able to take out cash and so we bought $2 worth of her candies. It was the worst tasting candy that either one of us has ever had but even that couldn’t ruin our elated state.

We decided we needed some coffee or tea to wash out the bad tasted from the candy and to regroup our thoughts as well as to wake up a little. While drinking some “southern sweet tea” we found on our map a large Buddhist temple that was nearby and promptly took a taxi right to the entrance. We took a ton of photos but I’m not sure that I did it justice given out big and grand it was and how terrible my photos make it look. Inside I was able to take photos of some people chanting and from what we had read we think that this was prayer to the Buddhist goddess of mercy. It was pretty cool and we were delighted that we were able to take photos inside of the temple.

Again we found ourselves with that condition known as hunger and decided to head back to Gwang-alli so that I cook take part in Korean style sushi. We wandered around for a while and were recommended an area, by some young police officers (all police officers in Korea are young), which turned out to be the “Millak Raw Fish Town.” The first place we went to had a small platter starting at 80,000 won which is in the range of US$70 so we decided to politely back away slowly and look for another place. That totally would have worked except this particular fish lady seemed to have some sort of bet with the devil that she could get us into her restaurant or she’d lose her soul because she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She became a little louder and we tried to leave but found ourselves unable. Eventually I began mumbling at her in some Spanish and a fair bit of gibberish which confused both her and Rosie; so she turned to Rosie assuming that she understood what the crazy fish lady was saying. Rosie did not and soon the woman was grabbing Rosie by the arms hoping that she would understand, “eat my over-priced, uncooked fish” through the scientific principle of osmosis.

Somehow we MacGyver’d an escape which involved a paper clip, a hair pin, our collective shoe laces and some terrible tasting Korean gum. To be honest, I’m not sure how we made it out of there alive. We checked another restaurant—with a much less high pressure staff, only finding the price 20,000 won cheaper so I used the power of my imagination to remember what raw fish tastes like and decided that chicken was the meal for me. We found a small chicken restaurant, recouped from the crazy fish lady and had the world’s spiciest chicken along with the world largest pitcher of yellow Korean beer. All for less than the sushi would have been, especially considering that Rosie doesn’t eat fish.

We then headed back to the beach to join in the Chuseok festivities which were slightly underwhelming but ducked into the bar from the previous night to use the rest room. While having a beer at the bar we met a man with the English name of Terry who works at a savings bank in Busan. He was a lot of fun and had very good English. Several beers later he took us to his friend’s restaurant where we tried North Korean style dumplings with the owner of the restaurant. The dumplings were 4 times larger than normal and wrapped in chicken skin instead of dough. They were delicious. The pumpkin tempura is also something that I would recommend.

The next day, Saturday, was Chuseok and also our last day in Busan. In morning we were examinging a map confirming our way to our destination of the UN War Memorial at Busan and thinking about breakfast (since virtually everything is closed on Chuseok) when jaundice man appeared as if a specter off my right cheek. He was a pale color almost yellow-tinted and very thin. I didn’t notice him, given my love affair with maps, until he asked in near-perfect English where we were headed. I then noticed him hovering just off the right side of my face and took a step back and told him assuming he knew something we didn’t, like that it was closed on Chuseok. He then volunteered to take us there, which was only a little bit creepy, when Rosie saved the day saying that we needed to get breakfast first and we had to meet someone and probably a few other lies. The then turned around and descended into the subway like some sort of HG Wells inspired morlock.

The UN War Memorial was very moving and we learned a lot—a lot more than I had ever learned in high school or college about the war. Things like the nation of Turkey fought in the war and suffered some of the highest casualties outside of the US and the UK. It was a very beautiful cemetery and guarded by one UN soldier—my first time seeing a UN soldier in person which was refreshing to see. I can’t go on too much about the site but please see the photos on the right for only some of what I was able to see.

Upon becoming tired from mild sun burns we headed back to the train station to nap and wait for our train since all of Korea seemed to be inside their homes celebrating. We kept hoping that some nice family would invite us in for some songpyon or other holiday refreshments but was a dream never realized.

After a brief nap in the train station we found “China Street” which happened to be located inside of a good sized Russian neighborhood and eventually went and had some more coffee across the street from the train station.

It turns out that our tickets for the 3 hour ride were in “seats” for 1 hour and for 2 hours we would be hobos of sorts in between cars in the standing room only section. This turned out to be more fun anyway as we ordered beers every time the attendant passed by and danced outside of the restroom, Korean staring at us all the while—which they would have been anyway since we aren’t Korean. At one point we gave up our “seat” which was a luggage shelf to a family, who was banished to the standing room only with us, to be rewarded with dried squid jerky by their young daughter which reeked of squid and ocean a little much ever for me.

The rest of the weekend in Seoul was fun too but this entry is already longer than the Bible so I will force myself to stop.

Anyang!

Comments please!

5 Days of Chuseok: Part I

2009-10-05T06:02:00.000-07:00

The author is tired, so very tired. He wishes to convey the holiday weekend as it happened and without forgetting anything super important or interesting but he fears that he may but he will endeavor to transcribe some of the stories and adventures of the Chuseok holiday and an entertaining and excellent experience to beautiful Busan and back.

This weekend was Chuseok which is more or less Korean Thanksgiving. It is still about family and the harvest and many of the things that we do in the US for Thanksgiving but with some differences. Many people, mostly children, dress up in traditional Hanbok clothing, they eat traditional foods, and they visit grave sites of their ancestors. That being said I will attempt to tell you how I spent this Chuseok and the five glorious days I had off work to do so.

By the time this weekend took its sweet time getting here, I had several travel plans with several people all of which fell through. I wanted to get out of Seoul and see something out of the city so badly. Only one other person had this same desire and that was my coworker, Rosie. We both wanted to go to Busan, the second largest city in South Korea and a great tourist destination with lots of beaches, see why we wanted to go? To drop a colloquial phrase, “everyone and their mom” told us that travelling this weekend would be impossible and that we shouldn’t even attempt leaving the Seoul metro area since all the trains, planes and automobiles would be booked and the only salt water we would see would be from our tears as we learned firsthand at the train station the black hole that is travelling on Chuseok. What did we learn? Never say die.

We made our way to Seoul Station immediately after work on Wednesday and walked right up to the ticket counter after waiting in a small line and found two tickets to Busan via the KTX bullet train for less than $50 a piece. All, meaning every single one of our coworkers (Korean and American), said that this small feat would be impossible. Hear that kids? You never get anywhere without trying.

So we stocked up on provisions, which included some seaweed-rice snacks and several beers and some Soju—that vile, relentless liquor that is so cheap and so well-loved here in Korea and boarded our train; Busan bound. On the train, several beers in, we wandered over to a table with only one Korean guy about our age and asked him if he liked Soju and if we could sit down. As it turned out, he did indeed like Soju and we took our seats and soon his friend came and joined us as we all became quick friends sharing the drinks and grabbing some beef jerky and mixed nuts from the passing train attendant. They explained to us that they were two engineers living Incheon, which is next to Seoul, and were headed to Busan for the holiday to visit their families. Their English was phenomenal and we were asked to quiet down on no less than 3 occasions—not a bad train ride.

Finally, in only 3 hours, we had traveled across the entire length of the country and had arrived in Busan, barely finding room at a hostel and waking up Thursday morning to begin our adventures anew on the southern most part of the Korean peninsula.

I hate doing blogs in installments but I am still pretty tired from this weekend and would love to write more tomorrow.

Anyang!

3 Days Until Vacation

2009-09-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

From the mysterious Orient comes yet another tale of intrigue along with new photos from our reveling, rambling writer-- who may or may not be all about alliteration. We last learned of his attempts to break free from the monotony of his indentured servitude here on the Korean peninsula with this entry being no exception. He may also be inclined to tell you some tales of teaching. Fortunately, you have acquired enough free time to read what the author deems is important or interesting enough to write down in hopes that you read his meager attempt to describe his daily life to you, his loyal readers.

So as the title references, Korean Thanksgiving, Chuseok, is this weekend and I have Thursday through Monday off and couldn't be more excited. All tickets for buses and trains are presumably booked but there is talk of standing room only trains or possible space in Noraebang rooms (Karaoke) on board the trains where we could ride. "We" is still up in the air considering everyone is still sorting out their plans and since none of us speak Korean all that well we have to rely on our Korean friends or Korean partner teachers to help us book things. More details to come next Sunday.

One of my lessons on "multiculturalism" was on Chuseok which forced me to learn about it and compare it to American Thanksgiving. I found that it is very similar to Thanksgiving but with different foods and people here visit the graves of their ancestors. Half of one of my preschool classes all jumped out of their chairs and began doing this (Buddhist?) bowing ritual that is common on Chuseok, not shy at all.

I love teaching the classes on multiculturalism but this month is transportation; I'm not as stoked at all on the subject. I teach anywhere between 6 and 10 classes a day. The hardest ones are the beginners that are in the afternoon who we don't get to see everyday like the pre-schoolers. I'm pretty sure one kid "Brian" either doesn't care or just has no idea what I'm saying, he just copies off the other kids.

When I punish a kid by sending them to the corner or out in the hall, invariably they will throw their hands in the air which causes them great displeasure. They also screw around a whole lot less when their hands are in the air, big plus. Another teacher found out that I sent a kid out to the hall for speaking in Korean after I had just chastized the whole class for the very same thing and it turns out he had turned to his friend to say, "The teacher is really funny!" One, I didn't know that. Two, I have a strict zero tolerance policy on Korean. I can even now say "No Korean!" in Korean which is really fun to do.

In my favorite pre-school class, "Samuel" asked me what a target was, since the word was in their Phonics book, and I indulged him, drawing a target on the board. Si-Jun who has lived the US then began talking to me about how he knows what a "Target" is and how you can buy snacks and hot dogs there and other things. I was confused for a moment but he was definitely talking about a Target store he must have gone to while living in the US.

Fun fact: If you ask a Korean student to draw "Korea" they will usually draw the whole peninsula with no border. If you ask for South Korea they usually draw the whole peninsula but with a border and then label the southern half. The geographer in me loves this. Also, all the world maps here have Korea in the center and the Americas are on the right side of the map and Europe on the left. They also don't say "Sea of Japan" but rather the "Eastern Sea," I love seeing stuff like that. Also, don't speak too positively about Japan, they are still pretty pissed off about the whole violent occupation that the Japanese Empire did to Korea and Northern China before and during WWII.

My coworker Rosie and I decided to go hiking this weekend. We attempted to navigate our way around Bukhansan mountain located relatively close to my apartment here in Seoul (and is worth Googling for better photos than I have provided). Once we got there we became lost in a sea of Koreans decked out in the best hiking gear that money can buy. I'm fairly certain that none of them were going to be camping but they had huge, brand new backpacking backpacks that couldn't have held all that much for their small day hikes around the mountain with 4000 like minded countrymen and a handful of foreigners lost in the confusion of an REI catalog on steroids. At the base of the mountain are roughly 100 restaurants and hiking stores all catering to the throngs of weekend warriors battling the mountains who had the unfortunate destiny of being located so close to such a capitalist metropolis-- though litter was not an issue surprisingly. I do want to go back however and see if I can't make it higher up on the mountain since we became a lost in a maze of trails and encountering stunning Buddhist temples everyone once in a while dotting the mountain along with the occasional pop machine. Please see the link for photos of some of the chaos that we encountered.

Saturday night I made my way to an area near Korea University and what I found was a really cool, happening place where I think I will be going back to since it isn't as busy and Hyewa or Hongdae or that Mos Eisley of neighborhoods, Itaewon.

The rest of this weekend was easier spent with a small excursion to Hyewa and dinner with my coworkers, Gabi and Rosie, at a restaurant here in Seongbuk that we like. We then went to the top of a gynourmous building near my school that you may recognize in the photos. I'm not scared of heights...

That's all for this week folks, keep checking the blog and leave me some comments. I always love reading them.

Anyang!

*Editor's note: They are kindergarten, not preschool sorry for the confusion (Rosie...)

4 Weeks in?

2009-09-20T06:58:00.000-07:00

*** Link to photos on the right à ***

When our agile and ardent adventurer isn’t defending the English language against a formidable army of child warriors, hell bent on throwing articles where they don’t belong and assuredly refusing to put them in places that would guarantee fluency, he also goes out and sees the metropolis that surrounds him; but he mainly, a white board marker his only weapon, attempts to thwart calls of “Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!”

This week went by more or less uneventfully—which was OK by me. I got sick. I got better. I am getting better at breaking out the Purell every time one of those germ covered hands touches any part of my person. We did have a kid pull the fire alarm this week—which sounded like an air raid siren and almost influencing me to lose control of certain bodily functions. My kids, the smartest in the school, just started giggling and asking, “Fire?!, Fire?!” no help to me at all. Upon walking out in the hall I find the rest of the foreign teachers on the floor equally confused but maybe less scared since they likely watch less science fiction than I might.

Friday is my long day and I have two classes who were sent by an angry, vengeful god who I have indeed offended to test my patience and my will. However, to paraphrase Star Trek, every moment of pleasure is balanced by an equal moment of pain, giving my Friday nights all the more reason to head out and find that pleasure with my teacher buddies having already experienced those moments of pain.

Itaewon was my Friday night destination to celebrate Chilean Independence Day. I found empanadas, Paraguayan not Chilean, but delicious as always. Itaewon can’t be adequately described to the reader, despite said reader’s impeccable taste in blogs, the reader would just have to experience certain things here for themselves to really know what I’m talking about. I might give it another go in a future entry. It’s to foreigners what a Chinatown is to Chinese anywhere else in the world. It is the foreigner district located next to the military base, harboring massive amounts of foreigners, GIs in particular. One bonus was that I met some nice dudes from a Peruvian flute band ordering kebas in line with me.

Saturday night was my friend Gabi’s birthday and we spent the night in Hongdae and Hyewa with a visit to one of the nicest noraebangs in the area; leather couches, big screen tv, AC, not bad.

Today I spent the day cleaning my studio and then went back to the Hyewa area with my friend Rosie stopping for galbi, the tastiest of tasties: Korean short ribs. Cooked in front of you and cut into small pieces, wrap them in lettuce and cover them in hot sauce. We have a winner. I need to learn more Korean however, asking for pork short ribs was an embarrassing and funny experience for both Rosie and me and two of the cooks and an English speaking college student on a date with his girlfriend… After devouring the ribs, now residing pleasantly in our stomachs, we headed to a place called O’Sulloc which has traditional Korean green tea from the island of Jeju. I’ve wanted to try the green tea for a while and I wasn’t disappointed.

The author wishes to respectfully acknowledge that this entry was really, really long and you have a job and should have been working. So go back to doing that and know that the author has every intention of writing more edible sizes of text. Adios.

80 Cents to Make Danny Happy

2009-09-13T04:51:00.000-07:00

As much as the humble raconteur of this poorly edited blog loved being unemployed, opening his eyes when he had had enough sleep, having no schedule, calling no man mister and working only 4 hours a week timing 3 year olds run the 100 meter dash, and drinking growlers of local brew on any night he chose, he think that he might have made a good decision flying far west to the Far East. The author's friend here in Korea, Rosie, thinks he might like talking about himself in the third person. Danny would like to conjecture that she's full of it.

So I do enjoy working, I really do. The hours can be long and the kids can get tiresome but classes are 40 minutes and soon they are over and I hope they have learned something and that they will someday choose to respect me and my ability to rock the English language in ways they only wish they could. Some of my kindergarten kids will be fluent soon. I suppose you could argue that they already are but they make a mistake every once in a while... I am so jealous of their abilities to speak so confidently in English. I never have to remind them not to speak in Korean-- just to zip it for speaking too much in English. They even bicker in English. At times I might forget that they are Korean and not little American children.

Apart from work I have been having plenty of fun-- in some cases maybe too much fun. Careful with the local water, Soju, it can be tricky and still there in the morning. The last two nights I have been to two different noraebangs (noraybongs) which is the Korean version of karaoke. You are entreated to a private room so that no one but your singing companions can hear you sing butchered versions of Nirvana or Snoop Dogg. Very fun and a lot less embarrassing than the karaoke I have done in the past.

I have been eating so well here. I wish I had a camera (coming soon) to document the what can only be described as ambrosia that you can purchase for between 80 cents to $10. I have eaten seafood lasagna with shrimp and squid, tempura shrimp, tempura squid, tempura octopus, tempura hard boiled eggs, spicy spaghetti with squid, fish on sticks-- not to be confused with fish sticks, curries, kimchi, and 13 other things that I can't tell you what they were but they were not in anyway not delicious. I have yet to go to a restaurant where they have fish tanks out in front filled with live crabs, lobsters, small squids, fish, bottom feeders, eels, sea cucumbers, snails or their younger sibling the street cart with fish tanks filled with the smaller but still very much live sea creatures. I love this country.

A note on kimchi: kimchi is fermented vegetables that have been lathered in hot sauce and left for different amounts of time in clay pots, the most common of which being the cabbage variety. I eat all my vegetables here. I would have eaten all of my vegetables in the States if they were spicy and lip-smackingly crazy good. I don't know why no one in the US ever introduced me to the wonders of kimchi before. If you knew about it and didn't tell me then we can't be friends anymore. Shame on you. I had to eat lunch with "D class" all week and the kids kept complaining how spicy their kimchi was-- but ate up every bite of it. Kids eating their vegetables... 10 points for Korea.

Apart from eating delicious food I am slowly picking up some Korean but I can now say bathroom and have used it several times! I need to learn numbers next; I think I have most of the alphabet under control except for the 10 different yuh/yah/yeh/yoh/yyuhh sounds masquerading themselves as useful and distinct letters.

I think there was something else I had wanted to add but I think this was sufficient information and hopefully still entertaining. Please comment! More comments will get me to post more and I'm pretty sure that you don't have to register with anything to do it, so just leave your comments and I will be very happy to read them.

And yes, I yell at my kids in Spanish to get their attention. Nothing easier.

Adios and please get that health care thing passed! I am sick of hearing about it on the news podcasts I watch and would really appreciate healthcare when I get back if I can't get a decent job right away. So call or write those representives and senators and utilize that democracy thing us Americans are always so quick to defend but reluctant to practice!

3-1 Korea!

2009-09-09T18:10:00.000-07:00

We last saw our antagonistic protagonist on his way to see the South Korea, Australia game at the megalithic World Cup Stadium here in Seoul. 20 subway steps and 1 subway transfer and I found one of my college friends Abby waiting for me at the humbling exit from the underground-- which was shaped like a huge amphitheater and was filled with soccer fans all scrambling the 75 feet of steps or the few escalators up to the top where the vastness of the stadium awaited. Abby called David, my other college friend, who had been looking for me because I guess he didn't expect me to be able to follow 40,000 people in the right direction of a 60,000 person stadium... maybe I did something really stupid where he doesn't expect much of me?

I guess this is a good point to add that David chipped his front tooth, now fixed, on some metal chopsticks while eating. Okay, I think we're even now.

So as we made our way towards the stadium David and Abby, who had been riding bikes around the Han River and this area, pointed out the free beer samples. The line was long so we headed to the stadium where they took the caps of our bottles but not the actual bottles. Which was weird because when I ordered beers at the game they gave me entire cans of beer, so it wasn't trying to avoid fans using the bottles as projectiles I'm sure-- and yes, I know how to say beer in Korean, its one of the few words I can say. Though I still have no idea what the word for bathroom is-- one might think the learning of the first word would lead to the learning of the other...

--Pause, right now a truck is driving around my neighborhood with a megaphone advertising fresh fruit, thought you should know---

Once inside David, his newly minted smile, and Abby informed me that our tickets had only been W10,000 or about $8.50 and they were right behind the Korean goal. It was amazing to be in a sea of red (team nickname is the Red Devils-- shown by all the gear with angry looking devils and cute devil horns on all the women) and we were even covered by the largest South Korean flag ever during the national anthem.

The match was won by Korea of course, much to the dismay of the sizable number of Australia fans in attendance-- inflatable kangaroos not discounted. We were ecstatic, but mostly because we made it to the subway before the majority of the fans did. We made our way to their town of Anyang, which we're not sure if it means "hello," and hung out for a while downtown, avoiding wandering groups of wegugin (foreigners), in this case dumb Americans and Canadians, before I crashed on their couch which is 5 times more comfortable than my bed.

Apart from soccer this week has been relatively uneventful, apart from a "motivational" email from my boss directed at all of the foreign teachers. I like teaching more and more which is good. Two of my brighter 9 year olds got in a fight on the floor of my classroom as I was walking in yesterday. I directed them to the nearest Korean teacher and they got chewed out by no less than three Korean teachers in what I can only describe as something that I NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER want to happen to me. Even the mild mannered, unassuming man who picked me up from the bus got nastier than I think I could have ever been to them.

Other things of interest, because all of this other stuff was really, really boring, is that if you look on any map or any temple there will be a swastika or 10 to let you know its a temple. I had learned that it was a Buddhist thing a while ago but you have to see it to believe it. Yesterday I was trying to teach the word "to pray" and I giddily drew a cross next to a swastika and my kids didn't bat an eyelash but instead understood exactly what I wanted them to! Ha! I don't know about ya'll but that was fun for me.

At this time I say Anyang gi ha seo. I should head to work and prep for my day.

Adios

2 Days into Teaching

2009-09-02T06:46:00.000-07:00

Anyang ha seo!

Wow, so much has happened since the last time we joined our handsome, young adventurer and his tales of the mysterious orient. Humility is huge here, hence I have to vent it all on here, lucky you.

So this weekend I went out with many of my new coworkers, both American, but1 Irish fellow, and Korean. I will tell you this, Koreans and foreigners in Korea like to have fun. I haven't been out as late as I was on Friday since New Years in Chile earlier this year but I didn't head out until much later in the night. Going out here in Seoul can be summed up pretty simply: the beer is cheap but it is worse than PBR and the street kebabs are fantastic. Wrapped in flour tortillas, the kebabs will be my drug of choice since they're roughly a taco... especially since they are wrapped in tortillas.

My ex college coworker David and his girlfriend Abby came up to visit this weekend. So far he's convinced both she and me to come to this strange and motor bike filled world with its $3.50 kebabs. I really, really like the kebabs if you haven't noticed. Back to David and Abby, they spent the weekend in Seoul, they live just to the south of here, and we hung out with some of my coworkers\, wandered around the streets of my neighborhood for a while finding an awe inspiring temple that was deaf to the city inside its walls, we saw some of the women's university, and we ate the most amazing curry at this Nepalese place, filled unsurprisingly with Seoul's Nepalese population, that my friend Nick Verbon, who taught here, had recommended. It was a great weekend but led into a busy, busy week.

Tuesday I began teaching! I had prepped a lot Monday and that had really paid off. My kids for the most part are all very bright and some of them were even born in the US so they know as much English as they should for a kid their age; on the other hand I have some kids who are brand new to English learning and their very first experience is with yours truly. I might teach them Spanish on alternating days and see if anyone notices. Anyone dare me to do it?

I was also able to move into my new place! Its not bad, no oven or dishwasher but it has a laundry/dryer and internet already set up. The bed is hard as a rock but more like a sandstone and the motel bed was then more of a granite or diamond in hardness. All in all the place is big enough for me and has air conditioning so I'm fine. The oddest thing is the shower. The bathroom is the shower. Maybe its something you have to experience but the shower head basically just comes out of the wall and there are no walls. This might be hard to explain but its just odd and leave the whole closet of a bathroom wet when done. The motel was much the same way but it was a much bigger bathroom.

Bathrooms aside, today was my second day teaching and apart from a minor emergency in which I had photocopied the wrong test, which we didn't have time for anyway, everything went pretty well, also if you don't include me not knowing how to use the projector for one class.

There are a hundred other things I could tell you I suppose but Danny is tired and Danny is jealous of how close his comforter and sheets are. With luck, I will have my resident alien card soon and be fully legit here in Korea and have a cellphone and bank account and everything.

And before I forget, I think David, Abby and I are going to see South Korea versus Australia in soccer at the World Cup Stadium this weekend. Pretty cool, right?

Chao

Day 3 in Korea

2009-08-28T03:02:00.000-07:00

Well where do I start? This has been a whirlwind couple of days and I wouldn't know where to begin to describe all of the things that I have seen, smelled, heard, tasted or what but I, the intrepid hero of the blog, will try.

I arrived at Incheon International Airport on August 25th, which is the 24th for anyone on the other side of the international dateline, and immediately had my temperature taken by the friendly airport staff-- looking for Pig Flu. The flight over had been nice and thankfully direct from Seattle to Korea. I watched some movies and tried memorizing some more Korean words but found it more interesting talking to the nice Filipino man next to me. Once through customs I need to withdraw money and as per my instructions from the school, make a phone call to the school letting them know I had arrived and then take a bus to a meeting place where I would then be taken to a motel where I would be in "quarantine"-- more about that later. I was able to find an ATM at the airport then take a bus (for $7) from Incheon to northern Seoul to the designated location, meeting several friendly English speaking denizens of this place along the way. At the stop I met "Jimmy," who talks as much as I don't, and we went to the motel and as soon as we walked into the room he told me to take off my shoes and put on house slippers because that's just how they roll in Korea. There are also separate sandals for the bathroom in case you were wondering. He left and told me he would be back at 8:30am to take me to the doctor for a medical exam-- but not without telling me not to eat the expensive corn flavored sodas in the mini-fridge.

Sleep was not what it usually is seeing as I had been up for over 24 hours at that point and I woke up at 4:30am Korean time which was probably 1 in the afternoon in Seattle. I then watched TV on my 27" LCD screen in the room (FYI that is pretty humongous) and hacked someone's unsecured network for my laptop since the computer in the room is not working properly. Once Jimmy arrived we went to the hospital where they drew enough blood to make Dracula sleepy, 2 cups of urine (one covered the other open), chest x-rays-- not sure why, blood pressure, height, weight, and looked in my mouth and asked me if I had diseases. Best medical exam ever! Actually, aside from the blood I'm not sure what was up with half of that. I guess I get my pig flu results back later. I hope I don't have it!

Speaking of the infamous pig flu that is why I am "quarantined." I use parenthesis because I can pretty much do what I like during my free time and I have visited the school several times in the last two days. Its basically a feel good thing for parents to think that we aren't coming in contact with their kids because I might be infected, maybe from the plane? Definitely not from the very densely populated metropolis of North Bend... So the last two days I have spent, instead of a thorough 3 day training at the head office, at a coffee shop next to the school with the director and sometimes teachers from the school, becoming overwhelmed with the strange new job that I am to undertake. I have about 8 different kinds of classes I am teaching and about 30 plus different classes in the week. We'll see if I can make it a week and remember it all. One day at a time? I know its al-anon's thing but I might need some serious drinks tonight or soon to relax. Its been one of the most intensive things I've had to do since my initial lifeguard training back in high school.

Last night me and my neighbor, Katie, who is also new, spent three hours wandering the streets of Seoul and not really getting that much wiser on how to navigate this place except to place all your faith in the metro.

Today I skipped breakfast and for lunch found some gimbop, Korean veggie sushi from what I can tell, and some deep fried squid legs-- delicious both! I've also had some Korean style chicken fried pork covered in cheese, had amazing kimchee and some pickled radish/turnip thing and on the plane had some bibimbap which I would recommend hands down. It came with a tube of hot sauce, which made the author extremely glad he chose Korea. I should also say that food is CHEAP!

Other things of note are the girls here are always wearing mini-skirts and high heels and on TV on two different stations I have seen broadcasts of former tournaments of the computer/video games of Starcraft, Warcraft 3, and Mortal Kombat-- all with live commentary from "sports" casters. I don't know if all of the readers of this blog will know what those are but lets just say that gaming in a big deal here and the superstars of these tournaments are professionals and make their living off playing these games. Holy cow.

That's too much to read or write for that matter in one sitting so I'll get back to chilling in my love motel.

Hasta luego

1 Day Left in the USA

2009-08-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Hello and welcome to my blog.

I guess we can call it a travel blog or maybe not since I am moving and won't be constantly "traveling." As you probably know I am moving to Seoul, South Korea and this will be the official source for all your inquiries on how Korea is going. This is a pretty big move for me even though I have lived and traveled abroad before just never for this long and never to any East Asian country. So lets do the list; I've been to Canada, Mexico, France, Argentina and Chile-- but not in that order. While I will be living in South Korea, I will probably hit up Japan, and am open to economical suggestions while I am in the so called Orient.

I will be teaching conversational English at a private academy, called a hagwon, through YBM in Seongbuk-gu, Seoul. Seoul is a city of over 10 million people (23 million in the Seoul metro area) and will officially be the most populated city to which I have ever even been.

More details to come once I am settled in Seoul and I hope that you either find this blog interesting enough to check out maybe once a week. I will try and update more often that that however. For fans of my last blog while I was studying in Chile, I hope this one is much better and more entertaining.

Contact info:
Email: sidebyrnes@gmail.com
Skype: sidebyrnes@gmail.com
MSN: escabeches@hotmail.com

Please write, comment, and or send me care packages filled with lengua tacos.

Sincerely,
Danny