Back from Mudfest

It was an interesting weekend at Mudfest.

Mudfest is basically what is sounds like. It's called the Boryeong Mudfest and is held at Deachon beach on the west coast. 400,000 people over a couple of weekends flocking to the beach's mud stations to get dirty and party.

My expectations were high. I got there on Saturday afternoon and immediately found out that they were OUT OF MUD!!! Yup. Then it started raining which by 7pm was thunder and lightning on and off throughout the night. So the lot of us went back to our Minbak to eat and enjoy ourselves for the evening. A Minbak is simply a group hotel room. It usually is just an empty room. You get some blankets and that's it. Your back doesn't thank you in the morning and depending on how you have fun your head might not as well.

Out of this did come one of the better experiences I've had in Korea though. We all ate dinner just outside our Minbak on a patio of sorts. A few of the group had brought a bunch of food with them that we grilled up. It was excellent. Even had some mashed potatoes! Anyway, towards the end of the meal, a bunch of Koreans in the 40s and 50s setup their meal at the tables next to ours. After a bit of Soju and beer they started to sing and dance. We clapped along to the beat one of the men was laying down on the barbecue with his scissors and tongs. It was fantastic! This went on for the next 3-4 hours. WE pulled out some Roman candle fireworks and started shooting them up in the street. One of the Korean ladies didn't exactly know how they worked and ended up shooting one time at the another minbak's door. We laughed, she laughed and then she swung it around a few times making us all duck and run.

The next morning it was still thunder and lightning. The beaches speakers came on and they warned us not to go on the beach. Yay. Thus, we cut our day short and headed to the train station. It seems all the people had the same idea in the area. The place was packed. Luckily we were at the front of the rush and got on a train fairly quick.

All in all, good experience. Will I go back next year? It's a 50/50.

Mudfest!!!

I'm leaving to go spend the weekend covered in mud, sliding down mud slides, mud wrestling, mud massages, mud fights, mud face painting..... you get the point.

MUD MUD MUD MUD MUD MUD!!!!!

Dancing Korean Style!!

So the past 2 weekends have been packed chock-full of dancing!

First I went and saw the B-Boys last weekend. For all of you who've never heard of B-Boys, it's basically break dancing. It's not a Korean things but they are pretty unbelievable at it. So what I saw was what turned out to be called Monster Jam 2009 B-Boys WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP!!! Yup! That's right!! I got to see the best of the best break dancers going up against each other March Madness bracket style. It was 1v1 type battles. They drew names out of a box and then got up on stage 2 at a time and started dancing freestyle. Each guy got 3 times in the middle to show their stuff. THey had some judges up on stage who picked the winner. A white guy from Germany won the whole thing, his name is ATA. Not my favorite, I liked Street.

Here's a taste of one of the better battles of the night.
This is Street (my fav) vs Blonde.


This past weekend I went to one of my Korean co-workers', Alex, swing dancing performances. It was at a community center and it gave it a really nice swingy feel. Basically a ton of people take swing classes and every 2-3 months they have all the classes come and show off what they've learned. So I got to see 2 hours of some great swing dancing. All different styles of swing too. Alex teaches a class too so she was really excited to see them out there doing so well. She was pretty good and super excited that we showed up too. It was a ton of fun!

Plaaaaaaaay Baaaaaallllllll!

Updates have been sparse lately as you can see. I'll be getting on that from here on. Things have been a bit busy. My schedule fills up quickly these days.

Went to a baseball game today. LG Twins versus the Samsung Lions. The Twins won this one in style. A home run and some smart play led them to victory. While dismantling the Lions, LG loaded up the bases and smacked out a grand slam too! First one I've seen in a while. The crowds are great here. They have cheerleaders. Everybody knows the chants and there isn't much downtime from chanting and cheering for their teams. It is a very lively atmosphere. The games not any different than at home except that it is CHEAPER!!!! $6 for a ticket! Food is cheap too. None of that $10 bucks for a hotdog and coke. One guy broke his bat and still managed a double out of it. There was a downer moment when a foul ball caught a fan in the head. People rushed over. The game didn't even flinch at it though and kept rolling on. I'm not sure how that situation turned out.

Overall, good experience. I was a little disappointed that more people didn't come out for the game. It's hard getting some people to focus and follow through. Oh well, that's life I suppose.

Here's a link to information about the teams and league

The Popular Places - ilsan

I'm in the city of Goyang. Goyang (Pronounced "Go-yawng", the ya sound more like yaw) is comprised of two halves; Hwajeong and ilsan. I live in the Hwajeong half. ilsan is a newer half. It's the exciting half where everything is always happening. My side tends to be calmer and more laid back.

ilsan (Pictured above)

This is a common hangout. I'm here at least 2-3 times a week.

The Bar - Frog and Toad
Yes just like the children's book. In fact many pictures from it are hanging on the walls. It reminds me of the Horse Brass back home a bit I guess. It's a foreigner's bar it seems. It has the usuals of darts and live music. We usually just sit back and nock down some beers with good conversation. It's a nice relaxing environment. The owner, Steve, conveyed it to me like this (I'm fairly certain he was under the influence of something) "It's a place where you can go and feel like you are home." The bartenders are all very nice and quick to get your drinks. Jessica speaks good English while Terry isn't bad himself. They have a new guy named Kevin who is still getting the hang of mixing drinks.

The Restaurant - Club AwesomeNuke
(AwesomeNuke is 236 in Korean)
2, 3, and 6 are lucky numbers when put together in any combination. This place is fantastic. It's small and just around the corner from Frog and Toad. The owner, Dane, went to Michigan St for college. He speaks excellent English. It's absolutely normal to just talk to him like any of your friends. He knows a bunch of our names now too. It's nice to walk through the door and hear him yell form the back "Hey Dowdy! Nice to see you again!" We also know the place as "Sunday Brunch" or simply as "The Mexican Place." He serves the only genuine margaritas in Korea (don't even ask what they consider a margarita over here). On Sundays he serves a Grand Slam breakfast just like at Denny's which is what he modeled it after. He told me that every time he was traveling from city to city in the US the last thing he would do is go to Denny's for the Grand Slam. In addition to the breakfast, he makes one of the most amazing Enchiladas I've ever had the pleasure of eating. It's gynormous (yes, that's a real word) and has this sauce covering it that is simply indescribable. He makes good Quesadillas too. He's a great guy to get to know and you can always find a great conversation with him.

Did You Know?

The world is an ever-changing place. It's only going to change faster.



Watching this makes me feel a little small. Just a drop of water flowing over a waterfall. People need to start looking at things globally. People have never been as connected as we are now. Or Now. Or....... Now. One part that really caught my eye and that I've heard discussed a little here in South Korea is that about the number of English speakers in Asian countries.

The video mentioned that

"China will soon become the largest English speaking country in the world."

I have no doubt this will be true sooner than most tend to believe. In South Korea, many people already think that foreign English teachers (like me) are at the peak of there demand and will begin to trail off in the next decade or so. This is not because we are doing a bad job (I believe that most, likely do a decent job). The kids who began learning English through the required classes in school and their after school classes in Hagwons. Hagwons are private school programs like my school that specialize in different subjects. My school does English only. There are others for swimming, math, singing, piano, science, and any other thing you can think of to specialize in. Back to my point though. The kids who have been learning English since the programs scaled up massively since the late 1990s are beginning to go out into the workforce as English teachers themselves. As more native Koreans that can teach English come into the population there will be less demand for foreigners. We are expensive and more of a hassle to have around simply because of needing to get settled in, flights, living costs, and salary.

In the whole, I'm only talking about how the English language adoption will be affecting the foreign teaching population. How does this effect go beyond into the greater world market? We don't know. That's kind of the point that this video is trying to make about how you handle assumptions in regards to the future.

My opinion on the future of English and communication in general isn't crazy. Basically, over the past few thousand years the number of languages has diminished down to what is somewhere around 7000 (as of 2005). Over the next 20 years this number is expected to shrink rapidly. We are now just speeding up consolidation. I think it will eventually come down to what I consider the 'power languages' or those that control some form of world market. English, Chinese, Spanish, German, Russian, and Hindi are my picks to be in this list. In the past countries were separated heavily because of their language. The French spoke French, Italians spoke Italian, Germans spoke German, etc. The US in my opinion has been a glimpse of the future to come where the melting pot will be the norm for the world. There won't be countries in the future, there will just be corporations and people.

McDonalds is one of the largest land owners in the world. Walmart is up there too. Borders will simply be junctions for transportation. Customs will be a thing of the past. The entire tax system will have to be redone for every country because of the internet (which purchases on the internet are still very very very very very very much in their infancy). However, the tax systems will begin to become a thing of the past as well. Governments are little more than corporations themselves these days. We pay taxes for services they provide. They are no different than your cable company. They are just more diversified. In the US we get to have a big election for a new CEO every 4 years. This is not really anything new though. Governments were always built upon this same foundation. We only idealized that rights, liberties, and laws were something that only a government could give us. Again however, you cable company gives you the same things with different names; User agreements, terms of service, sign the contract on the dotted line. Politics is nothing more than marketing.

I think I may have run into a different topic all together here.
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It's much easier to write about something if I have a goal in mind.

St. Patrick's Day

Celebrating a holiday in a different country is definitely one of the more interesting things I've been a part of. First things first; there aren't exactly many Irish people in South Korea. We also celebrated it a little early here. We took in the holiday last Saturday, the 14th. There was a parade and celebration set from around 11am to 5pm here in a place called Hyehwa (sounds like "Hey-wa"). It's about a 25 minute subway ride away. There's a kind of Pioneer Square-like area just outside the subway station where everybody gathered. Me and a couple other foreigners met up at an apartment and had a few bottles of Champagne before we left for Hyehwa to get ourselves in the celebrating state of mind. We ended up getting to Hyehwa just after noon. We missed the parade apparently. It wasn't very big. Mostly a bunch of foreigners marching around a couple blocks for about 20 minutes with beers raised is what I was told. However, we did get there just in time for a surprisingly good performance from a Korean U2 cover band. They did play an original or two, but there is nothing like hearing somebody belt out those classic tracks. They played a very extended version of Sunday Bloody Sunday. They sounded pretty good for the most part. The singer definitely still added a very Korean style to it. Guitars and bass where dead on though. If I didn't see who was up there it could have been The Edge for all I knew. There were about a thousand people form what I could figure. I would say 90% foreigners and the rest Koreans. It was nice that they joined in too. Free Guinness and plenty of fun.

We basically froze our butts off for the next few hours until we decided that it was time to head inside for more celebrating. I had some fried chicken and we all had a few more drinks before heading out. A note about fried chicken here. It tastes really good. Just remember that they don't waste much. One of the pieces I started munching turned out to be the chicken leg. Claw still attached. I realized this when I bit into the end that was the claw. As long as it's fried, it's still good to me.


The next part of the adventure was more food and drinks. After spending a few minutes trying to decide on where to get dinner. We settled on a restaurant that seemed to have good food. None of us had ever been there before and I don't recall the name of it but we assumed it would be good food because of the sign on the door which aptly said "Good Food." How can you possibly turn that down? So we walked down the stairs because it was under the building. As soon as we looked around inside we realized it might be a little expensive and that they probably didn't serve many foreigners. It was very elegant looking. Small little separated rooms that had their floors actually built to hover about 2 feet above the main floor so that could plant grass underneath. This I assume gives it a sort of natural air conditioning for your rear. After first refusing us (which gave us that "we don't serve foreigners" feeling) the manager at the desk relented and led us to a table in the back. It was a very nice little space. Brick walls on all sides. They brought us a menu which had no pictures and was completely in Korean. Yay! The manager kept walking by our table ever couple minutes for a little while talking on his phone. I got that feeling that he was calling somebody and freaking out like "what do I do with these people now?" But as it turns out, he was trying to find somebody who knew English so that we could get our order translated. He finally got a hold of somebody and handed the phone over and we put in our order for pork and beer. The food was good but not amazing. They brought the pork out and some grills for our table. we slapped the pork on the grill and enjoyed ourselves for the next hour.

The day finally finished around 8:30pm when I promptly crashed onto my bed and fell asleep.

Teaching Beginnings

The Student Becomes The Teacher.

It seems like forever that I've been moving from one school to the next. I like to look at my journey as one of being on a board balancing on a stump. It has two ends: student and teacher. I began on the far student side. Take your cues, do your homework, listen and learn. Over time I've moved further and further over, inch by inch. Now I've finally landed on the opposite side with the board hitting the ground and all weight transfered.

I've now been teaching on my own for 4 days. Every day has been an adventure for sure. I'm still getting into my groove. But I feel the kids are learning and having fun. I'm a little worried at this point that I will slip into trying to just take an easy route instead of being creative with how and what I teach them. I can tell it will be easy to do.

Some kids are absolutely perfect students. They are attentive, smart, do their work, and always seem to have a smile on their faces. But like everything in life, with the best come the worst. Oh how I love their evil counterparts. I hate disciplining, but sometimes it has to be done if a kid is going to learn. How else is a kid supposed to understand not to run into a table and hit a corner than doing just that. It's a Pavlov's dog approach. And I've found it works over time. Brutal but I'll be damned if I don't love it.

My fellow teachers, foreign and Korean, are all fantastic. I can say that I believe it will be a pleasure to work with them all for however long that is. I can't even begin how much I owe them in just the first two weeks. They've all been very adamant about going out of their ways to include me in everything. They take me around and show me places I need to know (and others I should avoid). Of course, they've helped me with my teaching. I'm afraid I'm starting to annoy them with all the questions. If I am, they certainly aren't showing it. They simply tell me they were there for their first couple weeks to and completely understand. Understanding is very much underrated.

All Moved In (Almost)

I've been here for about two weeks now. It's gone unbelievably fast.

My actual apartment is quite nice. The teacher who lived here last left me in good shape. He left plenty of odds and ends that will save me time and headaches later on. I much appreciate the kitchen items he left. I have a good collection of bowls, utensils, cups, knives, etc. Heck, I even have a toaster! The whole place is furnished. I have a washer/dryer, microwave, tv (about 20 inches), bed with and excellent headboard, and desk. Luckily my bathroom is nice too. The shower is enclosed so that everything doesn't get wet. Although the floor does still get pretty well soaked everywhere.

I dig the heated floors too. Yes, heated floors. I don't have circulated heat. But the floor heats the place up quite well as long as I keep it clear. It took me a few days to learn this. I have been taking my time unpacking and as such, the first few days I had most everything sprawled out over the floor. This kept the heat from getting into the air. My luggage was nice and toasty but the rest of the apartment was near the point of seeing frost while breathing. But cold won't be much of an issue much longer. Spring should be heating things up in the next couple of weeks. It is supposed to snow this week though. I'm keeping my stocking cap close.

New Apartment

I move into my new place on Wednesday after I get done with work. I expect I'll have my own internet connection and cable tv (YAAAY!) immediately. I'm having a very positive experience so far. Food is a little daunting and spicy but very tasty. My neck is loving me right now because I finally got around to buying a pillow.

PDX Airport

Airports are fun aren't they?

I'm sitting at the gate with free wifi. PDX is very cool for having it. About 20 minutes before I get in my first plane to Seattle. I'm extremely tired. My eyes are in that state where they keep trying to close on me. I might try to take a quick nap on the plane up to Seattle. I'm really worried though that I will fall asleep during my layover before my second flight and not wake up for it. Three hours is just enough time for me to get into that deep sleep and pass up the alarm. Hopefully I can stay up long enough to get on the plane to Seoul. Then I can take a nice long 12 hour nap. Of course I'll be sure to take a "wake break" (I hope I can coin that phrase) for lunch. I can't miss out on that great airline food mmMMMMMMmmmmmm scrumptious.

Security wasn't bad. It hasn't hit me yet that I just said goodbye to the family for quite a while. Brings a whole new perspective to things. I don't think I'll really start to feel it for a week or two.

I'll report in from Seattle if I can get wifi again.

Packing is hard

I've discovered that packing is harder than it seems. Especially when you consider in the fact that I'll be leaving for a year. This would all be easier if I could just have a big U-Haul. Instead I get a couple big bags.

Less than 48 hours and counting!

I'm Leaving!!!!!!!

Just got my travel plans!

I leave in essentially 4 days! AAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!

I guess that means it's time to start packing.

Visiting Friends and Family

It's been odd going around visiting family and friends knowing that I won't see them for at least a year. It'll probably hit me more once I've been over in South K for a few weeks.

I still don't know when exactly I'll be leaving but I figure I'll start packing seriously in the next day or two. I don't think it will be too hard to pack though. Space is limited and when it comes down to the line, I don't think there's a ton of stuff outside of clothes that I'm going to take.

I can't wait for a good in flight movie. When I went to Japan I watched this crazy movie about a marathon runner in Japan who was trying to quit smoking. It could have been Wesley Snipes stunt double (or so he said he was although the 6'6" pound you into the ground frame was convincing) that made it interesting too.

Seattle Visa Trip

Headed up to Seattle to get my actual Visa the other day. The visit to the consulate was quick and easy. I did maybe 10-15 minutes of paperwork and then had a short interview. When I say short, I mean literally 3 minutes.

The basic rundown of questions they asked were some no-brainers:

When do you leave?

When do you start?

Where are you going?

Is this a new passport?

Why do you want to teach?

Do you have experience teaching?

Will you come back for another year?

That was pretty much it. I found the last question interesting. It wasn't 'Do you want to come back,' he said 'will you.' I don't think this was simply a vocabulary difference. He spoke very well. Judging from my pre-trip research they really want and have a need for English teacher right now. Maybe they think I'm a good one already and hope for me to stay on or something before I even start. I don't know, I think my ego is stepping up.

After the interview they asked me to come back that afternoon and pickup my Visa. A few hours later I walked back in and had my Visa in hand after confirming that I matched my passport photo which I got a little humor out of. The lady behind the glass had about 8 passports in front of her ready to hand back and simply grabbed the wrong one to hold up. When she asked if the picture in the passport was me I was staring at a photo of a good looking blonde girl. I know that saying that other races all look alike, but this really stretched the limits. I simply replied 'no' and she had a moments hesitation before she realized that she had picked up the wrong passport. After a few seconds scrambling she got the right one. We went through the exercise again and I was off.

The Visa is just a full-page sticker inside the passport. Nothing extra to carry around. 

I did meet some nice people while at the Visa office. One lady was going to be teaching in Seoul for a University and had been doing the teaching english gigs for about 5 years. There were 3 other pieces of fresh meat like me. One from Portland, one from Eugene, and one from Gladstone of all places. The girl from Gladstone was the first person I met. It's a small small world. We shared some advice and knowledge of traveling abroad and then parted. Hopefully I'll run into a few of them later on.

Now I wait to find out my travel arrangements which should be coming fairly quickly. I'm excited yet nervous. I'm not normally a nervous person, but traveling always does it to me. It's out of my comfort zone I suppose. There's only one way to deal with it and that's to jump right in.

It's still hard to imagine that in less than two weeks I will be in another country and not for a short stay.

Cheers!