Missing Oregon

I miss all of you!!! TONS!!!!




I'm so sad, no tailgating for me :(

Go Beavs!

Being Brave

"KIMCHI"


It's about 4am here. I love my new schedule! I work from 2pm to 9pm...aka I get to sleep in and stay up late, woohoo! Anyway I ventured into my first little 24 hour Korean restaurant all by myself tonight. I was starving! So picture a little empty hole in the wall (with no picture menu...lol) and me towering over two little old ladies, Korean phrase book in hand. All I wanted was mandu, which is pretty much little pot stickers and one of the only foods I can safely assume is fish free. I hate fish. Anyway the best part was me trying to explain through charades that I wanted the food to go. Lets just say the little old ladies were laughing pretty hard. I wasn't exactly laughing with them, but I also probably would have ate whatever they gave me at that point. Between this kind of stuff and teaching I'm going to kill at pictionary and charades when I get home. I'm proud of myself though, just think it only took like 2 months...haha.

I heart Korea.

Another Drunk Man

In case you didn't believe me...




One floor of my building is a hospital so I see patients wandering around all the time. The weird part is I've never seen any women, kinda makes me wonder what kind of a hospital it is...ummm? Anyway I took this pic around 3am, maybe he couldn't find the strength to hobble another block...lol. I love it!

More Pics of the Kids

They are too cute!







My lowest class loves trying to help me learn Korean. I always make them write down sentences three times and memorize them for their homework. Here is my homework from the students...

Weekend with the Co-workers

Another National Park

This is Chris, one of our Korean co-workers showing us around one of the many temples in the national park we went to last weekend.

People write their wishes on slates, which later get used in the temples. I asked Chris what people had wished for. He said, "good grades." Weird.

This is the inside of one of the temples.

Apparently suspension bridges are very popular. It's rare to see a blue sky around here, so this is an awesome picture! At least for me :)

This is the typical trail...(the easy one..lol)

Yim from the back complaining about how he didn't sign up for a "hike." He's pretty much a total wuss.


This is the view from a pagoda at the top of the trail. According to Yim it's nothing special. He thinks the countryside is ugly, only a city skyline is beautiful. I told him if he comes to the US he should probably skip over Oregon.

Saturday Nights

This is standard for a Saturday night...



You seriously see drunk Korean men passed out all over the place. I blame it on the soju. I wonder if they just wander off by themselves, or if their friends just give up? Poor guy...lol.

Market day for my Students

Throughout the week we reward the students with stickers if they're good in class. Since today was "market day" (the one day a week when they get to trade in their stickers for prizes) I was able to snap a few pics before they all ran out the door...lol.




Allison and Liz are sticker feends...lol. Now that I have my bike, they've decided to wait for me after class so we can all ride together part of the way. So cute!






This is one of my favs...Simon.







This is Hailey and Nick. Nick is the all around "bad boy." I've already kicked him out of my class twice. I have to admit he is pretty funny though.





Here is Stan again and the picture the kids took of me...the only way I could get them to stand still for 5 seconds. :)

Wolchulsan National Park

Since I teach elementary school, Wednesday was my first official Korean holiday...aka I got the day off. Sweetness! So I decided to take advantage of the day and go hiking at Wolchul Mountain. Too bad it was more like mountain climbing! People out here are freakin crazy! Back at home these trails would be marked "extremely dangerous" or "proceed with extreme caution." Yeah well out here I get passed by like 80-year-old women and little kids who practically run up the thing...and here I am practially dieing after an up hill jaunt equipped with ropes and iron bars to PULL yourself up (hiking? I think not). Ok I'm a wuss...I seriously didn't think I was that out of shape. I guess the lack of turbo kickboxing for the last two months as done me no good...lol.

"There are crags, spires and unusual shaped rocks around every corner as well as an 8m Buddha rock carving, steel stairways (imagine the steepest set of stairs you've ever climbed X 10!),and a 52m steel bridge spanning two ridges," according to the description in Lonely Planet. In my opinion someone should really throw in, "DO NOT make this your first "hike" in Korea." haha.

In the end though I'm really glad I did. It was by far the most physically challenging thing I've done in a long time. It is also by far one of the coolest things I've done in a long time.

Heat + Humidity + Strenuous Physical Activity = Lots O' Sweat!! With that said, enjoy my sweaty pics! :)











The last pic is of Harsha and I at the top. I made it!!!

My student

This is Stan. Whenever he sees my camera he runs up,flashes the peace sign and screams "kimchi". Then when I go to take the picture he runs away. Instead of saying "cheese" they say "kimchi". Crazy koreans. He's so cute though, even if he won't let me take a pic. Luckily I snapped this one really fast.

I'll try to get some more pics of the kids this week :)

Cell phone

I finally got a cell phone! Woohoo! And it only took a month...ugh! First I had to wait to get my resident alien card (which took about a week and a half), then I had to wait for my director to take me (another week), then I wanted a free phone so I had to wait longer. Way too much work!

I ended up making friends with the guy who works at the cell phone store in my building. His cousin speaks English so he called him to act as our interpreter...lol. His cousin ended up meeting me at the store and giving me his old cell phone so that I didn't have to buy one. How awesome is that! Plus it's a really nice phone. Everyone here is sooo incredibly nice. I ended up getting a free phone, case, phone bling and charger! Phone bling is like a key chain for your phone. Even the little old men have phone bling...lol. Then he even helped me order a bike off of a Korean online auction (which was a lot cheaper then buying one at Lotte or E-Mart). I can't wait to cruse around Sang-mu on my sweet new bike...lol! Did I mention it also comes with a free bell and bike lock? It just gets better and better :)

p.s. There is no such thing as voicemail here and it's driving me crazy!

Busan Aquarium

I'm waiting to try and get a video a took this week to work. Hopefully I've have it up and running by tomorrow. It's funny...really sad, but funny.

So in the mean time here are some pics from the Busan Aquarium. The last pic is of people swimming with the sharks inside the aquarium. I'm guessing this cost a lot of money. Personally I'd much rather save my money and swim with them in the real ocean. Psssh, doesn't look that scray to me. What do you think?

Love Motels

I couldn't help myself, I've got to do a back to back post. It's just too good of a story not too!

So our first night in Busan we stayed in the city, which sucked because that meant a pretty long subway ride to the beach. Our first motel did have some rather unusual perks though...lol. Most foreigners stay at "love motels," because they tend to be way cheaper. Usually at least 100,000 won cheaper. So yes it's gross but you just put it out of your mind and keep telling yourself every other foreigner does the same thing.

"Love motels," basically all have the same things... an Asian porno collection in the hallway, free condoms in the rooms, close proximity to the double spinning barber polls,dim lighting, all the basics to make up a pretty sleazy establishment. The best part however, is the special vending machines you can sometimes find outside the rooms. Can you guess what a vending machine in a "love motel" sells? At our second motel there was an even bigger assortment of vending machine goodies. Of course i had to take a pic. Sorry grandma.



Dirty dirty! Don't worry I washed my hands!



I wonder if I can I get censored for this?

Busan!

I love Busan!



Ok so these pics are only a tiny sample of what's to come! I've definitely got some good stories. Busan during the last week was pretty much the hot spot for the summer. We spent three nights at Hueundae Beach...I think I actually slept for like one of them...haha. I've never seen so many people on a beach at 2:00 in the morning. I've also never seen so many people sleep on a beach like it was an everyday thing. Crazy! Koreans in Busan definitely know how to throw down :)





It's kind of hard to tell from the pic but the entire beach is covered with people. If you click the pic you'll get a better idea of just how many people were there (over 500,000). It's like a big sea of never ending beach umberllas that get rented for 5,000 won a pop or more. You know someone's making good money!