29 days until I say goodbye to Korea

So sad. Maybe...lol.

So summer intensives sucked big time! I worked from like 9:30 until 7:30-8:30 at night. Ugh! I'm so happy to back to drinking cheap Korean beer after work and sleepin in until noon. That's the Korea I can deal with. Too bad I don't really sleep in until noon, but I could if I wanted to.

To uphold my promises from the last blog (the one i wrote about a hundred years ago) I will finally reveal some other good stuff from Beijing.

To begin I've never drank so much tea in my life! Seriously I think I drank like a gallon of tea... and no i don't remember the names of most of them. It started when I bought some tea that I actually liked after I went to the great wall. This was ok.

Then after wondering around the forbidden city for like 5 hours (I had started at the back) I made my way to Tienanmen Square. While I was dodging little old men scrapping gym off the ground this random Chinese girl started talking to me. Having been in Asia for over a year now, I've become used to random people trying to speak English to me. When I first got here it was really nice, now it's just kind of annoying. So anyway this girl was really nice, and her English was basically perfect so I walked around the square and talked to her for awhile. She told me a lot about Chinese culture as we walked to the oldest part of the city. This was definitely not on my to do list, but it was by far probably the coolest thing i did while i was there. I don't necessary believe in super long blogs so to summarize... we went to the oldest shoe shop, a traditional Chinese medicine store, and then to an old school tea house. Freakin a... we drank like seven different pots of tea! And...most of it tasted like dirt. Yum! Well, some of it I liked. The fruit tea was really sweet so that was by far my favorite and of course the one she hated.

Anyway the rest of Beijing was pretty much endless old school temples, palaces, beautiful parks, old men with huge bellies and no shirts, millions of bicycles, dirty air, relentless bartering, super cheap (pretty much everything), and some crazy (no way in hell would i put that in my mouth) food.

On a different note, my new goal is to write 15 blogs before I leave. I can do it!

K, hope everyone is well and missin me like crazy! j/k ;)

Beijing Stories ~

No pictures well ever do Beijing justice. It was so much more beautiful then I thought it was going to be. Of course the city has been cleaned up for the Olympics and the traffic has been cut in half but still. I was expecting a city more like Seoul. I was expecting there to be huge buildings with flashing neon lights and streets so crowded with people and bikes you can hardly walk. I didn't see any of that. The city has its downtown area with the huge buildings but you're not bombarded with "Vegas" like lights. The buildings are interesting and most have some sort of cool architectural design. I was a little freaked out by the CCTV (closed-circuit television) building though.

Anyway the food was amazing...so much better then Korea! I was slightly disappointed that it didn't taste better though. I had the idea in my head that Chinese food from china would taste way better then the knock off Chinese food at home. Turns out it tastes exactly the same...lol. Although I stuck to the basics and stayed away from things like shark fin soup, sea cucumbers, scorpions, and chicken feet. Either way it was a nice break from kimchi (i totally ate kimchi the second i got back though...haha).

K...back to work. Beijing part 3 coming soon (shopping, pollution, palaces, tea, traditional Chinese medicine, ect). :)

another day down

I can't sleep because all I keep thinking about is this 2x4 that hit me awhile back.

God I can't wait to go back to North America.

Beijing!

I can now say that I've walked on the Great Wall of China. How freakin cool is that!?!

So I took a million pics, but here are some of my favorites...








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I'll write more later, promise. :)

July in Korea

Um... What can say? Korea is Korea. I've been here for so freakin long nothing is that exciting anymore, it's normal.

So here is some random stuff you might find interesting/ funny.

1. I went to Mud Fest again. Yes AGAIN! Which means I have officially been here for one whole year!!! Which is also slightly depressing.






2. I finally went to a Korean bath house awhile back. This was by far the scariest thing I've ever done in my life. Seriously. I don't care if everyone else is naked (one level is all girls, one level is all guys...so no they don't mix). And I'm talking all ages, from kids who are 3 to old ladies who are like 103. I'm pretty sure that would never happen in America... not to imply anything but especially on the guys level.

3. I fought with massive spiders to take a pic from the top of my building. The spiders won because I only took about 2 steps out the door then ran back down to my room on the sixth floor. Ok that's a lie, I took the elevator, but seriously these were the biggest spiders i've ever seen in my life! Except at the zoo, but i don't think it counts when cages are involved. Who knew they left the door open to the roof of a 17 story building.


4. I finally found some korean candy that is almost as good as sweet tarts. Although, really i think i've just settled.


And yes, I took this pic as I was writing this blog. This one's for you BJ. (And #7)

5. My directors are completely screwing me with summer intensives. The kids finally get a month off of school and instead of relaxing like western kids they get to go to even more school (aka private hagwons). Poor little guys.

Six. I saw blue sky the other day...it was amazing! I took this pic while I was waiting for the bus.



7. Here are some more pics of the second apt...although I swear I already put them up.




eight. I was in a date auction to raise money for a girls orphanage. I think i'd had too much soju when i agreed to that one.




9. I've been trying to drink more soju and less beer...it's cheaper.

10. I'm reading Fast Food Nation...and I'm very happy I've never liked McDonalds. I think it's because I got sick off some bad mcnuggets when i was like six and I've never really liked hamburgers. Coka Cola, on the other hand got me though...damn that cradle to the grave mass marketing to kids crap.

Countdowns

I don't believe in countdowns but...

17 days until Beijing.

84 days until I'm finished in Korea and head off to backpack around southeast asia.

? days until I finally get back to Portland.

Protests against the President

So for the last month or so there have been massive protests in South Korea. They basically hate their president (which sucks since he's only been in office for three or four months). People protest everyday. EVERYDAY.

It's hard to explain exactly everything that is going on, and of course since I'm a foreigner there are huge parts that get left out when people talk to me about it. (Either because they know I'm American or because things get lost in translation).

So this is the best video I've found that explains things from a Korean point of view. My co-worker was actually the one who showed it to me. Granted this is only one person's opinion and I don't even think he is living in South Korea but at least it's something to go off of.

Last weekend I watched a massive crowd in my city stab a blow up cow (with a picture of president Bush on its ass) with umbrellas.

Here is the link, give it a go if you've got a good 25 minutes to kill.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7815932046540425334

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This was a sad day. Only three out of the six of us got to fly due to weight restrictions. :(

Everyone in Korea is super small, go figure.