Everything you want to know about me and more...

Anyung Friends and Family,

Sorry it has been so long since my last email. I even have Internet at home now so I really have no excuse other than pure laziness, lethargy and an extreme lack of motivation to think after or before working (or most anytime for that matter; I'm supposed to be paid for that kind of hard labor). But anyway, I'm now sufficiently motivated to come clean about my recent exploits and hijinks over here on the other side of the globe. So let's see, where did I leave off last... We've continued to frequent the gym, play soccer, badminton, sollyvoccer, and ride bikes around since I last wrote, but sometimes not as consistently as we'd like to. I was planning on resolving the conflict between the North and the South with a well played swing at the shuttle cock, but the plans gone flaccid. Working till almost eleven makes it really difficult to go home and get some rest immediately and badminton practice is only once a week (badminton practice consisting of being beaten brazenly by a Scot and a Canuck and quickly opting out in favor of a cold beverage). We usually don't get to sleep until after 1 or 2 which leads to sleeping till as late as noon sometimes. It's all rather depressing to say the least and I've been trying to motivate myself to rise at a much more productive time, at least at a time more conducive to getting something done during the morning hours, but it hasn't been a hasty change. God knows these novels and pictures won't produce themselves and nobody likes a eunuch. We've also started playing basketball on Tuesday nights with some Westerners, and occasionally Koreans, which also keeps us up late. Maybe I should just resign myself to being more or less nocturnal. Nobody makes anything worth a damn in the daytime anyway, just a bunch of guns and pancakes. Truthfully, much of the problem revolves around resetting my body clock back to normal. For over a month we had visitors from home and I pretty much spun the hands of the clock at random and now I'm receiving the punishment for neglecting my lunar obligations. It began when Ashley's friend Amy came to work here for a month and was staying in our spare apartment. We weren't too prone to bendering when she first got here because we were really busy with our school's summer intensive program which consisted of working from 8 am to nearly 11 at night with a few hurried hours in the middle of the day to try to rest or more often catching up on prep work. But, as summer intensives ended and we again had a normal amount of freedom, we, of course, took the slack and sprinted. From that point every good intention fell to the double edged blade of fiendish pursuits. One night we attacked a bottle of Crown Royal leaving it deprived of its essence, transferring its inner beauty, so to speak, into a veritable water fountain of joy and purgation. And then proceeded to give a bottle of Skky a proper thrashing. Playing cards came out, decibels levels came up, and the devil came in for a chat. From thence on mayhem ensued and has only recently been properly rebridled (well, depending on your idea of a proper bit and reign). About a week in to this exorcism of boredom with work related anything Ashley's friend Alice Kim, a Korean (of course, her last name is Kim) American who went to Cal Poly and grew up in Mammoth Lakes, came to visit us among many other relatives she has out here. In almost complete concordance with her arrival one of my best friends, Jay Ryu, another Korean American who grew up in the Bay Area and went to Cal at the same time that Katie did, also arrived from working on an architecture project in Dubai (you can only imagine the magnitude, taller than a really good drink). Anyway, we made our way up to Seoul and subsequently forgot that the clock even had hands, actually it was more like we just tied good old Cronus up and left him to watch Sisyphus struggle at other meaningless tasks. Whatever, I know; it's all Greek to me too. We even got a room at some shady "Love Motel" that we used for a grand total of four hours. Love motels are a Korean phenomenon. They are cheap motels, nicely equipped and clean, that are used by business men to keep their extramarital exploits secret. The windows are fashioned so as to see out but not in and the parking area is always out of view from the road. The love motel, as I said, was clean but only in theory. The TV had an array of porno flashing 24 hours of the day and a vending machine with all your needs from cock rings to vibrators ranging into the $30 zone (damn high rollers, the jealousy drives me to new heights of racism). Anyway it was definitely a schema violation to say the least. So we put our bags down and scampered out into the streets not to return until after a long evening of drinking, dancing, discovering and more drinking. In the morning, we ended up near our motel plus one new member and a strong need for some nourishment. So, when in Rome play with cats and when in Korea go eat dogs? NO! Korean barbecue. We knew what we had to do, so disheveled, dehydrated and mildly starving we sought refuge in bacon. On the way of course, as any good Americans would do in a drunken stupor at 8am, we found a guitar and smashed it against a tree, stole some kids toy and broke it, and I yelled at a group of teenagers not to look at my bitches, not without paying. We had a large helping of BBQ and a few more beers to help it all go down and didn't feel awkward in the slightest seeing as there were two other tables doing the same and drinking soju as well. We're not that hard Kor. Soju is for people made of nails and kim chi and only entails relentless pain for those who try to brave the green bottle without the needed credentials. So we ate our fat slabs of bacon with resounding joy and sipped on mechju (beer) until the need for rest was overpowering. We returned to our room and were told that we couldn't go up with all of us. Apparently it is against the law for a man to go into a love motel with more than two girls. I don't know why. I obviously have more than two hands. Oh snap, I just got smacked for that one...by myself (oh whatever, so what if I am by myself, somtimes it's better that way).

So the next day we did more of the same only ending at a more decent hour, 2, went to bed and got on a bus in the morning back to good ol' Changwon. I'm surprised I can relate all of this so well because it all seemed so surreal at the time. Since then we've done things. We've done quite a few cool things in fact, but you'll just have to subscribe to the blog bitches because I'm tired of typing to you right now.

Share My Ennui

Hello out there,

I finally have found a moment to sit back and relax and I thought that I might as well share it with all of you. My life has been jam packed lately and I am eagerly anticipating the detumescence of my schedule. We are currently in the second week of the Korean school's summer vacation. At our institute, CDI, we capitalize on this time (of course) and offer a summer intensive program; man is it intense. Korean mothers are adamant about their children receiving THE best education possible (by this I mean best in the known universe, some commute to neighboring solar systems), so they don't waste time on childhood trivialities such as fun and relaxation. Don't get me wrong, some people do go on vacation, however our classes are not under populated by any means and the kids don't hesitate to complain about the banalities of their summer vacations: homework and going to CDI. I try to make it fun for them though. I give out prizes for good work and high grades. In my Novel Reading class, aside from showering my students with encomiums for their wonderful pronunciation and superior reading skills, I am giving away a book on each Friday of the next three weeks. I found some cheap copies of 'Scary Stories to tell in the Dark,' 'Where The Sidewalk Ends,' and 'A Light in the Attic'. Each book was about three dollars and they all have Korean translations for the difficult words in the book. The kids were pretty excited and I had to pat myself on the back for being able to actually get them all raising their hands and wanting to participate. Plus it's been a long time since I've had a chance to read any of those wonderful books and just looking them over brought back some really nostalgic memories of boa constrictors, not taking the garbage out, of ickle me, pickle me and tickle me too. They've been tons of fun to look at and I kind of don't even want to give them away, but I already promised so I'll have to postpone any hopes of a permanent return to childhood. Anyway, because of this added program I am now working six days a week from about 8:30am to 10:30pm on Mon, Wed, Thurs and Friday. Tuesday I work from 8:30 to 7:30 and Wednesday (my old day off) I only work from 8:30 to 12:30. So far I'm doing okay. I don't have much time for my ninja training but I do what I can in the apartment here and there and play soccer on Wednesday nights. Mostly my exercise is limited to morning yoga so I don't go crazy when I get to a classroom full of inimical twelve year olds eager to eschew their teacher for their mothers' great expectations. So, needless to say, my next three weeks are to remain quite busy and a bit arduous.

Aside from massive work loads I manage to have some fun here and there. Ashley's good friend from Cal Poly, Amy Poppers, has come out to teach English for a month here in Changwon. She works at a competing school but only because our school won't higher for less than one year. One of my English friends from soccer got her the job. She lives in our spare apartment and having a familiar face from home to hang out with has been great for both Ashley and my own sanity. Last weekend we went to Busan, Korea's second largest city and did some sight seeing (I've attached some pictures). It was really fun checking out Buddhist temples and other city sites like the largest fish market in Korea and other out door markets. It was super cheap to head out there, about five dollars each way, and cheap to site see as well which is always a plus. The most expensive part was when I had to go to starbucks because, well you all know why, and the bucks isn't in Changwon. We are going out to Busan again this weekend to check out the beach and some museums. Our company is also going to meet us out there and buy us dinner which is always nice because we get the top shelf treatment.

Well, not much more to report. This whole ten minute relaxation period has only made me realize that I'm too tired to think of clever and witty things to say. So, you get the obtuse and insipid version of the concatenations of my day to day existence. Maybe next time we can wax more entertainingly.

Until then, whatever... I'm tired.

Settling In

Hello my peoples (anyung haseyo),
So, what's new? The last two days here have been unbearably hot. I now know why I never moved to the east coast. No offense east siders, but how can you stand the humidity? After walking down the street for five minutes yesterday, I was literally dripping wet. I guess it's a good thing that we were using the sauna regularly at the Islay house before I left; I feel like I got a good chance to get my feet wet (sorry, ridiculously bad pun).

Anyway, aside from weather, we've been acclimating ourselves to Korean culture as much as possible. Even at home we sit on the floor and eat from a low table with chop sticks, which by the way have become my eating utensils of choice. Sianara fork and knife. I know, you're thinking how can you eat without a knife, right? They use scissors here, standard around the house type scissors. Hopefully they're not really just from around the house. Bulgogi is probably my favorite food here. Its Korean BBQ. They serve usually beef or pork to you raw, and you cook it at a grill on your table. Being very white and western looking, it never fails that the server comes over and tries to motherly prepare our food for us. And, it also never fails that Ash politely shoos them away, then tires of turning and tells me to monitor the food. Which I never do, so they always come back. We're getting the hang of it though, to the delight of our favorite restaurants only server. He likes us anyway though because we watch 'LOST,' currently Korea's favorite American TV show. I try to get Ashley to eat bulgogi (without much effort needed) at least twice a week.

We've also discovered that we have a very serious love/hate relationship with Soju. Soju is a Korean vodka style alcohol--made from sweet potatoes--that you drink like sake, shoot it or put it in your beer. I thought it was a lot like sake at first but oh was I wrong. Even though its 40 proof (like madori and other girly drinks), this stuff kicks your ass. We tried it once, our first time, by choice and it wasn't so bad. Every time after that we've only had it by force while out to dinner with our bosses. It's rude to turn down a Korean's toast (both of us, being of Irish descent, whole heartily understand), therefore we never do. At first, you're like "whatever this stuff is weak" (yes, in those words exactly), but after about four cars down the track and a couple of small glasses of Hite (great Korean beer) things start to get really exciting: faces go red, conversation gets louder, silliness ensues, and karaoke suggestions flutter through the air. Koreans take shots of Soju in cars. Each shot is one car of a train and the longer your train is the cooler you are. The couple times that I've ridden the train I don't remember visiting the caboose, so I try not to go all aboard too often. However, tonight we are going to a Korean night club with work, so pray for me. Our bosses love to take us out and I haven't figured out if it is a good or bad thing yet...

So, that's that, but it only takes up a very small piece of the kim chi pie. I spend most of my time working or sitting at work writing to you people. Work is kind of heavy right now because I have to do a lot of lesson planning. That should mellow out next quarter though because I'll have done most of it, if they don't change the books, and I'll be much more broken in, you know, properly whipped and bridled. The kids are good. Half of my student are the equivalent of our fourth and fifth grade students. The other half are seventh thru ninth grade age, and they are just as difficult as at home. At least I'm not a substitute anymore, put in place merely as a dummy for the amusement of publicly educated children. I can actually make threats that hold some weight. They're good though. I really don't have any complaints.

The rest of my time is spent training to be a ninja, as per usual. There is a ninja training park behind my house and the newest element of my training is badminton. It would be a grave understatement to say that badminton is taken seriously here. I plan to hone my quick twitch muscles on the court and maybe someday take on the north Koreans, hopefully restoring the unity of the Korean people. Come on, you have to set the bar high. I also play a game that is a combination of soccer and volleyball. It's really cool. Same rules as volleyball except you use your feet and the ball can bounce once per touch. Basically, its the only way that you could play soccer and volleyball at the same time. They have basketball courts and normal volleyball courts as well. They also have a training circuit along a running path that encircles the park. The path is about a 1/3 of a mile so my typical run is about six laps. I know, but it is really hot here right now. When it gets cooler we'll be running farther. We're also going to join the gym above our work when we get our first paychecks. Then we'll be adding weight training and yoga to the routine.

So, all in all, life here is a lot like home here, just on the other side of the world. I daily miss everyone, but only in that good loving way, not the sad and depressed way. I hope that life is going well for all of you(but only if you read this far, the rest of you can...). Don't be hesitant to write back. I have plenty of time to read ranting; it will actually probably curb my own. So, do everyone else a favor and send me something to read.
Cheers

Eastern Update

Hey Everyone,
Just thought I'd shoot a little updater out to y'all. So far Korea has been treating us really well. Our apartment is coming together well. Its just a studio and it's kind of small, but we have plenty of room for all of our stuff. We also have another apartment on the floor above that we don't even use. It's identical to ours and we're working on furnishing it. So, anyone who wants to come out and visit is more than welcome and will definitely have a place to stay.

School started and its been as good as could possibly be expected. Right now our class numbers are really low because our school started at somewhat of an inopportune time. Many of the children are testing this week and next, and we also started in the middle of a quarter so many students are waiting until August when the new quarter begins. But, all in all everything is working out really well here. We go to Japan next Wednesday to get our visas. After that we'll officially be alien residents.

This weekend I think we'll be going out to Busan to check it out. It's the second largest city in Korea. We also plan to find some hiking and head out to the beach. We hear that there are some pretty sweet hot springs in the mountains. I've found a fun pick up game of soccer with some Brits and Aussies on Wednesday nights. They're all pretty good and it makes for some good exercise (they're not too good though. I scored four goals, one of them being a header).

Anyhow, everything is going really well. Don't be hesitant to write back. I love finding mail in my inbox. I love and miss you all and can't wait to hear from or even see some of you soon!

Life in a Truck Stop Hostel

It's gone rain, and music plays from the mountain. I think we're part of season three of LOST. We have a Desmond but his name is Destin...we call him Desatin (like the baby rash creme). There is a Korean girl with a thick afro. I keep feeling like she's going to pull out some cardboard and start back spinning and doing no handed windmills. The guy across from me right now is rubbing his Ipod (he calls it his girlfriend) and my roommate is teen wolf, or maybe that religious circus freak guy from x-men because he has religious tattoos all over him. Oh yea, of course there is the shrine in my room. It consists of Ghanesh, Buddah, and Jesus. I guess they're all pals. Either that or he's just a religion slut. The rest of the people are popped collar wearing mid-western frat boys or Middle Canadians from the bush. Oh geez. Hostel life will end on Friday, thank god, or Ghanesh or Buddah, take your pick. I really want to get one of these little cars they have out here. They make cooper minis look big. They even come with necklace chain anchors. Don't ask me; I don't know. So, I've gotta go to training now (my trainer is the only normal person around) but I'll write later. Ashley says: I ate parsley to forget about how wild poop is. No I said that but anyway. BYE

Korea-The arrival

So we're here,
We arrived after a nice 22 hours of travel. Thanks for the drugs Katie. We were only conscious for about 3 hours of a ten hour flight from Vancouver to Osaka, Japan. From there it was smooth sailing. We hung out in the Osaka airport for a couple of hours. Which, by the way, was more awesome than one would think. Best airport experience of my life. It was the first time I ever felt like I was seeing something just by being in an airport. We watched Japanese television on a nice gigantic flat screen. They love to hit each other in the face. They're a lot like my friends. We also met some Korean Americans from Atlanta. They were really nice and taught us how to say important things like the names of Korean alcohols and "I just had a heart attack." After the wonderful world of Japanese airport land we moved onto the wonderful world of Japanese air travel. Yes, we had sushi on the plane and our own touch screen TV's. Ashley watched 'Friends,' I watched world cup soccer and we could have played video games but we don't drink soda or read in Japanese. So we had that. However, when we finally touched down in Incheon we were spent. But, we still had an hour bus ride to Seoul. That was fun. Ashley's seat had a mind of its own. It reclined at its leisure. Other than that, LOTS of Haundai's and fluorescent lights. Jesus is pink here. We saw multiple crosses blaring their luminescence with pink fluorescent missionary flair. I don't know why that enthralled us so, but it did so live with it. I wrote about it. We got to Seoul City Air Terminal finally where we met up with our company HR representative. He put us in a Taxi out to the youth hostel we are now staying at which is about an hour and a half outside of Seoul. Taxi ride was pretty uneventful until the driver decided he was going to teach us Korean: "America--Goo Morning, Goo Aftanoon, Goo night. Korean-anyang ha say yo" which he repeated at least a double digit amount. He told Ashley "Gooood" when she repeated, so she's got that going for her. Then he proceed to tell me and a fellow teacher, Cory, how to get girls. SMILE! (with spirit fingers). This he also repeated in no less than a double digit amount. So we now speak a little Korean. We're getting all settled in and having fun. We'll write more soon.