School, Soju, and South Korea @morty4444 - Tumblr Blog

My Past Year in Korea (and Japan) - Part 1

Today marks my year-a-versary of living in South Korea (although since I'm posting this two days later, that would actually be a lie), and as such, I have decided that it's time I make a new blog post. Yeah, I kind of gave up on this blog about 7 months ago... but today I will revive it in order to bring all of my (lack of) readers a look back on this past year. I will write about some of the major highlights of my trip, in no particular order. So, without further ado, let's begin. 1. Boryeong Mud Festival

As the cold weather has finally left us over here in Korea (sorry folks back home... that snow will melt eventually... but don't quote me on that) and spring is here to stay, I can't help but start thinking about when I will be able to hit up the beach with a nice big bottle of Cass. As it stands, I only made it out to a beach once last summer (at least when it was nice enough to go swimming), and that was during one of the greatest events of my year thus far (and also my most recent blog post before this one...). The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual event spanning two weekends, and bringing in a huge amount of foreigners and locals alike. This festival, located right on the beach, contains many different activities that involve getting down and dirty in the mud, as well as live music performance, parades, fireworks, and much more. However, for me, it wasn't just the activities that made it such a wonderful experience, but it was more about the friends I travelled with, and the friends that I made. Oh, and all of the alcohol definitely helped as well...

Taken on the last day of our trip, before we had to catch a bus back so we can go to our non-muddy jobs and carry on with our non-muddy lives with our non-muddy friends... lame.

2. 2014 New Years Ski Trip

This next experience takes us away from the hot weather and sandy beaches to the snowy mountains, and subzero temperatures... yet surprisingly contains more swimming. This past year, I decided to ring in the new year at the Pheonix Park Ski Resort, located in the county of Pyeongchang. No, I didn't say Pyongyang, the capital of North Korea (maybe next New Years?). However, Pyeongchang may still sound familiar to some of you, as it will be the location of the next winter olympics in 2018, where Canada will once again make up for our lack of medals in the summer olympics. Anyways, this trip took place over the span of 4 days and 3 nights, and included way more than just skiing (or in my case, snowboarding). Organized by Adventure Korea, this trip had everything from skiing/snowboarding (leading to the biggest, blackest bruise on my ass ever), a water park (with a lazy river that goes outside into the freezing cold, in which I decided it would be a good idea to hop out of the water and roll in the snow, because why not?), and an ice fishing festival. I must say, one of my most memorable experiences was when I, disappointed by the fact that we didn't catch any fish during the ice fishing part, decided to participate in the bare handed fishing event. Yes, that's exactly what it sounds like. A group of insane individuals throw on a pair of shorts, a t-shirt, and non-fitting water shoes, and when given the signal, hop into the ice cold water in an attempt to grab a fish with your bare hands. Fortunately, I managed to scoop one of those slippery bastards out of the water (at the expense of any feeling in my toes and fingers) and made a delicious meal out of it. Unfortunately, I failed to get the contact info of the person who took a video of me doing it, so I have no proof. Instead, I'll just post a picture from the Adventure Korea Facebook page of other people participating in the event, so you can get an idea of what it was like.

Hundreds of people stand around, bundled up in their warm clothes, watching, and laughing at the fact that they're not you right now.

After the ice fishing festival was over, we proceeded back to the resort where we all prepared to say goodbye to 2013, and welcome 2014. From what i remember (which... may not be a whole lot), the whole night was a blast! From playing drinking games with the Adventure Korea group in our hotel room, to watching the fireworks and seeing the skiers ski down the hill holding torches, to trying to run up on the stage... because why not? Needless to say, it was a great way to ring in the new year!

Yes, that's me in the middle, and yes, I was wearing a Santa Claus hat most of the night.

3. Ulleungdo

As long as I'm talking about my Adventure Korea trips, another one worth mentioning is the first trip I took with them to the beautiful island off the east coast of Korea, Ulleungdo. As far as islands in Korea go, the most famous seems to be Jeju Island (which will be mentioned later on), yet in my opinion, Ulleungdo was superior to Jejudo (which should in no way take away from the beauty that is Jejudo). Ulleungdo is a small, volcanic island with subtropical temperatures, and contains lush forests, warm waters, and really cool rock formations. I went on this trip during the Korean "Thanksgiving" holiday known as Chuseok (추석), and (despite getting sick at the very start of the trip), I had a blast. After a gruelling overnight bus ride and ferry ride, we arrived on the Island of Ulleungo and the fun began. The trip contained bridge jumping, a bus tour, cable cars, waterfalls, and more. The trip also contained an optional hike through the interior of the island, which, despite the fact that I was sick and felt like crap, I decided to do anyways.

I may not look too sick in this picture, but trust me... I felt it.

One of the nicest parts of the island, in my opinion, was the Haengnam Shore Walkway. This is a trail built right along the cliffs of the island, that takes you all along the coast, and made for a great walk. At the end of out walk, we arrived at another town where I tried the freshest fish I had ever had (as in, minutes before I ate it, it was still swimming around).

I couldn't find a picture of the path from my trip, so I stole one from the internet instead... deal with it!

4. Tokyo, Japan

Always longing for more and more raw fish, I took the time during one of my breaks to go to Japan, where my sushi cravings could be satisfied. Although the whole process of getting there was one long headache (booked the flights on the wrong day, lost a ton of money, needed to find new flights, blah blah blah), the whole Japan experience made it well worth it. Tokyo had more than enough to offer for our 5 day trip. While there, we visited temples, checked out the arcades, explored the zoo, and ate more than enough sushi (and it was some of the best damn sushi I'd ever had). When it comes to restaurants, Tokyo has some pretty unique themes for them. They had restaurants made to be like a prison, where they will handcuff you, take you to your cell, and the prison warden waiters will serve you food in lab equipment. They also had robot-themes (of course) restaurants, maid cafes, vampire restaurants, etc. However, my long-term dream of becoming a ninja led us to the Ninja restaurant. Not only does this restaurant contain ninja-servers who try to silently sneak up on you, ninja-themed foods, and secret passages, but the restaurant itself was like a ninja! With a single door that fully blends in with the balck wall, and a tiny sign, we must have walked by the entrance 5 times trying to find the place, before finally asking for help. Another interesting, and unique experience from our Japan trip, was the tuna auction. Since the auction is at super-early-o-clock, and it's first come first serve (pretty much requiring you to get there around 4:00/4:30 am), we didn't bother sleeping before making our way to the auction. Once there, a group leader takes the group into a building, where hundreds of frozen tuna lay on the ground, with part of the tail cut open so the buyers can judge the meat.. The potential buys then walk around looking at the fish, and hacking at the meat with a sort of pick... although I'm not fully sure why. Once the auction ended, we made our way to the closest sushi restaurant to taste some of the delicious tuna for ourselves.

Nothing like a delicious sushi breakfast after staying up all night to watch a tuna auction!

5. Adventurous Eatin'

Although sushi restaurants have become much more common back in North America, many people may still consider eating raw fish to be bizarre and disgusting. If only those people knew just how much more bizarre it could get. If you are reading this blog, I assume you know me personally (and if you don't, then welcome stranger!), and if you know me personally, then you know that I REALLY like food, no matter what it is. Unsurprisingly, this has led me to try some dishes here in Korea that might make some of my family and friends back home a little queasy. In fact, my very first weekend here I had myself a taste of some silkworm pupae, and although I didn't particularly like it (although I have tried it again since, and it has become more enjoyable), that wasn't going to stop me from continuing to try more unique foods. Since living here, I feel as if I've eaten almost every part of the pig and the chicken. I have had chicken feet twice (although I don't really care for it too much), pig feet multiple times (much more delicious), chicken gizzard, pig intestine, and of course the more common stuff such as chicken wings, breast, etc. Although sometimes I just can't be satisfied with this stationary food, and would prefer a food that is a bit more... lively. I'm talking about octopus that is so fresh that those little arms and suckers and still fully active. Although it is possible to get actual LIVE octopus, these guys were by all means dead. However, that doesn't stop the suckers from attaching themselves to the inside of your cheek, or for one of those legs to try crawling out of your mouth. Although it was definitely a fun experience, I didn't find that they had too much flavor, and they were a bit too chewy for me. My last unique dish that I will mention is one that I am not particularly proud of. It is something that I do not support, and I would not put any money towards the dish. That being said, when my friends had already ordered the whale meat, I was willing to try some pieces (and sadly, it was delicious).

The expression "I'm so hungry I could eat a whale" has never been more relevant

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And thus ends part 1 of my post. I feel like if I put everything in one post, it might have been a bit too overwhelming. Hopefully this post wasn't too long for you. In fact, I think you should give yourself a nice pat on the back for finishing it. If you're having trouble patting your own back, perhaps get a friend or family member to do it for you. It's alright, I don't mind waiting.

........

Done? Good! Anyways, part 2 will hopefully be posted soon enough!

#south korea #ochang #tokyo #expatlife #expat #mud festival #boryeong #ulleungdo #pyeongchang #seoul #korea #TO DO IN KOREA #sushi

This is a Call

Riddle me this. What do you get when you take a bunch of foreigners and Koreans, add in a dash of sun shine, sandy beaches, and alcohol. Mix in some live music and water cannons, and then top it all off with a crap load of mud? Well ladies and gentleman, you have yourself the annual Boryeong Mud Festival, and an overall amazing weekend! Now, I know that due to my inactivity on this blog, I still haven't covered my Jeju weekend, nor my temple stay. But this is fresh in my head now, so those posts can wait. Now, let's start off with me teaching you a little history about said mud fest:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boryeong_Mud_Festival Now that we got that out of the way (and I sure hope I taught you a lot!) we can go back to talking about MY experience, because this blog is all about ME!!! ;). Anyways, backtrack a couple of weeks ago to when the mud festival weekend was quickly approaching, and we still didn't have a plan of how we would get there. After searching many different options (including going on our own, and trying our luck at finding a place to stay, otherwise crashing on the beach), we eventually agreed on hitching a ride with Steve and Becky's church, who had rented a bus. Now, their church was only planning on going up for the day on Saturday, so we would only be getting a one-way trip (as we planned on staying the night), but the price was right, as was the convenience, so we took it anyways. This required us waking up bright and early to get to Cheongju in order to catch the bus, which departed at 8:00am. Since we still needed to try to find a place to stay, we were more than ok with arriving early. After a nice, relaxing bus ride, we arrived in Boryeong, at the entrance of the mud fest, at 11:00 am, and we immediately set off to find a place to sleep. Lucky for us, we managed to find a nice (expensive) pension that was 5 seconds away from all the Mudfest activities, and booked it, with the hopes of meeting new friends, and offering them the opportunity to share in the pension (as well as help pay for it). After dropping our stuff off, we made our way straight to the mud. We started off small, just going to the little 'mud stations' and painting ourselves with mud.

All covered in mud, and ready for one hell of a weekend!

We then decided to buy a wristband, and enter the actual area with all the fun stuff. This included mud slides, obstacle courses, mud pools, a mud prison, etc. Eager to get muddy, we went straight to the closest, and shortest line that we saw, which brought us to the small mud pool. This is where I got my first taste of some of that delicious, delicious mud, as well as tested out the effects of the mud on a persons eyeball.... but regardless, it was awesome! We then made our way to the mud slide, where we raced each other, and then to the obstacle course for another race. Now, as always, I started this blog post immediately after the Mudfest weekend, and am now continuing it a couple weeks later, and therefore my memory of the weekend again is not quite as clear. But anyways, I think it was this point that Sean and Becky went to the beach, while Steve and I continued to enjoy some of the Mudfest activities before meeting up with them, and washing off the mud in the ocean. At this point, Sean made his way back to the pension, while Steve, Becky and myself grabbed a bite to eat, and sat at the picnic tables outside of the pension. It was probably around noon at this point, when we decided to get our first beer of the day... and definitely not our last. The rest of the day was spent drinking, relaxing on the beach, getting muddy, dancing, swimming, and more drinking. It was a blast!

Then night started to approach, and we decided it was time to get out of our wet bathing suits, grab some dinner, and enjoy the Mudfest nightlife. So we went back to the pension, got changed, and grabbed some delicious, healthy, pizza and fried chicken. After a nice, satisfying meal, we made our way to a big outdoor concert. At this point, I was getting pretty tired (it was only 7pm), so I had to run back and grab myself an energy drink (something I NEVER drink... but it worked), and then I joined back up with Steve, Becky, and Sean who had decided to leave the concert. As we were walking, we met a backpacker from Germany (Paula), who we began talking to, and Steve invited her to share our pension with us (and again, help pay for it since it was expensive). So we went with her to drop of her bag, and then went to get some more alcohol from the convenience store. While there, we were looking at the roman candles, and some friendly drunk guy decided to buy one for us. So we took our roman candle, walked to the beach, and lit it off. At the beach we encountered a bunch of guys from the U.S. Army, currently surviving in Korea of course, who we got to talking with. We all made our way to the tables by the convenience store, and continued to drink, and talk, and laugh, and just have an overall good time. While sitting there, our group continued to grow with the addition of another army guy, and a Korean girl. Then, after a while, it shrank a bit as one Army guy had had waaaay too much, and so we attempted to get him back to his hotel (he made it... but it wasn't easy. That's another story though). The group of us then went back to chatting, and having a good time, before finally deciding that it was time to change locations. We left the front of the convenience store, and began to walk, although he had no particular destination in mind (at least, not that I remember). After a bit of walking, we decided that all good, drunken nights in Korea end with a Norebang, and so we began to wander around in search of one. During our search, we came across another outdoor concert that seemed to be in a big parking lot. We danced a bit in the crowd, before I decided that it would be a lot more fun to hop over the rope, and dance on the stage in front of all the people.... so that's exactly what I did, joined by a couple other members of our group (the band on stage was nice enough to let us be up there). This continued for a while, as a bunch of Korean people cheered us on. Finally, after exhausting some of our energy, we finally left and made our way to a close-by Norebang, where we spent the rest of our night singing till we were blue in the face. After a couple hours spent there, we finally decided to head back to the pension and call it a night (or... early morning I guess). The next morning we woke up bright and early (well, early enough considering the lack of sleep I had gotten the previous two nights), and we were once again joined by some of our friends from the night before. We had a quick bite to eat, and then went straight back to the mud. The rest of the day consisted of more mud, swimming, etc (no drinking though), and finally ended with a nice, relaxing bus ride home. Now, as always, this post took my way, way, way, way too long to complete (probably wrote it in 3 or 4 parts, all of which were spaced out by a couple of weeks or so). Clearly I've been lazy when it comes to my blogging, and therefore I'm trying to decide whether or not I'll even continue (since the delays also causes me to forget/leave out details of my adventures). But anyways, I figure if anyone is actually reading this, and wants to know more, they can just ask me :).

Cheers!

Breakout

It's time for another blog post! And I know what you're thinking. "But Jason! It's only been two weeks since your last blog post! You can't possibly expect me to read an entire blog post every two weeks or so!" Well, I know it's asking for a bit much, but I have faith in my fellow readers. Besides, I need to finally talk about my Gyeongju trip, seeing as it happened well over a month already at this point. In fact, this trip was on the weekend of Buddha's birthday, which took place on... *quick google search* May 17th! Soooo.... let's begin! Alright, so, as I said, this weekend was about a month and a half ago, so I will try my best to remember what I can. This was my first long weekend in Korea, and I had absolutely no plans going into it. You see, because our dear friend Guatama Buddha was celebrating his 2549th birthday, he decided to grace us all with a long weekend. Now, Steve and Becky already had their weekend planned out, which they would spend as a couple, and Sean had plans to go to Busan with some of his friend's he met in Seoul. So I was on my own this weekend, wondering what to do. The Friday (which was our day off) was extremely uneventful for me. I mostly sat around all day, went on a bit of a hike on my own, and tried to decide what I could do the rest of the weekend. As I sat around, searching through my Lonely Planet guide that was provided by my awesome DOM brother, and possibly the only person who really reads this blog (hence you get a special mention), I discovered a place called Gyeongju, which is apparently a pretty big deal. This place had tombs, and temples, and.... Buddha stuff (and after all, it was thanks to him that I had a long weekend, so the least I could do was go and look at statues and stuff of him), and various other attractions. So, once I decided on my location, I needed to figure out my course of action. I found out what times the busses leave from Cheongju, and what times the busses TO Cheongju run, and I was good to go. Seeing as I planned to leave super early (around 6:00 from Ochang, so I could catch the early bus from Cheongju), then a good plan would have been to go to bed early, right? Well, after an interesting SKype conversation that night, my body decided that it would rather stay awake all night, and be dead all day tomorrow. And that's exactly what it did :) After waking up.... errr... sorry, after giving up on trying to sleep and getting out of bed with the sun, I packed up the remainder of my stuff (of course forgetting my phone charger) and was on my way. Grabbed the bus to Cheongju (my first time bussing there alone, so I didn't fully know where to get off), hopped on the bus to Daegu (at the time I was unaware that there was actually a direct bus to Gyeongju that I could have taken, so I had to transfer instead), and immediately caught my bus to Gyeongju. Upon arrival, the first thing I needed to do was to find my hostel (which I called the night before), and that was actually pretty easy. I checked in, and spoke with the owner for a little bit, who was a very nice and helpful man. He gave me a map (which I believe he makes himself), and helped me plan out my next two days by showing me where everything was, and how to get to each place. This hostel was also nice, as it had it's own individual rooms, as seen below.

My nice, cozy room. Although my room seemed to also act as a storage (hence all that crap beside my bed), I was also fortunate to have all of the fans in my room. Especially now that it was starting to get hot.

After dropping my stuff off, and having a look over the map, I went to grab a bite to eat. Since I was sick of all the unhealthy crap I'd been eating in the past, I decided to go for the healthy choice. After finishing off that last bite of my second McDonald's burger, I went to catch a bus, and took the 1.5 hour trip to Bulguksa temple, one of Korea's famous temples. Bulguksa temple was a beautiful temple, known for containing seven of Korea's National treasures, including the stone pagodas, and some bronze statues of Buddha. I probably would have appreciated it much more if I wasn't half asleep, but that's alright.

One of the broze Buddha statues. As we're not supposed to take pictures, I had to be sneaky when taking this one.

After looking around the temple for a while, I made my way to another big attraction, which is conveniently located in the same area as the temple, the Seokguram Grotto. I had two options for getting to the Grotto (or at least to the entrance). Those two options were to take a 20 minute bus ride to the top, or to hike it. Since I was in no rush, and I enjoy hiking, I went for the second option. During my hike, I ran out of the little water I actually brought along, and a very very kind Korean person noticed, and poured his water into my empty bottle, at which point I came to the conclusion that hiking Koreans are the nicest people in the world. Despite the hike being pretty tiring, it was all worth it when I reached the top and got to overlook.... the massive crowds and the super long line up for the ticket office. It was magical! After waiting in a nice long line-up, and being amazed by all the white people in the area (it's been a while since I've seen so many white people in one area), I finally bought my 4 dollar ticket. After purchasing the ticket, the lady was nice enough to warn me that there was about a 2 hour wait to get to the actual Grotto part. It's nice that she waited until I had paid before telling me this. Now, I would like to point out, that except for the fact that this Grotto is well known, I actually had no clue what I was expecting to see. I put all of zero research into it, and was really just going to the Seokguram Grotto because it's one of those well-known, must see tourist attractions apparently. But, despite this fact, I handed the man my ticket, and began walking towards the Grotto, before coming to the huge, 2-hour long line-up. After an exciting 1.5 hours of moving forward a foot or two, stopping, and then repeating, I finally made it to the Seokguram Grotto (although I was a bit disappointment that the excitement of standing in line only lasted 1.5 hours, instead of the stated 2 hours). This is when I quickly realized that all it was is a Grotto that contains a giant Buddha statue, and a bunch of other carvings of the bodhisattvas. And all of this is located behind a nice, big, thick piece of glass, and of course you can't take pictures, and the whole viewing experience lasts all of 10 seconds (you walk in one end, and out the other end, and that's that). Don't get me wrong. I don't want to downplay it so much, as the statue is quite big, and it is pretty impressive, and I'm sure if it wasn't Buddha's birthday weekend, the wait would have been much shorter. But standing in line for 1.5 hours just to quickly glance at something a zillion feet behind thick glass was not the most worthwhile experience. Either way, I of course tried to sneak a picture anyways (and it turned out blurry as hell... but still!).

This is what I waited 1.5 hours to see. It's hard to tell the size from this blurry picture, and it is quite big and impressive, but still... You can't get at all close to it, you can't take pictures, and it takes about 10 seconds to view it and then leave.

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Anyways, I know I started off this post by saying it's only been 2 weeks since my last post, but since I never finished it, and am now continuing it many weeks later, that no longer holds true. I will try to rush through the rest so I could post this, and get started on my other adventures that I have had up to this point, so by the time I get back from Japan (where I am going in less than a week), I could post about it and not worry about all the stuff I missed.

Alright, so I finished up looking at the statue, and hiked back down, eventually reaching the bus stop. Since I arrived around the time that the temple was closing, and again, since it was Buddha's birthday weekend, the bust stop was PACKED. While waiting in line, I was approached by a very friendly Malaysian couple, whom I got to talking to. Since it was so packed, and the busses only ran so often (which wasn't very often, and people were unable to fit on them when they did arrive) our wait for the bus ended up lasting at least an hour. So I was very fortunate to have my new friends to talk to. We also discovered that we were both heading to the same place after the temple, so they asked if I wanted to tag along.

Once we FINALLY made it on a bus, we arrived at a huge resort in Gyeongju, and made our way to tradition korean music and dance show. Now, since I want to speed things up, I won't bother getting into too much detail (you can just see my pictures on facebook). After the show, we caught another bus, and made our way back closer to the city center, where we found our way to Anapji Pond. This was a pond that was discovered to carry relics from an old palace that was once built around this pond, and they have since managed to reconstruct some of the buildings. It was a very beautiful place to visit at night, as the pond and pavilions were all lit up.

One of the three buildings that were reconstructed, beside the pond

After Anapji pond, we made our way to the Cheomseongdae Observatory for some quick pictures, and then started to head back to the downtown section of the city, where my hostel was and their motel was. We said our goodbyes in the convenience store (since it was raining), took a quick picture, and I made my way back to the hostel for a much much much needed sleep.

Goodbye Catherine and Lucas!

The next day I was once again on my own. That day consisted of viewing the huge tombs that Gyeongju has spread all over the city, checking out the museum and trying to waste time there, wandering around the streets exploring, and discovering some house that belonged to an extremely wealthy family that apparently did a lot of good for a lot of people. I don't really remember details now because, again, it was a bit over 2 months ago. But ya, in the spirit of speeding things up, that is my condensed version of my second day in Gyeongju, before I finally caught a bus at around 7:00pm or so, and made my way back home, thus ending my adventure.

This was the biggest Tomb I saw there. So big that it was full grown trees on it, and it towers over the buildings (granted, those buildings are definitely much further in the background, but still). And no, this is not just a naturally made hill. There's a dead dude buried under that monstrosity. There! Finally updated my blog again! Now I just need to cover Jeju, and my temple stay so I will be nice and ready to write about all my (mis)adventures during Mudfest this weekend, and then Japan shortly after!

Ciao!

You and What Army, Arlandria, Arlandria (Part 2)

Alright. Time for part 2 of my previous post (this part is most likely going to be shorter). So, in the last post I covered our hiking weekend in Gyeryongsan, as well as the DMZ portion of my DMZ/Seoul weekend.

So, continuing from where I left off, we finished up our DMZ tour and made our way back to Seoul. From there we had some time to kill, so we made our way to the War Memorial of Korea, a huge museum/memorial that shows the military history of Korea. We spent quite a bit of time exploring this museum, until it was time for us to go, and make our way over to the Seoul Lantern Festival, which was supposed to begin shortly (or it had already begun at that point... I can't remember). We hopped on the subway and made our way to the big street in the heart of Seoul where the festival was taking place. While there, we met up with a group of other people, and joined them in watching the festival. The whole thing took hours to complete, with a very very disappointing finale (AKA, no finale). However, somewhere in the middle of the festival, amongst the sea of repeating lanterns, there were some awesome fire-breathing dragons! Why that wasn't saved for the finale, I don't know.

DRAGONS!!!

Once the festival that seemed to be never-ending finally ended, it was time to grab some food, drop off our stuff at our hostel, and then visit some bars and enjoy the Seoul nightlife!

The following day consisted of more Seoul exploring. After waking up (later than I would have liked) I met up with Steve, Becky and Sierra at a market right outside of one of Seoul's huge palaces. Here we grabbed a bite to eat, and just walked around a bit. Nothing too exciting. Although we did see two Koreans, standing infront of a huge statue of King Sejong, being filmed, while they did some sort of dance, which was pretty entertaining. Maybe they were some k-pop sensations making a music video? (I'll post the video in a separate post, since I don't think I can add it into this one). Speaking of King Sejong, however, he was a king in Korea who oversaw the creation of Hangul (the super-easy Korean writing system), and it happened to be his birthday that weekend. So, after walking around the market for a bit, we headed over to the palace and explored the palace ground before going to see the King's feast, in honor of King Sejong's birthday.

Look at all of that food, prepared for THE King Sejong. It's amazing how he is still around, despite being born in 1397!

He looks pretty good for a man who is about 615 years old. And it's nice to see that he isn't stuck in the old way, and has adopted new technologies, such as the headset that he's wearing. Good on ya Mr. Sejong!

Following the ceremony, we walked around a bit more, and found a small museum dedicated to the creation of Hangul (actually, we found the entrance leading downstairs, below the huge statue of King Sejong, which was pretty cool), and then we made our way to the bus station to catch a bus back to Cheongju, and then onwards to Ochang, thus ending a great weekend.

This is an earlier photo of the statue of King Sejong. Around back is an entrance to the previously mentioned museum, and in front are the previously mentioned, possible k-pop sensation, dancers.

So there ya go! A post, finally, that is nice and short! I was also lazy this time, and therefore didn't get into too many details. Besides, this all happened probably around a month ago, and I only remember so much. This blog is a lot of work. Maaan..... Anyways! Hope you enjoyed this nice short blog! And hopefully I can bring myself to post again soon, and not be a month behind anymore.

Cheers!

You Are Not Me, Arlandria, Arlandria

Well, since I once again decided to wait so long before updating my blog, it seems as if this might be yet another long post. I now have three weekends in which I need to cover (although maybe I'll just cover two of them in this post, and do a separate post for the third one - Also, I'm adding a lot more photos in this one so it'll hopefully be less of a boring read). So, without further ado, let's begin.

Alright, back track a bit to 3 weeks ago now. I'm talking the weekend of May 3rd to 5th, and the weekend following my last post. This was the weekend in which we (Steve, Becky, Sean and myself) planned on going on a nice hike in the mountains. Of course, this also happened to be the weekend in which I started to get sick the thursday night prior. I honestly have no clue what could have lead to me getting sick, as I took nothing but the best of care for myself (refer to previous post in which I talk about my drinking and staying up until 6:45am :)). But regardless, despite all my attempts to sterilize any germs with alcohol, or killing them by keeping them awake until all hours of the night, I still managed to get sick. So, Friday comes along, and after going to work while feeling like shit all day, I am faced with the fun decision of taking it easy on Saturday, or waking up at 6:30 am, spending an entire day hiking the mountains, and getting back late. Of course, I made the responsible choice, and I chose to go on the hike. So, after about 3 or so hours of sleep (I had trouble falling asleep due to being congested, and having a sore throat, and all of that fun stuff), I woke up bright and early to start my day. Feeling surprisingly refreshed (which was COMPLETELY unexpected), I threw on my hiking gear, grabbed my back pack which I prepared the night before, and met up with the rest of the crew in the hallway, ready to start our day. First things first, we needed to walk to Ochang plaza (about a 20 minute walk) to grab some food (Gimbap) for the trail, and to catch our bus. Now, since this was three weeks ago, and I was less familiar with my Korean geography at the time, I could be wrong. However, I believe we caught the bus to Daejon, and from Daejon (after grabbing some breakfast at Dunkin Donuts) hopped on a bus to Gyeryongsan (where the mountain was located). From there we met a Korean man, who helped us get to the base of the mountain (as he was also heading there) and then our hike began! This man was nice enough to hang around for a while, and help us whenever it was needed. Our hike began at around 10:30 I believe (maybe 10?). During the course of the hike, I discovered just how extremely nice Koreans are on hiking trails. We had people who talked to us and helped us if we needed any, as well as people even giving us some of their food (complete strangers who just offer us food, which is apparently more common that you'd expect). We also met one man who picked some pink flowers from the plants and gave them to us to eat (fresh from the tree). All in all, it was a great hike, and it took us about 5 or 5.5 hours to complete (again, I could be wrong. It was 3 weeks ago).

We were always very worried about the Drop falls all over the place, as well as the areas that were sliperly (no, that's not a typo... not on my part at least). The signs were quite entertaining (especially with this father and son bear, in which the father always seems to be seconds away from death, while his son smiles and poses for the picture).

These were the people who gave us some of their sweet potato. We ran into them again on the way down the mountain, and they stopped to take a picture with us.

Once reaching the end of the hiking trail, we walked past some nice looking buddhist temples, where we stopped to take some pictures, before finding a place to eat a delicious dinner, and have a quick drink of hazelnut-flavoured makgeolli (an alcohol rice drink). Following dinner, we started to make our way back to Cheongju (while all falling asleep on the bus) in order to see Iron Man 3. Once all was said an done (movie finished, all the travel time, etc) we finally arrived back at our apartment at around 12:30 for the end of our long 18 hour, exhausting day (as I continued to be sick).

The next weekend was an even more eventful one. With all of the tension between South Korea and North Korea as of late, we figured what better way to spend a weekend then to head on over there and jtry to settle things between the two sides. Perhaps we would even have a little chat with Kimmy Boy Un if it came down to it. Because, as foreigners, we obviously have that type of control (Well, those from the states, such as Sean, have that type control to police the rest of the world, while us Canadians were mostly just there to apologize for any harsh words that might be passed between the two sides. Sorry, eh?). So, on the friday of that weekend, immediately after work, we grabbed our weekend bags, hopped on a bus to Cheongju bus terminal, and then headed straight to Seoul (finally in Seoul!). Once we arrived (pretty late by this point), we checked into Seoul Base Camp, which was the name of our hostel. This hostel was pretty cool. Instead of having walls to separate the rooms containing the bunk beds, they had tents. Anyways, after another night of no sleep (maybe 2 hours tops), we were up bright and early (around 6 something again) so we can make our way to the meeting place where we would begin our tour to the DMZ (for those who don't know, it stands for Demilitarized Zone, and runs along the North Korea-South Korea border, and is the most heavily militarized border in the world... look it up). After a bit of a bus ride, we arrived at our first destination of the tour. This was the the Dorasan station, which, for a whopping year or so, served as a connection between South Korea and North Korea (December 2007 to December 2008, when North Korea threw one of their hissy fits, and closed any trains into North Korea). Needless to say, we decided to buy our 50 cent train tickets at this train station, in an attempt to get to Pyeongyang, the capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.... or North Korea for short.

All aboard! Next stop, Pyeongyang! Home of the great and glorious leader!

Just having a chat as we wait for our train to begin. For some reason this train was completely empty, except for the people on our tour... weird.

Once our plan to take a train to Pyeongyang failed miserably, we decided to leave the train station (right after I bought myself another patch for my backpack - refer to my facebook album if you're confused), and head to our next destination.

Our next destination brought us much much closer to the action, as our next destination was the JSA. Now, I know what you're thinking "since when is the Jewish Student's Association involved in the South Korean-North Korea feuds?" You crazy Jews, you. No, the JSA actually stands for Joint Secuirty Area, which is quite literally an area in which the North Korean side and the South Korean side is separated by a concrete slab, with buildings that cross over onto both sides. We started off by visiting the visiting center (makes sense, right?) where we were greeted by a U.S. troop who gave us a brief history lesson of the JSA (actually very fascinating stuff). We then changed onto another bus, led by the troops, and were brought to the actual JSA. Within the JSA, there are many different buildings, as well as ROK soldiers (ROK = Republic Of Korea), who can easily pass as stone statues. The essentially just stand there, staring at whatever it is they're facing (a few of them stare directly at the North Korean's on the other side, while they are half hidden by the sides of the building - world's most intense staring contest). We made our way into one of the building that is meant as a meeting place for the two sides (as the divide between the South and North Korean sides of the JSA splits right through the center of this building). This allowed me to actually walk past that cement slab, and allows me to officially say that I have been in North Korea!

That concrete slab divides North Korea from South Korea. I'm standing on the North Korean side of it. Mission accomplished! Next step... find Kim Jong Un!

Standing with one of the ROK soldiers. I ensure you, he is real and not made out of wax. I tested out this theory by lighting a match under his hand to see if he would melt. I am just now awaking from my coma (he obviously let me off easily).

So, with the ROK soldiers guarding the exit into North Korea, we gave up on this new plan that we hoped would bring us to Pyeongyan (and thus confront The Kimster), so we decided to leave the building, and view the surrounding buildings in that area. There were many other types of building, which I will not go over them all, but the one I found most interesting, and hilarious, was the one nicknamed The Monkey House. Refer to picture and caption below.

The Monkey House - The place where the North Koreans have been known to pull back those curtain and "flip the bird" as well as make faces and do other childish stuff to the South Korean side. Kids these days.

Hello Mr. North Korean soldier. You watch me - I watch you. This guy popped out from behind that pillar in order to check us out with his trusty binoculars, at which point he would quickly put them down, and retreat once again behind the pillar. Takes me back to my toddler years, when I could always rely on people to play a nice game of peek-a-boo with me :).

After getting some insight into the different buildings within the JSA, we were once again on our merry way through the DMZ. Our next destination brought us to a South Korean guard tower (although I think it was actually manned by U.S. troops), where we were able to get some great views of North Korea, as well as a beautiful looking village right by the border. I'm serious. The buildings in this village look really really nice. And they even have one of the world's largest flag poles, and flags, blowing graciously in the wind over the beautiful Propaganda Village - Population: 0. Yes. You read that correctly. It is AN EMPTY VILLAGE! In fact, these beautiful looking buildings I mentioned are HOLLOW. I guess it got the name Propaganda Village for a reason (also, they used to blast propaganda from giant speakers into the south, urging people to come on over and be welcomed as "brothers". Ya. For some reason it didn't work out too well for them. They later decided to change the message a bit, and instead blast some good ol' fashioned Western bashing. I believe that South Korea responded by also blasting stuff from speakers, until in 2004 both sides mutually agreed to "cut out that infernal racket! Dang youngsters!" Oh, and also that giant I mentioned earlier? Well, in the 1980's, in a small town called Daesong, located within the DMZ (it actually sounds like the farmers have it going pretty well for them living in the DMZ, but that's another story), South Koreans constructed a flagpole that would measure 323 ft tall, and carry a 287 lb South-Korean flag. Well, the North Koreans saw this and, feeling emasculated by the size of South Korea's flag pole, they set out to build their own flag pole. And thus, their 525 ft tall flagpole was erected, carrying a flag that weighs about 600 lbs! This flag is so incredibly heavy that it requires 30-40 grown North Korean men to bring it down and up, and it must be brought down during the rain, or the sheer weight of it (while wet) could cause it to tear apart. Some other interesting buildings that we saw in this area were the place where North Korean's fast response team was supposedly stationed (although the troops claim to not see any movement there, and have since come to refer to them as the slow response team), as well as the bridge of no return (look it up - this post is getting too long for another history lesson). Shortly after leaving this area, we also passed by the area in which the frightful 1976 axe murder incident took place (long story short, before the JSA was divided by the concrete, it was a big, open, neutral area, and this axe murder incident brought an end to that. It had to do with American troops trying to cut down a tree, and North Koreans responding by axing two of them. Look it up. Very fascinating).

Such a nice looking village, with the pride of North Korea always watching over them. All 0 of them that is.

Now, our final destination of our DMZ/JSA tour, and our last attempt at infiltrating North Korea, was the 3rd tunnel. Unfortunately, this was one of the many many places we were unable to take pictures, so you'll just have to use something called "your imagination". Ooooooohhh! Alright, anyways... the third tunnel (or Third Tunnel of Aggression). The third tunnel is one of the few tunnels discovered (key word: discovered, as there is information that there are MANY more of these tunnels out there) that was dug by the North Koreans in an attempt at a surprise attack on Seoul. This tunnel is large enough that it is said to be able to accomodate 30 000 men per hour, and was only discovered because it was revealed by someone who managed to defect to South Korea. Now, it stays open as a tourist attraction! Hooray! :). Anyways, we got a chance to explore this tunnel, up until the point that it ends at a very thick cement wall (constructed by the South Koreans after it's discovery). There are three walls like this in a row, and between two of them is a HUGE reservoir of water, which is surrounded by small explosives that the South Koreans can set off if the North Korean side ever tried to break through these concrete walls. Oh, and also, the North Koreans, when discovered, tried to defend themselves by claiming to be mining for coal, as evident by the shit ton of coal dust along the walls. However, very shortly after, it was revealed that it is HIGHLY unlikely that there is any actual coal here, and those sneaky North Koreans simply painted on this coal dust.

Alright, this post is getting really really long (and I've only covered one day of the DMZ weekend), so I'm thinking of putting an "intermission" here, and therefore splitting this post into two parts (don't feel the need to read it all at once... but you should DEFINITELY feel the need to read it all!)

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END OF PART 1 - INTERMISSION

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Overdrive

So it seems as if these posts are getting less and less. I will try harder to fix that. Although it's been a very long time since my last post, I will try to keep this one short (unlike my previous one) because "ain't nobody got time for that!" Maybe I'll try to switch over to some video blogs instead, just to save some time and make people more likely to follow along :). But anyways, onto the blog!

So my previous post mostly covered my one Jinhae weekend, as well as some of my home life in Korea. Well, I am happy to say that since then I have settled in much much more, and have been feeling much more at home (even though my previous blog was titled "New Way Home"... Although, I guess it's less new now, and more familiar? Whatever, not important). I have began to cook a tiny bit more (but not as much as I would like to, since I've been eating like shit), and have met a TON of new people. Teaching life has gotten significantly better. I am getting a much better handle on controlling my students (knowing their names helps a ton), and one of my classes has even given me my own Korean name!

(Pronounced like: Pay Jay Hyeon - The Ja Hyeon part obviously based off of Jason)

So, needless to say, things have been pretty good here! Although I haven't done much more exploring of Korea, I have been managing to keep myself busy and like I said, I've been meeting a ton of new people! If I'm to get into more details about what I have been up to, I will have to ask the parents to stop reading, as to avoid any inevitable lectures about the damage that I'm doing to my liver! No? You're still reading aren't you? Well.... so be it. Moving on!

So, continuing from my previous post, what have I been up to? Well, the weekend following the Jinhae festival was a weekend where Steve was running in the Daegu marathon, and Sean joined them. I was invited to tag along too, but decided to stay behind in Ochang, as I hadn't had much of a chance to explore my home town yet. Being on my own, I decided I needed to be brave, and send out a message in Kakao (it's a messenger similar to WhatsApp, except EVERYONE in Korea uses it) to a group of people that I haven't met, to see if anybody wanted to hang out. Although I only got one initial response, I was here to meet new people, and meet new people I shall do! So, despite being unable to read his name on the chat (it was Lawrence), since he decided to write it all in Hangeul (Korean writing), I made plans to meet up with this guy anyways. I met him at Green Mart, and we headed to a bar called 700 Beer. We sat around drinking and talking for a while, and he brushed me up on some of the "Ochang history" (AKA the history of some people who were here in the past), as well as some of the current Ochang people. I was also introduced to the (dangerous) combination of Soju and beer, known as SoMek (a mix of Soju and Mekju, which is beer in Korean). After drinking and chatting for a while, we were joined by an English couple, Tamsyn and Lawson. We spent some more time at the bar, just talking and drinking, before finally deciding to call it a night. As we were heading out, we ran into another couple from Ochang (Linh and Ross) who we chatted with for a bit, and then wel all headed back to our respectable apartments.

The following weekend, I finally made my way into Cheongju with Steve, Becky and Sean, where they showed me around a bit. We went into Shinhae (which is the downtown area of Cheongju, compared to Chungdu (I think?) which is a Univeristy/bar area where many foreigners go to drink). There we decided that we would see a movie, and grab a bite to eat. Now, unfortunately, Steve and I lost the vote to see Oblivion, and we ended up seeing To Rome With Love. As my first movie theater experience in Korea, it could have gone better. Seeing as the movie took place in Rome, I could safely say about 50% of it was in Italian (no exaggeration). This would be ok had they had English subtitles to go along with it, instead of just Korean subtitles (the other 50% of the movie was in English luckily). Therefore, Sean spent a decent amount of time trying to translate the Korean subtitles so we had a better idea of what was going on. After that we grabbed dinner and headed back to Ochang where Steve and Becky called it a night, and Sean and I went to meet up with some people at a (you guessed it) bar. While there, I was introduced to Dan, a guy who lived in Ochang but now lives in Seoul, and actually created the Ochang facebook group. I also met another couple, Erik and Jessica, who went to none other than the University of Guelph! In fact, if anyone from Guelph is reading this, Jessica was the manager at McCabes. On top of that, I met a Korean guy, Angelo, a girl named Kindle, and people whom I already met, Linh, Ross, Tamsyn and Lawson. Another successful night.

The following week (which is this previous week/weekend) I managed to make my way into Cheongju twice. On Thursday, I joined Sean and some of his friends at a bar in Ochang called Keller. There I met one Ochang couple (Alex and Alice) and two Cheongju couples (Jon and Victoria, as well as Ben and Anna). After a couple drinks, the guys decided we weren't ready to head back yet, but the girls had a different opinion. So we parted ways with the girls, and made our way to Cheongju where we went to a bar called MJs (and stayed till the wee hours of the night, socializing with more foreigners). That upcoming weekend, I was once again on my own, as my two coworkers were out of town. Once again, I sent out a text in the Kakao group, and ended up getting a reply from this guy named Matt. We met at 700 beer for some drinks, then went over to Garten Bier for some more drinks and food. Garten Bier is just another typical Ochang bar, except for one added feature. Every table has these big cup holders, that act to keep your drinks cold (you turn it on, and can adjust the temperature). Also, what was really cool about that is, if you order a pitcher of beer, there will be a metal ring on the bottom of the pitcher that fits perfectly into these cup holders, and a metal spike through the middle of the pitcher, conducting the coldness to the beer. But anyways, after some drinks and food, we made the drunken decision to, once again, go to Cheongju. And once again, I ended up at MJs. While there, I ran into Tom (friend that came to the cherry blossom festival with us), and met a whole bunch of other people who we hung out with for the remainder of the night. And, since there is no 2:00am last call like in Canada, we managed to stay there until the sun rose, at which point we said our goodbyes. Matt and I made it back to Ochang at around 6:45am, and I was in bed and asleep by 7:00am. Needless to say, that following Sunday (AKA, yesterday) was NOT a very productive day...

And that's that! I apologize for filling up much of this blog post simply with drinking stories. Although, I guess my main point was that I was meeting a lot of people, but anyways, I plan on having more exciting stories to tell in my next blog post.

Annyeonghi gaseyo! 안녕히 가세요!

Oh! And I've started going for runs in order to get some exercise... which is good I guess, but probably being countered out by the beer... but at least it shows that I don't JUST drink all the time... ya... alright, bye!

#Ochang #Cheongju #south korea #SoMek #Soju #Mekju

New Way Home

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, and last time I only covered my first weekend soooo.... this post might be a long one. You have been warned (feel free to read half now, and half later. It's broken into two parts). I would first like to start off the post by saying I AM STILL ALIVE, and no, I am not overly worried about North Korea. Most people here aren't. I, however, cannot say the same about people in North America. That being said, if North Korea DOES happen to attack, I have my emergency kit:

A good supply of toilet paper could go a long way!

Aaaaannnyways! Moving on. So, I have settled in quite nicely since my last post. I have made this apartment my new home (although I still need to deal with that painful, spring-ridden mattress of mine somehow), I have been learning how to order various foods in Korean, and I've been getting the hang of teaching english. The first Monday of teaching was pretty hectic. Since my whole visa process took forever to complete I got to Korea too late to have any overlap with the teacher I was replacing. Therefore, I didn't get any chance to sit in on a class before starting my first day, and the kids took full advantage of my lack of experience. Luckily for me, it was a test day, which mostly involved handing the students a test, and letting them write it. That being said, I had a bit of a difficult time controlling a lot of them, and not knowing any of their names didn't help. Day 2 of teaching was a bit better. Tuesdays and Thursdays have different schedules from the rest of the week, and less classes. Therefore on Tuesday we were able to swap some of my classes with my coworkers so I could sit in and watch how they taught. This definitely helped increase my confidence, and gave me a much better idea of how a classroom should be run. Since that day, things have been getting much better with my classes. Every day I'm learning more and more about what it is to teach, how the school's curriculum runs, and what is required of me. I'm even getting much closer to remembering most of my student's names! My meals thus far have also started to be much more varied as I have been able to try new dishes with the help of my coworker Sean (who, fortunately, speaks Korean and can help me order stuff). One of my favorite dishes so far has been the Onigiri. This is basically rice moulded into a triangular shape, wrapped in seaweed. The rice is then filled with various ingredients. It could be a variety of things from cheese, to fish eggs, to tuna, to chicken or beef (or even bacon!). It's delicious! Especially the Poul Dak one (My attempt at typing the romanization of the Korean name for it), which translates to hot chicken (Koreans LOVE their spice, and therefore I love Koreans :)).

Two things of Onigiri (hot chicken and bacon kimtchi), some soup, and a white-grape soda. Yum!

SO that was my first week in Korea. School, eating, a bit of exploring (and as you saw in the previous picture, some toilet paper shopping... I only bought that much because it was buy one get one free), and organizing my apartment. Oh, and since people have been asking, yes, I quickly figured out where the light was for that back area. I was just way too tired the night I took the video to actually put in an ounce of effort in finding it.

END OF PART 1

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INTERMISSION

Feel free to take this opportunity to grab yourself a snack and a refreshment, go to the bathroom, or do whatever it is that you need to do!

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PART 2 - Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival: The Last Stand: Reloaded: The Final Chapter

So, onto my first real weekend in Korea! I must say, I arrived in Korea at a good time. Just in time for spring! Well... sorta (the weather is pretty unpredictable). That being said, the beginning of spring means the cherry blossoms are in full bloom, which means the Jinhae Cherry Blossom Festival is taking place!

So, Steve and Becky planned a trip to go to the city of Jinhae (look it up on a map if you'd like) in order to attend said festival, and I, as well as a bunch of others, were invited to tag along. I woke up Saturday morning, ate breakfast, lounged around for a bit, packed a bag, and headed out of the apartment. After making a detour to a taxi stand to see if I could retrieve Steve and Becky's camera that they left in a cab earlier that morning (I was unsuccessful, but I got our vice-director to leave Steve's number with them, which later led to them giving him a call to say that they found it), I met up with another fellow Ochang citizen at Onigiri (Her name was Heather). After apologizing for being so late (since I was dealing with the camera fiasco), we got ourselves a cab and made our way to the bus station in Cheongju. Luckily we made it in time, and we met up with Steve, Becky, a friend of theirs from church Sierra, and her two friends Tom and Lydia. We then proceeded to board the super comfy coach bus, and prepare for our 3 hour journey to Jinhae. I, unfortunately, made the stupid mistake of not going to the bathroom before boarding the bus... a mistake I will never make again! Luckily, after a painful hour and a half, we stopped at a rest stop where we got some food, and had a chance to stretch our legs (and of course use the bathroom) before completing our journey to Jinhae. Our bus dropped us off in a city near Jinhae, called Masan, where we hopped into two cabs and made our way to the festival in Jinhae.

The first day of our trip had it's ups and downs. For starters, the weather was pretty shitty (overcast with a bit of rain). I didn't personally mind the weather too much, but the downside of rain was that it knocked many of the cherry blossom petals off the tree. Also, we started off our trip by trying to find the parade that was supposed to take place that day, which we were unable to find. So the first day had a lack of parade and cherry blossoms, but it was still a great time nonetheless! We walked along the streets a bit, and found some neat 'horse and carriage' rides, which we decided to try out:

Since they couldn't control when the actual horses would "neigh", these carriages came equipped with a button that they would press and it would make a fake neigh-ing sound. Most of them also played music (although ours didn't... we got ripped off :().

We later came across a market that contained many different food stands/semi-restaurants (by semi-restaurant, I mean a bunch of tables, with a big tarp overhead, and lots of food/drinks). At the first of these semi-restaurants we encountered, we saw a nice big pig roasting. Lydia and Tom decided to get a plate of pork, after thinking that it was only 3000 won each (Around 3 bucks Canadian). The rest of us sat with them and ordered a couple of beers. Unfortunately for Lydia and Tom, the man working there wasn't exactly caught up on his english numbers, and the plates ended up costing 20 bucks each (20,000 won)! At least the food was delicious.

We finished up our drinks, payed, and continued to walk along the market. Most stands contained the same foods (squid, pork, pheasants, etc). I kept noticing these pots of boiling water, and some weird... larvae looking things that smelled absolutely disgusting! Becky informed me that these things were, in fact, silk worm pupae (it's called beondegi in Korean. Look it up). After we stopped at one stand to take a picture of this big, disgusting pot of pupae, the man started picking them up and popping them into his mouth. He then proceeded to hand each of us one. Needless to say, myself, Becky, and Lydia all tried one. The taste matched the smell all too well... I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else!

Nothing says "Time for dinner!" like a big, boiling pot of silk-worm pupae!

A bit further ahead we discovered a crowd of people sitting around a man singing on a stage. We also quickly noticed that the man was dressed in some tight, girly clothes, and was wearing make up. Kind of strange for a country that I was told was very homophobic. After watching the performer for a couple of minutes, we headed back through the market, and continued our exploring. We eventually made our way to an area divided by a stream, and covered with some cool light fixtures of various shapes. We started off in the heart section, before proceeding to the sphere level, which soon turned into cubes, and then, when we were ready for it, we made our way to the... boat/snowboard/something area! Quite an exciting time for us all!

Beginners to the walk should start off with the Heart Section before attempting to conquer the Sphere Level, and all further levels!

After walking all the way to the end, we decided that it was about time to get some food and drinks, and to finally head to our hotel. We made our way to out little love hotel (that's actually what they are called, as you could apparently rent the rooms there by the hour for... y'know... some fun... By which I mean playing card games and stuff... ya). This is where we ran into our second 'speed bump' of our trip. Despite Steve and Becky reserving the rooms, and already paying for them, the lovely woman at the front desk had absolutely NO CLUE what we were talking about, and managed to charge Steve AGAIN for the rooms that he already payed for. After about half an hour of trying to figure it out, and calling someone to translate, we FINALLY managed to get the keys for our room (and get that second charge reversed). The rooms were pretty standard, except for the one that would later end up being mine and Tom's room, which contained some sort of.... contraption, which was quickly named the Sex Machine. If you want to understand why, refer to the picture below.

Uhhhhmmmmmmm..... what!?

After attempting to figure out the room situation, and then deciding that we could deal with it later, we decided to head out and grab a much needed bite to eat, as well as some much needed drinks. We founds ourselves a nice western-style restaurant/bar where we decided to go. I quickly learned that not ALL food in Korea was super cheap, which is what I had been used to up to this point. That being said, we all got some nice meals, and ended up getting... a lot of beer! We had some great conversations, played a fun drinking game, and just had an overall good end to the day. That being said, upon leaving the place, we decided that the day didn't need to end yet. After Tom and I grabbed ourselves another big bottle of Cass (a Korean brand of beer) from the convient store, we decided to head to a karaoke place (I forget what they are called in Korean. Nevermind, I just looked it up. They're called Norebangs). These places are not just big bars, that have karaoke in them. Instead, each person/group of people get's their own private room where they could order themselves food and drinks. We stayed there until around 3:00 am singing a wide range of music and just having a great time, before finally heading back to our hotel and passing out.

Maybe I should have split this post into multiple posts... I hope people are still reading! I'll try to wrap this up soon.

Anyways, day 2 in Jinhae! After waking up at the un-godly hour of 10am (and being a bit hungover) we made haste to start our day. I grabbed myself a nice, big, 2L bottle of water, and we immediately made our way back to the festival area (our hotel was about a 20/25 minute cab ride from the festival, in a place called Ginhae, instead of Jinhae). We decided to keep breakfast simple and found ourselves a McDonalds to eat at. We then made our way to this tower that we had seen previously, and decided to climb all the way to the top (there were a lot of stairs). We could have taken the gondola, but we opted for walking, which I was perfectly ok with. We went to the top of this tower, took some nice pictures of Jinhae, and then headed back down. Upon reaching the botton of the steps, we FINALLY encountered that parade that had apparently been delayed to Sunday (probably due to weather. It was nice and sunny on Sunday). Although we only caught the end of it, and my camera died just as we found it, it was still nice to be able to see it.

We then continued to walk some more, and found a Naval Academy. Apparently this is where all the nice cherry blossom trees were, and I luckily realized that I could just use my phone to take pictures (Samsung's have pretty nice cameras)! We walked along the naval academy, enjoying the cherry blossoms and taking pictures, and eventually came to the sea, where all of the big navy ships were (bring it on North Korea)!

We took some pictures, and then headed back. We walked around some more throughout the day, enjoying the nice sites and the nice weather, before some people decided they were ready to head back. Steve and Becky decided they wanted to stay a bit longer, and asked if anyone else wanted to stay longer as well. As for me, my knee was starting to act up a bit (for those who don't know, I messed up the joint in my knee when I ran the half-marathon) so I decided I would join the group that was heading back (I was very on the fence about whether to stay or leave). I would later be very happy that I made the decision to leave. Sierra was the only one who decided to stay with Steve and Becky. The rest of us walked back to the train station to buy tickets for a train to Masan (where we needed to catch our bus back to Cheongju). We found out that we had an hour and a half to kill until our train left, so we decided to go for a nice dinner, and relax a bit. We then hopped on our train, where we decided to sit on the floor (since we didn't have seats, and we were exhausted) and got back to Masan just in time to catch a bus. Steve, Becky and Sierra weren't as lucky. Despite our bus being nearly entirely empty (it was us four, and two other people), all of the later busses were apparently completely full (except for maybe 1 empty seat). I later found out that the three of them decided to take a bus to another city, Daegu (it's closer to Cheongju at least), with the hopes that they could find a bus from Daegu to Cheongju. They weren't so lucky, and ended up all sharing a bed in a hotel in Daegu for the night, and heading back to Cheongju in the morning. The rest of us slept the entire bus ride back, and just made our ways back home (Heather and I had to grab a cab back to Ochang from Cheongju, whereas Tom and Lydia lived in and around Cheongju and didn't have as far to go).

And that's that! That was my weekend of exploring a new part of Korea, and all the adventures and good times that went along with it! Either than that, not a ton more has happened this week so far! Sorry for the extremely long post! Hopefully you made it through the whole thing. I just wasted my entire day writing this thing, so you best be reading it all! Until next time. Cheers! :)

#Jinhae #Cherry blossom festival #onigiri #beondegi #Masan #south korea #cherry blossom

It's Times Like These You Learn to Live Again

Holy culture shock Batman! Well, as ALL of you should already know, my title is from the song "Times Like These" by none-other than the almighty Foo! The title is also very relevant to my life right now! So let's back track to where I left off in the last post. So, continuing from my last post, I have arrived in Korea, and have begun to settle in. I didn't really get into much detail of my arrival in my previous post, so I'll do that now, and you'll just sit there and read all of it! Got it!? Good. Ok, anyways, I arrived at Incheon International Airport at about 4:00 pm (Korean time). After all of that fun luggage collection/immigration stuff (and realizing that those dumbasses at JFK airport managed to break the handle of my brand new piece of luggage), I met with a man from my recruiting company who asked me for 20 dollars US, and then just ran off with it. Fortunately for me, he returned a couple of minutes later with a bus ticket. I then caught my bus, and proceeded to do something I had not done for a long, long time. And that is sit/sleep for another 2.5 hours (not like I was just sitting on a plane for 14 or so hours). Upon arrival at the Cheongju bus terminal (for those who are unaware, Cheongju is the closest city to Ochang, where I am living), I met up with another foreign teacher from my school (Steve) and my school's director (JD - And no, it does not stand for John Dorian). We hopped into the Reading Town (again for the unaware, that's the name of the school I teach at) van, and proceeded to head directly for the school. At the school I met some of the other teachers, including the one I was replacing, got some quick notes as to how the lessons work (not that I retained much since I was half asleep), and then we hopped back into the van and headed for my new apartment. After dropping off the luggage, I was informed that JD would be taking us out for a nice staffe dinner. Now, I quickly learned two things about how these staff dinners generally work. Those two things are as follows: 1. Even if it's not an all-you-can-eat restaurant, JD will make sure you get all you can eat. That is, the food just keeps on coming. 2. If the bottomless food isn't good enough, there also seems to be a sort of "open bar" policy at these dinners. As long as you're still eating, you better believe that Soju and/or beer will continuously make it's way into your glass/shotglass. So here I am, somewhat fresh off of a 14 hour plane ride, in a foreign country half way across the world, at my new job, stuffing my face and getting slightly drunk with my new boss and coworkers. Needless to say, I very quickly realized that I was going to like this place! So after a couple of hours of munching down kimchi, super spicy soup (the way I like it), rice, huge slabs of pork (like a good jew), as well as the fried pieces of fat that was cut off the meat, we called it a night, and finally headed back to the apartment for a much needed sleep. After that much needed sleep ended prematurely due to good ol' jet lag (awoke at about 6:00am, after falling asleep around 1 I believe), I was ready to start my first full day in Korea. The first half of the day was simply me unpacking my stuff, getting my apartment set up, etc. Also, I had A LOT of Skype conversations with various people. Later in the day, Steve and Becky (Steve's wife) showed me around Ochang, and I got to know where some of the main places were. Here are some of the places: 1. Tospia - A small restaurant immediately beside my school that serves toasted sandwiches of all kinds. Likely going to be one of my main sources of food for a while, as the menu has some english, as well as pictures, making it easier to order from. 2. Immediately beside Tospia is two more food places (Onigri and a fried chicken place). Don't know as much about them, as I have yet to ATTEMPT to order from either one (because I don't know how to). Apparently, though, both are good places to eat. 3. Green Mart - The small grocery store that is close to my apartment. A good place to go for certain items, or when I just need some basic food stuffs (also, many items are cheaper there compared to Home Plus). 4. Pizza School - Another place that is easy to order from, and will provide me with some artery-clogging, cheesy food. They have all different types of pizza that you would not commonly see back home (for instance, ribs of the pizza, whole chicken filets, corn, pasta, hot dogs, etc). 5. Home Plus (and surrounding area) - Home Plus is the huge department store where you go whenever you need... well... just about anything (food, electronics, clothes, appliances, even pets!). We went inside, and I bought a bit of food to tide me over until I could do a full grocery run, and then cabbed back to the apartment (as it had started to rain). The surrounding area also had many places to go to, such as a Dunkin' Donuts and a Baskin Robbins (if I ever wanted a taste of back home), a billiards place, a Korean fast food restaurant, etc. And that was my first day in South Korea! Even though it was still only around 3:30 pm when I arrived back at the apartment, I had no energy to do anything else (tried to nap for an hour, it lasted three hours), so not much else to report on for day 1 in Ochang. Day 2 is when I decided to do some exploring on my own. Being on my own allowed me to fully appreciate a few of the difficulties that are presented when there is a language barrier. Luckily I picked up some dumplings from Home Plus the previous day, and therefore had food for breakfast. However, since I lacked the language skills (or the pointing-skills) needed to order food at most restaurants, my exploring naturally led me to Pizza School for a nice, easy meal (Tospia is closed on Sundays... despite the door being unlocked for some reason, and me being able to fully enter the place). Luckily I was set for dinner, as Steve and Becky were kind enough to invite Sean and I over for an Easter dinner (which was delicious by the way, Becky having studied culinary!), games, Happy Wheels, and, of course no night is complete without YouTube videos involving Winnie the Pooh warning about child molesters! Link for the lazy :)

And that concludes my first two days in Ochang! Since I've been lazy, it's taking me a couple of days to actually finish up writing this post, and therefore more has happened since then. But I'll save the next update for another day. Oh! And I forgot to mention the biggest part of my day. The part where I got me a much needed coffee maker, and some nice Folgers to put into my cup, thus creating the best part of me waking up! Yup.... Anyways, until next time! Cheers!

A tour of my apartment. I'll try to upload a better one soon!

Next Year

Wow. What a crazy, crazy day it was. It was only about 36 hours ago that I was arriving at Wendy and Guy's house for the second seder, still completely unaware of when I would be leaving to start my adventure in South Korea. And here I am now, running off a total of 5 hours of sleep over the past two nights, cold, tired as all hell, two full pieces of luggage packed and ready to head off to the airport at any moment. Well that escalated quickly! Before I explain what took place between my arrival at my second seder, I will repeat once again, 5 hours sleep TOTAL over the span of two night! Therefore, what I'm trying to say is, expect the tiredness to show in my writing. Also, saving as draft to continue later.

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Alright! So, since writing the first part of this post, I have endured a 1.5 hour plane ride followed by a 14.5 hour one, I have arrived in Korea, I have met my co-workers, I had a nice Korean dinner, drank some nice Korean beer and some nice Korean Soju, settled into my nice Korean apartment and passed out! Now it is 6:30 in the morning, and I'm sitting here on my computer wide awake! Ya gotta love jet lag!

Anyways, as I began to say earlier in the post, which I began writing at about 5:45 in the morning last Thursday (Toronto time), Wednesday was a CRAZY day. It was late Tuesday night (technically Wednesday morning) at around 2:15am when I first saw the e-mail stating that my flight had been booked. This is despite the fact that I had received my Korean Visa less than 12 hours prior. Of course, this naturally set my brain into freak out mode, and I knew I had no chance of getting any sleep that night. I tossed and turned for hours and hours until finally passing out at about 6:30 or so, only to be waken again an hour later by my good ol' brain. That's when the day of craziness began.

I immediately started getting some of my clothes ready to be thrown into the laundry. I knew I would need some help from my dad and Donna in order to get everything ready on time, but I didn't feel the need to wake them right away, as long as there was stuff that could be done in the meantime (such as breakfast). When my dad awoke about an hour later, I broke the exciting news to him (and about an hour/1.5 hours later, I broke the news to Donna). The rest of the day was a race to check in, go shopping to buy whatever I might need (including a new piece of luggage, which the good ol' staff at JFK airport already broke, but we'll get to that later), send out texts/make phone calls to all my friends and family (and encourage them to visit one last time ;)), and just in general say one last goodbye to my home and prepare to head off to the new place that will be home for the next 365 days (or 367 I guess). Despite it being an extremely extremely stressful and exhausting day, I managed to get everything I needed, pack my entire life away in a couple of pieces of luggage, see a good amount of my friends and family, and still wake up on time the following morning in order to catch my plane (not that it was easy). So there we go! Exactly 48 hours ago I was just sitting down for a delicious passover dinner, 24 hours ago I was waking up to say my final farewells and head to the airport, and now I'm sitting here in my new apartment, jet lagged, needing a serious shower, and finishing off my post that began half way across the world. I will likely be posting again shortly with an update of my arrival and my settling in (and I will be posting a short video immediately after this post, which I took last night, that provides a quick tour of my apartment).

Annyeonghi gaseyo! 안녕히 가세요! (Goodbye!)

#Ochang #South Korea #TEFL #Reading Town #Packing

I am officially the proud owner of a Korean Visa! I should be gone within the week!

Now that my Visa issuance number has FINALLY arrived, I am once again starting to get extremely excited to embark on this adventure. And of course, my excitement led to some reading about what I have to look forward to (which led to me sharing these things with whoever reads this). Here is a list, created by a foreign teacher such as myself, of the top 20 things to do while teaching English in Korea (click the title of this post to see the article).

#To do in Korea

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Lao-tzu

No Way Back

The word is finally out. Come the middle of March, I will be beginning my long and exciting adventure as an English teacher in South Korea. The whole process leading up to this point has been in the works for some time, and as of about two weeks ago it was finally made official. One day I had a job interview over Skype, where I was forced to rush a group of seven or so friends out of my house in order to prepare. The next day, less than 24 hours following the interview, a job offer appeared in my e-mail; and one more day passed before the contract was signed, faxed, and I had moved beyond the point of no return. A couple weeks have passed since then, and I have been working hard to get all my documents and photos together in order to apply for my work visa, so I’ll be ready in time to leave.

Throughout this new chapter of my life, I plan (keyword: plan) on keeping an ongoing blog that will keep everyone in the know about my many (mis)adventures (and by everyone, I mean whoever actually has any interest in reading these posts). I’m also considering doing some sort of video blog for those who, like myself, can be too lazy to read a wall of text. The video blogs, however, might not contain the same content as these written ones, or they might just contain less detail. But anyways… I’ll figure that out as it comes up.

I’m going to end this post here, as it wasn't meant to be a long one (just supposed to be an intro, and an announcement for those who have yet to hear the news). The real posts will come once I’ve actually departed (or right before).

Also, I’m going to steal this idea from Avi, and I’m going to end my posts by letting the readers know where the title of the post came from. This title is from a song by the Foo Fighters of the same name. Expect to see many more post titles that are Foo Fighters related. Because the Foo Fighters are awesome, and I expect you all to love the Foo Fighters as much as I do by the end of this. Ya!

And here's a link to the song:

#South Korea #TEFL #Teaching Abroad #Teaching english #Cheonju #Ochang #Reading Town

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