Happy Halloween!

Hello from colorful Daegu! I had intended to be publishing more often on this blog, but I stay pretty busy. This is a photo of my classroom (note the halloween decoration). Myself and my coteacher, EunMi have just completed our demonstration class. It involved an audit from the district directors and the Korean Ministry of Education. It was a smashing success!

I had the opportunity to visit Busan for the international fireworks festival. Although the weather was rainy, it was the most impressive fireworks show I have ever seen, beating out Disney and any 4th of July back home. I traveled with some good friends, and we spent the night out on the town.

Busan is a coastal city, somewhat larger than Daegu. With the festival, the crowds were MASSIVE. Millions of people stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the pouring rain for about 50 city blocks along Gwangalli beach and the surrounding avenues to watch the worlds most massive fireworks display. I rode on a subway that was literally stuffed full of people by the coachman.

After the fireworks cleared some, my travel buddies and I donned our halloween costumes and went out on the town for some cocktails and dancing. We ended the night soaked and exhausted, so we checked in to a 24 hour spa for some serious r&r. The price? about 6 dollars US :) I got to have a hot bath and a steamy shave. The ladies paid about 10$ but they got full massage and facial pampering. The next morning we caught the KTX (high speed train) back to Daegu.

This is another one of my coteachers. Her name is ImSun, and she likes to be called Sunny. She is a wonderful young woman in her early 30's with a husband and a daughter. She has a marvelous sense of humor. Her assistance is invaluable with navigating and learning to speak Korean :) EunMi also. These two are like my older sisters. In fact, I call them each 누나 sounds like "New Nah" and means a man's older sister.

During a cultural field trip to a city called Gyeongju, I got to snap this wonderful photo at a Buddhist temple. The courtyards are very quiet and serene, and inside the buildings I was able to learn a whole lot about the teachings of Buddha. At this particular temple, there is a 4000-year-old bronze statue representing the Buddha of compassion. His bodily form on earth is the Dali Llama

On the same field trip, I visited a cultural center in Gyeongju where we learned different aspects of traditional Korean culture and history all the way back to the Silla dynasty (about 5000 years ago). Fellow English teachers and myself got to make traditional Korean soap, try using a Gayageum and other traditional Korean musical instruments, and visit the burial tombs of ancient kings. We also made our own kites. After making the paper structure, the creator writes his or her wishes on the kite. When we went to the beach to raise our wishes to the heavens, we found an old man with this SUPERKITE. It flies with about 150 panels that reach maybe 400 ft into the sky. I told him he should use one kite and just wish for more wishes.

This photo is from the Daegu International Bodypainting Festival (mentioned in a former post). Hosted in Duryu Park, it was a hybrid between a fashion show, a concert, an art show, and a graffiti bash. It was quite an experience.

I've been playing in a foreigner's soccer league. I play with a pub team called 'Sydney Street.' These are my teammates. We aren't the best, but we certainly aren't the worst. This photo came from our weekend travel game in Gupo. The entire squad couldn't make it to the game, so more photos to come.

The second weekend in October, I had the chance to visit my friend Yongsung in Seoul. I rode the KTX up for the weekend. He and I went to college together at the Ohio State University, and he showed me a wonderful time in Seoul. Interesting anecdote: Koreans are VERY sensitive to changes in the temperature. While the weather to me seemed nice and comfortable (about 60 F or 15 C), the manager of the bar was handing out blankets to the patrons. Anyways, we spent most of the evening in Itaewon, the foreigner district of Seoul.

The next night I met with some friends from Daegu to go to an electronic music dance festival. Global Gathering hosted DJ's and musicians from all over the globe, and by the end of the evening we were sore from dancing all night. Thankfully, Yongsung let me crash at his place. After a hot shower, I hit the soft bed and was out like a light. I'll post the link to the festival below if anyone is interested.

http://vimeo.com/30770848

Orientation Closing Ceremony

so this video is from quite a while ago, but I thought my mom might like to see it. love you mom

Jeonju University EPIK Orientation Group 8

September FLEW by.

Hello! I'll begin my blog post with a quotation from Kermit the Frog: "Time's fun when you're havin' flies!" The month of September seems to have begun just yesterday. Where the time has gone, I cannot say.

During the week, I work hard with all my students to develop speaking ability in English. They are pretty excellent at reading and writing in English, so I am mostly working with them on having confidence in the face of public speaking using a foreign language. I've just completed my demonstration class; it involved teachers and administrators auditing my sixth grade class and evaluating my abilities as a teacher. I believe it was a smashing success. At school I have also begun working with the music department on guitar, piano, and voice performance with my kids. It also creates a really relaxed environment for them to ask me questions about myself or my country or the intricacies of the English language. I really love my job; while it can be exhausting at times, I thoroughly enjoy my work as an elementary teacher at Dukin Elementary.

I am lacking photo's of my school, and for that I apologize. I am working on selecting a digital camera to purchase for my personal use and enjoyment. Speaking of my enjoyment, the weekends here are fantastic! Tons of opportunity to travel or explore have presented themselves; I've been trying new things and getting lost in a different culture.

I've just returned from a weekend visit to Jinju for the lantern festival. I won several hundred thousand won (several hundred dollars) playing some blackjack at the Daegu casino, and decided to use the money for a weekend trip to check out a traditional Korean festival. My travel buddies and I spent the night at a 24-hour spa called "chim-ji-bahng," 찜질방 and we've just arrived back in Daegu. Today is a federal holiday for national foundation day, the day that the Korean people celebrate the entire Korean peninsula springing up out of the ocean.

There are many things in the world. One of the things is the Jinju Namgang Yudeung Festival. I recommend that if you are ever in the neighborhood, you check it out. If you are not in the neighborhood, give the website a glance. http://www.yudeung.com/

Slowly I am becoming more skilled at navigating my city (Daegu), but it is certainly a fun challenge to drop into a different city and try to make your way around town. The weekends are always full of exciting adventures. The downtown area, Banwoldang, is always a busy spot during Friday and Saturday evenings. The area is filled with restaurants, bars, dance clubs, karaoke rooms, etc... so it is a popular rally point for people on the weekend.

I've begun taking Korean language class twice each week. Once on Friday afternoon and once each Tuesday evening. The classes are from different organizations, so sometimes there is overlap between teaching materials. However, I am quickly increasing my skills in reading Hangul (Korean script) and have been practicing my pronunciations with anyone who has the patience to listen to my drivel.

I've just begun to play soccer with a group of Australians. We "Sydney Street Studs" play our matches near Keiymyeong University campus every Sunday. Next week we play against the regional champions of the foreign leagues. Also giving me some modicum of exercise, hiking provides some superb views of the city and surrounding areas. My personal recommendation is to pay close attention to the suggested difficulty of a hike and bring plenty of water (note the sweaty exhausted hikers above)

Korean's decorate every piece of their temples from top to bottom. Planning enough time to appreciate and examine the minutia of the art and architecture is essential for a satisfactory visit to any place like this (pictured above is a structure of Jinju castle/fortress)

This tunnel is made of wishes! Lanterns to transport wishes decorate this tunnel. I sent my wishes on a floating lantern that went bobbing down the river in Jinju.

The Koreans LOVE to swim...in the sea, in mountain streams, swimming pools, etc. Outside the temple that is the birthplace of circle buddhism, I couldn't help myself but to join them!

So a brief anecdote, unrelated to any of the photo's. The night taxi's in Daegu are known as "bullet taxis" because they travel so quickly across town. If you miss the last subway 11:30pm, these taxis are the ones that will get you home. BUCKLE your safety belt and hold on to your peaches! The ride in this taxi exceeds the excitement of riding some roller coasters in my mind.

Got to do some climbing/ziplining with my free time on one of my weekends. We all had fun celebrating successful completion of the "expert" course at Herb Hills with a nice dinner and drink, right on top of a mountain!

There are a gazillion things to do with your free time. I've checked out the new Daegu Art Museum. While it was swell, I am something of a gourmand when it comes to visual arts (anything goes and I enjoy it all). My favorite part was the female piano/cello duet playing music in the main atrium (it also didn't hurt that these two musicians were incredibly attractive). I've been fortunate enough to meet other people who share my love of music, and I've been playing some guitar in a group with some other foreign English teachers.

While this piece of fun is certainly overpriced, the shooting range is a hoot. When I was selected first to try my skill with pistol accuracy, I felt some nerves. I am experienced with firearms, but I would have preferred someone else go before me as a reference point. When the instructor put a bulletproof vest on me to go inside the pistol range, I was terrified. I was under the impression that the firearms instructor was going to shoot AT me. Hilarity ensued. Koreans wear protective gear for ANY activity. Anyways, it turns out I am deadly with a 9mm beretta as well as the 12 gauge.