Hmmmph

I had a ton of photos and movies I was going to post today but something happened to my memory card and I lost everything. So I will have to tell you about it instead.

On Thursday I went with some of the teachers to watch and listen to traditional Korean music. They played on these instruments that looked like slide guitars but bigger. I was the only whitey there and everyone kept asking me if I was bored. I am guess they thought that since half of the crowd was asleep during much of the performance. I really enjoyed it and even when they started playing "Twist and Shout" I felt a little excited...at least until the Koreans started clapping to the "rhythm". Every show I have been to the Koreans clap way too fast. They even did it for "Let it Be". I really wish I still had the video, but you will just have to imagine.

On Friday I took a 3 hour bus ride to see friends and get ready for a big night at a Buddhist temple. We spent the night in Yosu and had a great dinner and some horrible beer at a bar that was showing Waylon Jennings, Mark Nophler (sp?), and Emmy Lou Harris (among others) performing on ACL. Good times. Then we headed to what was the most expensive and dirtiest noraibang I have ever been to.

The next mornign we hopped on a bus for the 2 hour journey to Kwanju, where we were then to get on another bus that would take us to the temple. Problem was that the bus didn't stop where we were told that it would and nobody seemed to have heard of the temple when we asked. So after standing around in the rain for an hour we gave up and headed for some good food and a nap.

The evening turned out well and we did some decidedly unBuddhist things. The most memorable event was seeing all the fat (250+ lbs) Canadian girls walking into the bar and hearing Koreans saying "blah blah meigook, blah blah meigook". "Meigook" means American. Every time a Korean sees a white person they assume that person is American when in fact they are probably Canadian (lots of em here).

We were all somewhat happy the next day that we didn't do the temple with the waking up at 4:30 am and then having to do 108 bows which are more like very very deep curtsies. I was able to meditate on the 5 hour bus ride home instead while watching the second season of "Rome".

tick tock

I had too much time on my hands this evening and I decided to play around with the computer a bit. Made a little montage of my last years in the US with some of the friends. Sorry for the choppiness, you tube doesn't seem to like me at the moment. If I get more time I will make others about my travels and will post them here. Oh, and lots of pictures on on the link to the right that says "pictures".

Success

My friends made it down to Pusan for a successful weekend of good times. We tried our hardest to avoid the cursed Korean beer and were mostly successful although a bit lighter in the pocket.

There was one dull moment Saturday afternoon when we all felt like a nap. We headed over to the nearest DVDbang (room where you can watch a movie of your choice) and watched Gangs of New York and had a nice little rest. After that we were full of energy and dined on Shabushabu which is thinly sliced raw beef that you dip in a pot of boiling soupy stuff and cook it for 10 seconds. Delicious.

Sunday was spent recovering.

opening ceremony

Above are some of my students doing a traditional Korean dance before my new school's opening ceremony. Good times were had by all! Free vodka during lunch helped. Unfortunately I wasn't told I had to teach afterwards.

The ceremony was held on the soccer pitch outside. The school (who doesn't have enough money to fill the brand new pool with water) spent over $20,000 for the event. Lots of "important" people were invited. I actually got to go to the bathroom right next to some bigwig politician! At the beginning of the big event there was some dramatic music from huge speakers. I could hear a small rumble and got really excited because I thought there was going to be a fly-over by a couple of military jets. I was craning my neck everywhere looking for them when "WHOOSH!!!" came out of the speakers...it was all just a recording. Then 2 confetti canons went off and the entire row in front of me became instantly pissed. Seated there were the teachers in charge of keeping the campus clean. Within 10 seconds the entire school grounds was covered in little squares of white paper.

After a lunch of sausage and me teaching all the teachers what a screwdriver (the drink) was we had to head off and teach one class for the day...why bother? About the screwdrivers...none of the teachers liked them at first but I soon saw them lining up for seconds. Score one for the Meigook san (person from the Beautiful Nation aka an American). Not so sure about the spelling on that word back there, but the translation is correct.

The new school year has finally started and I am actually teaching a bit now. I was able to work it out that instead of just being a tape recorder and repeating things I will have a class to myself...kind of. I am splitting the classes in half and teaching one half while my co-teacher does the other half. The big draw back is now I will be doing the same lesson 16 times!! The price for freedom I guess.
This weeks teaching was basically talking about myself then showing a home movie. The kids thought my mom was very pretty. They also commented on my oldest brother's "nice-uh teeth", I was so happy they used the plural. These boys are much smarter than my last batch.
Nothing else has been happening. Friends are supposed to come down this weekend so hopefully I will get out a bit. Maybe some adventures will be had and I can write all about them and do it in such a way that you are on the edge of your seat the entire time...or it might be like this post and put you to sleep.