pencil cases

My weekend was boring. I did trade in an old camera for a new one though.

As I have said before, Korean students are different from American students. At my all boys high school they are always petting each other and holding hands while I teach. They would be accused of being gay (nttawwt) if that was done in the States. But another difference is the pencil case. Most have little bags for their pens and "sharps" which seem to be a bit on the "interesting" side. I have made a collage for you to look at. Click the pick to get it full size (and check out the pink notebook!)
They also have interesting notebooks. I saw this printed on one:

If God gives me a super
I want to be a transparent
I want to go inside to
I want to hit bad men.
If so, I will be hero of the world.

Big weekend

click the picture above and it gets bigger.

Had a pretty nice weekend for a change. Steve made it down to Busan to watch a ball game with me. I went last year (you may remember the picture of me with a shopping bag on my head) towards the end of the season and there were quite a few empty seats. This time it was completely different. We got to the stadium and before we went in bought some beer which I thought would be cheaper than inside but it was the same same[sic]. We then headed to get our tickets and were stopped a tiny ajumma who sold us $2 tickets! We weren't sure if we ot ripped off since there was no seat number or anything else that we could see that would tell us where to sit but we got in and that's all that mattered. The tickets turned out to be general admission so we got to hang out in the fmily section with all the dads getting drunk on soju and chowing down on whole chickens (neck curly neck included).

I was told that Busan fans really get into the games but from past experiences this didn't hold true. This time the game was packed and there was so much energy. The whole stadium erupted into trot songs. Trot is a traditional Korean music that is crap (listen to the music on my Korean slide show a few posts down). I guess it is sort of what a European soccer/football game is like and we had a great time. The team put on a good show as well beating the other team (no idea who it was) 8-2. During the game Steve and I decided to try and make it to every baseball stadium in Korea. It isn't that lofty of a goal since there are only 8, but it will get us out and see some more of this country before we both leave.



The next day we took the high-speed train (that didn't get to any high speed) to Daegu to watch a soccer/football game. We got to this giant concrete ugliness that was built for the 2002 world cup. It was ugly and too big. We had no trouble finding seats since there were so few people there but it was a great game with Daegu beating Ulsan 3-1. I also experienced some of the worst beer ever.


Yesterday I took a "culture day"/skipped school. We are testing this week which means I sit at a desk and do nothing or go to the teachers' room for a nap. I wandered around the fish market and took some pictures. I used a better camera this time so things look a bit better.

I was just told that one of my neighboring teachers has just gotten into some money and is taking us all out to lunch! Oh, and after lunch I can go home! Hooray!

Posted more pics, click on the link to the right!

me

me

Weekend pains

I actually had an active weekend this go 'round. There was a teacher soccer tournament that I played in with my high school co-workers. It was strictly a male affair, the women folk aren't so much into sport here sadly. Even though I suck they still played me and I had lots of fun. We won our first game but lost the second in a close game. I played horrible the second game but what can you expect from a beginner? The worst part of all was that I broke my smile. After trying to do a header I did more of a facer and after the sting went away I noticed little bits floating around in my mouth. Turned out to be pieces of my tooth. It is not too bad but the only nightmares that I ever get are about my teeth falling out so it freaked me out for a few seconds.

After the second game a teacher invited me over to his house to meet is family. I gladly accepted but just after that he asked me about religion. One of the ploys of some churches here is to invite you out but then almost kidnap you and force you to watch some films about their religion. I was a bit nervous until he told me he was Catholic, one of the few religions here that leaves people alone.

So I went to his house were his family gathered around me while I impressed them with my amazing English skills. They were truly in awe. Then he took me home. It was the second teacher's family that I have met and they were both so kind and friendly.

I got home to the picture you see below. This is piled right in front of all the mail boxes and animals get into it all the time since the idiots in my building don't know how to keep the door closed. It is really beginning to stink as well so I am having my school call the landlord to get it cleaned up. No idea why these people (the ones living in my apartment, not all Koreans) think that it is OK to just throw their trash where-ever.

I think I'll go to the dentist this week.

Korea Korea

First off, I posted some more pictures, so click the link on the right to see them. They were taken around my school which is on a small island just off the island I live on.

I thought I was going to be playing in a soccer tournament all day today but it turned out to be only one game (we won) and the final 2 are tomorrow. Since I had a lot of free time I decided to make a video of pictures from my first 6 months in hell...er...Korea.
Enjoy! (Youtube has been very slow, hopefully it will load quickly for you, if not check back in a day, they should be back to normal by then.)



Oh, and since a few of you asked, Korea beat Israel 4-1.

Easter!

Hey Scott! What did you do on Easter?
How me? Oh, I just watched the big Israel vs. Korea hockey game. You?

Again!

Well, I had a ton more pictures vanish due to a faulty memory card. I still will post some others that I have taken, but the best were lost forever.

Last week there was a dinner at an all you can eat buffet to welcome all the new teachers and say goodbye to all the old ones (whose contracts weren't renewed...strange that none of them showed for the dinner). There was plenty of soju and beer going around and every teacher came by to let me know that 3 of the new teachers are single and female!! They all did this with there broken English and while I was sitting with said girls. I got on the soju train and started taking gobs of pictures but like I said earlier, they're all gone. It was a great time but I had more planned for the evening so I headed out early.

My friends Dave, Julie and Steve all came to visit so we had a good time at a decent beer bar and chatted up a storm. The next day we all recovered and headed out to a temple that was recommended to us by one of Dave's students. It turned out to be another temple that nobody had heard of and we had a tough time getting there with our taxi driver jumping out at one point to ask other drivers if they knew of it. Once we finally got there it was hard to imagine that our driver didn't know of it since it was packed with people. It felt more like Disneyland than a Buddhist temple. The next day there was "yellow dust" from China and there were warnings everywhere to stay inside due to record setting levels. It looks like yellow fog and it is nasty.

This week was the grand opening of the schools tennis courts and I was invited to the ceremony in which it appeared women were not allowed. It started off normally with a ribbon cutting but then things became interesting. In the middle of the courts was a pig's head (minus the body) and a few bottles of rice wine sitting on a table. Then the principal went and offered the pig some wine and then stuffed money into its gaping mouth. Almost everyone there did this (some stuffing envelopes full of cash) and it was very interesting. I even got into the mood and tossed 10,000 won in. Not sure where the money goes, my friend suggested it might go towards a room salon (like a geisha room but hookers, not geisha) and he is probably correct. The pig below in a before and after.

The rest of the week was pretty boring and typical.