DMZ Trip

I am a little late posting these, but these are the pictures from my trip to the DMZ. I went to Imjnigak, which had the freedom train, the 3rd Infiltration Tunnel, the Dorasan Observatory, and Dorasan Station. It was pretty interesting to learn about the Korean War. I was able to look into North Korea and see the giant flag pole. It was foggy, so I didn't get any good pictures of North Korea.

Update

Not too much has happened lately. I'm getting ready for a trip to the DMZ this weekend. Hopefully I can get some good pictures of North Korea. I booked a tour for me and Kat through adventurekorea.com.

I found out recently that Gmarket has a big size clothing section. I bought a new zip up hoodie that is heavier than the ones I have already, but not as heavy as my winter coat. It has helped out over the past few weeks of waking up to a bike ride to school in below freezing temperatures. The shipping is usually free and if the item doesn't fit it only cost a few dollars to send back.

Next week I have to attend an orientation for teachers in my school district. I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but it will be a chance to meet some new people. I was supposed to attend one last month, but the head teacher forgot to sign me up in time.

The local sports dried up for the past few weeks because of away schedules. Hockey starts up again on December 1st, and the basketball games start up again tomorrow. I bought a jersey for the basketball team at the last game.

I am trying to buy a telephoto zoom lens for my camera. I think I have decided on the 70-300mm OS lens from Sigma: Lens It's cheaper than the Canon lens of the same specifications and seems more readily available here in Korea.

I also bought a ton of Christmas cards that are pretty awesome, so if you want one send me your address if you don't think I have it already. If you want anything special from Korea let me know and I'll see what I can do.

That's it.

Groove

I'm getting into a groove here in Korea. Things are starting to be normal now that I am back. The only thing I am having difficulties with is being farther away from my friends in Seoul. It's not often that we get to see each other anymore, since by the time any of us call each other it will take too long to travel to get to whatever is going on.

I managed to get my winter vacation dates settled. I will have off from December 23rd until January 3rd. I was planning on going ot Thailand with a rather large group of friends, but it seems as though they are all backing out. I'm not quite sure what I will end up doing. I am going to an international travel expo this weekend to get some ideas. It is being held in the same place that held the international car show.

So far it looks as though I have saved somewhere close to $1000 in the past two months. I haven't been spending much money other than buying my new camera, a Nintendo DS, a basketball jersey for my local pro team, and a really nice hockey jersey from the local pro team.

I've been starting to check out a new website for travel ideas within Korea. It's called adventurekorea.com. I'm hoping that they do another deep sea fishing trip like they have done in the past. I've also been scouting out some ski resorts. I plan on going back to the one I went to before, but I also want to check out some new ones. There is apparently a large indoor skiing place in bucheon called Tiger World.

I still haven't had an opportunity to try out my new fishing gear. That may change this weekend. I may go fishing with Kat and her dad on Sunday. Unless it's too cold. The high that day is supposed to be 39. I just want to catch some crazy Korean fish I won't be able to catch anywhere else.

I hope everyone is doing well.

Basketball game

Basketball game between the KT&G Kites and the SK Knights. At halftime there was a concert from some Korean girl group called H.A.M.

Halloween

Last week at school we celebrated Halloween. I had only two lesson plans, one for grades K-3, and one for grades 4-6. The younger students made spiders with lollipops and pipe cleaners. The older students made spiders with marshmallows and Pepero sticks. Here are the pics:

Fishing Lessons

Korean Fishing TV lessons:

1. Koreans will eat (and go nuts about catching) fish that, under most circumstances, I would consider bait due to their small size.

2. Cane pole fishing is apparently a lot harder than I thought, or at least it looks that way on tv.

3. The only proper way to announce that you have a fish on the line is to say "Hee-tuh"

4. Regardless of the size of the fish you are catching, you will likely need to spend your life savings on the following items to catch them: 30 rods and reels of assorted sizes; fishing outfit consisting of coordinated colors from head to toe; a ridiculous hat; some sort of massive bag to carry everything in that also matches your outfit

5. Reeling in your fish with a motorized fishing reel is common practice when deep sea fishing.

6. Artsy shots of you looking out over the water, complete with feathered hair, makeup, and the already mentioned color coordinated outfit, are just as important as shots of you catching fish.

Fishing

I got some fishing gear as a gift from Kat's dad.

Address

Here's my new address:

303-607 Gwanak Apt.
1102-7 Bisan-Dong
Dongan-Gu, Anyang-Si
Korea 431-816

Vacation Survey

I want to start planning my vacation for winter break. I will get around two weeks paid vacation, and I want to make sure that I make the most of it. I am not considering anything in Korea, since I have some shorter vacations during the year that I can use (like going snowboarding again during the lunar new year). Here's my short list:

Ireland - I have always wanted to go, but it might be too cold
England - Same as Ireland
Germany - Same as before, but probably not as cold
Italy - Good food, better weather
Thailand - Amazing weather, fishing, cheap tailored suits
Japan - Cheap flight, Less travel time
Australia - Summer (southern hemisphere), fishing, kangaroos
Guam - It's on a US Quarter, Some guy I sat next to on a plane said it was cool
China - Giant country, Close

So where should I go?

School Pictures

Here's what you are looking at:
1. View of apartment buildings from my office on the 5th floor
2. The sitting area in the "Experience" room
3. The smartboard and podium in the "Experience" room
4. The school assembly room that is never used. (I messed up the seats to create a maze for my students to teach how to give directions)
5. Another view of the assembly room showing some of the art displays.
6. Art from a student hanging in the back of the hall
7. The music room that I never use. It has a tv with a karaoke machine hooked up to it.
8. The science room.
9. One view of the gym
10. Another view of the gym with some fo the posters about the Olympics and other sports
11. The "Multi" room. This is where I do most of my teaching.
12. The "Multi" room from the students' perspective.

Incheon Global Fair and Festival

This past weekend was the Chuseok holiday in Korea. That meant I had Friday off. So instead of being a bum I went with Kat to the Incheon Global Fair and Festival. It was an interesting experience.

The city of Incheon was created by Korea by dumping a lot of fill dirt off the west coast of Korea. Much of the city has been completed, but the area where the festival was held is still being built. It was cool to see a city that only exists so far on paper, minus a few buildings built to promote the city.

The theme of the festival seemed to be the future and Incheon's role in the world. There were many exhibits, like a world culture area, a robot zoo, a teddy bear museum, a green technology area, and some buildings built by some of the large companies in Korea to showcase their future work. There was also a building showing off different proposed designs for the city. During the festival there was also a parade with different culture groups performing, even though they were a little stereotypical.

There were both some perks and drawbacks to being a foreigner at the festival. When I went in I had to use a separate gate and have my temperature checked, and then scrub down my hands with sanitizer. On the plus side, I did get coupons for free food, plus at a booth for foreigners I was able to receive a free mug and a notebook. At many of the exhibits I also got preferential treatment (like at one booth where they were having some game and me and Kat got to jump to the front where we were able to win some free bodywash and hand lotion from a power company). Many of the companies gave out free stuff, like some canvas bags from Hyundai which I have been using for my groceries (since you have to pay a fee to get grocery bags), and a bunch of cell phone charms (including one that has a plastic coin that you can use to rent grocery carts at the store).

It was nice that we went on Friday, since that is considered a travel day for Chuseok and there weren't many people there.

On another note, I caved in and bought a DSLR camera. The pictures were taken using it. As you can probably tell, I still haven't worked out all the settings. Expect more pictures once I figure it out.

Soliciting Information

I have a big idea that I am trying to piece together into reality. However, I need some help, and that is where you all come in. I want to potentially start a business. Here are some things I need information on:

1. How to start a US-based business while overseas.
2. How to build and run a website.
3. How to look for investors.
4. How to handle international transactions.

If you wish to know the details of this idea, feel free to let me know. The idea is still in the brainstorming phase, but I think it has enough potential to at least do the research.

They bought me a fan

Like I said before, I was trying to look for a public school job in Korea. I had an area in mind, but there just weren't very many job postings. Finally I ran into a few, but it seemed like every lead was a dead end. After countless emails and late nights spent talking to Koreans that would wake up my parents with their late night phone calls, I had a job.

I was hired by Daran Elementary School towards the end of August. Luckily I had most of my documents ready to go, but I still had to make a run to Tallahassee and Atlanta to get everything submitted on time. I flew out on August 29th and was in Korea on the 30th.

For the first week I was "quarantined" by the school. This was in case I had swine flu. Apparently a lot of public schools shut down for the first week because they were worried that their new teachers would have swine flu. It was basically a free week off. My apartment wasn't ready yet, so I was put into a love motel. A love motel usually serves two purposes. One is that it is a place for Koreans to bring prostitutes. The second, which is what most Koreans say they are for, is that it is a place for Koreans to go to have intimate relations, since having them at home is a logistical impossibility. I don't buy it.

Last Monday was my first day of work, and also the day I was able to move into my apartment. The day was miserable, but not because of the work. It was miserable because I found out I have to wear jeans or pants to work, the weather was hot and sticky because of the spitting rain and sunshine, I had to move my luggage three times that day, and when I arrived at my apartment I found out I didn't have a bed yet or an air conditioner. Other than that, the work itself was pretty easy.

Luckily my bed came that night at 8:30, so I had something ot sleep on. Slowly my apartment became more livable. The apartment is bigger than my old one. I have a kitchen area, a master bedroom, a smaller bedroom the size of a walk in closet, a bathroom with a tub, and a balcony. The nice thing is that it came unfurnished, so the school bought all new appliances and furniture. I would trade some of it for an AC unit, but apparently my contract says they can provide an AC or a fan. They bought me a fan. I have a really nice couch with an ottoman, a twin bed, a table with two chairs, a new washer, a new refrigerator, a new stove, a new vacuum cleaner, a new microwave, and the fan. Hopefully by the end of the week I will have purchased an air conditioner off of GMarket and had it installed. The only things I am waiting on from the school are a wardrobe and a TV. I currently have internet and cable hooked up, but the cable is useless without a TV.

I will update soon on my school, and I will post pictures of my apartment as soon as I have everything together.

Long time coming

It has been a while since I posted anything here. Since I know you are dying with anticipation to know what has been going on with my life, I will catch you up on the happenings of hte past few months.

I spent a solid two months back home in Venice after leaving Korea. I left my old school in the hopes of being able to sign a contract with a public school in Korea. The two months in Venice were spent out of necessity, although it was good to be back. I was able to see my father get sworn in as a Battalion Chief at City Hall. I was also able to go to a nice party held for the retirement of some of his coworkers, as well as some promotions. It was nice to have my whole family go out together.

While I was home I was also able to attend some Rays and Stonecrabs games, thanks to my brother and his season tickets. It was great to come home to American sports. I did miss the beginning of college and pro football, but I did manage to watch some preseason games to get my fix.

As mentioned in my previous post, I was also able to attend Boys State. It was the first year that Deric Feacher was serving as the Director of Boys State. He did a great job, and it was great to go back for my 7th year as a counselor. I will most likely not be able to go back again next year unless some planets align and my vacation falls on the same days as the program.

Other than that, my time at home was fairly uneventful. I did manage to do some clothes shopping since I was able to lose some weight and shrink out of some of my old clothes.

That's part one of the update, and it should have you caught up through my time in America.

Home

I am back home in Venice. I left Korea on June 30th and got here on June 30th (I crossed the international date line). During my flight I had the fun experience of being stuck at the Detroit airport for an hour because their was a security breach that resulted in the whole place being put on lockdown.

I will be here for at least a month. For one week I will be up in Tallahassee again for Boys State (June 6-14). If you need to get a hold of me, leave me a comment on here or call my parent's house.

More pictures and an update

I am coming home on June 30th. I will leave Seoul around 11 AM, and will arrive in Tampa around 6 PM. It is my plan to get a new job somewhere in an area called Pyeongchon, near where Kat lives. I have some interested schools, but in typical Korean administrative fashion they are taking their time. I am looking at a return date between August 1st and September 15th.

A few notes on current events:
-North Korea still hasn't bombed South Korea yet.
-Dan left this weekend and is now back home in Venice.
-Today I went to the Renoir exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art.
-I also went to Techno Mart, an electronics market housed in a 10+ story building that puts Best Buy to shame.
-From the top of said building I took some cool pictures of the bridges in my area.
-I will be attending Boys State again this year.
-When I arrive back in Korea I will be compiling a list of things I want to do during my next year here and will post updates on the successes and failures of those activities.

New Pictures

Here are some new pictures.

1. This is a fountain in the subway station at Jamsil underneath Lotte World.
2. This is the skating rink at Lotte World.
3. The National Museum of Korea, where I went to see the Egypt exhibit.
4. Some fish in a pond at Yeouido Park.
5. More fish
6. A statue of King Sejong, the man who created the Korean alphabet, at Yeouido Park
7. The statue again, with me in the picture for size comparison
8. A pond at Yeouido Park
9. Traditional Korean pavilion at Yeouido Park
10. Me and Kat
11. Me and Kat, close up
12. A cool new building in Yeouido

Gmarket

So this website called Gmarket here in Korea is pretty cool. It's like an amazon.com but easier to use and with much cheaper shipping. The site is in Korean, but you can go to global.gmarket.co.kr to browse the site in English.

If you ever plan on sending me anything, check the website out before you do and see if you can find what you are looking for in their listings. Just this past week I bought a secret gift box for a little over the equivalent of $4 and got two cheap cameras, a camera bag, and some film. I gave one of the cameras and the camera bag to one of the teachers at my school because she thought they were cute.

Right now they are running a contest about posting blogs, so I thought I would recommend the site to everyone in the hopes of you visiting their website and helping me win some gift certificates.

Here are some links to cool stuff I found just browsing:
http://www.gmarket.co.kr/challenge_eng/neo_goods/goods.asp?goodscode=163672109&pos_shop_cd=SH&pos_class_cd=111111111&pos_class_kind=T&keyword_order=PMP+Windows

http://www.gmarket.co.kr/challenge_eng/neo_goods/goods.asp?goodscode=162810727&pos_shop_cd=SH&pos_class_cd=111111111&pos_class_kind=T&keyword_order=KBO

http://www.gmarket.co.kr/challenge_eng/neo_goods/goods.asp?goodscode=154997364&pos_shop_cd=SH&pos_class_cd=111111111&pos_class_kind=T&keyword_order=iriver

Kat

Here's the pictures I promised:

Parade Videos

Links to my youtube videos of the parade:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKK4Wh4M8Xo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JFwzuLlcsZo

Explanation of the two slide shows below

Since the slide shows mess up if I try to also enter text in the posts, I will explain them here.

The first slide show was from the Seoul International Motor Show. It's not a major car show, with the big draws being the Korean car companies, i.e. Kia, Samsung, SsangYong, and Hyundai. It was interesting to see the cars, but there weren't many concept cars other than the new hybrids and electric cars. The girls modeling with the cars were pretty cool. Most of the cars were on rotating platforms where the girls would pose for each camera taking pictures. Most of the time I was too impatient to wait for the girls to look into my camera. It was the last day of the car show, so there weren't too many freebies. I managed to get the program for the car show for 2000 won instead of 10000 and a free bag from Hankook tires.

The second slide show I uploaded was from the Buddhist Lantern Parade in Jongno. The parade is part of the festivities leading up to Buddha's birthday. It was amazing to see the amount of people participating in the parade. Each temple had their monks in the parade, along with their followers. There are apparently over a million lanterns used in the parade. It's not hard to imagine since I was at the parade for two and a half hours and it wasn't even over. Right before I left a monk in the parade came up to me and gave me his lantern. I'll try and take a picture of it, since I don't think it will make it back home in one piece. It's made with paper and wires and probably won't survive a plane ride.

At both of the events I was accompanied by SulHee. Those of you that have spoken to me recently may know her better by her English name, Kat. She's my new girlfriend. She's an English teacher in the far south part of Seoul. I met her through my Korean friend Vickie, who she used to work with. I'll work on getting some pictures of her up here.

Update and Photos

I figured it was time for another update. I am teaching less hours at school than last semester, but it seems as though I have been doing more work. The new Korean English teacher likes to do a lot of planning and I end up doing all the work for her plans. I don't think I have used scissors and glue sticks this much at any other point in my life. Some of our recent activities have included a trip to a park, some animals brought in to the school, and the creation of lapbooks to go along with all of my story lessons. The Korean teachers have started talking to me a lot more, which is nice because they are all cool girls. And then there is Shimson.

Shimson is one of the new students this semester. His father is a cartoonist who runs a website called ToonEnglish. His mother is a businesswoman who works a lot. This has somehow translated into Shimson not liking women that much. As a result, he does not listen to the teachers at school. The only person he will listen to is me. He follows me around the school and won't go to class unless I walk him there. All of the other teachers call me "daddy teacher" now.

His father recently created a cartoon about me on his website's blog. Here is the link: http://www.toonenglish.com/bbs/zboard.php?id=game&page=1&sn1=&divpage=1&sn=off&ss=on&sc=on&select_arrange=headnum&desc=asc&no=173
The cartoon basically talks about how his son likes things that are big and strong, like trains. It then goes on to explain that Shimson doesn't like his teachers and the teachers cry because he doesn't listen in class. One day, Shimson slept in and his dad had to bring him to school. Shimson loves his dad and didn't want him to go. But then I come to see him and he tells his dad to leave. When Shimson gets home, his dad asks him who he likes more, him or me. Shimson says he likes me more. Shimson's mother makes fun of his dad, and the cartoon ends with him being angry. I think it is hilarious.

Beyond that, I haven't been doing too much lately. The weather is getting much nicer, but the Yellow Dust from China is starting to show up. Today was nice enough to go out and catch a baseball game. I saw the Doosan Bears play the Kia Tigers at the baseball stadium in Jamsil. The atmosphere was amazing and the fans really get into the game. They have all sorts of cheers made up involving the thundersticks they all have. I met some nice Korean people there that I will be meeting up with in two weeks to go to another game.

Last night we went to a bar that had some bands playing, one of which has a person in it that is a friend of Matt's. Dan decided to dress up and the picture is posted below to show you how crazy it was.

On tap for the near future is more baseball games, possibly a trip to an amusement park, the Seoul International Car Show, a laser show near city hall, trivia night at the Wolfhound Pub, and other shenanigans. Posted below are the pictures from some recent events.




We were doing some activity in the gym.



Me and Shimson at the park.



This is why the other teachers make fun of me.



Looking at some fish in the pond.



A day at the park



Shimson picked up this skink at school. He was the only one not scared of it.



The baseball game.



A closer view.



Dan in all his glory.

St. Patrick's Day Parade

I went to a very small St. Patrick's day parade and festival here in Seoul. It was sponsored by Guinness and was quite possibly the smallest festival I have ever been to. The main draw to the festival was free Guinness. The parade consisted of a man playing bagpipes leading a man dressed as St. Patrick and a large asian-dragon-style snake through the streets with about a hundred people in tow. I was fairly disappointed, but I did manage to get a free Guinness cell phone charm, so it wasn't all bad.

Pictures of my school

One half of the gym

The other half of the gym



The back of the school



My office/cave



The hallway



Balloons on the window of the art class room



The front of the school



This is what I see walking in the front door

Update

Not too much to update on really. Our new semester started this week and instead of teaching around 19 hours a week, I am only teaching 8 hours a week. This has lead to some very boring days.

We have a new Korean English teacher named Ann. She is very nice, but she is also a super-Christian. I have nothing against anyone having a strong belief in their religion, but I am not a fan of people who try and push their views onto you. Other than that though she has been helping me to learn about the Korean language and culture. I do have to watch what I say around her, because she takes the liberty of translating it for all of the other teachers. One fun topic was me telling her that I had dates with two different girls on two consecutive days. Now whenever the other teachers see me they laugh and call me "playboy".

On the topic of women, I took a nice Korean girl out to a basketball game. She has lived in the US for 6 years and speaks English very well. She is taking a year off from college to visit with her family. Now this is the part where it kind of gets slippery. That same night I went out with another Korean girl, whom I had met a few nights prior. Her English name is Vickie, but her Korean name is pronounced "HyeRan". She works one subway stop away from me at a company that sets up Koreans with over-the-phone English tutors. We ended up going out again last night.

Other than that, nothing too exciting has happened lately. One of my fraternity brothers moved to a town in Korea about three hours south of Seoul, but I have yet to meet up with him. I don't have any major plans coming up, other than trying to remember the names of all the new students.

I'm basically pretty famous now

The Korean culture documentary I was in finally aired last week and it is now available on their website.

So here's what you have to do:

1. Sign up at http://www.arirang.co.kr/Member/Log_In.asp. when you are done, log in.
2. Click on the Adventure Club 3 video link on this page: http://www.arirang.co.kr/Tv2/Tv_Video_On.asp?PROG_CODE=TVCR0491&code=Po4&sys_lang=Eng

The show is only 20 or so minutes long, and I am in one of the middle segments. The producers paid for me to travel to some city to go to an ice festival and a snow festival.

Fish Market Videos

Basketball Game

Here are some pictures fom the basketball game:

Food

So tonight my coworkers invited me out to dinner to eat some gamjatang (see a previous post for more info). Apparently the restaurant we went to is famous throughout Korea for having some of the best gamjatang in the country. It was definitely better than the stuff I had before, even though that was also good. The bones were larger and had a lot more meat on them.

It was nice to be able to go out with them and talk. For the past few months they haven't been as talkative at school, so it was a nice change of pace. We had some interesting conversations on topics like basketball, music, traveling, and the pronunciation of English words written in Korean. The high point of the night though was when one of the teachers messed up on her pronoun usage and made the following statement: "Will it be okay if I go home with you by myself?" What she was trying to say was "Will you be okay going home by yourself?" I immediately told her she may want to rethink what she ahd said because her boyfriend may get a little angry. Everyone got a good laugh out of that one.

On the topic of food, it has come to my attention that the people that I ate with at the fish market have all come down with a pretty decent case of food poisoning. They have attributed it to the oysters that they ate. I managed to throw one down the hatch, but luckily I am symptom free. This is just another reason why I am not a fan of seafood.

Fish Market

I went to a fish market with some of my friends on Valentine's Day. The market is apparently the second largest fish market in the world, behind the one in Tokyo. When we went, the wholesalers had already closed. The public section of the market is open 24 hours though. We decided to buy some random sea creatures and eat them. We were able to get 24 oysters for about $6, 20 jumbo prawns for about $15, two large plates of salmon sashimi for about $20, some large red fish for about $10, and a small live octopus for about $5. When we were finished making our purchases, we took them upstairs to a restaurant that cooked it all up. The fun part was eating the octopus. They cut the tentacles off and they stay moving for a good ten minutes. You have to chew them really well otherwise they can stick to the back of your throat and cause you to suffocate. Needless to say, I chewed very thouroughly.

This weekend I also managed to get out to a horse track to watch some races, and I also went to a basketball game. All in all it was a very productive weekend.