Christmas in a far-away land...

Spending the holidays away from your family and best friends is always a bit of a bummer, especially when you realize that it's become the norm, rather than the exception. As of this year, I've spent three out of the last 5 Christmases thousands of kilometres away from "home."

However, this year, unlike the other two, I wasn't trapped at work, listening to the police scanner blurt out suicide after suicide call (how's that for a depressing thought on December 25th?).

This year, I have to admit, I had a lot of fun, and can happily say that, short of spending the holidays at home, this is as good as it gets, thanks in a huge part to the awesome people I'm surrounded by in Korea.

On the 24th, it was a gorgeous sunny day (let's be honest, they're all gorgeous sunny days in Korea...I bought a new umbrella over a month ago and have only used it once), so I decided to grab the camera and the telephoto lens and head to the Gimhae International Airport just outside of Busan to see if I can snap some pics of airplanes. My good friend Dawni decided to join me, so we made a little trip of it. Sadly, I couldn't find a suitable spot and the air was really hazy, so I didn't get a single decent shot, but I got this for you guys. Remember how I always say that 99.9% of cars in Korea are black, white or silver, and they're pretty much all Kias or Hyundais? Check it out...the airport parking lot..how pathetically boring is this???

After that, we headed back to Samgye, where Tom and Liz organized an awesome foreigner carolling session! For an hour or so we stood outside grocery stores and cafes (about 20 of us, some dressed as Santa!) and singing our joyful hearts out and collecting money for charity. Many Koreans simply ignored us, but some were genuinely happy to see us, yelled "Merry Christmas" and took pictures of us. I have an absolutely horrendous voice (in the past I've been asked to stop singing in the shower and rushed off the stage at the noreabang - Korean kareoke), so I generally don't sing in public, but being part of a big, happy group was a ton of fun! In addition, it was cool to revive an old tradition that has all but died in the West, in Korea.

On Christmas day - another cold, but gorgeous clear, sunny day - I talked to my family on Skype (gotta love modern technology...I remember when I was a kid "videophones" were the stuff of science fiction!), and headed out for a motorbike ride (thanks Ross, for lending me the ol' trusty Daelim!). It was a great day to be on the road, especially because on Sundays traffic tends to be extremely light (most people are either in church and/or recuperating from Saturday's soju binge haha). Then we had an absolutely awesome Christmas potluck at Ross and Nicole's.

It's interesting to celebrate Christmas so far away from family in a country that does very little for Christmas (gifts are not generally exchanged and for the majority of the population it's simply another day)...but with the right group of friends, it feels pretty dang right!

And, best of all, my family is awesome and they're leaving the tree up and the presents wrapped until I get home in 3 weeks....that's right...3 more weeks and I'll be home...whoopee.

Okay...back to my all-important job. Right now all I'm doing is watching Tom and Jerry with the kids...tough life! ;)

Cheerio,
T

Bright Planet Art: My dad's awesome new business...check it out! :)

Greetings, faithful readers!

Today I'm going to do something I haven't done on this blog: give some free publicity to a business. However, in my defense, this is a business I thoroughly believe in, and not just because it's my dad's!

My dad, Pal Virag, has always been interested in astronomy and he's always had a good eye for art, whether it was drawing or photography. Years ago, shortly after we moved to Canada, he started a mobile multimedia education project called the Travelling Astronomical Education Project, which brought information and unparalleled visuals to schools across British Columbia, Canada. Despite being a huge success with students and educators alike, a lack of funding forced my dad to cease operations a few years ago.

While running the show, he created countless scientifically-accurate (but self-composed) images of everything from spaceships and astronauts above earth (usually you only see one: astronaut taking pictures of the spaceship, or the spaceship taking pictures of the astronaut), to views one would see from distant planets and moons; ones no human or spacecraft has yet landed on.

The shows were filled with pictures like these: (note the two astronauts on the moon...no such picture exists, since they only ever took pictures of each other, yet this one is 100% scientifically accurate):

Or Canada In Space (again, obviously no cameras were standing by in mid-atmosphere to take pictures of the Space Shuttle launching)

Anyway, his self-composed pictures were a huge hit, and "Space Art" pictures, while popular, are not readily available, so he decided to see if he could fill that gap by starting his own Space Art company.

And thus Bright Planet Art ( http://www.brightplanetart.com ) was born. The one departure from his previous images is that these are much more Utopian (depicting a brighter, happier future) and not always as scientifically accurate as the previous compositions, in order to be more visually appealing.

As of a week or two ago, his first run of pictures went up for sale (they can be ordered in sizes ranging from postcard-size to massive ones fit for covering a wall in a living room...on either paper or canvas, wraps, etc). Having them finally go on sale (click on the "Order" tab at Bright Planet Art )  is pretty exciting news in my family as we're all hoping the business will take off. Hopefully the current Christmas season will give sales a boost!

Here is a sample of his pictures (on a personal note, I'm really stoked because his compositions, largely made from real images, use my photos rather extensively...for me, it's amazing to see where the things I saw in real life end up in my dad's imagination):

The current gallery on Bright Planet Art

These are just small resized versions of the originals, and the originals take countless hours (usually weeks) to compose, as his attention to detail borders on the obsessive.

Anyway, thanks for check it out and if you have a few minutes, please check out his website ( http://www.brightplanetart.com ) and if you like something, order it! It's one-of-a-kind art that'll be supporting the most amazing man I know. :)

Cheers and Happy Holidays,
T

The more I visit Busan, the more I like it...plus, terrorizing Miryang on two wheels!

Last weekend it was time to say goodbye to my old friend, the Canon G9. I've had it for about two years (after my G7 was stolen), and it's performed flawlessly. But, with Canon's introduction of the S100, I had to upgrade.

I found a buyer for the camera in Busan, a nice American girl, Danielle.

On the way to the bus terminal to go to Busan...gingko biloba trees losing the last of their leaves on a beautiful Saturday morning:

We met up, chatted for a bit about cameras and Korea when I looked out of the window of the restaurant where we met and whom should I see walking down the street, but my old pal Rachael. So, I bid adieu to Danielle and decided to follow Rachael around for no other reason than it was a beautiful day, I had nothing to do and I was in Busan...plus she's pretty spiffy company.

After she ran off to do her own thing I decided to head to Nampo-dong, the shopping district of Busan to poke my nose into some camera stores and wait for it to get dark, because apparently Nampo gets all lit up at night with Xmas stuff. Well, guess what happened at one of the camera stores? I bumped into my chum Richard. I guess I've been in Korea for a long time when I go to a different city and keep randomly bumping into friends...Richard is a huge photo nut as well (and a Canon guy to boot!), and his plans for the rest of the day were exactly what I had planned: Namely, to go to Busan's Yongdusan Park and waste some time up on the hill before it got dark, then take pictures of pretty lights at Nampo-dong.

Koreans love towers...fine by me, I think they're neat too...tower at the top of the park:

Love locks along the base of the tower...also popular in Korea...and fun with the 50 1.8:

A couple of old Korean guys doing what old Korean guys do best: play this cool little board game with black and white marbles and talk loudly on cellphones:

After that, we headed down the hill and checked out "Texas Street," which is actually the Russian district of Busan...complete with shops selling old Soviet film cameras, Russian writing and really, really scary-looking hookers. Pharmacy:

Check out the badass cop cars we get in Korea...

After that, we headed to Nampodong, where it was really crowded, so I didn't get any decent pics...but I thought this was kind of cool...meeting of cultures...

And Richard's Canon 5D Mark II with the 24-70L f2.8...taken with my trusty little 50 1.8 :)

And on the way home...I love public transportation in Korea:

The next day, I texted my chum Raines and we saddled up and headed to Miryang...we have both been there, but never with bikes, so we figured why not. The small city (about 100,000 people) has two rivers running through it, and both rivers are lined with neato bike paths we were hoping to ride. Somehow, we managed to completely miss all of that. Yup...we're that talented. We did, however, have a great time riding around town and making friends with the locals.

At a park still under construction I found some fun stuff to ride:

Raines and I also chatted with some kids, reminding us of how nice it is to live in a country where all sorts of paranoia have not made normal, innocent, carefree human interaction nearly impossible. We were in a park (part playground, as you can see from the picture above), and 3 girls, probably 5-10 years old, approached us to say hello...we ended up joking around with them, talking to them about where they were from, and generally having a ton of laughs and a genuinely great time talking to them in a mix of rudimentary English and Korean. In the end, Raines and I kept out-doing ourselves, giving the girls high-5s, then high-10s, and finally...high-15s.

All in all a fun time interacting with the locals...one that at home would have gotten us yelled at, lynched and possibly pepper-sprayed by the cops.

We kept on riding, finding a cool little city park with tons of exercise equipment, a mini city (little paved streets complete with lights, signs, etc where kids can ride their bikes and pretend to be cars...so of course we had to do it, ending in a crash at an intersection - in true Korean fashion - us yelling at each other, exchanging information and going our separate ways).

Raines paying up for the damage he clearly caused:

Another thing they love in Korea is blasting music or talk shows in parks...I'm not one for the talk shows (not just because I don't understand it, but because it's kind of annoying to have to listen to them yammer on when you go to a park to find some peace and quiet), but I kind of like the music, which is usually classical of some sort. Well, in Miryang, they were playing actual country music. No idea what was up with that, but it was the perfect background music for two idiotic white 30-year-olds doing tricks on their bicycles...check it out...I jumped over my backpack at speeds approaching that of light!!!

Note that I had my rear light on. Safety first.

And that wrapped up my weekend! In the coming days and weeks, I have a ton of stuff happening...Rachael is going to leave us for about a week and a half to visit her family back in Yank-land (*sniff*), but she'll return with a new camera (S100) and a new lens (Tamron 60mm f2 macro) for me, and I'm buying another bike in Korea (yes, I have a problem...) more on the bike in a day or two!

Hope everyone's well! Talk to you soon :)
T

Wow...it's been way too long!

Yikes. Almost three weeks since my last post. A personal worst. I apologize. I've been busy and lazy. It won't happen again. I promise.

So...here's what's happened to me in the past 3 weeks. My back hurts. It's not killing me, but it's sort of a constant low pain. It sucks. What sucks even more is that in Korea if you don't spend a few weeks in hospital trying to play the insurance game you might as well bend over and wait for them to kick you in the butt with steel-toed boots...insurance will pretty much laugh at anything we ask for. They even tried to get me to pay 20% of the damages to my bike...even though the driver was at 100% fault. So...while the driver has been living life as usual, Rachael and I are constantly hurting and out money for medication and our bikes and we've yet to see a dime. Ugh.

In other news, I started mountainbiking again...and it feels amazing. The scenery here is pretty nice too, and the trails are VERY challenging...steep to ride up and you really have to watch yourself on the way down...Sometimes you just have to guess where the trail is:

Sometimes it's dreamy singletrack!

And sometimes you fly like Superman over your bars and overtake your bike...

It's been a while since I crashed on a trail, and I must say it was kind of nice for one reason: I got up, dusted myself off and kept riding...it's nice to know I can still fall without breaking a hip. 'Cuz I'm old.

In other biking news, I went riding the other day, then decided to kill some time by jumping on and off concrete stuff...well, I was getting too tired and screwed the landing...oops...

But I found a way to combine my passion for bikes with my passion for photography...while the wheel is off, I wanted to put a spacer between the brake pads to make sure I don't accidentally squeeze the lever...I found the perfect spacer:

In other news, I finally took the plunge and ordered a Canon S100!!! I have been looking for a replacement for my G9 for quite some time and the S95 was almost perfect, but not quite. There were a few things I wanted out of the S95 that it didn't have...wider lens, full HD video, ND filter, better high ISO performance. Well, it looks like the S100 answers all my problems. The S100 is only available in the U.S. right now and even there you have to snipe stores, as only a few of the majors ( B&H, Adorama, amazon) have it in stock for a couple of hours before they sell out and go on back order. So, I ordered one (I've owned probably over 100 cameras, and this will be only my second brand new camera!)...it's getting delivered to Rachael's awesome sister's house and Rachael is bringing it back to Korea. BAM! Big ups to those two fine ladies.

In other news...I kinda love Busan. So, I've been going there a lot more (I'm trying to make it over there at least once or twice a month). Here's something disappointing about Korean cities, though: they don't really have downtowns. You can have a massive city like Busan (5 million people) and there isn't really a definitive downtown with busy businessmen hurrying their way to a heart attack through a maze of skyscrapers. This makes me a sad panda. On the bright side, Busan does have beaches...like Gwangalli:

I also busted out my camera for the first time in nearly a month and went shooting at Kyungnam National University in Masan, one of my favourite places to bum around...kinda fun playing around with the little 50 1.8 on manual focus...

Cool little scooter...

In other news...we had a drill at school a couple of weeks ago...I wasn't sure what it was for...Fire? Earthquake? War? The kids helped me out...

Comforting haha.

Also...the year's winding down...kids are done their exams, so they're really not motivated to learn, but I still have to teach a few chapters...so I interlace teaching with hangman (their favourite game), which really helps get through the lesson..."quiz" is one of the hardest words I've managed to come up with in hangman...which requires me to draw elaborate pictures to keep the game going.

Here's something random...I HATE these things at home, but wow was it awesome to see something other than a Kia or a Hyundai on the roads...check it... Dodge Ram crew cab duallie...on the roads in Korea...I don't think a Ferrari would have stood out more than this thing rolling down the road in my neighbourhood...

In final news. I have been cleared to re-sign for another year in Korea. The final piece of the puzzle, my medical test, fell into place. Some excellent news all around...the glasses are really helping my vision, and I have the kind of blood pressure that lets people live to 145 years old...

Also, my coteacher informed me that I tested negative for AIDS and cocaine. Big sigh of relief there! I wonder if the Korean teachers have to take a test like that every year and then have it shared with the whole school (they don't)...not that I have anything to hide, but they really do treat foreigners like a bunch of filthy criminals sometimes and not even notice it.

Okay...that's it from me for now...I promise I won't go 3 weeks without updating again! Or I'll try :)

Cheerio!
T

If the drivers won't get me, my apartment will...check out the dump I live in...

The apartments in Korea are far from perfect: Most are tiny with very little storage space, buildings are piled on top of each other, so some people's view consists of the back wall of the apartment next door, and with so many people living in close proximity, noise can be an issue.

Given the warm, humid climate of Korea, mold can also be a factor, though usually a minor one treatable with regular cleaning and some good chemicals.

Well...as luck would have it, my apartment has gone absolutely crazy with mold. I had bad mold in one corner (affecting two walls) a few months ago. The landlord graciously responded by stripping off as little of the wallpaper as possible and then re-applying wallpaper to the area. Oh yeah...in my apartment, they put wallpaper directly on the bare concrete wall. Gee, I wonder why there are mold issues. Compounding the problem, no doubt, is the fact that there are mysterious water leaks throughout the building. They've been chasing these leaks for about 6 months, and have failed every time.

Despite all my efforts....generally being a clean person and regularly cleaning the place, (cleaning the bathroom religiously...that's where mold usually gets started around here), airing out the room during the day, heating it to dry it out at night, always keeping windows closed when it's raining, getting a de-humifier, etc...my apartment exploded with black mold the past couple of weeks. This morning I dragged all my furniture away from the wall and took pictures.

Along the wall where they replaced the wallpaper a few months ago...as you can tell, the worst of it is in the exact place where the problem was last time...this mold goes from wall to wall, floor to ceiling:

Up the wall...we're talking about huge patches of mold (square meters of it), not just a little here, a little there...

Along the ceiling...it spreads day by day...

Along the wall next to my bed:

Behind my headboard (can't be healthy sleeping next to that 8 hours a day)...this is about 4 feet tall...I just noticed this...it's spreading exactly where it's been patched in the past...I'm assuming while the previous tenant was living there:

Behind the headboard:

And this is really disgusting...my clothes INSIDE my dresser (never put them away wet as a precaution, in fact, I haven't worn this jacket in about 5 months) are getting moldy, as are numerous bags, etc inside drawers in cabinets...

So...today I showed the lady in administration these photos and she (as well as the rest of the office) were very concerned about the situation. They're going to try to work things out with the landlord (a waste of time, that mold is just going to come back, but I said okay, since it's proper protocol) and if it doesn't work, then they'll move me (an expensive option they're trying to avoid).

Thankfully they were so grossed out and shocked by the pictures and I'm in such good standing in my school that they're on my side and really pushing to resolve this issue ASAP...in the meantime...I'm going to try to avoid spending time at home haha...

All right, that's it out of me...have a great day, everyone!

T

I get hit by a minivan and take out Rachael in the process...

I've said this before, and I'll say it again. Drivers in Korea suck. Shoulder-checking is a pretty much unheard-of habit around here, and there's a general tendency to only watch for vehicles larger than your own, meaning that pedestrians, cyclists and motorcyclists are taking their lives into their hands every time they leave the house.

On Friday night, Rachael and I saddled up and set course for the big Masan/Changwon bridge...what was supposed to be a beautiful, roughly 60-km ride on a nice warm night. Well, about 6.5 km into the ride as we were just getting into the congested area of Masan, a van to my left decided to turn right. A split second before he actually hit me, I realized what was going on and tried to evade it by heading hard right, but the van ended up hitting my left leg (I had dirt from his van from my ankles up to the top of my thigh). During this I looked down and realized that his wheels were turned so sharply that they were actually attempting to climb on top of my front wheel. Thankfully he just pushed my front wheel sharply to the right (I think accounting for my injuries) and bent the brake disc, but I managed to not get fully run over by him. During this whole thing, Rachael, who was initially behind me, had nowhere to go (curb to her right, van/me to her left) and she got caught up in the melee. Rachael got the worst of it: a broken knee so far...we're waiting for CT scan results to be back to see if that's all.

Few pics...dirt on my sock from the minivan

Rachael's busted kneecap (chunk missing on top right):

My back...according to the doctor, the different shades of muscle mean that some are stretched, others compressed...I have "soft tissue damage" or a sprain...possibly more. I was fine on Friday, started to hurt a little on Saturday and started hurting a lot on Sunday (when I got the X-ray done). So far I'm looking at painkillers and physio, but (just as the doctor predicted it) it's getting slightly worse, so we'll see what happens...

Initially, for about a minute or two after the crash, the driver did nothing...sat there in his car, tinted windows (another idiotic Korean trend) up and lights on...Rachael and I were concerned that he might try to make a run for it, as many drivers here do after an accident, so I persuaded him to step out of his vehicle and deal with the situation :)

He took Rachael and our bikes to the hospital and his friend (possibly coworker?) took me to the hospital. Thankfully the doctor spoke English rather well, so we could get our point across and a huge number of our concerned friends showed up (some Korean), which meant a lot...thanks everyone!!!

The driver of the minivan was incredibly apologetic and more than a little scared and thankfully we have over a dozen witnesses (friends, nurses, doctors) who heard him admit fault both in Korean and English, which we hope will make further proceedings easier. He claimed he couldn't see us...which is a little ridiculous considering I had 8 strobing LEDs in the back and Rachael had 7. Plus, I had 5 strobing LEDs in the front and Rachael had a solid one...we weren't exactly invisible. Since then I bought some more lights/replaced the broken one...here's what the bike looks like now:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJWduZI0hhc

Rachael was admitted to the hospital and given morphine...accounting for her few hours of happiness:

I left at around 10:30 p.m. and the next day headed to the shop to replace a few things on my bike. Both discs got bent in the pile-up, one of my taillights was busted, and the grip on the side where the guy hit me was ripped. All in all, not too bad, a little under $100, pretty good considering how bad things were.

New discs...

Rachael's bike seems to have done well too, so far it's a seat and possibly a head set and maybe some paint damage from hitting my rear tire, plus whatever else we find once Rachael is out of the hospital and can give it the once-over.

The rest of the weekend was spent keeping poor Rachael company in hospital (and going to an awesome dinner party at Ross and Nicole's!!!), so not much to report other than the crash aftermath stuff.

We're supposed to talk to the guy who hit us today, but we're considering getting a lawyer...we both have injuries, damages and Rachael is missing work...and things are only getting started (the hospital runs on about quarter-steam on weekends).

So...that's our sad little story for now haha...stay tuned for updates, I'm sure there'll be more.

Stay safe, everyone!
T

My million metre month...or 1,111 km of riding in October :)

If you've been reading the blog, then you know that the last two months I've really gotten back into bike riding and I'm absolutely loving it. I got off to a good start in October, covering almost 400 km in the first week, so I says to myself I says "Hey...why not try for an even thousand this month?". I tried to keep it pretty quiet (in case I failed), but for most of the month, I had that magic 1,000 number in front of me and kept riding...well, on Oct. 31 at midnight, I had covered exactly 1,111 km since Oct. 1. I had 22 riding days in the month, averaging 50.5 km per day, which I'm pretty happy with. A few months ago I started keeping track of my exercise, checking off the days I ride or do weights (or go for a run in the past) and putting a big fat X on my lazy days...here's how the page for last month looks:

The crazy thing is that it didn't feel like a lot of work. I rode most weekend days (usually something out of town with Rachael and sometimes Raines) and almost every weekday. A lot of the times we slap our bikes on intercity buses, go to a new place, ride around all day, then bus back...an amazing way to stay in shape and explore this country!

I'm really pleased with my bike, in the roughly 1,300 km I've put on it since I bought it in late September, I've had to spend a grand total of $5 on it (to replace an inner tube punctured by a fishhook). Owning this bike has been remarkably stress-free. On my old roadbike I was afraid of getting flats every time I left the house (rightfully so: I was flatting about once every other ride)...with this bike, though, I get on, ride, have fun, and go home. Sure it weighs 30lbs+, but a little extra heft is a small price to pay for peace of mind. (Plus, it's nice being able to hop on/off/over curbs, sidewalks, stairs, random junk on the road, etc).

The two Giants...Rachael's OCR road bike and my Iguana Disc mountain bike...at a little middle-of-nowhere bus terminal:

In the course of this month, I met Rachael and Raines through cycling, and we've had a ton of fun kilometres together (even if they have yet to see the light and buy bikes with fatter tires ;)). Riding with friends is soooo much better than riding alone, and I have to thank them (especially Rachael) for making riding as much fun as it was ...and for getting my lazy ass out of the house once or twice. Also, thanks to riding I've discovered a ton of places I've never been to before or didn't know how to get to both around Changwon/Masan and in other parts of Korea.

Random...the bike at the base of the big Dream Bay bridge (connects Masan and Jinhae)...sorry about the horrible pics, until I get a Canon S100, my main camera for rides continues to be my ancient Samsung flip phone.

I've also burned, according to healthstatus.com, around 40,000 calories (that's roughly equivalent to 50 bags of chips or 70 Big Macs) through riding in October. In the course of the month I've noticed I have more energy and hills (of which there is an endless amount in Korea) seem smaller and less challenging. Better yet, I've actually started challenging myself by sprinting up hills for the fun of it, something I've never done before.

This hill was particularly fun...Amnin Hill in Changwon, which, I believe, is the highest point in the Changwon area you can get to by paved road. It was roughly 5 km of straight uphill...the view is usually amazing (you can see Jinhae, Masan, Changwon, the sea, etc)...but, as my luck would have it, it was a foggy/overcast day the day I decided to challenge the hill:

As for traffic...in the country it's usually very nice, people are much more patient and calm than in the city and we have had few issues. In the city, on the other hand, it's a different story. You definitely have to be on your toes and have quick reactions. In general, though, I don't think it's much more dangerous to ride here than it was back in Canada (though Koreans generally don't shoulder check, which is incredibly scary if you're a rider), but riding here is definitely not for those with faint hearts or slow reactions.

One more picture and I'm done...perhaps the only picture that ties me, the bike and something uniquely Korean together...in Uiryeong on an 87 km ride :)

Well, that's it for me...right now it's 16 degrees out with sunshine and blue skies...guess what I'll be doing after school today? :)

T

More fireworks and riding! Life is good :) ...if you ignore the gigantic bugs

Okay...so I ended up not going to Japan for a few reasons...the weather sucked on and off this weekend in this whole region, it would have cost way too much for less than 48 hours in Japan, and it would have been a lot of travelling and not enough chilling out and exploring...so, on Friday (my school's birthday) I did NOTHING. Well, that's not entirely true. I ate junk food and watched Corner Gas (for those of you not in Canada: it's an awesomely Canadian show about a gas station in the middle of Saskatcheway: the flat province). It's good Canadian humour.

On Saturday, Rachael and I headed to Busan for the final (and biggest) performance of the international fireworks festival. Before hitting up Gwangalli Beach, we bummed around Nampo-dong, the shopping district in Busan. We found a couple of really cool camera shops, one of which had a Leica DSLR on hand. For you photo geeks: it has a medium format sensor. What that means is the sensor has roughly ONE HUNDRED times the surface area of your average point and shoot. It's crazy. It also costs about $35,000. Here it is next to my camera (as silly as it sounds, if I wasn't allowed to sell and had to choose between the two, I'd choose mine).

Near the beach, the crowds were huge despite the weather (pouring rain), but thanks to Rachael and her friends, we managed to snag a spot inside a foreigner bar (massive open windows)...I'm not usually one for hanging around expat watering holes, but I gotta admit, Saturday night was wicked...the view wasn't too shabby either:

The fireworks were about 50 minutes long and they were much different than the competition the week before. Quite honestly, I think I liked the first weekend's show better. This weekend was amazing, the sky was almost constantly filled with fireworks, but there seemed to be much less organization and grace to it than last year. If last week was Pachebel's Canon in D, this weekend was Led Zeppelin cranked to 11. Both great, but definitely different styles.

Yay for colour:

My fave pic from the night:

On the way home, the subways were ridiculously crowded...we were all getting pressed into each other as army guys shoved more and more commuters onto the trains. This guy looked less than pleased:

On Sunday, Rachael ruined my plans to do nothing by tempting me with a ride into the country...reluctantly, I agreed. So, out into the country we went in gorgeous spring weather and started exploring...saw a lot of cool things:

Buddhist temple with a gigantic Buddha statue on the roof:

Cool marsh-type plants in the sun:

Sadly, Rachael's bike got a flat about 25km out and yesterday happened to be pretty much the only day when she didn't bring her patch kit...so we went for a nice long walk to the nearest little village where she caught a bus back home). But we saw a cool little river on the way:

...and the nastiest centipede I've EVER laid eyes on. Not only is this thing about 5" (12cm) long (the phone was 4"/10cm), it also had what appeared to be armour on it, and, according to Rachael who was bitten by one in Hawaii, the pain when they bite is comparable to "being stabbed with a hot needle". Fun stuff. Definitely going to make sure the bug screen on my windows are always in perfect shape haha

Oh yeah...also, I love my job...this week, a third of my classes are cancelled due to the Grade 9s writing exams, last week we only had to work for 4 days and the next two weeks I only have to work 4 days...yay. My school and I also started talking about signing on for another year, so I have to do an open class to a bunch of bigwigs next week. The hardest part: trying to pretend like my Korean "co-teachers" actually do anything. During the open class, we have to show them how we run a class. Since the Korean "co-teachers" are legally obligated to teach the class and I'm only supposed to be here to help with very specific things (speaking/pronunciation, etc) it should be interesting...In the 8 months I've been here, I've run every single class by myself, done all the planning, etc. Most of my "co-teachers" don't even show up to class, and those who do simply read in the back or sleep. The most active of my 7 "co-teachers" translates one or two sentences a class. So....pretending like we actually work together will be fun :)

Okay...that's it from me...hope you've all had a great weekend, talk to you soon!
T