South Korea...where the livin' is cheap...also, school makes a mistake, I pay for it...awesome.

Yesterday was an excellent day, I'm just doing review and games with my classes, and they're starting to be fairly well behaved, so we had a lot of fun. I only had 3 classes (I'm on a 2-week rotating schedule, and Week A Thursdays are my easiest days), so it was a really chill day. After work, my coworkers dragged me to a volleyball game between my school's teachers/vice principal and Naeseo Middle School's teachers. I thought it'd be lame, but I got dragged, so I didn't want to make a big scene out of not going, but it was actually pretty entertaining...plus it looks good that I show my face at events like this. My friend Hayley works at Naeseo Middle School, so I got to see her, which was a bonus. After the game, they served up watermelons, which are ridiculously expensive, but oh-so delicious here! You know how at home the centre of the watermelon is the most delicious part? Yeah, the entire thing is like that here. Mmmm....too bad they're about $12 when they're on sale for a fairly small one. When they're not on sale, they're around $20-35 on average for a smallish one.

After the game, I went home, made myself some awesome scrambled eggs and met Ross, Nicole and Dawni for dinner (well, they ate, I kept them company haha). While we were walking around in Samgye, we bumped into Maggie, Tom and Liz, which is pretty sweet...I love the fact that I now randomly bump into people I know all the time. The dinner was a true Korean-style one, with us sitting on the ground and the big hotplate kind of thing in the middle of the table, your food cooking in front of your eyes. I really should take a picture of it one of these days. After that, we just chilled at Ross and Nicole's castle (it's the massive apartment) and talked about camera gear with Ross haha.

Okay...two more things...one...living in Korea is really cheap. I haven't been watching how much I spend, I eat well, go out for lunch/dinner with people all the time, travel as much as I feel like and even spent 100,000 won on foreign foods a couple of weeks ago. This month also included buying a blanket for 45,000 won and a few more smaller one-time things. Even so, I crunched the numbers last night and in the month of April I spent about 800,000 won, which translates into $705 CDN. So, my goal of sending $10,000 per year home is very realistic with enough money left over to do a bit of travelling. (I'm thinking Thailand or Philippines and possibly Japan if this whole nuclear thing blows over). 

Also, while talking about traveling, I had a really dumb idea...so I was born in Hungary and headed west to Canada. Then I came to Korea (west again). So, if I make it from here to Hungary I'll have officially travelled around the world. That got me thinking of taking the scenic route back home when the time to leave Korea comes. Soooo....this is just a pipe dream so far, but I'm thinking of flying into Beijing, then taking a train across China and Russia to St. Petersburg, then likely flying into Budapest, spending some time there, and depending on how much money I'll have, maybe a few weeks in Western Europe then home. Again, this is nothing serious so far, but I think it bears researching. If I can do it for $2-3k, it might be the trip of a lifetime and a great way to wrap up my time in Korea. 

Now, for the stupid stuff...my school forgot to take off taxes (taxes are REALLY low here), and initially said they'll just take it off next month. Now they want me to wire it to the school. Of course wiring money costs money, so I literally have to pay for their mistake. It's a small enough amount that it's not worth raising hell over, so I'm going to swallow it, but it kind of sucks and they're really unapologetic about it, which doesn't help the situation. Oh well, such is life. 

Now, for some random pictures, because I hate posting just my random ramblings...

Something tells me a 6-pound tub of nacho cheese sauce ain't all that gourmet...

I brought 5 Lock & Lock containers, thinking there's no way they would have those here...when I was packing, I was very adamant about bringing them. Well, turns out they're everywhere, they're dirt cheap, and I haven't used my own yet....fail...

Delicious popsicle :D 

Okay, that's it...no plans for the weekend yet, might hang out with Mark and his girlfriend Kez, or possibly do a couple of daytrips...the weather is supposed to be all over the place, so I think I'm postponing my idea of doing a two-day trip until a solid sunny weekend :) 

Have a great weekend, peeps! Talk to you on Monday (when I'll have less chatter and more pictures, I promise!).

T

City 7 is the best mall I've ever seen! Plus, I have a really bad and a really great class...

Those of you who have known me for a while (as in, more than 3.2 seconds) know that if it doesn't involve cameras, I hate shopping and I really hate malls (unless it's Taco Time with my homies at Mayfair in Victoria!). But, I have been taken the bus past City 7 mall a few times now and it looked cool from the outside, so I decided to check it out yesterday after work (and I bumped into someone I knew...Scott's girlfriend...so surreal that people come up to me randomly in the street and say "Hi, I know you...how are you?").

Back to City 7... I have to say it's an AWESOME mall. I used to live in Edmonton, which has the largest mall in North America (complete with a swimming pool, ice rink, amusement park, sea park with seal shows, etc) and, while West Edmonton Mall has a few cool things, it gets boring fast. But City 7 is awesome, it has the most random architecture of any building I've ever seen.

It's all on purpose, but it's completely random...angles all over the place, overhead walkways out of nowhere, rooftop gardens, fountains, skylights, buildings leaning toward and away from each other, glass walls, a building that looks like a beehive, you name it, it has it. It sounds really thrown-together and stupid, but it works! It's awesome being there, no two square metres are alike! The ground has glowing neons in it, the building materials range from glass and chrome to bare wood, it's just all over the place. Also, it's a half open, half closed mall. I've never seen anything quite like it. It's like a closed mall (certain large sections are completely covered), but then in other sections, there are open skylights, massive chunks of missing walls, etc...it's pretty near.

I just had my cellphone with me (trusty k850!), so the pictures kind of suck, but I'll definitely go back with the real camera another day for more shots...

Statue in front of the mall (they have a ton of similar statues with different poses/balls in a row):

One of the openings and a neighbouring highrise:

A 10-15 shot panorama stitch (again, forgive the quality of the following shots, they're just snapshots with a cellphone):

Inside pano...all the neons constantly change colour (this is I believe a different big opening than the pano above):

Escalators:

View from the rooftop with some highrises around it:

Then I ventured next door, which is the Changwon convention centre...again, an awesome building of steel and glass...to give you an idea of the scale...the little dots in the middle are people....

From the 3rd floor:

Be

Modern art statue (they love them here) between City 7 and the convention centre:

Then I wandered behind the convention centre and found a hiking park! (Definitely going back to explore some more)...the apartments are City 7 apartments, the mall would be just to the right of it.

Well, that's about it...I'm happy to say I found another wicked place to explore some more! Unfortunately, Korea doesn't believe in Daylight Savings Time (insert witty "welcome to the Dark Ages" pun here), so it gets dark pretty early...the things I would do for just one more precious hour of daylight! Oh well...today is my easy day, only 3 classes and my first class was awesome...really enthusiastic and lively and yet quiet when they had to be. Pretty impressive, especially since they're Grade 3s, who are usually the worst. I showered them with praise and games haha. Yesterday's last class, on the other hand, was the opposite. It was the class I referred to as my "hell class" two weeks ago. They topped off a horrible class by stealing my lock. Since I think stealing school property/stuff from my classroom is serious, I confronted them about it and offered a deal. A one-time amnesty. Come clean, and no punishment. Instead of doing that, they banded together and tried to make me look like a liar and that I was just making everything up. At first, the coteacher fell for it, and started questioning me, but thankfully the students were so vehement and talked so much that they ended up contradicting each other's heartfelt testimonies all over the place and the coteacher realized I wasn't full of crap. So, no lock and no games for them for the rest of the semester. Case closed (but not locked).

That's it for me for today...sorry the blog's up a little late today, got caught up talking to some awesome friends from back home :)

Tonight I'm probably going for a run (it just clouded over, so as long as it doesn't rain...) and heading down to Samgye (about 25 min walk from my house) to have dinner with Dawni, Ross and Nicole. I haven't seen Ross and Nicole in a week or so, so really looking forward to it :)

Have a great day, guys...thanks for reading!

T

Found one of my photos stolen on the Internet (who told me about thechive.com?)...and I finally made it to the foreigner bar

Good morning everyone! Still overcast here, but no longer raining (though it rained all day yesterday). Once the Sun comes back out I'm sure everything is going to look beautiful! Today was off to a bad start, the idiots upstairs who keep waking me up by stomping down the stairs like a couple of elephants at 6-6:30 a.m. every morning kicked it up a notch by yelling to each other from different floors, slamming doors and stomping like utter morons at 6 a.m. sharp. I'm trying to not make any enemies, but the next time these guys do this I'm going to do some yelling of my own. My entire apartment/street are super quiet, I never hear anyone except these people, and they make a racket every bloody day. Thankfully I managed to get back to sleep about half an hour later, but still, it's a crappy way to start your day.

Yesterday was another good day...I got to talk to my brother on Skype, which always makes my day :) He's just getting back from sunny California...lucky bum. After school I went home, made an awesome dinner (fried egg sandwiches with sauteed zucchini, jalapenos and onions) with potato wedges, Camambert cheese and cherry tomatoes on the side), then headed out to the foreigner bar (O'Brien's) in Changwon with Dawni, Michelle and Lina, a Korean whose English is remarkably excellent. The atmosphere in O'Brien's was good and I had a great time with the three ladies, but it was kind of interesting that everyone in the bar just kept to themselves/their own little groups. When we have get-togethers in Jung-ri, people usually sit in one big group, wander around, socialize, etc...guess it's the difference between a big city and a small town gathering place :) Still, I'm glad I finally went, it was a pretty good place.

After that, we took a late bus home (I'm happy to say that there are still buses running at 11:15 p.m.) and I crashed after watching a few minutes of How I Met Your Mother haha.

The other bit of news from yesterday is I found a picture a website stole from me! I have always wondered when the first stolen picture will surface. I mean the Internet is an incredibly huge place with likely trillions of trillions of pictures, so the chances of bumping into one stolen from you are slim to none, right? I was secretly hoping that my first stolen picture would be something amazing that I am incredibly proud of having taken, etc...sadly, that is not the case. 

Years ago, when I was in Grande Prairie (northern Alberta, Canada), I saw a really ugly redneck truck done up in Hot Wheels stick-ons from Wal Mart...this guy spend hundreds (if not thousands) of dollars making his Dodge Ram look like it was a reject from a toy factory (It also has cool Zorro masks over the headlights)...anyway...while messing around on thechive.com (who told me about this site? Someone just sent me the link to it last week), I found this:

(Picture #18)

http://thethrottle.thechive.com/2011/04/24/because-of-your-car-we-cant-be-friends-27-pictures/

Or...

http://thethrottle.thechive.com/2011/04/24/because-of-your-car-we-cant-be-friends-27-pictures/wtf-500-dsc01815wtmk/

Those of you from Grande Prairie will recognize this as the little building in Muskoseepi Park near the outdoor pool. 

If it was a better picture I'd raise hell with the owners of the site, but as it is I'm going to let it go and love the fact that thanks to me this guy's truck is now being ridiculed all over the world :) 

Also, since I have no new pictures to show you guys (I'll have plenty starting next week when I'll finally have time to go through and edit the ones I have already taken), here are a few random ones...

Dumb car modifications are not just a specialty of rednecks in Grande Prairie...spotted this beauty on the back of an otherwise bone stock Hyundai over the weekend:

Also, Koreans LOVE their badges on cars...it's not unusual to see things like a Hyundai Accent Premium Gold XD SL VVT XLT Diamond Sport Edition car...and it's usually just a regular Hyundai with alloys and air conditioning. The other thing they love is displaying their relationship status. How? Relationship rings, for example. As early as 2.5 weeks into the relationship they'll give each other (or maybe just the guy to the girl, I'm not exactly sure) relationship rings. You can also spot couples from a mile away because they wear the exact same clothes. Sometimes it's as simple as identical T-shirts and jeans, but usually it's more elaborate, like the couple where both were wearing Kermit-green pants and matching pink hoodies. They looked like a couple of delicious slices of watermelon. But I digress. What do you do when you mix Koreans' love of badges on cars with their fancy for displaying their relationship status? This:

Yup...relationship car badges. They're everywhere. It's awesome.

Finally, and this is for my mom...she wanted to see what my new blanket looks like. I warned her that it's girly, but hey, it was the cheapest decent quality one I could find, so what do I care? Plus, truth be told, I like that it's so colourful. It brightens up the room.

Okay, that's it for today! Hope you guys are having a great day, talk to you soon!

T

I found the Masan reservoir and it's beautiful! ...also, thanks guys...1,000+ reads on this blog!

Goooooooooood morning everyone! It's a rainy/overcast day here, but it's warm and the rain smells great and it's making everything lush and green, so no complaints from me!

Yesterday I had 6 classes and was pretty tired by the end of it, but still I decided to get on a bus and see if I could find the Masan reservoir (huge thanks to Mark for telling me where it is!). I was so exhausted (between teaching and wondering around, most days I'm out for about 15-16 hrs, then go home, make dinner and pass out) that I kept falling asleep on the bus. I figured that I'll find the trail that leads to the reservoir, make a mental note of it and hop on the first bus back home. Well, after a false start or two (for beautifully-developed park, they sure like to keep it a secret!), I found the place and, of course, as soon as I'm in exploration mode all tiredness disappeared and I started wandering around. It was a gorgeous place with nice trails and a little creek coming from the dam. Also, there were TONS of dry creek-beds coming off of every hillside which, I think, will make for awesome waterfall pictures during monsoon season.

Anyhoo, I have a little disclaimer...my photos from yesterday are really, really, really bad. I just had the little G9 with me and it was pretty much pitch-dark by the time I got there, and I had to crank the ISO way up to 1600 (it's a stretch for the little guy) and/or shoot 15-second exposures without a tripod...so, I apologize, this isn't my finest work with a camera haha. I'm definitely going back there for a real day of exploration with the real camera. We have next Thursday off (Children's Day) and my friends Ross and Nicole are hosting a Cinqo de Mayo party which I really wanted to go to, so I wasn't going to go out of town anyways, so I guess this will be the perfect way to pass the morning/afternoon!

Random shot of Masan on the way up to the park:

Anyway...the creek the trail follows (taken from an awesome footbridge):

A dam built by the Japanese during their occupation of South Korea in the first half of the 20th century, with a bunch of exercise equipment in front of it:

The view from the dam. There is a trail that goes all around that lake and two others, I think it should be a great hike. By now it was almost pitch dark...this was a 15 second exposure at f2.8 (kept the ISO at 80, though to keep it clean)

Looking the other way: (ISO 1600, 1/5 sec, f2.8)

Just for kicks...the dam...ISO 1600, 15 sec, f2.8, the camera totally missed focus...it was so dark it couldn't find anything with enough contrast haha...it was all just black:

And one for the fun of it on the way down:

After that, I walked to Hapsongdeong (about 5-6km away), took a bus home, grabbed a quick bite to eat and passed out haha...an all-around awesome day again. :)

Also...two bits of news...one, the blog hit 1,000 views yesterday! (Though I still don't know who #1,000 was haha). Thanks everyone so much for reading, I'm not trying to be pretend-humble, but I honestly didn't think it would get nearly this many hits...I figured if my parents and 3 other people read it a day I'll be happy. If you guys ever have any suggestions for it, let me know, until then I'll keep posting them as often as I can :)

Finally, I found out yesterday (thanks to the awesome girls in my afterschool English club) that that the 3 weeks after this one are going to be incredibly nice for me. I'm pretty sure I'll only have to work SIX days in those three weeks haha.

As far as I know, it'll be mid-term tests for the students on Mon/Tue/Wed next week, no teaching at all. Thursday is a stat holiday (Children's Day), and on Friday I teach. The week after that, I teach Monday, Tuesday is a stat holiday (Buddha's birthday), Wed, Thurs I teach and Friday is some sort of sports day for the students, no teaching for me. The third week I teach on Mon/Tues then the students are going to some sort of three-day retreat/field trip, so no teaching for me!

Not that I'm lazy, but I'm excited about it. They won't let me not come in for the no-teaching days, which kind of sucks, but the way I look at it is I'll be paid to "deskwarm", ie: bum around on the internet and talk to you guys. Can't really complain about that. It'll also give me a chance to do my lesson plans for the second half of the semester and maybe even get started on some ideas for the summer camps I'm expected to run in July/August.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day everyone! I'm off to the first of my 5 classes today :)

T

Who's going to be #1,000?? + another great weekend, this time around home...

Happy Easter, everyone!! They don't celebrate it in Korea, but I hope all you guys back home are having a wicked long weekend!

My weekend just ended and, as usual, it was awesome. On Friday Mark, Peter, Steven and I headed into Masan to celebrate a birthday (don't worry Mark, your secret is safe with me!). We went out for dinner, then alternated between going to the batting cage a block off Hapsongdeong to going into all sorts of bars and pubs for a drink (eventually meeting up with Zoe as well)...it was an awesome night. I have never done the batting cages, but for about 500 won (45 cents) you get something like 10-15 balls, and it's wicked fun, even if I ended up with a nice bruise on my forearm because I can't hold a bat properly haha. We met up at 8 p.m. and parted ways just after 4 a.m., making it my longest night in Korea so far w00t! These guys are a ton of fun to be with...I've never gone barhopping and never understood the point, but it's a lot of fun! The change of scenery every hour or so is awesome haha.

On Saturday, my friend Laura came from Jinju (by train!) and we headed into Changwon for the day. After a rocky start (she left her camera on the bus :( ) we had an awesome day. We bummed around downtown, set her up with a cellphone (thanks for the phone Hayley! I found it a good home!) and explored the streets and parks around downtown. Changwon is decorated with awesome red and yellow tulips and a bunch of other flowers right now and after the rain we've had the big circle in the middle is FINALLY green (not brownish-yellow) so it was pretty wicked, plus it was warm and sunny, so you really can't complain. We bumped into Chris and, despite his warnings, had a sub at a shop that used to be Subway (Lion Sub for you locals) and decided it sucked.

After a few hours downtown, we headed up the hill toward the provincial building, the university and a beautiful Buddhist temple...I've been here before and posted pictures, but there's always something new, so I'll post a few I took this weekend...I really liked the reflection of these people...such a beautiful little park right in front of the provincial building:

A few feet away:

The Buddhist temple up the hill (w00t for f2.8)

The temples are starting to look even more beautiful...it's Buddha's Birthday in 2 weeks, so they're getting all decorated with lanterns and stuff (more of that later).

And a Buddhist monk decorating inside the same temple...one of my favourite pictures of the weekend:

After that, we headed back downtown and were hoping to catch the light show at Yongji Lake, but were sadly disappointed when they never showed (we did have a veggie pizza on the lake shore, though, so that eased the pain a little!). Mark and Peter met up with us at the lake, so we hung out with them for the rest of the night.

On Sunday, we headed into Masan and I bought my first bit of street food (roasted chestnuts!) I have had these before from another guy who randomly gave us some that tasted a lot better, but they were still pretty good...I love the expression on her face haha

We walked around Masan a little then headed for the hills (literally). There's a park that's supposed to have a lake in the middle and a bunch of cool stone monument things, but all the maps I've seen in Korea look like they were drawn by a four year old. So, despite having a map at the trailhead we never found the lake or the stone thingies...so I'm going to go back there soon and go in the other direction and see what happens. Still, it was a beautiful hike on a gorgeous day!

After that, we headed back down into Masan and since Laura wanted to see the sea (it's a really disappointing bit of sea there) we went to the area near Shinsegae, a big department store. While there, we figured we'd check out Shinsegae and wow, were we ever shocked. Prices are absolutely INSANE in there. 

This ugly golf shirt was (are you guys sitting down?) 363,000 won, or about $320.

We saw a nothing-special North Face rain jacket for 590,000 won ($520) and my favourite...these three decorative sheep for a cool 3.2 million won (nearly $3,000!!!).

Needless to say, we didn't buy anything. We did, however, buy a bunch of stuff at the E-Mart in the basement...I'm finally out of the shampoo and body wash I brought from home, so I bought some of that as well as a bunch of frozen soy stuff I found (cutlets, sweet and sour pork, etc)...pretty stoked about that! Then we parted ways and I headed home and Laura back to Jinju. I crashed not long after I got home, it was an awesomely exhausting weekend haha.

Eeek...the bell just went, I have to go...I just noticed that the counter for my blog is at 996! I'd love to know who visitor 1,000 is...so if it's you, let me know!

Have a great day everyone and thanks for visiting...I'll have more stories (and way more pictures, I still have to edit a bunch) from the weekend soon!

T.

I am putting myself on depression/homesickness watch.

That's right. According to more than a few foreigners I have talked to in Korea, depression and home sickness set in at 6 weeks. I am on 5 weeks and 5 days (Monday will be 6 weeks), so I feel it's only sensible to be vigilant about this. So far, I am exhibiting none of the symptoms. Every day I go out and see something new, I love the fact that I'm in Korea, it's still a rush to stop for a second and think "wow...I'm living in Korea. I'm a resident of Asia." Still blows my mind. I'm still meeting awesome new people and getting to know my "older" friends here more and more. I do miss my friends and family back home and am looking forward to moving home when the time is right, but I get to talk to them often and I know they'll be there when I get back, so it's not holding me back from enjoying my life here. My biggest problem is trying to juggle all the awesome stuff I'm invited to do, everything from exploring new cities to hanging out on a rooftop and vegging out with some chill people. I still go to school on Monday and wonder how the heck it got to be Friday moments later. The weeks fly by, I like my job and the weekends are always fun. I am never bored, never angry, never sad, never taking anything too seriously.

So, as you can see, either I'm having an awesome life or I'm in deep, deep denial and the predicted breakdown is around the corner. Hence the depression/homesickness watch. So...if you guys find me rocking back and forth in a corner clutching my Canada hoodie and muttering "Don't laugh...the beaver is a noble and proud animal" while holding a tear-stained picture of my family, help me. Pour some maple syrup down my throat and tell me a story about ladybugs and bunnies like my dad used to do when we were kids.

Right...on to other business. Yesterday I went into Changwon (got a ride from another teacher who lives right where I wanted to go) to check out some places for my friend Laura and I to hang out at when she comes to visit this weekend. I really wanted to take her to Yongji Lake (thanks Mark for showing me that place!), but I didn't know where it was, neither did I know which buses to take and where they were. So, I went scouting.

Yongji Lake was awesome...it's apparently a natural lake (though some say man-made) in the heart of Changwon. I didn't have my big camera with me, so I just messed around with the G9 and I really like the little guy!

Waterwheel (I love the built-in Neutral Density filter in the G9!)

Beautiful (and huge!) yellow and red tulips are EVERYWHERE in downtown Changwon...hopefully I can get some more pics for you guys this weekend:

Up on the hill they have a bunch of tanks, helicopters, warplanes...

...and what appears to be artillery captured from the North Koreans:

There's a cool building across the lake (it's surrounded by all the war machines).

During the day:

And at night:

I think I like the night shot better...what do you think?

And a random night shot at the park (for the first time since I've been here, I just sat down on a bench and enjoyed the warm spring night, the people going about their business and the beautiful scenery. I love exploring, so I'm always on the go, but I really should do nothing more often :))

Random: even though they don't really celebrate Easter (which is too bad, I've always liked Easter), a bunch of students came around yesterday with decorated boiled eggs (and a pinch of salt in the tinfoil) for all the teachers...it was very cute...and delicious :)

Well, that's about it...except, on the way in today I noticed that they took the gigantic projection TV out of my classroom and replaced it with a big LCD screen...booyah...I'll have some pics of it later...plus I'll have to figure out how to sneak a bunch of friends in for a movie night haha.

That's it for today! Happy Easter everyone and thanks for reading! Have a great weekend, talk to you on Monday :)

T

I can haz Korean fone?? U betz!!1! ...plus more new pics from the past few weeks...

Okay, okay, okay. I finally caved. Yup. I did it. I am kind of, sort of back on the grid. I went into a cell shop and activated my phone (thanks Mark/Christie for the phone!). I wanted to get a pay as you go, but when I went in with my coteacher to activate it, they told me that it would be close to $100 for all sorts of bogus charges, security charge this, hidden charge that, which is absolute crap, since even if I left the country and they never heard from me again, they would only GAIN money, since you bring your own phone and then PREPAY your airtime. So I got turned off the whole phone idea for a few weeks, but people here have been bugging me to get a phone number, so yesterday I went into a shop in Masan and it was ridiculously easy. No charges, nothing...I put 10,000 won on the phone (about $8.60), which is good for 500 texts or 50 minutes (yeah, minutes are expensive)...but all incoming communication is free, and I'm planning on mostly texting, so it should last me a while. (I don't want to post my number up on here, but if you want it, just message me on Facebook or send me an email).

Yesterday after work my coteacher gave me a ride to Masan and showed me where a nice hiking place is where I'm hoping to hike on the weekend. While there, I randomly bumped into a Korean English teacher, who, it turns out, is friends with one of my coteachers. She also told me that apparently their Native English Speaker cancelled on them at the last minute and they're without a NET for the time being. Sucks for the NET, it was a nice school in a beautiful area, I'd love to live/work there! From there, I walked to Hapseongdong (a nice 15 minute walk), the lively area of Masan, where I just bummed around and ate some delicious Paris Baguette stuff and activated my phone! I also got some kimbap (Korean sushi) and asked for "no meat, no fish, only vegetables" the guy repeated 5 times, smiled and served me kimbap with THREE kinds of meat in it. I give up.

After that, I just headed home and did a couple loads of laundry, watched Always Sunny in Philadelphia and had one of my frozen pizzas (it was delicious!).

This morning I was up early again, so I figured I'd take advantage of not having any students on my morning commute (if I come closer to when school starts, there are crowds of them, and they're nice, but I always have to talk to them) and do a time-lapse video of my walk to school. It's not great, in fact it's downright shameful (way too twitchy...I was carrying a heavy bag that kept hitting the back of my leg with every step)...might redo it, we'll see...anyways...let me know what you think (feel free to be honest, this is not one of my proudest works haha...though at the end I almost get run over by a dump truck that runs the red while I'm crossing the road):

Also, here are a few more pictures from past travels:

Downtown Yeosu from Dolsan Island:

The murals of Tongyeong:

My favourite....SUPONGEE BOBUUUUU (with The Little Prince on the roof for no good reason)

The Little Prince:

Not sure what this is, but it reminded me of art I've seen around Arizona...I liked it :) I think it's one of the older murals...

That's it for today! I have 4 classes then I think I'm going to head into Changwon and find that man-made lake that's supposed to have all sorts of light and laser shows at night. If I can find it today, I'm hoping Laura and I can check it out when she's here on Saturday.

Have a great day and thanks for reading! Talk to you tomorrow! :)

T

I found the end of the sea! (Also, new pics from Tongyeong, Geoje and Jinhae)

'Tis true...I found the end of the sea in Masan...kind of cool to go to all these places I used to look at on Google Maps back home! (New pics of Tongyeong, Geoje and Jinhae will be at the bottom of today's and tomorrow's posts :) ).

But, first things first...yesterday I had my easiest day since I started work! I usually have 3 classes plus my afterschool English club on Week B Tuesdays, so not a bad day, but because of the teachers' competition, they cancelled one of my classes and my English club, so all day I had to teach two classes...one of which was a games class. Awesome.

In one of the classes a kid fell asleep (noticed it at the beginning of a game where everyone had to stand up haha), so I snapped a quick pic...pretty funny. I really felt bad for the kid more than anything...these poor guys usually go to school 6 days a week 10-14 hours a day...I'd be snoozing every chance I got too...

Anyhoo...after work I caught the bus to go into an area of Masan I have only driven through. It's near Sinsegae (a huge department store), E-Mart (cheap food store) and Home Plus (kind of like Wal Mart). It's also near the Masan Stadium and, as I found out, the end of the sea!

Ta-daaaa! (Yes, it doesn't look very glorious...)

But...just on the other side of where I took this picture, they have this awesome living mural...it's a wavy picture made out of potted flowers...looks like a painting from far, very cool!

There's also a little park nearby with piles and piles of workout equipment. Interestingly enough, you never see anyone under 40 on them...the older generation are pretty active around here...the 25 and under crowd are by and large are content to watch TV and play video games, from what I've seen.

While walking around, I saw a few funny things...an afterschool "academy" aka...afterschool school...I want to get my master's degree from here:

Couple of girls with awesome backpacks...I just saw the backpacks first and it was too funny not to snap a picture of:

Once it got dark, I headed to the shops to see what I could find...I picked up some healthy cereal from Home Plus and found a ton of vegetarian stuff (the usual soy wieners, sausages, etc) at E-Mart. It's nice to know I don't have to go all the way to Changwon (which really isn't that far, but it's probably an extra 20 minutes each way) to get them. And...I also found frozen vegetarian pizzas! A ton of them...I bought three different kinds. They're not too expensive, about the same as back home...a 400g pizza was just a little over $4. They should add a bit of variety to my meals. It's not easy, but definitely possible to be a vegetarian and have a delicious, balanced diet in Korea.

After that, I got on a bus and in less than 20 minutes I was in my apartment...can't complain about that! (For all you people in my area, I'd highly suggest the #250 to get into that part of Masan...it's quick...from the bus stop across Shinsegae to the bus stop by the hospital was about 17 minutes).

Lastly...I edited some more pictures from the past few weekends, thought I'd post up a couple...

One of my favourites from the Geoje beach:

Another one from Geoje:

Waterfront in Tongyeong:

And finally...view of Jinhae (during the Cherry Blossom Festival) from the lookout tower at the top of the hill (one of the main attractions was that little grassy patch in the middle of town, they had performers and stuff there all weekend long):

That's it for today! I'm not sure what I'm up to today, I'm hoping to do some more exploring and I really should activate my phone...we'll see...oh and today's the weekly foreigners' meeting at a pub, I'll probably drop by there and say hi to people. :)

Have a great day, talk to you guys soon! :)
T