The Power of Yes and the Korean experience...

There I was last night, sitting in the middle of a sea of 10-15,000 excited teenagers, in the pouring monsoon rain, soaked to the bone, waiting for some of Korea's finest K-pop bands to take the stage and talking to my friend Ryan, when he said something that perfectly summed up much of what I've been doing for the last four months.

"The worst thing you can do is say no," he said in the middle of our conversation about how and why some foreigners get bored and depressed in Korea, while others have the time of their lives. It was brilliant and has been the unspoken motto of my life here. For the most part, I don't care what the invitation is, unless I already have something else planned, I'll say yes. Not because of some weird covenant - I just watched "Yes Man" the other day haha - but because before I even landed in Korea I decided that this is a once in a lifetime experience and if I'm not going to get the most out of it, then there's no point in going at all. So I've been doing a lot of things that I may not have done at home.

Yesterday, for example, Ryan messaged me in the morning and asked me if I felt like lining up for 3 hours to get into a free concert (celebrating the one year anniversary of the unification of Changwon, Masan and Jinhae into a single city) where the biggest names in K-pop will play all the songs I make fun of, hate or simply never listen to. Quite frankly, it sounded like fun, so without hesitation I said "hell yes, see you there!"

It was a great time, we bumped into some other friends (although our little group of 6 people were the only whities we saw all night) and I met some awesome new people as well. We only stuck around for about half the concert, it was pouring relentlessly the whole night and it was in an open-air stadium, but got to see some big names and some gorgeous K-pop girls (in my opinion, the only reason to get into the genre as a guy)...

Here's something funny. So Changwon organizes this huge concert to celebrate the unification and makes it a free event. Very awesome of them, and mad props to them, it was a truly fun event even for us, I can't imagine how much of a treat it was for all the people who actually LIKE K-pop. However. It's the middle of monsoon season and these fools decided to keep it in an open stadium. Sooooo guess what happened? Everyone got soaked to the bone...including the singers. They actually didn't bother to rig up a roof of any sort for the stage, so all the performers were just drenched...not gonna lie, some of those girl looked even hotter like that, but that's not the point. :) The funniest part of the evening was when the first performer took the stage...she started strutting down the stairs and about halfway down slipped and just about went ass over teakettle. She managed to save it (looking about as graceful as a 300-pound man attempting to ice dance), but it was rather entertaining.

Oh...a word about K-pop. It's like a freaking religion here. Nobody listens to anything except K-pop. There are, at last count, 914 K-pop bands, mostly composed of guys who are 25 but look 12 and girls who are 12 but look 25. I mean these people make the Spice Girls and NSync look like tough, sophisticated musicians. Also...they are everywhere. Turn on the TV, they're doing guest appearances on shows and slangin' bodywash, go into the store and they're on cereal boxes, sit on the bus and they're pouring their hearts out to you over the speakers. Ask any Korean what music they listen to, and the answer is inevitably K-pop.

They even have K-pop for the older generation. There were a couple of older dudes crooning away. I swear one of them looked like a Korean Tony Bennett. What's even more sad is Ryan and I (neither of us fans of K-pop) were singing along with a bunch of the songs...K-pop is so omnipotent that you become a fan without even knowing it. Resistance is futile.

Other stuff...I've been taking trips as much as possible around the area during the week (since it's deskwarming week they've been letting me go a couple of hours early)...went down to Masan's Dream Bay. I swear it's like calling Edmonton "City of a Million Wonderful Pleasures"...Dream Bay is a grey sludge that
bears only passing resemblance to water. Before coming to Korea, I looked it up on Google Maps and was very excited about it: the waterfront stretches for miles along the edge of the city. I foolishly envisioned myself taking long walks along the bay at sunset, or spending lazy Sundays on a blanket, tanning my belly and reading a book and watching beautiful college girls play beach volleyball a few feet from me. Right.

Here's the reality: For one, you can't even get down to the water unless you're a dock worker. While this may seem detrimental to enjoying Dream Bay, it's actually a blessing. I am strongly suspicious that were you to set foot in its waters, that foot would have to be amputated before week's end. Every time I walk by Dream Bay, I am expecting some horrible swamp creature (the body of the Loch Ness Monster, but with the face of Rosie O'Donnell) to crawl onto shore and rain Godzilla-style fear and destruction upon the peaceful people of Masan. The entire bay is reserved for fishing and cargo vessels, whose crew, I presume, do oil changes in the big diesel engines by simply dumping the oil into the bay and refilling the crank-case with fresh dino juice while anchored in Masan.

On the bright side, there's a cool walkway along the bay (you can't actually see the bay, there's a fence preventing you from seeing the horrors beyond), but the walk is kind of nice...I went a few days ago and snapped a few shots...

Check this out...they demolished a building (right in the middle of an otherwise thriving block) and the only thing left was the foundation and the Korean-style squat toilet:

Self portrait in a traffic mirror:

Then the day after I went back to the Masan reservoir hoping that the monsoon rains have filled the gullies with water, but all I found was the regular little creek filled with a bit more water...still, I got some waterfall shots and this gave me an excuse of going back again later in the monsoon season (the reservoir has a huge hiking park attached to it, I could spend days there, it's beautiful...)

I swear I could take pictures of waterfalls for the rest of my life and be happy.

And my favourite flower shots of the day....dead...and alive

Okay, that's enough pictures for now...I'll post more later, or check out my flickr - http://www.flickr.com/tamasv - for more.

All right, a few more things before I head out...on Saturday my good friend Casey and Kara and going to tie the knot...all the best to you guys, I really wish I could have been there, it's going to be an awesome day!!
Anddd....HAPPY CANADA DAY HOSERS!!!! I'm bummed out about missing it at home, it's one of my favourite parts of the summer, but thankfully I have some wicked awesome friends here (Ross and Nicole), who have invited me to Daejon to celebrate Canuck day with them and a bunch of other crazy expats...soooo I'm outta here, have a great weekend everyone, keep your stick on the ice! (Thanks Red Green for that one!)

T

Tamas the Olympian...

Three....two....one....and we're live...

Horace: Good evening, I'm Horace Finklestein.

Mary: I'm Mary Appleton and welcome to Channel 69's exclusive coverage of the 2011 Deskwarming Olympics. For those just tuning in, the Deskwarming Olympics is an elite event bringing together participants from all over Korea's public middle schools twice a semester. While the students write their all-important exams and other teachers supervise, the Native English Teachers simply sit in their offices for most of the week and try to evade Death by Boredom.

Horace: That's right, and here is where things get tricky and the truly crafty are separated from those merely watching the clock.

Mary: And that brings us to a very special segment of Spotlight on the Olympians. Today's featured athlete is Tamas. Born and raised in a little village our researchers are still trying to find on a map in Hungary, Tamas moved to Canada at the tender and confused age of 12. As an English teacher, he is representing Canada in his second appearance at the Deskwarming Olympics, making him a relative newcomer to the Olympics, but not to the sport itself.

Horace: Indeed. His experience as a reporter filled with endless boring graveyard shifts have honed the skills necessary to be a successful deskwarmer. Skills that will no doubt come in handy over the course of the next 4 days spent in his uncomfortable office chair. See, not only does a successful deskwarmer need imagination and ingenuity, he also needs to look busy while doing absolutely nothing at all. This may sound easy for a few hours, but the race for sanity really heats up by the fourth day.

Mary: Does it ever! And this is where someone with Tamas's background has a shot at edging out the his adversaries. His unhealthy obsession with photography is certain to give him a leg up on the competition.

Horace: That's right, it is rumoured that, while training for the event, he once did absolutely nothing for five days but sat on his bed eating Cheetos, editing pictures and arguing with people on internet forums about the usefulness of UV filters.

Mary: That's the kind of dedication only true champions show.

Horace: Some have called him the Michael Jordan of doing sweet eff-all and I don't think they were exaggerating. Now, tell me...what does Tamas have planned for his marathon performance? I mean, he's a young man with a laptop and an internet connection, is it as easy as simply looking at naked girls on the internet for four days?

Mary: You would think so. Our records do show that even after looking at hundreds of megabytes of hot girls, he shows no signs of being bored or any inclination to get out of his chair to shower. However, this possibility is not open to him. Being at work, the stakes would be phenomenally high, and he would run the risk of being banned from the sport of teaching for life. The sanctioning bodies are very strict on this point.

Horace: Okay, so he can't take the easy way out...what can he do??

Mary: While each athlete has a top-secret training schedule, our sources tell us that he is planning on avoiding the usual pitfall of simply watching movies.

Horace: That, of course, is the chosen method of many deskwarmers, but history has taught us time and again that it's not a long-term solution. You can only watch so many Will Ferrell movies before you long for something a little more challenging, or a lobotomy. No, Tamas has a few things lined up to keep his mind from flatlining.

Mary: Well, tell us, aside from the usual habit of editing and uploading pictures and showing them off like a kindergartener taking fingerpaintings home to his parents, what else do the next four days hold?

Horace: Though he doesn't know when his holidays are, he is going to research vacation spots and hopefully settle on one. We hear the Philippines and Malaysia are the frontrunners, but Mongolia has been discussed at length as well, so it's really anybody's guess at this point. Additionally, he will be designing lessons for a summerschool he's expected to run in a few weeks, and rumour has it that the dreaded Gear Acquisition Syndrome has hit again, and he's going to be researching lenses to buy, so that should take up some time as well.

Mary: Are performance enhancing substances an issue in the Deskwarming Olympics?

Horace: You bet. Since they are not banned, many athletes resort to drinking up to two gallons of coffee per day just to keep them from drooling all over their keyboards. However, about two months ago, Tamas began a silly quest for a healthy life and drinks nothing but water until dinnertime.

Mary: Admirable, but foolish.

Horace: Yes, that decision is certain to make things a lot more difficult for him, especially in the critical post-lunchtime period.

Mary: All we can do is wish him the best of luck.

Horace: Yes, it's going to be a challenging race to the top, but if anyone can do it, it's Tamas. That concludes this segment of Spotlight on the Olympians, but don't forget to tune in tomorrow when we'll feature an American teacher who is hoping to preserve what little is left of his sanity by learning to square dance at his desk over the course of the Olympics. I'm Horace Finklestein wishing you all a good night.

T

My first typhoon...

Sooo....this weekend the monsoon season hit full force. We had some wicked rains, a few lightning storms and...I just found out. A typhoon. That's right, I have now officially lived through countless earthquakes, chasing tornadoes and Typhoon Meari!

The nasty weather started on Friday, when I was out bumming around downtown Changwon with Dawni. Things were great, I bought some more "bullets" for my BB gun (they're everywhere!!) and I was an absolute grump. I hate to do it, but I have to blame the meds. They're making me feel like absolute crap. I was at school earlier that day, sitting at my desk, then felt dizzy, my head started humming and then my head hit the desk. Not good. Definitely not good. Anyways...we were hanging out in Changwon and just as we were about to leave the skies opened up and it started raining...hard!

Overnight it was the same story. At around midnight-ish there was a wicked thunder and lightning storm, and the rain just kept going and going. Then, interestingly enough, it was beautiful on Saturday morning. So, I did a few errands (laundry, dishes, shower, etc) and got ready to go on a bit of a walk. I got on the bus and...you guessed it...it started pouring. So much for that. I managed to get ONE shot before it started pouring...nothing special, but it's all I have haha

So I rode the bus and enjoyed the scenery, went into Masan, grabbed groceries and came home. Then, on Saturday night it started raining hard and didn't stop until Sunday mid-day. The wind was blowing, the trees on the mountain a block from me were swaying and the entire sky looked like a gigantic grey swimming pool. It was so crazy, I was watching the forest and when the wind picked up, it started blowing the water off the trees in addition to the rain that was falling and the whole forest (a block from me!) would just about disappear out of sight there was so much mist!

I'm guessing it was a pretty big deal, because I heard someone speaking over a loudspeaker, and I chalked it up to either the North Koreans invading or someone selling watermelons. Turns out, they were doing it all over my area (and I'm guessing Korea in general) and it was a typhoon warning!! Crazy stuff.

So, for most of the weekend, I stayed at home, watched movies, at my pizza and played Gran Turismo haha. It was the first chill day I've had since I got to Korea. It was rather pleasant, I must admit!

Today, after the rain eased up at around 2, I left my house and walked to Lotte Mart (where I am now, stealing wifi) and found out it was a typhoon...

Things are really nice right now, though...I'm not sure if it's just the calm before another whipping from the storm, or the storm is over, but it's warm, humid as hell and lightly raining now...it even stopped raining for a while...and I snapped off a few pics with my G9 on my walk here:

And another one of the same flower, but I decided to do a little bit of editing I wouldn't normally do...what do you think?

Anyhoo, that's it for now...oh yeah, one more thing...the toe is doing MUCH better! I think not being on it constantly for two days really helped the little guy. I have to go back tomorrow to get the dressing changed on it, but I'm hoping the visits will stop haha...I know it's not much, but 8-12k won every other day is starting to add up!

Have a great rest of the weekend, everyone and those of you in Korea...stay safe, hopefully we've seen the worst of this typhoon!

T

Monsoons and more dead flowers...

The monsoon season is officially upon us. For the third or fourth time. I swear every time it rains for 25 minutes the media announces that monsoon season is here, then everyone around work parrots it and it becomes fact. And then it's nothing but sun for two weeks solid.

Yesterday it started raining again and, yet again, everyone was chattering non-stop about monsoon season beginning. Well, if this is indeed monsoon season, I can deal with it! While it did rain pretty hard at times yesterday, by the time I was done work it had stopped and since it's so warm (mid to high-20s), there were only a few puddles, but otherwise it was a nice summer day. It rained pretty hard at around 11 p.m. and midnight (rain was actually blowing into my room through the open window), and then this morning it was a beautiful sunny walk to school. Not too shabby. I'm sure it'll get worse, but really, for someone from the West Coast of Canada, this is still great weather.

Though it is getting pretty humid...and hot...I walked into my classroom at 7:15 a.m. today and it was already 27 degrees there. Thankfully my air conditioning ban has been lifted, so it'll won't be too bad.

Ummm...other things, went to the doc...changed the dressing on my toe, another shot in the butt, $9 and 25 minutes later I was a free man, so I roamed about with my camera looking for dead flowers and I think I found some decent ones...what do you think?

and last...

And a few pics while I was walking around my neighbourhood...I kind of like this picture, but I think it could be much better...there is a hospital near my house (actually, there are tons of hospitals in Korea), and you always see people in hospital PJs walking around with their little IV bags...

And something completely random from my walk home...I just thought it looked cool...I don't know why, but when I'm walking around with the 50 1.8 on the camera I find myself looking at things differently than when I have the 16-35L slapped to the front of it. I really think it's time to upgrade it to something else, I'm using it so much...I have no idea what this poster is for, but I love the way the written Korean language looks...

The rest of the night was pretty chill...hung out at home, shot pop cans with my gun (I don't know if this is the most fun you can have for $7, but it's pretty damn close) and played some Gran Turismo (my brother got that game for me nearly 2 years ago and I STILL can't get bored of it. I'm not much of a gamer, in fact the only "console" I own is my little PSP I got when I was flying every weekend, but I've done about 2,000 races on Gran Turismo, and it's still a ton of fun. The only problem is that it's such a great game, everything else I have is a 1987 Atari compared to it).

Hi ho, hi ho, off to expand young minds I go!

Take care, everyone!

T

My first ever photo project and I decide to disown my co-teachers...

I have been taking pictures of everything for the past 21 years since my dad gave me my first camera, his old Soviet-made Smena 8. Most of my pictures aren't planned. Aside from shooting news for a few years and a couple of weddings, I usually just lug my cameras around and snap away at whatever I see.

Well, the other day, as I was walking around, I saw some dying flowers and thought they looked beautiful. So, I shot a few frames (with my trusty old 50 1.8 ...though I'm really thinking of upgrading it to a Canon 85 1.8 or a Sigma 50 1.4).

Then I realized that most people take pictures of flowers when they're at their most beautiful, lush and colourful. Add a few dew drops and you have yourself a winner. Well, I have decided that my first ever photo project will be to take pictures of wilted, dying and dead flowers...for no other reason than that I think they look neat and it hasn't been overdone. (Also, as my Dad wisely pointed out, still a little better than taking pictures of dead animals). Here's the flower that started it all:

And then I found this little guy not too far away...

Let me know what you think...it's kind of a goofy idea, but I think it could be fun :)

I'll keep you guys updated as I find more and more of these things...

Onto something different. So, technically I have "coteachers". And I have been referring to them as such on this blog and in my daily conversations. Then, a few days ago, I found myself deleting "coteachers" every time I typed it and replacing it with "coworkers."

This got me thinking and I realized that there was a reason for this: while I technically have coteachers, in reality that whole thing is a joke. Which is pretty funny because that was one of the reasons I chose Korea over Japan. I figured it would be much easier my first year teaching if I have someone by my side to help, support and guide me.

Ha-effing-ha. You know what my so-called "coteachers" do? Nothing. Half of them don't bother coming to my classes. The other half sit in the back of my classroom and read books, do their paperwork or sleep. At best, once every week they will say "be quiet" once.

From Day 1 I have been doing everything on my own. Lesson plans, teaching, disciplining, etc, everything. I'm not complaining, in fact I prefer it this way for a few reasons. I'm getting the TRUE teaching experience. I'm not a coteacher, I'm a full-blown real-deal middle school teacher. And that feels good for the ego and it's going to look great on a resume when I go back to Canada and try to find jobs. However, the other teachers are certainly not deserving of the "coteacher" designation and "coteacher" implies I need/use their help. I don't. They're useless. This is all me. So no more coteachers...they're coworker. Coworkers I rarely see.

And now for a few random things...

Thanks to my old pal Frankie (Francisco), who introduced me to Ice Cube's stuff years ago, I've been a fan of Ice Cube the past few years...I think he keeps getting better and better with each album. Raw Footage was really solid stuff, and I just started finding tracks off of I Am The West and they're amazing. Life In California and I Rep That West have been playing non-stop in my MP3 player for weeks and I just found No Country For Young Men and it's a wicked track. If you're into rap/hip-hop, check it out...it's great stuff.

Moving on...random shot from my night out with Alice wandering around Changwon...

What else?...I'm drowsy as hell. This ain't good. The drug cocktail the doctor has me on is knocking me out. I could barely finish my last few classes yesterday, then I got home, ate dinner, put my head on the pillow and promptly passed out...all before 7 p.m. I slept until around 5:30 a.m., so I got a good night's sleep, but I already feel like I could sleep for another 10 hours. This is going to be a long week.

And finally...apparently monsoon season is here. It rained last night/this morning (though it looks decent now) and they're forecasting rain until Sunday...then again, every 2 weeks or so (whenever it rains for 45 minutes), my coworkers have been coming in saying "well...monsoon season is here"...I'm sure it's going to be back for a few weeks, but it really isn't all that bad right now. Maybe it's because I'm from the Rain Coast back home, but if this is monsoon season, I'll be laughing through it. The one thing that concerns me is the humidity. My god it's going to get bad. Right now it's 22 degrees and 88% humidity, but it'll get a LOT worse...yesterday we were up at 29 degrees, so I'm sure today will get into the high-20s with 90%-ish humidity. Bring on the sweat! Okay, that's all I have for now..

Y'all take care now y'hear!!

T

The Korean health care system... North America has a bit of catching up to do...

About two weeks ago the big toe on my right foot started hurting. I figured it's just from all the walking and running I've been doing and did what every manly man has done since Grog the Caveman got his left arm bitten off by a saber-tooth tiger and ignored it and went about my business as usual.

Soon, like Grog, I noticed that, rather than things getting better, things were getting worse and more painful as the days passed. So, in true manly fashion I simply ignored the mounting pain and carried on.

Two weeks later (I'm not going to go into the nasty details) things had come to a breaking point. The pain was really starting to get to me and things...well, things weren't looking so pretty on the big toe of my left foot.

So, yesterday I dragged my coworker to the hospital with me to see what exactly is going on. Here is where things got impressive. Little background for you...I love Canada. I really do. I think it's a great country and I feel very fortunate to be a citizen of it. Also, we have it MUCH better than the Yanks when it comes to health care, seeing that it's free (more or less). However...I can't count how many times I went in there with a real problem and ended up spending most of the day there...I once spent nearly 6 hours in emergency waiting to be seen by a doctor when I cut the tip of my finger off and was covered in blood. I mean that's serious stuff. When I got in, the doctor said "well, it's too late to do anything about it"...thanks, jackass. But that's just one example...if you're in and out of emergency with broken bones or injuries that squirt blood like the cocky knight in Monty Python in less than 6-8 hours in Canada, you should consider yourself lucky.

Not in Korea. I walked in (well, kind of hobbled...been on my feet all day teaching), and walked out TWENTY MINUTES later. That's right. Including paperwork, treatment, etc, 20 minutes. And they sent me straight to an orthopedic specialist. This was kind of neat...my name in Korean (Tamasu) on the bottom of a wait list at the hospital...the ink didn't even have time to dry on the board by the time my turn came up.

While there, the doctor diagnosed it as an ingrown toenail...I've been doing some research on it, I think it may have something to do with the Nikes I've been wearing a lot lately...sigh...was trying to save wear and tear on my Airwalks (I have kind of wide feet, so Airwalks have been my footwear of choice for years, but you can't get them here, or at least I haven't seen any). Or it's just dumb luck. Whatever.

Anyhoo...in those 20 minutes, they triaged me, sent me to a specialist, a nurse treated and dressed the toe, then they sent me off to another nurse who gave me a shot (in the butt! For reals. The last time I got a needle in the ass was when I was a kid. It was pretty funny). In all fairness, I also had to pay for it all, which kind of sucked...but it was 12k won...or about $10. I'm sure at home many people would shell out 10 bucks to have such speedy treatment.

One funny thing was that the doc told me I wasn't allowed to shower for a week. Now, when I was 12 this would have been wonderful news. But, I've matured a lot since then and now I easily have the maturity of a 14 year old, so not showering for a week disgusts even me. I suggested I wrap a plastic bag around my foot and going ahead with my shower. The doc and my coworker looked at me like I just discovered the cure for AIDS. Their jaws dropped, and I'm pretty sure the doc sent off a quick email to the national medical journal letting them know about this momentous discovery. After they gathered their jaws off the floor, they slowly nodded and said something to the effect of "Well, that's a radical thought. Some might even say crazy. But it's so crazy it might just work."

So, if you were in my apartment at around 6:30 a.m. today, this is the sexy sight that would have greeted you:

Oh yeah...they also prescribed me some meds. I think it's an antibiotics cocktail, but who knows. For one thing, there are FOUR kinds of pills there. So, I'm pretty sure I'm safe from not only whatever's eating my toe, but also the whooping cough and ovarian swelling. I've heard before that Korean doctors love to go overboard with drugs. I'm guessing they have no idea what's wrong with their patients, so they just prescribe a mix that'll kill pretty much everything in sight and cover all the bases.

Also, they came in a neato Fruit-by-the-Foot packaging. Easily the oddest medication packaging I've ever seen...it's about 5 feet long. Convenient.

On the bright side, the whole lot of them came to just under 12,000 won ($10-ish), so that's not too bad!

I have to go back on Wednesday to have them change the dressing, we'll see how that goes.

Aside from that, I didn't do much last night, watched 2.5 hrs of Top Gear (thanks Mark!!!) and went for a couple of walks (even with the toe that made me see stars most of the way, I can't just sit around haha). Oh and I shot some targets (pop cans) with my pellet gun. Because I'm 12 years old. The weather is still perfect around here...it's just after 8 a.m. and already 19 degrees...which is pretty much as low as it gets. It's beautiful T-shirt weather here 24/7!

All right...I'm out. Have a great day, urrrbody!

T

Waiting for a miracle in Jindo and good times with great friends and guns in Gwangju

Ahhhh....Monday morning. Monday mornings mean two things. One: I have the worst work day of the week ahead of me (6 classes) and two: I'm probably going to be telling everyone about how great of a weekend I just had.

On Friday night I hung out with Alice (the newbie from Toronto) and we bummed around the downtown core of Changwon, showed her all the usual sights...Yongji Lake, Sangnamdong, the Big Circle, etc (I have some pics I have to get off the camera, will post those later).

Then on Saturday morning bright and early I met up with Dawni and Michelle in Masan and headed to Gwangju. We took an express bus, which is a little more expensive (still not bad...3 hour bus ride for 18,000 won, or around $16), but it's way quicker (takes a little under 3 hours) than the normal buses and very, very comfortable (it's a tour bus that only has three seats per row and the seats are more like Lazyboys than anything you'd see on a bus).

Once in Gwangju, we met up with Kiran and Renee and took another bus to Jindo, our destination. The Gwangju bus terminal is probably the biggest bus terminal I've seen in Korea (has nearly 40 departure gates) and it has more shops, restaurants, etc than most airports I've been to (and I've been to my fair share). One massive store had everything from a Hello Kitty toaster to ridiculously cheap books in English. Despite my promise to myself that I would not buy books while I'm in Korea, just can't help myself. On Friday I picked up my childhood favourite, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe for about $5.50 and on Saturday I couldn't resist shelling out $3 for George Orwell's Animal Farm. (Interestingly enough, Animal Farm and The Little Prince are the two books I've seen in EVERY Korean book store). Not far behind are Obama books. Man, oh man, do they love their Obama books. What's also funny is that English books (even stuff like Penguin Classics) are much cheaper here than they are at home. I think I'm just going to start trading the books I don't like and I'll take home the ones I do like when I go home to visit.

Anyhoo...buying Animal Farm had the added bonus of being the perfect prop for the first picture of the trip:

Soon after, we boarded the bus to Jindo (another 2-3 hours) and headed off to the fabled Miracle Sea Parting of Jindo. (Even the road leading to the beach is called Miracle Sea Road or something). What's supposed to happen a few times a year (I've heard everything from once or twice a year to monthly) is that there is an extremely low tide which exposes a sandbar of sorts that connects Jindo Island to a smaller island about 3 km away, allowing people to be knee-deep in mud and walk to the other island, take pictures, and head back to Jindo. According to a tour company that caters to foreigners in Korea, Saturday was supposed to be one such day, and they loaded up 2 tour buses full of expectant foreigners and headed off. We found out about the tour and decided to do our own thing, but check out the parting as well.

There was only one problem. We got to the place where the sea is supposed to part, at the time the "miracle" was to take place and saw this:

Unless you were Jesus, walking to the island off in the distance was not going to happen. So, we decided to make the most of it and wander around the island. Even though it was grey and overcast out, the weather was pretty nice, low-20s with a light breeze, so at least we weren't sweating...we found a nice beach and nothing else, really. (Again, sorry, the pictures aren't the best...I just took the little G9 and everything was flat and grey...)

While the walk was nice, Jindo wasn't exactly a beehive of excitement. The most exciting thing was this: some dude collecting seaweed, I presume for his restaurant...

 It took us 15 minutes to track down a place where we could buy a pop and some crackers. So, after about 3.2 seconds of thinking it through (after waiting for the sea to part for hours), we decided to catch the bus back to Gwangju.

I won't bore you with the details of the bus trip back to Gwangju, but suffice it to say I'm sure most high schoolers act more mature on field trips than what I, Dawni and Michelle brought to the table that night. I'm not sure if it was the fact that we're all immature (okay, so those two are actually mature unless they're hanging around me), or we were just trying to make up for the lackluster Jindo experience, but we spent about half the bus trip being in tears and fighting for breath laughing our heads off. Also, Michelle made was making faces at me. She started it. I swear.

Once in Gwangju, we went in search of food and shelter. In true Korean fashion, both were great and cheap. I had bibimbap for 4,000 won ($3.50) and it filled me up. Dawni ordered sweet and sour pork and got a plate that was packed about 6 feet high and was 9 feet in diameter. It was ridiculous. Everyone was starving and she was sharing it and still they only got through half of it. That was 4,500 won. Gotta love Korea.

Then we found a really nice motel and got a couple of rooms...40,000 won a night. Dawni, Michelle and I shared a room for a whopping 13k won each (or about $11) and it was a great place! Again...gotta love Korea.

After a good night's sleep, I woke up first and decided to wander around Gwangju for a couple of hours. Gwangju is...well...interesting. It's not a bad city. It's certainly not an ugly city. I don't have anything against it...it just doesn't have a lot going FOR it either. It's very spread out and we couldn't really find a true interesting downtown, and it seems to be the same thing repeating ad nauseam. The people were nice, traffic was a little better than around my area and they had a MASSIVE Kia factory there, which was neat (well, really all you can see is miles and miles of walls surrounding it like it's a top secret fortress or something), but really, there wasn't much to see. They do have a soccer World Cup stadium there, which I was trying to find, but after hours of wandering and following the signs I still had who knows how much longer to go so I gave up. This failure may mean that my EU citizenship will be revoked.

After everyone else was up, Kiran and Renee went off to the museums and my two special ladies and I hit the town. After walking around for an hour and finding nothing more exciting than a Michelin Man, we decided to start riding random buses hoping to bump into the more exciting parts of the city.

The cool thing is that our bus passes from home worked in Gwangju. In fact, I'm pretty sure our bus passes work everywhere except Seoul or something. This makes things pretty convenient and a little cheaper (using your bus pass gives you a bit of a discount on the fare). We rode one bus, got off in a place that looked interesting and were badly disappointed. Got on another bus. Rode that, got off in a neighbourhood that looked interesting and...were rewarded with a few neat things for a change. A little lake in the middle of the suburbs with a boardwalk around it...this was probably my favourite place in the city:

I love seeing nature left alone in the middle of the city (there were fish, frogs, birds, and all sorts of plants living happily here):

Just up the road from the lake...probably my favourite picture of the day...this is pretty typical of Korea...if it's got a motor it's good to go on the road (ATVs, scooters, tractors, you name it, they'll throw it on the road around here)...you see old farmers with these rickety tractors EVERYWHERE...also, note the sign above pointing to nothing. We decided that Gwangju's motto should be "The City of Perpetual Nothing". The sign seems to agree.

While in that neighbourhood, we popped into a few small shops and bought some silly things. Including my first ever toy gun. My parents are going to be very disappointed haha. I can see them shaking their heads right now. They are very pleasant, peace-loving people and as such, they never bought us any sort of weapons as toys. I think that's an excellent way to bring up a couple of boys, and I'm very happy about it. However, I am a guy, a guy who likes machines...whether it's an airplane or a camera, I think machines are cool. So, guns are kind of neat. Certainly NOT to hurt others (although on the bus ride back I was tempted...more on that later), but I've always wanted one to play around with guns...so I bought a little Airsoft gun for 8,000 won ($7) with a few hundred little plastic pellets. I played around with it last night and it's surprisingly fun shooting pop cans off the top of my TV! Today at work I'm going to print out some targets and hang them off my clothes drying rack for some fun tonight...yeah, I'm a gigantic geek.

After that, we boarded another bus and randomly got off where we saw a big crowd of people...turns out they were just getting ready to go to a baseball game...the highlight of that stop was some guy screaming his face off at one of the street vendors. Not sure what the argument was about, but it looked like he was losing it over nothing. Then another bus and back to the terminal where we got on our last bus (another one filled with huge recliners).

About 5-10 minutes into the trip, some dude in front of us got mad at us and told us to stop talking. It was ridiculous. We were speaking at a very respectful level. Just having a normal conversation. But, whatever...we decided to be nice and started speaking so quietly that even though the 3 of us sat right next to each other in the very last row, we couldn't hear EACH OTHER half the time. Then, about an hour later, some b!tch turned around and told us to be quiet all angrily. This (as well as the first one) was pure racism. I've read of a lot of other foreigners experiencing it, apparently some of the locals simply don't like hearing people talk in English. Or they just don't like white people talking, because from where she was sitting I don't think we would have been heard as much more than a low murmur. Other Koreans can scream on their cellphones on buses, play loud games on their phones, etc and that's fine. But not us. Honestly, we were talking at about 3 dB above whispering, trying to be quiet and respectful. Also, it was about 5:30 p.m. on a bus, which, to me, seems like an OK time for a couple of people to talk. No one says anything when two people have a screaming fight for 40 minutes in the middle of the city at 3 a.m., but if a couple of foreigners have a very, very civil and quiet conversation, they're up in arms about it. Not knowing how to say "go beep yourself you racist beep" in Korean, I let her know with the international hand gesture that she was out of line. This seemed to put her pea-sized mind at ease and she left us alone for the rest of the trip. Bit of a downer at the time, but we shrugged it off and had a great rest of the trip.

The bus was trying to avoid a traffic jam on the main highway and went on some back roads and we saw some of the most gorgeous scenery I've ever seen in Korea. Kilometres upon kilometres of mountain switchback roads with the occasional farm here and there, and lush, green forests everywhere. It was perfect. After that, we went back to Masan and got some Potato Tornadoes (I'll get a pic of it for you guys later...it's awesome, this guy cuts fresh potatoes into spirals, puts them on a skewer, deep fries them for a minute or two and rolls them in cheese...the whole thing costs about 90 cents and it's soooo delicious). Dawni also accidentally invited the guy to come vacation with us, which he was extremely excited about. Buying potatoes from him from now on is going to be an awkward affair, I think.

We finished the night by sipping some good iced tea and iced coffee on the upstairs patio of the Angel In Us coffee place in Masan and relaxing watching the traffic....not too bad of a weekend at all. The view from Angel In Us:

I hope everyone's had a great weekend and a Happy Father's Day over and above all to my amazing Dad (or Apu in Hungarian) and to all my friends who managed to somehow con a girl into bearing a child or five for them!! :)

T

Random stuff...a video, some pictures and some musings...

Woohoo...yesterday I finally picked up a sleeping bag...managed to grab a very decent one (simple and not too thick, but not too thin either, seems to be made of fairly high quality materials) for 30,000 won! (or about $25...from my favourite place, Home Plus). I really can't complain about that. I'm going camping this weekend (going to the Jindo sea parting) and then next weekend (Geoje, I think?), so now I'm all prepared! Not only is this a much, much nicer setup than the stupid blanket I was lugging around the last time I went camping, it also weighs about 2lbs less which, when you have the backpack on you all night, makes a big differnce! (Also, it looks much less ghetto having this strapped to the bottom of my backpack than some old flower-print blanket that has seen god knows how many people do who knows what on it, under it, etc.)

Also...I finally got around to uploading a video I took with Mark in our cheap little motel (yes, I realize how bad that sounds). The motel was very cheap ($25 a night) in Gyeongju, but it was clean and surprisingly spacious, so we really couldn't complain...but we couldn't believe the pillows they gave us. They could have been used as a murder weapon (by way of blunt force trauma)...providing you've been working out for the past 6 months and you had the strength to swing the thing around...check it...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tamasv/5840923278/in/photostream

Moving on...saw this guy at the Cheomseongdae Observatory (Asia's oldest observatory)...just brilliant...he was using one cellphone as a light the second one to take a picture of himself and his girlfriend...

Random observation...everything in Korea has to make a beeping sound. I swear. You turn on the air conditioner, it plays a little jingle. You turn it off it plays a DIFFERENT little jingle. So does my door lock. And the TV in a motel I stayed at. And the humidifier. When the bell goes in my school, it's not a buzzer, it sounds like an ice cream truck is driving by. It's like living in an early 1990s video game. One of my friends here described the air conditioner (I guess he has the same one in his classroom as I do) as making a sound like Mario collecting gold coins every time you change the temperature setting. It's EXACTLY the same sound. I'll make a recording of all these and put them together into a video one day when I'm really bored (likely the week after next). Anyways...today I heard the most awesome one. You know how trucks have those beep-beep-beep things when they back up? Well, this morning I saw a truck that was backing up and playing Fur Elise haha...because that's definitely a great warning tune that you're about to be hit by a truck. Love this place.

Also...Vancouver. What. The. Hell??? Seriously? It's just a stupid effing hockey game!!! And they go around looting stores, setting cars on fire and stabbing each other?? I couldn't believe the crap I've been seeing/reading yesterday and today about the Stanley Cup fallout. I mean this sort of action is usually reserved for larger issues like trying to overthrow an oppressive government. But these idiots turned a beautiful city into a war zone because their overpaid spoiled brat of a hockey team can't play?? Now, I know this is only a very, very small core of people...but it still reflects badly on Vancouver, on B.C. and on Canada (I've been reading stuff here about it and yes, people will lump all Canadians into what happened). Thankfully we live in an age when you can't pick your nose in a cave six miles underground without 14 people taking pictures of you with their iPhones and posting it to Facebook, so there is footage up the ying-yang of what happened. Here's hoping that those responsible for the violence and destruction will be held accountable.

Okay, that's all for today...tonight I'm heading into Changwon with my new friend Alice (a fellow Canadian!) and bumming around, then tomorrow I'm taking off early in the morning for the Jindo sea parting with Dawni and Michelle and meeting a few people I've been talking to for months for the first time! Should be an awesome weekend again!

Have a great one, everyone...keep smiling :)

T

Let me get a little emotional on y'all...

Bah. So Mark left this morning and I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little bummed out. I have made some great friends in Korea over the past 3 months and I'm very, very thankful to have them. They're making my time in Korea infinitely more enjoyable and they're a blast to hang out with. But having a friend here from home, a friend I've known and hung out with and had countless adventures with over the past decade is a little different. I guess the past two weeks was another awesome chapter to add to those adventures, though! We explored a ton and had some wicked times...I'm really glad he came :)

However, as lame as it sounds, seeing Mark walk out this morning has yet again reminded me of all the stuff I'm missing at home. My friends Casey and Kara are getting married in two weeks...I was really, really hoping to make it to that wedding, and I'm missing out on countless camping trips up and down the island with my friends, random adventures with my family, etc. I'm still happy to be in Korea and I have no regrets at all about coming, but I'm definitely going to appreciate being back home when the time comes (still 21 months to go, though haha).

Anyhoo, I'm really tired and can't think of much to say (I was up at 5 a.m. with Mark and couldn't get back to sleep...was sitting at my desk at work by 6:35 haha), so here are a few pics...

Mark and I at the his and hers royal tombs in Gyeongju (Two-thirds of the Department of Corruptions... missing from the picture, but with us in spirit: Jonathan Addey).

Me trying to kiss a frog to see if it turns into a princess...

The way the world sees me haha

In other news, today after work I think I'm going to head to Masan to see if I can score a sleeping bag. I'm going camping this weekend and next (very stoked about it) and tired of lugging around my heavy flower-print blanket. Tomorrow Alice (a fellow Canadian I've been chatting to, but have yet to meet) and I are going to head to Changwon and bum around...the Friday night vibe is always great out there.

I have no idea how I'm going to make it through today...I'm already dead tired and the first class is still nearly an hour away haha...maybe I'll have to partake in the great Korean tradition and have a little nap at my desk.

Have a great day, everyone, catch you soon!

T

Seoul wrap-up...

Since I never got around to finishing my three-parter about Seoul, I figure I'd throw a few pics up here...yesterday I finally got around to editing a few pics, might as well share them with you...not much new here, by the way...Mark is leaving tomorrow morning, which sucks, it was nice having him here, but all good things come to an end, I guess.

On the last day (I think) we went to the Seoul War Memorial. It was Mark's idea and I wasn't too crazy about it at first, as I'm generally against all wars (except for the War on Seal Herpes. That's a cause I can get behind). However, I was pleasantly surprised for a few reasons...one, the actual memorial was gorgeous. It's a massive park with a beautiful building in the middle, it's free to enter and there is very little in the way of propaganda. It's a true memorial, and an elaborate one at that. The other thing that impressed me was the number of tanks, massive missiles, planes, boats, etc there. All beautifully restored and a lot of them open to the public. It was pretty cool being inside an armoured amphibious personnel carrier or a cargo plane. All in all, I'd suggest checking it out if you're in Seoul.

A few pics...let me know which one you like better...I generally hate overprocessed pictures, but I kind of like this one...so B&W or overpricessed? (Wall of names of the fallen with a carnation under).

or:

One of my favourite planes... Beoing B-52...

In the cockpit (taken through the window of the plane...no processing done to the blur, it's all thanks to the worn window...I think it works well)...I desaturated the colour version a bit to give it an oldschool look...or B&W?

or:

Random awesome buildings in Seoul (converted to B&W for the hell of it)

One of the many palaces in Seoul:

Market in Seoul...random dude playing the sax amid empty dishes and a score of empty soju bottles...

I've posted this before, but I did a mild edit on it...brought down the highlights a bit and bumped the details in the shadows a tad...let me know what you think of it:

Okay...this is it for today...have a great day y'all!

T

Tamas and Mark do Gyeongju...the ancient capital of Korea

Eek...I'm really getting behind with this whole blog thing, I apologize. School has been pretty busy (the computer in my classroom - which I use in every one of my classes - died today...I got to teach a new idiom to my coteacher "kicked the bucket") and we're trying our best to get ready for summer camp. Today I got invited to go to a 4-day English education fair, but, in true Korean fashion they gave us ONE day of notice (our paperwork has to be in at the Ministry of Education by tomorrow)...so of course that's not enough to work out the details of me not working for 2 days, so I have to skip it. Kind of lame, I really wanted to go, but such is life.

Anyhoo...so on the weekend Mark and I packed our bags and headed to Gyeongju, the city that served as Korea's capital for about 1,000 years in the era that I like to think of as one of Korea's best. This is the time period when Korea was a reasonably powerful kingdom, fighting the Japanese at every turn and building tombs, temples, fortresses and palaces every chance they got. 

Getting to Gyeongju was an easy affair, 3.5 hours on a train at a cost of around $10 (12,000 won). Really can't complain. Once there, we got a map (which, as we later found out was a true Korean map: ie...looked like it was drawn by a 4-year old and nothing was to scale...one inch on the map equalled about 5 minutes of walking in one case and two hours in another case). 

The first place we headed were the royal tombs and on the way there we bumped into Asia's oldest observatory! I was pretty stoked about it, my dad has been into astronomy all my life (heck, pretty much all of HIS life), so I thought he'd like a few pictures from it. His interest in the day and night skies has rubbed off on me a little bit too, astrophotography is one of my favourite passtimes and I've made a point of visiting observatories and stuff whenever I can (a few years ago I swung by Flagstaff, Arizona where I saw the observatory where Pluto was discovered)...so this was a nice addition to that. 

This observatory is about 1,400 years old, apparently the square hole near the top is where they ancient astronomers climbed in to gaze at the night sky. Way cool.

As usual, I haven't had time to process any of my pictures, so they're just raw files straight off the card...I'll edit them when the rainy season hits and repost them when they look a little better...until then, here's a pic of the observatory and one of me with it...(that one's mainly for my parents haha)

After that, we walked around this beautiful park where happy families were chasing butterflies with pink nets and tame frogs let me pet them. It was very idyllic. 

Then we headed to the royal tombs. Apparently there are about 200 around Gyeongju (they're everywhere!), with about 30 of them being all in one pile. Two of them were open...here's what they look like from the outside (they're massive...8-20 metres tall) and as much as 30+ metres around:

Two Korean women doing their makeup in the shade in front of a tomb:

Tombstone in front of the same one:

The inside of a different tomb (this was pitch black inside...I love, love, LOVE my camera...crank the ISO to 6,400 open the aperture to f2.8 and I got this, no flash at all and still looks presentable)

Inside the only tomb open to the public...they had a cool cross-section of it to show you how it was constructed (sorry for the crappy pic, had to be stealthy, no photography was allowed...lest my camera steal their souls...)

Replica of the burial chamber:

They dug out tens of thousands of treasures from these tombs...some of them were on display...like a golden crown:

His and Hers tombs (queen/king tombs...) 

Then we started walking around to check out all the random historic sights in Gyeongju...we found a cool pond, just randomly on the side of the road...

With a neat pagoda in the middle:

And random little walkways snaking their way through the water plants:

Then we bumped into this pond (really have to find the names, sorry, I'll properly tag all these on Flickr in the coming days/weeks) where the Kings used to entertain people...all the pagodas are rebuilt, but are believed to be exact replicas of the originals:

Hurray for waterfalls nearby!

Then we started our long walk out to this lake resort thing we thought was just outside of town (or, according to the map was just outside of town). Well, it was...about 10-12km from where we were. It was a beautiful walk, but it was hot and humid and we both had backpacks on and really just wanted to chill out instead of walking that much...damn maps here haha. But we did see some cool stuff along the way...like people working the rice fields:

The lake was beautiful and very resort-y...reminded me a lot of Lake Okanagan back home, but with a lot more hotels and stuff around it...they also had some sort of special even going on and managed to fire off ONE firework. It was pretty funny...then we took a bus back to town, found city hall (disappointment haha) and took some night shots of the observatory and packed it in for the night.

Gyeongju was kind of boring at night (heck, even during the day it is), it's a beautiful place with a great history, but definitely not somewhere I'd want to live for more than a weekend at a time ;) 

The observatory at night (and now we've come full circle haha)

After that, we found a cheap (but decent) motel for 30k won a night (split two ways, we paid about $12 each a night...really can't complain...even if the pillow/mattress were like bricks). Okay...I'll have more on the second day tomorrow!

Have a great day everyone, hope you're well...oooh yeah, one more thing...today is my 3 month anniversary in Korea! w00t w00t 1/4 of a year! :) 

T