It's Time For Weekend Update.

Well folks, I've been busy writing my butt off recently, but sadly I have not included any info as to what I've been up to in quite some time. Honestly, when life proceeds as normal I tend not to write about it. I mean it's really hard to make teaching school seem interesting. However, this past weekend something happened that I feel compelled to type about. Spring is trying fitfully to wigle its way into Seosan. It comes on like the tide, only to fade away with another day. However, this past weekend we had the best weather I've seen in Korea since October. It was absolutely beautiful. The temperature was in the mid 60's. I nearly died it was so awesome.

Anyways, an opportunity came about that I could not pass up. Originally I was supposed to go to Cheonan with Drew, but once this opportunity came about I had to take it. My friends and I decided that we would head off to a local beach for the day. We figured we could spend the night at one of the motel's on the beach for pretty cheap and just have a blast. In truth we did. We went to a small beach side town called Sindu-ri. Once we arrived at the beach we booked a hotel and got busy enjoying life. Beaches one the West Coast of Korea are notoriously long. The tidal change on the West Coast of Korea is the worst in the world. The water at low tide recedes at least 500 meters. The beaches are very flat and wide. What that means is there are no waves. The beaches however are huge and flat.

After wandering about the beach and playing around we, David, Ahna, Seung Hee, and myself got down to making dinner. Seung Hee's father provided us with some excellent quality beef to BBQ. I set myself to making some vegetable to go with our food, and we cooked potatoes in the grill. All in all the meal was awesome. Add to this copious amounts of alcohol and friendship. The night was young and we were having a great time. Now, came the only thing that could possibly dampen our night. That's right it started to rain, and it rained all night. However, not to be deterred we entered our motel room and continued the party. The night was great. Lots of drinking, talking, and walks in the rain. Well at least I went walking in the rain.

I guess I should mention that there was also some pyromania involved. You see fireworks are not only legal here in Korea, but they are cheap and easy to buy. Needless to say the night culminated not with David being drunk and passed out on the floor, but with me standing on a wet balcony shooting off Roman Candles. ASAH!!!!

We woke the next morning at 7:15 AM. Thanks AHNA! Ahna needed to be back in town at 9:30 to meet someone. Ohh well. Breakfast was steak and eggs and potatoes. All I needed was a tortilla and some of the Louisiana habenero sauce I found here and it would have been an excellent breakfast burrito. As is it was still a great breakfast.

We hoped back into Seung Hee's car at 8:30 AM and headed back the 25 minutes to Seosan. It was a far less white knuckle ride back then it was there. I'm not making fun of your driving Seung Hee, but sometimes you forget when hauling four people in a car you shouldn't take turns so fast. The car is a lot heavier and tends not to respond as well. Specially since it's rocking a 1.5 liter engine. We arrived back in Seosan nice and early, and I spent the rest of the day relaxing and cleaning my apartment.

It was a good weekend. I rested my soul, and I rested my body. It still amazes me how much the beach means to me. I guess it's there where I go to quell the storms that plague my mind. It's there where I find my answers, where I renergize my soul, and it is there that I can get back to the core matters in my life. I'm glad I went, and there are even pictures of the fun.

The art of matching in Korea.

I remember when matching with your significant other was cool. I think it was junior high school. I remember matching my vest on my tux to the color of the dress that my date was wearing for prom. After that, well matching more or less went out the window. Well, here in Korea, matching with your significant other is a fine art, in fact its a requirement. You have multiple stages of matching, each one more emasculating then the next.

It starts off so simple. Matching hats. Now, not everyone in Korea will do this, but it normally starts with a simple baseball cap for both of them. However, from here it goes down hill, and quickly. It may move from baseball caps, to beanies, or in a lot of cases matching animal hoods. These hoods are wickedly popular in Korea, and people from children to adults love them. Now imagine seeing two people walking together both wearing bright pink bunny hoods. Sadly, no imagine one of them being a man. Nobody wins.

Often times, they move from hats to sweaters or hoodies. Now these you think can't be that bad. In fact it's almost cute that a couple would wear the same hoodie. It's how they show off how in love they are with each other right? Well actually its more about marking territory then anything else, but that's another story. The simple truth is that most of the times these hoodies were chosen by the woman. What that means is these guys are wearing very bright, and what would qualify back home as very gay hoodies.

After the hoodie hurdle has been effectively jumped things go from bad to worse. Now comes the matching bags. No we all know that some men like to run around with man-bags or murses. No I'm not referring to the phenomenon known as male nurses either. Well, here in Korea, you guessed it. If you really want to show off you love your significant other you walk around with matching purses. Ohh the horror, ohh the shame, ohh the comedy.

Matching bags are then followed by something that is actually quite standard in the United States, Matching Rings. Here in Korea they are referred to as couple rings, and are not something that is to be taken lightly. You see until you have given your gf a couple ring you are not truly, seriously dating. These rings have the same significance as a promise ring, and are not that cheap either. However, if you have reached the stage where you are exchanging couple rings, you know for a fact that you and your gf are seriously dating.

Finally, while we have gone over all the outer wear ways to let people know who you are dating. I haven't even hit upon the underwear matching. That's right folks, UNDERWEAR. We're not even talking like same color here, we're talking matching lingerie. Oh it's so sad, but extremely popular in Korea. Every single underwear, sleeping wear, and lingerie store that we pass by has on prominent display in the window, his and hers lingerie. Ohh yeah, the mannequins are rocking the most emasculating thing possible. Pink floral print boy shorts, on a man. *shivers* A wise man once said "I would do anything for love, oh I would do anything for love, I would do anything for love, but I won't do that, no oh oh I won't do that." I believe we finally found out what Meatloaf was singing about. Now just for funzies here is that wonderful epic ballad and video.

Weird, but Delicious Korean Food

The following is a list of weird food stuffs that I have eaten since I arrived here in Korea. All of these things have actual names in Korean but I'll be damned if I know them. This list is in no particular order. I'm just writing as I remember eating these things.

1. Dog soup. This stuff was epic. I mean besides that random yelping you heard at the restaurant as a new batch of soup was being prepared. Kidding, it wasn't yelping, it was more of a whine. No, in all seriousness the dog soup was great. It tasted a lot like dark turkey meat and was just delicious. However, the off hand comments about eating Old Yeller, were perhaps not in the best of taste. They did however make the meal that much more fun.

2. Live Baby Octopus. Yeah, I know what you're thinking. How could you eat live octopus? Well it's quite simple really, and actually doesn't taste that bad. Now there are two styles of live octopus. I am a fan of the live legs that are still wriggling on your plate. There is another method which involves eating the whole thing raw, ink, brains, eyes and all. That I have not tried, and I am honestly a little terrified of it. For your culinary pleasure I have included videos of each of these. YUMMY!!!!!!








3. Pigs Blood and Beef Stomach Lining and Intestine Soup. What can I say, this stuff is pretty good. Basically they take pigs blood and make into a gelatinous type mass. They then cook it in a soup with the other fun bits. It's quite yummy and spicy. What I find so interesting about this soup, is that it gives you all the benefits of eating liver. High in iron and all those fun things, but you don't have the texture and density of Liver.

4. Snails. Well, this is not the excellent French version which includes loads of butter and garlic. This was Korean style served cold. In fact I'm not entire sure I know how they made this stuff. What I do know however is that it was mixed in your standard Korean sweet and spicy sauce, green onions, leeks, and cilantro. The snails are surprisingly sweet and tasty.

5. Mountain Banana. AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!!!!! This is some freakish hybrid of a Kiwi and an Banana. Now I know what you're thinking, hey that could be delish. Ohh, it's not. This thing basically tastes as if you took all the flavor of a Kiwi and threw it away. You then replace that with bitter seeds and a white tasteless mush inside. The other important thing is, that you don't want to eat the seeds apparently. I was told this after the fact. Needless to say the banana decided it didn't like me and wanted to leave my body as soon as possible. I was happy to oblige, and to this day it remains the only thing in Korea that has made me throw up.

6. Abalone. Yeah, it's pretty easy to get here, and there is none of those Abalone hunting problems here like we had in California.

7. Blood Sausage. Hey this stuff is great street food. You walk up to a vendor at 4 AM with the drunk munchies and this stuff just is what you want. Sadly most Americans think of these things as horrible. Then you talk to anyone from the Scandinavian countries and even the Northern Europeans and they're all about it. Turns out blood sausage is a delicacy there. Whuda thunk it?

8. Acorn Jelly. Hey, it was good enough for many Native American tribes to exist on. This stuff is not my favorite because it is a bland gelatinous mass. I don't like bland gelatinous masses. What makes this even worse is the fact that acorns are excellent sources of nutrition. They just are too hard to harvest and use. I feel very wasteful knowing that this jelly has some excellent stuff in it, but it tastes like nothing, and that's not cool.

9. Dried Squid. I don't really know what to say about this stuff. It basically looks like you took Dr. Zoidberg's face (picture included for those who don't watch Futurama) and dried it in the sun for weeks upon weeks. I actually like this stuff. I know it seems weird but this stuff when you dip it in the red pepper paste is pretty good and makes an excellent drinking companion food.

10. Dried Small Fishes. I don't quite know what to make of these things. Were they delicious, not really. Were they bad, not really. They were just kinda dried fish. What makes these worth noting however, is the fact that the heads were still attached to this things. It makes for a pretty gruesome sight when you're table has eaten ten of these poor small fishies. Why, you ask. Well cause you don't eat the head. You just rip it off and leave it on the table. Or if you're like me you mount them upon straws and place those straws in an empty glass. Nothing says fun like a bunch of impaled fish heads.

11. Silkworm Larva. Ohh yeah, these things are sold all over Korea. Honestly they weren't that bad. They use these to flavor noodles and dumplings. They also use them as a handy portable snack. Luckily these things are not alive, they have actually been cooked. Would I recommend them to everyone, no. I blame this weird food streak upon my parents. They were the ones who always said you have to try everything at least once before you say you don't like it. Well now that training is backfiring on me. Thanks Mom and Dad.

12. Octopus Ink Soup/Pasta. This is a combo because of the concept of octopus ink. You can combine these two. The soup I have to say is far more interesting then the pasta. The way the tend to do this is first they cook the octopus whole. Besides octopus this soup has shrimp, mussels, and clams. It's delicious. Well after cooking this soup, a nice Korean lady walks by with scissors and proceeds to cut apart the octopus. Does she stop when she hits the legs? No. Upward she cuts, and then she cuts open the ink sacs. Into the soup all the ink goes, and what was a delightfully light soup turns into a dark black murky soup. The pasta was delicious. They basically used the ink and a cream base sauce on top of Pasta.

13. Lastly for this edition, Chicken Feet. Yes, that delightful dim sum food. Yet, when the Koreans get their hands on it, they give it a good Korean twist. Imagine those chickens feet being spicy as hell and cooked with a few other things. Ohh it's some good good eating.

Funny Korean Rules and Habits.

A list with pictures of Funny Korean Rules and habits. Don't ask me why they have these but they do.

1. You cannot wear outside shoes indoors. If there is a major event at my school, people are expected to either A, bring their own indoor shoes, B walk with no shoes on, or C wear plastic bags over their shoes. Yes, plastic bags. It's rather ridiculous and looks like this only more ridiculous because you are INSIDE. The last time I had to wear something over my shoes I was walking around the Winter Palace in St. Petersberg. There I can understand, but to walk into a gym. Come on.

2. Separating out your trash. Now I understand the need to separate your recyclables from your trash. I also understand that some people separate a lot more out of their trash for recycling. My father is one of those people. We recycle more then the average household. However, separating out your liquid trash from your non-liquid trash is a little weird. I mean, in the states you just dump your excess liquids in the trash. Yeah, for anyone who has ever worked in the food service industry that trash is disgusting, but still. They designed a separate receptacle for liquid trash. They also have separate trash cans if and or when, you can find public trash cans, they often look like this. Most the times they don't have pictures either.

3. Sleeve protectors. These things are pretty great. I even understand their usefulness. However, you cannot truly take anyone serious who is wearing these things in bright pink with little animals for the design. It's just not possible. I try so hard not to laugh, but I end up ultimately failing. At least their sleeves are clean, no considering the biggest problem presented by eating with chopsticks is dropping stuff on your shirt, they need to issue bibs like these. That would be epic.

4. The Soju Tour. Now, anyone who has worked as a teacher in Korea, or just simply worked in Korea and went to dinner with your Korean boss knows what I'm talking about. Koreans love to have dinners at restaurants where the entire school goes to dinner. At these dinners, it is expected that at some point you make rounds with a bottle of Soju. Soju for those of you who don't know, is the Korean National Alcohol. It's a lot like Sake, only nowhere near as good. This stuff taste's like watered down Vodka, and has the punch of, well watered down Vodka. While you're doing this tour, it is required that you go have at least one shot with your boss. The problem is, if you have 50 teachers, and every teacher is doing a Soju tour then the boss has at least 50 shots of Soju. Anyone seeing the problem yet? They way they mitigate this issue is by pouring partial shots. Often times they will lift their glass after 1/4 pour indicating that you should stop there. Now, when you do this, they keep right on pouring. This tour, and those unfortunate foreigners who have been forced to go upon it know that this is the easiest way to drink two bottles of Soju in thirty minutes ever. You just do shot, after shot, after shot. Luckily people might let you get away by doing this tour with beer. In that case it's a lot of fun, however that doesn't stop the people from walking around with Soju stopping at you and making you do a shot. Remember, it's rude to say no.

5. The Drunken Support System. This goes out to all the Koreans, who, instead of drunk driving, go drunk walking. While this is a far safer then the other option, it does lead to some hilarity. Koreans to help reduce the chances of an accident have decided that when engaging upon these walks, the buddy system works best. Why should one drunk person walk alone. They get at least two other really drunk people to join them. Interlinked arms are the trademark of this support system. What is better then one person stumbling and weaving? I know, three people stumbling and weaving together. This way they can effectively block the entire sidewalk. The people also tend to be very loud and uncoordinated due to a probable consumption of two or three bottles of Soju.

Kids protesting?

Why are the kids protesting I thought. I mean they're walking around the hallways with signs chanting. The chants all sound the same in Korean and it's nearly impossible for me to decipher any difference. The students keep walking, keep chanting. What the hell is going on I ponder. I keep wondering when the Korean teachers will put an end to this incessant noise. Normally anything like this happens and they are all over the students. Why aren't the doing anything? Seriously, I mean this is really starting to get annoying. It's like attending a pep rally all over again.

That's when it hits me, the students aren't protesting. They are campaigning. I walk to the hallway and see several groups of students wearing sashes and carrying signs chanting the name of their friend. The make sure they stop in front of every classroom and chant for a few moments. Tactfully they hold their signs in the windows so all the students not in the halls can see who they should vote for. They walk down to the next classroom, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat. "This is going to be one long ass week," I mutter to myself. My co-teacher looks at me, "It's time for class." The halls clear, blessed silence returns to my school. No more chanting, no more screaming, no more slogans.

We enter the class, the students say hello. They always say hello, like they're still surprised I'm real. It's been six months, you'd think they would expect to see me once a week. Class starts, and the lesson runs. Class runs late, it always does so its no big deal. In the hall the chanting starts, the signs appear. We're almost done and the signs are outside the window, imploring the students to vote for them. It's almost enough to make a grown man cry. This is only the first class of the day, and already the noise and signs are annoying me. Four more days of this, "how the hell am I going to make it?" The clock runs out, the halls clear, and classes resume. Silence creeps through the halls, daring any to break it.

The day wanes down, and the chanting continues. Throughout the halls the students are talking. "Did you see who is running?" "Who will you vote for?" "Why are you voting for her?" All said in a foreign tongue that is hard to understand. The students leave and I'm left to my own devices for hours on end. Thankfully, the school is quiet. Resting for the rest of the day, because tomorrow will be rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat, rinse, repeat.

It's Friday now. The elections have ended, and my brain is so sick of campaigning I'm having dreams about Bush the Elder saying "Read My Lips." Clinton is in the corner swearing he couldn't inhale. Bullshit. You couldn't inhale and cigars.....wait, I digress. The election is over, peace has returned. "That was fun." I mutter to myself. Thankfully it only happens once a year.

Rediscovering your past.

Have you ever needed a cheap trip down memory lane. How about a reminder of all the things that make you feel like your childhood is still a tangible and living thing. Sadly, as we enter our rush to grow up, which honestly seems like an eternity we tend to forget everything that we loved from our younger days. I was reminded of that today when I noticed my co-teacher watching an Animaniacs video. Now for those of you who may be of an older generation, Animaniacs was a cartoon series that I watched religiously in my later elementary school days.

The show revolved around three main characters: Yakko(middle), Wakko(right), and Dot(left). The show was relatively crazy, yet at the same time would do spats of educational material. Yet, just by watching five minutes from this show I was sent back to a time where I was young and free. The world lay at my feet and I could do anything in the world. Granted at that time I was still actively considering a career as a jet pilot (thanks Top Gun), baseball superstar (I wanted to be Rickey Henderson), or life as a Rockstar (damn you Poison, Whitesnake, and Bon Jovi). Yet, even now I look back at life, and I wonder, how could things have turned out differently? How could things be worse, how could they be better? What if I had gone left instead of right? What if I had gone down instead of up? It's amazing to think that a simple show, which brought so much laughter and happiness in life at such a young age, can now bring so much reflection.

How often have you watched the things from your childhood? They make me smile every time as I remember the feelings that are associated with being a child. Could my life have been different, of course. Do I want it to be different, no. I love where I am, I love what I am doing. As I type now I have a smile on my face and I wonder, who else loved the cartoons of their childhood? Perhaps some day when I am old and gray, and probably on my way to the comfortable room where the walls are padded you'll hear me singing at the top of my lungs
"It's time for Animaniacs
And we're zany to the max
So just sit back and relax
You'll laugh 'til you collapse"
We're Animaniacs!"

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

It's official. Vacation is over. I am sad. After more then two months of vacation its time to go back to work. Well, ok, it wasn't entirely vacation time. I did work for about a month of this time, but it was primarily half days or a voluntary camp. Now those of you that know me, know that I am a person who loves his down time. Yet, downtime for me is a time to sit back and relax, not to go tracing around the planet. While I do love tracing around the planet, that is not what I consider down time. Down time to me, is time that you spend by yourself, or in the company of one or two good friends, and you basically do nothing. You sit around, you joke, you re-energize your life. One month of downtime is way to much for me. Hence, I am quite glad to be back at it, the daily grind of life here in Korea.

School has started, and I couldn't be happier about it. I love working in the classroom. Korea, the United States, I absolutely love the dynamics that come about working in the classroom. The teacher student interaction the dynacism that can be found located throughout the school, and most importantly, it keeps me busy from 8:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon. This means I have something to do Monday through Friday now. I have to get dressed in the morning now, I don't get to slum around all day. I know, I know. I sit here today and I get to look forward to months upon months of work, and sadly couldn't be happier about it. I feel ready to go, ready to get back to work, ready to continually destroy these wonderful students with my American Awesomeness. That's right, beware you'll go blind from the sheer power of my Englishee Awesomeness. Crap, Konglish is slipping into my speech again. Alas, I'm off to continue my fantasy baseball draft, as it seems there is no need for an English Teacher on the first day of school.