Log housing with Wild Blossom

Friday was Brian`s birthday! And thanks to our great friends Nat, Kelly, and Rob, it was a surprise! I took 1 picture and then forgot all about my camera. But when we showed up we found them all in a row in birthday hats. Bonus: the waiters brought out sake and a plate of Camembert with a sparkler in it. Sparkling cheese!

We ate drank and made merry there and across the street at a delicious beer bar before eating CAKE, lots of CAKE. Carrot cake with rum and orange zest icing!!!!! And 4 sticks of butter!

Then Saturday morning, our friends Saga and Sanae picked us up for a weekend at "log house", as it was told to us. We met Saga and Sanae at a campsite in a nearby town in summer. They were there with their motorcycle team (team name - Wild Blossom!) but they live in Sapporo. We ended up spending that night hanging out with the team and ever since then have met up with Saga and Sanae at least once a month. This trip was with other members of Wild Blossom! (the exclamation mark is mine) to eat, drink, take baths, and make merry in a cabin a couple of hours from town. I can say with confidence that this is the sweetest Harley gang I`ve ever met. I was too busy using my phone as a dictionary to do much camera-ing. But you can get an idea from these shots.

It was a great weekend. The leaves are in full fall regalia now so the drive was lovely. The gang was awesome, as always. And on the way back we made a Costco stop which means pizza, red wine, and this time - a pumpkin for jack-o-lanting, were ours. I do so love FALL! But, we saw a lot of these little white fairy bugs at the log house, which our friends told us are called yukimushi (snow bugs). It`s a commmonly held belief that once you see them, the snow is only a week away. The snowboarding season is nigh!

It's a good news Monday

Before this weekend we had a pretty slow week, but it was stressful. Arguably the worst thing about EPIK (English Program In Korea) is the one thing that is not nationally regulated - camps and vacation during breaks. The good news about this being up to the individual schools is that during both breaks we've been allowed much more than our gauranteed 7 days plus weekends of vacation. The bad news is that we never know how much time we'll have or when we'll have it because the schools decide pretty late by someone anxious to buy a plane ticket's standards. This is made additionally stressful by the fact that our co-teachers don't want to force the issue with the principles, so they tell us what they think will happen as if it were what the principle has already set in stone. Example: last week Sun Ja told me on Wednesday that I definitely (go home and buy a plane ticket now definitely) would have only 1 week of camp and could travel the whole month of August. But then Friday she said I only had 7 days of vacation and would have 3 weeks of camp and would have to come to school for 8 hours a day when I didn't have vacation or camp, or any other teachers or students around either. That was devastating, but now it's Monday, and the story is I've got 2 weeks of camp and can travel for 3 weeks in August - a compromise I am more than elated with. Such a good news Monday!

So during that slow, ants in my pants week I experimented with the macro on my camera.
Hooters.

Party time.

These are my Philippines jewels.

But, the stamp pad is my favorite.

Luckily, things picked up on the weekend. Thursday was Soo Jeong's last day of teaching with Brian, so we all went to a Giants' baseball game to say farewell. Much to our surprise we saw David and Duck there too. Though it was a full stadium, two 6 foot foreigners were easy enough to spot in a sea of Koreans. And the Giants won! It was a great game and we had a lot of fun. Observe.

Friday David came down to our side of town. We kicked off with a trip to see the fountains at the park near the apartment. The fountains themselves were nice enough to see, but the best part was all the the kim baps running around in the water.

The little guy in the rain jacket was my favorite. Turns out those things don't work so well when the water is coming from the ground.

Once the fountains finally died out we ventured onward. We found ourselves at a Japanese restaurant for dinner and drinks where I was excited to find out I could recognise some of the hiragana written there. Hiragana is one of the 3 different kinds of Japanese scripts, which I've been studying recently because I had all this nervous energy pent up that I desparately wanted to spend on planning trips but was thwarted by the lack of information about when and how much time I would have for said trips. I had to do something, so I started studying Japanese in case we find ourselves teaching there next year.

After Japanese time we went to Keno Eye for a lively round of darts. And the boys, believing themselves to be beautiful people, wanted to see and be seen. Here they are striking a pose fit for magazines. Check that mustache action.

Saturday was bright and sunny at our apartment, so we pulled ourselves together and struggled over to Haeundae where the weather was very strangey. It was hot and somewhat sunny, but mostly there was a very dense, very local fog that may or may not have been man made.

We found out the next day that it had been nakey time on the beach day, an event sponsored by Busan to increase foreign tourism. I find it doubtful, but within the realm of possibility, that the fog was created to engulf the nudity, which we never saw, so perhaps this scheme was effective.

Saturday night Brian and I took it easy, but we still acompanied David to the convenient store for a sit and some people watching. This plan allowed us to get up early on Sunday and go for a hike. We went out in search of a temple called Seokbulsa, but we did not find it. Instead we found an amazing obstacle course and a ropes course. It was also the first time I'd seen the town within the valley up on Geumjeong Mountain.

We spotted this old couple having a Sunday picnic in their garden. I love this bit of rural Korea in the center of Busan.

We never found what we came for, but what we got was better than what we'd planned on anyway. We found a bee keeper selling honey on the mountain. We even found an explosion of pheasant feather souvenirs on the overgrown trail we bushwhacked.

And now it's good news Monday. I don't have my after school classes this week because Sun Ja has a conference to attend, so I'll have time on my hands to plan our Mongolia trip. I can't wait for two humped camels, fermented mare's milk, and nomad nights in gers. We're going to the Gobi!

Sports, Spiritualism, Science?, and Sports

Last weekend and this week were loaded. Friday after school Brian and I met David and Duck at Sajik Baseball Stadium for a Lote Giants game (or ja-iy-uhn-tuh-suh, as it's called in Korean). The team's not so hot, but the fans don't seem to notice. Baseball is probably the most popular sport in Korea, and people have a great time at the games whether their teams winning or losing. You'd never be able to pick the winning team by watching the fans leave the stadium. Everyone's just as happy as they can be, and why not? They can take as much cheap booze and food into the game as they can carry. And they have this sort of thing to greet them at the gates.

Apparently there's a new soju in town and there have been soju dancers promoting it all around recenlty. After the game we had a short trip to a nearby pub, but we were all pretty worn out. Duck was falling asleep in the booth, so soon we all crashed at David and Duck's.

But Saturday was Buddhamas. Christmas is a recongnised holliday here, but decorations don't pop up until about 3 days before the big day. Not so for Buddhamas. About 3 weeks beforehand colorful lanterns appeared lining most streets and even a giant animated light up dragon showed up near Busan Station. But the actual day was even more ornate. We decided to wait until evening to visit temples so we could get the full effect of the lanterns, so we played badminton to honor Buddha's birth. We even had some fans looking on and cheering. You can witness this in the next slide show.

Once dusk set in we were on our way to our first temple with Ryan and Shannon. I don't remember the name, but it was near Seomyeon. It was small, but quaint and it had some unique lanterns. And we got to participate in the walking meditation/chanting prayer around the temple grounds before we left. It was gorgeous, but we had heard of a temple with such numbers of lanterns that it looked like a sea of lights, so we were tempted to move on.

We had to split up for the taxi ride, but in no time we were walking up to Samgwangsa (all the temples are up on hills, like the universities). Though Samgwangsa had a little less character than the nameless temple, it was undeniably spectacular. The following video is sideways, I don't know how to fix it - just tilt your head.

And, on Buddha's Birthday (not really called Buddhamas, in case I've convinced anyone that it is) the temples give out free bibimbap. It was like carolling with figgy pudding and wassal, except it's May and it was temple hopping with bibimbap and calguksu.

After the last temple Brian and I headed home early to get some sleep for the Jirisan trip on Sunday. EPIK (English Program in Korea - our employers) sometimes organizes free trips for the native English speaking teachers, and Sunday we went to a mountain called Jiri for a medicinal herbs festival. This was much less exciting in real life than it sounds, but it was a free trip on an otherwise planless Sunday. We tasted some tasty teas, saw an awful excuse for a cotton field/museum about cotton, saw some beautiful mountains that we'll go back to for hiking/camping, learned that Korea has black bears (with a white V on their chests), and got to try acupuncture! This last was probably the most exciting part, besides the bears. It's true, it really doesn't hurt, and I'm a wimp about needles. My whole family and Brian got to witness this one Christmas when Mom brought an injection for me to Mammaw's house in Georgia. Just couldn't wait til I came home could you Mom? But as for acupuncture, it felt like someone touched me with a pin, but didn't actually break any skin with it. I got the needles in my back though, and if I moved in such a way as to flex those muscles it did pinch. I wasn't in any discomfort beforehand, so I can't say whether or not it helped me, but it was relaxing and I didn't feel any worse afterwards.

Then, Monday was Field Day at my school! Field Day certainly means something different in Korea than in the US, but like at home, it means no classes. For Field Day in Korea the teachers and kids rehearse for about 3 weeks. What could they rehearse you wonder? Well, please observe this video.

THat's right - at all times at least 2 events were going on at the same time, and these weren't simple games like the nail drop. There was one game where the kids rolled a giant dice and then according to which number they got they had to do a different task. Each time there were 3 kids rolling and doing the task and it was a race to see which team of 30 or so kids could get every group of 3 to finish doing whatever task and race back to the group first. Not only were the games complicated, there were also enormous dance productions where an entire grade performed together. Observe the 3rd graders in Hey Mickie!

And whatsmore, it wasn't limited to the kids. A handful of dads and a million moms and gradmas came to play too, and take pictures of their kids doing their routines. There was a moms' tug-o-war, a grandmas' person-size ball rolling relay race, a dads' 200 meter race, and even a moms' dance number and jump rope dance number. I loved the parents' sport competitions, but the dance was kind of embarassing. My favorite was watching the gradmas race that ball around. Brilliant. Look at the determination on their faces!

So while Field Day at home may be more fun for the kids ( no rehearsing, no pressure, just games), it is overwhelmingly more fun for the spectators in Korea.
And Tuesday was a holliday (Children's Day), so we beached all day on Cinco de Mayo, Wednesday Brian and I both got to leave school early (me for hiking with my teachers, him for drinking and a movie with his), Thursday was normal and I'm off again today! May has been great in Pusan.

One busy weekend

This weekend we got around. Friday was our friend Shannon's birthday, so we had a night out in Kyungsung area. Unfortunately David had to work on Saturday, so he and Duck left early. That's why they're conspicously absent from this album. These are some pictures of our new friends.

Saturday we took our first Korean language lesson. These lessons cost 3,000 won a month (about 3 USD), and that's just for the coffee and snacks. It's an amazing service and our tutor was very helpful. She's been volunteering there for 6 years and drives over an hour each saturday to be there. Brian and I had our own tutor, and many people are 1 on 1. Then we had a fiasco at the bank. We wanted to check to see if we'd been paid, and eventually found out we had (we're rich!). But in the process I got my bank book stuck in the ATM because I couldn't read the menu. Here everyone has a bank book - about the size of a passport, which you can use just like an ATM card, but they have ATM cards too, but we don't have one yet because you have to have an alien registration card before you can get one and we're still waiting on that. So I stuck mine in and couldn't get it back and luckily some very kind Koreans called the service number for us. THe whole ordeal only lasted about 40 minutes, but it was a scary. We're really a bit dependent here given our current language abilities. But Koreans are so kind that it isn't so bad. After the incident we headed to Haeundae Beach, the most famous in Korea. Even though it was freezing it was still a busy scene. First we went to a casino, it was my first time in one. David and Duck said it was a bad representation though because it was very quiet and there were no free drinks. Not the typical casino experience. But David taught us about roulette and I found out slot machines aren't fun and then we went to drink our 3 dollar losses away on the beach. There was salsa music blasting from the "street lounge" - I think this is a summer event that'll close down soon, but people dance in this courtyard on the beach. There were people shooting off Roman candles from street vendors that shot about 100 feet into the air, there were sparklers and food vendors and groups drinking out on the beach. Keeping with the gambling spirit, we bet David couldn't chug a bottle of Soju without throwing up. I still can't believe he won this bet. With the Soju to keep us warm, it was a great introduction to the Haeundae district.

Sunday we finally got around to some hiking! We visited Guemjeongsanseong. San means mountain, and seong means fortress. This is the largest mountain fortress in all of Korea (there are lots of them). The ruins of the walls are still visible, and the entire mountain was gorgeous. It's hard to believe all of this lies within the city limits.
We went and soaked in the hot springs footbath again after the hike. It felt so good to soak in that hot water after such a cold windy hike. And we ended up carving pumpkins at David and Duck's house Sunday night. Anything for the kids. Today was my first Halloween class and the kids loved it. But they think that the burnt spot on the lid of my jack-o-lantern stinks. I think it's delicious.

Couldn'tcha just squeeze em up?

Finally! So you can all see the intensity of cuteness we deal with everyday, we present to you some video evidence. This first video is of one of my 2nd grade classes at Yong Dang Elementary. We had just read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and they are drawing their own caterpillars. Then they drew what their caterpillar was hungry for. One boy in another class said his caterpillar was hungry for the weather. He drew a cyclone and a tsunami, and lightning and clouds and the sun for his caterpillar to eat. Some kids drew parasols for theirs because it was sunny in the book and they didn't want them to dry up. They're all so inventive... and adorable.


This picture is the view from that classroom. Kyung Mi and I spend many an afternoon sipping coffee looking out at the sea. Not a bad job at all.

This second video is one Sa Jin took of the kids at Brian's school giving him a birthday party. These are the 4 kids that clean Brian's office (which he shares with the arts teachers). There aren't any janitors here, the kids clean the school - a brilliant idea. Those are recorders they're playing, and they gave him an awesome gift too. He got a pencil case, a pen and highlighters, a mug, a notebook, a 2nd language vocabulary notebook, a lighthouse tea light holder, and a card. Brian said they were so nervous and excited to give it to him. What sweethearts!