Thanksgiving Korean Style

One of the things I have not been looking forward to are the holidays. Before last week, the only one that I had missed was Halloween which was actually unexpectedly amazing and random (*read "A Night of Fright and Delight" for more details). However, thanksgiving just came and went and I was more disappointed then words can express that I would not be able to act like a fat ass and eat an unholy amount of turkey , mashed potatoes and gravely, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and so many more wondrous foods that allude me know because I have been over here for too long to remember them. On the actual day of Thanksgiving I had a fun yet small get together with Eben and Mary. Eben cooked some potato soup while Mary made grilled up some veggies. It was tasty all the same and we ended up drinking and playing ASSHOLE (where I was the asshole for nearly an hour straight) however thanksgiving foods were sorely missed.

Now the weekend after on Saturday I did not have any set plans and I was expecting to have a quiet relaxing day then, as usual, go out and have a fun evening and early morning at the bars. However, I received a call from Eben saying he was drinking at the moat (Korean for lake) and that they were going to head somewhere and grab some beers near our neighborhood where I should meet up with them. It was about 6pm at this point so I decided what the hell and by the time I meet up with them they were eating grilled octopus and drinking saki bombs at a Japanese restaurant. When I walked in I saw that Tim looked a little more trashed then I would have expected for 7pm on a Saturday but I didn't think too much about it at the time. Tim, Eben and Travis were all just about finished eating and they informed me that it was out friends Juan birthday and they were all heading over to Lauren's house for a group bday dinner that his mom had prepared, who also just got into town. However, I found out quickly that Tim was in fact shitfaced and he had fallen to using only his most rudimentary motor functions. On the walk over to her house a delivery guy on a scooter stopped after noticing Tim on the streets and after a short time and realizing the level of intoxication Tim was under left. However, to make things more interesting he ended up circling back around to us and offered to give Tim a shot of soju as his restaurant. Of course Tim agreed but Travis was able to persuade Tim that we were already an hour late for dinner and he was shitfacted and did not need any more alcohol.

By the time we arrived at dinner everyone there were a little annoyed with us. Lauren's apartment is larger than most. It has a living room/kitchen, and a separate bedroom and which is better than the standard 2 room set up. livingroom/kitchen/bedroom and bathroom set up is the standard one, which is what I have. About 8 of our friends had gathered for dinner, it was also Juan's birthday and his mom came to visit and cooked quite a nice feast for us all. We started with a salad and vegetable soup but by the time we had finished Tim was too intoxicated to remain coherent so we put him to sleep on Lauren's bed, at least we thought we did. By the time we started eating chicken Tim woke up and tried to make his way to join all of us at dinner but instead he tripped over something and smashed his head into the floor. His was unable to move from this position so I had to pick him up again and put him in Lauren's bed, this time though he did not awaken for quite awhile. Dinner was great and after Juan's mom left we started to drink and play some drinking games.

Now I could go on for awhile about the rest of the dinner/ hang out but lets just say Tim woke up again and mistook Lauren's floor for a pisser which once found out created a hilarious dispute. After this we played some asshole for an hour or two then Eben, Tim, Stessy and myself headed downtown. Downtown was fun and eventful and yaaaaa lets just leave it at that.

DVD Bong

This past weekend has been the week of the DVD bong. Before I can jump in and start telling you all about my experiences it is first important to understand the term bong.

Bong- In Korean it simply means room. This word is very common and is used to describe all sorts of places. Some of the most popular are Nori bongs (Karaoke) and DVD Bongs.

DVD Bong- Is a genius concept on an alternative to watching a movie at the theater or at your house. They are small places where they have a respectably large selection of DVD's, Korean and foreign alike. After you pick your movie you are taken to a small room which has a large bed/couch that can fit about 4 people maybe 5 if you squeeze in. There is also a projector above that creates the felling of being in a small theater. The genius of the DVD bong is the privacy of it. Most Koreans bring they girl or boyfriend to the place and have a private place to watch a movie and hook up. However, you can also bring your own alcohol and snack to the place so you can drink and either hook up with someone or kick it with your friends.

So, my first experience was last Saturday where Eben, Christina and myself went downtown to buy a few things before the night started. I bought a pair of glasses for about 100,000 won (90$) and a Peja Stokavich jersey...... Still can't fucking believe that. After this we had a few hours to kill so we decided to check out a movie at the DVD bong. We ended watching Role Models while drinking some mekju and soju while also enjoying some popcorn. We had and interesting night downtown... lets just say the glasses changed up the dynamic of the night in a very positive way.

Anyway, we ended up meting some girls from Chicago, Briana and Julie. The next day they gave us a call and we ended up making plans to go to the DVD Bong again. First, We grabbed some beers at Oregon bar (the cool music bar) then we began the night of endless films. We bought a bunch of mekju, soju and some assorted snacks (FYI dried octopus is a good snack which they actual sell at the movies theaters over here). We all decided to watch some horror movies so we started with the Descent which I had previously seen once in IV, I think with Perry. It was a good choice but retrospectively it might have been a little to good... About 20 minutes in where they introduce the villains of the film (their a cross between Gollum from LOTR and an albino I would say) it startled the girls so much that they literally jumped which sent beer flying out of Briana's cup, spilling all over herself and myself. After this movie we watched Battle Royal which if you haven't seen it is an amazing Japanese film about a deathmatch between school kids who are trapped on an Island and must kill each other (with an assortment of weapons given to students based on their strength and intelligence) to live and escape the island.After this film I thought we would call it a night considering it was around 2am but the girls wanted to continue watching some films so we stayed for another film. After this film we ran out of drinks so Eben and I left the Bong to grab some more mekju and on the way back Eben eyed a large Homer Simpson Dangle.

Dangle- something that hangs off of the end of your cellphone which are extremely popular over here. Almost every Korean has some sort of dangle which is used as most commonly phone bling or some practical purpose.

After we returned I picked out 28 Days Latter which we watched without any further spilling instance. We then packed up are stuff and left the DVD Bang making our way to the cab area. However, when we got there it was decided that we in fact were not ready to call it a night and decided to head back to a DVD Bong and watch one final movie. At this point in the night I was rather tired but I was more interested to see how long we could continue to go on before the DVD Bong would either would close or politely say Fuck off. This time we watched The Grudge but after about 20 minutes all of us, I think, ended up passing out and I remember waking up to the credits. We left and this time it was official we said our farewells to the girls and we made for the home right as the sun was rising.

In total we went to 2 different DVD Bong's and spent about 8 hours total watching movies. Quite a successful night/adventure if I do say so myself.

One more thing I forgot to tell you all that this was a Thursday night so we all had to go to work the following day which lets just say was sloooooooooooow and looooooooong, in other words a load of lethargic shit.

School Update

I'm sorry I have not updated in awhile but I have been rather lazy of late and increasingly busy.

Public school in Korea finishes classes for winter break in a few weeks which would mean I have some time off if I worked at a public school. However, I work at a Hogwon so I actually have more work because all those students who are not in public school get put in Hogwon's by their parents (There is some Korean lifestyle for ya). Mys school has been advertising aggressively, we have small posters all around Gee-san-dong (educational district) with two large banners in front of our school and on the outskirts of the district (*see picture*, which is in front of my school). Today I had to present of Demo class to my coworkers and boss on how I plan to structure and teach a T.E.P.S class (Korean created English proficiency test). It went well, but they informed me every day, now excluding Wednesday, I have to teach an extra hour and a half and Ill be adding every week with an additional hour and a half to be added once public school is out.

Shit I thought my kids were absent today but they were just a half an hour late so I have to teach for an hour and a half right now shit.....

Ok I'm back and just to remind everyone here is a list of all the different types of class I teach...

1) Children's conversation class - 2 students -Hour and a half

(Monday and Wednesday)

2) Adult conversation class- 4 students, 3 ajimas (older women) 1 college -Hour and a half

(Tuesday and Thursday)

3)Basic Sentence Structure aka. Steps 2 - 4 elementary school student - 45 minute class (Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday)

4) Intermediate Sentence Structure aka Now 3 - 2 elementary school students - 45 minute class (Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday)

5) Advanced T.E.O.F.L (English proficiency test) - 1 college student - Hour and a half

(Monday and Thursday)

6) T.E.P.S. Listening - 3 middle school students and will increase soon. -Hour and a half

(Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday)

I can't complain about my hours because I don't teach as many hours as other teachers but I'm not allowed to leave work (I just watch movies and listen to music)

I'm almost done with work but I promise to write more in the next week where I will be talking about some very interesting events that have happened in the previous month, which are as follows....

-Attending a 1 year old Korean Kids bday extravaganza (think 100 Koreans where I was the only foreigner present)

-Night out with some hot Korean babes (looooooooooong night but great)

-Screen Golf Tournament

and much more... oh Yeah!

A night of Fright and Delight

Before last weekend I had no idea what Halloween would be like over here in Korea... Would most foreigners dress up? Would the bars and clubs have special events to celebrate the occasion? How would Koreans respond to costumed drunk foreigners? Do any Koreans celebrate the holiday? After this weekend all of thee question have been answered as well as several others I had not even begun to think about.

Saturday October 31st- Halloween: (Stage 1 -Richie and Jessie's House)

The day started like any other. I slept in late enjoying my day off and resting from a relatively relaxed Friday night downtown with a few of my Scottish friends. I had no idea if I was going to dress up for the occasion, especially since I had very limited choices of costumes from what I packed before I came over. However, my good buddy Eben gave me a call at a round 5pm to let me know that a bunch of people were going to meet up at Richie and Jessie's house before going out to the bars. He also informed me that everyone that was coming would be getting dressed up, which forced me to try and find something. After a quick search of all my clothes I discover I really only had 2 options: either wear my high school basketball stuff and go as a baller (which seemed a little boring to me) or take down the sun tapestry I had hanging on my wall and wear that as a robe and go as the Sun God. I think its pretty obvious what I decided... So, I left for Richie's house which is on the exact opposite side of Daegu from where I live and work at. I live at almost the farthest southeast corner of the city where they live on the north west. When we got there we started to drink right away and get ready for the night to come. We started off drinking Makali, and mekju but after I put on the transformed into the Sun God, I steeped up the game a little bit (if at least get a dunk shield going because I was only wearing some briefs and a pair of Jessie's girl boxers). A group of about 8 people ended up over at their apartment where we drank and watched/listened to Rocky Horror Picture Show which was playing on their TV in the background. When it was time to leave almost everyone wanted to take a cab and avoid the awkwardness of walking 20 minutes in their costumes down the streets before they could make it to the safety of other drunk dressed up foreigners downtown. Jessie, Eben and myself thought that we should walk it instead and have an interesting cultural experience, although we could not know how interesting and revealing it would be at the time...

Stage 2 (The Walk):

-By the time we headed out I was felling nice and buzzed and by the time we made it to the main road the eyes began to turn. Every Korean walking down the streets could not help but either give us the double and triple take or look absolutely shocked. After a few minuted Jessie had the genius idea that we should start scaring people as we passed them walking down the street. At first I was uncertain as to how entertaining this would be but after the first person guy we scarred jumped back 3 feet and screamed like a 10 year old girl I knew this was priceless. We continued walking casually and talking until we decided on a group of people where we would all yell and jump towards them. For a visual reference, Eben was a walking skeleton, Jessie was a hippie zombie and I was of course the son god so quite the interesting mix. We continued doing this for the entire walk making sure we only tried and scare one group every block so no one would see what we were up too. By the end of the journey we discovered that Koreans are jumpy as hell and it does not take much to get them to run in sheer fright, especially if your dressed up on Halloween.

Stage 3 (Downtown):

-We actually walked to the college part of town first, specifically to a foreigner bar. Eben and I relaxed their for a minute or so but one girl who I don't think I need to name was continuing to act as one of the most annoying and obnoxiousness people I have met in Korea so far so no offense to our other friends we decided to bounce and head downtown right away.

At this point my memory begins to become quite fuzzy I remember we went to several bars, however they sort of blur together and I can only clearly remember a few and bits and pieces of what we did. I am pretty sure we started at Ping Bar which was decorated quite extensively for Halloween (like most of the foreign bars which I would soon realize). It was packed with people and I don't believe we stayed there that long but I do remember they had long strands of red cloth hanging from the ceiling which of course hit me in the head as I walked around. At some point I got fed up with this constant annoyance so I ripped one long strand down and wrapped it around my neck and body as long holy scarf (at least this is how I perceived it at the time). We ended up leaving rather quickly but to make matters difficult the fabric they had hanging up in the staircase......

Cultural Sidenote: Similar to most large European cities everything in Korea is built up, especially in Korea with so many people in such a little country. So, you are almost always climbing up or down stairs whenever you are going to any store, bar or club.

......this fabric had fallen to become an obstacle getting in the way of anyone who tried getting in or out of the bar. Understandably, I was not ready for this unanticipated obstacle and I fell over and became increasingly frustrated with whomever was in charge of decoration at ping bar. I am still spiteful and I will try and not support the bar because of their complete disregard for tall people...

The next place I remember going to was Sky Bar which I had never been to previously but I would say did the best job on creating a Halloween decor. The place was almost a small club in reality, they have one big ass room with bars around the outside and a dj booth in the back. It was packed , like every bar was that night, with costumed foreigners which made the dance floor look like some image out of the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Eben and I ended up running into our new friend Mary, who was dressed up as a Oregon baller (Fuck the blazers go sac Kings!) but nonetheless was having a good time and we were excited to run into her. I ended up talking to some twins who were dressed up as... I'm not really sure but somehow won the costume competition which I figured was only because they were twins. We stayed there for a little while then headed off.

Who's Bob was our next stop, which is one of the most popular foreigner bars in Daegu. (We went to some places between Sky and Who's Bob however I can't recall where...) This was the last place I remember well. I believe we got to the bar around 3am and ended up staying there till around 5am, at least I did. I got a little preoccupied with one of those twins I mentioned earlier and ended up chilling with her for awhile and when I finlay remembered to look for my friends they were no where to be seen. I began to worry at this point for several reasons...

1) I did not have my phone on me, allowing me to get in touch with them

2) I did not have any more cash on me. (Normally I would just go to an ATM however in Korea they close around 1am, I guess in order to keep Koreans from staying up all night and drinking)

and most importantly...

3) I did not have my keys on which means even if I could find money to take a taxi and get home I would not be able to open my door.

Its important to understand I had anticipated all of these things to happen, except running out of money, since I was wearing Jessie's small boxers which had two small as pockets I did not want to risk losing my keys and phone. Instead I chose to bring my wallet (which barley fit by itself) and my camera to record the night. At this point I tried not to panic but it was late I was dressed basically in only my sun tapestry and I my group of friends were no where to be seen. I could only reasons that I had 3 options at this point...

1) Put the mac game on and find some babe and go back to her place.

2)Go sleep at a Jin-Gu-Bong (which is a spa that has a dark room where you can pass out on the floor with other people).

3) Look around and hope I can either find my friends or someone who can help me get in touch with them

I unsuccessful tried option 1 and I really did not want to have to resort to option 2 I tried and find some people who could help me get in touch with some of my friends. There were only two people at the bar who I knew had the phone numbers of my friends so I went to them and hoped they could help me out. The first girl has Eben number but after several phone calls and text messages I figures either his phone was dead or he was passed out. She had no one else's number I knew so I went to the second girl. She had my friends Margo's number so I hoped she was still awake and could give me a place to crash for the night. Luckily I have good karma and she answered and told me I could pass out at her place for the night...Hallelujah!

I ended up garbing a taxi and head to her neighborhood and quickly fell asleep.

Stage 4 (The next morning):

-When I awoke I was felling quite drained, tired and I had a small headache. I realized quite

quickly that I was still in a bind because I my keys and phone were still at Richie's apartment

(which I did not know how to get to on my own) and Margo had an ultimate Frisbee match

so I had to leave as soon as I was awake. I borrowed her phone and called Eben and

prayed he would answer and thankfully he did and he told we to meet up with him at some

random intersection near Christina's apartment. Margo was able to lend me a shirt, which

belonged to her boyfriends and a pair of her soccer shorts. Visual reference- I was wearing a

small shirt and a pair of bright blue short shorts looking hung over and haggard. I then had to

find and ATM and get some cash out so I could get in a taxi and meet up with Eben. It took me

about 20 minutes to find an ATM to work because none of them would accept my Korean card.

Luckily I still had 15 dollars on my American one and I was able to get just enough cash to

take a taxi and meet up with Eben. It took me about 20 more minutes to hail a cab because for

some bullshit reasons their are no god damn cabs in C.G. When I finlay got in one I still had

one final problem to overcome. Eben told me the name of the intersection however the cabbie

could not understand me. After about 10 minuted of repeating the name and what I knew was

close to it he finally understood me. Thankfully Eben waited about an hour for me to overcome

all of these unanticipated obstacles and we were able to quickly get over to Richie and Jessie's

apartment which in our minds at this moment meant safety and an end to the craziness of

Halloween.

Quick Recap: I'm still not sure on everything that happened but it was an amazingly great and

stressful night. I think its all because I am one of the Unluckiest Lucky people in existence.

Pictures of my Apartment

Ice beers and staying up until Sunrise

For the past 5 weeks I have been felling great. Seemingly endless energy and the desire to not miss out on any fun situation that may present itself. However, on Thursday I got home form work and I began to fell a little under the weather. I did tno think much about but when I got up the next morning I felt absolutely awful.

Cultural Note: In Korea its always important to keep up your apperance and not appear weak.

Case in point even if you fell like shit unless you are can't get out of bed sick you are expected to work (in my contract it says I am allowed only small handful of sick days and if I use one I need a doctors note explaining and justifying my sickness, seems a little elementary schoolish doesn't it)

Regardless, I went to work and felt like crap all day but luckily it was a Friday which is my easy day where I only teach two 45 minute classes. I powered through the day and went home and passing out for the night almost immediately.

So, after losing a Friday night to sickness which was quite painful I awoke on Saturday morning to fell a little. My throat still hurt like hell but I wasn't cold and I didn't fell weak so that was an important noticeable improvement. I went to the pharmacy looking for some sort of painkilling spray for my throat but all they had were lifesaver looking drops which did little to help my situation. I began to fell better as the day went on and decided to go out downtown as long as I drank quite moderately not going overboard.

Here is how it went:

We started off by going to a sports bar which is mostly a Korean spot. We left rather quickly to a place called the Ice Bar which is exactly as it sounds. Its a pretty spacious and nice bar with quite comfortably seating (like most of Korea actually). For 3,500 won you get a large glass made out of ice which is placed in a small plastic casing so you have a handle on it. The fun thing about this place is not only will your beer always stay perfectly frosty when you finish your beer whats the only logical thing to go with it, I'll give you a hint they don't reuse them. The bartender gives you a glove and lets you throw your beer at a target area on the wall where if you hit it dead on it lights up the outside frame and similarly to the old game show called Press your Luck (Whammy!) and it goes around the frame eventually stooping on some prize (which is mostly more beer, although you can also win some sausages). However, I missed badly on my first attempt but my friend Chris was successful hitting the target but landed on the only Whammy! section which means no prize. The second round through I actually broke my ice glass by testing its strength to a hand squeeze, obviously not a smart decision seeing as its made of ice.

After we headed to another place called Who's Bob which is probably the bar I have been to most so far. Normally the place has alot of people but for some reason this Saturday its was absolutely packed with no room to even grab a table or a spot at the bar. However, I was not drinking that much so I decided to turn my attention to scoping out the situation of the bar. I noticed one of the most attractive foreigner girls I have seen so far, cute girl with dark hair and a great body. I decided I needed to make a move, especially after the previous weekends D.D. experience. I procrastinated on it for an hour or so until she approached me saying simply, "lets take a shot". I was in no mood to drink that much, even though at this point I was felling great and let alone buy her a drink but she was not expecting me to which was nice. I grabbed the bartender I knew (who hooked me up with a free shot the previous weekend) and we both took a shot of jagger than preceded to the dance floor. We danced for awhile although I think she was a little intimidated of my well documented and known dancing skills and we ended up taking another shot however right after finishing them her dude friend approached me and told me she has a boyfriend and that she was a massive cock-tease. Now I was not happy to hear this so I just bounced out and started hanging out with my friends again and we left the place soon after.

We went to one more bar, although I was done drinking at this point felling buzzed but not wanting to test my bodies limit after just being sick. We meet up with our friends Mitch and Margo who just got back from a weeding who themselves felt quite tipsy. Whille at Go Go Vinyl I meet up with this guy Andrew who I met the previous week at Who's Bob. Hes a cool guy and introduced me to one of the funniest guys I have met in Daegu named Stewart. Stewart is a hilarious Scotsman who at one point was fed up with my buddy Eben using the word money as an adjective descrbing things and started giving him shit for whille we were walking on the streets, telling all the Koreans how 'money' Eben was. The night after that was not that eventful but we did not get home until right before sunrise at around 6am. I woke up the next morning felling surprising perfect and with no sore throat. So, I guess fate was telling me that the cure to a sore throat is moderate drinking I suppose...

Chuseok

In Korea Chuseok is the biggest holiday of the year, think of Christmas combined with Thanksgiving. It's a three day celebration so I was excited to have a few days off to relax. Unfortunately, this Chuseok was on Friday, Saturday and Sunday which means I only got one additional day off of work. My brother headed down from Suwon to visit me in Daegu so we could have are own thanksgiving celebration.

Thursday:

-I was planing on relaxing at the house and not go out drinking on Thursday night however it was one of my friends birthdays, Lauren, so Eben and I headed downtown from Soo-Sung-gu. It was a fun eventful night just playing foosball and drinking at the bar Who's Bob, especially watching the antics of few amazing entertain people. Lets just call these people Thunder Thighs and Jesus. I drank a few beers and started talking to some random foreigner from the States. I continued to drink and hang out with my friends until we decided it was time for a change of scenery leaving for a pretty cool bar whos name escapes me right now. Anyway it was not crowded there but the bartender would put on any song you wanted and was rather friendly and hooked me up with a free shot of jagger. The girl from the other bar who I meet came along with use and lets just call her D.D. So, I am felling rather buzzed at this point and decided I need to put on the A-Game and hit on this girl. She is felling it so we bounce on our buddies and we head to some random but amazing Korean (not foreigner) club that I had not been to before being lead there by a group of random korean babes. We dance there for awhile and then we head back to D.D.'s place which just so happened to be a 5-10 minute walk from Rodeo street (downtown). I spare everyone the details but lets just say I wake up with a massive hangover at 12pm and begin to regret my drunk decision for several reasons the first being blue balls and the second I found her rather annoying which latter uncovering she is a sorority girl so I'm not that surprised. Luckily she does not have a phone so I just bounce and realize my brother is supposed to be getting in to Daegu any minute now...

Friday:

My brother and I meet up outside of Donga department store which is the largest 'road-sign' near my apartment. David and I just relax all day walking around the city and I took him to my favorite sam-gip-sal restaurant (korean BBQ). When night comes around all my friends decide to go to the university area but david and I are already downtown so we just do the solo mission. We start off at this all korean sports bar and then he tells me he wants to go to a club so I take him to the largest one in Daegu called Club Frog. It was ridiculously packed with foreigners, mainly military guys who that night were pissing me off to no avail. Who ends up walking into the club right when were on our way out but the girl from last night D.D. I really did not want to run into at this point so we exchanged pleasantries and we quickly left. After some soju David and I went back to the club to get Davids jacket before we headed back to my apartment. After an eventful trip back to my apartment to say the least we passed out for the night.

Saturday:

I woke up felling refreshed for Chuseok day after an interesting past two night. David and I spend the day relaxing watching Korean Trot (horrible Korean Karaoke) which is extremely popular on Chuseok and walking around town. That night we decide to have a group dinner at my buddy Eben house where we cooked good pasta and burritos (thank god I brought tortillas from the states). Chris, Eben my brother and myself all decided to then go downtown and I honestly don't have a good memory for the proceedings that occurred there. I do remember waking up and my apartment was a mess with a disturbing smell. I said a happy and sad goodbye to my brother and I cleaned up my place and just relaxed after a long yet amazing 2 day weekend. For everyones information my house is back in order after a couple hours of cleaning and that smell is gone thank god.

Daegu Rock Concert aka Yu Festival

Daegu is commonly known throughout Korea as the "conservative town" of Korea, where people are supposedly more traditional and religious. However, after last weekend this stereotype for me was completely discredited....

First off..... on Friday night I finished off work not expecting to go out or do anything that interesting. However, it was one of my friends Chris's last days of work so celebratory drinking was in order and I could not miss out on such an occasion. I left Suesong-gu (my district of town) with my biddy Evan and we took a short taxi ride to this bar called The Hut which I think I might have wrote about earlier, where it fells like your in a treehouse but with alcohol of course. When we arrived there was maybe a 5 people there, 4 foreigners and one pretty cute korean girl named Flora who was worked at one the foreigners Hogwons. After about an hour our group had tripled in size and we began drinking a rather large amount of mekju (beer), soju and makhali. Makhali or Dong-dong-ju is a popular drink in Korea is (spelling is most likely wrong) which is a frosty rice wine that is milky in color but has the alcohol content of a beer and is served in a large bowl. Our table had about 6 people and we had at least 4 maybe more bowls of this stuff and a few pitches pf mekju and (luckily) only one bottle of soju, by the time I left the other table with Chris had about 5 empty bottles of soju. The night became quite interesting when this Korean girl Flora or who was shy began drinking a surprisingly large amount of alcohol.

Cultural Side-Note: Korea has a strong drinking culture similarly to Ukraine just not on the street and not vodka. However, it is only the men who drink a shit load normally so although it is not umcomon to see a korean guy at 2 am on the side of the street laying down drunk out of his mind, it is not common to see korean women drink alot. It os not rude to get drunk in front of a korean woman, they will continue to fill up your cup all night but they do not drink much at all in comparison to their male counterpart.

Different note but it is also common in Korea to have bells or a buzzer at your table which tells the waitress you need something, where they are arrive at your table within one minute. We need this in America badly and you don't have to tip what an amazing country

and I don't even have to mention service (if you forgot it means free shit).

Back to the story so she was keeping up drinking as much as myself and the rest of the foreigners at the table so understandable she was getting rather drunk and became more open, talkative and flirtatious. It was my first time being around a drunk Korean girl and she was hilarious and progressively went from buzzed to drunk. However the real highlight of the night was at some point in the night someone asked the waitress to put on the celebration song which is a 2 minute long english song with basically 6 words. At this point a fair number of makhali bowls, mekju pitches and soju bottles had been consumed by our group and Chris preceded to get on top of the table and start dancing to the song (for a visual reference imagine that I can barley stand up straight in this place as it is...)

Saturday Night:

-After walking up with a little hangover (luckily not anywhere to as bad as the previous weekend of soju hell hangover) I relaxed until around 9pm where I had expected another round of Rodeo St. (downtown) but instead something spectacular happened. I was thinking about meeting up with this random foreigner girl who hit me up on facebook who seemed to be cute and fun gave me a call inviting me to her friends place for a an Indian dinner which did sounds amazing but by passing on this opportunity I was able to experience something amazing. Eben (I just remembered his name is not spelled Evan...sorry man) gave me a call and told me about a concert that was happening at some university in Daegu with free admission. So, we grabbed some dinner and meet up with a couple of people and took a taxi across town. After a not so great long taxi ride we arrived at the University and we began to follow the music. We first thought the music was coming from the stadium so we went in to find no one and the music seemed to be farther away. So we went around the outside of the stadium and found and outdoor theater which is where the concert was at. It was free to get in and I did not find this out until latter but the concert had been going on since 2pm, we arrived at 11pm. The place had maybe 300-600 people in attendance with Koreans dunk everywhere, music barring and an impressive set of lights which seemed to have been stolen from a daft punk rave. However, we stayed there for 3 hours until it ended and I was more than satisfied with the bands performance, we became an intricate part of the entire event. To start with the first band was a cool ska band with the full works.... trombone, saxophone, drummer, bassist, lead guitar and lead singer who also played the trumpet. They were probably we favorite band in terms of just music but each band has its own special talent. The second band was a more pop rock band where the lead singer was wearing pants that were so tight that when he did a massive jump kick to start his band performance I was utterly in shock and impressed. As an added bonus he also did some Michael Jackson ball grabbing dance moves then preceding to hump the speakers for a respectable 10 seconds. The last people were a hard rock almost metalish band where the lead singer immediately ripped off his shirt and started pounding a soju bottle then pouring a new bottle over his body... at this point I knew this guy was not fucking around. After his first song was over he pointed at our group siting down and they pointed the spotlight on us and told us in English we needed to "To come down from the seats and go FUCKING CRAZY". We replied in the only sane matter we first chugged our pitcher sized personal mekjus. left our seats and went down to the stage area. The night starts to become a little hazy at this point but I remember soju being thrown everywhere, a fire hose being shot into the crowd and our friend Margo running around with a bottle of soju and pouring some into all out mouths to ensure we were appropriately smashed for this occasion. I also remember the lead singer calling us out again saying we needed to drink more I think and then things went a little black for me. All in all the concert was fan-fucking-tastic and I really hope that I have more opportunities to see some live music in Daegu... the conservative town my ass...

The Power of Soju and Video Golf

Before I can begin to talk about my last weekend it is important to give everyone who does not already know about this remarkably evil drink known as Soju a brief introduction. first off it is a normally potato or rice based wine drink but yet it is far more similar to a hard alcohol than it is to any sort of wine. It comes in a small bottle which costs around 1,000 won (1$) and is quite literally cheaper than water. Regarding its taste, think of a smooth vodka taste with a gin sort of smell and is normally around 20% alcohol. Now we can discuss last weekend....

After getting off of work at 9 on Friday I was thinking about going downtown but decided instead to just relax which in retrospect was probably a very wise decision. Saturday I just relaxed at my apartment watching some downloaded TV until I met up with my friend Evan for a little late lunch around 4. We decided to have a little taste of home so he took me to a place called Gorilla Burger which is a surprisingly amazing burger, even though it is messy but I fell a good burger is supposed to be. I bought some sort of bacon jalapeño burger with a big thing if fries and a Hogarden beer so I was spending a good deal of money for lunch.

After lunch we met up with one of Evan's friends Chris who is about to leave Korea actually just finishing up his last bit of teaching this week. We decided that we still had a couple of hours to kill until heading downtown so we each bought 2 beers and a bottle of soju for the group and went tot he lake for a little bit of public drinking and classic Korean people watching, who are hilarious human beings if your a little buzzed and actually paying attention. So, we drank our beers and kicked it at the lake edge for awhille listening to the most unbelievable annoying music (think of an amazing horrible slow romantic jazz almost) the entire time, which was at least 2-3 hours. So, while there there was alot of people all around but notably there were too older Korean guys who had a little stand selling random stuff but were getting quite drunk on soju. After unmercifully offering one of the guys some of our soju one of the guys started to dance by himself and seeing that we had polished off our bottle he proceeded to juggle the bottle in the air while dancing, This continued for some time until both of these older gents approached Evan and I trying to do that 'steal your nose game' that you play with kids which we were not quite sure how to take. They eventually gave us a pack of cigarettes and a bag of basically puffed starch balls with food coloring and we said our goodbyes.

After this random yet amazing experience we decided it was time to eat more and facilitate our buzz some more with more mekju (beer) and soju. Before heading over to Evan's apartment I needed to grab a sweatshirt and unfortunately I had the amazingly stupid idea that I was not yet drunk enough for 8 pm so I pounded half a bottle of soju to myself before heading out to Evan's (HUGE MISTAKE). Once there Chris Evan and I ordered a pizza and began drinking more mekju and soju which I found out I was really not prepared for ( I do have an uneasy feeling that I asked Chris to buy soju before he headed over which would not surprise me, yet I hope is not true for several reasons....) Regardless, I noticed myself quickly go from buzzed loving life to..... WHAT THE FUCK JUST HAPPENED TO ME, I became instantly shitfaced barley able to speak let alone go downtown. However we left shortly thereafter and all I remember about the drive is nausea and darkness, Evan and Chris thought I was passing out. When we arrived I instantly rid my body of that amazing pizza right in front of the main strip downtown with at least 60 people around. The funny thing is I was told latter that I was trying my hardest to play it off smooth by yacking then walking away then yacking again. Luckily this horrible situation also was the only reason I survived that night, Evan bought we an energy water and we continued to the bar. We arrived at Who's Bob although I did not find this out until the next day. Once in the bar I made it a point to not drink for quite some time, at least an hour maybe more. I began to fell revived although still sluggish and I met a number of people and played some foosball. We stayed at this bar for at least 4 hours even though it seemed like maybe an hour for me. Afterwards it was quite late and we needed a little late night upper.

Walking down the street we made our way to Mickie D's but before we arrived there for some still unknown reason Evan and Christina decided to steal some Korean guys bike from him and go for a joyride for awhile. Not as drunk anymore I was somewhat shocked to see that this Korean guy was not upset in the slightest and seemed to enjoy this random happenstance, at least until they repeatedly crashed the bike so I ran to help them by giving them a push start. After who knows how long we went into Mc D's but to my massive resentment as we walkded in they just finished serving dinner and now I was forced to get breakfast (now it is important to remember I had been running on empty since we arrived there and all I had in my system was 2 mekjus and a energy water). I conceded after unsuccessful trying to convince her and ordering breakfast resentfully. After eating we got into a cab and I passed out withing 3 seconds of entering my apartment..

Sunday:

I woke up on sunday with a MONSTER HANGOVER the likes of which I had not experienced since I drank Zombies and smoked Samboku in Ukraine last summer. It was only at this moment that I truly respected the power of soju and its ability to not only get you drunk but kick you in the ass the next morning. It took me a solid 4-6 hours to fully get over my hangover and Evan gave me a call and told me we had a 7pm tees time for Video Golf which I had completely forgotten we agreed upon the previous night. To begin with it costs about 20$ to play around which includes everyone and they sell mekju, soju and will order you whatever kind of food you want to its safe to say they take care quite well. However, I was very surprised to find out just how amazing video golf was in reality. To begin with picture a fairly large room with a couch and a large coffee table, think of a small private theater room. Basically, they have all the clubs (albeit korean size which means small if I need to spell it out) you shoot your golf ball into the screen and it accurately predicts where your shot would have gone. The place is very nice with a shooting area that actual tilts to fit into where your ball drops on the golf course. I have not played a full round of gold in at least 4 years e so I defiantly got my ass throughly kicked but the experience was worth it a thousand fold and I believe this will become a normal thing on Sunday now. Chris and Evan even have a trophy which if you decided to challenge the trophy holder (Chris) they take it rather seriously and no mull again are accepted. In all it was a perfect way to end a rough yet amazing weekend round 2 in Daegu South Korea.

10 Days in.... and the Report = Rockin!

Oh Yeah.... I'm finnaly starting to get a fell for this country...

Teaching:

First thing is first, before I start ranting about my job I need to say that I work at the Junior Korean Herald which is affiliated with one of the largest magazines in the country the Korean Herald. Another important point to stress is that my boss is amazing. He is really nice and has bought me food a number of times so far as well as personally driving me to E-Mart (think of a Korean Walmart) and helped me find alot of food for my house.

I'm about to finish up my first week of teaching and it has been mostly a positive experience... with a few unanticipated hiccups. I work at a small Hogwon (private school) where there are 0 thats right no other foreigner teachers and only 5 teachers totally counting my director who teaches which quite strange in most circumstances. I have quickly learned that work at very weird school in Daegu. First off, 80% of my classes are an hour and a half long where the majority of teachers teach 45 minute classes only. Secondly, I teach all levels of english from phonics to advanced TEOFL classes which means I teach conversation, writing, and reading comprehension, and I teach all age groups. My most basic class is 4 students (my largest class by the way which is strange enough) who are between 9-13 of age which is my 45 minute class. Then I teach a more advanced conversation class but they are still young kids and thats class only has 2 students. Then I teach beginner TEOFL to a young chubby girl who hates to work and study and play with her phone all the time (Why the hell do kids need cell phones! that I will never understand that but anyways...) and reads her anime books, this is one of my HELL classes. I also teach her sister who is older and much more well behaved but a little shy, under normal circumstances this class would not be that bad but the thing is its a 3 hour one on one TOEFL class, ya you read that write 3 hours one student ( Which is HELL class number two) The funny thing is that these 2 girls are sisters which I guess only makes sense. My easier classes are my adult classes, one of which is a advanced TEOFL class with one 21 year old student but he actually wants to work so its a good class. The other is an adult conversation class with two 40+ year old women (called ajimas) and they aren't very good speakers but they want to be in my class and they like me so all is good there.

Now here is another important distinction between my school and many others... I work 1-9 monday thru friday even though I don't teach for all those hours. From what I have heard and from the people I have meet so far most of them can leave their school when they finish class but mine wont let me. On my first day I finished teaching my classes at 6 and went to leave but first said goodbye to my boss who replied where the hell do you think your going.... I replied I am done with all of my class correct? He said Yes but I signed a contract that says I work from 1-9 regardless if I have am actually teaching. It sucks but its not that bad because I just bring a book or my labtop and I just chill in my classroom for the rest of the day either working on my lesson plans fir the next day or just relaxin (which is exactly what I'm doing now as I write this, I still have about one hour and 45 minuted until I can leave...)

Life Outside of Working (aka. the good shit):

Ok now since were done with a report on teaching we can move on to some of the more interesting bits of my life in Korea up to this point. I have met only a handful of foreigners up to this point, the first 3 were missionaries so I politely said hello and was done with that. Lets go back first....

Saturday, September 12:

This was my first weekend in Korea and I had not met anyone up to this point who would head downtown with me to the bars so I made the only decision possible and decided this was a perfect opportunity for a solo mission seeing it as a 'scouting night' of Daegu nightlife. In Daegu there is one real downtown bar/foreigner area to party where everyone goes and its called Rodeo St (its not just one street though). So, I grabbed a taxi after writing down (what I believed to be) rodeo st in Hangul letters. After a 10 minute ride he drops me off and I begin to walk around aimlessly trying to find a cool bar or some foreigners. After about 20-30 minutes of walking around this area I knew something was wrong.

1st- There were no foreigners what so ever around and this was supposed to be were everyone goes, especially on a Saturday night!

2nd- I had seen only one bar so far and it had 3 people total inside at 10:30 at night...

I decided to just get a ride back to my apartment (My boss had written down my address in Hangul so I knew that it was correct) but before leaving I decided to get some food so I went in to this burger joint called Crazy Burger. Crazy Burger was what turned my night from a complete dud into an good night. I walked in and ordered a spicy burger with jalapenos which was surprisingly damn good but I noticed that there were computers with Internet in this place (still seems strange to me) so I got on one and decided to see if I really did write down the wrong address. I quickly founf out that this was the case so I found the correct address and copied it down in Hangul and decided I can't end my night like this. I flagged down a taxi and after 10 minutes I had Finlay to Rodeo st.

Once I got out of the taxi I knew I was in the right place. I saw a shit load of foreigners instantly not to mention a shit load of people period (the exact opposite of the last place I was at). I then preceded to find a cool bar but before I did this I noticed that it was literally raining bubbles. There was some sort of bubble machine at the top of one of these buildings so bubbles were flying all around the entrance to the Rodeo area. I walked around fir maybe 15-20 minutes just observing everything until I decided I needed a beer. I went to some sort of sports bar which was exclusively filled with koreans, I was literally the only foreigner in this bar and I was by myself which is odd to be drinking by yourself in Korea at a bar. I stayed there for 30 minutes or so and decided to move on, I saw a group of cute girls walk into some place called Club Frog which I latter found out was one of the biggest and most crowded clubs in all of Daegu. The place was 4 stories tall, after paying a 5,000 won (about $4) cover charge I went in to what seemed to be a staging room with lockers and couches to smoke and lounge on. I preceded to the back room where it was a super packed large dance floor with a cool DJ but way to packed. I left and went upstairs to another part of the bar and bought a Cass (one of the most popular Korean beers) and just explored all the floors which were all connected to the main room so you could look over the dance floor besides the top floor which is the roof. I stayed here for maybe 20-30 minutes and decided it was time to call it a night, I think it was about 1:40 by this time. I then just grabbed a taxi and headed home....

In short: I would say it was a good eventfully first night out in Daegu

Wednesday Spetember, 16:

-yesterday was by far the best day i have had in Korea so far. After getting off at work at 9 I started walking back to my house expecting a quiet night, eating some Korean ramen (amazing by the way) and watching a movie. But on the way home I started up a conversation with a random western guy I saw walking the same direction as me. His name is Evan and after talking for 10 minutes he invited me to join him and some of his friends for a little Sam-Gip-Sal (Korean BBQ which I had been trying to convince my boss to take me but he believes its fatting which I would have to disagree with). First off Korean BBQ you all sit around a table with a small grill in front of you, they bring in an assortment of things besides pork and bacon, mushrooms, kimchi (of course), garlic, some sort of egg soup and some other things to dip your food into. So, they bring you all the meat uncooked and you cook it yourself on your grill along with any sides. Once cooked you places your grilled amaziness in a leaf and enjoy.

Cultural Side Note:

It is important to understand that when you go out in a group of foreigners to a random resturant or bar 'Service' is quite common. Service is basically what Koreans call it when they give you free shit. This is a common occurence and practice and one of the coolest percs for being a foeigner in Korea. At the resturant we received Service pork and sodas. anyways...

At dinner I met some other foreigners, 2 British girls, and 2 Canadian girls who were all English teachers at a different schools around Daegu. After dinner we decided to head to a bar right down the road which from the inside looked like a treefort. We grabbed a table and we ordered some maekali which is creamy rice wine drink which tastes almost milky but its alcoholic of course. We stayed here for about an hour or so until we finished drinking about 2 big bowls of this stuff then we said goodbye to the girls we meet and decided it was to early to end are night.

Evan and I then headed downtown to Rodeo st. where we went to a bar called Bar AU. We went here because one of evans friends was this cute korean girl who just started to work at this place. We bought 2 beers a piece and 1 long island as we talked to his friend who speaks surprisingly good english , almost as good as some of my korean coworker teachers at my school. After spending about 2 hours here and around 50,000 won (around $42) we deiced to head back home and by this time it was about 3:30 am. The next morning I woke up with a slight hangover ( I think from the maekali...) but after eating breakfast and taking a couple pain killers I felt fine and left to start teaching again.

Well that entry was went on much longer than I anticipated and I only have 45 minutes left until I'm done with work!not sure If I should go home or meet up with a different group of foreigners who I am supposed to meet up with and grab some food we will have to see....I'll let everyone know soon...

Day 1: Very long...

I am now offically living in South Korea, are you excited? Because I definatly am! However, the journey over here was anything but easy. In the past 30 hours I have slept maybe 3-4 hours, I always seem to have a hard time falling asleep on planes with my tall ass. The flight in general was not that bad, only about a 13 hours to get from LAX to Incheon (Seoul) airport. Once there I had a short one hour flight to Busan and once there I met up with some random Korean guy who drove me up north for 2 hours to Deagu, without speaking a word of english which was a littloe ackward.

A Little geography lesson:

Daegu is the thrid largest city in Korea located in middle of the country. It is in a basin flanked by mountains on all sides which I heard traps in the heat in the summer and cold in the winter, making it normally one of the worst places in Korea in terms of temperature and humidity. (Koreans in general seem to be very proud that they have all four seasons, unlike the one season of 'sunny' that I have become accutomed to in Santa Barbara )However, after arriving today in Daegu I found the weather to be rather temperant and nice, my coworker assured me this was a rare occasion...

Once in Daegu I was tired and hungry but I driven straight to my school where I met my director who is a nice man and a few of my co-teachers only one of whom actually speak near fluent english. They were nice and bought me lunch at a really tasty Korean buffet and then I was taken to get a korean bank account at Hana Bank. So, now I have a korean debt card which only works in Korea but its convenient, allowing me to to walk around without carrying a lot of cash. They then took me to my new apartment which is about a 10-15 minute walk from my school (which is called Junior Hearld english by the way). The apartment is small but comfortable and cozy. I have a refridgerator, small stove, TV, Internet, and shower basically all the essentials. The only thing I really wish I had was a coffee machine but I can probably just buy one at some point (I brought 2 pounds of my favorite coffee from Auburn, Oh Yeah!).

After this, I immediately took a short nap, and I have the feeling its going to take me at least 1-2 weeks to get over my jetlag. Tomorrow I am supposed to get my medical check and I think my boss is setting up my Korean phone as well so things are looking good. It is a little lonely at this point, only talking in depth with one person so far who is older than me and speaks Korean so I need to meet some expats soon and start establishing my Korean friend base.

Well I think I am going to watch some Korean TV and try to stay up for at least another couple of hours so I can try and fall asleep at a normal time and wake up on time to go take care of some things with my boss tomorrow...

Preparation for a new life

Ok the time has come. I have been talking about this moment for awhile now and I can't believe I am on the verge of moving to South Korea for a year. I have traveled around to quite a few places but I have always had the comfort of knowing that I am only a visitor to these places, now I will become a resident. I must say talking about this now I am am realizing I am not scared or worried, but rather I only have a deep sense of anxiousness...

It is about 3pm right now and I don't fly out until 7pm so I have a feeling this is going to be a long couple of hours. I am flying out of Sacramento heading to San Fransisco, only an hour flight. Then I have a 4 hour layover until I fly out to Incheon which is the major International airport in Seoul South Korea. Then I have 2 hour layover in Incheon then I get on my final plane which takes me to Busan which is the major city in the southern part of the country. I will be picked up by some random Korean guy who does not speak English and we have a 1-2 hour drive to get into Daegu. In total it will take we about 22 hours of actually flight time, at least 6 hours of layover time and 2 hours of driving so in total about 30 hours... damn

OK its time to do some final preparations and start the beginning of a new chapter in my life... I can't fucking wait!