I'm Back from Japan

I've had such a good time so far that I've failed to mention a few things about Korea. This country isn't so much into the save the earth thing. The people are pretty clean. They don't have bad body odor. The streets and the air are pretty filthy though. With everyday being something new for me over here, I've been able to overlook some things like that.

Well, I went to Japan and it is georgeous. Clean air, blue skies and clean streets. It made me realize how dirty Korea is. I'm trying to explain the non-littering campaign Texas had (Don't Mess With Texas) to some of my Korean friends. It doesn't seem to be a big deal to them. On somedays, the smog blocks out the sun! I've got friends that are talking about coming to visit me later this year. This might change their minds. Most people wouldn't consider flying to the other side of the planet to visit a widely polluted country. I'll get out to a rural area soon. Maybe I'll be able to see the clean part of the country. I miss the stars a lot. But other than environmental and communication issues, I'm still enjoying this experience.

More about Japan. I landed there on Sunday when the earthquake occurred. There were over 200 aftershocks. They were very mild where I was. I was fortunate to be farther south than the center of the quakes. I went to the zoo and botanical gardens while I was there. It's a completely different experience when you are on the other side of the planet. My eyes stayed wide open. Great experience. My hotel room was a little bigger than a coffin. It had a comfortable bed though. The bathtub was 3 feet wide by 3 feet long by 3 feet deep. Use your imagination people! Then again don't. It was so ridiculous that I was laughing hard enough for my neighbors to hear. The airport security took my deodorant. I tried to explain to the poor girl, that it wouldn't be polite to the people of Japan to deprive me of my deodorant. She didn't understand me though. Moments later, I was frisked. It tickled a little, so I laughed. All they could say was, "domo." They finally realized that I wasn't a security threat. To make a long story shorter, I got my visa finally. So now I wait for my alien card. Then I'll be able to have things like a phone and my own internet connection. Until then, I'll keep on coming at you from the friendly confines of my Chunghak-dong Yeonsu-gu PC cafe. Later.

What a day!

Well I got up at about 9am on this St.Paddy's Day. I went to meet some friends outside the local department store. We then hoofed it about 20 minutes to the subway station and rode to Seoul.
We got to Seoul and went to the St.Patrick's Day Parade & Festival. I was a little worried about people being drunk in the streets, but it went off without a hitch. It was a really good time. I had a blast. Seoul has a population somewhere in between 12 and 20 million, so it was quite a sight. Afterwards, we got on the subway and rode to Dongdaemun to do a little shopping. Good stuff, real cheap. Well we got there and got off the subway just to run into an anti-American/anti-war protest. It was starting to get out of hand when we were just getting out of there. There were hundreds of police in riot formations at every corner. They were brought to the site in prison buses. Well we milled around for a few minutes and took some pictures, but we got out of there pretty fast. We did a little shopping and then climbed Mt.Numsan to watch the sunset. I'm so out of shape. I was so tired. I'm still tired. The people I went with are all in shape and all of them are pretty beat. It was a good climb, probably about 3,000 feet and that was after a full day of walking through a festival, parade, political protest and narrow-streeted shopping streets. Fun and eventful day, huh? I'm glad I'm off work tomorrow because I'll need it to recover. But after these new experiences, surprises and a great view and sunset, I find that it was all worth it. I took bunches of pics, so I'm gonna try to send a bunch to a "select" few by e-mail. Well, time to rest before the next big day comes. Later.

Going to Japan!

Hey all. I'm kind of buried in my work right now. It's the beginning of the semester over here and I'm new so...I'm learning on the fly. They do things pretty different over here.

I'm going to Fukuoka, Japan on Thursday, March 22nd. I'll be there for 2 or 3 days. While I'm there I'll be picking up my full one year Korean E-2 work visa. I hope to do a little sight seeing while I'm there. I'm not really talking about the trip to my Korean friends because the Korean and Japanese people are not really fond of each other. Just the mention of kareoke infuriated one of my teenage students. She quickly informed me that kareoke is Japanese and should not be spoken of in Korea. So I'm trying to keep the peace here. I just refer to them as singing rooms or "Norae-bangs."

This past weekend I'd planned on going to Seoul, but it just didn't pan out. It was my new friend Lucy's birthday and we went out Friday night and had a good time. Lucy is from Manchester, England. Also there, was Ben from Auckland, New Zealand and Richard from New York. And I can't leave out Rod from New Foundland, Canada and Rob also from Manchester, England. We had a great time checking out Incheon on a Friday night. On Saturday, I experienced Korean cinema for the first time. Just buying the ticket was an experience. The girl at the ticket counter had a small notebook with English expressions that she wanted to try out on me. Sunday afternoon, Ben and I took about an hour hike through Incheon that we hadn't seen yet.

I'm in between classes right now. My next one starts in less than five minutes, so I'll check back with you later. Bye for now.

It's Cold!!

Here it is already a week into March and it's still cold. It just took a really cold turn here yesterday. 18 degrees with a wind chill of 4 degrees and snow! You know, in Texas, if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes and it'll change. I don't ever remember it being like this in Texas during March. It's a good thing I'm a polar bear!

Korea in General

The kids are great! They are so adorable. They are totally enamored with my bald head. One 8 year old girl innocently asked me if I was related to Buddha. I laughed pretty hard. I teach 5 honors elementary school courses and 1 middle school course on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. I teach 5 honors elementary school courses and one Advanced Placement course on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I'm convinced the kids are brilliant. I can't imagine having a firm grasp on two languages at that young of an age. My youngest kids are 7 and 8 years old and we have grammatically sound conversations. They like my accent too. It seems that a large number of the teachers around here have British, Austrailian, New Zealand, Irish, Canadian or Northern U.S. accents.

For those who haven't experienced Kimchi, it is spicy. Really spicy. I leave it at that. Korea does serve great fried pork, rice and noodles. The majority of Korean food is very spicy though. I'm eating pretty well and I'm getting plenty of exercise here. I live almost a mile away from the school I'm teaching at. I walk both ways. I walk to the grocery store. I walk to the PC cafe. I walk to the NoraeBang (similar to karaoke, it's huge in Korea). It's not too bad. I'm hardly ever alone though. The other English speaking teachers at my school are always around. Richard from Massachusetts lives next door, Ben from New Zealand lives directly underneath my apartment and Rod from NewFoundland lives right down the street. I've been here 5 days and I've already lost 10 pounds.

My apartment is on the 4th floor and I have no elevator. It's amazing what we become so accustomed to and dependent on in the States. I just pretend that I'm climbing the cellblock stairs at the 4 story Coffield Unit. It's not really that big of a deal. I'm already getting used to it.

I'm probably going to venture into Seoul this weekend to check out the sights. I've already got a willing tour guide. I'm sure it'll be great. Keep checking back, I'll keep feeding you the info. Bye.

Jetlag bites!

It really does. I got a good night sleep on my first night. I got up feeling good. A couple of hours later, I was dragging. I got to sleep at around 9:00pm. I woke up at like 2:00am, wide awake. I went back to sleep at 6:00am and woke up to the sound of my neighbor knocking on my door at about 9:30am. We went to Lotte something. It's the Korean equivalent of Wal-Mart. Interesting experience. We got some groceries and walked around for awhile. I've never felt so lost in my life, but the people are accomodating enough. So, I went back to my apartment and went back to sleep at about 2:00pm and woke up again to the sound of my neighbor knocking on my door at about 6:00pm. So now, I'm sitting here talking to all of you from the friendly confines of a local PC cafe. That really doesn't narrow it down, because there is one on every other corner here. So to sum it up, I'm about ready to go back to sleep again. Jetlag ain't no joke!

I'm here....

Wow! Talk about cutting it close. I was up till about 3:30am yesterday morning on the internet. My recruiter was trying to find out why my flight info had not been forwarded to me yet. Well, I was getting tired. I just assumed it would be in another day or two. So I went to bed. Less than an hour later, my recruiter was on the phone asking me if I could be at D/FW Airport by 5:30am with all my luggage ready to go. Well, I went into my parent's bedroom in a loud voice shouting, "Get up, Get up, I've got to go to Korea!" Well my dad, God Bless Him, got up in a rush and helped me get ready. We were at United Airlines terminal by 5:20am. I was on my flight to Chicago and landed at 9:55am. I had a two hour layover and then got on Korean Air en route to Incheon. Well, we were stuck on the tarmaq for about an hour and a half before we actually took off. The seats on United Airlines were alright. I didn't have a passenger next to me, so I had some room to move around. You know, a fat man needs a little breathing room. Well, on Korean Air, I had to wedge my wide posterior into the seat. Next to me was a young Vietnamese mother with her 21 month old daughter. The little girl was adorable, but she loved to kick and scream. Needless to say, I didn't get my sleep on the plane. Well, upon my arrival to Incheon, my ride from the school I'll be working at immediately walked up to me and introduced himself. I then realized that he new me because I'm one of the few large, bald, white men at a Korean airport. Anyway, he was a good dude. Real nice. He immediately grabbed my bags and we got on a bus. We rode the bus for a little over an hour before we got to our stop. We got the bags of the bus and walked another 5 minutes before arriving at the school I'll be teaching at. I was immediately introduced to the whole teaching crew. They seem like good people too. I hung out with them for a couple of hours in the teacher's workroom and my new boss dropped me off at a hotel. My apartment won't be ready till tomorrow. So the view from my hotel room is bright! Bright like Las Vegas, bright! I'll take pics. So, I haven't slept in about 48 hours and now I'm jetlagged to boot. But I'm happy to have that flight out of the way. Stay tuned! I'll have more for you later.