Happy Birthday~ To Me!

I've got some great friends here in Gwangju! More than 20 of them came to my birthday BBQ Saturday evening on Kenny's roof. Everyone brought their own meat as well as a dish to pass- I even got some cute presents!

The weather was great- warm and sunny, perfect for summertime dresses! Here are some of the girls. It's hard to tell, but the theme was hats.



Here's Kenny and I!



And after we got the grill heated up, I snapped this picture of the guys. I didn't choose the "prom-style" pose though!



We had a lot of food and it went quickly! Everyone still loves my cheese ball (I think I've taken it to 4 different potlucks), and it was one of the first things to go. We also had pico de galo, guacamole, potato salad, spinach salad, strawberries, and orange jello. Ann was really sweet and made me an extra large jello shot with half a bottle of Smirnoff in the shape of a baby. It was pretty funny!



It was a great party and I was so happy everyone came! Thanks to all my friends!

Gwangju International Day

Gwangju International Fest also took place in October. It seemed like everyone who was in town that weekend, October 9th, was there! It was a great time.

It seemed to be a few things combined- an international festival, a food fair, and concerts/performances, all at the Kim Dae Jung Convention Center in Gwangju. Kenny and I went for a few reasons, primarily because The Deserts were playing again, and to get some non-Korean food, which we'd both been craving. We also had amazing weather, which made it such an enjoyable day.

There were many booths set up outside the convention center, all with different foods from around the world. The booths were Greece, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Nepal, North America, Philippines, Russia, Japan, Nigeria, and Sri Lanka, just to name a few. There must have been 20 different booths and they all had amazing food. Kenny and I had a great time eating our way down the row.



Inside the convention center were many different food booths promoting various things- beer, pumpkin ramen noodles, ice cream, etc. The highlight inside was the baking contest. Middle and High School students competed for prizes, similar to a 4-H show. However, these students took it to the extreme! I was so surprised to see all the sugar, chocolate, and bread sculptures that kids younger than me had created!







Finally, the Deserts gave a performance with a new sound. I'm not too sure how happy they were with their performance.



It was such a great time, I'm so happy we went!

Budget Meeting at Gio's

Tonight we had our English teachers budget meeting at Gio's Italian Restaurant in Suwan. The best part of the meal was by far the fresh mozarella salad! We also had pizza that had what I'm pretty sure was a hunk of butter on top- ew!

We talked about the budget (mostly in Korean, so I'm not sure what all was said), and somebody said we should give out vitamins instead of candy for kids that came into the EOZ during lunch period. I'm not sure how seriously people took that, but Mihey wrote it down. The idea would be to say 5 things in English, then you'd get a Vitamic C pill. Those lucky kids, they'll all be lining up now, I can see it!

Here's the group of us. From left- Mihey, Youngran, Hyunjeong, Me, Jieun, Chiwon, and Ms. Jo. I share an office now with Hyunjeong, and Chiwon's personality reminds me of my Uncle Tim, which means he's great to joke around with. :)

Gwangju's Party of the Year

This past weekend, Alli, Emily, and I hosted a party. It wasn't just any party, it was THE party to be at. Everyone had a fantastic time!

We celebrated 3 birthdays, Brian's, Alli's, and Ann's. They all fall within a few days of each other. People here have been excited to have a party ever since our friends in Incheon threw a great party, so it was the perfect time.

We organized food, jello shots, decorations, drink specials, sparklers, and games. The party took place at Soul Train downtown, which was perfect because of the space. The bar is huge and there's plenty of room to stand and talk in. We told them a week ahead that there would be about 50 people, so they organized a drink special and a bottle juggling show.

Miguel showed up with a homemade beer bong, which everyone was very excited about. Brian got all 18 guys lined up to do one each and that was highly entertaining with Michael emceeing the event.

I tried to talk with everyone that showed up and made sure they were having a good time. I really hope everyone did. We had people from out of town (Busan, Ulsan, and Incheon) visiting and it was great to see them again.

Later on, the party moved to Project Beer where everyone continued to have a good time dancing to the 80's music there.

Lots of pictures were taken, here's just a few of them:









For even more, follow this link:
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=46814277&id=3612744#!/album.php?aid=2227957&id=59501140&ref=mf

Weekend Visitors

This weekend, I had two friends from Incheon come visit, Patrick and Evan. Our group of Brian, Emily, Alex, Alli, and I met them at the terminal Friday evening. We grabbed a drink at one of the terminal's bars, and headed to Sangmu for the night. We met up with Patrick's friend Jennifer and had some 소주 하고 맥주. Patrick played an outdoor arcade game, and won 4 giant lighters, which he has hopefully given to Joseph.

We played a fun game with chopsticks late Friday night. Each person gets one. Someone says a sentence like "Most likely to... wear velcro shoes!" and you tap the chopstick 3 times and point to somone. The person with the most chopsticks pointing at them has to drink. It was a good time.

I made Patrick wake up early Saturday morning because I didn't want him to be late for his "guys day." The four guys went paintballing with about 40 other EPIK teachers in Gwangju. I spent the day relaxing at home. At aroudn 5:30, I picked Patrick up from the bus stop, and he was covered in paint. He talked about his day for like 30 minutes in GREAT DETAIL. You could tell he had a blast his first time paintballing. We had some dinner, and met up with the rest of the group at the Ice Bar. I asked Alli and Emily how much they heard about paintballing, and we just groaned. With the 4 boys together again, we had to hear all the stories again! My ears hurt just thinking about it!

Here's us at the ice bar:



We went to club Houze later on. The DJ was fantasic, the best I'd ever heard there. Patrick told me Sunday morning that it was the best club he'd been to in Korea so far! I'm glad they had fun.

Sunday we all met again at the bus terminal for some Coldstone... yum! Evan and Patrick got on their bus back to Incheon around 4:50 pm. I got a call around 11:15 from Patrick saying they had JUST gotten off the bus in Incheon. For some reason, the traffic was really bad and their 3.5 hour trip turned into 6.5 hours!

Hopefully the fun weekend was worth that painful bus ride!

Dating Korean Style

For those of you who don't know, I live above a business that does car work. There always seems to be a bunch of mechanics and their friends hanging around. I'd never really paid any attention to them at all, but I see the owner of the shop, who is also my landlord, quite a bit.

I got home from school early last Thursday, and was invited to have some food (sandwiches) with them downstairs. Even though my Korean is getting better, their limited English skills made converstation incredibly hard. We were able to communicate alright through google translator, and somehow I ended up saying yes to a date with one of the guys! It took about 45 minutes of using translator to get our plans made!

We decided to go to a movie on Sunday night. The guy, Michael, picked me up in his pimped out Hyundai Avante, and we went to the CGV at U-Square (bus terminal). He wanted me to bring my laptop with me so we could communicate. That was wonderful, carrying around 5 pounds on a date haha. We ate at TGI Fridays at U-Square, which was pretty good. I kind of wish we would have eaten at a Korean restaurant, because then it would have been like a real Korean date! We had ribs, pasta, fries, and beer. I was glad he ordered beer, it helped calm my nerves.

We took some pictures at dinner of us trying to talk to each other. I know the waiters and waitresses just thought that was hilarious. I'm sure we provided lots of entertainment. We didn't talk much during dinner, for obvious reasons, but he talked on his phone A LOT. One of his friends speaks English, and she served as a translator for a part of the meal. Talk about romantic.

After dinner, we had about an hour before the movie started at the IMax. He bought our tickets, I wasn't sure what the movie was. We some computers at the terminal, and again, used google translator. I found out some more details about him, so that was good. We "talked" about travel, North Korea, the military, and college.

The movie we saw was on the 5th floor of the terminal, and it was called District 9. I was so glad it was an English movie with Korean subtitles. My favorite part was before the show started when they showed the emergency escape routes out of the theater, just like on the airplane. Another difference was that they didn't have any previews, it was just commercials. The movie was okay, a little to SciFi for me. It was about aliens taking over Johannesburg and the main character turned into one by the end of the movie.

I made it back to my apartment around 12pm, I think the movie got kind of long. Overall, it was a nice night, but I wish we could have actually spoken to each other. I don't think I said a full sentence all night :)

EPIK Workshop

This past week was a short one, we had a manditory 2 day workshop on Thursday and Friday. We left behind schedule Thursday morning on 3 coach busses from the MOE. We arrived at Boseong Dabeach Condo before lunch. The condo was gorgeous! We were on the southern tip of Korea and the beach was beautiful. We had really nice pleasant weather too. The area is known for their green tea, the few cups I had was very good. I ended up buying some for my center school before I left, trying to get some brownie points so I can have my 6 weeks off in January!

The lectures overall were okay. A lot of teachers are in Elementary school because there are so many of them. Most of the material I felt was catered to that level. I was really excited to get more ideas for games/activities but did not really walk away with much unfortunately. Guess I'll just have to get some more ideas off Dave's ESL Cafe.

The meals we had were really good, for dinner Thursday night we had a huge buffet. I knew it was going to be full of good stuff, so I didn't waste precious stomach space with things like salad. Some of my favorites were raw salmon, raw oysters, eel, crab, songpeyong, and beef. Everything was so fresh and unprepared, so the flavor was great.

Most people stayed up late on Thursday night even though we had to wake up early on Friday. It was fun to see everyone in one place again. Our group skipped out on the after dinner activites, and instead watched the Kia Tigers win against the SK Wyverns up on the 6th floor. We had about 30 people in that room and had plenty of refreshments. Then, after the win, we moved down to the Noraebang on the 1st floor. We joined up with Michael, Andrew, Mechele, Amandeep, Miguel, and a few others. It was quite the happening place. Allie, Em, and I did pretty good at singing songs by BSB and NSync. Of course, the classics like Bohemian Raphesody and Somebody Told Me we sung too! I think we were in there for about 3 hours. Quite a good time.

Friday morning, we went to a green tea plantation/bamboo farm in the morning. It was pretty impressive to see all the green tea and how big the bamboo trees were! In the afternoon, we went to a tradtional folk village where people are still living. It wasn't too touristy which was nice. So many of us always talk about how cute the Korean kids are, and there were tons of young kids on field trips.

We made it back to the MOE around 3:45 pm which was good, because we had another 2 days off in front of us and had things to do!

A Weekend of Suprises

I was looking forward to having a nice, relaxing weekend in Gwangju. Doing some reading, lesson planning, cleaning, getting my hair cut, and catching up on sleep. Needless to say, none of that happened.

Saturday morning started off productive- I made it to the gym by 11. When I was done, I looked at my phone. I usually don't check it often because I don't get many calls. This time, there were 3 missed calls and a text message, all from Emily. I called right away because she somehow managed to get an extra ticket to the 2nd game of the World Series Kia Tigers v. SK baseball game. I flew home, put on some deodorant and was out of the apartment in 5 minutes.

The Tigers are ranked #1 so far in the nation, and if they win this series, they will have won 10 times. We had so much fun at the first game, so I knew this was going to be good. It surpassed my expectations! Every single seat was full, and people were standing in the asles watching. There were two cute Korean kids in front of us that we enjoyed playing rock paper sicssors with and teaching them how to fist bump. Emily and Brian had gotten hats, and Allie and Alex got jerseys, so during the break, Kenny and I got jerseys too. I chose #27, who according to 2 different people is the "Home Run King." The game was great, and we won 2-1. I'd love to go to another game, but ticket are hard to come across.

After the game, the girls went to get food for dinner, while the boys picked up the refreshments. We made dinner at Brian and Emily's, and had fun with the Wii. Kenny knew of a place called "Super Club" so we went there around 12.

Super Club was crazy. It was 3 stories, and really full. The DJ's came up from a hole on the stage, and there were lots of entertainers- girls wearing cat suits, a male singer, a KPOP band, and then a male stripper who took it all off. We were on the second floor with a good view of the dance floor and show. We had bottle service, and it was a pretty good night. We weren't expecting any of the entertainment, but it made for some great pictures.

Sunday Emily, Allie, and I went to Mokpo, a coast town about 50 minutes away. The boys were still hurting from Saturday, so they didn't come along. The city is pretty small, 260,000 people. We saw lots of seafood markets, boats, the National Maritime Museum, a ECO festival, and had King Crab for dinner. Between the three of us we took about 200 pictures, mostly of the fish. There were so many kinds! The crab for dinner was really good, we saw them bring the crab in from the tank and a few minutes later it was prepared and ready to eat. It was delicious! Emily and I also bought some fruit. I'm not sure what it is, and I can't seem to find it. But it's red and you peel the skin off. It looks white, but on the inside it is pink and and soft and delicious!

It was a pretty exciting weekend, and I'll be putting up pictures soon of what we saw!

"I can't wait to have fish come and eat my feet!"

I decided that it was about time to visit my good friend Dinah in Busan last week. I bought a bus ticket for Friday night, and got there a little late. Traffic on the roads were especially bad because this was the weekend of the 14th annual PIFF festival (Pusan International Film Festival). I happend to be riding the bus with two other EPIK teachers from Gwangju, Brian and Carleigh. A lot of other people from Gwangju were going to Busan too (Brian and Emily, Alex and Allie, Gabe, me, Carlo, Ann, Amanda, Shabana, Amandeep, and Mechele) but everyone traveled separately for the most part.

When I got in Friday, we went basically straight out to one of the downtown areas in Busan. We went to two places, Keno-eye and Ghetto Bar. It wasn't really that Ghetto! I got to see a lot of people I hadn't seen for a while, Dinah, Ben, Neil, and Natalie, and got introducted to a lot of other Busan EPIK teachers. It made for a good but late night (we got back to Dinah's apartment at 6 am!).

Saturday we slept most of the day. We finally got out of bed around 1, and left around three. We met one of Dinah's friends from church, John, and he showed Gabe, Dinah, and I around town. We saw the Jung-gu area of town. Highlights there included Yongdusan Park, Jagalchi Fish Market area, and Busan tower. We also went to a huge market area, but I can't remember the name off the top of my head. We went up to the top of Busan tower (118 m), and got a good view of the port. Busan has the 5th largest container port in the world, and the biggest in Korea. It was a lot of fun to see the boats coming in. I took a lot of pictures and will post them soon.

We met some friends for dinner in a different part of town. It was really good- fried rice, chicken, and spicy sauce. It is called DakGalbi, or 달갈비. We got to see Brian, Emily, Neil, Allie, and Alex. Dinah and I ducked out of dinner a little early to get our feet eaten by fish.

We went to Dr. Fish, a place that is similar to a Borders or Barnes and Nobles. However, they have an area where for 2,000 won you can get your feet eaten by fish. What happens is you wash your feet, and put them in a tank where there are at least a hundred small fish. They come and eat the dead skin off your feet. At first, Dinah and I were shrieking with laughter and causing a comotion. It tickled so much! It was the strangest feeling. It almost felt like you were getting poked with a needle all over but it didn't hurt at all. I took a few video clips of that too. It was quite the experience. Once we got used to the sensation, it was a lot of fun. It would make for a great first date! I'd really like to find one of those places here in Gwangju. We stayed for about 30 minutes, but we could have stayed 2 hours if we wanted. My feet did feel a lot smoother after just the 30 minutes though!

Saturday night we took it easy and checked out the Gwangalli Beach area. That part of town is known for the Diamond Bridge which lights up and is quite beautiful. There were plenty of bars and cafe's to choose from, but the Busan's crowd's favorite is Thursday Party. It was pretty fun, and it was good to have the Gwangju group back with the Busan group.

There was a person selling fireworks on the beach, and Alex really like lighting those off. It made for some great pictures. It was a really good time, but we headed home early (2am) because we wanted to do church in the morning.

Dinah goes to a place called ICC, so we made it there by 10:30 am on Sunday morning. It is a church for foreigners and is non-demoninational to accompany everyone. It was pretty nice and the people were really welcoming.

We wanted to go to a place in Haeundae Beach (often the beach is compared to Wikiki) for lunch, but kinda ran out of time. Instead we got Burger King there. The beach is the headquarters for PIFF, and Dinah and I had our picture taken on the red carpet where the stars come and stand to promote their films. That was pretty cool. We didn't have time to see any movies, but that was okay with me. I've heard that between 75-80 countries are represented at the fest, and Josh Hartnet was even in town promoting a film. It is a really big deal for Busan, and it is the largest film fest in Asia.

Gabe and I got the bus back at 3:30 on Sunday, and we were both pretty tired. I'll be sure to put up pictures soon so you can see the city!

Chuseok 2009

This past weekend was Chuseok, or Korean Thanksgiving. I had a busy weekend, and wish I would have had more than just Friday off! Typically, you get the day before and after the holiday off. This year, it just happened to be on Saturday. That's okay though, my co-teacher HunJu told me today that we'll start winter break sooner instead!

The weekend started with the crew meeting out Thursday night at Chonnam University. This was the first time we had been to the area, and some of our friends, Allie and Alex, got lost on the way. They eventually made it to "Pump," a pretty cool bar with crazy lights. We got a table tap of beer, my first time seeing one of those! Another highlight at the bar was the coasters that light up different colors when you put the drinks on. Made for a pretty cool looking martini!

On Friday, my co-teacher Mihey came by with her 7 year old nephew. They dropped off some Korean Rice Cakes, songpyon. To be honest, I wasn't the biggest fan. I thought I'd try another one today, but they had started to mold. Ew.

Friday night we met at German Bar. The owner of German Bar has been telling us for the past 2 weeks that Oktoberfest is starting. However, he's never really specified a date. He just says, "Next weekend Oktoberfest." We are starting to think it's never going to happen. But that was okay, we just had a couple of beers anyhow.

Emily and I took a hike up Mt. Mudengsang on Saturday afternoon. We took our time on the way up. Neither of us really knew where we were going, so we just kept on walking. We kept saying, "just a little farther! I think I see the top!" Eventually we made it. It took about an hour and 20 minutes, but we probably could have done it in 1 hour. From the top, an area called Jungmeorijae, we had some awesome views. On one side, we got to see the entire city, surrounded by mountains. When we turned around, it was completely lush green mountains. It was very impressive and felt great to make it (almost) all the way to the top. When the leaves start turning, we want to go back again, this time all the way. Here are some pictures of the views:

Here was a temple we stopped at on the way up.

One side was green mountains like this for as far as you could see.

It was pretty sunny, so that's why the city is hard to see. And yes, there are 1.5 million people living here. It is a very high and dense city, not at all like back home!

Finally, here are Emily and I sporting our new hiking shirts for the first time. Next hiking purchase- a backpack. Oh wait, I got that today. Make that hiking boots.

Emily had heard that there was going to be an EPIK pig roast on Friday night, and we wanted to check that out with our friend Joe, who was visiting from Incheon for the weekend. So Gabe, Emily, Allie, Brian, Alex, Joe, and I looked for it later on that night. However, all we saw was a car accident happen in front of The Underground Groceriers. That almost made up for missing the pig roast. Instead, we just showed Joe around downtown. We checked out an amazing and kinda fancy restaurant, Ethinic Cafe, German Bar, WaBar, and Fusion Soju. Emily, Allie, and I even snuck in a bit of shopping. We had heard that many places would be closed over Chuseok, but luckily we didn't have any problems.

Sunday, Joe had to go home, so we took it easy. It was kinda rainy too. I definitely did a lot of fun stuff, and it was good to see Joe again. This coming weekend I'm going to visit Dinah in Busan, so I need to rest up for that this week. It will be hard to though, I'm staying busy with going to the gym and my 4 hours a week of Korean class!

Kia Tigers- 6, LG Twins- 1

Friday after school I hopped on a bus as quickly as I could to get down to Mudeung Stadium for the Kia Tigers home game against the LG Twins. It was really easy for me to get there, but the traffic is always bad. I got there a little later than I had planned.

I saw a friend Mechele outside, and she told me to go up to one of the little old ladies selling water to get a ticket. I did and was suprised how easy it was. Before we went in, Gabe and I bought some deep-fried chicken, beer, and Soju.

Our seats were pretty good, right off third plate. But we realized in the first inning that we should have sat on first base. That must have been the student section because they were so loud! Every player has a specific cheer/song that they do, and there are tons of "Go Team, Go" chants. The crowd also has noise makers, so it was always really really loud. I had heard that Koreans like their baseball, but had no idea that it was going to be this much fun!

Gabe and I had to get our picture together:

My coteacher Mihey was at the game, so I went and found her around the 7th inning. They had pretty decents in the outfield, and we did some of the cheers together. It was a lot of fun. Mihey and her friends joined our group of 7 for some Soju downtown after the game. Too look at all my pictures from the game, check out:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=37335477&id=59501140&saved#/album.php?page=4&aid=2202874&id=59501140

The A-Team does Incheon/Seoul

I may not have mentioned this before, but I'm happy to say I belong to the EPIK A-Team. Our team consists of Joe, Evan, Patrick, Carmine, Gabe, Sophia, and myself. The group is changing often, with other members being Tony, Robin, and Ryan.



Well, Gabe and I headed up to Incheon Friday night to meet up with the A-Team again. Unfortunately, it's just Gabe and I down in Gwangju, but we like to say we have our own Gwangju A-Team (Emily, Brian, Allie, Alex, Gabe, and I). We took the bus for just under 4 hours for 17,000 won. Pretty good deal, and comfortable bus. We did stop for a break halfway through.

We arrived at Incheon's main bus/subway terminal just before 11, and Evan, Patrick, Joe, and Sophia met us. We headed straight downtown with our luggage because it was late. We stopped by Chicken and Beer to see everyone. (Chris, Steph, Tony, and others) We had some chicken and drank some beer for a bit.

Someone had an idea to go on the virtual rollercoaster ride on the main plaza. Normally, I'm not big on virtual rides, but this was pretty sweet. And cheap! We got to choose from over 16 different coasters, and my friends do it so often, they knew the best one. I really thought I was going to get sick because it was SO REAL feeling! But it was a ton of fun.

Next, we walked a few doors down to Club Vanilla. We had to pay a cover, but it wasn't much. We didn't drink much, but danced like crazy!



The next day, we met at 5pm to go to Seoul. Our group was Sophia, Gabe, Patrick, myself, Joe, Evan, Tony, and Ryan. We met on the train platforms, and the ride only took about a half hour. Pretty efficient. We went right to the 63 tower. After we got our tickets, we went to the top and enjoyed the view:



The sun was just setting, as you can see. It was so pretty. And huge! We had a lot of fun, and even had dip-n-dots at the top.



After, we went to the city hall area of town. That was fun. We happened to catch a live big-band concert. They played some Beatles tunes, and the theme song to James Bond. I even took a video for my brother, and will attempt to post that. The guys really liked it and played with their guns for a bit.



We were all starving by this point, so we started to walk. I found a Korean BBQ place, and had a delicious meal:

I'm sad to say we spent the next two and a half hours on the subway. Our group wanted to make it to Club Eden to celebrate Alice's birthday, but we couldn't get there in time to not pay the 30,000 won entrance fee. So we skipped that. We happened to meet up with a ton of EPIK-Incheon people along the way, and our group grew to about 30 in the subway. People couldn't agreee on where to go/what to do/how to get there, so by the time we got anywhere, it was nearly 12 pm. Gabe and I just went with the flow since we'd never been to Seoul. I just Wikipediaed Seoul, and it is had 24 million people in the metropolitan area, making it the world's second largest.



We finally cut our group size down, and made it to where the bars were (name unknown). It was strange because we didn't stick out at all, there were plenty of expats. We first went to Freebird, where there was loud live music and plenty of tequilla shots. Our A-team wasn't enjoying it that much, so we walked around and went into Ho bar. Evan came later, and appologized, but he brought the crowd that we'd "forgotten" at Freebird. But we ended up having a great time and sang loudly to "I'm on a boat."



Much later, we went to Club Cocoon. I'd never really been to a club before, but this was how I always imagined it! Loud music, lots of dancing. Drinks were pricy, so I only had my 1 free beer. When I looked at my watch, it was 3:15. We ended the night by taking a taxi for 6 people to Incheon.



Sunday, Patrick and I met Gabe and Sophia at the bus terminal. We got a bus ticket quickly, and the ride was only 3 hours back. But boy were we tired after only sleeping 8 hours in 2 days! Hoping to go back to Seoul soon!