Animal stories

Happy Birthday to my brother - I hope 30 doesn't suck for you like it did for me, although based on how the first day went, the year isn't starting off too great. Maybe these will cheer you up.

First off, this was the sign in my elevator all week. They are very polite about moving the trash cans, and they just want you to understand.

Then, I gave my "little kids" a homework assignment where they had to draw a picture of their favorite animal and either write a story or say why it was their favorite. Here are 10 of the stories (one kid was absent and 1 other didn't do it because he didn't want to).

This is probably my favorite because it's awesome. Also note how the antelope is wearing a suit jacket and bow between it's antlers. Because it's classy.

This was a good one too. Jacob is one of my best students and his stories are always fun to read.

Not just cats, small cats - This says: I like a cat becuase cat is very cute ad cat is small and they are ran is fast. And they are not big. I like cat because it is very small. And yes, her name is Eunice.

huh?

This is my second favorite one. Bill is my "Little Jeff". I love him, but want to strangle him, especially because he falls asleep in my class. But his cheetah has dog teeth so that's awesome.

Buffalo

Lastly, I went out tonight because I had to give money to a guy to pay for my spot on an upcoming trip (not to the DMZ or North Korea or anything, so relax). The plan was to go to the bar, give him the money and leave. It did not end up this way. I actually didn't really drink anything, but went out to dinner at a meat place, and then instead of getting dessert, we went to this place that looked a little like a hobbit house and had pajeon (pancake) with scallions and kimchi and this nasty rice wine that they serve in a bowl. Other people love the wine, me not so much - I can do like 4 sips. I will go back for the pancake though and take better pictures of the inside of the place. Here's the wine and the pajeon.

Veggies and rice wine (bleh). To me it tastes like bad white wine mixed with dishwater.

Pajeon. The burnt pieces along the edge are awesome - almost taste like burnt cheese even though there is no cheese. The bad part is that there were a few octopus pieces here are there.

Jinju weekend: no pictures edition

This week went by very fast it seemed. This month went by very fast if I'm thinking about it (can you believe it's July on Friday?). In 3 weeks, I'm going to Mudfest with a large group of Jinju people. Because I need glasses pretty much all the time now, I thought it would be a good idea to get some disposable contacts for the weekend so that my glasses wouldn't get broken. I met up with a friend of mine who speaks some Korean and we went to a glasses shop near my school. The guy there spoke very good English, checked my eyes with a machine in the back and then used numbers to determine a new perscription (is this better, is that better, can you read this etc.). I am now a -2 in both eyes. He then gave me some Acuvue 1 day lenses and threw in a case and some solution for "service" (free). I can go back and exchange the lenses if I don't like them, but I wore a set today and they seem pretty good. It took me awhile to get them in my eye because they are very flimsy. But I've been wearing them all day and I don't look like a drug addict (no red eyes) so I think they'll do. The exams are free too and he has my perscription on file so if I want different lenses, like 2 week etc., or another pair of glasses, I can go. Glasses in Korea are cheap compared to the US, so I will probably get a pair soon.

What else did I do this week? Hmm, I had to write student evaluations again which took awhile since we have around 100-110 students. It's not difficult, just time consuming. I also got some books from a friend who's previous apartment holder (I guess that's the right term - the person who lived in the apartment before he did) left a paperback library. Didn't do anything too spectacular during the week.

On Saturday I went to a talk set up at the local university where a North Korean refugee spoke to us about what she went though in North Korea (including working in a prison camp, escaping into China, being returned to North Korea and being in a prison camp, escaping again to China, being diagnosed with stomach cancer and sent to South Korea via Mongolia) and how she's doing now. We weren't allowed to take pictures or videos or anything in fear of retailation to remaining family members living in North Korea. After her speech (well her translator's speech) we watched a documentary called Seoul Train. It's about some families trying to get out of North Korea and into South Korea and focuses on China's policy of sending refugees back into North Korea. The refugee lady said that what she wanted us to do to help refugees was to continue to spread the message that it's awful etc. She said that virtually no aid sent to North Korea actually gets to the people, but is instead diverted to the army.

After the talk a small group of us went to a shabu shabu place near the university and had dinner. Then a bunch of small groups met up and we formed a large group at a bar. We stayed for awhile, but I left early because I didn't feel like staying out too late, plus it was raining a lot which always makes me tired. On Sunday I went to church then had coffee with Spencer and played Scrabble on his new ipod touch, then met Cindy for dinner. We ended up talking for close to 2 hours. Then I had a Skype date with my cousin which failed because my Skype didn't work so I called instead and we talked for over an hour and now it's Monday here.

I have plans for the next 3 weekends already, so it was nice to have a somewhat relaxing weekend this time. I will try to update more often, but I have been busy, so I'm not home as often, plus the posts tend to be longer when I actually go do something (partially due to pictures). Ok, off to read for a bit then go to sleep. Hope everyone had/has a good weekend!

Memorial Day part 2: Korean style (Haeundae Sand Art Festival)

(I totally thought I had already posted this, so sorry it's been so long. I then tried to post the other day, but it wouldn't upload pictures, so I had to wait again, so double sorry.)
So Cindy, Liezle and I had been talking about going to Busan for the sand art festival for about 2 months. It turned into a huge event and about 30 people from Jinju ended up going for some or all of the weekend.

The weekend started on Friday night (duh). A group of us met to take a cab to Rock bar for a girl named Dana's going away party. On the way to the club, we ran into Spencer, Kerri and Yoonsic busking (playing guitars for money) in front of a cafe. We stayed to watch that for awhile and we met a crazy Korean named Castle who told us he owned Jinju. There was also another old crazy drunk man, who ended up falling over twice and cracking his head pretty hard. It was very odd. Then we went to Rock bar and had a couple of drinks. I headed home around 1ish because I wanted to catch the 9am bus to Busan in the morning.

Rob and Castle. Men in Korea hold hands all the time, and since Rob was speaking to him in Korean, Castle decided to hold his hand.

Morning was early (duh again) but I was ready to go. I met 2 of "my kids" (Justin and Caroline) downstairs and we met Liezle on the local bus to the inter city bus station. We got on a bus with 3 others from our group and tried to sleep for the hour long ride, which was difficult with Ally cracking jokes the whole way. We ate breakfast at McDonalds while waiting for 2 others who were 20 minutes behind us. Then we took the subway across town (about a 40 minute ride) to the beach and our, well basically, hostel. It's called a minibak here and it's a room where you can sleep on the and they give you some pillows and blankets. Some of the have bathrooms in the rooms (luckily ours did), others have communial pottys. Basically most of my UGA friends would not have stayed here.

I ended up in one of the upstairs rooms (because I take initative on some things and grabbed a key and ran so I wouldn't have to stay downstairs in the big room) with Cindy, Spencer and Jesse (boy). Cindy's friend was supposed to come join us, but she never did. Our room had a mattress in it and we were probably overly excited about that. Then we all changed into swimsuits and headed for the beach. On the way, we stopped and got drinks for the afternoon.

Jumping on the bed. For some reason I could not time it right to get Cindy in the air.

She looks like that in every pictire - 2 feet on the bed.

As soon as we hit the sand, an airshow by the Black Eagles started above us. It was pretty cool. I couldn't really get a good picture and I didn't want to waste my memory card on a video because the weekend had just started.

View of the beach. It's supposed to to be even worse futher into summer. Our place was at the very tip of the land you can see, near the fish market.

Koreans and their umbrellas.

Me, Liezle and Vera at the water's edge. It was cold, but I ended up going in multiple times later that day.

Two kids hauling around some seaweed. The older one spoke some English and talked to us for a bit.

Our groups ending up splitting up at this point and I'm not exactly sure why. I went with Liezle,Vera and Cindy to look at the sand art sculptures. Some of them were pretty amazing. Most were of a fairy tale type theme. I don't know if that was the theme of the competition this year or not. The brochure just says, "Place that fairy-tale dreamed only in imagination becomes reality is Haeundae fantastic sand world theme park", so make of that what you will.

"Amature competition" - happy crab

"Colored sand compteition" Alice in Wonderland

Queen of Hearts, the oddly brown White Rabbit and Alice.

The Wolf and Little Red Riding Hood (who looks rather manish to me, but I can barely make a tower out of sand)

The Haeundae lighthouse - mom and I saw this in person during our trip to Busan

Haeundae mermaid - a sand sculpture of a statue, so art of art?

You could pay for a square of art and use their tools to do your own sculptures. Some kids made a bunch of pigs.

Wizard of Oz

Wizard of Oz. I didn't see a witch or any flying monkeys, so Paul would have been safe at this event.

A dragon and an old man. I think this is a Korean fairy tale, but they didn't have an explaination sign near it.

Then Liezle, Vera and I went to KFC for a quick bite and to wait on Liezle's friend Carlie who was coming from Osan. The direct buses were all full so she had to take a roundabout way. Once she got there, we went back and sat out for a bit. Then I went in the water and Spencer had to prove he was man enough and went in with me. Cindy's friends from Daegu joined up with us and proceded to get quite drunk. I was pretty good though. I went in the water again with Cindy and her friends. The water was really salty. When we got out, Cindy kept force feeding people alcohol (soju and aloe) which just made everyone laugh. We stayed on the beach for about another 30 minutes then headed back to shower and get changed.

The Daegu boys (John, Vincent and Andy)

Cindy force feeding Carlie, who is trying to eat fried chicken

Cindy just choked me with soju (I think). I had just come out of the water a few minutes early which is why my hair looks like that.

There was this big pile of abandoned tubes near us. I told Spencer to jump in them. He did this instead.

Cindy passed out in the room and the boys got ready and decided to go to the casino. They ended up losing and went out for Mexican instead. The girls showered and got dressed and Cindy decided she wanted to stay at the minibak because she felt like crap. I locked her in (she could get out, but people couldn't get in) with some water and a phone. Then we tried to hook up with the other group of people that came with us, but they weren't even close to ready, so we left them and said we'd meet up later. The 3 South Africans and I went to the mexican place which told us that the kitchen was broken when we got there. They apparently had underestimated the amount of people and didn't have enough food to prepare anything. So we tried the new Mexican place next door with the same result. We ended up going to Breeze Burns for burgers. Spencer and Jesse met us there and we headed out together for a dance club.

The club was called Club Maktum and looked like a giant weiner. At first we were turned away because Spencer had flip flops and they said they had a dress code with no flip flops. But Jesse was sneaky and while Spencer and I waited across the street, Jesse went in, took off his shoes and handed them to Liezle, who brought them to us in her purse and we did a shoe switch. It was pretty awesome. Then we danced for like 4 hours. The other group of people met us at the club after about 2-3 hours. I left 45 minutes before the main group because my feet were killing me and I was sweating like a mofo. I got home and jumped in the shower for a quick sweat rinse off. That's when I noticed that all around my legs (between calf and ankle) was a weird red rash. It didn't itch or anything. I later googled the issue and it turns out I had heat rash from the stupid club.

Me, Vera and Carlie outside our minibak heading to dinner

Entrace to club Maktum. It had fiber optic little things on it too so it changed colors.

Spencer and Jesse changing shoes again when Spencer went to get Cindy. That's why Jesse is wearing socks and flip flops. For awhile he abandoned the flip flops and was just in socks.

When Liezle and Vera went into their room (which was the smallest room) that they were sharing with Carlie (who had gone home a few hours before other people) they saw a random other girl in there. Liezle ended up sleeping in our room and Vera stayed with Carlie but only because we thought the other girl was a friend of a friend. We found out from Carlie in the morning that she was asleep and a random girl poked her head in the room. Carlie said "no, wrong room" but the girl put her purse down and fell asleep on the floor. She was gone when the girls woke up the next morning. This is just one of those things that happens in Korea. It's almost so weird that it's normal...almost.

Everyone was kind of sluggish the next morning, but Cindy, the boys and I ended up meeting some other people and going for brunch at TGIFridays. Then we went back to the beach and set up camp. We met Cindy's friend who was supposed to stay with us and just sat for awhile. Then we went in the water and played frisbee for a bit with some strangers. Turns out I can throw a frisbee in Korea better than I can in the States. When we got out, we borrowed a football from some people and played with that for awhile. I jumped for one ball and fell when I landed and got covered in sand, but I held on to the ball. I got a few claps for that one. I jumped in the water again to rinse off, then said goodbye to Spencer and Jesse because they were headed to Seoul for a concert. I left Cindy with her Daegu friends and joined up with our other group. The SAs went shopping all day, so I am glad I decided to skip out on that, especially since they got lost and just ended up walking around. I planned on meeting Ally and Cath to go to a baseball game, but I couldn't find them and instead played more water frisbee and went sledding with Emily down a huge sand hill.

We paid 50 cents to ride sleds down this huge hill of sand. Emily tipped over at the bottom, but I stayed upright. There was the option of riding a snowboard down the hill, but since I wasn't in the mood for serious injury, I opted for the sled. We were the only 2 out of our entire group who did this, until later that night when 2 other girls rolled down the hill drunk. I did not do that.

Another group of about 4-5 left at that point for Jinju and my group headed back to shower and change. Kyle (girl) invited me to meet up with another small group for dinner in a different section of town. The SA girls were also going to that dinner, so I decided to go. I'm very glad I did. We met up with McRob and two of his friends (also from Jinju) and went to a Turkish restaurant. It was awesome. They had these set menus where you pick the main course but you get bread, soup, rice pudding and tea included. We also ordered hummus and I ate almost an entire plate by myself because 1- I was hungry, 2 - it was awesome and 3- I was craving some non-Korean/non-fastfood food and this fit the bill. The chef and his wife were awesome. He was Turkish and his name was Fausto. His wife is Korean but she lived in Italy for 8 years and speaks Italian, some French, Turkish, Korean and a decent amount of English. We were the last people in the place and they just talked to us for awhile. We actually saw them later that night and I think we scared them because we just shouted at them from across the street.

Rob eating some bread that came with his meal. We shared and it has sesame seeds on it. He called it the "cavern of goodness" since it comes all puffy but falls when you bite it.

The group who went for Turkish dinner

Me and Fausto. He picked this pose because he wanted to be in front of the fez (fezes? fezi?)

My dinner - a wrap with spicy lamb and yogurt dipping sauce. It was awesome. Then we had tea and rice pudding (which was actually good and didn't look like maggots which is why I can't/don't/won't usually eat rice pudding). We also taught them the word cinnamon.

After dinner we went to a hookah bar. I had never been to one and while I don't really enjoy smoking the hookah, I did like the atmosphere and my tea was great. We lounged around there for awhile and people made fun of me because I'm apparently developing a South African accent on certain words (particularly the phrase "go home") which I haven't noticed.

Most of the group at the hookah bar. Cindy ate dinner here because she was late for the Turkish place. She had rice with lamb and it was very good. She also had a yogurt drink that begins with a "y" but I can't remember what's it called. It was very good too. We tried jasmine and pear and the a peach hookah, but I didn't really like the whole breathing in smoke part and only sampled them a few times.

This was on the door to the girls' room. There was similar one on the boys' room door. I just want to know why she had a mustache.

You had to take your shoes off to go into the bar. They had these slippers to put on before you went in the bathroom. You can't really tell, but the toes point up like elf shoes.

After hookahing, we went over to the Gwengalli area of Busan and went to a bar called Thursday Party. We only stayed there for a short while and tried to find a dance place. The first place we tried was called "The Womb" but it was closed. We found that out after traipsing up a sketch staircase that smelled like pee. Then we found a "super seceret" club called Enoch's Mansion. This place was like a crappy shack converted into a bar. McRob got us all tequila shots but they ran out of salt and lemons. They also ran out of cheap beer and there was no way I was buying an $8 Bud Ice. A group of like 5 Koreans was also there and we danced for a bit. One guy was pretty funny and did a good dance to "Single Ladies" which had everyone laughing.

Would you like a jintonic cokctail? Perhaps a jackcock?

Thursday Party. Oddly there are 2 Thursday Partys directly next door to each other. I guess they are the Paris Baguette of bars in Busan.

Then we decided to forget dance clubs and go sit on the beach. We got some drinks and fireworks and sat out on the beach for about an hour. It was cold and late at that point and everyone was tired. I didn't care for the fireworks that much because people tend to shoot them at each other and I have a fear of being blinded.

We took a cab back to our place and the driver wanted us to pay double because we had 5 people in the car instead of 4. We said no but gave him a few extra bucks. We all switched around rooms that night and the SA girls moved in with Cindy and I. I got the bed though, which made me happy. The sad part was the mattress on the floor was more comfortable than my current bed. We watched a bit of Sex and the City which was on TV then fell asleep around 4-5. Carlie attempted to get up at 5:30 to take sunrise pictures, but it didn't happen. We woke up around 10 and went to brunch. Then we played at the photo wall along the beach.

I'm climbing some stairs...or am I? If you look closely at the backs of my legs, you can see my heat rash. It disappeared in 2 days thankfully.

I'm a pretty butterfly (that's what's posted on the wall behind my back)

Cindy, me and Kyle tanning

Then we decided to go shopping at the underground mall. This did not last very long because everyone was tired and sore and just ready to be done. We did get some chocolate hoduk with sunflower seeds (surprisingly good combo) and I got some cool Spiderman socks and a pair that looks like the 50K won bill.

The 4 of us (me, Liezle, Cindy and Kyle) got on a bus and headed back to Jinju. We all fell asleep on the bus for at least a little while. When we got back to town, we went to the gimbap shop and had dinner. Then Kyle, Liezle and I went grocery shopping and then home. It was a fun weekend, there was lots of drama but I stayed out of it, and I only got a tiny patch of sunburn on my shoulder blades. So all in all, another good memorial day weekend.