Et Cetera Again (Again)

I wrote this last weekend...

Right now, I am on a bus to Muju ski resort, and people are on the whole, being bitchy and boring. So, it’s writing time. It’s been a while since I have written anything, and longer still since I have written anything substantial, so I will do my best to make this a long one. I have all weekend, so it shouldn’t be too hard a task.

Since my last fully non-fictional entry, I have gotten roaring drunk with my MMA instructor, seduced a Korean lady, started teaching private lessons, found zen, lost it again, and turned twenty nine. So, I guess there is a bit to talk about.

In between my boats of self-brutalizing alcohol abuse, if you have been following this blog, you will know, I become super disciplined—I read tough books, I exercise every day, I study hard and meditate often. Occasionally, for my efforts, I snap into a state of super-awareness, that you might know as zen.

After a long walk and conversation with myself, about the nature of want. I was propelled into one of these states, when I decided that there were different kinds of wanting—a clinging kind of wanting, and “letting pass” kind of wanting. I wrote 1,400 words about the experience when I was still its throes. It’s available upon request.

What had led me to this realization was a month-long experiment with this new-agey idea called “the law of attraction” as per this cheesy new-agey movie called The Secret. Basically, the movie’s premise is that you can get whatever you want in life by wanting it, and sending out positive vibes about it.

Which leads me to the story of seducing my first Korean lady….but I’m on the bus back to Tongyong now, so I think I should tell about my first snowboarding trip in Korea. We went to a resort called Muju. The hill was icy as a Korean co-teacher, the lines were longer than a poorly executed rendition of “Superstitious” at the nori bang and the longest boards for rent were only 158 centimeters. But I got to go snowboarding for eight hours, and it was totally awesome.

Anyway, I was sitting in this bar with some friends. It was during Ben’s last week in Tongyong, and we were on our way to eat eel when Fiona called and asked if we wanted to meet her and a friend at Gapoom for drinks. I promised that we would after the eel.

When I got there, Fiona was sitting with a co-worker, whom I had flirted with in the past, but not really gotten anywhere with. She had already had a few beers and told me she was going to leave soon. So I thought I would have a couple drinks with my buddies and move on. She kept slapping me on the shoulder when I ignored her for to long. (The observant foreigner will note that this is a common sign of affection among Korean girls.) She kept asking, “Should I have one more beer?” whenever she finished her last one. 

After her first “last one” the girl she came with left, and after a couple more, the people I came with said they had finished their drinks and that they wanted to  go. I said I was going to have one more drink. A few minutes before they left, Luke was telling me about “rejection therapy”, which is the idea that you just ask for whatever you want from people and get used to rejection, and eventually you no longer fear getting rejected and people will end up doing all kinds of surprising things...

December tenth was a Friday, and people were already full of holiday cheer. I had  partied with my entire MMA gym, so I felt that it was too good an opportunity to miss out on, and the new Ben wanted to start training at the gym, so I brought him along. We got designated to our own weigook table at the restaurant, along with Katie and Loyd. Of course, every Korean who could speak a little English came by the table at one point or another. There was a Korean show about Africa on the muted TV. Ben explained what we were looking at, and talked about his time in Africa while volunteering for the Peace Corps, in a narration that was probably far more informative far and doubtless more entertaining than the inaudible Korean.   

Now, I am still making an effort to drink less, and I am having success. But the night of December 10th was General Sober Brady’s Waterloo. When we sat down there were four or five bottle of soju and four or five of beer. Being the conscientious companion that I am, I felt obligated to propose a variety of toasts to various people for various things. It’s a good thing that it is customary when drinking with Koreans to allow them to refill your glass for you, because otherwise, I would not have had the few short respites that I was graced with.

Nevertheless, it all went to hell at midnight, when it officially became my birthday—a collapse that was further exasperated by the ensuing trip to the noribang. Ben was dancing with a drunk Korean girl. And the one I was hitting on was playing hard to get, so I lost interest and butchered a Queen song. Near the end of nori bang, I kept trying to put people into headlocks. I tried this on my instructor and ended up on the ground wincing. A few minutes later he was lecturing me outside, but I didn’t really know what the hell he was trying to say. Luckily he inexplicably starting wrestling with someone, and I made my escape from the proverbial frying pan.

The fire was Africa Bar, which my friends and I arrived at sometime around four ‘o clock. We promptly made our way to Beer Gallery for soju cocktails. Shortly after that, I was vomiting into a trashcan.

My birthday was brilliant. There was a good crew of us and we went to Okpo for Indian food. We went to an Irish bar for a while and had Irish car bombs. We eventually made our way to Gohyeun where we met up with some of the locals. We spent a while at a sit-down restaurant and ordered beer towers. Arthur handed out Aderall. Much good conversation was had by all.

Then we went to a bar where they played all of our requests on their bitchin’ sound system. I played DJ for a while and kept things hopping. Then I did something that only happens once a year—I danced out of my own volition and enjoyed it. Eventually, the cursory noribang session ensued, and I took a bus back into town at six-thirty.    

As a birthday gift to myself, I became a little bit more Korean and got some cosmetic surgery. I had two birthmarks and a mole removed with a surgical laser. The whole process, from walking into the door, to consulting with the doctor, to having the surgery done took a grand total of thirty five minutes. The cost: eighty thousand won (~$70).

One more thing of note: I started doing private lessons for 40K won/hour twice a week. This significantly more than twice as much as I have ever been paid for anything (although I do about an hour of preparation for each lesson). If I am frugal, I should be able to pay for day to day expenses solely on my tutor wage, which I will need to do if I am to save the amount of money I have in mind for travelling

My time here in Korea is winding down, and while I look forward to travelling and seeing all of my friends and family in Canada, I love my life and all the people here and it’s hard to imagine everything changing so drastically and suddenly in a mere four months.

Since I am starting to save money, I have to be a bit more frugal, but don’t want to waste a day here. So, I’ll put the question to you: if you were in my shoes, what would you do? How would you spend your remaining time here? All serious suggestions, time and money allowing will be perused and I’ll even write about it here..

 

Writing From Home...

This is the fist blog entry written from my new computer. I still had to go to the PC bang (or café I don’t know yet) to upload it, but it was at least written from the comfort of my own room.

Times are changin’. Seems to be the theme lately. I’ve been sick four out of the past six weeks, and right now I feel like garbage. It’s not only because I’m sick; I’m also severely hung-over and my paternal grandfather died yesterday. Not like it matters much on top of everything else, but I feel defeated in personal life.

My training has been the main thing holding me together. I had an increasingly strict regime of running, stretching, Hapkido, MMA, and weight lifting. I was in the midst of increasing my Korean studying time from four hours a week to seven. So, being ill has been a double-edged sword—not only has it made me feel shitty from the aches and pains, but I no longer have my training regime to keep me sane

On top of my training, I had finally stopped drinking, with a few scattered exceptions. Last night was a big exception. After work I went to my least favorite bar and ordered a pint of beer and a shot of whiskey. I was determined to get drunk whether or not anyone decided to come out. After going through half of my phone book, Arthur showed up. We had a beer and I went through the other half of my phonebook while made some calls himself.

I had lost two other grandparents, and in all honesty, it didn’t feel like such a big deal. Even when I was looking at my maternal grandfather’s body in the hospital. I just had a sort of vague feeling that it was, all in all, a good thing. I feel the same thing for my grandpa Ehler but my body is having bad reaction to it. I’m really not happy about it, and I’m pissed off that I can’t go to the service because I’m in Korea.

Arthur and I managed to drag out Morgan, Alex, Melody, and Katie. I remembered why I quit drinking. The same old shit happened. I drank too much, and eventually all my dissatisfactions and sexual frustrations boiled to the surface and I ended up dealing with my dissatisfaction by doing something stupid, for which I now feel embarrassed.

I left the bar abruptly, without saying goodbye to anybody—shitfaced. Alex came running after me, and she hailed a cab for me, which seemed stupid to me at the time, since I felt more than capable of hailing one myself. It’s only now that I understand that she must have thought that I was going to get on my scooter.

I felt like I was going to puke in the cab ride. It would have been the first time in nearly ten years that I would have vomited from drinking alcohol. Fortunately, I resisted the urge. Climbing the stairs, I let out a wailed of frustration and kicked out a stairwell light. This is why I quit drinking. 

I feel angry for not having spoken to my grandfather one last time. I wanted to ask him about growing up in Nova Scotia, and I wanted to ask him about the war. I had, on occasion asked him what it was like. He would always respond by cocking his head and looking at me as if I was in the habit of wearing tinfoil headgear and then saying “war is hell!” and leaving it at that. I thought maybe I would finally get something out of him before he passed.

I wrote on a postcard for him that I got in Jeonju. I had been intending to send it for a week, but never got around to it. It would have gotten to him if I mailed that fucking thing when I had originally intended to. Funny thing is, I felt like I kind of knew that I didn’t have much time to send it and every day, I had every intention of sending it, and every evening when I got home I would myself for not having sent it. I think that characterized our relationship. I wanted to talk with my grandfather more, I wanted to know him better, but didn’t.

Ivan was at the same time warm-hearted and stony. So, he was approachable, but inaccessible. I wanted to understand him better. If he ever started talking I’m sure I could have listened to him for hours, but he was a man of few words. He said a lot with a little, but the content rarely went past the anecdotal.

Anyways, I’ll miss him.

Etc. Again

Some of my students asked me what "etc." meant  a few days ago. I told them that it meant "and the rest" or "and the others", in Latin. Stupidly, I tried to explain to them what Latin is. I drew a picture of Italy on the board, and asked, "do you know what country this is"? No one did. Again, stupidly, I tried to explain where Italy was and it's importance. Crickets.

It's twelve midnight on a Monday, and again I find myself in a PC bang, instead of my room. Truth is, if I weren't here, I would be listening to a Korean lesson on my MP3 player and walking around. My life has become extremely regimented. I can tell you exactly what I am going to do tomorrow, and the day after that. I bet you're super curious right? To bad, I'm going to tell you, anyway!

Tomorrow, I am going to sleep through my alarm and get woken up by my Korean language partner calling me at about nine-forty-five. I will throw some crap in my bag, make myself presentable, and go to Tom Tom's coffee to meet Christine we will intermittently chat and go through some pre-constructed dialogues.

I will get to work at about eleven thirty. I will throw together the last few evaluations, I will plug in my i-pod to the school's computer and surf the web for a bit. I will book a hostel for the weekend. Glen will come in at about twelve thirty. Usually, we would go for lunch, I suspect he will go out for lunch with one of the Korean teachers tomorrow, so I will eat a gimbap Nara, get out some money to pay for the next two months of MMA and probably swing at some balls at the batting cage. I will come in shortly before one-thirty. I will read for the majority of the next hour and a half (prep time).

I will easily drift through my classes and I will speedily leave the office to catch the start of the 8:30 MMA class. At 9:45, I will go back to the school to drop of my bag and my scooter. I will walk half way home while listening to a Korean lesson, and take a cab the rest of the way. Once at home I will boil mandu. I will read an evolutionary biologist's opinion about where morality comes from and I will meditate.

The next morning, I will stretch, and I will run ten kilometers to work. I will go to the Sauna to shower, and rejuvenate. I will show up to work at 12:30. Ben, Glen, and I will eat spicy octopus for lunch. I will leave work just before nine, and speedily make my way to the Hapkido gym. At ten, I will go to Lotte Mart and buy foodstuffs. I will drive home and probably refuse to eat more than a handful of almonds. I  will go for a walk and listen to a Korean lesson. When I go home I will read the rest of the evolutionary biologist's opinion of evolution. I will meditate some more. I will go to sleep by 1:30, because I will be tired from the run went on in the morning.

Friday, is a wild card.

Dark Days in TY

In the course of three days, one of my friends got attacked with a sign post, another got attacked with a knife, and a third got raped. All incidents happened in or near my friend's apartments. All of them are foreigners.

Wednesday (I think), Arthur heard a racket outside of his place in rural Dosan. Some wacko outside was yelling incomprehensible Hangul and waving around a signpost. While the every Korean within shouting distance had the good sense to stay inside with their doors locked, Arthur decided investigate. Maybe he tried to reason with the fellow, I don't know. Whatever Arthur said resulted in the man lunging at him with the aforementioned sign-post. Arthur escaped inside without incurring bodily damage, but the nutter with the sign did smash a mirror off of his scooter and bashed up his door a bit too.

When the cops got there, they quickly discovered three things: the fellow was drunk to the gills, he was convinced that Arthur had murdered a kitten, and that the man was totally bat-shit insane (he had in fact just been released from a mental institution).

The same day, a female friend decided to go drinking with another one of the foreigners here. They were drinking outside of a Family Mart (think Korean 7-11) in Jungnim (the newest development in Tongyeong). When they decided to go home, a Korean man convinced them to let them share the cab with them. When my friend went into her apartment, apparently the Korean man followed her and forced his way in... she flew back home by the next Friday.

The next day, we all got together for a photo scavenger hunt. It was a big success, and we all had a great time. We drank a lot afterward, so I can sympathise with Krista when she passed out immediately after hitting the pillow. Unfortunately she was only asleep for five minutes until a man woke her up by pressing a knife to her throat, yelling at her to give him her money.

So, Krista gave him her money, asked him why he was doing what he was doing and the man had a sudden change of heart. He put the knife on a table gave the money back and eventually left.

I was under the impression that Korea, and by extension, Korea, was a relatively crime-free place. That's the impression everyone used to jump to give me, anyway. My perspective has changed awfully fast though. Funny how the shit always seems to hit the fan all at once.

The Great Computer Debacle

It's late at night and once again, I am sitting in a PC bang, when I should be home in bed, writing in comfort, drinking hot green tea instead of cold orange pop. I am desperately trying to remedy this ailment, but as with most things in life less commonplace than clearing my bowels in the morning, getting a computer is proving to be just this side of worth it.

You might be wondering why I don't just buy  a computer here. After all, I am in east Asia, and therefore, the computers should be cheap, right? Well, no--not in Korea, anyway. I would spend about three-hundred-fifty dollars more for a computer than for a similar model back home. It seems like the only brands of computer available here are Samsung, LG and the occasional Apple. There are, it would seem, mega-tariffs keeping cheap Taiwanese and Japanese computers out of the country.

As if I weren't frustrated enough while looking at Samsung's prices, I went into the LG store to discover that there were no prices on the machines. What, was I supposed to ask what the price is for each one? Haggle? Way to make computer shopping super-stressful, Korea. Anyways, even if I decided it was worth it to throw down the extra couple-hundred, I would still have to deal with replacing the Korean OS, and worry about hitting the Hangul button all the time. No thank you!

So, after many hours of searching for a website that would deliver SK, I found a United-States based company called Provantage that would accommodate my needs. I found the computer I wanted-- a 14" Asus with a 3i processor, and 4Gs or RAM. My colleague had agreed to pay for it with credit in exchange for cash and I was all set to go. Turns out that Provantage would only accept payment from American Express or by wire transfer. Glenn didn't have an American Express card (who the heck does anyway), but I figured, no big deal, I'll just wire the money.

So I transfer some cash from my Korean account to my Canadian account. The money comes through the next day, and I go online to set up the wire transfer but...it turns out that I can transfer money from one of my accounts to another, I can pay bills, I can set up an Interac E-mail Transfer (whatever that is), but I cannot set up a normal wire transfer to another institution.

Right. So, the next step, my banking website informs me, is to call the international service line. I try calling it and I get an out of order message. So, I call Korean information. They tell me to dial "001" before the number. So, I think to myself, okay-- instead of 1 then the country code, then area code and then the number, I will dial 001, then the country code, then the area code and then the number. I do, and I get another out of service message.

Right, so I decided to e-mail my bank. The following is the resulting e-mail thread:


From: bradyehler@gmail.com


Sent: 09 Oct 10 00:52:57


Hi, I'm trying to phone the international number to set up a wire transfer, but I'm getting a message saying that the number I'm calling is out of service.


The number I'm trying to call is 1-416-223-0263


I'm trying to call from South Korea.


Dear Sir or Madam,


I apologize for the inconvenience.


If you know your 5-digit Telephone Banking password, please call 1-416-223-0263. Collect calls are not accepted. After you have keyed in your card number and password, please select 0 and your call will be transferred to a representative.

If you have forgotten your Telephone Banking password or have not selected one and require assistance, please stay on the line. The recording will repeat a few times and your call will then be transferred to a representative. Assistance is available seven days a week, from 7:00 a.m. to midnight local time across Canada.


Thank you for visiting www.pcfinancial.ca.


Sincerely,
Ewan


Internet Communications Specialist
 
Ewan (or whoever),



As expressed in my previous e-mail, the problem is that when I try calling the international number (1-416-223-0263) I get an out of service message.


So, if I was able to call the international number (1-416-223-0263), asking the representative how to get on the phone with a representative would be redundant.


Imagine a similar scenario:


You are hungry and want a banana. You look for a banana for a long time, then finally you find a banana.


Do you...


A: Eat the banana


or


B:Ask the banana where you could find a banana (to eat)


?


I hope this rhetorical question has helped to clarify my problem.
Again, I am calling from South Korea.


Regards,
Brady (Mr.Ehler)

As of yet, I haven't gotten a response. Fortunately, another colleague (a Korean) puzzled out the riddle in the meantime. Turns out I had to dial 001 and THEN 1, the country code, area code and number. Stupid me! Anyways, so I get on the line with the representative, and it turns out that the the mailing address is screwy and the money I transfer over might "bounce back"--costing me up to a hundred dollars for nothing. Oh well. Even if all goes swimmingly, between taxes, duties, shipping, wire-transfer fees and long-distance charges, it will have been almost as cost-efficient to have bought a Korean computer. Oh well, at least if this works out I wont have to worry about hitting the damn Hangul button.

Me As an Educator

I've  been delaying writing about the actual day to day experience of teaching basically since I got here. I've thought about it a hundred times, but now that I'm sitting here I'm not sure what to write.

Sometimes I think my job is a joke. Sometimes I feel like a glorified babysitter. Sometimes I feel like I am doing good work, and that I am teaching these kids English really well for someone with zero training and no previous experience. Our lesson planning is minimal, because we work out of  books. All of the students have their own.  But we have a leeway--for most classes there is more time than we can fill up with the material in the books. The shitty kids spend way more time as is necessary, and the good kids get through the material early. The result is that I put in effort proportional to what the students put in.

My favorite class has only five students in it. They are keen and quick-witted. They do their work quickly and four of them really enjoy being in the class. I return their enthusiasm in kind. We chat, play games (some of them quite sophisticated) and once a week we read out of Charlotte's Web and answer questions about the story.

I had another class, until recently, and they were real jerks. Again, five students. Most of them would not do their work. Ever. They would constantly chat in Korean, not pay attention. They acted like they were on lunch break at school. Needless to say, I didn't care much about that class. I put in the bare minimum of effort, and even then I felt like it was wasted energy. I would take the worst offenders out of class every day. I would try to reason with them and all I would get in response was whining. From 13-year-olds.

 My school is twice as expensive as any other Hagwam in town, so I have to deal with a lot of spoiled brats. To be fair, some of these kids go to as many as five hagwans after school. And that's every day. Every bit of their day is structured, and they never get to spend much time with their parents. The result is that they develop all kinds of skills, but they are often immature for their age. When I ask my kids what they are going to do on the weekend, the most common responses are: sleep and play video games.

I'm not going to complain about my wage, but the teachers at my school have to work twice as hard as the teachers at the other hagwans. Sometimes I hear it suggested that we are overpaid. I don't think that we are. Sometimes I  say that the job is easy, but you can spend as much or as little time outside of the classes as you want. Everything considered we work more than eight hours per day. The job can also be very stressful. Not that there is a high level of expectation put on us, but we all want to do a good job regardless, and we don't always get support from out Korean co-teachers, not to mention our director (who still doesn't like answering questions, and still calls me "Bradly"). So even though the most likely reaction to our doing a shitty job is getting less responsibility, we still try to do good work, and we get angry when we are failing. Well, I assume its true about the others--it's certainly true for me.

Chuseok

Tomorrow will be the last day of Chuseok (Korean Thanksgiving) vacation.
I worked Monday and on Tuesday, I returned to Dragon-tail? (Yeonwado) Island with Ben, Ben's friend Dave, from the north, and a bunch of Ben's friend from the north's friends.

Although less enchanted by it than on my innitial journey, I still maintain that Yeonwado is one of the nicer places I've been.

Shortly after arriving we decided to go on a hike. Once we reached the ridge, the main party headed eastward, but I slunk away west, to see the Buddah statue at the peak. When I arrived, there was a rushing mist of cloud that poured across the top of the mountain. Still light, you could see the moon behind the cloud. I took a profile picture of the Buddah statue with the moon in the background.

The statue, seemed suspiciously out of place on the top of this secluded mountain. It was about ten meters tall and made of the same clean, newly cut granite that that surrounded it. Although I recognized the aesthetic beauty of it,  I was not able to fully appreciate it--I always wince when I see a Buddah statue. I remember what I read about Siddhartha Gotama said when on his death bed. The monks asked him is they could erect a statue in his memory. His response was that if they needed something to remember him by, they should plant a bodhi tree, because it was under such a tree that he gained his enlightenment.

As I approached the simple wooded pagoda nearby to meditate, some monks came and collected money from the altar in front of the Buddah.

I returned later with a severely intoxicated Ben, and a relatively (if not completely) sober Jessica. We lay under the Buddah and stared at the stars a while.

Wednesday, we came back from the the island, and I decided to go to one of Korea's three Jewel temples: Haeinsa. Haeinsa, located at the top of Mt. Gaya, was another of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. I only took a few poor pictures. I hope you will forgive me. I went for a hike and meditated on a rock at the highest peak that I cared to climb to.

The monks were something to behold. They had an amazing dignity and mental discipline about them. However, I think the trip dispelled any yearnings I had about becoming a monk myself. Lights-out time for monks is 9:00.Wake-up time is 3:00. Seriously, I don't think this is what the Buddah had in mind when he said the best way was "the middle way".  Have any of these people read the discourses?

Before I left, I took a look at the Tripitaka house: a building housing the Tripitaka Koreana--the oldest complete set of the Buddhist Canon. This Chinese version, carved into wooden blocks is over one thousand years old, and if stacked end to end, would be taller than the tallest mountain in Korea.

For a mere five-thousand won, I purchased a print of the Vajrayana? sutra.

I decided to come back into Tongeyeong early, instead of visiting Seoul or Busan. I decided I need a day or two of  solitude and quiet contemplation before returning to work.

The Tongyeong Blues

I've go what Lizzie calls the Tongyeong blues. Maybe it's just the normal blues.

I'm starting to get lonely here. Paradoxically, it seems to get worse when I hang out with people. I decided a couple of days ago to (for a change) stop worrying about not having a romantic relationship. I've been single for most of my adult life, but that time has always been filled up with the desire to be in a relationship of some kind. I finally decided that it's not worth worrying about. If there was something to "figure out" that might help me achieve this goal, then for all the energy I've spent thinking about it, I'm sure I would have puzzled it out by now.

When I can really get behind this idea, and stop caring, I feel a lot better. But there is a melancholy to the resignation, too. I guess I will just have to get over it. I came to Korea thinking it would be like Japan--that it would be easy to find a nice Asian girlfriend. It's not like Japan at all. Koreans are pretty proud of their bloodline, and they are sexually conservative. It's considered strange to date foreigners, especially in Tongyeong.

I think other stuff has got me down, too. I feel a bit like I'm stagnating. Or at least not progressing in the things I want to progress in fast enough. Or maybe it is something else still. I woke up late this afternoon, after drinking all night and I was full of melancholy. Truth is, I'm not really sure why. I can't shake it. I guess I just have to go through it.

To Infinity and Busan

I didn't get to Busan this weekend--not right away, anyway.

A friend from Goeje asked me about training for the upcoming half-marathon together. To him I replied that I was not ready to do the five-mile run that he proposed to do on the weekend, then suggested that we go to Sareyando instead and do a three hour hike.

Long story short, I ended up going to the island of  Yeonhwado with He Jae and Lizzy instead.
Yeonhwado just might be the most beautiful place on Earth. Imagine: rolling hills, lush trees and greenery, and sliding rock faces, terminating into crashing waves. There is a temple there, and at the highest point there is a pagoda, and a large statue of the Buddha. I have no pictures. Sometimes you have to just enjoy the scenery for yourself.

Unfortunately, we arrived rather late and the last boat back was scheduled for four thirty or so. I suggested staying the night at a min-bak but my company wasn't receptive. While we waited for the ferry, which was half an hour late, my friends milled around the little village and enquired about scuba diving, while I played with one of the doberman-colored dachshunds that littered the island.

When Sunday rolled around, I figured I might as well go to Busan. So, I took a us out of Tongyeong in the afternoon. Once arrived I headed for the downtown area, to continue my quest for a decent burger. What I ended up with was an odd piece of food that had all of the requisite parts of a burger, yet wasn't quite the same thing. It was a stack of burger innards on top of a soft bagel, kept erect by a long toothpick. In ascending order,  a handful of sauteed onion was followed by a super-thick slice of tomato, a bulgogi patty, processed cheese, lettuce, and finally a large, undercooked slab of bacon. The sauce was a mixture between BBQ sauce and something like mayonnaise. It tasted pretty good, but a burger it was not. The search continues.

I wandered some more, and ended up at the mother of all Lotte marts--massive shopping complex that looks like the Vancouver library's older, dumber, more narcissistic brother. I bought Krispy Cream donuts, underwear, socks and (hallelujah) English books.

I decided to book a bed at a hostel at the last minute instead of wandering around for a jimjil bang. I am there now. Check out time is in half an hour, so I am going to have a shower and check out Hundae beach.

Wow! It's Been Four Months

I can hardly believe it, but my contract is already a third of the way through. It has made me want to re-asses my lifestyle. There are a lot of things I wanted to do, that I haven't done.

The problem is that I had hoped that by now, I would have a few solid people that would be up for doing different things on the weekends. Unfortunately, my peers are either caught up in their own routines, busy doing the couples thing, or just doing whatever everyone else happens to be doing.

This weekend, nearly everyone went to Bijin island. I thought about going, but there are about a dozen other islands that I can take day trips to, which I have never been to before...and I 've been to Bijindo twice.

One of my friends who will be leaving shorty gave me some advice Friday night: you have to get out of town on the weekends. Take a bus and just go. Don't go with anybody--don't even tell anyone you are going.

I think Maggie had the right idea. That's exactly what I need to start doing. I started by going to Hansando today. It is the biggest island, and it has cultural significance as the staging ground for one of the most important sea battles in the history of Korea. A lot of work went into developing a sea-side promenade, and the old camp of Admiral Ye Sun Shin. I went alone, and I felt like it was a much more gratifying way of spending my day than getting drunk on Bijindo.

Unless something really significant comes up, I'm going to take a bus to Busan (Korea's second largest city) next weekend. I think I'll book a hostel and stay over Saturday night. I feel really embarrassed that I've been here for four months and I haven't been there yet. It was this attitude that I needed to go with someone to make my trip worthwhile. But, if Seoul taught me anything, it was that I can have a great time going on trips be myself--and it's really easy to meet people if you travel that way.

Big Trouble in Little Tongyeong

It's Sunday afternoon, and I 'm hung-over, so it must be time to write in the blog.

Usually, I have a hard time deciding to write about. Today I am encumbered by no such burden.
As anxious as I am to get on with it, I should stretch out the preamble a little further as precaution against exposing potentially damning content to the web surfer who has typed in a very specifically worded Google-search. You see, although this blog is invite-only and password-protected, for some reason, the geniuses at Google (who own blogger) make the first couple of lines of a given blog entry readable from the results of a browser query, regardless of privacy settings.*

Man, I'm getting to be such a good writer it's giving me chills. I don't know if it's the Graham Greene, the Strunk and White, or the "buffallow effect." In any case, I gotta start doing this stuff for money.

Okay, that seems like enough filler.

The ***** drama (my director) against my hopes and expectations, has continued.

It turns out that I really like teaching kids. I'm not going to do it for more than a year, but children lack so many of the pretensions that most adults carry around, they harbour less resentment, and they forgive and forget more easily. Kids, and even middle-schoolers, angry and confused by the world as they be, aren't as jaded by life. Kids, as a rule, don't cling to petty reasons to hate, as some adults do;
adults like the passive aggressive, over-worked women that are my Korean co-teachers.

Let me come clean about something. A couple of months ago, we finished the epic debacle that was the Beyond Advanced open class series. To celebrate, we were going to go to a fancy sushi restaurant. At the last minute, our benefactor decided to take us to a sea-side dive.

I had the silly idea in my head, as I often do, that I wasn't going to drink. Well, when I was handed a glass of soju, and prompted to make a toast, I couldn't refuse. My glass kept getting refilled--admittedly, I did do my share of refilling, although that job did not not fall exclusively on me.

Eventually, after too many sojus,  I thought it would be funny if I took some pictures with my colleague's camera, and when my subjects posed cutely with their peace-sign, and fake camera smiles, I would take pictures of them from the neck down. In retrospect, this was a huge failure in judgment. In my defense I have only to say that I had too much to drink, and that this was meant as a private lark between my and the colleague who owned the camera, whom I had decided would surely see the humor in it, and not immediately show everyone.  

Although this had happened months before, ***** brought the photo incident up while scolding Morgan and I after school last Thursday. Morgan blew up at one of his classes. He got angry at his students and got in a fight about which was better--Korea or the USA.  ***** thought that while she was giving Morgan hell and informing him that they were pulling him out of that class, that she would scold me while she was at it--to save time, I guess.

She told me that some student's parents were accusing me of teaching their kids curse-words. I have no idea where this idea came from, because I did not. Also, she claimed, one student claimed that I made a "comment about her body". This is a very serious claim, and most certainly NOT something that I did, either suggestively or otherwise.

However, ***** decided to scold me as if I were a delinquent student. Her rational--if it were Greg or Ben who had received such complaints she would not have given them any credence, but since it was myself that was in question, she was unable to dismiss the complaints. I never did find out who the children were who were making the claims, and I doubt very much if they were reprimanded in any way.


*This was at one point true, before my contract ended and I made this blog public.

Shennanigans

It's been a long week.

I have been doing an intensive class at eleven-fifteen, and working on evaluations after work until ten or eleven for the past week. I haven't been to the gym in over a week. This weekend marks the culmination of the "Battle of Hansan" Festival. How naive of me to think I wasn't going to drink.

Last night, around 2 AM. Here's the scene:

Some friends and I are sitting around near the turtle ship. We are drinking and smoking and passing around the guitar under the soft blue light leaking from the massive stage erected for Sunday. The light technicians are tooling around, making sure everything works.

We set out for a nori-bang about an hour ago, and never quite made it. There are a couple Vancouverites that we met earlier in the crowd. I didn't notice it happen, but the crowd of three or four hundred has dissolved almost entirely.

There are some high school student milling about us, practicing their four-hundred English words, and having a good time. We offer them beer, and they decline. There are a couple of ajossis too (old men), drunk to the gills, and making a nuisance of themselves. The older the ajossi, the more he feels he must drink, and usually the more obnoxious he becomes. Last month, I had an ajossi sit down next to me, rambling in incomprehensible Korean, with one eye caked in blood. He repeatedly made grabs for my penis.

The ajossis around us this evening, helped themselves to our beer and drank deeply. The wife of one of them bought us food and apologized for her husband's rude behaviour. He responded by yelling at his wife and ignoring her. The same guy began harassing one of the male high school students. We diffused the interaction before it became a problem. He responded by throwing a chair at one of the two high school girls. After that, we decided it was time to leave.

Imagine my dread when coming upon a road block (despite taking the back way to avoid this kind of encounter.) Well, I figured the worst that would happen is that I would have to pay a fine to get my bike back, to I took a breath and went through the block.

To my utter shock, I didn't blow over. The officer posed to Luke (who I took along for the ride),

"helmet?" To which he replied,

"Meh."

And off we went.

Changing of the Gaurd

It's been more than three months since arriving in Korea. When I think about it I think either, "holy crap, it's been three months already? or "my God, it's only been three months?"

It seems like things change here so quickly. People are always trickling in and out, but in two weeks, three very significant people in my social group are leaving: my colleagues Greg Zibby and Tim Zasly. When these three leave there will be a totally different group dynamic.

Greg is the glue. I don't want to say he organizes events, because, usually there isn't much organizing to it. Greg just suggests something and people start talking. Next thing you know there are twenty people having a cookout on the pier. Everyone loves Greg and the more he drinks the more jolly and extroverted he gets, so the partying tends to last well into the night, even if it starts in the afternoon.

My initial thoughts on Zibby were that she was stuck up and arrogant. But I gave her a chance and I'm glad I did because I've grown to like her a lot. She has a hell of a sense of humor. Sometimes when bantering around the office, I will have think I took a joke too far (maybe I make a joke about getting a mouthful of cum) and Zibby will take the heat off me by taking it even farther (maybe now there is gargling involved). She also sits next to me at work. Who is going to sit there in two weeks?

In earlier posts, I have wrote about wanting to punch Tim Zasly in the face. I don't know how exactly it happened, but we're cool now. Maybe even friends. Dare I say it? Yeah, I think I'm going to miss Tim.

I have often listened with fascination to my peers tell stories of people who have come and gone. I will here five or six people give me their unique perspectives of someone I have never met. Now I imagine myself in three months telling new people about Greg and Zibby and Tim and I have a feeling I'll be using the phrase "those were good times" a lot.

Even More Photos

Here are a few more from Seoul.

Yet More Photos (Now With Preamble)

 Okay, I know I have not been writing in this blog lately, and for those of you who have taken a real interest, I am sorry. I haven't fallen into depression or anything like that, so you need not worry. I just found that I was starting to repeat myself, which made me realize that I wasn't as interested in writing as I should be. If you want elaboration you should read this: www.http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/43542-Charles-Bukowski-So-You-Want-To-Be-A-Writer

That's why I've been posting pictures instead. I've been enjoying taking pictures, and they can relate a part of my experience here that words cannot. I have just gotten back from Seoul and although I feel like I am once again full of things worth writing about, I have taken a bunch of pictures, so I will do this last entry with an emphasis on the visual before going back to writing. Nevertheless, I will say that my vacation in Seoul was excellent. I had a great time, and amazingly only spent about 480,000 won (about $410) for a four and a half day trip. That included bus fair across the country (both ways), accommodation fees, and a pair of 120,000 won sandals. I felt obliged to treat myself to a Thai massage after I got back. 

...unfortunately, I've been having trouble loading pictures, so here are a handful now. Expect more later, littered throughout other posts.

Stately Gyeonbokgung Manor 

It's muthafuckin' king Sejon. Recognize.

Much to my delight, I discovered there was a museum underneath the statue.

This friendly Korean man from the 15th century is giving an Indian fellow a free lesson in looking stoic.

It seems the pupil has surpassed the master.

While exploring Gyeonbokgung, I was lucky enough to stumble across the rare pygmy Korean (shown here next to regular Koreans for scale). 

In Korea, instead of endless wheat fields and pasture for cows, there are rice paddys galore.

More Photos--Now with Captions!

This is Zibby. Despite being from Idaho, she's a pretty cool cat.
 We all went to luch to celebrate her birthday. This is birthday cake #1
Birthday cakes 2, 3, & 4 will follow, throughout the course of the day

Greg and Laura. They are full of pajan, and thus delighted.

Deep withing the innter-sanctum of the nori-nag.

Needless to say, it we are approaching the wee-hours, and are all throughly shittered.

Greg has three levels of drunkness:
Level one: superfriendly Greg
Level two: Radiohead songs playing Greg (shown above)
Level three: Toothless, shirt-off Greg.

Zibby after four cakes, and God knows how many ounces of soju.

Arthur, trying to puzzle out how Tongyeong got stuck in the magic box;
Belinda, presumably phoning her boyfriend while seated on a shirtless Mr. Christopher.

This is Steve. He's probably the coolest dude in Tongyeong.

He's also from Canada (naturally).
After I got my scooter, we decided to do a circuit of the south island.

The scooter on the left is mine.

After getting my scooter, I went gung-ho on exploring.
Occasionally, I hit a dead-end. 

The Admiral Ye Sun Shin commemorating the battle of Hansando, 

 gaurding against the Japanese.
Presumably, this statue was erected after 1945, *cough* *cough*

Admiral Yi Park . This is why I love Korea.

Add a rock, make a wish. Supposedly a Buddhist thing. (This is very perplexing).

This is from the mountain in my backyard. One of the first things I did in Tongyeong was climb it.
It's still one of my favorite places.

More from the mountain...

These are some of my student's. That's a bag of melting ice on Dereck's head.
The kid the look's like he's drunk is Frank (Franky two-shoes).

This is Lilia, one of my colleagues. She's a pretty cool gal.

Hangin' on the pier.

Photos From Tongyong