here's some artwork that found its way to my whiteboard last week. enjoy!
my ethan by chris
Monday, June 27, 2005
whiteboard art
deery-lou.
here's some artwork that found its way to my whiteboard last week. enjoy!
my ethan by chris
here's some artwork that found its way to my whiteboard last week. enjoy!
my ethan by chris
Sunday, June 26, 2005
daebudo
deery-lou.
YEAH! to snapfish for finally added a slideshow feature. its about time. i do like a good slide show when viewing photos. hope you do to. now onto business. my weekend has come and is slowly on its way out. boo hoo. friday night i got to spar with one of the kids in my taekwondo class. its wasn't my buddy cha-won. instead i had to spar with the tall kid. he was so not wanting to do it. they are alway so nervous to be paired up with me. i had to practice kicking earlier with one of the girls and she was nervous too. i know i'm tall and white with blue eyes and blonde hair but come on. me not that scary. after class i met up with my friend hyunsik in jungangdong. we went to my favorite bar which i call the "batcave". we got a pitcher of beer and some sidedishes. our sidedishes included: sausages and veggies [more like hotdogs cut into octopus shapes], sweet and sour pork [which was delicious], and hwa chae [which is cut off fruit in some kind of liquid served with ice]. i must say i was a bit septical of the hwa chae but it was very refreshing and good. who knew. the evening ended rather early which was good since i had to be up at 11am to meet bae jung-bae.
bae showed up at 10:45am. just as i was on my way to get a pepsi. damn. why do they have to be early. so he greets me with a hi mr. ethan and into the car i go. we head to his apartment to pick up his family. not sure why they didn't come in the first place. oh well more kl for you. when we get to his apartment his wife and two sons are standing outside. i get to greet them. the oldest son gets in the car while his wife and second son remained on the sidewalk. they weren't coming with. once the older son got into the car the younger one started to cry. i think i might have scared him. off we were. daebudo or bust. bae told me there was three stages to our trip. i love how they have stages. conversation was very minimal the whole day. my korean sucks and bae's english is limited. he did have a bunch of questions written out and prepared for the day. occasionally he'd grab his pad and ask me a question. it was cute.
stage 1: our first stop was on the shiwa embankment bridge. there i saw some boats and fishes. i love korea for the mere fact that even along a bridge there are snack tents everywhere. these people sure do like to eat. from there we went to gubondgo coast on daebudo. there we saw the tidelands which are all over the island. when it's low tide its low tide. i couldn't even seen the sea water at some places. its all in the tidelands that people are out digging clams and and crabs. its very mudding. there were people all along the shore with a tent set up with their stuff while they were out in the mud. it's so great because its alot of families out doing this. digging in the mud and getting all dirty. i really wanted to get all in the mud but i didn't. we strolled along the beach. at one area there were all these tents with women eating. at the end was a little restaurant. a little farther we came across a barb wire fence and a road. the gate was opened for people to walk through and the sign gave warning to let you know it was a military area. thats one of the strangest things about being here. all the military posts. at the end of the road there's more rocky beach and off to the left was gubongiseondol, two large rocks. this is the site for daebudo sunset sight 4. hee hee. i love how they have names for this stuff. the smaller rock is called halmaebawi and the larger one is harabaebawi. you can see a picture of them in my link. even though it was far from sunset they were still cool to see. the muddy tidelands, rocks and boats out in the distance was amazing. its really kind of hard to explain how i felt. there was something about it that felt calming, almost mystical. i don't know. after walking around gubongdo we got back into the car and continued our journey. next stop was lunch. we had noodles and seafood soup. not sure what its really called. it was filled with clams, squid, and some other sealife that i have no idea. i sat next to bae's son. which i should mention that a couple of times throughout the day he grabbed my hand when walking. little kids are so cute. he's about 7, the same age as some of my students. he was adorable. after lunch we walked over to this island. apparently when the tide is low you can get out there. the first part of the journey was through the squishy mud. it was like going through the mud walk at john stevens planetarium in florida. while on the little island bae caught a crab and gave it to his son. he carried it around for awhile as if it was his pet. there wer so many hermit crabs there. big ones, little ones it was cool to see them all. there are also these strange water bug that look like roaches. i don't like them so much. beofre heading back to the car bae's son left his new friend behind. i guess he didn't want to bring him back to ansan.
stage 2: stage 2 consisted of a brief stop at the english village ansan camp. english camps are where students go for a week or two and speak nothing but english. they have various scenarios set up to make the students feel like they are in america. we didn't get out of the car it was more of a drive by. it was kind of set up like a university campus. i saw a basketball court, soccer field, and a swimming pool. at the front entrance in giant letters is ENGLISH. i wanted to ask some questions but bae couldn't really understand me. oh well. we also saw the famous yeongeon bridge. hee hee
stage 3: stage 3 took us to nueseom island lighthouse lookout. it was a pretty far walk to the lighthouse. bae's son and i both had a pepsi before we began our long walk. i think he got one because i did. we're like brothers now. the strangest thing is that bae is 36. we're basically around the same age yet he seems so much older than me. i'm i that immature. i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that korean want to look after you. i mean he paid for everything. i tried to offer money several times and he wouldn't take it. i think thats partially when i felt like a child. well that and the fact that bae's son and were playing. anyway once we got to the lighthouse there was a very steep incline we had to climb. by now my sandals had completely dug into my feet and it was very painful to walk. the view from the light was good. although it was a bit foggy out so you couldn't see all these tiny islands that were out in the water. inside they had a simulated boat driving game. both bae's son and myself gave it a try. i almost made to the lighthouse but struck a rock beforehand. oh well. i guess i'm not made to drive a boat. that was the end of stage three. it was now time to head home.
the ride back was pretty much the same as on the way there. very little conversation. although bae did consult his pad a couple of times. and one point he said "let's have a heart to heart". he also told me to call him anytime i had a problem. and then he asked for my clothes size. bizarre. it was definitely cool that he made an effort. there were a couple of times throughout the day that i busted out my korean phrase book too. that thing defintiely comes in handy. bae's son slept the whole way home. when we were approaching my building i told bae where to stop but he said that we were going to dunkin donuts first. so now the three of us were in dd. i tried to get away with only having one donut but bae put a second one on my tray and then a caprisun. thats why i feel so young. its like i'm a son to him. its so strange. outside we parted ways. i thanked him for the day and told him that i really appreciated it. he said it was a fun day and next time we'd go somewhere else. i said ok. i said bye to bae's son and then went home.
i spent most of today [sunday] doing nothing. i read a little. i'm still trying to finish house of leaves. its been two years so far. i'm definitely determined to finish this book. hopefully this will be the year.
watched some tv: korean drama, and big momma's house. took a little nap. did some laundry, wrote some emails, and ate. talk about exciting. it rained most of the day anyway so no worries. sometimes you need to do nothing.
be well…
snaps from daebudo…
Links
YEAH! to snapfish for finally added a slideshow feature. its about time. i do like a good slide show when viewing photos. hope you do to. now onto business. my weekend has come and is slowly on its way out. boo hoo. friday night i got to spar with one of the kids in my taekwondo class. its wasn't my buddy cha-won. instead i had to spar with the tall kid. he was so not wanting to do it. they are alway so nervous to be paired up with me. i had to practice kicking earlier with one of the girls and she was nervous too. i know i'm tall and white with blue eyes and blonde hair but come on. me not that scary. after class i met up with my friend hyunsik in jungangdong. we went to my favorite bar which i call the "batcave". we got a pitcher of beer and some sidedishes. our sidedishes included: sausages and veggies [more like hotdogs cut into octopus shapes], sweet and sour pork [which was delicious], and hwa chae [which is cut off fruit in some kind of liquid served with ice]. i must say i was a bit septical of the hwa chae but it was very refreshing and good. who knew. the evening ended rather early which was good since i had to be up at 11am to meet bae jung-bae.
bae showed up at 10:45am. just as i was on my way to get a pepsi. damn. why do they have to be early. so he greets me with a hi mr. ethan and into the car i go. we head to his apartment to pick up his family. not sure why they didn't come in the first place. oh well more kl for you. when we get to his apartment his wife and two sons are standing outside. i get to greet them. the oldest son gets in the car while his wife and second son remained on the sidewalk. they weren't coming with. once the older son got into the car the younger one started to cry. i think i might have scared him. off we were. daebudo or bust. bae told me there was three stages to our trip. i love how they have stages. conversation was very minimal the whole day. my korean sucks and bae's english is limited. he did have a bunch of questions written out and prepared for the day. occasionally he'd grab his pad and ask me a question. it was cute.
stage 1: our first stop was on the shiwa embankment bridge. there i saw some boats and fishes. i love korea for the mere fact that even along a bridge there are snack tents everywhere. these people sure do like to eat. from there we went to gubondgo coast on daebudo. there we saw the tidelands which are all over the island. when it's low tide its low tide. i couldn't even seen the sea water at some places. its all in the tidelands that people are out digging clams and and crabs. its very mudding. there were people all along the shore with a tent set up with their stuff while they were out in the mud. it's so great because its alot of families out doing this. digging in the mud and getting all dirty. i really wanted to get all in the mud but i didn't. we strolled along the beach. at one area there were all these tents with women eating. at the end was a little restaurant. a little farther we came across a barb wire fence and a road. the gate was opened for people to walk through and the sign gave warning to let you know it was a military area. thats one of the strangest things about being here. all the military posts. at the end of the road there's more rocky beach and off to the left was gubongiseondol, two large rocks. this is the site for daebudo sunset sight 4. hee hee. i love how they have names for this stuff. the smaller rock is called halmaebawi and the larger one is harabaebawi. you can see a picture of them in my link. even though it was far from sunset they were still cool to see. the muddy tidelands, rocks and boats out in the distance was amazing. its really kind of hard to explain how i felt. there was something about it that felt calming, almost mystical. i don't know. after walking around gubongdo we got back into the car and continued our journey. next stop was lunch. we had noodles and seafood soup. not sure what its really called. it was filled with clams, squid, and some other sealife that i have no idea. i sat next to bae's son. which i should mention that a couple of times throughout the day he grabbed my hand when walking. little kids are so cute. he's about 7, the same age as some of my students. he was adorable. after lunch we walked over to this island. apparently when the tide is low you can get out there. the first part of the journey was through the squishy mud. it was like going through the mud walk at john stevens planetarium in florida. while on the little island bae caught a crab and gave it to his son. he carried it around for awhile as if it was his pet. there wer so many hermit crabs there. big ones, little ones it was cool to see them all. there are also these strange water bug that look like roaches. i don't like them so much. beofre heading back to the car bae's son left his new friend behind. i guess he didn't want to bring him back to ansan.
stage 2: stage 2 consisted of a brief stop at the english village ansan camp. english camps are where students go for a week or two and speak nothing but english. they have various scenarios set up to make the students feel like they are in america. we didn't get out of the car it was more of a drive by. it was kind of set up like a university campus. i saw a basketball court, soccer field, and a swimming pool. at the front entrance in giant letters is ENGLISH. i wanted to ask some questions but bae couldn't really understand me. oh well. we also saw the famous yeongeon bridge. hee hee
stage 3: stage 3 took us to nueseom island lighthouse lookout. it was a pretty far walk to the lighthouse. bae's son and i both had a pepsi before we began our long walk. i think he got one because i did. we're like brothers now. the strangest thing is that bae is 36. we're basically around the same age yet he seems so much older than me. i'm i that immature. i think a lot of that has to do with the fact that korean want to look after you. i mean he paid for everything. i tried to offer money several times and he wouldn't take it. i think thats partially when i felt like a child. well that and the fact that bae's son and were playing. anyway once we got to the lighthouse there was a very steep incline we had to climb. by now my sandals had completely dug into my feet and it was very painful to walk. the view from the light was good. although it was a bit foggy out so you couldn't see all these tiny islands that were out in the water. inside they had a simulated boat driving game. both bae's son and myself gave it a try. i almost made to the lighthouse but struck a rock beforehand. oh well. i guess i'm not made to drive a boat. that was the end of stage three. it was now time to head home.
the ride back was pretty much the same as on the way there. very little conversation. although bae did consult his pad a couple of times. and one point he said "let's have a heart to heart". he also told me to call him anytime i had a problem. and then he asked for my clothes size. bizarre. it was definitely cool that he made an effort. there were a couple of times throughout the day that i busted out my korean phrase book too. that thing defintiely comes in handy. bae's son slept the whole way home. when we were approaching my building i told bae where to stop but he said that we were going to dunkin donuts first. so now the three of us were in dd. i tried to get away with only having one donut but bae put a second one on my tray and then a caprisun. thats why i feel so young. its like i'm a son to him. its so strange. outside we parted ways. i thanked him for the day and told him that i really appreciated it. he said it was a fun day and next time we'd go somewhere else. i said ok. i said bye to bae's son and then went home.
i spent most of today [sunday] doing nothing. i read a little. i'm still trying to finish house of leaves. its been two years so far. i'm definitely determined to finish this book. hopefully this will be the year.
watched some tv: korean drama, and big momma's house. took a little nap. did some laundry, wrote some emails, and ate. talk about exciting. it rained most of the day anyway so no worries. sometimes you need to do nothing.
be well…
snaps from daebudo…
Thursday, June 23, 2005
how do i get myself into these situations
deery-lou.
i think i joined a korean cult. these members of the ansan sisterhood program or just too much. tonight before heading to taekwondo do i get a call from paul who is in charge of the sisterhood program. he was calling on behalf of jung-bae, the man who wants to take me to daebudo. paul was calling to make arrangements. he wanted to know if i was available on saturday. not really thinking i said i had no plans. which is partly true because my previous plans haven't been finalized. he asked what time i would be available to go to daebudo because jung-bae wanted to take me there. realizing there was no way out of it and being the nice guy i am i told him anytime as long as it wasn't early in the morning. ten minutes later i got a text message and then a phone call from paul. it looks like i'll be heading to the island at 11am with jung-bae and his family. how did this happen. i never really expected him to follow through with the plans. perhaps i got too use to people in america saying we should do this or that and it never happens. not the case here. this people are determined. they always go out of their way to make people welcome. it'll definitely be an adventure. jung-bae, his wife, two son, and i spending the day together. jung-bae's english is not that great so i can only imagine the conversations we'll be having. i guess i'll just have to wait and see.
on other news. things at school have been a bit strange. there's some weird vibe going on that horace and i can't really seem to figure out. it all started around when i declined to teach some extra classes. they want me to work an extra 15 hours a week plus 2 hours on saturday for $4 an hour. i told them that i couldn't manage that. the pay was just too low especially since they were getting half of it. haf anyone. so anyway things have been a strained. the other day horace had a blowout with jk who actually yelled at horace. we tried to ask one of the teachers what was going on and she responded to horace by saying she doesn't want to get involved anymore and just wants to do her job. horace kind of blew up and said some things. in return she went to jk and told him. so much for not getting involved on her part. we now call her judas. to make a long story short jk and horace ended up in the elevator together this morning and seemed to work things out. according to horace he thinks that jk is having some family problems and thats why he's been a bit distance. which is kind of relief. at least we now know he's not mad at us for the extra teaching stuff. we still haven't signed contracts yet and i'm hoping this won't affect that. i really don't want to have to look for another job. although i don't think it'd be too difficult. there are plenty of jobs out there. i'll keep you posted.
i have a little buddy in taekwondo class. his name is tong cha-won. he's always saying hi to me and sitting next to me. its so cute. he tries to talk to me but i only understand a little of what he's saying. the other day he looked at me and said, "ethan, i'm so tired." my response, "me too." then he smiled. i love him. i've been trying to learn poomse 6 which is quite challenging since they actually haven't shown me the moves. i'm trying to copy them as the whole class is doing it. hello. i'm a foreign and don't understand korean please help. hopefully they'll show me some pity and take me through it step by step. the other day my kwanjangnim told me that my black belt test would be october. yikes! he also said that i need to start training really hard. he had me kicking the other day for 20 minutes straight. i was so freaking tired afterwards. i think they're trying to kill me. seriously, i do. tonight the kwanjangnim was sparring with some of the students. it was so funny to watch. he was totally kicking their ass. thankfully time ran out before it was my turn. next time he said i'd have to spar him. he just wants to kick my ass. why can't i spar with the little ones. oh, wait. they'd probably kick my ass too. its a lose lose situation for me.
approx. 32 hours until the island trip. wish me luck!!
be well…
i think i joined a korean cult. these members of the ansan sisterhood program or just too much. tonight before heading to taekwondo do i get a call from paul who is in charge of the sisterhood program. he was calling on behalf of jung-bae, the man who wants to take me to daebudo. paul was calling to make arrangements. he wanted to know if i was available on saturday. not really thinking i said i had no plans. which is partly true because my previous plans haven't been finalized. he asked what time i would be available to go to daebudo because jung-bae wanted to take me there. realizing there was no way out of it and being the nice guy i am i told him anytime as long as it wasn't early in the morning. ten minutes later i got a text message and then a phone call from paul. it looks like i'll be heading to the island at 11am with jung-bae and his family. how did this happen. i never really expected him to follow through with the plans. perhaps i got too use to people in america saying we should do this or that and it never happens. not the case here. this people are determined. they always go out of their way to make people welcome. it'll definitely be an adventure. jung-bae, his wife, two son, and i spending the day together. jung-bae's english is not that great so i can only imagine the conversations we'll be having. i guess i'll just have to wait and see.
on other news. things at school have been a bit strange. there's some weird vibe going on that horace and i can't really seem to figure out. it all started around when i declined to teach some extra classes. they want me to work an extra 15 hours a week plus 2 hours on saturday for $4 an hour. i told them that i couldn't manage that. the pay was just too low especially since they were getting half of it. haf anyone. so anyway things have been a strained. the other day horace had a blowout with jk who actually yelled at horace. we tried to ask one of the teachers what was going on and she responded to horace by saying she doesn't want to get involved anymore and just wants to do her job. horace kind of blew up and said some things. in return she went to jk and told him. so much for not getting involved on her part. we now call her judas. to make a long story short jk and horace ended up in the elevator together this morning and seemed to work things out. according to horace he thinks that jk is having some family problems and thats why he's been a bit distance. which is kind of relief. at least we now know he's not mad at us for the extra teaching stuff. we still haven't signed contracts yet and i'm hoping this won't affect that. i really don't want to have to look for another job. although i don't think it'd be too difficult. there are plenty of jobs out there. i'll keep you posted.
i have a little buddy in taekwondo class. his name is tong cha-won. he's always saying hi to me and sitting next to me. its so cute. he tries to talk to me but i only understand a little of what he's saying. the other day he looked at me and said, "ethan, i'm so tired." my response, "me too." then he smiled. i love him. i've been trying to learn poomse 6 which is quite challenging since they actually haven't shown me the moves. i'm trying to copy them as the whole class is doing it. hello. i'm a foreign and don't understand korean please help. hopefully they'll show me some pity and take me through it step by step. the other day my kwanjangnim told me that my black belt test would be october. yikes! he also said that i need to start training really hard. he had me kicking the other day for 20 minutes straight. i was so freaking tired afterwards. i think they're trying to kill me. seriously, i do. tonight the kwanjangnim was sparring with some of the students. it was so funny to watch. he was totally kicking their ass. thankfully time ran out before it was my turn. next time he said i'd have to spar him. he just wants to kick my ass. why can't i spar with the little ones. oh, wait. they'd probably kick my ass too. its a lose lose situation for me.
approx. 32 hours until the island trip. wish me luck!!
be well…
Tuesday, June 21, 2005
vcds and more
deery-lou.
i can't believe its thursday already. where is the time going? it seems to be flying by. keeping up with my writing has now become a task. what am i doing in my spare time you ask? good question. i have no idea. oh wait yes i do. i'm getting sucked into korean dramas. i've also discovered a new passion vcds [video cds]. i've mentioned them before and now that i know they work on my computer i can't stop buying them. i watched one last night that had my favorite actor from love's pinwheel cha in-pyo. the movie was called iron palm. overall not the best movie i've seen but it was entertaining to say the least. it also had the korean actress from lost kim yoon-jin. i like her too. she's so good on lost. i've got 4 more vcd to watch and am sure that i will continue to buy them. hee hee.
on saturday i finally met up with jean. we've been trying to connect for the last 6 months or so. but due to our schedules it never really happened until now. we met up for coffee around 5ish. it was really great to meet her. we have a mutual friend in common jane, who i worked with at the jewish times. talking with jean was almost like talking to a long lost friend. it felt really comfortable. after coffee we went to grab a bite to eat. the food was quite yummy [as my students would say]. jean is a photographer so it was great to talk to her about stuff like that. she also knows alot about the publishing biz here in korea so i was asking her about that. who know perhaps i'll be able to find a job in my field. its too bad we didn't hook up sooner. we got along really now and now i think she's leaving at the end of the month for work again. oh well. at least i know she'll be back since korea is her home. on sunday i met up with my friend hyunksik. we went to gangnam area and had lunch at the pasta place. i was amazed at how good pasta and garlic bread tasted. see what happens when you don't have something in a long time. it taste fantastic. it was really hot on sunday. we walked around gangnam browsing in a bookstore where i bought even more vcds. then we went to get some coffee and air conditioning. when i got back to ansan i was craving pork cutlets so i went to my new favorite pork cutlet place van gogh [i think thats the name]. anyway i went up the stairs to the restaurant only to find it was now a bbq place. sadness. at the bottom of the stairs is another restaurant and i peeked it and noticed that it was van gogh. they had downsized but at least they were still in business. i had the pork cutlet stuffed with cheese. so delicious.
last night i meet up with my ansan city team members. we went out to dinner then went to a bar for some drinks. of course the other foreigner who is suppose to be in our group didn't come. it was a little uncomfortable at first but as time went on it got easier. i did realize that when i'm nervous i talk a lot faster than normal. a couple of times they had to ask me to slow down. i think i understand about 35% of the conversation and vice versa. there's one guy in the group who wants me to teach him english. a couple of times through out the evening chang mo asked if certain words were correct or konglish. i thought that was kind of funny. jung bae wants to take me to daebudo on saturday with his family. i'm not sure if thats definitely going to happen but it will definitely be interesting. at the end of the evening jung bae walked me home because he was the designated escort. he wanted to buy me some doughnuts for breakfast but dunkin donuts was fresh out. imagine that. a dd out of doughnuts. only in korea!
be well…
i can't believe its thursday already. where is the time going? it seems to be flying by. keeping up with my writing has now become a task. what am i doing in my spare time you ask? good question. i have no idea. oh wait yes i do. i'm getting sucked into korean dramas. i've also discovered a new passion vcds [video cds]. i've mentioned them before and now that i know they work on my computer i can't stop buying them. i watched one last night that had my favorite actor from love's pinwheel cha in-pyo. the movie was called iron palm. overall not the best movie i've seen but it was entertaining to say the least. it also had the korean actress from lost kim yoon-jin. i like her too. she's so good on lost. i've got 4 more vcd to watch and am sure that i will continue to buy them. hee hee.
on saturday i finally met up with jean. we've been trying to connect for the last 6 months or so. but due to our schedules it never really happened until now. we met up for coffee around 5ish. it was really great to meet her. we have a mutual friend in common jane, who i worked with at the jewish times. talking with jean was almost like talking to a long lost friend. it felt really comfortable. after coffee we went to grab a bite to eat. the food was quite yummy [as my students would say]. jean is a photographer so it was great to talk to her about stuff like that. she also knows alot about the publishing biz here in korea so i was asking her about that. who know perhaps i'll be able to find a job in my field. its too bad we didn't hook up sooner. we got along really now and now i think she's leaving at the end of the month for work again. oh well. at least i know she'll be back since korea is her home. on sunday i met up with my friend hyunksik. we went to gangnam area and had lunch at the pasta place. i was amazed at how good pasta and garlic bread tasted. see what happens when you don't have something in a long time. it taste fantastic. it was really hot on sunday. we walked around gangnam browsing in a bookstore where i bought even more vcds. then we went to get some coffee and air conditioning. when i got back to ansan i was craving pork cutlets so i went to my new favorite pork cutlet place van gogh [i think thats the name]. anyway i went up the stairs to the restaurant only to find it was now a bbq place. sadness. at the bottom of the stairs is another restaurant and i peeked it and noticed that it was van gogh. they had downsized but at least they were still in business. i had the pork cutlet stuffed with cheese. so delicious.
last night i meet up with my ansan city team members. we went out to dinner then went to a bar for some drinks. of course the other foreigner who is suppose to be in our group didn't come. it was a little uncomfortable at first but as time went on it got easier. i did realize that when i'm nervous i talk a lot faster than normal. a couple of times they had to ask me to slow down. i think i understand about 35% of the conversation and vice versa. there's one guy in the group who wants me to teach him english. a couple of times through out the evening chang mo asked if certain words were correct or konglish. i thought that was kind of funny. jung bae wants to take me to daebudo on saturday with his family. i'm not sure if thats definitely going to happen but it will definitely be interesting. at the end of the evening jung bae walked me home because he was the designated escort. he wanted to buy me some doughnuts for breakfast but dunkin donuts was fresh out. imagine that. a dd out of doughnuts. only in korea!
be well…
Friday, June 17, 2005
the sisterhood of ansan
deery-lou.
this week has been pretty uneventful. its been hot and i've been tired. on wednesday i met my friend heather and her boyfriend chris for dinner. since leaving taekwondo class i don't get to see them as much. they're leaving in july so i went down to the oido station to meet up with them. after dinner we went for a pitcher of beer. which in turn ended of being 3 pitchers. it was great to sit outside in the nice weather and kick back with cold beer. i ended up taking a cab home which i barely remember. needless to say the next at school i was worthless. i even skipped my taekwondo class. oops. when i showed up on friday my kwanjangnim asked where i was. he thought that i had gotten hurt. i lied and said i had to work late. i have a new favortie in my class. its this chubby boy with a mullet. he's always saying hi to me and smiling. he makes me laugh cuz he's always getting in trouble. he's told me his name twice but i can never remember it. i'll have to ask him again on monday. i was up early on friday because i have a meeting to go to. i signed up for the ansan sisterhood program which is about establishing friendly relationships with foreigners in ansan. i figured why not. what could it hurt. so i had to be at the healthcare center at 9:30. when i got there it was quite empty. i went in and they gave me my name tag and showed me to my table. i was at english team 1 and according to the sign there was going to be one other foreigner at my table and 8 korean city workers. this was definitely going to be interesting. as the time went on more people started coming in but they were all mostly the city workers. there were maybe 10 foreigners tops. the other foreigner at my table never showed. so it was me and my new found city worker friends. they were asking questions and vice versa. at one point we were all passing out our "name cards" [business cards] as they call them. it was quite comical. i did get a map of ansan which is a lot bigger than i thought. there's even a little island about an hour or so away. my new friends were pointing out different things to me and one even said he'd take me to daebudo, the island. how nice is that. they've also recently built a race track in ansan. in october they're having their first event there…champansan. i just might check it out. it seems like the city is really pushing it. they're hoping it will bring lots of tourists. seeing that i never made to the daytona 500 i should definitely check out the racing in korea. goodtimes. during the meeting we had to listening to some several speakers, get pictures taken, and watch a movie on ansan. i did get to meet the mayor you gave all the foreigners a certificate and a present. then we all had our pictures taken with him. hee hee. then i found out that my team would have to meet up a couple a times a month. what? yeah. they're taking this pretty seriously. so we had to come up with a team name. the leader kim chang-ma decided to call our group team duran-duran. once that was decided they all yelled out "team duran-duran" and clapped. they get very excited. our first meeting is next wednesday at 8:30pm. here are the events we have planned for future meetings: talking, conversation, eating, drinking, sightseeing, playing sports, etc. one of the guys on my team is a member of the basketball team. they actually all seem pretty cool. they have a sense of humor especially kim chang-ma who kept making fun of how koreans always have to have so many speakers at events. once we turned in our form listing our plans we had to have a team photo taken. they certainly love taking pictures. that was when they all noticed the big shoes. "oh what big shoes", they said. i told them i needed them to be taller. they laughed. before we left for the day they all told me to call if i had any problems or questions. people hear are so nice. i can't wait to see what happens on wednesday. at home i opened up my present which was a clock with korean painting on it. very grandmaish and kitschy. i like it. today i'm planning to meet a friend of a friend. my friend jane who i worked with at the jewish times went to grad school with a girl from korea and thats who i'm meeting. we've tried to get together for the last 6 months and now finally we both have time. its always cool to meet new peeps. thats about it for now.
be well…
this week has been pretty uneventful. its been hot and i've been tired. on wednesday i met my friend heather and her boyfriend chris for dinner. since leaving taekwondo class i don't get to see them as much. they're leaving in july so i went down to the oido station to meet up with them. after dinner we went for a pitcher of beer. which in turn ended of being 3 pitchers. it was great to sit outside in the nice weather and kick back with cold beer. i ended up taking a cab home which i barely remember. needless to say the next at school i was worthless. i even skipped my taekwondo class. oops. when i showed up on friday my kwanjangnim asked where i was. he thought that i had gotten hurt. i lied and said i had to work late. i have a new favortie in my class. its this chubby boy with a mullet. he's always saying hi to me and smiling. he makes me laugh cuz he's always getting in trouble. he's told me his name twice but i can never remember it. i'll have to ask him again on monday. i was up early on friday because i have a meeting to go to. i signed up for the ansan sisterhood program which is about establishing friendly relationships with foreigners in ansan. i figured why not. what could it hurt. so i had to be at the healthcare center at 9:30. when i got there it was quite empty. i went in and they gave me my name tag and showed me to my table. i was at english team 1 and according to the sign there was going to be one other foreigner at my table and 8 korean city workers. this was definitely going to be interesting. as the time went on more people started coming in but they were all mostly the city workers. there were maybe 10 foreigners tops. the other foreigner at my table never showed. so it was me and my new found city worker friends. they were asking questions and vice versa. at one point we were all passing out our "name cards" [business cards] as they call them. it was quite comical. i did get a map of ansan which is a lot bigger than i thought. there's even a little island about an hour or so away. my new friends were pointing out different things to me and one even said he'd take me to daebudo, the island. how nice is that. they've also recently built a race track in ansan. in october they're having their first event there…champansan. i just might check it out. it seems like the city is really pushing it. they're hoping it will bring lots of tourists. seeing that i never made to the daytona 500 i should definitely check out the racing in korea. goodtimes. during the meeting we had to listening to some several speakers, get pictures taken, and watch a movie on ansan. i did get to meet the mayor you gave all the foreigners a certificate and a present. then we all had our pictures taken with him. hee hee. then i found out that my team would have to meet up a couple a times a month. what? yeah. they're taking this pretty seriously. so we had to come up with a team name. the leader kim chang-ma decided to call our group team duran-duran. once that was decided they all yelled out "team duran-duran" and clapped. they get very excited. our first meeting is next wednesday at 8:30pm. here are the events we have planned for future meetings: talking, conversation, eating, drinking, sightseeing, playing sports, etc. one of the guys on my team is a member of the basketball team. they actually all seem pretty cool. they have a sense of humor especially kim chang-ma who kept making fun of how koreans always have to have so many speakers at events. once we turned in our form listing our plans we had to have a team photo taken. they certainly love taking pictures. that was when they all noticed the big shoes. "oh what big shoes", they said. i told them i needed them to be taller. they laughed. before we left for the day they all told me to call if i had any problems or questions. people hear are so nice. i can't wait to see what happens on wednesday. at home i opened up my present which was a clock with korean painting on it. very grandmaish and kitschy. i like it. today i'm planning to meet a friend of a friend. my friend jane who i worked with at the jewish times went to grad school with a girl from korea and thats who i'm meeting. we've tried to get together for the last 6 months and now finally we both have time. its always cool to meet new peeps. thats about it for now.
be well…
oh thank heaven for 7-eleven
deery-lou.
so i was poking around on the internet and i found this article about summer and slurpees. i miss my 7-eleven. appartently they are celebrating slurpee 40th anniversary. hopefully one of my friends out there we get a retro slurpee in my honor. i [heart] slurpees!!!
here the article:
The beverage (I guess you'd call it a beverage...) is celebrating its 40th anniversary says this press release:
7-Eleven, Inc. has launched a month-long celebration of Slurpee's 40th birthday on July 11, 2005. To celebrate this iconic brand, 7-Eleven is introducing retro Slurpee cups and flavors in participating 7-Eleven® stores nationwide, airing original Slurpee radio spots from the 1960s, and offering prizes and promotions as part of the Slurpee Summer Prize Fest, including free music downloads and the chance to win one of four MINI Cooper convertibles.
Today, Slurpee is one of America's most recognized brands, but when Slurpee was introduced in 1965 it was a groundbreaking concept that took America by storm. Still served at a chilling 28 degrees, Slurpee enjoys worldwide popularity and is available in 14 countries and U.S. territories.
"A lot has changed since 1965, but not Slurpee. It's the ultimate retro drink, still cool even after 40 years," said Kevin Cooper, 7-Eleven category manager for Slurpee and fountain. "That's why we decided to have some fun this summer with some of the crazy '60s Slurpee flavors like Blue Blunder Berry and Gully Washer."
"Slurpee is truly an iconic American brand," said Wendy Liebmann, founder and president, WSL Strategic Retail. "Slurpee was one of the defining icons of American pop culture in the 1960s. Forty years later, it still resonates with a broad base of consumers who see it as their big chilly drink of choice."
Starting today, 7-Eleven customers can slurp Blue Blunder Berry in June and Gully Washer during July, two retro flavors developed by The Coca- Cola Company. Four color-changing Slurpee mugs feature graphics representing the decades of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Tinted bright blue, yellow, orange or green, the 38-ounce refillable mugs dramatically change colors when a cold Slurpee hits the mug, designed to fit any car cup holder. Retailing for $2.49, the price includes the mug, one Slurpee fill-up and free Wonka candy.
All Slurpee customers will be winners during the Slurpee Summer Prize Fest. Throughout June and July, 7-Eleven is giving away one free music download on all standard Slurpee cups. Last but not least, 7-Eleven is giving away four grand prize MINI Cooper convertibles, one for each decade of the Slurpee's 40 years of popularity and each painted a bright Slurpee color. Customers can register to win at participating 7-Eleven stores nationwide or online at http://www.slurpee.com .
"We decided to celebrate Slurpee's birthday by giving our customers a gift -- Slurpees, music and convertibles seemed like a natural fit," said Cooper. "Slurpee lovers can collect both music and cups during the celebration, and if they're really lucky, they might win a car!"
That's all very nice. But what we really want are Slurpee superhero cups!
i agree. bring on the superhero slurpees!!!
be well…
so i was poking around on the internet and i found this article about summer and slurpees. i miss my 7-eleven. appartently they are celebrating slurpee 40th anniversary. hopefully one of my friends out there we get a retro slurpee in my honor. i [heart] slurpees!!!
here the article:
The beverage (I guess you'd call it a beverage...) is celebrating its 40th anniversary says this press release:
7-Eleven, Inc. has launched a month-long celebration of Slurpee's 40th birthday on July 11, 2005. To celebrate this iconic brand, 7-Eleven is introducing retro Slurpee cups and flavors in participating 7-Eleven® stores nationwide, airing original Slurpee radio spots from the 1960s, and offering prizes and promotions as part of the Slurpee Summer Prize Fest, including free music downloads and the chance to win one of four MINI Cooper convertibles.
Today, Slurpee is one of America's most recognized brands, but when Slurpee was introduced in 1965 it was a groundbreaking concept that took America by storm. Still served at a chilling 28 degrees, Slurpee enjoys worldwide popularity and is available in 14 countries and U.S. territories.
"A lot has changed since 1965, but not Slurpee. It's the ultimate retro drink, still cool even after 40 years," said Kevin Cooper, 7-Eleven category manager for Slurpee and fountain. "That's why we decided to have some fun this summer with some of the crazy '60s Slurpee flavors like Blue Blunder Berry and Gully Washer."
"Slurpee is truly an iconic American brand," said Wendy Liebmann, founder and president, WSL Strategic Retail. "Slurpee was one of the defining icons of American pop culture in the 1960s. Forty years later, it still resonates with a broad base of consumers who see it as their big chilly drink of choice."
Starting today, 7-Eleven customers can slurp Blue Blunder Berry in June and Gully Washer during July, two retro flavors developed by The Coca- Cola Company. Four color-changing Slurpee mugs feature graphics representing the decades of the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. Tinted bright blue, yellow, orange or green, the 38-ounce refillable mugs dramatically change colors when a cold Slurpee hits the mug, designed to fit any car cup holder. Retailing for $2.49, the price includes the mug, one Slurpee fill-up and free Wonka candy.
All Slurpee customers will be winners during the Slurpee Summer Prize Fest. Throughout June and July, 7-Eleven is giving away one free music download on all standard Slurpee cups. Last but not least, 7-Eleven is giving away four grand prize MINI Cooper convertibles, one for each decade of the Slurpee's 40 years of popularity and each painted a bright Slurpee color. Customers can register to win at participating 7-Eleven stores nationwide or online at http://www.slurpee.com .
"We decided to celebrate Slurpee's birthday by giving our customers a gift -- Slurpees, music and convertibles seemed like a natural fit," said Cooper. "Slurpee lovers can collect both music and cups during the celebration, and if they're really lucky, they might win a car!"
That's all very nice. But what we really want are Slurpee superhero cups!
i agree. bring on the superhero slurpees!!!
be well…
Monday, June 13, 2005
korean-havana nights
deery-lou.
its hot here. i finally caved in and turned on my air conditioning. during taekwondo i was completely drenched. the sabomnim made us jump so much. every time he looked over at me he said "jump, jump". for a minute i thought he was channeling kris kross.
no how much the tkd class pains me while i'm doing it, i aways seem to feel pretty good after. although tonight i ate a sausage sandwich, a chocolate snack, and peanut butter on a banana. not sure why so hungry.
friday night i spent my evening chatting with misty online and listening to bagel radio. ted was having a little summer theme going so i told misty to have him play bananarama's "cruel summer". not sure many people were fond of that song being played but i sure was. hee hee. we chatted until 3am my time and then i decidced i should be off to bed. my saturday was spent eating mcdonalds [i had a break down] and doing absolutely nothing. oh wait, i did manage to get a nap in. around 7pm i met a friend of mine in hongdae. we had dinner and then went to macondo latin bar. it was like stepping into my own korean-havana nights. yes i will admit that i saw havana nights. MISTY MADE ME GO!!! just kidding i actually wanted to see it for some obscure reason. perhaps it has something to do with my interest in latino culture [wink. wink.] it felt so forbidden being there. the dirty dancing of havana finding it's was into the converstive korean borders. actually there are quite a few latino clubs in korea. these koreans just want to dance. they actually served sangria too and it was pretty tastey. there were a lot of older korean men there waiting to ask the young pretty women to dance. some of them were actually pretty good. we stayed for an hour or so and then i called it a night and went back to lovely ansan.
on sunday i had some cold noodle soup and this resturant near gojan station. i went to lunch with my korean friend chris. the soup was very tastey. although next time i need to have them cut my noodles. its very hard to eat noodles with chopsticks. and these sweet potato noodles are quite chewing. i had to break them with my fingers because i can't find the end of noodle. i had so much in my mouth that i thought i was going to gag. nevertheless i prevailed. it funny how the smallest things can make one feel like they accomplished something great. thats what eating chewy noodles with chopsticks is like for me. chris and i hung out for a bit. later i went to carrefour to get some supplies. while in there i brought down and bought two korean movies that are on video cds. they cost about $4 bucks each. hopefully they'll work in my computer. one definitely said it had english subtitles the other didn't. i'm taken a gamble but i wanted to get it because it had an actor from "love's pinwheel" in it. hee hee. i'm such a dork sometimes. i've also been watching this sitcom called "guys & girls" every friday morning at 10. i love korean shows.
anyway…after having some dinner mcdonalds again. i know bad. when i fall i fall hard. but i think its out of my system again. i really wanted a crepe but the crepe lady wasn't there. so i got the big mac. sadness. i spent the rest of the evening watching 4 episodes of "popular". I LOVE THAT SHOW!! i was laughing so much. it made me feel so good. there was even one episode that i hadn't seen pretty that was a riot. here are some quotes:
mary cherry: "the career test said that i'd be a serial killer."
mary cherry's t-shirt: "prada or death"
nicole juilian: "i've given her a blowout that would have straightened the pacific coast highway" [this was about april tuna's makeover]
mary cherry's response: "april tuna is the blackhole of beauty."
adam to brooke: "is mary cherry retarded?"
it makes me laugh now just reading them. i could go on and on. this show was way ahead of its time. its too bad it wasn't able to go a third season. i love finding a show that can watch over and over again and still continue to laugh. and even see things you didn't notice before. sigh…r.i.p. popular and especially you mary cherry.
be well…
its hot here. i finally caved in and turned on my air conditioning. during taekwondo i was completely drenched. the sabomnim made us jump so much. every time he looked over at me he said "jump, jump". for a minute i thought he was channeling kris kross.
no how much the tkd class pains me while i'm doing it, i aways seem to feel pretty good after. although tonight i ate a sausage sandwich, a chocolate snack, and peanut butter on a banana. not sure why so hungry.
friday night i spent my evening chatting with misty online and listening to bagel radio. ted was having a little summer theme going so i told misty to have him play bananarama's "cruel summer". not sure many people were fond of that song being played but i sure was. hee hee. we chatted until 3am my time and then i decidced i should be off to bed. my saturday was spent eating mcdonalds [i had a break down] and doing absolutely nothing. oh wait, i did manage to get a nap in. around 7pm i met a friend of mine in hongdae. we had dinner and then went to macondo latin bar. it was like stepping into my own korean-havana nights. yes i will admit that i saw havana nights. MISTY MADE ME GO!!! just kidding i actually wanted to see it for some obscure reason. perhaps it has something to do with my interest in latino culture [wink. wink.] it felt so forbidden being there. the dirty dancing of havana finding it's was into the converstive korean borders. actually there are quite a few latino clubs in korea. these koreans just want to dance. they actually served sangria too and it was pretty tastey. there were a lot of older korean men there waiting to ask the young pretty women to dance. some of them were actually pretty good. we stayed for an hour or so and then i called it a night and went back to lovely ansan.
on sunday i had some cold noodle soup and this resturant near gojan station. i went to lunch with my korean friend chris. the soup was very tastey. although next time i need to have them cut my noodles. its very hard to eat noodles with chopsticks. and these sweet potato noodles are quite chewing. i had to break them with my fingers because i can't find the end of noodle. i had so much in my mouth that i thought i was going to gag. nevertheless i prevailed. it funny how the smallest things can make one feel like they accomplished something great. thats what eating chewy noodles with chopsticks is like for me. chris and i hung out for a bit. later i went to carrefour to get some supplies. while in there i brought down and bought two korean movies that are on video cds. they cost about $4 bucks each. hopefully they'll work in my computer. one definitely said it had english subtitles the other didn't. i'm taken a gamble but i wanted to get it because it had an actor from "love's pinwheel" in it. hee hee. i'm such a dork sometimes. i've also been watching this sitcom called "guys & girls" every friday morning at 10. i love korean shows.
anyway…after having some dinner mcdonalds again. i know bad. when i fall i fall hard. but i think its out of my system again. i really wanted a crepe but the crepe lady wasn't there. so i got the big mac. sadness. i spent the rest of the evening watching 4 episodes of "popular". I LOVE THAT SHOW!! i was laughing so much. it made me feel so good. there was even one episode that i hadn't seen pretty that was a riot. here are some quotes:
mary cherry: "the career test said that i'd be a serial killer."
mary cherry's t-shirt: "prada or death"
nicole juilian: "i've given her a blowout that would have straightened the pacific coast highway" [this was about april tuna's makeover]
mary cherry's response: "april tuna is the blackhole of beauty."
adam to brooke: "is mary cherry retarded?"
it makes me laugh now just reading them. i could go on and on. this show was way ahead of its time. its too bad it wasn't able to go a third season. i love finding a show that can watch over and over again and still continue to laugh. and even see things you didn't notice before. sigh…r.i.p. popular and especially you mary cherry.
be well…
Tuesday, June 07, 2005
a holiday in gyeong ju
deery-lou.
last friday when i arrived at taekwondo there were only two other students there. no sign of the class before or the instructors. the two kids were playing soccer in the dojang so i sat back and watched. the music teacher who shares a space with the taekwondo school came in and motioned for me to follow her. she brought us into her class where a bunch of little girls were sitting around a table eating watermelon. she offered me some but i declined. she kept speaking to me in korean but i had no clue as to what she was saying. all i could understand was kwanjangnim. eventually she made a phone call to the kwanjangnim and then the two students lead me outside. apparently the class was training outside by the stage for saturday's performance. so there i stood in my taekwondo uniform watching them in the middle of an apartment complex. i definitely got alot of stares to say the least. at one point in the evening i was surrounded by a bunch of children asking me all sorts of questions. "you like pizza?", "how old are you?", "what's your name?", "how are you?", etc. there was one boy who kept running around pointing to everyone saying "he's crazy". apparently the word "crazy" is the one english word that all children know. i suggested that we play hide and seek but none of them listened. they'd much rather stand around me asking their questions. it kind of felt like being a circus freak. i think this lasted about 10 minutes or so. it felt like forever. finally one of the kids from my class told me that the sabomnim wanting to talk to me. he told me that there wasn't going to be any class tonight afterall because of the practice. he told me to come by tomorrow to watch but i told him i'd be in busan. on my way home i checked the time. it was 9:40. the time when my class usually ends. they had me stand around the whole class time. one would have thought they'd have told me there was no class once i got there. oh, well thats korean logic [kl] for you.
we left our apartment around 6:30am on saturday. we needed to young by 8:20 to catch the train to busan. the 5 hour trip was pretty uneventful. there were no ajummas to feed us. we did cause a bit of a problem by being in the wrong seats. koreans don't really like change. in busan we took a bus to the beach. we were going to meet some friends of young's there. the beach was pretty nice. nothing spectacular. it reminded me of daytona beach sans the wire fences that go into the water. not really sure why there are there. again mark it up to kl. we walked along the beach for awhile until young's friends showed up. her friends took us to yongkung temple. a temple that's nestled among the rocks near the sea. so far its been the most amazing temple i've seen yet. i really liked it because it was centered around the zodiac. they had all the animals represtented as you walked down the path. the day was quite windy to say the least. it was so nice to breathe in the fresh sea air. it kind of felt like walking around the beaches in sf. i saw about a million different buddhas: big ones, small ones, stone ones, stuffed ones ect. everywhere you looked there were tiny shrines with little buddhas. after leaving the temple we went off to get some food. everyone wanted sashimi. not really i big fish eater i was hoping there might be something else like shellfish that i could eat. NOPE! it became ethan's fear factor dinner. we had all these various side dishes to start off with and let me just say i DID try everything. here are some of the things we had:
1. boiled shrimp with the heads still on
2. peas still in there shell
3. bean sprouts
4. seaweed
5. some kind of pink thing that looked like cut up tongue and was moving
6. live octopus
7. sea squirt
8. snail
9. sea cucumber that looked slimey but was crunchy like grisselle
10. sea scallops
11. jellied acorn
12. shredded cabbage
13. eel
after the sidedishes were done they brought out a giant and i mean giant plate of raaw fish. anyone who knows me can imagine how i felt. i must say though that i did eat my fair share. to be honest it was all quite good not to fishy either. although there was this one kind of fish that was a little crunchy. i only had one piece of that. when we finished the giant plate of fish was finished the waitress brought out fish head soup. there's nothing like have a bowl of soup with a fish head in it. the soup was very spicy and a bit fishy for me. i only had a little. overall the meal was quite excellent and i think i'm actually starting to enjoy raw fish. i mean afterall i did eat sea cucumber, a pink tongue, and a sea squirt [whatever that is]. we also had this plum liquor that was very good. at 10:30 we caught the bus to gyeong ju which was standing room only. let's just say i got very close to the old lady behind us. at the toll booth there were too many people in the bus so we had to drop some off make a u-turn and go back through and pick them up. crazy. thankfully horace was kind enough to share his i-pod with me. otherwise i think i would have gone crazy. we arrived in gyeong ju around mid-night caught a cab and went to sa rang chae, the korean guest house we were staying at. when we arrived there was a little fire going in the center courtyard. we got some tea and chilled out. the room horace and i stayed in was quite tiny. it bascially had a table and bunk beds. we had to use the communal bathroom and shower. there was definitely alot of sandals on and off this weekend.
sleeping in on sunday was definitley out of the question. the paper doors and window of our room was not sound proof. we spent most of the day in the downtown vicinity checking out the sights. gyeong ju is the place that has a lot of ancient ruins. all dated back to the silla dynasty. its definitely cool to see. here are some of the things i saw on sunday:
1. daereungwon tomb park
2. hwangnam-daechong [twin tombs]
3. king michu's tomb
4. cheonmachong, where you can see inside the tomb
5. drawing of a flying horse [shows high status]
6. many artifacts
7. anapji pond
8. seokbinggo ice storage
9. cheomseongdae observatory [its the oldest observatory]
10. some people shooting bows and arrows
11. a horse drawn wagon
12. a tandem bike
13. blow-up bunnies
14. bulguksa temple
15. cheongungyo and baekungyo bridge
16. haetalgyo bridge
17. seokgatap pagoda
18. dabotap pagoda
19. daewoonjeon hall
20. geukrakjeon hall
21. someone playing a flute
22. sarira stupa
23. seokguram grotto
24. many, many buddhas
25. three-storied stone pagoda
26. tons of people
we had to rush through the seokguram grotto because by the time we got to the top it was 5:45 pm and the shuttle bus left at 6:20. there was a line to see the buddha that was encased in glass. and once you go through its over in seconds. its definitely worth seeing and i'm glad we did. its was amazing to see it built into the side of the mountain. from there we basically had to run down the mountain. which wouldn't have been too bad had i worn sneakers. i don't even have to tell you guys what i was wearing. i'm sure you all know. when we reached the shuttle bus it was completely full. some people were still trying to squeeze one. three girls got out and somehow six more people fit on. i'll let you all do the math on that. so we made it. YEAH!!! i actually stood in the doorway of the bus. thats how packed it was. the shuttle bus ended up taking us downtown where we walked back to the guesthouse. which is like a maze because there are all these alley ways. kind of like chinatown in sf. young asked some kid which way and he pointed us in the right direction. that night we got some beers and hung out in the courtyard with some other guests. we meant this french couple who we spend most of the night talking too. it was quite relaxing especially after the busy day of sightseeing.
monday we spent the day hiking mt. nangsam. and yes i had my big shoes on which was quite interesting especially since there were lots of steep rock steps to climb. all the koreans i passed along the way were laughing. honestly i can't really blame them. i would have laughed too seeing some white dude try to climb in platforms. during our hike we saw more tombs and lots of different buddhas. we climbed to the where the temple was which was amazing. i seem to be using that word alot but oh well. the view of the valley from their was breathe taking. very peaceful and serene. along our journey some korean girls wanted their picture taken with horace and i. i felt like such a celebrity. after our climb we grabbed some lunch which was so good. we had noodles, tofu and kimchi, and a seafood pancake. one of the best meals i've had. the tofu and kimchi was excellent. we then caught a bus back to the downtown area and headed back to sa rang chae. on our way home we stopped and got some traditional gyeong ju bread which was like a thin preztel shell filled with beans. very tastey. we spent the next couple of hours hanging out in the courtyard talking to the french couple, sander [an austrailia boy of 3], his mom, and the owner. sander was so cute. he wanted to make a salad with the leaves he found. around 5:30 we said our goodbyes and headed off for the bus station. our bus left gyeong ju around 6:30 and arrived in seoul a little before 11. the trip on the bus was pretty uneventful. we did stop once where i got a corndog. so good. it had pieces of potato in the breading. yummy. then it was time to jump on the subway and head home. it was a pretty great weekend. i feel like i only saw a portion of gyeong ju and busan. i'd definitely go back. and if i go back to gyeong ju would stay at sa rang chae again. it was definitely a relaxing place to be. that pretty much says it all. i'm sure i missed a few things. its hard trying to remember everything one did and also hope not to bore others with the details. anyway i look forward to visiting there again and seeing what new things i can find. until then…
be well…
last friday when i arrived at taekwondo there were only two other students there. no sign of the class before or the instructors. the two kids were playing soccer in the dojang so i sat back and watched. the music teacher who shares a space with the taekwondo school came in and motioned for me to follow her. she brought us into her class where a bunch of little girls were sitting around a table eating watermelon. she offered me some but i declined. she kept speaking to me in korean but i had no clue as to what she was saying. all i could understand was kwanjangnim. eventually she made a phone call to the kwanjangnim and then the two students lead me outside. apparently the class was training outside by the stage for saturday's performance. so there i stood in my taekwondo uniform watching them in the middle of an apartment complex. i definitely got alot of stares to say the least. at one point in the evening i was surrounded by a bunch of children asking me all sorts of questions. "you like pizza?", "how old are you?", "what's your name?", "how are you?", etc. there was one boy who kept running around pointing to everyone saying "he's crazy". apparently the word "crazy" is the one english word that all children know. i suggested that we play hide and seek but none of them listened. they'd much rather stand around me asking their questions. it kind of felt like being a circus freak. i think this lasted about 10 minutes or so. it felt like forever. finally one of the kids from my class told me that the sabomnim wanting to talk to me. he told me that there wasn't going to be any class tonight afterall because of the practice. he told me to come by tomorrow to watch but i told him i'd be in busan. on my way home i checked the time. it was 9:40. the time when my class usually ends. they had me stand around the whole class time. one would have thought they'd have told me there was no class once i got there. oh, well thats korean logic [kl] for you.
we left our apartment around 6:30am on saturday. we needed to young by 8:20 to catch the train to busan. the 5 hour trip was pretty uneventful. there were no ajummas to feed us. we did cause a bit of a problem by being in the wrong seats. koreans don't really like change. in busan we took a bus to the beach. we were going to meet some friends of young's there. the beach was pretty nice. nothing spectacular. it reminded me of daytona beach sans the wire fences that go into the water. not really sure why there are there. again mark it up to kl. we walked along the beach for awhile until young's friends showed up. her friends took us to yongkung temple. a temple that's nestled among the rocks near the sea. so far its been the most amazing temple i've seen yet. i really liked it because it was centered around the zodiac. they had all the animals represtented as you walked down the path. the day was quite windy to say the least. it was so nice to breathe in the fresh sea air. it kind of felt like walking around the beaches in sf. i saw about a million different buddhas: big ones, small ones, stone ones, stuffed ones ect. everywhere you looked there were tiny shrines with little buddhas. after leaving the temple we went off to get some food. everyone wanted sashimi. not really i big fish eater i was hoping there might be something else like shellfish that i could eat. NOPE! it became ethan's fear factor dinner. we had all these various side dishes to start off with and let me just say i DID try everything. here are some of the things we had:
1. boiled shrimp with the heads still on
2. peas still in there shell
3. bean sprouts
4. seaweed
5. some kind of pink thing that looked like cut up tongue and was moving
6. live octopus
7. sea squirt
8. snail
9. sea cucumber that looked slimey but was crunchy like grisselle
10. sea scallops
11. jellied acorn
12. shredded cabbage
13. eel
after the sidedishes were done they brought out a giant and i mean giant plate of raaw fish. anyone who knows me can imagine how i felt. i must say though that i did eat my fair share. to be honest it was all quite good not to fishy either. although there was this one kind of fish that was a little crunchy. i only had one piece of that. when we finished the giant plate of fish was finished the waitress brought out fish head soup. there's nothing like have a bowl of soup with a fish head in it. the soup was very spicy and a bit fishy for me. i only had a little. overall the meal was quite excellent and i think i'm actually starting to enjoy raw fish. i mean afterall i did eat sea cucumber, a pink tongue, and a sea squirt [whatever that is]. we also had this plum liquor that was very good. at 10:30 we caught the bus to gyeong ju which was standing room only. let's just say i got very close to the old lady behind us. at the toll booth there were too many people in the bus so we had to drop some off make a u-turn and go back through and pick them up. crazy. thankfully horace was kind enough to share his i-pod with me. otherwise i think i would have gone crazy. we arrived in gyeong ju around mid-night caught a cab and went to sa rang chae, the korean guest house we were staying at. when we arrived there was a little fire going in the center courtyard. we got some tea and chilled out. the room horace and i stayed in was quite tiny. it bascially had a table and bunk beds. we had to use the communal bathroom and shower. there was definitely alot of sandals on and off this weekend.
sleeping in on sunday was definitley out of the question. the paper doors and window of our room was not sound proof. we spent most of the day in the downtown vicinity checking out the sights. gyeong ju is the place that has a lot of ancient ruins. all dated back to the silla dynasty. its definitely cool to see. here are some of the things i saw on sunday:
1. daereungwon tomb park
2. hwangnam-daechong [twin tombs]
3. king michu's tomb
4. cheonmachong, where you can see inside the tomb
5. drawing of a flying horse [shows high status]
6. many artifacts
7. anapji pond
8. seokbinggo ice storage
9. cheomseongdae observatory [its the oldest observatory]
10. some people shooting bows and arrows
11. a horse drawn wagon
12. a tandem bike
13. blow-up bunnies
14. bulguksa temple
15. cheongungyo and baekungyo bridge
16. haetalgyo bridge
17. seokgatap pagoda
18. dabotap pagoda
19. daewoonjeon hall
20. geukrakjeon hall
21. someone playing a flute
22. sarira stupa
23. seokguram grotto
24. many, many buddhas
25. three-storied stone pagoda
26. tons of people
we had to rush through the seokguram grotto because by the time we got to the top it was 5:45 pm and the shuttle bus left at 6:20. there was a line to see the buddha that was encased in glass. and once you go through its over in seconds. its definitely worth seeing and i'm glad we did. its was amazing to see it built into the side of the mountain. from there we basically had to run down the mountain. which wouldn't have been too bad had i worn sneakers. i don't even have to tell you guys what i was wearing. i'm sure you all know. when we reached the shuttle bus it was completely full. some people were still trying to squeeze one. three girls got out and somehow six more people fit on. i'll let you all do the math on that. so we made it. YEAH!!! i actually stood in the doorway of the bus. thats how packed it was. the shuttle bus ended up taking us downtown where we walked back to the guesthouse. which is like a maze because there are all these alley ways. kind of like chinatown in sf. young asked some kid which way and he pointed us in the right direction. that night we got some beers and hung out in the courtyard with some other guests. we meant this french couple who we spend most of the night talking too. it was quite relaxing especially after the busy day of sightseeing.
monday we spent the day hiking mt. nangsam. and yes i had my big shoes on which was quite interesting especially since there were lots of steep rock steps to climb. all the koreans i passed along the way were laughing. honestly i can't really blame them. i would have laughed too seeing some white dude try to climb in platforms. during our hike we saw more tombs and lots of different buddhas. we climbed to the where the temple was which was amazing. i seem to be using that word alot but oh well. the view of the valley from their was breathe taking. very peaceful and serene. along our journey some korean girls wanted their picture taken with horace and i. i felt like such a celebrity. after our climb we grabbed some lunch which was so good. we had noodles, tofu and kimchi, and a seafood pancake. one of the best meals i've had. the tofu and kimchi was excellent. we then caught a bus back to the downtown area and headed back to sa rang chae. on our way home we stopped and got some traditional gyeong ju bread which was like a thin preztel shell filled with beans. very tastey. we spent the next couple of hours hanging out in the courtyard talking to the french couple, sander [an austrailia boy of 3], his mom, and the owner. sander was so cute. he wanted to make a salad with the leaves he found. around 5:30 we said our goodbyes and headed off for the bus station. our bus left gyeong ju around 6:30 and arrived in seoul a little before 11. the trip on the bus was pretty uneventful. we did stop once where i got a corndog. so good. it had pieces of potato in the breading. yummy. then it was time to jump on the subway and head home. it was a pretty great weekend. i feel like i only saw a portion of gyeong ju and busan. i'd definitely go back. and if i go back to gyeong ju would stay at sa rang chae again. it was definitely a relaxing place to be. that pretty much says it all. i'm sure i missed a few things. its hard trying to remember everything one did and also hope not to bore others with the details. anyway i look forward to visiting there again and seeing what new things i can find. until then…
be well…
busan/gyeongju photos
deery-lou.
well i'm back from my three day weekend. got back late monday night. i went to busan and gyeongju. did a whole lot of sightseeing and if i don't see another buddha or temple for a few months that'll be fine with me. i'll write more about my trip tomorrow. in the meantime here are some photos for you to enjoy and ponder over.
be well…
snaps from busan/gyeongju…
Links
well i'm back from my three day weekend. got back late monday night. i went to busan and gyeongju. did a whole lot of sightseeing and if i don't see another buddha or temple for a few months that'll be fine with me. i'll write more about my trip tomorrow. in the meantime here are some photos for you to enjoy and ponder over.
be well…
snaps from busan/gyeongju…
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
childhood reflection
deery-lou.
it's hump day. YEAH!! two more days then i have a three day weekend. this weekend horace, young, and i are off to busan to visit the beach and yet another ancient village. hopefully it'll be a little different than the folk village. i think after this weekend i'll be a little over villages of all sorts. enough of villages let's go back to hump day. whenever i hear the word hump it reminds me of my childhood. i spent my formative years growing up in the burbs of orlando, florida. as anyone knows growing up in the burbs can be quite mundane. there really isn't much to do and after awhile swimming pools lose their interest. so basically we made our own fun. and in the course of events we were taught a few things too. there was this girl who lived in our neighborhood who i'll call ginger. ginger was about 4 years older than us and very promiscuous. oneday my friends and i were out playing in the street. i think it was freeze tag or tv tag or something like that. anyway ginger came out and called us over to her house. of course anytime someone older wants to hang out with us younger kids we jumped at the change. so ginger said she had a new game she wanted to play with us. we all got excited. she told us the game was called humpy monster. humpy monster? what was that? of course at the time i was 8 or 9 and had no idea what hump meant. she went on to explain the rules. someone was the humpy monster, which was her, and the object of the game was to chase the other people. once you were caught you got on all fours and then the humpy monster mounted you and started humping away. like i said we actually had no idea of what was going on. we were nearly pawns for ginger's active limbido. so there were running around her front yard in the burbs being humped by ginger non-stop. looking back none of the other kids were every it. it was always ginger doing the humping. i can only imagine what people thought as they drove by witnessing this act. and here we thought we were playing an innocent game. a few years later i realized what the game was all about. its funny how we remember those things. i don't think i'll every forget ginger and her humpy monster game.
its been a couple of weeks since the magic straight and can i just say…over it. my hair feels and looks so dry. even when i apply product it doesn't feel soft and silky anymore. plus i'm really not digging the mullet action. i think i need to go back and get it cut a lot shorter before i decide to shave it all off. just call me straw head. i've been listening to bagelradio alot lately. thanks ted for bringing music to my life. every time colored shadows "moscow" comes on i think its the theme to the hardy boys/nancy drew mysteries show that was on in the 70s. its the very beginning that has kind of beep beep sound to it. anyway whenever i hear it i get all excited only to be disappointed. one would think that i'd become wise to this after the first time but its happened five times now. am i that obsessed with the hardy boys and nancy drew. obivously the answer is yes. after all i do own the hardy boys guide to life. which is a definite must have just in case you ever get kidnapped. i never leave home without.
i got more e-mail haiku this week. not really sure why i find it so amusing but i do. here's what i got this week:
olive lorelei
anything prison side use
is shining here not suddenly pretty
bad she
asia elisa
a disappoint
my suddenly we wife
raise fly sugar
as for my day to day to life its been pretty much the same. almost had a fight in one of my classes. paris and vicky were making fun of daniel and once the girls got into class and were seated he stood up and had this glassed over look to him. i thought he was going to rip paris's throat out. luckily one of the korean teachers came into my room to give them something and i asked her to find out what was up. then the three kids started screaming at each other in korean and daniel was crying. the three of them were taken out and had to be lectured by jk. oh, the excitement of it all. thats basically it. taekwondo is going good. i have poomse 1 + 2 down. now i need to work on 3,4, and 5 before learning 6. i am making friends in there though. all the little fat boys love me. go figure. maybe we go play video games and eat doughnuts together.
be well…
it's hump day. YEAH!! two more days then i have a three day weekend. this weekend horace, young, and i are off to busan to visit the beach and yet another ancient village. hopefully it'll be a little different than the folk village. i think after this weekend i'll be a little over villages of all sorts. enough of villages let's go back to hump day. whenever i hear the word hump it reminds me of my childhood. i spent my formative years growing up in the burbs of orlando, florida. as anyone knows growing up in the burbs can be quite mundane. there really isn't much to do and after awhile swimming pools lose their interest. so basically we made our own fun. and in the course of events we were taught a few things too. there was this girl who lived in our neighborhood who i'll call ginger. ginger was about 4 years older than us and very promiscuous. oneday my friends and i were out playing in the street. i think it was freeze tag or tv tag or something like that. anyway ginger came out and called us over to her house. of course anytime someone older wants to hang out with us younger kids we jumped at the change. so ginger said she had a new game she wanted to play with us. we all got excited. she told us the game was called humpy monster. humpy monster? what was that? of course at the time i was 8 or 9 and had no idea what hump meant. she went on to explain the rules. someone was the humpy monster, which was her, and the object of the game was to chase the other people. once you were caught you got on all fours and then the humpy monster mounted you and started humping away. like i said we actually had no idea of what was going on. we were nearly pawns for ginger's active limbido. so there were running around her front yard in the burbs being humped by ginger non-stop. looking back none of the other kids were every it. it was always ginger doing the humping. i can only imagine what people thought as they drove by witnessing this act. and here we thought we were playing an innocent game. a few years later i realized what the game was all about. its funny how we remember those things. i don't think i'll every forget ginger and her humpy monster game.
its been a couple of weeks since the magic straight and can i just say…over it. my hair feels and looks so dry. even when i apply product it doesn't feel soft and silky anymore. plus i'm really not digging the mullet action. i think i need to go back and get it cut a lot shorter before i decide to shave it all off. just call me straw head. i've been listening to bagelradio alot lately. thanks ted for bringing music to my life. every time colored shadows "moscow" comes on i think its the theme to the hardy boys/nancy drew mysteries show that was on in the 70s. its the very beginning that has kind of beep beep sound to it. anyway whenever i hear it i get all excited only to be disappointed. one would think that i'd become wise to this after the first time but its happened five times now. am i that obsessed with the hardy boys and nancy drew. obivously the answer is yes. after all i do own the hardy boys guide to life. which is a definite must have just in case you ever get kidnapped. i never leave home without.
i got more e-mail haiku this week. not really sure why i find it so amusing but i do. here's what i got this week:
olive lorelei
anything prison side use
is shining here not suddenly pretty
bad she
asia elisa
a disappoint
my suddenly we wife
raise fly sugar
as for my day to day to life its been pretty much the same. almost had a fight in one of my classes. paris and vicky were making fun of daniel and once the girls got into class and were seated he stood up and had this glassed over look to him. i thought he was going to rip paris's throat out. luckily one of the korean teachers came into my room to give them something and i asked her to find out what was up. then the three kids started screaming at each other in korean and daniel was crying. the three of them were taken out and had to be lectured by jk. oh, the excitement of it all. thats basically it. taekwondo is going good. i have poomse 1 + 2 down. now i need to work on 3,4, and 5 before learning 6. i am making friends in there though. all the little fat boys love me. go figure. maybe we go play video games and eat doughnuts together.
be well…
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)