Noriba

chi.
So that whole thing about climbing a mountain today... yeah...
This killer headache aside let me just lay down my great excuse. Last night I went out with six other teachers and my two bosses for dinner at this great restaurant just north of the Han river. Had pork and duck for a main course, and the thing I'm really getting to love about Korean restaurants is the cook the meat yourself business. Basically there is a hole in the middle of the table and a basin filled with hot coals is brought out and put in there. Then they toss a grill on top and you arrange the meat and cook it to your liking. Last night we cooked the meat, wrapped it up in some kimchi leaves with pickled peppers, cooked onion and roasted garlic. Extra delicious. Had a few cocktails at dinner as well, soju cider and beer, which sounds terrible but were actually quite good. My favorite part was at the end when the coal basins were taken away, they pulled a bunch of foil wrapped objects out, which I had not noticed before. These were sweet potatoes which had been cooking all meal. So very good.

When we all finished we walked out back where there was this amazing backyard area, multiple bonfires and fountain pools and nice little gazebo huts to relax around in the beautiful night with paths and trees and a really great view of the Han river with Hanam all lit up on the other side and big mountains just faintly illuminated behind that. Beautiful. Finally around midnight we all went back to the cars to head back to Hanam. And the night really began.

Our boss Sun dropped Sarah Song Yun and me off in downtown Hanam outside this really cool bar called Masigo where I was introduced to another few cocktails. Koreans love to drink beer and soju in pretty much all combinations with all sorts of alcoholic or non-alcoholic mixers, which is probably a big reason for this headache right now. After an hour or so Sarah convinced her 'Hanam friends' to come down, which was awesome. About eight guys and three girls showed up, and they all spoke english! It was a mix of people from the states, Canada, England and Australia, all English teachers in Hanam. I got on really well with Andy and Terrance, two guys from Texas and with Bo, yes Bo from Kentucky. What are the freaking odds right? Twoish more hours pass and then a smaller group of us breaks off to head across the street to the noriba.

Ah, the noriba. Karaoke but asain style, in a private room with just your buds. There were eight or ten of us, something like that, and it was brilliant. We were brought a tray full of beers and a plate of snacks and the debauchery really took off. There were like four tambourines in the room and two mics with gnarly reverb on them which made everything just that much better. The song list was a little wanting, but does it really matter at four or five in the morning? Lots of Beatles and CCR and strange Kpop(Korean pop) songs sung in awfully wasted voices. Finally everyone seemed to reach their breaking point at about the same time, so we all stumbled outside to find the sky much much bluer than I thought it would be, with a beautiful pink streak across the morning clouds from the rising sun. I tried not to really think about this though as I got into a taxi with Andy and Terrance, who both live across the street from me. We shared some fish noodles and broth on the street just below my building which were lifesaving. Excellent and salty and satisfying for about thirty cents. And of course, available twenty four hours a day.

Well that's about all from me for now. Tomorrow weather permitting Sarah and I might go into Seoul and see the old temples and shrines, but if it's raining too much we'll probably hit up an aquarium here in town. Keep it real everyone!

ENM

Alright, so I've had three whole days of teaching at my school now. Let me tell you a little bit about it. First of all, I am teaching at the ENM Academy, which stands for English 'n Math Academy. That's right, 'n instead of and. I think that's all I need to say about that. Oh, and the school has four three month semesters, and when I tried to tell someone that these were actually quarters and not semesters they looked at me like I was crazy, so I dropped it...

Also, I started teaching classes on the last week of the semester, so I have no idea what these kids have learned so far or really what needs to be accomplished by the end of the week. I'm not too worried though because everything seems to be really go with the flow at this school. Because this is a private academy there really aren't grades or passing or failing, as long as the kids show up every day and do their homework everything seems to be fine in the administration's eyes.

The teacher I replaced was named Frank, and everybody seems to be very happy he is gone. Apparently this guy was just not that excited about teaching, and slacked off a lot. This is another reason for the confusion in my first week, as I am following his basically nonexistent lesson plans.

Ok, its really not all bad I just wanted to vent that out for a second. The teachers are all extremely nice, I've been given coffee and pizza and sandwiches and candy every day, there is a very generous spirit here. The kids are also great, obviously 8-14 year olds have a lot of energy and can be a bit annoying sometimes, but I have had a really good time with them. I have now met all of my classes and they are all very good at shouting back English at me when I ask them to repeat. They are all also the most excited hang man players I've ever met. As I walk around the hallways nearly every student I see shouts Hi! at me, and when I respond and say how are you today every single one chants 'I am fine how are you' in a semi robotic voice then runs away. Really cute.

Both my school office and my apartment are on the fifth floor of their respective buildings, and despite the elevator access I have been taking the stairs lets say 80% of the time. So we'll see how long that lasts. We're on our forth day of rain in a row now, and this Saturday I swear rain or shine I am making my way up that mountain I see on the edge of town. It's been over a year since I've been up a mountain and I need, really need, to get up there.

I hope everyone is awesome! Love from me!!

Soju...

Hey hey everyone out there in internet land. Let me first say yes, my luggage arrived safe and sound a little after midnight Sunday night. I was pretty excited about that. I think that I am pretty much over my jet lag at this point, and some friends from my school made sure of that, but we'll get to that later. It's been raining a lot the past few days, which is a real shame because all of these streets around here are beautiful and are just calling to my board. Although when I do take it out I will have to be very very careful of these crazy motorcyclists out here, even in the rain they are all over the place, and I do mean all over. They seem to follow no laws at all, screaming through red lights, hopping up on the sidewalk, weaving through the opposite lanes, its funny and scary at the same time. The cars are a little better, I've only seen two or three pop up onto the sidewalk so far...

I had my first day at the school yesterday and I can definitely say I had a really good first day. I am the only male teacher in the elementary age, but there are a few more in the middle school age. The only other native English speaker is a very sweet girl from England named Sarah, who has been over here teaching English for three years now. She is taking me to set up my bank account tomorrow and well, it's good to have someone I don't have to make awkward sign language at too.

It looks like I will have five classes a day, and six on Wednesdays. I am teaching mostly elementary classes and just one middle school classes a week. The kids are really funny and sweet, at least my first few classes were. They were all definitely raised to be respectful of their teachers, but they also have lots of energy which makes for a silly classtime. It is pretty weird to stand up in front of ten little Asian children who are all yelling Teacher! Teacher! if I ask a question or say something they don't understand. Anyway, I'll post more about these kids after I get to know them a little better.

This brings me to the end of the workday last night, I got home and changed and was all set to go down to a coffee shop and relax, maybe blog a bit or something, when I saw two math teachers from my school in the lobby of my building. They called to me and asked if I wanted to go get a drink with them. We went up to the second floor of my building which has a lot of shops, a dentist, a computer store, a hair and nail place, and a restaurant and probably a couple more. The girls names were, I think, Baong and Sung. They were also very impressed with my chopstick skills and my tolerance of spicy food, I however was not impressed with the Korean beer I had ordered, much too sweet for my taste. So after a couple of beers and a big plate of spicy tentacles, shrimp, muscles, and noodles the girls asked me if I had ever tried Soju before. Answering in the negative they immediately ordered us a bottle which was twelve or sixteen ounces i think. It tastes a little like sake, but they kept calling it Korean Tequila, with good reason I came to find out. Now keep in mind I was understanding about one out of every four or five words these girls were saying before the Soju arrived so things got a lot funnier after the first bottle was gone. Sung had a translator on her cell phone that they were trying to use, but that wasn't really helping much. After the second bottle disappeared, well, the grin was pretty stuck on my very red face. We walked outside and for some reason Baong bought me some ice cream. After that I walked them home and somehow stumbled back to my building and passed out.

So here I sit, twelve hours and a handful of Ibprofen later with a splitting headache, drinking green tea and thinking about going to buy a huge loaf of bread to rip into. This starting work at two thirty in the afternoon every day is going to be my downfall I think. Sarah has already said she wants to take me out to see the real Hanam (apparently the area around city hall isn't exactly thriving, comparatively, even though nothing seems to close around here) on Tuesday and then into Seoul on Friday, so we'll just see how that goes.

Take care everyone!

Wow... Korea

Hello all!
I have arrived safe and sound to the other side of the world, and while it did not go quite as smoothly as I had hoped I am here and that's what matters. Everything that ended up going a little weird happened in the States, of course. The flight I took from MPLS to San Fransisco was delayed in the air because there was too much fog at SFO to land, so we were put into a holding pattern, but we didn't have enough fuel to circle for an hour and thus landed at the Oakland airport, refueled, then took off and landed across the bay. After exiting the plane I ran, and I mean ran, half a mile down two terminals to reach my gate just as they were calling the final boarding call for the overseas flight. I had made it, but my bags of course did not. Hopefully they will be delivered to my room today, hopefully.
All of that mess aside, my first eighteen or so hours here have been great. I was met at my apartment by Sun and another teacher from my school last night and we went out for a bite to eat. I have no idea what it was, noodles and veggies and stuff, but apparently I impressed my companions with my mad chopstick skills and at how I dove right in to the spicy dishes.
The area I'm in looks very cool, I've only walked around it for a couple hours but I can tell already this is going to be a good place to live. I am right across from the Hanam city hall, close to the Han river, and there is a really big mountain looming on the eastern edge of town.
That's about all I know right now. Take care everyone.
Bo