Friday, July 21, 2006

"You know somethin's up, don'tcha Bubba?"

I took my dog to Karen's last night, crying the whole walk there and home. I really miss him. I know that staying with her is the best thing for him, because a kennel would just be aweful, but that doesn't mean I miss him any less. :( Hopefully, Karen will call me before I leave, so I can at least know how he did on the train ride. I can't believe I won't see him for a whole week...

I'm pretty much packed and ready to go. Still have a couple loose ends to tie up, but once I get dressed and head out, I can take care of them in a couple minutes. It's just the getting dressed part... lol.

I cleaned today so I'll come back to a nice clean house and nice clean sheets. That's kind of exciting.

So... in about an hour I'm meeting friends for lunch but I just wanted to update quickly before I took off. Oh, and I wanted to post this. It's a movie I made with pics and video from my time here. Watch and enjoy.

I'm sure I'll do a monster update when I get back.

Much love!

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Wednesday, July 19, 2006

"This year I'm going to get properly muddied up."--British boy on the bus with a mermaid girlfriend

I clearly suck at updating about Mud Festival. I apologize. But, in my defense, I've had tons of work to do because of vacation, plus I have to get ready for the vacation itself. ANYway, the Mud Festival was, just as all things in Korea, quite the adventure.

It ended up being Adam, Seeta, James, and I. Christa (Adam's g/f) was sick all week, so she took Lancelot and stayed home, which worked out awesomely for me. Anyway, so we leave bright and early Saturday morning and board a bus to take us three hours to the sea. Saturday, while overcast, was warm and ended up not being that rainy. So we get to the place (cabins in the woods like, 30 minutes from the beach) and stash our crap and take off to the beach. Adam couldn't WAIT to jump into the ocean, so we obtained a locker and did a mad dash to the sea. It was super, super nice.

Adam and I lost the other two for a bit after our mad dash, but it ended up okay because we got muddied up, and then met back with SeetaandJames for a nice romp in the ocean waves. Here's a pic of me and Adam, all muddied up. Good times.


And here's James and I, and the ocean. Ahh, the ocean.



After swimming for, like, three hours, we all realized that we hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning back in Seoul. So we decided to rustle up some grub, and since we were near the ocean and all, we ate Adam's favorite meal... a great big pile of shellfish on an open grill. Observe...


Jin, the Korean guy who war running the tour, HOOKED us up with piles and piles and piles of food. And we threw it on the grill and ate it with hot pepper sauce (the red stuff in the pic). And I must say, it was quite enjoyable. There were some scallops that were SO GOOD I couldn't even deal with it. Mmmm. The only thing the meal lacked was carbs... but oh well. Still super good.

Here's another one of me eating, cooked tiny clam, chopsticks, glove, and all.


A new experience that turned out to be yummy.

After that we just hung around, drank on the street (like ya do in Korea) and generally made mischief. Then we headed back to the cabins in the woods for a BBQ and to sleep.

Let's just say here's where it all went awry. So apparently some of the meat for the BBQ was lost in transit, so there wasn't much food. AND still no carbs but some measly, burnt potatoes. Thank GOD I brought granola bars or I would have wasted away to nothing. So then we're chatting with some people, and James totally met his Korean BFF, Oscar, whose girlfriend was kinda ugly and he was SUPER hot. Whatever. Anyway, I totally brought them together with by commenting on my hatred for Lance Armstrong. The rest is history. lol

So after a day of bus and mud and beach and beer, SeetaandJames and I decide to go to bed. We mosey to our room and lay down with a random Korean girl that we picked up on the way, only to be kicked out of our room about 30 minutes later. Um... Neat. We'd been there since 3 and we got kicked out as we were trying to sleep. Eeeexcellent. So we find a new place to sleep (Korean girl in tow), and attempt to do so. Drama ensues. One dude's bed got stolen and then a drunk girl was being condescending to a guy who was a jerk so he got all mad and then her boyfriend got mad at the jerk for being mad, and then this HUGE guy Joel came in to pass out in our room but he snored like a jet engine and it was hot and we were sleeping on the floor and... balls. Let's just say very little sleeping acutally occured for me. Observe the situation...

I slept on the left... and Joel's naked butt is hanging out on the right. Seriously... Dude LOVES showin' his bum.

So after drinking and not sleeping, I just give up the fight and wake up early. I was up by 9. Eventually JamesandSeeta (Adam ended up back at the beach, where only 20 people were allowed to stay... Um... lame.) got up too, and we found other people that were up and we took matters into our own hands and went to the beach on our own. Seeta and I had a mission, we wanted a corn dog and we were not willing to give up our dream. Finally, FINALLY... we got to the beach and walked all the way to the end of the boardwalk, where The Corn Dog Stand of Joy awaited us. Let me just tell you, dreams come true.


Dreams. Come. True. And MAN that corndog was SUPER good. Let me tell you. And directly after that, we ate pizza.

No carbs for a day made me want to gorge myself and it was awesome.

So long story short, the rest of that day was spend avoiding the rain. And then the news that Seoul was flooded came through, and it was "we're leaving at 7" then "we're leaving at 8" then, when we're outside ready to go, "We are stupid @$$holes who want to stay here and get drunk because we are lame so we'll tell you lies that it'll take 5 hours to get home because of traffic jams so you'll stay with us and we'll get our way." Let's just say, those of us who wanted to got on the bus and got home. There was NO traffic jam, jelly, marmelade OR preserves and we got home in three hours. I hope the jerks who thought we were lame for wanting to go home and take a shower and sleep had a fun time getting home Monday, when there actually WAS a traffic jam. I LOVE it when I get what I want and other people act like jerks and get screwed. I CLEARLY win at life.

The weekend was pretty fun, but when I sign up for something that's planned, and it turns out that it's not planned well, then I'm not a happy camper. I can roll with the punches as much as the next person, but I just couldn't take it that weekend. I don't feel like I got what I paid for, ESPECIALLY since I was supposed to get three meals (WITH carbs) and I got... one. UGH. Anyway, I learned that I shouldn't sign up for those trips anymore, so I had fun AND learned something.

Then Monday was a day off, which was awesome because I needed it. I got up early to talk to the fam because my cousin and her husband/kids/mom are at home (yay!!!). Leandra=the joy of my life because she is SO CUTE. Anyway, after that I did some work and rewarded myself with a trip to Dongdaemun and some mandu gratin with Meriam (new girl at work from Georgia). I bought the coolest dress/shirt and it's awesome. It's kind of "I live in a society where everyone wears the same uniform" but it's awesome.

Anyway... I'll leave it at that for now. I'll try to update one more time before Hawaii, which, FYI, is...3 days away.

I can't WAIT!

Much love.

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Sunday, July 09, 2006

"You've been dealing with a lot, hey?"--Rach

Boy, life has been eventful lately.

Monay, I lost it on Eunice, the pricipal, and yelled at her and pretty much flipped out because Satan wanted me to apologize to him. I refused to do so, because I have nothing to apologize for, and didn't understand what he wanted me to say. So I completely flip out at her and realize that my boss might actually be Satan and I should apologize to him for, it seems, hurting his feelings. Um... okay.

It gets stupider. I rethink my actions and tell Eunice on Tuesday that I don't want to quit and she says she'll write a letter and I agree to read it. So that happens, I read it, I change it brilliantly, and I have now officially written an apology letter to Satan without actually apologizing or regretting anything I did. My favorite line is, "Finally, I regret that you remain unchanged." Take THAT you piece of $#!t. So anyway, I found out on Friday that the sample letter Eunice was supposed to have written was passed off to Jade (a supervisor) who passed it off to Margaret, an older woman who quit the school pretty much the day she walked in the door. And of course, it was all a huge secret.

Are these people for real?

Anyway, apparently that situation is finally resolved, without any actual changes being made. I'm so glad I went through hell for absolutely nothing except my own sense of right and wrong. It was so worth it.

Someone else quit on Friday. So that'll be interesting too. Especially since the kindergarden class is already on teacher number 2. There's gonna be a revolt, and it's gonna be so fun to watch. If it weren't what's best for my kids, I'd tell CIS to kiss my @$$. I'm secretly hoping they fire me or that the school goes under but... I'm not that lucky. But I DID manage to have a decent day with my B.C. class, where I actually liked them as people. It was strange but nice.

Wenesday I went to Costco and experienced joy in my soul at buying large quantities of cheese. My stomach really can't handle it, but she'll get used it it again eventually. :)

Thursday, I went and saw Pirates 2. It was a little bit awesome, and I'm sure I would have been much more enthused about the entire situation had the movie not begun at 11 pm. But still, I enjoyed it (three words: paddle wheel swordfight). I think the first one is better, but this one was worth watching. Oh, and just an FYI--people with barnacles and other various sea-creatures growing from thier faces are GROTESQUE. Seriously... I wanted to puke a couple times. Good effects, though.

Yesterday I headed to Everland, which is an amusement park here. I was supposed to go with Karen (my supervisor) and Eric and his mom (one of my kindies), but they ended up not meeting us there, so it was just Karen and I. It was pretty fun, rides, animals, etc. I went on a rollercoaster for the first time in like, 10 years, and it even went upside down. I rule. And another dream of mine came true... check out the pics.



This is the view from the front entrance. It's so... Korean amusement park-y.



Apparently the park's 30 years old, as the flowers say.


Me, driving a giant dog. It kinda looked like Lancelot. SUPER nerdy fun.



A view of the park from the Ferris wheel.

And finally I present the greatest discovery known to man. Ladies and gentleman...


A liger. Of course, it might have been a tigon, but it didn't reek like poo so I'm gonna assume it's a liger, bread for its skills in magic. It's awesome, I know.

Today cleaning and church. I'll be gone for the next three weekends (mud festival next weekend and then Hawaii for the following two) so I'm trying to get ready for going away, plus spend lots of time with Lancelot so he'll still love me when I get home from Hawaii. I can't even think about leaving him next weekend, let alone a whole week. I want to cry just typing this. Even though I know I'll have fun, I will miss him like CRAZY. We haven't been apart since I got him.

:(

Much love.

EDIT: I just got home from church where I apparently took a picture with a K-pop rockstar. When Yunjin sends me the pic, I'll post it here. It was so cute, she's all star-struck and flippin' out and I'm like, "Hey, Brian, can we take a picture with you?" It was awesome. :)

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Sunday, July 02, 2006

"It's light out! I can see everything!"

Funny thing about getting in a cab at 5 A.M... it's light out and you can see everything.

Yes, I had a late night last night but it was great. I went with AdamandChrista to celebrate Canada Day at a bar in Hongdae. But first, we went on an epic journey to find this Brazilian restaurant called Ipanema. We finally gave up hope of finding it and got in a cab to go elsewhere, and suddenly it appeared before us and hope was restored.

This was a real Brazilian restaurant complete with many actualy Brazilians. It was buffet style, and then the waiters came by every table with meat (and grilled pineapple!!) on skewers. I'm pretty sure we ate every animal that is considered edible. And it was all good and salty. Mmm. I mean, I'm not that into giant, never-ending piles of meat, but the grilled pineapple, black beans and rice, and Brazilian waiters were worth my money. Mmmmm, good.

Then we went on to the bar where our faces were rocked off with some sweet jams. 6 bands and after that a D.J. It was SUPER fun. I loved Canada a little bit, I'm not gonna lie. But only for one night. 'Course today I'm super exausted, but I'm planning on bed pretty soon so that's awesome.

Other weekend plans included going to the sauna with Rach and the new girl Merium. Fun and a most needed time of relaxation and not being alone. More stuff happened at school on Friday and I vowed not to think about any of it again until I have to on Monday. So... details of how it all turns out are to follow.

Today was sleeping til noon and church. After church, we walked outside and a dragon fly landed on my shoulder and stayed there for a bit... maybe even a minute. It just sat there, on my soulder, happy as it could be. I don't know what that means, but it's gotta be a good sign, right?

Much love.