I am a lazy mofo….I admit it
Little update, I will not be staying another year in Korea. Instead I will be chasing my dream of being a scuba dive instructor in Phuket, Thailand. Teaching little Korean monsters doesn’t compare to living the dream in a tropical paradise….
I will be flying out of Korea in early November back to the states for a couple months and flying into Thailand early January of 2011.
This is where I will be living…
Oh yaaaaaaaa!
Tags: beach, blog, esl scuba, ESL South Korea, phuket diving, phuket thailand, South Korea, travel blog
I went to Jeju-do (Jeju Island) for a long weekend. There are TONS of tourist places on the island. The island is basically one big tourist destination.
Love Land
South Korea is not known for being open about sex or sexuality, but Loveland is! Loveland was created in 2004 by some university students from a South Korean university. There is a lot of art, sexual art and some funny shit!
I went with a group of friends and we were the only foreigners there, but there were quite a few of old women and even a family (with two little kids, def not the best parenting decision).
Here is a video of my friend Sarah using one of the interactive pieces of art at Love Land. (if you go on Youtube and search for Love Land, quite a few videos come up).
Tags: ESL South Korea, Jeju Island, jeju south korea, Jeju-do, jejudo, Love land, loveland south korea, sex park south korea, south korea sex, travel south korea
This is my Korean cell phone I was provided a few weeks after arriving. It is a nice phone and does everything I need it to do. It is very cheap. I text a lot and I have only spent about $140 for 6 months for pre paid minutes and what not.
The cool thing is every phone comes with a charging adapter. There is ONE, yes just ONE standard charger which every Korean phone charges with, some just have different adapters. So, you can go anywhere in Korea and charge your phone as long as you have an adapter.
The MyBi card is cool too. You can add money to it whenever and use it kind of like a credit card almost. You can use it on the bus, subway, taxi (some of them, it is relatively new) and even at the local convenience store to buy beer and soju! I tell every new person I meet to get one of these because they are very easy and useful.
Tags: esl korea cell phone, korean cell phone, mybi card, South Korea ESL, teaching english in korea
So a long, LONG time ago I made some kimchi at a Buddhist temple in Busan.
To sum it up…it was fucking awesome! I did this back in like December I think. I have had the post written, but I never actually published it (yes, that is how lazy I am).
This has been one of my favorite experiences since arriving in the ROK. Granted, I LOVE kimchi and this event involved kimchi and was FREE so I might be a little biased. This is a pretty good combo though!
Meetup.com
I found out about the event on Meetup.com (it is a site for expats and locals to attend events) and no it isn’t a dating site. My friend Jason attended as well because he loves kimchi too!!! Kim fuckin’ chi!!!
gay looking
We were supposed to meet our group in the bus station at Nopodong (which is in the middle of nowhere). We all met up and then looked for the free shuttle to the temple. The shuttle arrived with little kids in green outfit thingys and took us with them. After a 15 or 20 minute shuttle ride further into the countryside we arrived at the temple.
At the temple, we were greeted by monks and volunteers. It was already set up to where we would have name tags and what not. So, we first picked up our name tags and then were offered some coffee or tea. Then we were shown to our “station” at which we would be “working”. We were sent to station #1 (the monks could probably sense that we piss excellence) and there were 4 of us in the group.
Station 1
To kill some time and wait for other groups to arrive, one man offered us a tour of the temple. The tour was interesting and cool…and….it was actually the first temple I had been in since arriving in Korea. Granted, as I write this 5 months later, I have been in more and a shit ton while in Taiwan. You see one temple, you have seen them all.
Making some awesomeness aka Kimchi
So, they set us up with all of the ingredients and tools for making this Korean staple. There was also a “professional” Korean lady/chef?
pro
who told/showed us how to make the Kimchi (but in Korean with a crappy Korean translator).
Our little helper...
We cut some veggies, diced some shit, mixed things together and then one of the ladies running the event came over and yelled at us for doing it wrong. We then had the “professional” come over and make most of it for us because we were messing it up. Our team also decided to take another batch of ingredients from a deserted station to make. We ended up with TONS of kimchi!
We were able to take it all home, but I had to throw half of mine out because I had to go to Taiwan about 2 weeks later and didn’t want it to stink up my ENTIRE apartment.
This temple has an event for only foreigners once a month. This was the only one I have attended, but some of their things are gay and I don’t want to go.
I haven’t been doing any cool shit, thus not really posting anything. I have been hiking a ton! But that would be boring as hell to write about and for anyone (other than my mother) to read. The weather is getting better, and I have some trips lined up so maybe I will do some things worth posting about….or not!
Tags: awesomeness, buddhist temple, busan temple, changwon, cool things in korea, ESL South Korea, how to make kimchi, i love kimchi, Korea, korea free activity, making kimchi, meetup.com, stuff to do in korea, teaching english in south korea
I was given this note by a server at a bar close to where I live. I was with one of my Korean teachers and a male foreigner. It was late in the evening and many drinks were had.
This young guy (probably about 20 Korean age or 18 everywhere else age) who was our server didn’t say anything to us while we were at the bar for about 2 hours. When we are getting ready to leave and I go to the bathroom to relieve myself. The guy follows me in and stands behind me while I am taking a piss at the urinal. I can see him in the mirror and he is just looking at my back. I finish, give a couple shakes…not TOO many though! I turn around and he has both his hands out holding this note (both hands out means he was being respectful at least).
Awesome
It says….
“Hi (Korean smiley face) Welcome to Wa-Bar. Beside you are your girlfriend? She’s a beautiful girl. Uhm… What’s your job? I think your job is english teacher? Enjoy drinking beer. I feel english is so scald(??? maybe scary?). English is so difficult. See you again. Happy new years.”
This is why I love Korea. Random shit like this is awesome. The little guy probably spent quite a while writing this down and then had enough courage to give it to me….
Tags: drinking beer in korea, ESL changwon south korea, funny things in korea, Wa Bar korea