From Korea to America and Back to Korea Again

For those of you who missed us...yes, we were back in the United States for a short period of time. From May 15 to May 29, Kim and I were farting around in Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida. We bought things, tied loose ends, and visited a bunch. It was really good to see family and friends again. After a year, South Korea becomes your reality. So when we went back to America, everything there seemed a bit dreamy at first.

Switching from a transitory job to a temporary vacation and back again has a bizarre effect on the brain. Mixed with jet lag it kinda feels like swimming.

Well, six more months to go and then it's back to America again. I've been telling everyone that it will go incredibly fast, which suggests a few things. First, I should probably write down a few things I would like to do before leaving Korea. Second, don't be too sad if you miss us because there's a bunch of cool stuff you can do while you wait! Last, if you plan on visiting us, totally go for it. Soon South Korea will become a dream within a dream.

I hope to post again soon or Kim for that matter. However, given our track record and the few remaining months left to us, expect to see us in person first, lol.

P.S. Narita International Airport in Japan was extremely expensive. We both threw down 20 U.S. dollars to exchange for Japanese Yen, thinking we could buy things to bring back home (when are we going to be in Japan again?). With the 3700 or so Yen the dollars bought us, we purchased two bottled waters, two small key chain trinkets, and a sumo-wrestler-style Russian doll set. Granted we kept a few coins as keepsakes, but a meal for two would have blown the 40 USD easily.

P.P.S. If you're going to fly for 12+ hours internationally, bump yourself one up from economy. The five extra inches of leg space and whatever else it offers will not go unnoticed by your body.

Still Alive

Hello again. Yes, we are those people who have a blog, have many things to post, and even have our blog set to our homepage...and never post. It's the cell phone effect. A great piece of technology, that is extremely convenient, that you end up hating with your soul. Or, at least you end up developing a purposeful negligence toward.

It is officially February 28th. This means that we have two months left in our contract. How did the time go by? What did we do in the past few months that was so secretive we couldn't share it with the entire blogging world? The biggest deal was celebrating New Years Eve in City Hall, Seoul. There was an undulating sea of bodies that tended to slowly compress the oxygen from your own body. There were lights, sounds, protests, police officers, and plenty of drunk foreignors and Korean natives alike armed with Roman candles, rocketing fiery balls of celebration into the night. We attempted to stay awake for the rising of the new year's sun, from Namsan tower or building 63, but we boldly fell asleep instead.

In January and February we celebrated our birthdays. In that sense, it has been a year of firsts. Spending Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, and your birthdays away from home is not highly recommended. Eventually, for those with a strong stomach, you end up getting homesick, if ever so mild. Hehe.

In business news, we are still in negotiations for new contracts. If we re-sign, we will come home for two weeks in mid-May, and then return to South Korea for an additional six months. In many ways it would be nice, since we would then be home by December first. And that would just rock. "On the other hand" does exist, but I just don't want to worry about it. I figure I'm open to both re-signing and not re-signing (special thanks to Elliot for the hyphenated heads up). I'm just happy.

In boring news (for those uninterested anyways), our new semester at school will begin this Monday. All the teachers are more or less stressed out. Friday (yesterday), we just received all the information on the new curriculum, and many of our books are not in yet. Some rooms, namely Kim's and our friend Mike's, are not quite ready to be inhabited. Also, there are about three brand new teachers starting on Monday. I think each of them has a few years experience though, so they will be much better off than I was when I first arrived. It's funny, in two months we will just be settling in and feeling comfortable with the new students and the curriculum. And then our one-year in the land of the wee Kinders will be up. Oh Korea...how you spin us around and spit us out.

IN CONCLUSION~ I hope everyone is healthy and happy. We miss you guys.

Hedwig and the Angry Inch

So, I know many of you are familiar with the play and/or the movie, Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Well, I promise you, you would not be as familiar with it if you saw it in a foreign language you can't understand (namely, for us, Korean); but you would leave that show with a sense that you had been a part of a truly multi-cultural experience.

This past Saturday evening, after we suddenly remembered we had tickets to the show, which was starting in two hours (how we forgot, I have no idea -- it was something we had been anticipating for over a month!), we made our way to the concert hall -- a ten-minute walk from our apartment, a 5 minute walk from the place we ate dinner before -- only to discover we went to the wrong venue. With 12 minutes left until start-time, we ran a little, flagged a taxi, and hoped for the best as the cab driver berated (we're assuming he berated us at least) in Korean. (I think it was for not knowing how to get to our destination, but who knows?). Tim had his eye on the prize the whole time and couldn't care less what the cab driver was raving about; I made a few unintelligible grunts when driver seemed to actually address us and was not just venting his frustration.

We finally made it to the real destination, and our fourth row, center seats, at start-time on the dot -- 7:30. We smiled because we couldn't believe we had made it, and then we disrobed down to our t-shirts because it was hot-as-hell in there!

I know what you're thinking. What the hell's the point of going to a musical or show of any kind if it's in a language you don't understand? All I can say is that the language didn't matter. (Think of all those opera fans out there.) We knew the story. We've seen the movie and listened to the soundtrack. We knew the words and the premise. Do we wish that it was in English, so we could understand the jokes, the nuances of the speech, and have a total musical experience? Of course we did, and do. But the energy of the actors and the musical performances were astounding. At the end of the production, after the actors had left the stage, the audience began to shout "Encore, encore!" (but with a short e sound in the beginning, like in the word "hen"). We chuckled and joined in the cheers. It didn't take long for the performers to return to the stage and put on a kick-ass rock ensemble of Stephen Trask's Hedwig tunes.

The show made us excited, and we left the hall with a stupidly huge desire to see Hedwig when we get back to the states -- that is, if it was showing in the states. So if anybody hears that Hedwig is coming to town, please let us know!

Oops! and PIFF

Okay, so Tim and I have been completely slacking off on our blogging responsibilities, but, let's face it, we thought we would have way more time on our hands to act out our writing skills and techno suaveness via "Life in Daejeon." We were flat out wrong. Commanding a troop of sprouts takes more time than we bargained for, and we do want to enjoy a our social lives, so something had to be sacrificed, and the blog was ripe for the pickin'. Still, all excuses aside, we are sorry we have neglected our posting duties; after all we did promise to keep everyone updated on our lives through this site.

Life has been going well for us in Daejeon, and we have stayed very busy. We have even found a large family of foreigners to play Ultimate Frisbee with (among other things), who have turned out to be quite an amazing (and large) group of people. (Who knew Frisbee attracted such a crowd?) We are contending with the ever-cooling weather, and are a little worried about whether we packed enough warm clothes and long underwear to survive the winter. (Seoul midnight markets, here we come!) All-and-all, we are doing fine.

There are several hiking trips and other things that I would love to post about at this time, but frankly, it's damn near 2:00 a.m. and I want to do something easy, so please enjoy the following slide show of our recent trip to the Pusan International Film Festival (PiFF) in Pusan (or Busan).

We had three-day weekend on October 3--5, so Tim, our friend Mike, and I decided to take a trip to a new place. Pusan won our vote due to a huge international film festival going on there that weekend. We hopped an annoyingly slow train to Pusan on Friday, and stayed until Sunday. The core of the festivities (well, at least our festivities) were held right on Haeundae Beach, although the films played in theaters across a couple different dongs. We spent the majority of our time on the beach near our hotel (as the pictures will show). Tim and I saw one movie, The Sky Crawlers, at the outdoor theater, which was set up at the yachting center.

During the slide show of pictures, keep an eye out for this stuff:
(1) The Tsingtao Panda (can you spot him?);
(2) The hotties on the wave runners;
(3) The nice lady who heated dried squid for us on the beach with her portable burner and sold us beer out of her backpack.



Thanks for checking in everyone! Hope you are all well and happy!

Trip to Seoul

What better way to continue our vacation of adventure than a trip to South Korea's capital, Seoul! Late Monday night, July 28th, five adults and one child checked into what Tim succinctly termed as "a clandestine motel" that had clean rooms and large T.V.s. Notice the attractive colored lighting? It really sets the mood, huh?


Well, instead of sleeping, we all headed straight for one of Seoul's all-night markets, full of knock-off-name-brand everything! A shopper's paradise.




The night markets had everything, including hot-stone-roasted octopus and squid!


We wandered back into our motel at about 4 or 5 o'clock in the morning. After a handful of hours of sleep, we picked ourselves up and wandered back out onto the streets for more shopping.

MJ and Cecille bargain with a t-shirt dealer in Namdaemun market, and Tim is shocked by the good-and-plenty atmosphere:



At some point or another, we made our way to Insa-dong, the traditional market neighborhood of Seoul, which has to be one of my favorite areas so far.


MJ shows us the traditional buildings that make up the area.



A clothing store filled with naturally dyed, handmade fabrics, sewn together by hand.


On the streets of this busy neighborhood, a man makes traditional Korean snacks (not including the dried squid). He mostly uses puffed rice and other grains in these treats.


MJ's easy-going son grabs a few Zs in the middle of Insa-dong.


After a hard day's walking and shopping, we find refuge at an old fashioned tea house.




MJ treats us all to the traditional tea and rice cake snack.

Tim, myself, and Cecille, gracefully poised in front of traditional Korean wallpaper, and underneath traditional Korean slippers.

MJ's son insists upon sitting at his own table. He and MJ pray together before he eats his snack.

Our tea and rice cake arrive. For me, MJ ordered some kind of pine tree/needle/seed tea. Tim had date tea.



Okay, a random picture of what a traditional house entrance might look like:


We spent that evening finding a place to eat, walking a couple different dongs, and just enjoying the night. We headed home to Daejeon on Wednesday, the 30th, ready to meet witht he hiking trail.

Daecheong Dam

In order to kick-off our week-long summer vacation in an adventurous spirit, Tim and I took a day trip to Daecheong Dam with a friend from work, John Paul. Two bus rides and a short hike up a rather steep driveway later, we arrived at the dam sight. We nibbled our snack of roast corn (which John Paul bought from a snack foods vendor on our way up) apples, and almonds as we strolled along a pathway designated for foot massaging (you'll see the picture and know what I mean).

I must admit that seeing the dam was rather anti-climactic.

Now, I was expecting some huge cement block with holes carved in the side and water roaring and crashing into a pool a few hundred feet below (like the thing Harrison Ford jumped out of in the movie Fugitive), but it wasn't anything like that. Instead we were greeted by a large cement block with a lot of metal pipes running every which way, and a steep slope of stones and rickety wooden stairs -- there was no water crashing anywhere, to my dismay (although, there was a trickling leak from a pipe near the water purification building). The saving glory of the place, and the delight of my day, was the beautiful atmosphere and scenic surroundings.

After taking in the view outside, we wandered into the museum that shares the property. The best part of the museum was some of the artwork displayed on the second floor: it was all made out of garbage. The tour indoors was short, and we soon decided to make our way back to the bus stop to head home. But before heading down the mountain, we became quite taken with a golden statue keeping a constant vigil outside. Who the statue is of, we may never know, but it was obliging enough to let us each climb up upon its knees and be photgraphed in its radiating presence.

All-in-all, it was quite lovely there and rather peaceful; although, if we ever do return to that area, it will be to hike the nearby mountains, and not for some idle fancy to see some place that might resemble something I once saw in a movie.

A Typical Walk

To get us back into posting videos (or more into posting videos), I recorded us walking to one of the many stationery stores here in Daejeon. The main thing you can get from this is that besides the details, everything else is just about the same here as it would be in any decent sized American city.

A few things to look for in this video:

1. A safari of bumpiness. If you have stomach problems watch at your own risk.
2. Kim's body double makes a background appearance at minute 2:57.
3. The cicadas crescendo from minute 3:20 to 5:20.
4. At minute 6:35 I trade proper English for a broken celtic dialect.
5. At minute 7:17 I reveal my laziness for posting videos.