Home Sweet Home Sweet Korea Sweet Home

My last night in Changwon for orientation was great. It had food, singing, karaoke, temples, fountains, and I was on TV. What could beat that??
Nothing of course. And thus that meant my time in Changwon was up. I had done all there was to do, seen all there was to see, and eaten all there was to eat.
So, Changwon: Check!

Finally, I get to go to my own place. I met with my new co - teacher at the hotel. His name was Pang Eun Sak, and after talking with him for a bit I knew he was a groovy guy down to the bone. Here he is (with my friend Kent. Kent would be living in the same building and province as me):




I gathered my belongings, said my goodbyes and left. We had to go: the road was calling us. There's an awesome saying about the road that I'd like to put in here:

"One for the road, and one for those who've never rode."

We drove for about 2 hours, and arrived at my new hometown, Hamyang, located just about smack dab in the center of Korea. Here's a link that'll give you an idea of my town:

http://eng.hygn.go.kr/main/index.asp

Here's the best place to see its location in relation to the rest of Korea (and the world):

http://eng.hygn.go.kr/01/02.asp

So, in all regards, this is awesome.
Now, my apartment. I got a glorious studio all to myself. Now, after almost fully furnishing it, here's pretty much every aspect of it:

My kitchen, and part of my main studio room. The glass doors attached to the main room lead to my balcony.


Below here is the immediate other side of the main room, as well as my bed to the right (and once again my balcony on its left.




Left, my bathroom (notice there is no shower area, its all open. All bathrooms are like that in Korea). To the right is my bathroom as well waiting below it my Barbecue Grill. Yeah baby, Barbecue Grill is capitalized because its that good.




Balcony, and then to to the right of it is the view from my porch over the town of Hamyang.



Below, the town of hamyang with the the fantastic mountains in the back, as well as the view of my neighbors porch/yard area from my balcony.



It is truly an awesome place to stay.

Once I settled myself in, I cooked my first dinner. Here she is in all of her glory: Dumplings (Mandu in Korean) and eggs with cheese. Hearty, healthy, and easy to make.




Next on the agenda. My Job.

Wait a minute...Job?? Who said anything about actually working in Korea?
OHHH RIGHT, I'm not just living here, free of responsibilities. I'm a TEACHER.

Now some of you have probably asked yourselves, what on earth qualifies me to be a teacher?

The answer? Nothing. Its entirely a learning experience. It's merely the fact that I am a native speaker of English that assumes an innate ability to teach the language. Turns out this is not such a ridiculous presumption, as I know more about the language, its grammatical points and conversational nuggets than I thought. So, 1 point for the Korean government. Wahoo.

Now on to where I work. What an awesome place it is.

My co - teacher, Pang Eun Sak gave me the low down. I am teaching in two schools: One in the town of Anui, and one in the town of Soha. 3 days a week and 2 days a week, respectively. Anui is about 25 minutes away by bus, and Soha is about 50 minutes away.

Anui is the second biggest school in Hamyang, with approximately 350 students in total. I would teach grade 1 - 6, with a combined total of about 60 students in all my classes.
Here's a piece of what Anui's campus looks like:





Once in my school, I got a chance to meet my principal and other teachers. The main teacher is a an awesome guy, but the real dudes I hang with are this dude (below, left): he's the gym teacher, his name is Goo San Mo, and my co teacher. I hang out with them in this fantastic lounge in the school where there are guitars, music playing, and food available. Pretty sweet deal I'd say.

As far as how I get to and from school, this is the bus system and essentially what it looks like. The sign for Hamyang is here (its the third one from the left, in red) and the busses that go with it.

And now the teachers: goodness gracious who ever knew teachers knew how to party? They invited me and all the new teachers out to dinner, had a big celebration, and then went to karoake. Sweet jesus it was insane. Let me just say that the teacher in the middle, by the end of the night had toilet paper around her head and people were sticking money into it On the teacher in a snooze position on the right? That's faithful Pang Eun Sak my co teacher; he literally fell asleep sitting upright like that for the night. I mean it. That's a feat in itself! These Koreans are just full of surprises.




Here's the dinner with everyone:



Ahh, and of course, below is my new, absolutely excellent, totally radical university volunteer. Unlike my friend's volunteers who are education majors, she just so happens to be a biochemistry major at one of the top universities in Korea, Gangnam University (which is quite huge and fantastic). She is quite shy (which explains the attempt to block the picture...actually it looks more like a monster is about to come from like an Indiana Jones movie or something really), but quite an awesome volunteer that speaks wonderful English. Turns out the reason I had a fake volunteer all those times and nobody knew could contact her was because she was doing research in Australia in an area that wasn't easily reachable.



And now onto the final event: the volleyball phenomenon in Korea. This is an extraordinary occurance that happens in elementary schools throughout Korea. At some juncture the teachers discovered volleyball and essentially made it into a national sport. Every Wednesday my school, along with all the others in Korea get all the teachers together and battle one another. They train hard, have referees, get out their gear, and go at it for a solid 2.5 hours or so. It is absolutely phenomenal, especially the fact that I made a clear spike onto my principals face during this particular game shown below.

IT WAS AWESOME.

And he spiked me in the face later in the game. So we were even.

Guess Who Was On Korean TV?

Ok. LETS KEEP GOING BABY!

The final part of my orientation consisted of two more parts. The first was a visit to "The House of Changwon". This was a quick cultural visit to better understanding of the city where we were residing for Orientation. Below is the quick historical description that was provided at the actual location (You should be able to click on the photo and have it zoom in on the words):



Here we see beautiful gardens, a bamboo forest and fantastic greenery that emphasize Korea's beauty as well as its history. Here's a few shots that I thought were camera-worthy:

(below left: Beautiful temple garden, below right: some beautiful pine)



(below left: beautiful bamboo forest: below right: interesting drawing?)


Seeing as I have too much to cover, here's a few more pics of just some groovy stuff, some beautiful plants, an artsy picture or two, and some more of the temple. I'll keep the words to a minimum:

(Upper right: the entrace of the temple)




(above: just another vew of the gardens; right: ...I wonder what lives in that hole?)
The temple here was quite something, especially since it was an absolutely gorgeous day. We walked around for approximately an hour until we had to head back to our phenomenal hotel. It was approaching evening, and this was our last night in Changwon. We had to make it count as fit as much into the day as possible!

From here we went to perhaps the most incredible Korean Resteraunt I have been to in all my time in Korea. This resteraunt is world famous, with locations known far and wide. Yep, you guessed it.

The Outback Steakhouse.

They have one in Korea.

And it was awesome.

Now, the menu was slightly different. I specifically took note of a few peculiar drinks I've never heard of. Here they are (take note of the fact these are merely colors and fruits with the word "ade" afterwards. Needless to say they were delicious.



When I was done and fully satisfied, I took a sip of my tomatoade and leaned back to digest and appreciate.

After dinner we left the place, went back, and I turned on the tube. This is what I saw:



Yeah that's me. I'm super famous and on Korean TV. BOOM BABY. Turns out people in Korea have been talking and they want me to meet the president because I'm so good looking.

Ok, so maybe that's not what happened. It went more like this.

After finishing eating, I decided to take a stroll around the fine establishment with a few peeps, and compare and contrast from our American Outback. we snuck away from the table and began our exploration. It did not take long to find the children's room, a wonderful open space with toys, video games, and a tv. And there wasn't a kid in sight.

My friend's kept on moving, but I decided to stay behind.

Boy had I just hit the jackpot. CHA CHING.

I immediately sat down and got to work. I played with the toys, watch the tv a bit, and of course, in my love of dancing, began to use the fantastic open space to practice my newly found breakdance moves. CHIKAWOW! BADABANG! Oh yeah, I was feelin' good. Particularly awesome might I add. Handstands, flips, you name it. I was rockin that kids room.

Or maybe not. The reality of the situation was that I was just some dude rolling around on the floor, falling on my face and attempting to do things that no sane mane would do in public. But hey, its not like anyone was there to see me right?

WRONG!

I discovered this little tidbit of info when I strolled back out of the room back towards my seat, relaxed after having worked off some major carbs with my kickass workout. Yet, I could feel something was amiss as I reached my seat. The stares were there, but they were not directed at me. Instead, they were directed towards a babycam monitor a few feet away from me. And this babycam monitor was beautifully hooked up to watch everything that was going on in the children's corner.

Oh dear; the peaces were coming together now. Had they seen everything?
As I sat down, I got my answer. I believe the first thing I heard from a nearby Korean volunteer was "Nice dance moves", combined with showing me a picture of me on the TV.

The next few minutes was joint laughter at my expense.

Needless to say, I was on the tv and they weren't. Moral of the story? Now I know what it feels like to be on tv for doing something foolish, like all those reality tv shows haha.

After dinner, there was only one thing left to do to complete the Korean Experience. Norebang! (Karaoke).

We went to the top place our town had to offer. Penthouse Karaoke, on top of a building, with a beautiful view and an incredible interior. Here's what the inside looked like:



Mind you I have no idea why the entrance is labeled melon, and why the waiting room has a see through floor with a miniature Legotown underneath the plated glass. This was not the time to ask questions.

We went in and got to work. It was good, but I needed to explore the town on my last day of orientation.

Me and a few of my buds went to a nearby bar and played some pool. We talked, chatted, and met some cool people. In fact we even saw a few drinks advertised that I was not quite familiar being in the US:



But there is one part of the night that stood out. It was when my friend Chris James Clayton told me his amazing story about his ferrets in California. Apparently they're illegal in California, not sure why. Nonetheless, I will now provide the video (unfortunately sideways) and let him do the rest of the talking.



Thus ends another update!

Extra stuff:

Here's a few interesting pictures from my voyage:

Can you find me? Where's Neal?



Project I did in one of my classes. I see Jimi Hendrix playing a guitar, or two chickens going at it. What do you guys see?