Random shot of a subway station in Seoul from our previous trip. I really enjoyed using it to get around. It was fast, clean, and cheap. Regina could use one.

I awoke from my alcohol-induced sleep at quarter to seven in the god damned morning to a tap, tap, tapping noise coming from somewhere. I can usually sleep through almost anything. While C's parent's we installing new flooring, i even slept through the tablesaw in the kitchen. In my haze i wondered what that hell that sound could be. As soon as i registered that it might be water dripping i was out of bed to investigate. I discovered the air conditioner we had left on had started leaking water from the vent. The puddle was dangerously close to the extension cord the air conditioner was plugged into. I still don't know what happened exactly, but if the water had dripped for much longer i might have woken to an even bigger shock. (Sorry.) So much for sleeping late on Sunday.
Photos

Who is this guy? You can see him on any number of Korean channels at the same time. The shows seems like game shows except they have the same people on all the time. Some kind of Korean celebrities. This is about the only Korean show we watch. We don't really understand what is going on, but people fall down a lot, which is funny. Guys and girls seemingly compete for each others affections by competing in various competitions, which includes a Korean version of musical chairs in which you have to break a giant nut shell with your ass. It seems quite painful sometimes, but is as entertaining as hell.

In other news, beer is good. I've found some Miller at the E-Mart in Wonju, which is as close to Canadian beer as you can get here. I've had a few tonight, and i've decided American beer is better than Korean beer. Much better. It's still not Canadian beer, though.
Photos

Saturday left a bad taste in my mouth in more ways than one. It wasn't just the Pocari Sweat. I had heard of Pocari Sweat before we arrived and wondered what the hell a Pocari was and why the hell i'd want to drink it's sweat. After trying it i still don't know why, but i discovered a Pocari's sweat tastes pretty awful. I couldn't even finish a quarter of the bottle. On the ride into Wonju when we arrived Robert told us it was a sport drink, like Gatorade. Gatorade at least has a little flavour. This stuff tasted like sweetened salt water to me. I can't imagine being thirsty enough to actually finish a bottle. I picked it up on a whim walking back from downtown.

The other bad taste came from work that morning. At the beginning of the new semester we were told the school was going in a new direction and we would be trying to get more serious students. We were told that they wanted the kids to do more work at home and they expected about half the kids to drop out at first. They wanted to extend the semesters to five months and pass out report cards once every quarter semester instead of just twice. Well, that's the way it was supposed to work. They put our vacation at the middle of the first month and many kids went on holidays with their families after that. Those kids missed up to a week of classes. The scores on the tests reflected the missed time. I also didn't help my kids with the tests as much as the previous teacher did, i'm sure. One class had one test that was obviously too difficult for them, but i didn't write it. Quite a few classes had really low scores in some subjects. When the director saw the scores i guess he flipped. On Saturday morning we had our last intensive course and we were pulled aside by Robert right before class for a chat. We were told they've never seen scores so low and if things didn't improve that the teachers would be held accountable. We also wouldn't be handing out the report cards we spent days preparing. I took the talk to mean if we didn't improve the scores soon we'd be fired. Right before class was a bad time to tell us because we didn't teach for the first hour and had that time to be pissed. At first i wanted to just walk out and tell them to handle it themselves for the day. I managed to keep my head and after class i pulled Robert and told him i thought we were getting a mixed message. We also informed him of how C's previous teacher went over the exam and told them all the answers right before the tests. We thought the kids should have to know the answers, not just be told what they are. We came out of the talk feeling a little better, but we've still been pretty blah for the last week. Maybe a little homesickness is starting to set in. Being told you're a crappy teacher doesn't help either.

So we went for a walk downtown later that day and actually did some shopping for a change. Didn't find anything for me, but C managed to get some girly things for herself. As we were walking down the street we got the usual heads craning in our direction. In the past one woman tripped over something and another turned her entire body as we passed. While starting to head for home we passed some teenage girls on the street and i noticed them staring at me with an unusual intensity. As we passed C said she hear one of them say hello. She thought it was kind of funny, but i enjoyed the slight ego boost. It made me feel a little better, even if i have to go half way around the world to have some females find me attractive.
Photos

This is my favourite shot from inside the stadium. The apartments on the left are the ones by the school. They are much larger than our apartment building. During the weekend we started getting some sort of announcement through a speaker in the hall of our apartment. One of the Korean teacher's at school said she thinks it had something to do with Independence Day. We tried turning the volume down, it still woke us at the ungodly hour of 8am on the holiday Monday. This happened after i was shocked awake by C having a bad asthma attack at 6am on Sunday. I thought we were going to have to find our way to the hospital ourselves. Luckily after a long time the attack subsided. So much for sleeping in.
Photos

On Saturday i went for a walk by myself and took some pictures of the thousands of flags all over the city for Independence day. These ones were hanging from the apartments next to ours and in front of the school. I only walked a few blocks to the stadium, but by the time i got back i was drenched in sweat.
Photos

Our second stop on Friday night was this resaurant named Venice Beach, i think. The floor in the center of the restaurant had plexiglass over a large pool of fish you walked over to get to the booths. The food wasn't bad, but a little expensive. The menu had some English, so C and i will have to check it out by ourselves some time.
Photos

On Friday night we were invited out with some of the lovely women from work for a few drinks. (I'm the scrawny one in the hat.) We went to this little basement bar where we sat on the floor. We had some sort of sweet alcohol served in little wooden bowls and a spicy dish of vegetables and octopus.
Photos

Mmmmm.... tastes like octopus. Actually i couldn't really taste the octopus over all the spice. I didn't eat too much of this as it was a little too spicy for me. I was really surprised when even C tried a little piece. Trying new foods isn't really her thing. We tried this dish when we were out Friday night.
Photos

I luv Engrishie. I finally found the pencil case of my dreams. I found this gem while shopping for groceries last week. Yeah, that's right. I'm man enough to carry a pink pencil case. I'm comfortable with my heterosexuality and can take the laughing from eight year old girls. Some of my older kids told me zzazzangmyeon are some kind of black noodles. I would have updated earlier, but i haven't been able to connect to any blogspot sites for almost a week. Some people have theories about what's going on.

It's been a busy couple weeks with the intensive course, writing tests, and marking. Hopefully next week will be better once the report cards are out and we're back to a normal schedule. The intensive course is 70 minutes of pain. It's a reading class of five older kids. I have to stretch about 30 minutes of material to fit the class. I try to have discussion and give them interesting fodder for conversation, but it's like getting blood from a stone with them. I actually prefer my younger classes. At least i don't have problems getting them to talk. I had one kid in my first class today whip a crumpled Yu-Gi-Oh card into the side of my face. On Friday the same kid had whipped a collapsible ball over my head before class. During the test they were writing that day i had to half tackle the little bastard as he lunged to put a beating on a smaller kid. He had been looking at the smaller kids paper and the kid hit him. One more thing and that kid's out of the school.

I was correcting some one of the younger kids' papers and he had put C-R-A-P as the answer under the picture of the stem of a flower. On the last page the kids were to insert the correct word in the sentence. His sentence read "I cut the CRAP of the flower." Made me chuckle a bit.
Photos

Who wants a caktail? You can see a lot of interesting English spelling/grammar everywhere. In addition to this signage, i've seen a lot of horrible grammar and spelling on kids' pencil cases. I'm looking for one for myself. I need one for school, but i'm holding out for one with indecipherable grammar. Just after we first arrived i saw a sign saying "Future Women's Clinic." WTF does that mean? Is it for men seeking sex changes? Young girls who are about to become women? Is the building going to be a women's clinic in the future? I took this picture on walk we took the other weekend. We went out at night to try and avoid the heat. We felt fine until we got downtown, but the sweat started to pour soon after. We're trapped indoors most of the time. This week hasn't been too hot. The problem has been the constant rain. If we're not stuck in because of the heat, it's the rain keeping us prisoner.

We've been pretty busy at work this with tests coming up. On top of that i can't get more than a combined six hours of sleep a night. The time change has been murder on the length and quality of sleep. Some nights i've had less than three hours before teaching. You would think there would be a point where your body would say, "I need some fucking sleep!" and just stay asleep. Not with me.
Photos

This is Sungnyemun outside of Namdaemun Market in Seoul. As we exited the market we were just in time to see a ceremonial changing of the guard. After the changing of the guard was finished, a tour guide that was helping some Japanese tourists came over and talked with us for a bit. He told us this (also known as Namdaemun or Great South Gate) was designated South Korea's number one national treasure. He also told us a little about Confucianism.

At the market we looked for a watch for me. It was kind of humorous when we approached some of the vendors they would whisper and ask us if we wanted a Rolex, or as i started calling them a "Faux-lex". At first i wasn't sure what they were saying, until a vendor pulled one out to show us. We ended up finding a decent watch and got a pretty good price on it.
Photos

We're back after five days in Seoul. We had a surprisingly easy time getting around by ourselves. The hardest part of the trip was getting to the bus station here in Wonju. Apparently there are two bus stations, and when our taxi driver finally understood we wanted to catch a bus i just agreed when he said a name. It was the wrong name. After that the trip was smooth. The bus to Seoul was fast and cheap and the subway was safe, clean, and easy to navigate. We stayed in Itaewon for five days, where the foreigners seemed to outnumber the Koreans. I don't think anyone gave us a second glance which was weird for us. We spent our days traveling by subway to the tourist spots and relaxed most nights in our hotel room. This pic is one of my favourites from our visit to the War Memorial Museum. We spent about three hours there and would have spent more if we weren't so tired and sore from walking so much. We took tonnes of pictures inside and out. We sped though about half the museum and all the large equipment outside. It was definitely worth the 3000 won per person. I'll post more pics over the next few days and talk about our trip. I have to keep this short because we've got to go back to work early tomorrow. I have to at least make an attempt at sleep.

In completely unrelated news my hockey team, the Edmonton Oilers, just made one of the biggest trades in their history. I am completely floored that they acquired Chris Pronger from the St. Louis Blues for Eric Brewer and two prospects. Pronger is a franchise player but i'm not sure he's worth the money they'll be paying him. This is the new NHL.
Photos