Blake goes gobo, Mer du Japon, The Legend of Old Kurtt and Stevie B

Another week, another story...

Thanksgiving was spent teaching all day. I realized this will be the first time away from home for the holidays. I almost forgot about Thanksgiving. We went out to a Korean bbq restaurant where we had beef it was delicious, so I can't complain.

Last week we had the Taekwondo students which was enjoyable since they were into the classes more so and we even got a free lesson on the stance, punching and how to do a reverse roundhouse kick!

This weekend we got out of Yeongwol finally with the help of our co-worker Songlee who invited us with her to meet her family and see her home city of Gangneung which lies on the Sea of Japan.


The trip included winding roads through the mountains, even bigger mountains capped with snow which finally met the beach. The beach was lined with restaurants and fresh seafood tanks and many coffee shops which we indulged in. Her family welcomed us with open arms, provided us our own room in their apartment and fed us some bulgogi (beef) and chap cha (noodle,meat, sautee veggie mix). It was the best meal we have had so far.

That night, we first went to a bar called, Drug.

Awesome name for a bar right? We met three of her friends as well and got to know each other by teaching our respective country's drinking games to each other. Afterwards, we went to the best night club I've been to so far called Charisma. There was a huge seating section and a dance area next to the dancer adorned stage. Needless to say, we tore the floor up till about 3 am and came home to her not yet asleep aunt and cousins. All in all, a great weekend.

:The Legend of Old Kurtt and Stevie B:

Alright so there are these two lads in yeongwol, Kurt from Australia and Steve from the UK who are also fellow English teachers. So I told them I would write a piece on them, and this is all I can think of...ha kidding. Kurt is an English teacher wunderkind who has spent time already in Japan teaching. El Steverino drove through Europe including most of Russia to get South Korea and is quite handy with a guitar. On friday, we remixed some old time classics to include the words kimchi, yeongwol, and/or kimchi lady. For example, Jimi Hendrix's "Foxy Lady" was called "Kimchi Lady", or Neil Young's classic "Keep on Washing your Kimchi".

We usually mosey on over at least once a week for a drink, tea or what have you, a flick (this weekend was Snatch) and recap the antics of the weekend. So this weekend included Kurt being accused of being a pimp with his friend considered to be his prostitute at a club in Seoul. Steve texting a girl on another teacher's cell phone with the words i love you and said other teacher humorously freaking out in school boy fashion. Apparently koreans can also be deceivingly younger than they actually are.

Unique Happenings:

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While waiting to change trains in the Seoul subway, an old guy started speaking a little english to us. As I stared closer, I noticed his teeth were rotting away and he sounded as if this wasn't his first time hitting the bottle. In sort of a movie moment from "Snatch", he asked us if we liked cats.

We sorta mumbled, well yeah we like cats. So this man pulls out a kitten out of his windbreaker and shows it us. I almost wanted to pet it...

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The firefighter students were a bit hard to get their motivation going so we decided to explain the expansiveness of american college, umm... drinking. We drew stick figures on the board and explained the complexities of a keg stand and beer bong. Great success.

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At a little supermarket downtown, some high school girls saw us from outside the window and came in. One of them started crying like we were The Beatles, not even kidding.

New Music you should check out: The Cure, Longwave, The Fireman (Paul McCartney), Cut Copy, Moby (song: live for tomorrow).

Military bases, Abortions and Robbie Williams...

So last weekend...

Blake and I wanted to go for a hike up a mountain behind our apartment building. This story has 2 interesting parts. We embarked towards the side of the mountain following a road. As we approached closer to the base we noticed some sort of road impediments with black and yellow stripes and a gate up head. We walked up the left side of the fork in the road and came to the realization that we were walking along the perimeter of a military base. We could see spikes now by those road blocks and could now see the entire base with military vehicles parked in garages. There was also barbed wire above a concrete wall and oh, a sign before all of this that said 36th infantry division...

Needless to say, our two young travelers did not end up hiking up a mountain. But at least they feel a little safer knowing Korea's finest are camped out in the mountains of our backyard. At least we hope anyway.

The second interesting point was the supposed bottle of water Blake bought the day before. We never ended up drinking any but the other day Blake tried to take a pill with it, only to realize that it was not water rather 30 proof alcohol... What a way to start a morning.

Sticking on the military topic...

There is also a US airbase about an hour or so away in a bigger town called Wonju. There are at least 700 U.S. military bases around the globe. 36 of them are in South Korea.

Almost on a daily basis, we've heard the roar of fighter jets up above and have seen them flying at a relatively low altitude. The reality has set in that we are in a foreign country and indeed one whose tensions are still predominant with their neighbors -- North Korea. As the date of our departure for South Korea approached, I became increasingly interested with the world news involving South Korea and how it would affect us. The US Economy's flop affected the Korean currency (Won) so our salary's value decreased by 32% since before we left. North Korea was taken off the US's "evil" list but also has expelled all UN weapons inspectors and has also decided to stop all cross border movement effective in the next couple months due to a breakdown in negotiations with South Korea.

The recent election, (W00t Obama! let's hope he pulls through with his ambitions), has also affected Koreans here. Many are excited for Obama to right America's wrongs but many others were also fearful of Obama's supposed lack of experience militarily I think in comparison to McCain due to tensions with North Korea. I also think that McCain's age also played a role in his appeal to the older generation.

Some fun things to know!

My chopstick skill level right now is a little above intermediate, Blake's is a little below. When in Korea.

IN the morning, afternoon and evening there are radio shows by students and speakers outside on campus so we get to hear lots of Korean Pop after the meals. We even heard some Maroon 5 the other day. Mr Choi said he might ask them to let us have our own radio show which would be really funny to do but also cool to play our favorite tunes to the Koreans and hopefully convert them to better music like the european missionaries converted the native peoples of North and South America.

I watched a Korean teen comedy the other day. Kind of like American Pie but the nice, nerdy guy ends up impregnating the cute girl and then she had to get an abortion...

We're finishing teaching our second week with this week's students from the Firefighting and Safety department. Some interesting things about Korean culture. Cheating is very common and on many levels accepted. When asked about this to our director, he remarked with, well even if they are, they are still learning :^D. It's quite humorous to be honest since they try to be clever about it but it's very obvious. Kind of like in the movie Spies Like Us with Chevy Chase and Dan Akroyd. Watch this clip to find out what I mean... It's hilarious.

Our last period we played a pick-up game of footie Team Manchester against Blake's Arsenal. It was a 12 goal thriller and blake even put one upper right corner.

Another funny story. Being smart is the cool thing here so students really like to try in their regular classes. In Blake's after school class a young student was trying to learn while another one was distracting him so he walked up to him and straight kicked him in the junk and then later roundhouse kicked him in the chest.

We also just got a cell phone. Ringtone: Robbie Williams - Rock DJ (uncut)

I'll leave you with that for now. Thanks for reading and feel free to comment and let me know how you are!

We found some white people..

So on friday we heard more foreigners were heading to the Tacasabal - Tacsa Bar (Asians and their L's and R's...) We met 2 Aussies, and a Brit around our age and two older dudes, another Brit and an American. We arrived later in the night so they were a bit sauced when we arrived but cheerful to meet us! So we hung out with them a bit, we were strapped for cash but they dragged us with to a "Noraybong" and they showed us an international ATM! We couldn't find one for the longest time in this small town.

A noraybong is basically a karoake bar like the one Bill Murray visited in Lost in Translation. You pay 15 bucks for your party and you get an entire room to yourself to sing your heart's delight and you can bring in your own drinks!

One thing I've noticed is with foreigners, if you just bring up Soccer (Football) it's a great way to get some conversation going, that or mentioning Oasis to the Brits and Aussies. Apparently we were well recieved and much better than the last two teachers who taught at our college and were basically jerks to be modest about it.

As far as footie goes...

They love Park Ji Sung (Manchester United), Yung (AS Monaco) and Nakamura (Celtic). There's soccer on all the time so it's a great pick-me-up in the morning and later in the day! I also found FIFA 08 for XBOX in a drawer but we have no XBOX. 

The city of Yeongwol is very scenic. Many of the cities in this province (Gangwang-do) are basically towns built into valleys in between mountains. And so there are lots of rivers, falls, caves and outdoor activities to do. Which we will do eventually... 

Diet...

Yep, you guessed it. Tons of rice here. And kimchi which is marinated cabbage and they LOVE this stuff. Even though most of it doesn't taste great. BBQ pork, eel, and fish. Seaweed is actually pretty tasty. We've been going out a decent amount since it's almost cheaper to do so. At home we've got some noodles and lots of frozen dumplings since they're easy to make. We were going to make a lot of our own Russian dumplings but ground beef costs like 20 some dollars a pound :-S !

Beer is pretty affordable, at least the local ones are, Hite, Kass, and Dark Stout which is neither very dark nor stout. We found they do have Corona, Budweiser, Heineken and wheaty hooray!-- Hoegaarden! 

Soju-- Soju is basically like a bit of a vodka with a bit of sweeter after-taste sans harshness. The most common is made by Jinro and we've tried a few types and they all taste the same. It's only about 20% in strenght but for a 366mL bottle, it's 980 won which is probably 60-98 cents US now, depending on the day with this economy...

I started reading Less Than Zero by Bret Easton Ellis; he also wrote American Psycho which was also made into a great movie, starring Christian Bale. It's pretty good so far, I like the style and subject matter (rich kids in california, drugs, and monotony- basically a grittier version of gossip girl)

We also successfuly figured out how to use the Seoul subway system and how to buy tickets back to our city with no knowledge of Korean. Woot!

That's it for now...we teach our first classes today to the Culinary Department students and finally get our alien registration cards and can now get cell phones and internet at our apartment! We'll let ya know more about that soon. Send your addresses as well if you want some letters your way!

Anyang-Kasayo for now! And kammsameda for reading!

HIV / Drug Test - Obama! - Bar Fight - Koreans!

Hey, hey, my, my! So the past couple of days...

As part of our application for residence permits, we are required to take a drug and HIV blood test at the hospital. First thing, I knew we were in Korea after walking into the hospital. It was not an entirely pristine atmosphere and looked like a free clinic from the Bronx. Some basic check-up tests were done. I think I'm partially color blind :-/. Blake tried taking the piss out of me in front of the director but I rebutted with, "We'll see who fails the HIV test. Then who'll be laughing". Great stuff. Also included a piss test. Which was a laugh in the bathroom since they are grotty here. They don't flush the toilet paper but toss them in bins here, bleugh. The cups we had to do the business in were like paper coffee cups with no lids. The final part was a needle up the brachial vein/artery? I believe to take out some blood. Blake got a bit pale but mine went smoothly so let's hope we passed! Otherwise you'll be seeing us real soon!

We were really excited at work also the other day for the election. I had CNN streaming on my laptop at work and when the blow-out came, I made a sign and held it up against the glass of a classroom for the other American teacher, Pam, to see. Naturally she yelped with glee. 

We were all excited to celebrate and hit up the Tacsa Bar where a lot of the other foreign teachers go to get their whistles wet. We met Kat, a 40 some year old from the Bronx who decided to come here because of the job situation back home. She was glad to see us and was excited for Obama's win as well. Another teacher, Frankie from New Zealand also came later and we had some interesting chats. 

Korean people love to drink! And there was a group of students sitting near us who came up and offered both Blake and I drinks which was pretty cool. Apparently blonde, white males are like Gods to these people. Now I know how the Europeans felt when they took the Native American's land and conquered the many indigenous peoples.

Next up was our first uni-sex bathroom! Blake had a nice chat with a Korean man, in too close of a comfortable proximity while he was draining the main vein.

And last but not least, first bar fight! As we were sitting, a bigger Korean bloke came into the bar, and just sucker punched a guy sitting down and kicked him in the head while he was down. Frankie, bless her brave soul, got up and pushed the bugger away and that was that. Shocking to say the least. We guessed it was an act of passion.

Korean People:

The Korean people are extremely hospitable! We've had a lot of meals covered for us. A couple people give us their phone numbers and saying to let them know if we need help with anything. An older man at a cafe even told me that I should meet his 19 year old daughter! His wife was probably 20 years his younger and not too shabby, haha. He said if we ever want to, we can check out his home in the city nearby.

My address: - If you want to send me stuffs or letters!

Alex Titkov

Saekyung College

English Language Village

230-809, 57, Hason-ri,

Yeongwol-eup, Yeongwol-gun

Gangwan-do, South Korea

Hope all is well with everyone and thanks for reading! We miss you all, so please keep in touch!

Holy Shit I'm in South Korea!

Alright noble followers, the last 24 hours or so have been the most awakening and eye-opening of my life. Compared to living in Germany, I merged pretty well but 2 blonde, white guys are a bit of an exotic species around these parts. Stares are prominent and I have yet to decipher the Korean alphabet so everything is up in the air right now. I'll break down the past major events of this trip.

Chicago Airport: This conversation took place between myself, Blake and a Chinese Canadian woman.

*Over the airport intercom* "The threat level has been increased to orange"
Myself: *Chuckles*
Chinese Lady: What does that mean?
Myself: Well it's basically a joke more than anything. The government increases the level whenever they want.
Blake: Yeah, have you ever read Orwell? It's basically a scare tactic.
Myself: Yeah I just laugh when I hear something like that. It doesn't mean anything really. It's kind of like the weather. "Oh today it's going to be orange" I wouldn't worry about it.

Refer to David Cross' stand-up for further humor*

We spent 5 hours in Chicago until our flight at 1 A.M. heading for Incheon International Airport and made some final phone calls and text messages :-D to pass the time.

The Plane Ride:

We sat in the middle of the plane and I was stuck in between Blake and a fat Korean guy. Overall the 14 hours were spent well and we got some good rest in and had our first Korean meal which the old lady next to Blake help explain how to eat. The korean ugh, gentleman next to me fell asleep with his head up against the LCD screen which I found quite humorous.

Arriving at Incheon Airport:

We were met by a Korean taxi driver holding signs with our names on them welcoming us to Korea! Surprise, he spoke no English haha. So in our tired state, we were wondering if we we were going to be A: tortured, B: stabbed in a forest C: sent to a labor camp or D: any mix of the previous three. Thankfully he was heading us to our direction of Yeongwol, our destination.

Korean drivers operate their automobiles pretty freely. By that I mean, traffic rules are somewhat of a suggestion than anything. A great example of this came about when our driver mistakenly thought he took the wrong turn. So clearly the safest decision was to stop on the narrow shoulder and contemplate throwing that car in reverse! But alas! In my dire attempt arrive in Korea in one piece, convinced the driver with hand signals and saying the city "Yeongwol" to continue on the path we were on!

Welcome To Saekyung College! :

We arrived to meet our head honcho, Director Ian Choi (Chey), who was very pleased and excited to meet us. We went up to the English Language Village building and met the staff and the level where we will be working. Pictures will be up soon to show you some of the cool rooms that they have set up to teach in real-life settings, it's like an SNL stage! We also playfully, refer to Mr. Choi as The Choister in a laid-back Californian accent. The food is pretty cheap especially at our cafeteria where we can get a full meal for about 2 dollars and so is the drink. One of the students also thought I looked like David Beckham... I'll take it as a compliment.

There is one girl here, Songlee, who is going to help us hang out and show us around the town and hopefully some more of Korea which is extremely nice considering the majority of the public speaks no English, we can't read Korean, and nor do we know anyone else. And to be honest, upon the first few frantic ours of getting settled we contemplated whether we made the right decision or not. But our first day has been pretty interesting and in the long run it should be quite beneficial. We had to take over a couple small classes and communicated with students who have minimal English language knowledge but it went over pretty well I'd say. I'm also on facebook as we speak shhh... I get paid for this....

Our apartment is not too shabby, we have three rooms, a kitchen, a living room with couch, coffee table and television with cable. This was extremely entertaining watching the infomercials and we have a ton of sport shown, European and US so I'm getting my daily footie in from around the globe. Along the lines of "soccer" (shall be referred to as football from this point), our school apparently has a football team which I will try to get involved in if eligible to either play and/or coach. Thankfully, I have my handy Wayne Harrison guide to training methods to aid me in my footballing ways, thanks Wayne!

Overall, these past couple days have been really amazing and I mean that in the good and strange ways. It's tough leaving your friends and family but also exciting to be in a new environment. The city by the way is gorgeous and we are surrounded by mountains and hopefully my photos will portray that in the best way possible. I am also extremely glad one of my best friends, Blake Wergeland is with me. It makes that much of a difference having someone in a foreign land.

Hopefully this has been informative and entertaining enough and not too dull to skim over but more will be on the way.

I also want to congratulate and thank my high school's girls varsity soccer team for an amazing season, winning Sections, placing second in State and accepting me as one of the gang and most importantly the one and only, Big Time Charlie, Sir Wayne Harrison for allowing me to watch him work and learn a great deal. Leaving was that much harder after getting to know this team. I hope whoever wants to, stays in touch and lets me know what's going on their lives as well!

Until next time, miss you all, stay in touch, much love!

P.S. I voted for Obama. Suck it McCain.