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!