a mighty boosh halloween feat. tiesto

This past weekend saw a great american holiday take place- Sluttoween. On Friday, Tyler and I went to check out DJ Tiesto perform at Epic. It was a blistery, rainy night and on the walk over we happened to run into half a baker's dozen of Oles and then later in the evening several more. Tyler dressed as a sort of holiday referee and I went as the futbol legend Johann Cruyff #14.

Needless to say, the night was filled with individuals with inquiries into "rolls" or more commonly known as ecstasy which produces feelings of self-confidence without arrogance, a sense of peace, loss of fear and states of euphoria. You might think it sounds perfect to pop before a first date to get over those butterflies in the stomach or to a job interview but the excessive feelings of intimacy, insomnia, anorexia, tachycardia and a need to touch and grope might not work out in your favor. There were definitely a few questionable characters on the dance floor. I couldn't tell whether they had an extra chromosome or if they were just really messed up on a cocktail of drinks and drugs.

The show was a blast with the standard lights, dancers, and a big screen which provided for some great visual enhancement to the music and Tiesto who ended up playing for a total of 3 hours. He included some older tracks like Tetris, Flight 643, Adagio for Strings and everyone's favorite, Zombie Nation. The only downside was the occasional asshole up in VIP spilling his drink but on the upside, some other guy was literally making it rain with dollars bills to the attendees below so I guess it evened out.

In comparison to the album Kaleidoscope, I think the show definitely outshone it. The album has a couple really good tracks and several featured artists like Jonsi Birgisson from Sigur Ros, Kele Okerkere of Bloc Party and Tegan and Sara. The opening track Kaleidoscope with Jonsi is especially good which sounds like an epic with mix of Sigur Ros, M83, Tiesto infused dance-tronica track which you can hold your ear to here. The Tegan and Sara featured song "I feel it in my Bones" is not bad either but overall, the other tracks don't really keep the ante.

On the topic of Sigur Ros, I recently stumbled upon Jonsi and his partner Alex's vimeo profile. It has a couple music videos from their recent instrumental Riceboy Sleeps album and a couple of funny recipe videos where they make a raw strawberry pie and a macadamia monster mash nom nom.

The second day of the Halloween celebration entailed some actual costume work. I went as The Spirit of Jazz and thankfully all parts of my costume were attainable thanks to my buddy Al who just so happened to have a white tuxedo and top hat. All I needed was a wig of dreadlocks, black gloves, dress shoes, some black and white face paint and a skilled hand. The costume turned out great and better than some others I've seen on the net (just to gloat a bit).

Though the reference was a bit obscure given its origins from the BBC comedy, The Mighty Boosh, it was pretty fun to walk about the CarFischDeMark house party and seeing who could recognize me under my face-painted facade.

A few people remarked on not being aware of the Tiesto show so here are a couple of upcoming shows worth to check out!

Ranked 4th overall by Ministry of Sound, Above and Beyond play at Epic on November 20th.

3rd ranked, David Guetta is playing at Spin on November the 24th.

Famous House DJ, Mark Farina is also coming shortly on December 11th to play at Epic as well and tickets are only 10 bucks. He's got a great low key series entitled Mushroom Jazz.

Escape from New Yong (wol)!

So I've decided to start writing again since my original intention was to keep my friends/family informed and entertained via my antics abroad but alas I also made friends whilst I was abroad so I feel they should know what my American antics are... I also heard a lot of great feedback from people reading my blog so I figure why not keep a good thing going? Thank you so much for reading!!

Escape from New Yong (wol)!

Our Korean Flee:

Basically we had about enough of the ass-backward Confucian rhetoric posing as modern business ethics. You know how a lot of businesses have all that equal opportunity employer stuff written on their applications? Yeah well Korea doesn't have that. So we decided to teach, Billy Madison, our boss a lesson not to screw with your foreign employees just like Kurt Russell in Escape from New York/ LA. We had recently been going to the dentist, a particularly nice clinic in Seoul, something that Doctor Christian Troy and Sean McNamara would have approved of, though our North Korean college president and our director displayed their distaste in. Apparently, we were all (the foreigners) were supposed to go to Mr Song in "downtown" Yeongwol who will do Buddha-knows-what to your teeth. Anyway, the reason the dentist is important was due to easing our secret getaway from our oppressors who caused not only physical but psychological stress, refused to pay my overtime and our plane tickets home (as per our contract) to say the least. The extra day at the "dentist" would allow ourselves and our bags over to an airport hotel in Seoul before we could finally escape our idiot employers but also Kim Jong Il's dong (missiles) from breathing down our necks. We planned on leaving on the 2nd because in private companies in Korea it can be quite standard to not pay you your last month's check if you give them a 60 day notice. So we decided to make sure we got paid and walk away into the night.

Leaving in the middle of the night is so common with foreigners in Korea that a widely used term was developed called "Pulling a Midnight Runner". There is also a podcast with this name about helpful information for foreigners living in Korea.

So the plan was set. The next morning the bank accounts were cleared, money wired home to inevitably help stimulate the economy. Loose ends were needed to be tied up at the apartment. I left a box of all the good and random stuff to Steve which included chestnuts and a Darth Vader helmet. 1/4 of the balcony was left with our wine/beer/bailey's bottles. A pot full of broken glass and eaten chicken bones. Some stuff in the fridge, my old clothes, the intercom in the sealing is ripped out. Shoe marks on the ceiling ;-) (I blame it on the soju and neighbors). Burnt charcoal marks on the couch. We should have sold our couch and T.V. in retrospect.

This is where John Carpenter's film takes a twist. Rushing out of our apartments we take a cab to the train station just down the road from us. We take the train to the next city of Wonju (A) because we don't want to be spotted at the bus station downtown and (B) the National Pension Office is located there. The Pension Office is important because once you leave Korea "permanently" you can request the money you and your employer have been putting aside towards your pension and if you do it before you leave you'll get your money within a few weeks instead of months or up to a year.

So we're rushing to the train station and the train starts to leave so we think oh shit we're screwed but I quickly realize the taxi drives much faster than the train so we tell our cabbie to head to the next train stop in the nearby city of Jecheon. We made it out of the cab, bought a ticket and made on to the tracks in time to hop on the train over to Wonju. Once we arrived we headed over to the National Pension Office to apply for our money and this is when things take an unexpected turn. first off, this pension office has no employee that speaks decent English. We give them all our documents for processing. Blake and I are chatting away, not a care in the world when the office worker all of a sudden hands Blake the phone. We didn't realize he was making some phone calls while we were chatting. Guess who he calls? Our fucking boss! So we tell him there's no way we want to talk to him. We enter a state of panic. Our whole "secret" plan to leave the country is blown! The idiot chats up the office worker for a good 15 minutes and we don't know what he's saying we just think of the worst that could happen. Finally, he finishes and we ask him, "Well what did he say"?! The office worker replies in broke-ass English, "He says, no trip." The man was verifying with our boss that we indeed were leaving the country but in the backward mind of our boss, thought that he could still keep us here because of our contract and because Confucius says you must listen to your elders no matter what shit comes out of his mouth. Well the revolution hit Russia much earlier than it ever will in Korea so the joke was on him. You'll see what I mean later.

We booked ass and took a taxi to the bus station and hop on just in time for the next bus to Seoul. All the while there, we felt frantic and anxious. What if he calls immigration and makes some shit up that we stole from the school or what if he shows up tomorrow at our departure gate and causes a scene. Thankfully, our boss was a pussy and an idiot so he didn't do shit. We spent our last night downtown in Seoul with a couple of friends, had a decent meal and saw our last Seoul prostitute who suggestingly cleared her throat as we walked by her.

The next morning all went smoothly. We boarded our plane with our bags the proper weight, handed in our National ID cards and like Sodom and Gommorah we never looked back like Lot's dumb wife. As our plane took off, I looked over to Blake and said, "Hey Blake", "Uhh he says, no trip". And we both laughed comfortably knowing that we'd never have to see his dumb face or the pathetic, kimchi and sewage infested excuse for a town Yeongwol was ever again.

One last thing! This song goes out to my former moronic and complete incompetent waste of space boss, Mr. Choi. Yung Joc - Fuck You Pay Me!

Music Recommendations:

Mark Farina - Mushroom Jazz series

World News Recommendations: because CNN and BBC don't have it all.

Aljazeera - not just for Arabs anymore... seriously white people work there too.

Huffingtonpost - I get my daily dose of everything good here.

How I met a famous Russian artist in a worthless Korean town...

To my dear readers. I apologize for the hiatus to those of you who have enjoyed reading. I guess in some respects I just haven't had anything worth writing about which also has to do with my distaste and disdain with my job and its day-t0-day mismanagement. But back to an update with where we stand.

We found out the president of our college snuck out of North Korea before the DMZ was really established... that explains some of the crazy.

Grad Schools:

I got into the University of Jyväskylä in Finland for the Masters in Sport Psychology which is great. But financing has been troublesome. You can't get any financial from the government unless the university has applied for "Title IV" eligibility, nor can you get a private loan for a foreign university, Finland doesn't give any aid (loan/scholarship) to any Masters seeking students especially if you come from the USA and the main Grant for studies in Scandinavia can only be applied for the year before you begin and before you even know if you will be accepted or not. As you can see, it's a bit of a predicament at the moment. So my options are only if the university will grant me a deferment or to re-apply next year after finding a decent paying job at home, or if I need to, go back abroad for work.

So somehow our korean-redneck-village got to host this international symposium for cultural exchange recently. It turns out it was mostly Russian artists, teachers, and students from Moscow. And that's how I ran into one of Russia's and even the world's highes regarded painters, Nikas Safronov. At the moment I ran into him and his friends at this restaurant I didn't know what he was really known for, but it turns out he's made many works for people like David Bowie, DeNiro, Putin, and Pierre Cardin. Apparently, he's just rollin' in the rubles at the moment. He told me stories about Stallone's mother was looking for their relatives via Gorbachev, a couple of his illegitimate children, and how I need to get an orthodox cross necklace.

I met them one more night at the local Hotel/Casino resort and had a drink with them and also ended up meeting Yuri Rozum who is apparently Mikhail Gorbachev's favorite pianist. The best part is I got all their contact information and was invited to come to Moscow and even offered a job at a social sciences academy. Who knew that from such boredom, unthinkable lack of social order, etiquette and manners in this town that I could meet a prominent group of cultured and artistic individuals from Russia.

We had Katie Dobie and David Hardnett visit recently as well. We had an awesome time, seeing the DMZ where I took photos past the line where you're not allowed to Jason Bourne-style... hung out in Seoul, went to some of the beaches on the east coast and we ended up skipping two days of work effectively sticking it to the man...

Live from Yonsei University Hospital and sans my appendix... may it rest in peace T_T or the "How I Could Have Died in South Korea Story"

Alright so I'm bored as shit and coming at you with a missing organ which I did give my consensus in losing but funky fresh from Wonju, South Korea at Yonsei University Hospital. I'm typing this on a special and dirty Internet PC which lets me use it for an hour by only putting in 1,000 Won which right now is like putting in 2 quarters... I almost forgot what a quarter looks like... It's dirty because it's physically filthy...

So you're probably wondering how I lost an organ in South Korea. F my life right? Well Wednesday night I came home from Hapkido... ( I joined hapkido recently, it's a martial art) and after grubbing on some pasta, I felt a stomach pain. I thought not too much of it. Some occasional bloating is not uncommon. But I had trouble sleeping that night. In the morning, I still felt shitty and asked my director to take me to the local hospital, thinking that maybe my abs were bruised from all the hapkido jokingly remarking that I want to make sure it's not appendicitis or a hernia. Well joke was on me I guess because our 3rd world hospital's doctor told me there was a pretty good chance that it was my appendix. Blake and my director came by but wanted me to get a second opinion and a much more suitable hospitable to be operated in. I had to agree, our hospital looks like it belongs in Burkina Faso.

So we head to Wonju to the presitigious Yonsei University while along the way our director makes two wrong turns, find out the Universities hospital is downtown and not on campus. Thankfully, I made it to the emergency room alive. I was stuck in a room with about 20 other sickos for about three hours after they performed another blood test, X-Ray, and CT scan. My white blood cell count was twice the normal rate so something was up and the doctor said I probably had acute apendicitis. The CT scan revealed that I had a mischievous appendix tucked away in my pelvis. It was joking around long enough. The doctor's took me soon after to the operating room. But first I had to strip, then my treasure trail and pubes were shaved by a man, his simple razor and some baby powder.

To be honest, I was a bit nervous. I never had surgery and my first experience was going to be in South Korea no less. I was hoping not to be one of the rare cases where the anesthesia goes wrong and you wake up in the middle of surgery only to be completely paralyzed from expressing all emotion and physical action while having to bare all the pain... Thankfully, this was not so. The docs strapped me up Jesus style on the operating table and before I could say kimchi, I was passed out from the gas...

Next thing I remember waking in a daze coming face to face with Blake and my director. I felt all the symptoms of a drunkeness without the fun indulgence hours before. The operation took less than 2 hours and apparently my mischievious appendix was larger than normal but the doctors found it almost immediately via laproscopic surgery. Currently I have three scars on my lower abdomen and I'm hooked up to a portable IV stand thingy.

The first couple days were spent in and out of sleep in a room with 7 other old Korean dudes. Now there are only three ages, 58, 69 and like 80 probably. I spend my daylight hours watching Korean dramas, comedies, lifetime channel and old school Korean ballads being sung on TV. Good thing English is a priority to some Koreans as my nurses and doctors could communicate with me. On the third day, I was finally allowed to drink water but only after performing flatulence and then food on the 4th day but only after performing defacation. I don't think other people and myself were ever so excited upon the arrival of my bowel movements before...

Due to my strange sleeping schedule, I was up real early from midnight to 4 am watching Sunderland / Tottenham and then watching Man Utd spank Fulham 4-0! While watching the first match, a body was taken outside followed by the grieving family/friends.

Some interesting things though, the beds here have little roll-away beds underneat so family can actually stay in the room throughout the night with their illen-ones. Also, the cost of my surgery and 4 day stay in the hospital after insurance will also cost me about 1,380,000 Won which is about 840 US dollars. Pretty sweet huh?

Anyway, my goal is to finish the book Layer Cake, which is also a movie staring Daniel Craig and get ready to go home tomorrow! Take care from So Ko!

Not so Useful Security Guards, Courtesy/Clog Award, & I'd Rather be Paid in Rubles

So nearly fourt months have passed and while a few things have changed, a lot of shit is still the same. Still live in a extremely, backward and conservative village where age trumps rationality, innovation and progress but we are finally finished with dealing with Korean children in our Winter Camps and their perplexed teachers as to our crazy, western methods. 

To be honest, there were some great students but I'm never dealing with the ridiculousness of this situation again. Only two forms of weaponry were recovered during the two months (airsoft gun, and butterfly knife).  I did introduce some good jazz and reggae to our last group. They had quite the bubble over Louis Armstrong's voice and appearance.

We were able to visit the city of Busan a bit. It has beautiful beaches and many more options for eating and inebriation. Our initial taxi driver sped to speeds of about 140km/h through the highway feeling completely safe in the embrace of the leather seats in his Hyundae. 

My birthday was a couple weeks ago and I received a nice package from my parents with FourFourTwo magazines, gummy bears, cool glasses, and a set of David Beckham cologne and body wash so that I can now not just look like him but also smell like him. I got a couple bottles of wine from Blake and our co-worker Pam. One of which was consumed at the bar.  We went out in our quaint but sewagey town to a couple bars. 

The first bar started out slow and steady with a few harmless games of "G'day Scott" (australian based) and famous names.  Upon leaving the bar, we hurried into a taxi but not without some incessant honking from an unruly motorist behind us. Being a bit unnerved, one of us extended a finger of gratitude and shouted a cry of appreciation in the form of a two words, eight letters...

After getting out of the taxi near the next bar stop, we were met with a few other Korean teachers of our buddy's. We didn't initialy realize that the driver who was honking like an asshole also followed us and began to well... attempt to speak to us via our friend's coworkers asking us if we said "bad words" to him and showed him the finger of appreciation. We were a bit perplexed at first so we shrugged him off but it was ridiculous to think that he was justified in being an asshole and we were out of our minds to respond. Koreans are cute when they're angry; just wanna pinch those cheeks.

The last bar was marred with new encounters, more pouring, a walk home and a personal altercation with a road sign and a late night chat with Madness of which both incidents having no record in the annals of my mind.

The following weekend was another birthday of a friend of ours but this time taking place in the area of Sinchon in Seoul. We met some more foreign teachers from Pennsylvania and the UK and enjoyed a nice Pale Ale from Alberta at London Bar, my first Pale Ale in at least 4 months. Good beer is a bit harder to come by, you'd understand the state of my depravity. Further altercation ensued on the streets as another dousche bumped into us and telling us not to mess with him because he lived in LA. Our new friend confronted him and told him, "Well I'm from Hampshire", a small town in southern England. A rather intriguing man who left with kind words of our mothers. Later we went to the strangest western bar. I felt like I was in an episode of Fear and Loathing in a bar full of weirdest looking entities. It seems like a good majority of westerners, especially Americans, that come here have some strange skeletons in their closets and/or are outcasts of society. Of course this is not the case, with yours truly. One of the monsters grabbed our buddy and almost got a beating and the same for our birthday girl. Needless to say, I did not fancy staying too long even if the music was a nice change.

The Courtesy/Clog Award goes to Blake Wergeland. Before this past weekend Blake was finally successful in clogging our toilet but also was courteous enough to call me before I came home to inform me that I should probably by a plunger from the 1,000 Won (Dollar) Store. 

On a last note, Korea has a lot of security guards at schools and apartment buildings. Though what their job is, is another matter. Same thing goes for our local police force. We have these two guys whose job is to move a plastic barrier everytime anyone drives up the hill towards the school every day.  Extremely redundant and a waste of funds.

In Korean news, North Korea has taken a rather aggressive stance with the South challenging them even with the arrival of Hillary Clinton and planning on satellite launch very soon. It will be interesting to see how this all works out. That's it for now, take care!

The Daegu-bah System, I was on Korean TV & OASIS

Happy Korean Lunar New Year!

This weekend was the Korean New Year so we got a much needed 4 day break. Staying in little ol' Yeongwol was almost tempting. Instead, we headed down to a real city, Daegu. Since we took the Daegu bus from Jecheon, we coined it the Daegubus System ala Star Wars (Dagobah System). If you don't know the Dagobah System, it's where Yoda hid after the extermination of the Jedi. The planet is a murky, swamp land. Yoda lived near a cave that was strong in the dark side of the force, which balanced out his light side, successfuly evading detection from the Emperor (wikipedia). Yes, I cited Wikipedia, booyah.

Anyway...

We hung out in Daegu for a couple nights at our sweet hotel which had a sauna, barber, and massage parlor. Our room looked like a dojo. So we fought in it.

The sauna was great and relaxing, filled with some naked Korean dudes. The hotel's brewery/restaurant looked like it was from Bavaria so it gave me the comfort and illusion of

being back in Europe.

So we went out, had some drinks, met some people which was different considering the impossibility of meeting anyone your age in our little dorf (as the Germans say). Daegu was great though, so much going on. I also flipped the bird at a passing taxi as he thought it relevant to honk at me and Steve from 100 yards away, felt pretty good about that. I also found out I could lift an Australian from the pavement.

We took the bus from Daegu to Seoul on Monday during the Holiday rush. While on the bus, we looked into our Frommer's guide to South Korea. Within its texts it stated that if you take the roads during the holiday, then you are a complete idiot. Train tickets go on sale 2-3 months in advance since driving will take up to 16 hours from Pusan to Seoul.

But this gave me time to crack open a new book, Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance by Noam Chomsky, a highly regarded voice on foreign policy. If you can grab a hold of it, library or otherwise, it's a must. An easy and informative analysis on the US's global goals for the past 60 or so years.

Oh sweet, they are showing 12 Monkeys on tv next. Great film. We didn't do much in Seoul but I snagged an Oasis poster from a wall to take back. Oasis are coming April 1st and we have tickets!

It's also Blake's Birthday today, so happy Kwanza Blake!

In footie news, AC Milan want Beckham for 4.5 million pounds, Arshavin is most certainly signing for Arsenal and Robinho is involved in a sexual assualt probe; those crazy Brazilians.

Part II.

So I was on Korean television the other day. The KBS channel came by to interview a foreigner to get their perspective the city of Yeongwol. Granted there were many things to say about improving this town but I got my 20 seconds of lime light at 9:30 and we went down to our local bar and got to check it out. Pretty exciting stuff, some Korean men wanted to take some shots with me and referred me to as "Tv Alex".

So tomorrow we got invited to go with some other co-workers to check out a beach and eat some King Crab. Will let you know how it is!

Also in St. Olaf news: The Players FC IM soccer team just recorded another interim championship!

All the best~

Holiday Recap, Oles in Seoul, Country Ass Mophuka & How to Scare the Shit out of a Korean

So a quick recap of the holidays spent here. Much of it was snowless especially in our town. Which is strange since we live in the mountains. I guess you can't have it all in Korea. Xmas Eve was spent going to High 1, a ski resort, in the city of Gohan. There I learned how to ski from my sensei, Blake. Initially, I was like a newly born fawn dealing with these four new appendages and what order they should go in but I got the hang of it and after a couple runs, I was speeding down the slope like a crazy, korean man on Soju. A great experience all in all. I can grasp the appeal of the sport and also give major props to those who actually do race due to the soreness in my lovely, many lumps and loins.

Cornballer Syndrome:

So we've been in Korea for 2+ months now and when we go out, the meals are usually served pipping hot. Our friend Blake seems to have short-term memory loss when it comes to this fact and everytime we go out he hastily consumes his food only to come to the realization that yet again, it's scolding hot and the expression, "Ohhhh my god, every god-damn time" (ala Michael Bluth). The reason I call this the Cornballer Syndrome is because of the show Arrested Development. A true gem if you have yet to partake in its excellence. Enjoy this winter with the Bluth family :-D.

We took the midnight: 30 train home with a bottle of frothy, yellow cheap champagne to ring in father christmas. Blake and Steve attempted to share some with a couple Korean birds in the but they promptly refused. Steve tried to mend the situation by looking up past the girls to the back of the train and gesturing to the sleeping people if they wanted some as well, as not to totally feel embarassed. The rest of the night was marred by Korean school directors, some soju, our apartment, light switches, standing in washing machines, bitting, spitting, a couple right hooks... I'll let your imagination work its magic.

New Years was similar in the fact that we went to High 1 again to ring in the New Year with a couple Oles living in Busan. But this time we were on the grounds of the casino with a bunch of Koreans, us and the only two bottles of champagne to be found in a 2 mile radius. Needless to stay, the fireworks were great, we drank the champagne, checked out the casino, after walking around for 20 minutes realized that they didn't serve any proper drinks and cashed out to the only open motel room in the city. Kinda like Mary and Joseph, except none of us were immaculated impregnated like Annakin Skywalker's mother. Our motel room also had curious stains on the walls, which we figured were either...

A) Vomit from a projectile vomit competition.

B) Blood from a blood competition...????

C) Flatulence stains from a Kimchi lady flatulence competition

The next day, after skiing, we decided to head back home. But wait! Those darned Koreans decided to change the train schedule so..... we had to stay at our little inn one more night. The following day gets better. We want some food, so we hit a Korean bbq joint. We order the bulgogi which looks like it's enough for 3 people at most and then they charge us nearly 80 dollars for the meal. We were rather upset. The great thing was that I got to swear at the dumb lady who thought she gave us the proper amount of food and she juts nodded her head. I vowed I would defecate on their premises the next time we were in town.

Our Olaf friends were with us for one more day in our little town in the mountains so we took them to the bowling alley! We have 6 lanes with some of them having pins that had to be from the 60's because no matter how hard we threw the ball at the pins, they fell about 6 seconds later. One man couldn't get the concept of throwing the ball from behind the line. I'm just glad Walter Solbchak (The Big Lebowski) was not around to witness such atrocities being committed on the lanes of a bowling alley.

On this episodes of, Koreans say the darndest things!...

Our friend Steve received some Xmas cards from his students. Here is one of them.

Dear Stephen,

You are very tall and handsome man. I think about you sometimes (I'm not a gay boy).  Have a merry Christmas.

- God

I also get occasional emails from my older students. One woman e-mailed me after we were at the same function on the friday before. She apologized for drinking but she said that she likes to drink and she enjoys the social aspect of drinking. Rather heart felt.

So the New Year is upon us and our regular taxi driver stopped coming to pick us up. He's a bit less douchy so we got that going for us.

Last weekend we hit up Seoul to meet up with the Oles on global. We got into town a bit late but it was rather great meeting up with a few of our friends and meeting some new ones. They had not experienced soju yet. Naturally, we had to accustom them to the green bottled drink regardless of adverse effects of the purely ethanol liquid.

Our winter camps are going well enough. We have a middle school group and our first high school which has been interesting. There's one guy whose about 19, he lays the law down on the younger ones and so we refer to him as Ben Affleck ala "Dazed and Confused".

There's a man in town. We refer to him as "Country-Ass Mofo" so to speak. He drives this strangely inefficient piece of machinery around town, slowing up traffic wherever he goes. He struck again the night we left for Seoul to meet up with the Oles... One day, mister. One day.

And for the cap stone!

So you know a Korean? Wanna scare the shit out of him? Tell him/her that you slept in a closed room with a fan on. Or just lock them in a room with a fan on. Sounds pretty ridiculous yeah? Well Korean believe in the urban myth that if you fall asleep with the fan in your closed room that you will die; no joke. It's pretty stupid thinking about it but there ya go!

Hope you all are doing well! Happy New Year and all the best!

You ever drink Bailey's from a shoe? That looks like Lepressy and Little Timmy Brings a Gun to School...

My dear and faithful readers. Apologies all around for the long hiatus. It's been 18 days since my last confession...

Today we prove the stereotype that asians really are bad drivers. Case in point, if you come to Korea you will see that every driver, especially the taxi drivers think they are The Transporter (Jason Statham). Traffic lights... whatever (they also don't work), road lanes... who needs them, going in reverse?... no problem!, pedestrians... get the eff out of the way before I run you over with my Hyundai. How there aren't more accidents boggles my mind.



















One of our favorite new snacks is dried squid. We bought one squid with dark stripes and ate it in front of Kurt, who absolutely despises it, and remarked with a newly enjoyed term- "that looks like lepressy". Speaking of Australians... We went to Wonju one fine Saturday morning on the Korean train system. The trains are actually quite nice and affordable. The Aussies were in awe of ice over a river but when encountering ice on the street, they took a straight b-line away from it with a "i'm not getting anywhere near that stuff" look on their face. As in true western fashion, we decided to head for the Outback Steakhouse. The Aussies felt right at home with all the boomerangs, didgeridoos, and photos of aboriginals.

We were introduced to a nice little bar called U2 bar. It was small but cozy, the female bartender spoke English and they had a sweet computer system where you could upload your favorite music videos from youtube and it would be played over the flat-screeen tv at the bar. One of our "buddies" even tried to get a little too friendly with one of the US soldier's girlfriends so we promptly left. Some of us caught the late night train home where we almost slept throuhg our stop but thankfully I awoke in time and realized the train had stopped. We quickly got off but Blake lost a glove in the process. The other boys stayed in Wonju and stayed at a jimjilbang (roman bath house) and slept in the extreme temperatures there but were unable to enter the scolding hot waters again in the morning for some reason.

A great thing though, I found pick-up soccer on Sundays here and I plan to be running clinics every Sunday that I can. The middle school lads all thought I was Beckham but other things were said about our other American buddy. On a similar note, Koreans love to play Choku, which is basically soccer tennis but with more players on each end and with three allowed bounces between three people.

I've also occupied my time with writing letters to people home and I even received a package from my parents recently and a lovely Christmas letter from the Harrisons! Thank you so much!

We've been doing winter camps so far which have gone alright. I drew a picture of Old Gregg & the Funk and gave it to one of my elementary students. If you don't know The Legend of Old Gregg, please acquaint yourself with this scaly, man-fish.


Also one of our elementary students brought and pointed an airsoft gun at another student in class. Blake almost had to karate kick the shit out of him. Thankfully, no form of punishment was given? The kids can be frustrating at times, which makes me want to smash their heads into a jelly when they don't care about our glorious language...



Also on this week's - Why the Hell Did You Do That - , I wanted to use the projector in the auditorium but the repairman for the screen came by the other week and ripped out the screen but even better, he ripped the monitor cable in half and taped the two pieces together and left, never to return...

If you're bored these cold, winter days you could write your own songs with the help of an aerosol spray and sniffing it out of a sock...



Oh, I just love It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. If only it was always sunny in Yeongwol.

Here's an early present of my lyrics to Vince Guaraldi's Christmas Time is Here from Merry Christmas Charlie Brown.

Christmas time, stuck in Yeongwol
But Pam is here with loads of cheer
I don't know how I should feel
Sometimes wonder about Kim Jon Il
he had a stroke like Lenin did
i time my runs when i cross the street
asian drivers will have their car for you to meet
if i smell kimchi for much longer
i think i'll grow a cabbage sized tumor
Squatted kimchi lady wash your kimchi
but as you turn to look and see
do me the favor of not farting at me

To this tune...

Happy Holidays from us to YOU!

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:

*

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...

*

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.

*

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.

a taste of things to come

well a new chapter is about to unfold...