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!