Mud Fest

The Boryeong Mud Festival is an annual festival which takes place during the summer in Boryeong, South Korea. The first Mud Festival was staged in 1998 and, by 2006, the festival attracted 1.5 million visitors to Boryeong.
The mud is dug up near Boryeong, trucked to the Daecheon beach area, and dumped at a 'Mud Experience Land'.The mud is considered rich in minerals and used to manufacture cosmetics.
Some of the final weekend participants are foreign tourists, and especially American GIs, but most of the participants during the week are Koreans, attracted by clever marketing by the town. The town fathers and mothers discovered that the mud is more lucrative as a tourist attraction than using the muddy fields for agriculture. The economy generated from the festival supports the many hotels and restaurants along the waterway and several blocks inland.Thanks wikipedia...But anyway, this is where I spent my weekend. I got on a train literally as soon as I was able to leave on Friday. This train had a club, bar and 노래방 (karoke) on it. AMAZING!!! Once we reached our destination (3hours) we went to the beach for a bit and then to eat seafood. The amount of shellfish that is available was crazy. You paid like 20,000won and would get all you can eat shellfish.

The next day we got up and went to breakfast. After that we changed into out suits and headed to the beach and the mud. There were a couple of different ways to get muddy: tubs of mud that you painted mud on yourself, mud bath, mud jail and my favorite the mudslide. We played in the mud for hours then we washed off in the sea. It started raining around 4 and that put an early end to the fun we were having outside.

The next day (Sunday) we really wanted to go back to the beach and hang out but due to the storm and riptides we weren't able to. They weren't allowing anyone in the water but I honestly didn't want to be in the water to cold and scary. Instead we ordered pizza and stayed in a bar all day. Finally our train left for home and we came back home tired and muddy. Overall it was a good weekend!

There's Corn in My ICE CREAM!!!

So yesterday, Saturday, was the first day in a long time that I felt like I was in a different country. On any given day I can get by with not speaking Korean. I usually don't see anything so out of the ordinary that I am like "wow, that doesn't happen in America". But well on this particular day this wasn't the case.

First I started the day with a birthday party at my Taekwondo Gym. It was like 7 of the students birthday this month so they all came with some friends that they invited. The GrandMaster asked me to come help by taking pictures and other stuff like that. I agreed alothough I didn't really want to go... But while I was there like no one talked to me. Of course, I live in Korean so I don't expect people to go out of their way to talk to me in English but it was weird not talking...You know me, I love to talk and I wanted to talk I just well couldn't. Plus I didn't really fit in with the crowd there, it was a bunch of kids and their mothers. Anyway, must study Korean more...

Then on the way home I decided I wanted some ice cream I picked up one of those ice cream bars on a stick jobs. I don't usually take the time to read them, I like all ice cream and pretty much know all the varieties...or so I thought. But this ice cream had CORN in it...no joke so weird and a little delicious.

Then I wandered around with Dambi. While we wandering around my Korean friend called and said he was bored and he wanted to hang out. So I wandered around looking for him. Then we came to my house and played PS2 and we played a bunch of Korean games so I wasn't fully sure of what to do.

Then I was going to meet my friend, who is leaving, for her going-away-party but because I didn't really know where to go or how to ask where I should be I got lost and then I missed the boat. (We were going on a cruise on the river...) I literally figured out which boat I was supposed to be on when I saw it leave.

So then I was in the middle of Seoul by myself and bored. I knew Graeme, a coworker, was in Seoul so I called him to find out where he was. By the time I got to his area and started looking for him I totally mixed up all the directions and had to tell him to come find me when he was done eating. But we did eventually meet up. Then we got on the subway and rode too long and missed our transfer.

After all that I decided that the day would be better if I just tried to forget about everything. So I drank and ironically things got better. I met some new people and had a great time. But basically I spent the day lost, wandering, confused with the language and (because of the weather) hot and sticky. Anyway, I spent my 4th of July as far away from America as I can possibly get.

Updates!!!

So I thought I would update everyone on my life so far. Its July 1st and everything...

School is going good for me. Things have slowed down quite a bit in the last couple of weeks which is nice. We are supposed to get 2 more new teachers in a couple of weeks though so it may get busy around the time that they come. The other new teacher is fitting in quite nicely.

I decided to stay another year and signed the contract for another year. Don't worry though, I have confirmed that I will be home for 2 weeks during Christmas time this year. That is all that is new in the work part of my life.

Next is stuff. I think I told you all that I have a new computer but maybe I didn't tell you that I also have a PlayStation2. One of my coworkers decided she didn't want it anymore and so she gave it to me with about 20 games. Cool, right? Other than that I haven't really got anything worth mentioning. I do however have a video of the place and you can see it has changed quite a bit...(If you don't remember what it looked like before go to "Addresses" and look at the old video...)

태권도 Taekwondo. Well, I was supposed to have my test for my black belt on July 28th but I can't...(I will tell you why in a little bit) So it has been moved to August 30th. I will have pics and maybe a video or two later. We have been training really hard the last couple of months and I feel almost ready now. By the time August rolls around I will be a pro.

Next is vacations. I have a small trip in a week to go to a "Mud Festival." A bunch of foreigners getting together, drinking and playing in the mud. I will have pics I promise. After that starting on July 28th (the reason I can't take my TKD test) is a vacation to beautiful Jeju Island. It is comparative to Hawaii, so I hear. It will be hiking and touring and eating and etc. I can't wait! After that I don't have another big vacation until October and we are going to Tokyo. Then I am coming home for Christmas. Korean New Years follows that and I want to go to the Philippines for 4 days or so. Wow, can't believe I'm already thinking about New Years.

Dambi and I are doing well. We constantly meet new people when we are out walking. I think I became 100x more approachable because of him. People come out of the woodwork to talk to me know, crazy huh? Other than these things I have nothing of importance to tell you...I will be going to Korean school either starting in August or September.

In case you are wondering...NO! There is no boyfriend right now. I'm working on it and have a couple options but you will know when something gets serious. That is all for now, goodnight!

Shopping Saturday

Today Judy and I spent all day at 태크노마트 (Techo Mart) and were shopping for a new computer!!!

I bought a new LG Xnote. It is quite nice. I decided that I needed a new computer for various reasons. My old one was slow. I wanted one with a webcam built in. I also needed one where I could type and the computer could read in Korean. Plus my old one had problems in the CD/DVD drive and that made me crazy.

But now I am all hooked up! So anytime you wanna webcam with me look me up on Messenger.

Friday Field Trip

Today we headed over to the Seognam Art Center (the same place where I watched some concerts and Chicago, it is very near my house) and went to a display of Hello Kitty! It was cool but when I went to 63 Building last summer it was the Hello Kitty display there too so I had already seen most of the displays inside. The kids enjoyed it anyway...Unfortunatly the day didn't really end on a happy note. One of our teachers (Jody) had his last day on Friday. This is sad because he has been here a while and everyone loves him so it was had to let him go. There is 1 good point to his leaving though, my bosses came out and drank with us and did 노래방 (norae bang or karoke) with us. That was fun!
Anyway, Jody, we already miss you...See you soon, we all know you will be back!

Thursday Birthday

Another week has come and gone...taking with it one of my favorite things: the weekend. I can't believe that June is almost over!!!

Anyway, we had our usual Birthday party and Speech Contest on Thursday last week. Here is a pic with me and the kids.

There were like 20 birthdays this month so we had way too much cake, pizza and candy...It was AWESOME!!!

FINALLY!!!

SO lately I have been a bit busy. Last week I spent time looking for presents and getting them shipped. This week we had open house and I was preparing for my classes that the parents would come watch. Not to mention that it is test season so I spend a great deal of my free time (that I normally spend answering email..)grading. We also got a new teacher and so I have been trying to show her around Seoul.

Other than that life has been pretty low key. Stuff is the same as it was. The weather went from like 2 weeks of nice to unbearably hot. I hate doing anything and I wanna sleep all day now. I can't believe that June is already here and almost over. I have almost been here or one year.

Miss me yet? Honestly I can say that I don't miss home too much. I miss my family and friends like crazy though. That's harder to deal with than any of the problems I've had thus far...So feel free to come visit anytime!

These are some pics I took with Melisa (new teacher) today.

The old Korea mixed in with the new.

Me being funny...

Melisa being evil.

A building that I thought was neat!Thats all for now. Sorry I've been off the charts. Talk to you later!!!