"Excuse me while I kiss the sky"

My travels take me to exotic places, rich with culture and adventure, there is never something that replaces "home".  While my apartment is not my home in Michigan, it is becoming a place that I am becoming more "at" home.  After teaching I make a point of going to the roof of my building with a cup of tea and catch the sun setting over the mountains, it is a nice moment of reflection.
I have never had a frosty relationship with any of the teachers at the school, though I felt that I didn't have a thriving one.  One of the reasons for this is the language barrier...  The teachers have all had english education at some point in their own education though many don't use it enough to be able to converse (a lot like the spanish I took in high school), and are too shy/don't want to use poor english in front of students to speak with me.  I have been trying to use a few Korean phrases with some of the staff (sometimes successful, and other times not) and have even had a brief conversation with my principal on the walk back from the cafeteria (he has, near as make no difference, zero english).  It is good motivation to improve my Korean, and certainly isn't doing any harm in developing my staff relationships at school.  It is something that will only improve with time and perseverance.  
Teaching the kids is a wild ride.  Some days I feel like I have pulled everything out of my bag of tricks, other days I can have the most effortless class where everything fell perfectly into place.  Then there are some days when my students throw a left hook out of nowhere.  A situation like this presented itself last Tuesday...
My 2nd grade class is, using my kindest words, energetic.  Other words I might use to describe them would be, bananas, crazy, run amok, bane of my existence for 40 minutes two days a week.  I was guiding the craziness through the lesson when Hellia busts into my classroom with a shopping bag, and goes "Teacher!  Look!".  Naturally I am curious, so I peek into the bag...A chick, a baby chicken.  I think, "What is this doing in my classroom?".  This was a moment to just roll with the punches, but when they are come fast and furious one can only "roll" so much.  This is one of the many things they do not cover in university teaching method courses.
I've been writing this post for a while now and I apologize for any lack of continuity.  It will without a doubt be edited after I post it.  In return I give you a candid picture of a 2nd grader throttling a baby chicken.  Cute.

As I have mentioned before, there has been a constant internal dialogue dealing with my length of stay in Korea.  I am at a point in my existence where I have nearly full reign of the direction of my life.  While most of the EMU crew have 5 month contracts I signed for 6 months because I did not need to make it back in time for the winter semester (one of the perks of graduating).  This 6 month contract would end in January and have me subbing until June and looking for a full time teaching gig over the summer.  From a conservative point of view this would be a pretty logical choice.  On the other hand, I quite like teaching here.  I am learning massive amounts about myself, classroom actions, the importance of communication with students (and how much I took it for granted in the US), and many more I didn't name, and are unaware of myself.
Extending my contract would mean leaving my Family (that includes friends as well), and all that I have grown to know and interact with on a social level for a while longer.  While I could easily look externally for an answer to my questions I know the answer is not to be found anywhere but inside myself.  I'll not make a formal announcement with any great fanfare and such, but don't be surprised of either possible outcome...
On the light side of this subject, Dr. Koh (my professor from EMU) came and visited my school to talk with my administration and supervising teachers to be sure that everything was going smoothly.  Soon after the initial greeting of "good to see you" & "how have you been?" this is the conversation we had (quoted to the best of my knowledge)...
Dr. Koh:  "Your school likes you, Michael"
Me: "I like them too"
Koh: "They want you to extend, I want you to extend"
Me: "I think about that everyday, I might very well extend"
Koh: "Do you have a Girlfriend back home?"
Me: "No..."
Koh: "Good, you can get one here"
Me: "Well, you know I wouldn't be opposed to something like that..."
Koh: "Oh!  Do you like Korean women?"
Me: "They aren't ugly."
Koh: "Do you know Chelsea's Co-Teacher? she is very pretty"
Me: "Yup" (poker face)
Koh: "Michael, listen.  Michigan is shit right now.  Nobody has jobs, even professors are worried.  Extend your contract, I will come back in April and visit.  If it is still shitty at the end of another 6 months you can apply for EPIK, I will make sure you get a good placement...I don't want to see you back in Michigan, you don't have a girlfriend to come back to, your parents can wait.  Julie thought about extending but she didn't and she still doesn't have a job."

Leave it to a 5 foot nothing Korean lady to lay it out straight poop for you.  The Koh-ster does not beat around the bush.

This is shaping up to be one of my more lengthy updates as I have not had one in a few weeks.  If you need to, use the bathroom or grab a beer because it is time for some adventure stories.

My friend, Brandyn who is an EPIC scholar lives in the middle of nowhere so I don't see him all that much.  He had planned a trip to Busan for the International fireworks festival they were having down there the weekend before Halloween.  I was game for that, plus it gave me the chance to meet some new people (I love having adventures with my emu crew, but logically, if 90% of them are ditching me in December I need to branch out to people who are going to be around longer).  We booked a Hostel, I've never stayed at a Hostel before so I did not know what to anticipate, but since the last time I stayed in Busan it was at a seedy Motel with a mosquito problem...I was cool with anything else.
For 20$ a night, not a bad view (insert moderate sarcasm here).

The weather wasn't perfect, but it didn't stop us from having a good time.  After taking a 40 minute KTX train ride from Dong Daegu we were in Busan, and we met up with two of Brandyn's Friends from the EPIC program, both from Ireland.  A taxi ride from the station to our Apt. where the Hostel was at and we were ready to start the weekend.  The guy who runs the Hostel is called "Tiger" he left us a note with instructions for where to put our things and whatnot, he said in the note to call him when we got in s he could meet us near the university and he would take us out.  Before I knew it, I was mingling with travelers from England, Japan, Ireland, South Africa, and Iceland (a few Koreans in there as well).  It was good fun and Tiger was a blast, he trades stocks and acts as a middle man in the import/export business, I gathered he runs the hostel for fun.  Good times were had by all, and the next day we ventured out to Haeundae Beach.  Fortunately it turned out to be a nice October day.

We met a group of Hagwan teachers on the beach wearing costumes, drinking Makoli and eating pumpkin pie.  They offered us some and we broke bread with them for a while.  After that we went to the aquarium...

After dinner we had to make our way back to the Hostel to go to the hill nearby and watch the fireworks.  After some transportation debacle we made it there just in time for the weather to become absolutely foul.  The rain lashed, the wind howled, the temperature dropped.  It would all be worth it when the show started...  And then it started.  It was now that the group realized that there was a gigantic mountain between us and where the fireworks were being shot.  Words were said and the fact that we were all soaking wet only added to the comedy.  At least they sounded cool.
Before I left the next day I made a trip to the world famous fish market that is in Busan.  The view on what fish are normal to eat in the US is pretty narrow; Cod, Salmon, Shrimp, Tuna, the normal stuff.  In Korea, anything is game and all of it is at the market, in tanks still alive, ready to eat.  They have restaurants where you can take whatever you just bought and they will cook it for you.  And if you thought that was fresh, they have an entire floor of sashimi booths.  Point to the fish you want and 30 seconds later is is on a plate in front of you complemented my some garlic bean paste and Soju.  Not for people who are not fond of seafood, I loved it.  Brandyn, Tony and I all agreed to make a point of eating down here when we had more time (I have my eye on some gigantic snow crab).

So beside the fact that I missed the event that we initially came down to Busan for, it was still a weekend of adventure and excitement.  I was exhausted until wednesday when I had to start planning things for the next weekend in Seoul, for a friends birthday.  Even though that has already happened it will have to wait for another post,  Mama Mia!

Here is to keeping the book of life wide open, and finding my own path through it.  A quote from Twain (a traveler as well), "Ideally a book would have no order to it, and the reader would have to discover his own."

“Education, therefore, is a process of living and not a preparation for future living.”

This was the first weekend in recent history that didn't involve me running myself into exhaustion with travel and adventure.  That isn't to say that I regret travel by any means, and it also does not mean that I didn't have a fair bit of adventure earlier in the week.  This weekend of respite gave me the chance to reflect and think about the blur that has been the past 2 1/2 months.  The chapter in my life that I knew and thrived in had ended, and a new one had begun.  Today, after school I was on the roof of my apartment building having some tea and enjoying the sunset as I realized that it had been a while since I had one of those "OMG I am in Korea" moments.  These moments would come a few times a day during orientation, and then a heavy downpour of them in my first weeks on my own at my apt.  I guess the shock of being in a foreign country and the venerability that accompanies it has worn away steadily as I am forced to deal with the issues that crop up.
The issue that is on the forefront of peoples minds, including myself, would be the language barrier.  This is such a broad thing to try and tackle with any continuity that I am slowly cutting off smaller bits of success and strategy to make it just that much easier to chew.  Learning to read Korean (Hangul) was easier than I had thought, I put it off for a while during orientation but as I found myself staring dumbly at a menu or sign with no translation wishing that I could decipher just anything about it I decided to give it a go.  It was really something that I should have just done and started the learning process to get things rolling.  The sounds and vowels are easy enough, I can now sound out anything with some degree of accuracy... given enough time (what the words actually mean is another issue entirely).  Now I am having these "Eureka!" moments.  Take for instance this situation...  On the walk home from the train station I pass by the same building, no english translation for the building signs.  Seeing how I do a fair bit of walking here in Korea it affords me lots of time to practice my Hangul, street signs, bilboards, advertisements, trash, food stands, and this... 사우나 an "hmm" I thought, "sssaaah.... ooooooo.... ssaahooo...nahhh....sssaahhoonnaaah. Oh.  Sauna.  It's a Sauna.  Sweet".
The long, slow challenge of linking what I read with actual vocabulary knowledge is the road I have ahead of me.  In a bit of cruel irony, this happens to be loosely related to what I am supposed to be doing when I teach, except it is English to Korean and not the other way around.
Travel still requires a bit of planning.  This is a symptom of being without a car, something I took for granted (more or less) for the last 8 years.  However, I don't miss the financial upkeep that comes along with owning a car like insurance, repair, and fuel.  Since public transportation is pretty cheap and convenient to use I don't miss the freedom of having a personal vehicle on tap.  I walk to school, walk to downtown, and walk to the train station.  From the train station I can catch a train without waiting too long to any city (usually Deagu or Gumi), from there I can hop a KTX to Seoul or Busan, or take the subway to the express but terminal and take a bus to any decent sized city not on my train line.  Whatever inchonvieneces might initially be apparent are quickly dispersed by the accessibility and connivence (being a passenger) of a well oiled mass transit system.  This is where planning comes into play, train times are posted online as well as bus times, if I don't anticipate a busy weekend or time of day then I can get stuck with a standing only ticket.  This has happened at one time or another coming back from Daegu, Busan, and Seoul.  Daegu is small potatoes (20 min), Busan was inconvenient (2 hours) and Seoul was a pain in the butt (4 hours).  All these were small reminders that I pay the price not knowing exactly what train I want to catch before all the other people decide on the same train.  Live and learn, then stand up for a while.

Korea is an education, from a study abroad stance it offers the tangible experience of teaching EFL (with all the intangible moments included), as well as the life broadening experience that is sort of a "take as much as you like" style.  I say "take a much as you like" because not every experience is created equal, and rightly so.  Depending on a persons Social Education, ties (emotional baggage) to things an ocean away, and the corresponding degree of openness expressed to the culture as a result yields a rough recipe for the experience in store.  During a meeting before I left Michigan, the lecturer said (to my knowledge this is a quote of a quote), "Expectations are like a reservation with disappointment".  I'm not one to subscribe to something with blind admiration, but there was something inside me that resonated with my ideals.  While it would be easy to create a list of "things I have to do or else" including abc xyz 123 & 789 in that order and completed with snapshots of all the right places.  I left my internal itinerary pretty short and pretty vague.  In a way it is a form of "Ignorance is Bliss", but since it was deliberate can I call it Scholarly Ignorance?
The title quote is from John Dewey, one of my favorite educational philosophers (is it odd that I have favorite ed philosophers?).  Throughout formal education emphasis is put on the knowledge that we gain in the classroom and that it is necessary for our progress through life.  I can't disagree with this, this schooling has played a major role in where I am today and given me the tools to do what I do every day. I will say that I think that there is a social aspect of education that is tossed by the wayside when society focuses so much on the tangible results and neglects the intangible experiences that shape the soul of a person.  For example, while my formal education has given me knowledge of music, teaching, etc. etc. etc. my social education has led me to where I am today (Korea), how I act and interact, and how I view culture and society (throw in humanity too, for good measure).  By my own admission I will say my thoughts and philosophy on this matter are crude and unrefined at best, but I know that it cannot be rushed into completion and time will weather it down to what is most true to me, and that is everything I can expect of a self-philosophy.
This is what kind of thinking and reflection a free weekend affords me.  Although I didn't spend the whole weekend staring out my window drinking tea...
I had been told that there was a Costco in nearby Daegu, if ever I wanted a slice of home it would be found there.  That is what I was told at least.  I was having a craving for Mexican for a while, but for all the chili spice in this country there are very few mexican places to eat.  So I went for it, I guessed that for all the talking that I had done with my friends nobody would ever step up and get a membership.  I took a train to Dongdaegu and rehearsed how I was going to say Costco ga jchoosey-yo to the taxi driver.  It was easier than I thought it would be, within 30 minutes of getting off the train I was staring at a Costco size bag of tortilla chips and salsa, job done Michael, job done.  They have a pretty decent bakery section and are rumored to carry frozen avocados.  I can take two guests when I go, so I can imagine that I'll be going there on a fairly regular basis.
I realize that there were moments in this post that advocated both the importance of planning and going off the cusp.  I realize this and have this to say... I am figuring it out, my traditional educational mind strives for a clear, well defined answer while my socially educated mind wants to mix all the colors together and color outside the lines and make a mess.  Like the Taegeuk in the Korean flag, the ultimate reality is a mix of all things.

"One's destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things."

Waegwan, Gumi, Andong, Seoul.  Two train rides, two bus rides, 4 taxi rides, a handful of subway trips and enough walking to ruin a pair of socks and a shirt.  One weekend, all on 8 hours of sleep.  This is an abridged version of what could certainly take up several books.
My plans for the weekend were roughly sketched out, and this was a good thing because they completely changed from what I had in mind on friday morning and when I was done teaching for the day.  Still I managed to fill it out, it was Gumi on Friday night, back to Waegwan to get my things for going to Andong for the Mask Dance festival that is going on this week, maybe Seoul, then who knows.
I met up with EMU friends had dinner and ended up at a bar to meet some Korean scholars who live in Gumi.  We met up with BoGun first, he is HeeSung's Co-teacher.  He goes to college for TESOL and he had an interview to study in the US for his masters degree.  Great news, he got in.  Nebraska will not know what hit it.  BoGun is a class act, his family owns an apple orchard and he brought us all apple juice from it, it was delicious and while I was having it I had one of the feelings that showed me a 3rd person snapshot of what was happening...I was having freshly made apple juice from a Korean farm with the son of the farmer, on the floor with 4 of my friends before going out for soju cocktails, Max, and who knows what else.  We went to "Our Friday night hangout" and started to celebrate BoGun's successful interview.  Another Korean Co-Teacher showed up with two of his friends, so we migrated and mingled with the new people.  If you had told me these would be 2 of several dozen new people that I would meet this weekend I would have looked at you in confusion and amazement because you claim to have the ability of clairvoyance.  The same person might have also said you will be be wearing the same clothes you are wearing now on Sunday", and "You will make many trips to the ATM, but it will be worth it".  All of these would be true, and I wouldn't change anything.  I stayed out a little late and because of this could not both go back to Waegwan to get my bag for the weekend and catch the express bus to Andong in time.  While at the bar that night we mingled and danced with some other new people we just met.  After, we went out for chicken.  Jess and Kitty were their English names, and they were as loud and raucous as us so it was a good fit.
This was going to be my first experience having to catch the bus to go somewhere without a Korean liaison.  The bus station is small because we have a train station, and, although Waegwan is not a small town, it is sandwiched between Daegu and Gumi which are large cities.  There is not a direct bus to Andong from Waegwan, which is why I wasn't just leaving from where I live.  I was wearing the same clothes from the night before because I chose to do Korea well, instead of doing Korea in a practical manner.
The weather was gorgeous, it was crisp fall weekend when I arrived in Andong.  We met up with Milliza and dropped stuff off at her apt.  I did not have anything to drop off on the account of me only having my jacket, ipod, wallet, and cell phone with me, in retrospect this was all I really needed.  We met up with some other scholars and proceeded to have some of Andong's famous dish, ddockboki.  This is like a spicy chicken stew with rice noodles, it was delicious.  I would tentatively say now I am getting used to the spicy food of korean cuisine.  I still sweat when I eat hot things, but I kind of like it, and I like kimchi.  When I don;t have it for a few days, I start to crave it.  It is weird, but I know what I like, and I like kimchi.  Next, I downed a few coffees and headed over to the Mask Festival.
This is a festival the Andong is famous for and it did not disappoint, I had the chance to make my own mask, see traditional dances, hear traditional drum music, and this was all before the main show.  The group I was in was recruited for some "dance competition".  Mind you, we are quite clearly foreign, but that makes it easy for people who find people like us interesting to mingle.  After waiting for a while this event kicked off.  It was a dance where each group of 40-60 people danced into a clearing by a stage and danced around a circle of ~20 drummers.  There was not really any specific dance, just a bunch of people having a good ol' time.  Each group represented a part of Andong or surrounding area (at least this is how I understood it) and got 20 minutes to strut their stuff.  We were the last group to go, but nobody told us this so we were anxious.  The group of foreigners started off at around 20 or so and each group that went on somebody would tell us all to go and run out there.  This turned out to be other group coordinators trying to steal us from our coordinators group.  Each time some people went out before our coordinator grabbed us back.  When it was finally our time to go we rolled out and went nuts.  This was something that I might not have done 3 months ago, but there I was dancing a fool with 10 other english teachers and 60 Koreans from 4-80 years old.  The cameras loved us, the Koreans loved us, it was a genuinely fantastic experience that I will never forget.  Picture this, everyone wearing masks and costumes, drums pounding, music playing, bright colors, flags, laughing.  I was mid dougie when an old guy in a monk suit and pipe grabbed my hand and ran me up to the front to dance.  He put his hat on me and gave me is pipe (ornamental) and started to spin me around this was when no less than 9 photographers surrounded me and made me feel like I was having a wardrobe malfunction on the red carpet.  The atmosphere was opiating, it was a rush.  The old guy spoke no English, but managed to invite me out for dinner and drinks.  This further gives credence to my idea that Koreans are some of the most generous and polite people as long as you meet them with a smile and an open mind.  No sooner had the festival concluded then I found myself on an express bus to Dong(east) Seoul bus terminal.  I managed to take a little nap but I don't sleep well on things that move.
We arrived in Seoul around 10:30, hopped on the subway and headed for Sinchon.  Now, a tangent to the subject of vowels in the Korean language... To the English ear a lot of words can sound similar.  Take for instance, our destination, Sinchon.  Sinchon is a district in Seoul, so is Sincheon.  One letter, and moving your tongue 2 mm backwards.  The same can be said for Hyundai, Hundai, Haeundai, Hundae, Hyundae.  One is a car, three are places in Seoul and one is a beach in Busan, all five sound pretty similar.  We met up with some other people and dropped our stuff off in the motel room.  I took a well deserved shower and dowsed myself with body spray and anything to hide the fact that I was going on 24 hours wearing the same thing.  We then headed to the University district of Hundae and hit that scene for a while.  U.S. military are not allowed into Hundae, because too much drama and fights happen because of stupid people being stupid.  There were a few groups of soldiers (they stuck out pretty clearly by being typically young, loud, stupid, and american), there were a few places that checked my Alien Registration Card to make sure I was not military (my ID says that I have an educators visa [E-2] and that I am a teacher).  We were coming out of a restaurant in the wee hours, and through some chance encounter we got to talking with these three Korean students that were computer electronics majors at Hongik University.  We asked if they wanted to roll to another place together and they came with us, just another random friend meeting in Korea.  We talked about life, girls, traveling, everything.  It was just another weekend in Korea, full of fantastic new experiences and people.
Sunday was Seoul Tower day, so we rolled out and made our way to the subway.  Seoul subway is pretty extensive, it has to serve lots of people, but it is pretty user friendly if you take a minute to plan out your route before you hop on a train.  I have an iPod app with the subway and surrounding street maps, it is a good tool to have for me because I like to constantly check and re-check my whereabouts and progress, call me OCD, but it is how I do things.  When I stepped off in the Myeong-Dong district, the only things on my mind were replacing my wardrobe.  My shirt was only a few weeks old, but it had seen a lifetime of action and seeing as I paid 5000 won for it, it had been a good investment.  Mu socks too were smeely casualtys of the weekend.  I bought a sweet knock off hipster lego t-shirt and some mario socks found the nearest bathroom and became a new person.  Sure the shirt was a bit tighter than I had anticipated, but it is in the korean style of tight fit and I wasn't in a situation to be picky about anything.  The mario socks are awesome, all the socks in Korea are pretty sweet and always only 1000 won (less than a dollar) for a pair.

Seoul tower was cool, there was an option of taking a cable car up the mountain it is on or walking.  I had thought it might be nice to not walk everywhere for once, but the line had about 400 people in it so I had to do a little convincing to sell the idea of not waiting in line for 2 hours (this bit of convincing was a little ironic because the other people in the group were universally afraid of heights, as well as having an irrational fear of the cable car crashing to their deaths).  You can be told the Seoul is a big city, you can read that Seoul City has 11 million people and metro Seoul has 25 million people, but when I got to the observation deck of the tower and saw the expanse of buildings, bridges, cars, people and then knowing that it goes on further then I could see behind mountains and beyond the horizon it is truly a sight to behold.

Teaching is everything teaching should be.  Sometimes classes go great and I am on a high, other times they go poor and I wonder what I am doing with my life.  Everyday I learn something, everyday I try something new.  Some things work, others fall flat.  I always keep in mind that tomorrow is a new day, I take that to heart and walk into school everyday with a smile and greet the kids head on.  And, it is a genuine smile, I eat lunch with the K-2nd graders and even though my 2nd grade class makes me want to throw kids out the window some days the smile on their faces when they see me grab my hand and go, "Michael Teacher Michael Teacher how are you I am fine hahahahahahha monkeymonkeymonkey bye bye goodbye trololololol" that sort of affirms that if I don't smile and laugh at the lighter things in life I am not only doing myself a disservice, but a disservice to the students as well.  It is my overall goal to get the students to talk.  Period.  They all have other english and grammar classes but I am the only native english speaker for them to talk to on a regular basis, the more natural I make simple  everyday conversations for the students the less intimidated they get when using english outside the classroom.  I make my students work, I ask questions and expect english in return.  They get frustrated, they whine, they struggle, but they come up with answers or else they know I will ask them again.  Then we have fun, we joke, we laugh, we balance the struggles with light times.  I am fully aware that I am as much a student of them as they are of me, sometimes more literally than figuratively.  I make a point to use little bits of Korean and written Hangul during each class, before, or after.  In fact, today before class I was going word for word with one of my 4th graders, Chloe.  I would give her a word to spell, and she would fire one back at me. In the big picture it is a double whammy for her because she is instructing me in English (save the korean word) a win-win for me and her!  There are days I think I could do this for a while, other days where I can't wait for my next meal at Taco Bell (there is only one in Korea and it is 14 hours round trip), I am leaving that door open for now.

Everyone in Korea wears glasses like this, I think I want a pair, probably a different color.  Prescriptions are pretty cheap for glasses (and meds) in Korea.  It is like they haven't figured out that they can charge an arm and a leg for things like this.  Or maybe it is the U.S. that has it all wrong, getting charged way too much to maintain one's health.  I had to get a prescription for an ear infection I got after swimming in the ocean... The doctors visit, and four different prescriptions cost me the equivalent of 16$ US.  Yeah, America for all that is great and wonderful has gotten health care dead wrong.  I could have gotten 90% reimbursed by the government, but I would've had to fill out too much paperwork and for 15000 won, why bother.

I am a horrible sykper, I have a list of people I should call but then I don't ever get around to it.  Don't hate me for it.  I'll have a free day one of these months and knock it all out.

A brief period of introspectivness

The program I work for told us in so many words that we had to write an essay/letter thing and submitt it.  Being true to my procrastinator roots I waited until the last minute to do it, but I sort of liked how it turned out.  It might appear a little aimless in the beggining, that is because I didn't really know what I was writing about, just sort of spitballing words around.  By the end it felt good to reflect a little bit on the journy and what the heck I am doing with my life.  I still don't know what I'm doing really, but what I do know is that I am enjoying the journey. 

Prelude to the Sypmhony



      I was going to Korea, this was a fact.  When I told people what I was doing I got the same three questions asked to me…  Why?, Do you know Korean?, & Are you going to get a girlfriend/When is the wedding?.  The questions would always be in that exact order, and I would always answer them from back to front…  “I'm not moving 6000 miles away to find a girlfriend, there are websites for that stuff, I don't know why I am your friend.”.  “No, I don't know any Korean”.  Usually, they would stop me there and be appalled that I wasn't fluent in Korean (I'm Polish and Finnish, they shouldn't be that surprised that I don't know Korean.) and I was going to be living there, teaching the future leaders of tomorrow.  I never got around to giving my answer to “Why?”, this was probably a good thing because it was something that I was constantly asking myself. 
      “Why”.  It is such a short question with such an ambiguous, nebulous answer.  During some of my more introspective moments I would spin up something like this…  I am finally graduating college, I've spent the last 7 years working towards this elusive thing called my Bachelor Degree (some of you might think this is a typo and I really meant “Masters”.  It is not, and you should all be jealous that I found ways to avoid real life for so long.).  For the longest time this “Degree” and “Real Life” seemed like something that was as mystical and intangible as a leprechaun riding a unicorn over a double rainbow.  It just never happened, but I let my guard down for two seconds and the University shoves a degree down my throat and says, “don't let the door hit you on the way out”.  Well shoot, now I have to do something with myself, unless I can avoid this “real life”.
      What happened next is something that could only be chalked up to Fate pulling a fast one.  I was having this aforementioned crisis of me getting my degree and teaching certificate, being thrust out into the cruel world and being told to make something of myself when I received the email.  It was a perfect match, an opportunity to teach abroad, AND get paid to do it!  It seemed right, like dating a girl who is fun, cute, and likes watching football while knocking back a cold one on Sundays.  It only took a moment to decide that I wanted to go, it took a month to find the perfect time to tell my parents that I was leaving the country for a while.  I told them and they gave me high fives and talked about finally renting out my room at home.  I blinked in May and woke up on a Korean Air flight in August, the rest has been a blur.
      Even while writing this I've avoided giving a conclusive answer to why I chose to take part in the TaLK program, and I don't think I need one.  Since being here I have taken a bit of  “Dynamic Korea” to heart…
      There is only so much that one can be in control of, I've always found easier to roll with the punches rather than try and block each one.  I can fight the forces that be and change nothing, or I can throw caution to the wind and get on that bus going somewhere new and exciting.  I can smile at anyone, even though I am scared out of my wits, and lost beyond belief.  I can laugh at my mistakes when I should be crying and calling home to mom.  I can smile and nod to that old Korean dude with zero English that just talked my ear off for the last hour when I was waiting for the train.  I can do all of that because it so easy to play it safe, to stagnate in what I know and what is familiar to me.  That is easy, that is safe, and I hate that.  I did not come to Korea to be comfortable, I came here to throw myself into new situations.  I came here to fall flat on my face, and learn from it.  I came here to experience & embrace a culture that has roots running thousands of years deeper than my own.  I came here to teach, but I wonder if I am more a student.  I came here to avoid “real life”, but I am finding my life is more real than I would have ever imagined. 

"All things must change to something new, to something strange"

No, it is not Halloween, it is Chuseok.  Chuseok is a holiday in Korea when relatives travel across the country to visit each other, eat and exchange food gifts, it is a lot like American Thanksgiving (except no football).  For us waygook (foreigner) teachers in Korea it is a long weekend that allows us to travel and see Korea.  I will admit the placement for Chuseok this year (holiday is based on the Lunar calendar) was right after our first full week of teaching and was essentially a 5 day holiday, Sat-Wed.  The logical choice of destination was Busan, so we started to think about planning a trip.  A group of us had briefly thought about traveling down to Busan during a long weekend at orientation, that plan ultimately fell through but just as well because it would had been a 5 hour train ride each way.  Orientation was up north, and I am placed in the southern half of Korea (in between Gumi and Daegu).  Long story short, Busan is less than two hours away now.

If you have never heard of Busan before, or don't know its location is Korea go educate yourself by google-ing it.  Busan is a coastal City, 2nd largest City in Korea, famous for its beaches, resorts, and things of that nature.

We had a group of 8 people, 2 hotel rooms, tickets to a Baseball game, and an otherwise blank schedule. ..We also had a tropical depression heading towards Korea that had just blitzed Japan as a hurricane the week before, lets go to the ocean!

On friday I hopped a train to Gumi (I am super glad Gumi is only 15 minutes away) to have dinner with some of the people that I was going to Busan with, they had traveled to Gumi to crash the night because they don't have a train station near by, bus station, etc.  We had a nice dinner at a Korean-Italian place that was decorated in 15 shades of pink.  I enjoy Korean cuisine, but it is nice to have something else once in a while.  After dinner the group was going to go back to the train station to meet up with another person...This waiting for people thing gets pretty old when the group gets passed, say, three people.  I have a limited quota available for waiting per week, it gets used up pretty fast.  Fully knowing that I was going to have to do a fair bit of waiting during the coming weekend I took initiative and told the group that it was going to be a better time for me if I didn't wait with them at the train station and went straight to the bar instead.  As I had predicted I was not the only person who thought this, so the select genius group of Davey-Dave, Meeker, and Myself went to go have fun, and left the lame people to go wait for the next hour and half at the train station.  If you are keeping score... Team fun decisions: 1, Team waiting: -100.  What happened next is a repeating occurrence, 80% on me, 20% to the people who I choose to be friends with...  I had every intention of taking the 12:30 train back to Waegwan because I had no interest in sharing a one room apartment that has tile floors with 5 other people, unless I was guaranteed a spot on the bed, no me gusta.  I am always one to have a contingency plan, so before leaving, I checked what the next available train was (in case of some unforeseen event that required me to miss the one I originally was planning to leave on).  2:30am.  Not the latest train I've taken, but at least I knew it was there.  Apparently having fun fall under the category "acceptable reasons to take a later train".  This will bite me one day, but not today.  Besides, in my defense, by the time the rest of the group made it to the bar it was nearer to 11:30 anyways.  In retrospect this should have been a foreboding event to take note of.  Fast forward...Dancing, soju slurpees, and a trip to the norebang and it was 2:15!  Time to go and find my way to the train station.  My friends were sad to see me go, I was thinking "I am going to see you in Busan is literally 12 hours, everything is fine".  Then Sam let it slip... "If you go back now, who will cook us breakfast like last time?", everything makes sense now.  I told them they had peanut butter and oreos in their cupboard and they could figure it out.  Adios!  I found my way to Gumi station and did my best to conceal the fact that I had broke a pretty decent sweat hucking my way back to the station (it was raining so this helped).  At 2:31 I had my tunes going, riding a train back to my apt.  Pretty decent friday night, after all I had planned on doing laundry and drinking tea.  On to BUSAN!

Busan, summarized in a haiku 

Busan by the coast.

Late night odd clothes, Haeundae!

Sunburn, baseball, fun.

The first day we were there we got our hotel, and eventually wandered our way from the center of downtown to one of three Lotte department stores.  We walked around, had diner and headed back to the hotel by subway to change out of exploring clothes and into going out clothes.  Somewhere along the way we decided that it would be the best idea to buy heinous looking clothes and go out in them...  I was the last person to be informed of this, but all 8 of us were involved and, thus the newest K-Pop group "8PM" was formed (this is a play on the already popular Korean Pop group 2PM).  This picture explains the night pretty accurately...

I think any questions you might have right now can best be answered with a simple "yes", whatever they may be.

Not everyone in the picture is dressed up (8PM group), just the people that look like they did it in the dark... using the dress up clothes from when they were children.  

Later that night I used perfect Korean to get us a cab back to our hotel, I believe it was something like this, "Anyeounghaseyo Busanyuk joo-sey-yo, gamsa habnidda".  I say it was perfect Korean because no sooner than 3 out of 4 doors were shut we were on a roller coaster ride over Busan.  Red lights meant nothing, speed limits meant nothing, and any concern I had left for the personal well-being of myself and others meant nothing.  I think we arrived before we left as a result of the fold in the space-time continuum the cab driver made when he peeled out of Haeundae.  Yo Yo Ma.  No sooner had we gotten back to the room before I was in the deepest sleep I have had since back in Michigan.  

The next day was the baseball game!  I was sort of defacto travel guide and leader person because I had gotten the most sleep, I knew how to get there on the subway, and I wasn't cranking back soju like it was going out of style, before too long I felt like I needed three child leashes that you see parents tie to their kids (my friend lauren said she had one when she was a kid so I know they are a real thing).  We made it there with zero problems and got the tickets with zero problems, yay!  It is a smaller stadium (25,000 people) than Comerica park, but it was very cool none the less.  Going to the game made me miss Tigers baseball a little bit, this was augmented by the fact that for once we are not collapsing in September and I am going to miss being in Detroit for MLB playoffs.  It is okay, I am having enough fun here in Korea to kind of make up for it.  One of the oddities of the Busan Lotte Giants is that in the 8th inning instead putting on your rally caps, doing the chicken dance, or singing take me out to the ball game they pass out orange plastic bags that you put on your head.  So close your eyes and imagine 25,000 people with bags on their head... I know it sounds like some sort of mass cult suicide, but at a baseball game in Korea it is just a normal 8th inning...

Later that game another TaLK scholar came down and said hi, we asked him how he found us.  His reply, "we saw you trying to start the wave".  Yeah.  We were all pretty wiped out after the game but somebody had the idea of meeting up with the other people and doing this and that and whatnot.  We were all meeting in front of the stadium and leaving, so I left early and bought my super cool Lotte Giants jersey and proceeded to find them.  They were not hard to miss, the group waiting was probably close to 16 or 17 people.  Ugh.  I love my people, but that group is too big to walk in anywhere and get anything done (subway train, deciding where to go, fitting into a single restaurant, waiting for everyone to use the bathroom before we leave.  I was about to just split the group and meet up at the hotel later when Meeker said, "I am getting pizza from across the street".  Get out your scorecards kids! Team Fun Decisions: 2, Team waiting and getting nothing done: -500.  Somebody noticed us leave and asked where we were going, we said "Food.  We'll figure it out and meet up with you later".  This was a good decision, two people do dinner better than 20.  People were pretty tired so we stayed in Sunday and rested up for the beach on monday!

The weather was smiling on us today!  No sign of rain or clouds, just bright sunshine and a light breeze. We bought a frisbee and a volleyball and spent the next 4 hours at the beach and in the ocean.  We played volleyball and for some reason attracted a decent sized crowd.  A few people who were exchange student came and hung out with us for a while, they were from Finland, France and Portugal!  

We had yummy chicken for dinner, went back, changed into regular going out clothes, paid entirely too much to get into a club, waited, got over waiting and took a cab back with 1/2 a group and hit the pillow.  The next day we took the most crowded smelly train back with standing room only tickets.  Got back to Waegwan, took a fantastic 2 hour nap, made dinner and went to bed.  

It is Wednesday as I finish this post, I have two days of teaching before I have another weekend, spoiled I know.  I got invited to have lunch at one of the teachers homes this weekend sometime, I am looking forward to that!  Judging how my plans expand exponentially when the weekend approaches I am sure I will have more adventure updates too!  

Not in Kansas anymore, at least I have my laptop, oh wait.

So here is what you missed last time on the Michael show...Blacked out van, chicken noms, adventure things, kickin' in the Joch', and we touched the surface of laptop destination fail.

Here is the play by play,

Three weeks of orientation at Korea University in Jochiwan are coming to a close, people are saying their goodbye's to each other, franticly packing, loading up the provincial busses and luggage trucks.  I was pretty happy to be going onto the next part of my journey, while the last 3 weeks had been filled with fun, adventure, and making friends I was ready to let myself go a little deeper into authentic Korea and not see the same 300 people each day acting like college freshmen (I never lived in the dorms at EMU and I am now glad of it).
We were being bussed to our regional orientation site, so instead of 300 TaLK people we were now 70 scholars all being placed in Gyungbuk-do.  Our bus was the last to leave so I loaded my luggage on the truck and decided it would be a good idea to put my laptop bag under the bus so I would not have to carry it around for the next 2 hours, I see some girls throwing their purses under the bus so I follow suit and any concern for the whereabouts of my laptop disappear into the distance.  Now, hindsight is 20/20 but like all my more humorous learning experiences I choose to blatantly disregard the warning signs, here is what I should have seen...  The girls putting purses under the bus, not in group 1, so not going where I am going.  Nobody else in group 1 going on or off the bus.  And finally, the sign on the front of the bus said Chungnam, I just saw that is was the "blue" bus, which was mine (in my mind).  The Gyungbuk busses were parked behind the luggage trucks, not in front of it.  Whoops.
"Tangent"...  Before starting the 2nd stage of orientation at a beautiful mountain resort we were going to a temple stay at this Buddhist temple at a national park somewhere along the way.  It was pretty interesting, the monks were all very happy and smiled all the time.  I respect their devotion to what they believe in.  I was in need of a solid night's worth of sleep and some pancakes, there was neither at the temple.  Korean food can be pretty spicy at times and they generally don't serve water until after the meal, drinking during a meal is a western practice.  This temple food was some of the most eye watering, nose running food I have ever eaten.  I felt extra obligated to finish all the food because traditional Buddhist practice has monks beg for their bowl of rice each day.  It was rough, but I am over trying to look cool eating Korean food.   Things we did at the temple include wearing super trendy monk robes, make paper lotus candle flower things, sleep on the floor like a boss, wake up at 4am for meditation, go on a painful barefoot walk through the forest and have a friend feet washing session all before 7am.  In a moment of serious introspection I can say this, while I don't identify with any religion.  I enjoy the simple parts of Buddhism, there is much time for thought and the petty issues in life are dismissed as quickly as a breeze comes and goes.  Perhaps most to my acceptance is the fact that Buddhism does not appear to have an agenda.  Just good people smiling, being kind.
By lunch time the next day I was ready for an ice cream cone (tangent #2)...  I should dedicate a post to my ice cream endeavors.  As people who are close to me know, I am quite fond of ice cream.  Say what you will, I believe ice cream tempers friendships and brings people closer together regardless of distance or background.  True story, back in Livonia I have a few of my dearest and closest friends.  We don't get together as often as we would prefer, but more times than not we meet up for ice cream, there is an association with them, ice cream, laughing and general good times.  In Korea I am truly glad to have found friends to share ice cream time with, it has been my saving grace a few times when I am glum or stressed, it is a little piece of home and comfort to remind me of my friends far away, and to share the same camaraderie with new friends!  (I know I got a little bit emotional there but James Blunt came up on my itunes, and some things you just need to get out).
So back on the bus to orientation sleepytime ensues, we arrive at the hotel and I go to grab my laptop bag.  No dice.  Through the grace of the Korean coordinators they track it down within a matter of 5 min, I really didn't have time to freak out about losing it.  I knew that I would get it back eventually, hopefully sooner than later...This is when I heard no less than 15 different updates on the whereabouts of my laptop, ranging from getting it by Saturday (this was thursday), I'll get it on Tuesday, it will be waiting at my school for me on Tues.  Things degraded to me leaving orientation to my apt and being told they haven't shipped it yet.  If any of you are thinking that a laptop is one of the cooler things to have the first week of living on your own in a new city, in a foreign country, you would be right.  Thank goodness for my ipod touch, I would have gone bonkers without it.  I did feel like a junky having to bum charges off of random peoples usb ports, standing outside coffee shops using Wifi where I could get it.  I finally got my laptop back 8 days after I realized I lost it, I felt naked and inadequate without it.  Not one of the smartest things I've done in Korea, but in the words of my mom from when I was young "it's not the end of the world", profoundly simple and calming words.

Throughout that last debacle I was thrust from essentially being a tourist to being a expat living in South Korea.  I was too exhausted to be worried or stressed about too much so after exploded my luggage all over my apt I went exploring.  My city is Waegwan, nothing too exciting going on here.  An army base, market, train station.  All the essentials I guess.  I am very happy to be a 5 minute walk from my school and ~10 minutes from the train station.  Another EMU talk person lives on the other side of town which is nice and a few more EMU peeps live in Gumi (2$ 10min train ride away).  I am beginning to settle in finally.  The staff at my school seems very nice, I think the office staff gossips about me, but in a good way.  The 1st three questions I got from them were, where is your girlfriend?  How old are you?  and who I thought was the youngest person out of all of them was.  I think there would have been more but they found out that I play saxophone and they just erupted in Korean giggle-laughter.  Game over.  I start teaching tomorrow (monday), and I am nervously excited about it.  I am sure that I'll have a few stories to share about it all.
I could tell you all about my weekend spent in Gumi and Daegu.  But I have to leave you curious about something.  I'll tell you this, it was my intent to have a relaxing hangout with my Gumi peeps.  This turned into very us staying out way past our bedtimes both friday and saturday.  Good times had by all.
The Korean holiday of Chusok is next week so I have a 5 day weekend, very excited to go to Busan and have some fun times there!

"The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page"

In the U.S. motorcycles are cool and tough. In Korea, they are what you get your pizza delivered on.

Final week at Korea university in Jochiwan,  I am very much looking forward to getting out of the dorms and to my regional orientation in Gyungsangbuk-do.  Life since the last update has been more of the same, lame lectures, terrible cafeteria food, and being a world traveler.  Of the more exciting parts of being a world traveler I can't not share with you a few things...Adventure food, friend soup, the cultural differences and implications of getting into a blacked out delivery van in 'merica and Korea.  Oh, and teaching children  (what I actually came here to do).

Part of the orientation program had us going to an english camp to teach kids of 1/2 a day.  It was nervous and exciting being thrust into this with minimal prep and minimal teaching supplies.  At the end though, it was a good experience and a reaffirmation of my choice to be a teacher and leave my comfort zone to have unique and life changing experiences.  Now, on to the main event...

Food is something that is both unique and ubiquitous to every culture around the globe, it is the reason we are so different and similar at the same time.  While I am kicking myself for not getting Taco Bell as my last meal in the states, I don't dislike Korean cuisine but the cafeteria food they have been serving us here leaves something to be desired.  As a result of this our group of friends coined the phrase "adventure food".  This is because we walk around and try to find a suitable looking restaurant for us to eat at with minimal chance of failure, adventure food.  Adventure food has taken us to places with funkyleaf, a whole chicken mixed with woodchips, e-coli risks, free ice cream, and 90 year old owners serving us while wearing leopard print pants from the 80's.  The most notable adventure food trip had us going to this restaurant which was supposed to have great chicken.  Not really an adventure, it was down the street, we knew where it was, and we knew they served chicken.  It was almost to good to be true...  As we walk up to the entrance of the building we notice that there are no light on inside (it is 7:00 pm so prime dinner time).  We think this is odd, so we try the door (unlocked), and poke our heads in.  Silent.  At this moment a black van with tinted windows rolls by, stops 20 feet past us and starts to back up.  What should have been going though our heads was "run!", but generally speaking Koreans are exceedingly nice people...and we were really hungry, REALLY hungry.  The window rolls down and a guy asks, "You people looking for a restaurant?", the content of the discussion is less important than the context and what happened next... we got into the van.  Wut.  To just add a little bit more implausibility to the story the guy's grandma and sister were in the back seat so naturally, he made them ride in the trunk.  Yup.  We got our fill of yummy chicken and he even gave us free ice cream AND a ride back to campus.  Adventure Food.

This post sort of completes the Jochiwan orientation, and in a terrible segue to the next post I will list a few seemingly random facts, and a small gem of advice.

1.  Jochiwan will now be affectionately known as "The Joch'".
2.  The Joch', while having a soft spot in my heart for the city is, in fact, super lame.

Michael's random advice column,

If you put your laptop bag under a bus going to Chungnam instead of Gyungbuk it will not be in Gyungbuk when you want it to be.  So, don't do that.  It is a dumb thing to do.