Just an FYI -- I have not had a good internet connection for the past two weeks and counting and thus have been completely incapable of updating my blog.
The hotel that I'm staying at now has a 15 year old computer with an internet connection in the lobby; however I really don't think trying to use it to blog is a good idea.
If I figure out some kind of solution then you will see some more content on here; otherwise ill catch up when I get home -- on Sunday! (Perhaps after i catch up on the sleeps)
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
KIMS, Second Busan trip and END OF EAPSI
So this is just a placeholder which will be filled with the trip to KIMS, Busan, and Dong-dae-gu as well as the end of the EAPSI program as soon as I get a chance to sit at my computer and upload photos. In the meantime; having it as a placeholder will let me blog about Japan without interrupting the continutiy of the blog.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Boryeong Mud festival
The next saturday (day after the end of the preivous post) I had my alarm set on my phone to wake me up at 6:30am. Well it didn't go off so I ended up waking at 8:30 and had a train to catch at 9:30 -- after a mad rush I finally made it to Yongsan station, and got to pass out on the train for a while.
Eventually we made it to Daechon beach (I was with Charlie and Sue). The first person we managed to find from our group was Aurora -- who promptly took us to the hotel they had reserved so we could swap into our bathing suits. You can see that we had a lot of catching up to do:
They had some stations with mud in buckets and paintbrushes -- so you could get a bit of a head-start by brushing yourself with mud:
Eventually we got thorougly covered. It really was an amazing time.
The mud festival was at the beach, so after rolling around in the mud for a while (or on giant inflatable playground-style equipment) we could just jump into the ocean for a nice rinse-off. The girls were the first to go, they climbed up the slide with all of their effort and then slid down. But Charlie and I like to shake things up a bit so we added another rule -- Hands behind your back! I have to admit I caught myself once (cheated) but we almost made it to the top -- just to have Charlie fall all the way back down... It was worth it though because we got to slide down separatley. Charlie got some truly MASSIVE air...
And... Clean!
A lot of the places served drinks in pouches instead of cups -- It stopped things from getting wet and mixing with the splashing mud and water that was everywhere! They also had a massive stage on the beach, as well as a "club area" where the DJ was lifted into the air by a crane and played some sick beats while a massive crowed danced like it was 2am in the sun and surf! There were massive water cannons that would release a deluge of water into the clubbing crowd, and men with high-pressure hoses that would make it their job to soak you through.
Of course, a blog entry wouldn't be complete without some terrible spelling:
That night we went to get shellfish for dinner, which produced one of the few gruop pictures that we have:
I used to not really like that kind of food; but now I love it! Walls, Sue, Liz and I ate an entire bucket worth:
After dinner we walked down to the Hip-hop concert:
In the crowd, everyone tends to just stand on the chairs:
But sometimes they break:
There were actually a lot of Indians at mudfest, some of them were really agressive and mean (throw mud in your face on purpose), but some were really cool:
Then you allways have the one scene where all you can see are some crazy americans:
Walls and I rockin' it hardcore:
And I should mention; Korean hip hop is REALLY GOOD. They had some sick beats, some bangin' DJ's and rappin' with some real soul and rhythm. I'll try to post some videos later!
These corndogs were even better than the last ones... They were covered in FRENCH FRIES:
Walls and I decided to rent a small electric motorcycle for 20 minutes ($10) and got to blast around the beach for a while (taking turns driving; which was hillarious):
Wang got a cup of cooked snails, which he shared -- basically you just put your mouth up to the shell and suck the snail out. They're pretty good!
Afterwards we hung out on the beach for a bit (Aurora went for a swim) and then chilled at a local bar for a bit:
The next day, we woke up to a soggy, rainy mess:
But as most things in life, it didnt last. The other members of the group didn't really want to get muddy again, but as allways I can count on Charlie to be there for me when everyone else is being boring:
And we had a BLAST. We did this obstacle course -- you know that thing about the extra rule though: This time we resolved to do the whole thing in tandem. Holding hands! We didn't make it all the way but it was still a LOT of fun (note: that's a really hard thing to do when your covered in slimy mud...)
The last game we played involved attaching a giant rubber band to your waist and standing at opposite ends of a moon walk style inflatable platform -- then you can run at each other and hold on, or try to play tug of war... But instead we just opted for getting as much air as humanly possible. So being good little scientists we grabbed each other in the center and proceeded to rock back and forth at what felt like the natural frequency of the cables -- until I had Charlie as far on my end as possible. Then jump and launch! Of course, then we got to do the reverse. It was an amazing thrill. We went back to the beach to clean off a bit, and then headed back to the mid beach club to party it up some more before cleaning off for the last time, grabbing some snacks, and heading to the train station.
It was a really long festival, and some of the people working it were just as beat as we were:
Auora and I wandered off to the nearby E-Mart after Charlie borded his "earlier" train. E-Mart is kinda like the Korean version of Sams Club. We got some pizza and headed to the couch by the 3D television display to watch some Avatar in 3D -- and man this TV was awesome. I've yet to see the 3D effect that crisp! (My guess is they somehow figured out how to use circular polarization, because the lenses when placed 90 degrees to each other didn't cancel each other out.)
On the way back to the train station I saw this:
It's a bus-wash! It's like a carwash but instead of the car moving (bus in this case) the machine moves around it and scrubs it down! Anyways, I thought it was pretty cool -- and the technitions that owned the place thought it was really interesting that I thought it was cool.
Note: the two "L"s at the end of Hall are missing, so instead it's just really funny.
Aurora's train left about 15 minutes before mine and arrived about 5 minutes before mine. We took the subway to Nakseongdae and instead of heading back went to my favorite bulgogi place to get a bite to eat.
Eventually we made it to Daechon beach (I was with Charlie and Sue). The first person we managed to find from our group was Aurora -- who promptly took us to the hotel they had reserved so we could swap into our bathing suits. You can see that we had a lot of catching up to do:
They had some stations with mud in buckets and paintbrushes -- so you could get a bit of a head-start by brushing yourself with mud:
Eventually we got thorougly covered. It really was an amazing time.
The mud festival was at the beach, so after rolling around in the mud for a while (or on giant inflatable playground-style equipment) we could just jump into the ocean for a nice rinse-off. The girls were the first to go, they climbed up the slide with all of their effort and then slid down. But Charlie and I like to shake things up a bit so we added another rule -- Hands behind your back! I have to admit I caught myself once (cheated) but we almost made it to the top -- just to have Charlie fall all the way back down... It was worth it though because we got to slide down separatley. Charlie got some truly MASSIVE air...
And... Clean!
A lot of the places served drinks in pouches instead of cups -- It stopped things from getting wet and mixing with the splashing mud and water that was everywhere! They also had a massive stage on the beach, as well as a "club area" where the DJ was lifted into the air by a crane and played some sick beats while a massive crowed danced like it was 2am in the sun and surf! There were massive water cannons that would release a deluge of water into the clubbing crowd, and men with high-pressure hoses that would make it their job to soak you through.
Of course, a blog entry wouldn't be complete without some terrible spelling:
That night we went to get shellfish for dinner, which produced one of the few gruop pictures that we have:
I used to not really like that kind of food; but now I love it! Walls, Sue, Liz and I ate an entire bucket worth:
After dinner we walked down to the Hip-hop concert:
In the crowd, everyone tends to just stand on the chairs:
But sometimes they break:
There were actually a lot of Indians at mudfest, some of them were really agressive and mean (throw mud in your face on purpose), but some were really cool:
Then you allways have the one scene where all you can see are some crazy americans:
Walls and I rockin' it hardcore:
And I should mention; Korean hip hop is REALLY GOOD. They had some sick beats, some bangin' DJ's and rappin' with some real soul and rhythm. I'll try to post some videos later!
These corndogs were even better than the last ones... They were covered in FRENCH FRIES:
Walls and I decided to rent a small electric motorcycle for 20 minutes ($10) and got to blast around the beach for a while (taking turns driving; which was hillarious):
Wang got a cup of cooked snails, which he shared -- basically you just put your mouth up to the shell and suck the snail out. They're pretty good!
Afterwards we hung out on the beach for a bit (Aurora went for a swim) and then chilled at a local bar for a bit:
The next day, we woke up to a soggy, rainy mess:
But as most things in life, it didnt last. The other members of the group didn't really want to get muddy again, but as allways I can count on Charlie to be there for me when everyone else is being boring:
And we had a BLAST. We did this obstacle course -- you know that thing about the extra rule though: This time we resolved to do the whole thing in tandem. Holding hands! We didn't make it all the way but it was still a LOT of fun (note: that's a really hard thing to do when your covered in slimy mud...)
The last game we played involved attaching a giant rubber band to your waist and standing at opposite ends of a moon walk style inflatable platform -- then you can run at each other and hold on, or try to play tug of war... But instead we just opted for getting as much air as humanly possible. So being good little scientists we grabbed each other in the center and proceeded to rock back and forth at what felt like the natural frequency of the cables -- until I had Charlie as far on my end as possible. Then jump and launch! Of course, then we got to do the reverse. It was an amazing thrill. We went back to the beach to clean off a bit, and then headed back to the mid beach club to party it up some more before cleaning off for the last time, grabbing some snacks, and heading to the train station.
It was a really long festival, and some of the people working it were just as beat as we were:
Auora and I wandered off to the nearby E-Mart after Charlie borded his "earlier" train. E-Mart is kinda like the Korean version of Sams Club. We got some pizza and headed to the couch by the 3D television display to watch some Avatar in 3D -- and man this TV was awesome. I've yet to see the 3D effect that crisp! (My guess is they somehow figured out how to use circular polarization, because the lenses when placed 90 degrees to each other didn't cancel each other out.)
On the way back to the train station I saw this:
It's a bus-wash! It's like a carwash but instead of the car moving (bus in this case) the machine moves around it and scrubs it down! Anyways, I thought it was pretty cool -- and the technitions that owned the place thought it was really interesting that I thought it was cool.
Note: the two "L"s at the end of Hall are missing, so instead it's just really funny.
Aurora's train left about 15 minutes before mine and arrived about 5 minutes before mine. We took the subway to Nakseongdae and instead of heading back went to my favorite bulgogi place to get a bite to eat.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Catch Up
So I'm super behind on blogging and I'll take this opportunity to catch up. First is a picture of me doing what I do most often, but talk about least often:
The orange juice is there because post-busan I got a pretty bad sore throat and was hoping that the vitamin C would give me a nice boost. I slept a lot that week and tried to be overall healthier but while I did feel better the "sick" just wouldn't go away on it's own.
We got some cheetos, but as you can see they're super different. They don't even taste like cheese -- they taste more like Ramien...
Hanging out with Charlie is super fun. We went to Myeong-Dong to get some dumplings (where my camera ran out of pictures so... well, no photos of that), but before hand we got to do things like try on interesting hats (I think I look more French, right?) and deal with more rain:
Which was really not good for my cold. Anyways we agreed that the next night (Friday) we would make our best efforts to go to a Live Jazz club. So we did, but while we were walking there, we saw this brass guy trying to hold up a street bench:
He was trying REALLY hard:
We ended up not seeing a Jazz band, but a Funk group instead. They were pretty good too! I have some videos, but not they're back in the room -- but if someone bugs me about it later I'll DEFINITLEY post them (and edit this part out, so if you're reading it that means no video.)
After the Funk band we just went back, I was still pretty tired from being sick so it was probably for the best anyways. I slept pretty late on Saturday but ended up heading to Ewha University to do some more haning out with Charlie -- we were later Joined by Soshana and Sue for dinner and it was a pretty good time. This is a picture of their library:
As well as an interesting coffee shop:
I got some street food that was so hot that I couldn't speak for a few minutes afterwards. I even had the opportunity to talk to Chris on the phone and the only thing I managed to say was something like "Spicy Street Food arhgbarghl call back arghl soooon." Anyways, here's a picture of the little devil:
I slept deep into Sunday and woke up miserable so spent some time looking for a Doctor/Pharmacy. Found a Pharmacy in Sillim and the pharmasist gave me directions to a good doctor -- and in the meatime I got some sore throat pills to help with the whole "pain" thing. After the doctor I got to walk around Sillim a bit and saw some interesting things:
A real corndog -- not quite what they have back home but was still super tasty.
This guy's name is "Teenie Weenie" but he's anything but small -- and he's a bear. I love the combination of 90s style b-boy hat, khaki's and sport jacket...
This is a comic shop. Massive with Manga/Manwha and suprisingly enough, a ton of D.C. and Marvel!
Sillim looks kind of boring from the outside but if you duck into the side streets it gets a lot more interesting. You see some realyl scary stuff; like this beer and hof place:
Advertised with an IV... Anyways the result of my trip to Sillim was this:
It actually worked pretty well! Three days later my soar throat was gone -- I still cant figure out why there are SO MANY PILLS, but my thought is that they're each one substance and rather than being pre-mixed at the plant, they're combined into little bags at the pharmacy and later mix in my stomach. Seems like it saves costs though because I paid less than $10 for meds.
We went out to the sports stadium to watch the sunset along the mountains and saw some dudes playing this game:
Yep, good old American football -- they were actually training. It was funny to watch. None of them were American either! Guess our game had done at least a little bit of spreading...
Next to our office building we have a very small fire hydrant -- actually they're all that small; but I thought it was pretty cute. Kalon's a bit dissapointed in it's smallness though.
This picture is an absoloutely amazing piece of technology. It's a pre-cut roll of kimbap put into a plastic wrapper. When you pull on the tab the top comes off and you push on the bottom to force the kimbab out. Not only that but it basically constitutes a full balanced meal and only costs $1!! (It's also really good.)
On thursday I got some pictures that I can't even look at without having massive hunger pangs (even if I've just eaten). Charlie, Kalon and I did what we called a "dumpling crawl" -- even though we only ended up going to two places we ate more dumplings than should be possible. I hope you can tell by the pictures how happy these guys were... It was nothing short of amazing.
We've gone to get dumplings at least once a week since the first week. Sometimes more than once. They're just so amazing... Gonna miss these when I go back home...
The next day Kalon and I went to Gangnam (which is like the Silicon Valley of Seoul -- where all the tech companies have offices) to walk around and get some food. We went to an Irish pub called "Dublin" which was really awesome. They had some real smooth Guiness.
Found a little shop called "Brownaholic"
But things kept getting darker:
Some of the places have some strange names; like "Monkey Strike: Episode 4."
"Oneshot" makes a lot of sense, especially for how engrained the term is in Korean drinking culture; but I'm not sure what the deal is with the massive helmet...
And the Kinki Robots....
Afterwards, rather than go back to the office, Kalon and I decided to go watch a movie. Now, the problem we realized when we got was that there weren't any American movies that we hand't seen yet! So instead we watched this:
The hangul says "Quick." The premise is about a guy (who's really good with motorbikes) who makes a buisness of delivering packages. One day this girl gets on the back of his bike (she turns out to be a k-pop start) and puts on his helmet, shortly before he gets notified that he was tricked -- a mobster put a bomb in his helmet and wants him to deliver bombs; or else the helmet will explode. From here the movie blasts into a hillarious series of motorcycle stunts and explosions, the three way balance between motorcycle guy, the cops, and the mobsters; and through the whole movie I understand maybe about 20 words, 10 which are just "ne!" (yes).
The orange juice is there because post-busan I got a pretty bad sore throat and was hoping that the vitamin C would give me a nice boost. I slept a lot that week and tried to be overall healthier but while I did feel better the "sick" just wouldn't go away on it's own.
We got some cheetos, but as you can see they're super different. They don't even taste like cheese -- they taste more like Ramien...
Which was really not good for my cold. Anyways we agreed that the next night (Friday) we would make our best efforts to go to a Live Jazz club. So we did, but while we were walking there, we saw this brass guy trying to hold up a street bench:
He was trying REALLY hard:
We ended up not seeing a Jazz band, but a Funk group instead. They were pretty good too! I have some videos, but not they're back in the room -- but if someone bugs me about it later I'll DEFINITLEY post them (and edit this part out, so if you're reading it that means no video.)
After the Funk band we just went back, I was still pretty tired from being sick so it was probably for the best anyways. I slept pretty late on Saturday but ended up heading to Ewha University to do some more haning out with Charlie -- we were later Joined by Soshana and Sue for dinner and it was a pretty good time. This is a picture of their library:
As well as an interesting coffee shop:
I got some street food that was so hot that I couldn't speak for a few minutes afterwards. I even had the opportunity to talk to Chris on the phone and the only thing I managed to say was something like "Spicy Street Food arhgbarghl call back arghl soooon." Anyways, here's a picture of the little devil:
I slept deep into Sunday and woke up miserable so spent some time looking for a Doctor/Pharmacy. Found a Pharmacy in Sillim and the pharmasist gave me directions to a good doctor -- and in the meatime I got some sore throat pills to help with the whole "pain" thing. After the doctor I got to walk around Sillim a bit and saw some interesting things:
A real corndog -- not quite what they have back home but was still super tasty.
This guy's name is "Teenie Weenie" but he's anything but small -- and he's a bear. I love the combination of 90s style b-boy hat, khaki's and sport jacket...
This is a comic shop. Massive with Manga/Manwha and suprisingly enough, a ton of D.C. and Marvel!
Sillim looks kind of boring from the outside but if you duck into the side streets it gets a lot more interesting. You see some realyl scary stuff; like this beer and hof place:
Advertised with an IV... Anyways the result of my trip to Sillim was this:
It actually worked pretty well! Three days later my soar throat was gone -- I still cant figure out why there are SO MANY PILLS, but my thought is that they're each one substance and rather than being pre-mixed at the plant, they're combined into little bags at the pharmacy and later mix in my stomach. Seems like it saves costs though because I paid less than $10 for meds.
We went out to the sports stadium to watch the sunset along the mountains and saw some dudes playing this game:
Yep, good old American football -- they were actually training. It was funny to watch. None of them were American either! Guess our game had done at least a little bit of spreading...
Next to our office building we have a very small fire hydrant -- actually they're all that small; but I thought it was pretty cute. Kalon's a bit dissapointed in it's smallness though.
This picture is an absoloutely amazing piece of technology. It's a pre-cut roll of kimbap put into a plastic wrapper. When you pull on the tab the top comes off and you push on the bottom to force the kimbab out. Not only that but it basically constitutes a full balanced meal and only costs $1!! (It's also really good.)
On thursday I got some pictures that I can't even look at without having massive hunger pangs (even if I've just eaten). Charlie, Kalon and I did what we called a "dumpling crawl" -- even though we only ended up going to two places we ate more dumplings than should be possible. I hope you can tell by the pictures how happy these guys were... It was nothing short of amazing.
We've gone to get dumplings at least once a week since the first week. Sometimes more than once. They're just so amazing... Gonna miss these when I go back home...
The next day Kalon and I went to Gangnam (which is like the Silicon Valley of Seoul -- where all the tech companies have offices) to walk around and get some food. We went to an Irish pub called "Dublin" which was really awesome. They had some real smooth Guiness.
The food was also really good, making the whole experience very satisfying.
Found a little shop called "Brownaholic"
But things kept getting darker:
Some of the places have some strange names; like "Monkey Strike: Episode 4."
"Oneshot" makes a lot of sense, especially for how engrained the term is in Korean drinking culture; but I'm not sure what the deal is with the massive helmet...
Very Nice taqueria!
And the Kinki Robots....
Afterwards, rather than go back to the office, Kalon and I decided to go watch a movie. Now, the problem we realized when we got was that there weren't any American movies that we hand't seen yet! So instead we watched this:
The hangul says "Quick." The premise is about a guy (who's really good with motorbikes) who makes a buisness of delivering packages. One day this girl gets on the back of his bike (she turns out to be a k-pop start) and puts on his helmet, shortly before he gets notified that he was tricked -- a mobster put a bomb in his helmet and wants him to deliver bombs; or else the helmet will explode. From here the movie blasts into a hillarious series of motorcycle stunts and explosions, the three way balance between motorcycle guy, the cops, and the mobsters; and through the whole movie I understand maybe about 20 words, 10 which are just "ne!" (yes).
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