110) From Above Pt. 1

I have been wanting to get pictures of these kids for a while now. A week or two ago the teachers took pictures of the kids and me, and I was expecting to get an email with those, but it never happened. So Friday I brought my camera and took my own. All of the pictures in this post are from the first three classes of the day. I will post more of the last two classes later (I have five classes in all). These first two pictures are of one of my favorite girls…she is so cute, and always tries very hard to learn and participate.









These shots above are all from the same class. I think these kids are three or four years old. They are really a great class of kids, and fun to be with.


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The kids in these shots (above) are of similar age and level as the series above them. Mostly great kids, and a lot of fun!



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And these are the youngest kids I have. All under 24 months. They can hardly speak Korean, let alone English, but some of them are getting it. They know some colors, animals, and greetings! It is really amazing! But these kids can be a challenge on some days. On Mondays we just "play" and often some of the kids end up fighting over toys, or someone throws something at someone else. But all in all, it is really a great experience.

109) Not an Upgrade

I just moved this week…certainly not an upgrade! The look on the face of the movers pretty much said it all. When they got to my new apartment, and got inside, they looked at each other with confusion and mumbled something like “why did he move here?”. It’s not a bad apartment, but it just cannot compare with my old one- no view, not a nice bathroom, just sort of ordinary. But in the end, I decided it’s not worth putting up a big fuss about it, as I have about 2 ½ months left.


Friday night I went to see Groove House (post 96) in Hongdae, but didn’t take any pictures. I went with my friend and her friend. The band hasn’t played in about two months, so I just wanted to enjoy the show. Besides being a great band, they are also really nice people- they always make a point to say “hi” to me or come over and chat between sets.


Saturday I went up to the area around City Hall and Namdaemon market to check out prices on some lenses, and take some pictures (the pictures on this post of from around there). Then later that night I went to a club called M2 to visit my friend. I only planned on staying a short time, but it ended up being all night. On the bus ride home this morning an older man got on the bus, and discovered he had a hole in his pocket. So then he makes a phone call, and just starts shouting on the phone. What made it so funny was that this was about 5 am and the bus was silent, except for this guy, yelling on his phone. It took a lot of concentration for me to not just bust out laughing.

108) More Han River Pictures

I went down to the Han River this evening because I have been itching to get some more pictures lately. I spent most of the day packing and cleaning (or procrastinating) and eventually had to get out and do something. So I just went out and took some pictures, as you can see here. I went near the same area where the pictures from post 106 were taken, but a little further west.

107) Feelin' Fall

This is probably the last picture I will post from out my window. I have to move to a new apartment, which I am not at all happy about! I have really enjoyed to view from these windows.

Finally after a very hot and humid few weeks the weather has really cooled down! It was the kind of weather that caused you to sweat just walking outside for a few minutes. Usually I am the type of person that likes hot weather, and indeed I would have liked this weather if I was in a tropical place, the Bahamas, Cambodia, etc. but not Seoul. Not a pleasant way to start your day…sweating on the way to work.

Nothing too noteworthy this week besides the weather, and one great day in with the pre-kindergarten kids. I have been planning on bringing my camera to the school for a while, but have either forgotten, or decided not to. I was surprised to find it was going to be an un-official picture day on Friday. The Korean teachers took pictures of me with every class, and every kid. It was really cute how some of the kids were a little bit unsure on whether or not they could touch me, and some kids just climbed all over me. I hope to get some of the pictures soon (as they were not taken on my camera). I will probably bring my camera in there soon, and get some pictures of my own.

Last night I planned on going out, but took a nap that turned into an all night sleep. I actually really like it when that happens! Today I just went in for a work out at the gym, and then relaxed and listened to the rain in the sun-room, and read. I am actually kinda happy to spend the day home, doing nothing- because I finally had a Saturday with nothing to do and I will be out of this apartment soon.

106) Pictures from the Han River Park

Here you can see the National Assembly Building, and the 63 Building (slightly off to the left). These buildings are in Yeouido (the same place as Sera’s wedding).


I went down to the Han River (the main river running east/west through Seoul) near my house to the park. Nearly the entire shore of the Han River on one side or the other is part of the Han River Park. It is a nice place to go for a bike ride, roller blade, jog or just walk and take pictures. I did the latter. I was hoping to be able to get on a rooftop and take some pictures, but that failed, so I just wandered along the path by the river. While I was taking some pictures of people fishing, a man came over and said “hi” and we got to talking. He invited me to sit on his matt and I stayed and talked with him for a couple hours. It was a pretty unusual occurrence, meeting someone completely random and much older than I, usually I get the feeling people want something and don’t stay for long. But I was really happy to have met him and spent the evening talking with him.


This is a picture of Mr. Lee (on the left (the man mentioned above)) and his friends (on the right). Apparently the catch everyone is going for is eel! I saw a couple being caught, and actually they put up a pretty good fight.


A picture of some people enjoying the evening- lots of people just sitting on the bank talking.



This is the bridge that leads to Seonyudo Park (the place where many of the flower and bamboo pictures were taking).



This is just a spider I saw while trying to find a building that would allow my access to the roof.


Just an abstract shot I like.

105) Sera's Wedding

Yesterday one of my friends and co-workers had her wedding. It was not very different from a wedding in the states, and it was nice. The wedding was held at a wedding hall in Yeouido, which was pretty fancy. Before the wedding the bride (Sera) sat in the “Bride’s Room” and was treated like a queen as people came by to take her picture or talk with her.

I didn’t really understand what was going on during the ceremony, but it looked pretty standard, and was pretty short compared to the weddings I have been to in the US. From what I understand, there are five or six weddings in these halls a day, each for a four-hour (or so) time slot. After the ceremony, everybody went down to the cafeteria area for dinner. The food was very good, and served in a huge buffet style.


Sera (pictured above) worked all the way up to Friday (the day before her wedding), but is now taking a two week vacation to various parts of Europe.

104) Know your role....?

It is still a little strange for me to watch how people act in some situations. From what I have seen this is still very much a culture, in which the people really play the roll of their position (play is the key word). What I mean by this is when people are dealing with someone who is their superior they really kiss their ass (for lack of a better term). To me it just seems really fake, and it would really bother me if I were the one in the upper position (not to mention if I were the one being pissed on). But it seems to be what is expected here, and very normal (at least from my eyes).

But the other day I saw an example of this that made me literally gasp out loud (“gol” if you will). I was filming for the show (and here, especially, the roles of everybody seems to be pretty clear cut- it is really easy to see who is above who), and was just watching people and how they interacted with each other. One guy in particular (lets just call him Tod so things don’t get too confusing) I was observing seemed pretty clearly to be on the low end of the totem pole…if not the lowest. It was the first time I had ever seen him (Tod), and he seemed to be doing the work no one wanted to do, or whatever needed to be done (like moving cords for the sound guy, or holding an umbrella for the camera man). So as I am watching all this, I notice one guy call Tod over, take one last drag off of his cigarette, and then precede to hand the butt to Tod. Tod then immediately takes it and runs about 20 yards away and stomps it out on the ground. I was willing to accept this if the guy who gave him the cig. had something important to do, and just didn’t have the time (like immediately start filming). But that was not the case at all, I watched him stand around and talk and do nothing for the next 10 minutes while the next scene was being set up.

I was embarrassed for both of them just watching the whole thing go down. And it’s not like Tod is just some young intern right out of high school, he must be about 35-40 years old! I don’t want to give the impression that this type of thing could only happen in Korean or anything like that. I just mean to give an illustration of a cultural trait going overboard (in my opinion).

103) An Accident

I walked into one of the pre-school rooms and it had the smell of a real bad fart or… I feared… an accident in the pants. As it turns out, it was the latter. About two minutes later a little boy hurries to the door holding the back of his pants looking at me desperate, asking in Korean if he could go to the bathroom. “Don’t ask! Just go!... Run!” That is what I was thinking, but I just opened the door and pretended like nothing was wrong. He came back 10 minutes later, and just sat down and finished his work. These kids are so young everyone had already forgotten about it when he came back, perhaps even him.

I had another surprise that day when I walked out of one of my classes to see the youngest kids at this school (all under 24 months) sitting outside the bathroom naked. Apparently it was bath time… or something went horribly wrong in that class. All of the kids here are under five I think, and they all use a co-ed bathroom, so it probably wasn’t a strange site to anyone else but me.


This weekend was pretty nice, but very sleep deprived. I went out to Hongdae on Friday night. On the third Friday of every month they have something called “Sound Day” where a bunch of live music clubs have concerts all night long. You pay 15,000 won and can get into any of them all night. A lot of great bands play on this night, so you can see some really great live music- better than just a normal weekend. The only problem is the clubs are packed!



I went from Sound Day to work with no sleep, but it wasn’t so bad, as I got to take a two-hour nap during the day. I thought I might finish early, which was not the case, but I went to visit one of my friends at his club in Hongdae nonetheless. I only planned on stopping by to say “hi”, but we got talking, then went out to eat, and then met up with some other friends and ended up staying out all night.


Today was the laziest day I have had in a while. I slept till around 6 pm, and then just bummed around and did some reading I have been wanting to do for a long time.

*About the pictures with the smoke: Last week I saw this smoke from out my window, and immediately took out my camera and got some shots. I thought I was witnessing a big fire or something- but I found it strange there were no sirens or anything. Then I remembered about this time last year- I saw a truck driving down the street spewing out huge amounts of smoke. I remember thinking “wow, they really need to do vehicle tests here”. But later I found out it was intentional. I am still not sure why they do these “smokings” but it is strange, and I cannot imagine it is healthy to be breathing.

102) Just Watch

Generally I try to keep this blog full of the pictures I take, or stories/experiences relating to me in some direct way. This is the second video I have felt compelled to post (the first being the ice skater) and it really has nothing to do with, besides (perhaps)being an indicator of where my maturity level is at. I know many of you moms out there are probably not going to enjoy this too much, but I sure do enjoy it.

101) Gangchone

Chip and I took a train out to Gangchone (outside of Seoul). We had no idea about what time the train would leave, or even what train to take, so we just figured it all out when we got there. This wasn’t great, because by that time there was only standing room left on the train. But not wanting to wait around, we took what we could.


It was pretty interesting, and almost reminded me of India a little bit. People just kept on packing in, and taking up any available room (especially in the space between cars). So it was pretty packed, and then I noticed a guy with a food cart coming through- I have no idea how he made it through some of these areas with people and bags and food covering the ground.- but he did. It wasn’t a long train (at two and a half hours), but still I was getting frustrated with the ride, and made sure to get seats on the way back.


We went to Gangchone because back in the time when Chip had a job, some of his co-workers went out there, and said they rented scooters and it was a lot of fun. So our big plan was to rent some scooters and just drive them around for a while.

When we got there we didn’t really know what to expect, so we just walked a little bit, then got some food. Eventually we met a guy who spoke English, and talked with him, and then rented some scooters from his shop. It was pretty interesting that there were not prerequisites to renting or driving these things. I was taught how to turn the scooter on, use the brakes, and accelerate, and then sent on my happy way.


It took about 15 minutes of riding around until Chip crashed his. My scooter stalled, and Chip tried to turn around to find me (the key word in that sentence is “tried”). Somehow during that attempted turn he hit a guardrail, and ended up taking a short flight- damaging only his big toe and the scooter.


Eventually we continued on our way (and after some electrical tape the scooter was in good enough shape that the shop owner didn’t notice the damage) and enjoyed the rest of our time cruising through the beautiful little town and countryside.


When we got back I noticed a very nice and large ATV and made some comments about it to the owner (most were like the one pictured below). That was enough to get me a free ride on that bad-boy. He showed me how to shift gears, accelerate, and brake, and then once again sent me on my happy way. This time I was a bit more nervous, but that didn’t stop me from seeing what kind of power that thing had (and it sure did have some power).


All in all it was a pretty enjoyable trip, and the train ride back was much nicer having seats the entire way. I hope I will be able to make it back there again some time in the not to distant future.